In video game Soma, players find themselves trapped and alone in an underwater facility called Pathos-II without any connection to the outside world. And it's obvious that something bad happened there, hinted at by snips of dialogue caught on tape, old emails and weird visions seen out of the corner of the eye.
There's also another thing that's odd about Pathos-II: the machines that remained behind in the abandoned facility seem to think that they're human.
If you've progressed through the game, you'll have a basic idea of why these machines act this way, but a new live-action video series released by Soma developer Frictional Games seeks to uncover the history of Pathos-II in greater detail.
This video series serves as a prequel to the game, with the first episode released today, Sept. 28. This episode, appropriately titled "Transmission #1," shows what is probably the first machine ever discovered in Pathos-II that believes itself human. This video is creepy, but for those who have at least reached the halfway point in the game, it will probably come across as even more terrifying.
Please note that the following video is NSFW due to language, and that it contains some game spoilers.
"From Frictional Games, creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Soma is a sci-fi horror game that questions our concepts of identity, consciousness, and what it means to be human," writes Frictional Games in a press release.
Although the Amnesia games relied on haunted house kind of scares, Soma's brand of terror stems from something more psychological: its brand of creepiness comes from the content itself and the questions raised of the player while wandering through the isolated environment of Pathos-II. Soma is more plot-based, with the game's puzzles even serving to progress the player through the story left behind in the underwater facility.
So this new live-action video series adds one more element to Soma's creep factor: stay tuned, though, because new episodes in the live-action series arrive every day from today, Sept. 28, through Oct. 5 on Frictional's YouTube channel.
In the meantime, you can grab a copy of Soma for PC (via Steam, Gog and the Humble Store) or PlayStation 4: the game is available now.
Since its release last week, Soma received great reviews from both video gamers and critics. PlayStation Universe called the game "A thought-provoking journey that creates tension with its brilliant audio work, Soma lacks some of the jump scares found in other survival horror games, but offers new ideas that keep you totally immersed."
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