A Critique of SOMA

The script for this video has been posted if you'd like to read along, or want to review what I say afterwards:
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Link to WHOMP because I showed a comic in the video: www.whompcomic....
And thanks to my friend Bill for reading the script for me. He won't care about credit but I appreciate it.

[@matheustran8009]

"Simon is not the smartest person on earth even though there's like 5 people left." Ouch

[@ViktoriaMagrey]

That was a weirdly good roast.

[@nastrael]

Doesn't mean much when you consider that he's just some average Canuck with brain damage compared to a handful of scientists in a literal sealab.

[@Nickle_King]

Ya. Being a brain damaged normal guy on a science base. Really can judge him for not being the smartest guy in the room. Can you hear my eyes rolling from there?

[@bradfin12]

Maybe he's dumb or maybe he cannot fully grasp the reality of his situation because the stress of it would short circuit him. We notice that early on when Simon cannot see that his body is not his body untill he would have died in the comms room. Cat is frequently trying to prevent Simon from becoming stressed by existential dread and in the end the exertion of dealing with Simon causes her to short circuit.

[@avendk7157]

@@bradfin12Wow I never thought about it this way but u could actually be right, damn.

[@DanielQuan97]

Man, that robot girl asking "Is this the ARK? I was so worried something had gone wrong" devastated me

[@Magiciansking]

Daniel Quan I died inside in that part (

[@spanishnameisjesus]

yeah that part fucked me up too. Just something about her worried caution, oblivious to the horror around her or her horrid state, nearly begging you to tell her that it's okay, when it REALLY isn't.

[@13RedCorpse]

That`s the way SOMA really sends shivers down your spine. Monsters - meh. But existential horror - yes.

[@crunch9876]

Armalight what do you mean? It is ok. The wua is making the world a better place. The wow is creating an ark but a real life one on earth. Not a computer simulation. She is just one of the wuas early failed attempts.

[@aaa-zz5tj]

i accidentally killed her and had to restart just because i didnt want to feel like an ass

[@richt6314]

What makes SOMA so incredibly brilliant and fucked up is the juxtaposition of the Simons' fate at the end. The copied consciousness of Simon 4 and Cath 2 are enjoying a virtual Eden while Simon 3 finally understands the gravity of the situation, gets into an argument with Catherine causing her circuits to fry (deactivating herself). This ultimately leaves Simon 3 stranded in the station, alone in the abyss. The best part is that Simon 4 believes he was the one who went through the whole ordeal from start to finish and won the 'coin toss.' He's ignorant of both the sacrifices of his predecessors and Catherine's manipulation of him throughout the story. What better an embodiment of the notion that, "ignorance is bliss?"

[@richt6314]

