http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3259203/frictional-wants-soma-to-chill-you-to-your-core/
Frictional Games, the makers of the terrifying Amnesia series, revealed their next horror game last week. It’s called SOMA, and it looks absolutely terrifying. A blend of sci-fi and horror, SOMA looks and plays like a Frictional game, but there’s something sinister about it that the developer hasn’t yet unveiled.
Frictional’s creative director Thomas Grip recently took to the PlayStation blog to chat about the upcoming game. See what he had to say about it after the jump.
The game’s been in development for three years now and it’s not due to release on PC and the PlayStation 4 until 2015, so the developer is obviously taking their time with it.
“SOMA is meant to chill you to your core, and confront you with questions about your very existence.” Grip wrote.
On the surface, SOMA is a first person horror game driven by a terrifying narrative. But it goes much deeper than that.
“The subject that SOMA will discuss is consciousness. Personally, I find it the most profound questions that it is possible to ask. ‘How can the feeling of subjective experience arise from a chunk of flesh?’ Exploring this further takes us to questions such as ‘Can machines be conscious?’ and ‘Do we have free will?’ It quickly gets very disturbing, and is ideal for a futuristic horror setting. It is the kind of sci-fi that we want to make.”
Grip explained that Frictional’s previous efforts, which includes the Amnesia and Penumbra franchises, were built around a core mechanic, with the setting and themes being by-products. The gameplay came first and the story second.
With SOMA, the theme, story and setting take center stage. Frictional’s goal is “for SOMA to not just be another carnival ride of cheap scares. It is meant to chill you to your core, and confront you with questions about your very existence.”
