Because your pants are just a little too clean, developer Frictional Games (Amnesia: The Dark Descent) has announced that their new title, SOMA, will be coming to the PlayStation 4. Touted by them as “by far the most ambitious and thrilling project we have ever undertaken,” SOMA has been in development for three years already, with the release date scheduled for 2015.
Here’s a gameplay video to get your properly acquainted with SOMA:
For a little more information, Frictional Games gave out an overview of SOMA:
Briefly stated, it is a sci-fi horror game played from a first person perspective. You are not a space marine though; you’re a normal, very exposed person trapped in a nightmarish world. SOMA is a game about exploration, survival and immersing you inside an interactive narrative.
They then dug a little deeper into what SOMA is:
SOMA is meant to be a proper sci-fi game, and to get that right we couldn’t let the themes be an afterthought. My favorite works of sci-fi are the ones that use fantastic worlds to probe important issues in a way that down-to-earth settings just cannot. Great sci-fi authors like Asimov, Dick and Heinlein all do this. We want to give SOMA this quality as well.
The subject that SOMA will discuss is consciousness. Personally, I find it the most profound questions that it is possible to ask. “How can the feeling of subjective experience arise from a chunk of flesh?” Exploring this further takes us to questions such as “Can machines be conscious?” and “Do we have free will?” It quickly gets very disturbing, and is ideal for a futuristic horror setting. It is the kind of sci-fi that we want to make.
From the start, we knew that this could not just come through background story or dialog. We want you to play through this. It must be an integral part of the gameplay, not just fluff.
Part of this comes through the game’s monsters. You will encounter a number of strange creatures, each an embodiment of an aspect of our themes. In order to survive the journey, you need to understand how they work and in the process take on extremely unsettling subjects.
Our goal is for SOMA to not just be another carnival ride of cheap scares. It is meant to chill you to your core, and confront you with questions about your very existence.
As for the prospects of bringing Amnesia to PlayStation, Thomas Grip of Frictional said, “Amnesia for PS4 is not impossible ;). We are looking into it. Cannot promise anything though.”
Thomas also explained why we’ll have to wait until 2015 to get our pants scared off in SOMA:
I would have loved to launch it next year, but it would not have been possible to deliver the quality we want if we did.
I feel like we have really nailed down how to exploit our themes in the best manner and it is gonna take some tweaking and polish to get it perfect. We all at Frictional are really looking forward seeing just how much we can unsettle you. Muhahaha 😀
Are you excited for SOMA on PS4? Would you buy Amnesia for PS4? Let us know in the comments below.
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