Legitimate Credibility of Continuity Hypothesis: So here I am thinking, “maybe we’re looking at this hypothesis too superficially?" Perhaps, aside from the intended purpose ‘in game’ the C.H. begged a more provocative message questioning our understanding of consciousness? The theory stems from a brain scanning technology ‘in game’ that takes an instantaneous snap-shot of the totality of one’s mind (their memories, thoughts,mental capacities,personality,etc.).This yields a ‘perfect’ artificial copy/scan of the ‘self.’ The theory posits that during an instant in time there exists both the scan and the original where the possibility of a divergence of thought and self is nonexistent. One might imagine a timeline of their own existence originating at birth (for the coherence of this analysis, we’ll start with this axiom). Catering to a mental image, the timeline, representing one’s own stream of consciousness, can be ascribed an arbitrary color, such as red. Fast forward to Point A, at this homogenous instant in time between the original and the copy. Here’s where the Continuity hypothesis gains its accreditation, at Point A in our timeline we now have the same color directly overlapping that of our own. This point is twice as concentrated in color. The nature of one’s consciousness doesn’t differ; there’s simply ‘more’ of it. Much to theory’s merit, it provides an allusion to the famous “Schrodinger's cat” thought experiment, where, ultimately, the logical conclusion was that the cat existed in both a state of life and death. This nod to the famous thought experiment provides, at the very least, a modicum of credence to the notion that one can exist in multiple states simultaneously (i.e. the original and the copy) while still being the same cat. Coming back to the imagery of our ‘timeline of consciousness,’ and with the credibility of Schrodinger ‘backing’ this hypothesis, we can now reaffirm this imagine Point A as this twice as concentrated color. As previously stated, during this instant, the copy contains the totality of that through which we can logically define ourselves (personality, memories, and mental capacities). The crux of the Continuity Hypothesis lies in this ‘timeless’ instant; where mental difference and change are impossible. Arguably, the only difference is the container in which these consciousnesses ‘dwell’ (information in the brain vs information in the scan). These two mediums, however, are physically linked; further blurring the notion of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in this state of equilibrium. The hypothesis holds that if the original consciousness were to disappear instantly following Point A the continuity of their ‘being’ will persist in the machine as the copy (i.e. essentially sending data from one medium to another). Seems crazy at face value, doesn’t it? Common sense would dictate that you’d simply be dead while a copy would carry on believing it was you like nothing had happened. Ironically for William of Ockham, philosophy is never that simple. Looking back at our favorite temporal construct, let’s begin again at Point A. Imagine, if you will, instead of physical suicide, the ‘original’ continues on with their life following Point A. In this eventuality, we now have a divergence in the two homogenous ‘selves.’ As both continue to exist, time continues forward and changes manifest in both the original and their copy. They may have different causal relationships with their respective realities leading to different thoughts, actions, desires, etc. The pertinent fact of the matter is that, above all else, past Point A these two entities exist independently of one another. Thus, we have a fork in our consciousness timeline, the original (red) carries on with their life, while the copy, now able to exert it’s own autonomy, forges ahead, becoming its own ‘being’ (blue). The Continuity hypothesis operates under the assertion that the totality of our being/consciousness amounts to our personality, memories, and mental capacity; we are quantifiable. Following the logic of this assertion: why would there be an issue in simply 'transferring' data? Unless there’s more to the ‘self’ than that? What grants us our individual awareness ( i.e. perspective in which we perceive the world)? Can it be more than individual?

[@richt6314]

Synerrox เ that was because he still believed in the coin toss. From what I can recollect, there wasn't any elucidation on whether the 'copied consciousness' would occupy the original container in the event that his consciousness would transfer mediums.

[@richt6314]

Synerrox เ Synerrox เ 1) naturally, the practically is more or less 0% that's the problem. But that doesn't detract from the hypothesis itself nor its implications in an 'ideal' system. 2) I'm saying that when the scan is taking place there is a superposition of consciousness (I.e. On top of each other) in which the state/location of the original consciousness is indeterminate (granted the ambiguity of the logistics of the copying process lends itself to thought experiments that model the implications of the technology). The initial axiom of what defines consciousness is essential in determining the theoretical validity of the process; it caters to the notion that if consciousness is merely data and consciousness is replicated, and then the original 'source' is deleted instantaneously (following an instant in time where the copy and original are identical) why would there be an issue in (perception of consciousness) transferring mediums while continuity is maintained?

[@PARAN0IDxGERBIL]

Want to know what's even more fucked up? Catherine 2 knows that Catherine 1 is fucked! Catherine 1 knows she was lying to Simon 3, so that knowledge must be in Catherine 2. Could you live with yourself knowing that a copy of you has been left to suffer eternally on a desolate and lonely Earth?

