We're all Replikas, after all. In the end, what's one drop to an ocean? When I die, they'll just make another.
The horror genre is home to some of gaming's best stories and storytelling... sometimes. The genre is known for some brilliant works that confront us with all sorts of anxieties stemming to our human existence: the fear of death, of the other, of the unknown, of losing one's memory, or the integrity of one's body and mind, to name a few. Games like Silent Hill 2 are called classics because of how masterfully they pull the player into this turmoil of emotions felt by its characters, tying that to the horror seen on-screen. Yes, the guy with the triangular hat is scary, but he is also a manifestation of something far more dire -- and more real -- than a man with a big knife and dirty clothes.
Alas, the genre is often found diluted by other influences that detract a bit from the horror. Games that focus too much on the combat and/or and the shooting, or in the momentaneous scares instead of the overall experience, or in being youtube-bait with loud noises and hideous, incongruent visuals. Again, quality will vary among all of these, it's not that they're necessarily bad, but it's only every few years that we get one of those horror gems that trap us in an unrelenting atmosphere of dread, yet make us reach for more with each second.
Signalis is such a gem.
ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! 39486 60170 24326 01064
Coming out of absolutely nowhere, the game was developed by rose-engine, a duo of game developers living in Germany. It takes place in a distant future, in a part of the galaxy ruled by a dystopian regime, and where Replikas, androids whose different models aid humans in their tasks, exist in large numbers. You take on the role of one such Replika named Elster, who awakens alone in her ship and heads to the S-23 Sierpinski mining facility in search of her partner, Ariane.
To go any deeper into the setting would be to spoil it, as part of the beauty of the game is how it uses character diaries and environmental storytelling to slowly unveil what happened to the people of this world. More than that, there's a dream-like quality to the game's sequences that gradually evolves into a horrifying nightmare, the world around Elster making ever less sense as she stoically pushes forward on her mission, and that is better experienced than read about. All I can say is that, while some accuse the game of being too vague, beneath the nightmarish visions and seeming discontinuities, there's a complete and heartfelt story being told that the more attentive players will be able to piece together.
It's like everything was taken apart and put back together by someone who doesn't understand how any of it works.
Gameplay takes place in a top-down fashion and borrows a lot from retro horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, down to the puzzles and inventory management (and optionally, tank controls). Signalis toys with its players through its mechanics, offering them a variety of guns but little ammo to shoot from them, plenty of healing items you can't fit in your low inventory space, and an aiming system that forces you to wait for a good shot as enemies slowly enclose you. True to its survival horror nature, it's a game that punishes those who try to approach it as an action game, hoarding every item and recklessly engaging enemies, in a way that's beautiful to witness.
It's easy to take a superficial look at Signalis and say it's a copy of classic games, but that's not remotely true. For instance, rather than confusing cheap visuals for retro, the game presents itself in an impressive, carefully put together artstyle that meshes low-fi assets and low-precision geometry with more modern tech, such as dynamic lighting and a variety of custom shader effects, in a way that feels striking and original. Looking further than just visuals, though, Signalis's influences go far beyond just those two games I mentioned -- in fact, it goes far beyond just games, and almost warrants a bibliography. There's touches of Ghost in the Shell, Alien and Evangelion; there's references to biblical works as well as Lovecraft stories such as The Whisperer in Darkness, and The King In Yellow is more than an influence, it's a motif that makes frequent appearances throughout the story.
And all of it comes together to form an authentic, enticing whole, with the wealth of themes developed over the course of the experience being remarkable for a game with under ten hours of runtime. Propelled by its ideas of Replikas and Bioresonance, as well as its surreal hellscapes, Signalis paints a harrowing picture of existence in this distant, dystopian age where reality has stopped making sense, tipping its brush in themes of love and loss; of humanity, guilt and insanity; of memory, oblivion and identity. What makes you, you, and how much of it would you have to lose to stop being you? How much does the trauma we suffer change us? How far would you go for someone who is dear to you, and when does that love go too far?
And in those days, people will seek death, and they will not find it.
If you're a fan of survival horror games, Signalis should be at the top of your list for 2022 -- in fact, if you're in that group, I would recommend playing on Survival difficulty outright, as it makes the game's stakes even higher. Even if you aren't a fan of the genre, though, if you can put up with a few scares, the storytelling, visuals and overall experience contained within it are hard to miss. Signalis is a beautiful game that will make you uneasy at every turn – then have you wishing for more when it's over.
