i really wanted to like this game more than i did.

borrowing from staples of the survival horror genre, signalis combines resident evil's inventory management system with the atmosphere of silent hill (in particular i was reminded of silent hill 3, owing to both games portraying a lone female protagonist, as well as sharing some choices in enemy design). whether or not signalis actually innovates on these concepts is... another matter entirely.

we'll get to that. i have something much more pressing to talk about first.

which would be the story.

the story feels... vague. you'd miss most of it if you weren't stopping to read every note and document strewn about the game's vast levels, which is fine, but even with poring over every single piece, the plot feels half-baked. i arguably got the best ending of them all, (of which there are four, including a secret ending) and it still felt like there was so much missing.

you play as an android named elster, who is trying to find her partner. that's as much as you have to go on initially, and you never really get much more. for a game so lauded for it's story and characters, it insists on telling you the bare facts without showing why you should care about the characters and their relationship. as a player, you have to want to find ariane because elster wants to. there was little else to compel me, and i wanted to be compelled. i wanted to get invested in the tragedy of these characters :c their little dance scene was cute, at least

there's also a plot detail (arguably a twist?) that happens very close to the end that i don't think is convincingly written or explained. it just happens, as so much of the game does. much of the story is also just left open to interpretation which is fine, and admittedly elster and ariane are just part of a larger plot with many moving pieces. but nothing about the characters felt distinctive enough for me to even wonder much about the wider themes at play, especially since those thematic elements felt more than a little derivative. even the gestalt/replika terminology used is nothing new.

the gameplay i can't fault it for; it's fun, satisfying, and the puzzles are mostly great (i did kinda feel sad that the tarot card puzzle just... gave you the answer). the weapons felt good and i liked having the ability to burn away the corpses of particularly annoying enemies, preventing them from reanimating. the flare gun added an interesting twist to the gameplay as it could be swapped between firing flares and grenades, making inventory management more complex and layered from swapping in and out more types of ammunition.

while it borrows much from its predecessors, signalis' major gameplay innovation lies in its radio-tuning mechanic, which is equal parts fun and clunky. i liked the story significance it has - one small concession i will allow for the writing in this game - and it leads to some interesting puzzle solutions and enemy design. it just, unfortunately, has to contend with some jank in its execution (why quick tuning is not the default operating mode, i have no idea). i wish the game relied on it a little more, though.

the visuals and aesthetics of signalis were what initially drew me in, and i think remain its strongest asset, with well-realised, intentionally low-poly models evoking a nostalgia that seems key to the post-apocalyptic setting. the facilities you explore are largely empty, populated only by a few survivors - several of whom are already fatally injured when you encounter them - and the deteriorating androids that roam the halls, now mindless husks of their former selves. an eclectic mix of cultural inspiration also suffuses the game's atmosphere - a lot of cutscene text is in german, many of the characters have distinctly asian names and the world is saturated in soviet propaganda posters and imagery. i think you could easily make an argument for the intentionality of signalis and all of its idiosyncrasies as an art piece, particularly given that it has such strong aesthetic sense.

while signalis is a fun experience on a surface level, though, i cannot help but feel a little disappointed by so much of the discussion around the game centring on aspects that i personally found to be underwhelming and uninspired.

also i was promised space lesbians and they didn't even kiss

Cryptic, tragic, suspenseful, and a loving homage to PS1 survival horror. I’ve seen the critique that this is anti-communism and, no??? It reads more as a condemnation of a totalitarian and militaristic nation which wants to reduce people solely to their role or profits. Governments that have done this are communist in name and name alone, using bastardized, extremist forms of that ideology. It’s moreso a critique of totalitarianism and weaponizing any ideology to fit it, and the metaphorical, or literal decay that is a product. It’s the same as when someone reads 1984 or Animal Farm, and concludes Orwell to be viscerally against Communism, which is simply not the case when the man was a Socialist who spoke against totalitarian states who would weaponize such ideals through his writing. In the case of this game, any indulgence is all but forbidden, or characterized as a fetish when Replikas indulge. When people are characterized only by their function and gross output in a society, love and happiness are luxuries. That’s the message I feel is here. And it’s a haunting one in a story where we have to piece so much together. I don’t think the game is PERFECT, and I wish the gunplay was better, with me finding aiming cumbersome at times. Great game, though. I understand it won’t be for everyone with how its storytelling can be vague, but that’s the intent.

I do think there’s a conversation to be had about its use of DDR iconography (the devs are from Hamburg), but to say that that’s its full message feels inherently wrong, and there’s more to it than that.

This game is absolutely dripping with sauce. Seriously, I replayed it recently and the intro cutscene gave me shivers. Despite it’s clear inspirations, it is all too happy to be drenched in it’s own bombastic, red and black glory. And it is all the more remarkable as a result.

If you can manage to look past the screeching, gore-ridden monsters (based) and the hot lesbian robots (even more based) and what actually comes out the other end is an incredibly surprising and effective modernization of classic survival horror like Silent Hill, and the original Resident Evil. But Signalis carries itself in a way that makes it clear that it is so much more than just it’s predecessors. What begins as a friendly and genre-familiar “I’m looking for my girlfriend” quickly evolves into a gripping, convoluted narrative. The spooky robot monster game devolves into chaos as eldritch horror and battles with one’s own conscious take center stage.

Signalis is probably the best horror game to release in 2022, and it’s certainly the best new IP. It was obviously crafted with an incredible amount of passion, which is reflected in every bit of its art, music, and atmosphere. There’s hope that someday we can all grow a little bit closer to becoming the hot lesbian robot that’s living inside of us all.