[@richt6314]

Mr. I'm sure she could reconcile the fact that her position and everything that led up to her existence inside of the arc is due to the actions (both good & bad) of Cath 1. Catering to the Biblical story of Eden and Sin, Cath 2 and Simon 4 are 'pure' (Cath 2 isn't responsible for her predecessor's manipulation of Simon). Simon 4 isn't responsible for any of the death's of those 'unplugged' from life-support nor the initial worker robot who is left in a constant state of pain (from electrocution) for Simon to progress. Whether or not Cath 2 feels any guilt is arguable, based on the in game story and excerpts from the soma website it's clear that she exhibits an 'ends justify the means' morality; she was able to continue the arc project despite it giving rise to the C.H. and suicides that followed, she manipulated & lied to simon, and constantly killed & rebooted the consciousness of one of the scans to extract info from him. In this biblical allusion it's only fitting that Simon 3 (2) and Cath 1 are unable to enter Eden after their trespasses.

[@MrPooleish]

In regards to the Doctor repeating information Simon should already know, Informed Consent is one of the most important concepts in modern medicine. That means you are required to inform the patient of the procedure and all possible side effects and risks. If your patient has suffered a brain injury and has lingering side effects, you are need to make sure "short term memory loss" and "impaired cognition" aren't part of their problems.

[@tbird8166]

That makes the entire deal with him giving permission to the doctor even scarier. Is it criminal of the doctor to use the scan without informed consent if the doctor himself isn’t informed of just what he’s messing with?

[@MrPooleish]

@@tbird8166 I think (haven't played the game, just watched a lot) that the original scan was only intended to help treat Simon's brain injury. After the treatment, successful or otherwise, the brain scan was put in a database, presumably with more brain scans, and just happened to still be around when the future plot happens.

[@Dutchyman]

@@MrPooleish There is literally a voice recording about this in the game at Theta where Catherine has been doing the brain scans. The very day that the real Simon died, Dr Munshi asks Simon for consent to use his brain scans for further research and Simons does indeed consent. No one ever decided to delete the brain scan, so it is still in the database. The technology stems from Dr Munshi's and Dr Berg's work. The Wau then put Simon's brain scan into a deceased Pathos II employee that was closely located to the power room, with the purpose of having Simon turn on the engine that powers the whole station, which also powers the Wau. The station was running on it's reserves, and the Wau knew this. Hence the plot happens. It's not a "just happened" onset. Everything adds up. A little fun fact: The body that Simon's brain scans gets copied into is the very employee (Imogen Reed) that turned off the power. Quite the beautiful and horrifying irony.

[@CodeguruX]

And how do you know "the Doctor" didn't? You're seeing through Simon's perspective the entire time. And it fucks up from time to time. The real issue is she had the same stakes to lose as he did. Regardless, she kept hope alive until she no longer needed to as part of her treatment. She technically got her patient from point A to point B "alive and mentally in tact". Which is why the story was kinda stupid and kills itself at the end. And you can see it coming a mile away with all the foreshadowing audio.

[@eragonawesome]

​@@CodeguruX The Doctor they are referring to is the Doctor Munshi at the start of the game, the one who creates the brain scan, who had no idea any of what follows is even possible. The initial scan is the first successful brain scan of a human in the world, and is what kicks off the series of events leading to the beginning of the game.

[@DoctorZombo]

The reason why the WAU is one of my favourite "rogue evil sci-fi AIs" is because it's portrayed in such a way that makes it realistic in addition to scary. It really bugs me when AI "characters" are written to hold some sort of grudge or hatred towards humans, even if it's the old excuse of "humans are harmful to themselves and/or anything else". The WAU is simply doing what it's told, it doesn't have its own goals or its own agency, and I think that's great. It is closer to what computers are than most other rogue AIs which are protrayed to have some sort of character or personality.

[@francesboy2]

There's an episode of Dr. Who called the girl in the fireplace which is very much along the lines of what you're describing. I don't really want to give any spoilers, but I think it handles the whole horrific AI just doing its job thing really well, especially with how the cast react to it.

[@TOASTEngineer]

The really interesting thing is that this is how critics of AI technology think it'll happen: say you create an AI whose job is to collect stamps. It'll soon start melting people down into glue to make stamps, because you never attached all that moral and ethical baggage that comes with being a human being - you never said "and also respect other people's personal sovereignty and don't cause unnecessary suffering in other living things and don't destroy anything beautiful and..." You said "get as many stamps as you can." And it did.

