Good game, but not scary

[Skye]

Frictional surely have gone a long way since penumbra

the ambientation, story, va it's insanely good, really AAA stuff

however, the gameplay encounters with the monsters feels lacking, even dull

[Скіф]

I think they just went for the strong story this time, their main plan wasnt to scare us. I think its well balanced, there are places where you have to run, hide, and there are places where you just have to explore and enjoy the beautiful world they created. The story was amazing, i couldnt stop playing because i wanted to know how it will end. I also liked the whole "travel thing", you go deeper and deeper, exploring all kind of stations and it was great to just explore the ocean. There were some places where i just waited for something to pop out but it didnt really. They build up the atmosphere and you always expect that something will attack you but it rarely does.

[ShodaN]

Originally posted by Aflito:

Frictional surely have gone a long way since penumbra

the ambientation, story, va it's insanely good, really AAA stuff

however, the gameplay encounters with the monsters feels lacking, even dull

It's the only thing that didn't evolve since Penumbra. Still the same core mechanics, still the exact same core issues.

When you watch videos on cut content like this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh_tgh-KkAg

you'll notice there must have been some attempts to build on this gameplay aspect, which ultimately didn't make it into the final version of the game.

[Hayte]

Scary is very subjective. I'm a fraidy cat so Frictional's techniques easily drive me to anxiety and panic. I'm hyper sensitive to loud noises so even their creature encounters work on me because I instinctively avert my eyes (and my character's eyes) to make the physical discomfort of the auditory assault go away.

I can see how Frictional's creatures require the player to suspend disbelief and forget that dying has no real consequence, that they are dumb AI automatons and that you can usually run faster than they can. Once you figure out the mechanics and realize they are not threatening, then the illusion of fear is easily shattered.

I think in Frictional games, you have to consciously avoid doing things like running straight up to the creatures with the volume turned down low and then kite them around watching them helplessly fail to catch you. Is that a design flaw? Probably. Knowing all this, it still gets to me because Frictional gets me way before the creatures even appear. Just things that are off in the environment like doors that were previously closed are suddenly open. There are many visual queues like this before the sensory assault begins and the dread for me bordered on paralysing.

I've had this on my wishlist for a while and I keep hesistating on it. I want to play it myself instead of watching another person play it but every time I'm given control, the anxiety hits me pretty hard and I find it super stressful to play.

[ShodaN]

Originally posted by Hayte:

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I felt kind of the same way. Knowing other Frictional titles I knew how to go about playing them. Would still be awesome to see them find a way to overcome this in some way for good, as they definitly got the build up, tension, environments and atmosphere down like no other studio.

And I'm confident they eventually can find a way. For example the idea with sanity in Amnesia to discourage looking straight at the monsters was a really clever way to get around some of the issues like not so clever AI pathing, imperfect animations or not the best textures and details on the models. Instead it set the focus on the terrifying designs and outlines you only get to catch a glimps of in the shadows, forcing your imagination to fill in the blanks.

I think if they didn't tone this down so much in SOMA a lot of the shortcommings of the encounters would not have been noticed at all. On the flipside the monster design in SOMA carries much more weight in the story and environment than it was the case with Amnesia. That makes the descisions for the final game understandable.

[Dasparado]

It might not of been scary, but it was emotionally exhausting. I have never had such a hard time making decisions. I had to turn the game off at different points to think about what to do. Ex. when you have a choice or not to pull the pug on the female machine outside Theta or whether to kill the last human alive even thought she wants you too. Grueling!!

[Malak]

OP is probably the modern gamer used to dying every 5 minutes. I personally play every game as if it is real life and I only have one life to lose. This makes gaming much more thrilling when you have the attitude that you have only ONE shot at success. I also never reload because I made a bad choice. I will if I cannot continue the game, but that is the only instance. It also helps if you never take risks you would never take in real life. I always play as safe as possible, taking my time to carefully consider the options.

[Skye]

Originally posted by Malak:

OP is probably the modern gamer used to dying every 5 minutes. I personally play every game as if it is real life and I only have one life to lose. This makes gaming much more thrilling when you have the attitude that you have only ONE shot at success. I also never reload because I made a bad choice. I will if I cannot continue the game, but that is the only instance. It also helps if you never take risks you would never take in real life. I always play as safe as possible, taking my time to carefully consider the options.

