SIGNALIS is a survival horror game, by developer rose-engine and publishers Humble Games and PLAYISM, set in a dystopian future. You play as Elster, a technician Replika who after being awoken from cryo sleep in on a mission to uncover secrets and find her lost partner. In this dystopian world humanity has uncovered a mysterious dark secret that has begun to wreak havoc. Unravel a cosmic mystery, escape terrifying creatures, and scavenge an off-world government facility. Will you be able to help Elster find her lost dreams or will you succumb to cosmic dread?
When you start the game, you are awoken from cryo sleep in a ship that seems to have been destroyed and is no longer in commission. Trapped in the ship you have to search for a way out. The atmosphere of the game is very eerie from the start and leaves you on edge the entire time. When you do eventually find a way out of the ship, you travel through what appears to be a snowy landscape, and eventually you come across a large hole in the ground with a spiral staircase downwards. At the bottom of the hole, you eventually find yourself in a room where after picking up a book a message plays. While it plays the screen glitches to showing Elster’s face in various states of broken down. The message ends with “Remember our promise.” before a title screen appears and then you are suddenly in a bathroom. I’m not sure if I just didn’t pick up on it but I have no idea how we ended up in a bathroom from the previous area, perhaps it was a flashback. Either way, this is when the game really kicks off.
You are now in a broken-down facility, and you have to traverse it, you find out that Elster’s partner is a worker here and had gone to the mines as all staff was instructed to. Now you have to find your way down there but beware the monsters that lurk in the halls and rooms of the facility. Overall, this is a very interesting survival horror experience. The atmosphere always leaves you on edge and the enemies are creepy and loud cutting through the usually eerie silence. Controls are a mix of mouse and keyboard, WASD moves you around in 3rd person mode shift to run. In some areas it shifts to First Person and is more point and click style. The game also features full controller support.
SIGNALIS has its atmosphere overall style nailed down but there are a few issues I found. There is a lack of direction in the game, you wake up on a ship and have no real objective given, you just have to wander around and hope you find what you need. Even when you get to the facility you aren’t really told what to do, you just find a direction to go in and eventually hope you find what you need. While on one hand wandering around the creepy facility is part of the horror experience it can get annoying if you get lost or confused. Even something as simple as having text saying ‘Escape the ship,’ when you first wake up could prove to be helpful to players.
Another thing that messed with me were the controls, mainly that it switched sometimes to being first person and using only point and click. The first person gave another creepy element with a different POV but the switch was sometimes jarring. The only other thing that I can comment on is the pacing of the game, it’s a little slow to start though that could also be because of the lack of direction in the game making it take more time to progress. Either way, while these issues did affect my gameplay, the game itself still does really well at being a survival horror experience. The story is interesting, and the atmosphere is perfect.
SIGNALIS is a survival horror experience in a dystopian future where humanity uncovers a dark secret. You will uncover terrifying secrets, challenging puzzles, and nightmarish creatures in a tense experience of cosmic dread and psychological horror. This game has an amazing atmosphere that leaves you always on edge as well as terrifying enemies that lurk around every corner. There is a lack of direction that while can add to the horror experience can also be frustrating at times. I am giving this game a 7 out of 10 because the game nails the overall survival horror game experience.
SIGNALIS releases for PC via Steam on October 27, 2022. You can wishlist the game right now.
Related: Reviews by Brianna Keller
I enjoy a wide variety of games from intricate survival/adventure games to simple platformers. I am also a sucker for a good story game.
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