We’ve all done it: you wake up on an undersea research station with no idea how you got there, and have to spend the rest of the day hiding behind tables from insane killer robots. Aaand that… [checks notes] is pretty much all the detail I can give you on Soma’s plot because the whole damn thing is made of spoilers. I can tell you what it does, how it works and if it’s good, but a lot of specific reasons why it’s special are filed under ‘find out for yourself’.
So, you’re on a base. It’s underwater and things have gone horribly, horribly wrong, because being on underwater bases when everything’s okay would be boring. No need to worry about that here however, because there are strange biomechanical growths protruding through the walls, engulfing bodies that seem to still be half alive. While broken robots twitch on the ground, convinced they’re human and making heartbreaking pleas when you unplug them: “I needed that”, a buzzing female voice half sobs from a speaker as you yank her… its wires from a terminal.
There’s no end of darkness here. The kind you might associate with classic sci-fi short stories and novellas; traces of great authors like Ray Bradbury or Philip K Dick (who wrote the book that inspired Blade Runner, and has a quote used to open the game) The tone, concepts and certain key events in Soma can be deeply unpleasant to process. At a couple of points there are outcomes that are real ‘put the controller down and think about it’ moments (one of which made me actively hate the developers). Even at the ‘best’ of times there’s still an achingly bleak vein building through everything. You might want to keep a picture of kittens handy for a boost while you’re playing. Here, use this one:
His name’s Crispin.
Much of the game sees you creeping through corridors trying to reach a goal. Again: spoilers, but I can at least tell you that your character, Simon, finds a partner and together they come up with a plan firmly focused on the idea of not being in a undersea deathtrap anymore. Early on, as events develop, it can be a little slow but once past the first act things pick up.
Part of that slow burn is due to the complete lack of guidance or interface. There are no objective markers, arrows or helping hands here. This is the kind of game where, if there’s a code for a door somewhere, you have to actually remember it. There’s a great deal of real world logic to puzzle solving: taking inventory of your surroundings and trying to work out what might be useful.
