Sci-fi horror hits a remarkable milestone after a difficult start

Soma was slow to sell after its release, but it gradually gained traction with its beautiful environments and immersive gameplay

Soma, the science fiction psychological thriller designed by Frictional games, creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Penumbra trilogy, has sold half a million copies a year after the game’s launch. Though the game was a very ambitious project and was very successful, it was also a very expensive venture for the team. It took the team five years to make Soma, with a large amount of money going towards getting outside sources for voice acting and animation. As a result, the game was ten times more expensive to make in comparison to Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

It was also a very risky game as Soma differed greatly from Amnesia and had a number of strange themes that the game needed to emphasise. There were fears that there would be a backlash against Soma due to fans expecting more horror from the game. This fear may have been realised when Soma was initially released as the game was selling very slowly, with sales only reaching 250,000 copies in March 2016, which was six months after its release. However, several months later the game has achieved profitability, having sold half a million copies at $30, which shows that, despite the slow start, the game managed to sell a large amount of copies.

A game with complicated themes

One of the first encounters with a robot that has a human mind. This robot still believes that it is a human being, even if the player character says otherwise

In SOMA, you take control of a man named Simon Jarrett, a young man who is getting a brain scan after a car accident. However, during the brain scan Simon suddenly wakes up in a strange underwater facility named Upsilon in PATHOS-II. As the player explores the facility, they discover that they are now in the year 2104 and that PATHOS-II is the last refuge for humanity after earth’s surface was hit by an asteroid in 2103. The gameplay of Soma is very similar to other games by Frictional Games as there is an emphasis on exploration and completing puzzles through interacting with the environment. There are also a number of monsters that the player cannot fight and must evade.

Soma Gameplay Trailer

However, one thing that sets Soma apart from Amnesia and Penumbra is the games focus on existentialism. This makes the game more of a psychological horror game as it explores themes like identity and consciousness. As a result, the game does not try to scare the player as much as other games like Amnesia. We can see examples of these themes during the early parts of the game. For example, when the player encounters a strange robot that thinks remove it is a human being. The reality is that the robot’s brain is occupied by the memories of a person. This is interesting as the only way for the player to progress is to disable the robot which effectively kills the person since their existence ends with the robot being disabled.

Soma Story Trailer

Why go with the complex themes?

One of the game’s major antagonists known as the Wau, keeps people alive by creating new organs. Often these people are in agony

As noted earlier, Soma was selling very slowly at the start and one reason could have been the fact that the game was very ambitious with its philosophical themes rather than the simply making another horror game like Amnesia and Penumbra. As a result, it is not unreasonable to ask why Frictional Games went with making a complicated sci-fi horror when they could have made something simpler that would have sold quickly, especially when one looks at Amnesia’s success.

According to Frictional Games, with the success of Amnesia, they realised that they were capable of doing anything thanks to the amount of money brought in from their previous game. With no pressure on the company, they were able to use more resources. However, it should be noted that Soma was not as ambitious as it is now. The game was intended to have a particular system that could not be used as the team would not be able to make a philosophical game using it.

Another side to the present design of Soma is the critical acclaim that came from Amnesia. The horror game became an internet phenomenon, bringing about a new breed of let’s players who used it to increase their subscribers as they would exaggerate their fearful reactions to the events in the game. There were also a number of other horror games that would use the same formula of Amnesia by making the player character powerless and forcing the player to hide and evade the monsters rather than fighting them. So, Frictional Games decided that it would be best to make something unique since the market was already oversaturated with other games like Amnesia.  

Conclusion

The monsters have a grotesque appearance and can mess with the player character’s vision if they look at them

So, although the game was slow to sell initially, it eventually grew as more copies of the game were sold. Funnily enough, some Let’s Plays still treated the game like Amnesia, especially when reacting to the monster encounters in the game. Despite this, Soma takes on a more philosophical turn and, as a result, is much more unique in comparison to many other horror games out there.

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