Stop making assumptions, i'm not

[Sticky White Stuff]

Well, it is the scariest game that exists. Yes, scarier than any other horror games out there as of yet, both old and new. And i have played most, if not all of them that are labeled survival horror and horror in general. Most of them don't even budge me. I can no damage/knife only all of the Resident Evil games, etc. But the moment i first launched this game, the loading screen, then the main menu, then the game, and everything till the end. Everything felt odd. I was having a constant stream of anxiety. And this is why i love it. It's one of the few games that manage to scare me. If something doesn't scare me, and it should, it means it failed as a horror game. However gameplay can usually make up for it.

So yeah, when i play something, i want to feel the dread, anxiety, panic. I want to feel so out of place that i have to press pause like when i did in RE3 when i was a kid and switched it off.
This is the same feeling i got, now as an adult with SOMA. And i played all of their previous games too long before SOMA, all Penumbras, both Amnesia (The original, and the one the other developers did) then jumped into Alien:Isolation, and that game was also a thrill. But nowhere near as SOMA was.

It's not the enemies, it's the pulsating artifical breathing you are doing. The sound and music, the glitched view, the fact that you are under the ocean, and not in a pretty way like in BioShock.
The fact that you are going into the damn abyss at the end.

[Malak]

^ Have you tried Outlast? Being chased thru knee deep water trying to reach the ladder in time in the dark is not fun at all.

[Sticky White Stuff]

Originally posted by Malak:

^ Have you tried Outlast? Being chased thru knee deep water trying to reach the ladder in time in the dark is not fun at all.

Yeah, it was fun, it was tense at times, but not scary. Most of the time i kinda giggled around how generic the horror was and how stupid the main character was (Sure, Simon was hell of a stupid guy, but there are perfect valid reasons for that, being delusional, this one just goes for journalism, even after all that crap that has happened to him). I just don't find scripted running all that fun, especially in the second game (first one was better IMO). SOMA has some basic mechanics for stealth, line of sight and chasing. However it just works fine. In Outlast, if you mess up one thing, you are dead. Here, you have some freedom on where to run and hide.

Not to mention Outlast 2 tried to be too edgy aka mature with the whole gore/porn stuff, it never worked.

[Nightwitch]

For me, a game does not have to be full of jumpscares to be scary. The atmosphere and soundscape gives a feeling of oppression and fear. If SOMA were full of monsters and jumpscares, the brilliant story would be out of focus. I think they did everything right in this game

[Serafine]

Originally posted by Aflito:

Frictional surely have gone a long way since penumbra

the ambientation, story, va it's insanely good, really AAA stuff

however, the gameplay encounters with the monsters feels lacking, even dull

Quite interestingly the upcoming "safe mode" is addressing exactly this issue - monsters won't really attack you straight away anymore (unless you're doing something stupid, they're still dangerous) but will sort of interact with their envirnoment (and potentially you) and you'll have to deal with that. It's gonna be quite interesting to see how it all plays out.

[wcc]

I did not find this game particular scary, and I'm glad about that. I was interested in story, narration and atmosphere, which where awesome. In fact, knowing this game is labeled as "horror" kept me from playing it a long time.

[excelatrate]

Well, in my opinion the atmosphere is what was scary, the terrifying existential dread of the idea of having your consciousness in a machine that can never leave or is only functioning by the existence of a wire thats plugged in....Woah. (Also, when that machine threatens you early in via comms it was possibly the most existential moment ive ever experienced in a videogame)

My favorite videogame of all time is Bioshock and while Bio (like this game) had moments of complete fear it was mostly the atmosphere/story that creeped me out more than anything and I think that is one of the ways horror has evolved.

Resident Evil and Silent Hill are regarded as masterpieces but were they really THAT scary? Aside from a few moments not really however the atmosphere was incredible, just like it is in SOMA.

I definitely think "thinking" horror is far more terrifying than "jumpscare" horror. You can sleep off a jumpscare but how about the existential mind bending idea of having your consciousness stuck inside a machine and not even being aware of it? Well, that'll stick for awhile. Same can be said for SH and it's manifestations of fear.

[Bad Humour]

tbh I didnt find it scary iether in the traditional monster sense, Id even have preferred if the game was fully puzzle based. The game was scary in other ways however, setting, atmosphere, the ideas the game portrials. In that way it was a horror game but not in the traditional sense. Its the same way Silence of the Lambs was scary the movie wasnt scary in the way that 'oooh nooo monster appears' but that its atmosphere, good writing and characters amounted to the story being disturbingly scary and honestly those horror experiences are the ones I remember. Same applies to resident evil 4. The same applies to Soma.
I guess thriller is a better term for it than horror.

The safe mode thats coming will fix some of my issues with the game however some of the monsters did make sense storywise to be hostile and I hope they stay that way but a lot of them were there to just be there bc 'horror'