The dime has finally dropped on Soma, the upcoming new horror game from the team that made the hallucinogenic, let's-leave-the-lights-on-forever-mother, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Frictional Games announced today that Soma will be out on September 22, and also released a 12 minute gameplay trailer that starts slowly, gets weird, and then veers into some classic Amnesia-style creepiness.
The footage is taken from about an hour into the game, and while the protagonist is obviously confused, he's not suffering from amnesia: He has an established past, and knows who he is. Frictional also said that there's a lot more to see and do in this level than is shown in the video, and outcomes may vary depending on how you play.
Soma has taken so long—development began in 2010—because of the difficulty in handling its themes and gameplay without sinking into "ham-fisted exposition," Frictional wrote on the PlayStation Blog. "Getting this right has been extremely hard as it’s not something you can easily iterate on. Creating that disturbing sense of existential horror just right takes hours of setup. It also requires a lot of assets to be in place before it can be tested properly. So while other games can make several iterations a week on their foundational elements, it’s taken us roughly a year for each iteration."
Part of me thinks that if I had any sense at all, I'd stay as far away from this game as possible; but another part—the part that makes the purchasing decisions, for better or worse—can't wait. Find out more about the horror that lurks in the black depths of the sea at Somagame.com.