The horror genre is home to some of gaming's best stories and storytelling... sometimes. The genre is known for some brilliant works that confront us with all sorts of anxieties stemming to our human existence: the fear of death, of the other, of the unknown, of losing one's memory, or the integrity of one's body and mind, to name a few. Games like Silent Hill 2 are called classics because of how masterfully they pull the player into this turmoil of emotions felt by its characters, tying that to the horror seen on-screen. Yes, the guy with the triangular hat is scary, but he is also a manifestation of something far more dire -- and more real -- than a man with a big knife and dirty clothes.
Alas, the genre is often found diluted by other influences that detract a bit from the horror. Games that focus too much on the combat and/or and the shooting, or in the momentaneous scares instead of the overall experience, or in being youtube-bait with loud noises and hideous, incongruent visuals. Again, quality will vary among all of these, it's not that they're necessarily bad, but it's only every few years that we get one of those horror gems that trap us in an unrelenting atmosphere of dread, yet make us reach for more with each second.
Signalis is such a gem.
ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! 39486 60170 24326 01064
Coming out of absolutely nowhere, the game was developed by rose-engine, a duo of game developers living in Germany. It takes place in a distant future, in a part of the galaxy ruled by a dystopian regime, and where Replikas, androids whose different models aid humans in their tasks, exist in large numbers. You take on the role of one such Replika named Elster, who awakens alone in her ship and heads to the S-23 Sierpinski mining facility in search of her partner, Ariane.
To go any deeper into the setting would be to spoil it, as part of the beauty of the game is how it uses character diaries and environmental storytelling to slowly unveil what happened to the people of this world. More than that, there's a dream-like quality to the game's sequences that gradually evolves into a horrifying nightmare, the world around Elster making ever less sense as she stoically pushes forward on her mission, and that is better experienced than read about. All I can say is that, while some accuse the game of being too vague, beneath the nightmarish visions and seeming discontinuities, there's a complete and heartfelt story being told that the more attentive players will be able to piece together.
It's like everything was taken apart and put back together by someone who doesn't understand how any of it works.
Gameplay takes place in a top-down fashion and borrows a lot from retro horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, down to the puzzles and inventory management (and optionally, tank controls). Signalis toys with its players through its mechanics, offering them a variety of guns but little ammo to shoot from them, plenty of healing items you can't fit in your low inventory space, and an aiming system that forces you to wait for a good shot as enemies slowly enclose you. True to its survival horror nature, it's a game that punishes those who try to approach it as an action game, hoarding every item and recklessly engaging enemies, in a way that's beautiful to witness.
It's easy to take a superficial look at Signalis and say it's a copy of classic games, but that's not remotely true. For instance, rather than confusing cheap visuals for retro, the game presents itself in an impressive, carefully put together artstyle that meshes low-fi assets and low-precision geometry with more modern tech, such as dynamic lighting and a variety of custom shader effects, in a way that feels striking and original. Looking further than just visuals, though, Signalis's influences go far beyond just those two games I mentioned -- in fact, it goes far beyond just games, and almost warrants a bibliography. There's touches of Ghost in the Shell, Alien and Evangelion; there's references to biblical works as well as Lovecraft stories such as The Whisperer in Darkness, and The King In Yellow is more than an influence, it's a motif that makes frequent appearances throughout the story.
And all of it comes together to form an authentic, enticing whole, with the wealth of themes developed over the course of the experience being remarkable for a game with under ten hours of runtime. Propelled by its ideas of Replikas and Bioresonance, as well as its surreal hellscapes, Signalis paints a harrowing picture of existence in this distant, dystopian age where reality has stopped making sense, tipping its brush in themes of love and loss; of humanity, guilt and insanity; of memory, oblivion and identity. What makes you, you, and how much of it would you have to lose to stop being you? How much does the trauma we suffer change us? How far would you go for someone who is dear to you, and when does that love go too far?
And in those days, people will seek death, and they will not find it.
If you're a fan of survival horror games, Signalis should be at the top of your list for 2022 -- in fact, if you're in that group, I would recommend playing on Survival difficulty outright, as it makes the game's stakes even higher. Even if you aren't a fan of the genre, though, if you can put up with a few scares, the storytelling, visuals and overall experience contained within it are hard to miss. Signalis is a beautiful game that will make you uneasy at every turn – then have you wishing for more when it's over.