[@Sammy-S]

+The Cheshire Cat I loved that episode

[@francesboy2]

Sam S Yeah me too, I still think about it every now and again despite it being years ago.

[@craftworded]

DoctorZombo I like glados because she doesnt hate humans...she is just...testing...with anything

[@marsjake8]

“The guys a little bit slow” I mean yeah he had a brain injury

[@YTcmtr]

If Simon were smart the player would be less immersed in the story.

[@casono]

@@YTcmtr depends on the writing for me.

[@safe-keeper1042]

Brain injury doesn't have to equal slow or stupid. I think the protagonist is just... slow.

[@Cimex090]

Try to understand the guy, he's travelled 100 years in the future to find himself in an apocalyptic world where Humans are supposed to be all dead and the earth is on fire. And of course he can't pause the game like you to process things and think about what is really going on.

[@dmin5782]

@Midgard Eagle Dude got a brain injury, somehow found himself waking up 100 years into the future and got told he is a corpse infused with a chip in the head. It will make anyone slow and in denial.

[@cruros9084]

SOMA was always scarier than most other games to me. The existential dread lingers with you far beyond a simple jump scare or feeling of unease in a typical horror game.

[@Gentamoru]

Yeah it's starting to slowly sink in... and not just that but i kinda don't want to repeatthe whole experience again

[@efxnews4776]

Theres a similar story called Beyond the Aquila Rift, from the Netflix antology series, Love+Death+Robots, that is an adaptation from from a short story of Alastair Reynolds. It's 15mim story, hell, what a great story!

[@MinaEntwine]

For me, standard horror has all but worn on me, but SOMA doesn't invoke fear in me.. but the dread. the existential dread of what it means to be human being so vague, and they just play with that idea like it's Silly Putty

[@DraconasTenZHG]

Ominous post apo world + fear of the unkown + thalassophobia + fear of the dark + fear of killer robots + fear of zombie mutants + fear of the water - there's so many elements that make this a great horror game.

[@r.w.9631]

Isn't that what he said.

[@KeremyJing]

"You treated Catherine like a person before you saw her, just like you think I'm human, even though I'm only a voice coming through KZbin right now." Don't do that.

[@Troublechutor]

I treated Cath like a person even after she was just an AI in my omni-tool. Mainly because it was polite, but also because no matter if she's a chat bot or a real-girl, she's the only company I had on the journey and my only guide to the next possible escape. There's no reason to be rude to an AI, but its still just a glorified toaster - if you don't want your toast burned, you should probably say "please and thank you"

[@pekkalaitinen8769]

Consider the possibility that you are now reading this comment thinking it was written by another person on the other side of the world, but in fact this is all simulation made only for you and everybody else are NPC's. Nobody actually wrote this comment, it's all part of the simulation, just like the phone/computer in front of you and the room around you. Your body is buried in black tar which prevents it from rotting and the mechanical parts keep the simulation going forever. When you die, a new simulation begins and you can't remember the previous one, just like this is like your 9000th simulation.

[@zeronxepher4167]

@@pekkalaitinen8769 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAÀAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[@AuntBibby]

@@zeronxepher4167 if everything we’ve seen in this reality was a simulation, then we can’t automatically assume any part of it is consistent with “real” reality. THAT INCLUDES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. Greg Egan famously wrote a book set in a universe in which there were 2 spacial dimensions & 2 chronological dimensions (of time), instead of 3 spacial dimensions & 1 chronological dimensions (which we just call “time”). in the alleged real reality, the concept of a “dimension” may even be an inherently silly joke in the same way the concept of a fart or rubber chicken is to us.

