Frictional Games added a whole new dimension to the horror game genre when they brought us Amnesia: The Dark Descent back in 2010. The game made the player feel truly helpless, traversing grim dungeons while avoiding the darkness to preserve their sanity, and avoiding the light to not be spotted by the horrifying creatures roaming the halls. The developer carried over many of Amnesia's traits to Soma, a sci-fi survival horror game taking place in an underwater research facility. The base also happens to be the only place where humanity survived a cataclysmic event that wiped out the planet's population, and is filled with people trying to stay sane, robots that are steadily taking on human traits, and other, more sinister creatures. You can't fight creatures off in Soma, so any encounters will send you cowering into dark corners in the hope of not getting spotted. Cowering aside, you'll spend most of your time solving puzzles and piecing together the intriguing story that does a great job of tackling the subject of the humanity-AI divide. It's perhaps not as classically horrifying as other games in this resurgent genre, but Soma offers a unique balance of scares with a clever plot and thought-provoking themes.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