[@ythunderboy8694]

​@@pekkalaitinen8769 Trollface was drawn in Microsoft Paint on September 19, 2008 by Carlos Ramirez, an 18-year-old Oakland college student living with his parents. The image was published on Ramirez's DeviantArt page, "Whynne", as part of a rage comic titled about the pointless nature of trolling. Ramirez posted the image to the imageboard website 4chan and within a day other users of the site shared it. In the following months, Ramirez's drawing quickly gained traction on 4chan as the universal emoticon of an Internet troll and a versatile rage comic character. From 4chan, Trollface spread to Reddit and Urban Dictionary in 2009, eventually reaching other Internet image-sharing sites like Imgur and Facebook. Trollface shows an Internet troll, someone who annoys others on the Internet for their own amusement. The original comic by Ramirez mocked trolls; however, the image is widely used by trolls. Trollface has been described as the Internet equivalent of the children's taunt "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" or sticking one's tongue out. The image is often accompanied by phrases such as "Problem?" or "You mad, bro?".

[@skulldozer2259]

Soma has writing that reminds me of those old sci fi short stories like “There will be soft rains” or “I have no mouth and I must scream” that leave you with this sense of utter dread and terror

[@stuglife5514]

I got serious Twilightzone vibes which touch on the same topic. It’s a suffocating atmosphere

[@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460]

Until you remember "Oh yeah, dude's got a fucked up noggin and has PTSD, not to mention is undergoing an experimental procedure to undo the damage that his brain has.". See, There Will Come Soft Rains is scary because it shows a world that's been effected by nuclear war, and despite this, an AI ran house doesn't give a shit and runs as if nothing's wrong at all. As for I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, it's more depressing and bleak rather than scary. Like, AM is basically older Skynet, but actually got her job done!

[@efxnews4776]

Soma remind me another story, this one from a more contemporary author, "Beyond the Aquila Rift" from Alastair Reynolds... If you are interested in the story, theres an adaptation on the antoly series Love+Death+Robots. It also deals with a "simulation" scenario, but the less i talk about, the better. Instead of Catherine, you have Greta...

[@mrziiz6893]

Please don’t remind me of “There will come soft rains”, that story fucked me up and still does

[@mrziiz6893]

@@ttpbroadcastingcompany.4460AM is a lady? Hm…

[@PaMS1995]

"SOMA wasn't scary" Haha yeah I totally wasn't scared either haha haha

[@ghostspore3163]

Not ashamed to say it had me shitting myself, I'm not usually scared by horror games either. I will admit that it was mostly the sounds that freaked me out, but every creature other than the first was super unnerving

[@granola661]

haha me neither totally calm heartbeat all the way thru

[@Thfoxpz]

I've played through all of Frictional's games, and Soma was the only one who actually made me scream in fear even in the scripted chases, I compared this game a lot to Alien Isolation even though you cannot protect yourself in Soma, both of them KNOW how to scare the player

[@Malignantt1]

This is the most terrifying game ive ever played

[@Tome4kkkk]

@@colbyboucher6391 Speaking of which! Man, you need to see the Love Death Robots anthology! =|

[@awarmmilkandcookies]

12:12 I just love how his immediate reaction is to crouch down. You wouldn't do that in real life, yet in video games it seems like the most logical and normal thing to do

[@HeatherHolt]

it amazes me how video game characters can crab-walk around like that for hours; they must have hamstrings of steel

[@Gentamoru]

@@HeatherHolt Yeah besides my knees pop all the time

[@VintonVialpando]

stealth mode activated *boop*

[@MK-13337]

You wouldn't crouch like video game characters. Rather, if you get startled by something and you need to check your surroundings you naturally bend your knees, lower your center of mass and put your hands in front of you. You take a natural fighting stance without thinking about it. This makes you more agile and more capable of wrestling anything that might pounce at you. But you wouldn't go full crouching unless you knew what you were up against and knew you need to hide not run or fight.

[@PurpleFreezerPage]

"Catherine, are we alive?" "THE FIVE DOLLAR TACO BOX IS AVAILABLE AT TACO BELL NOW"

[@jeridkasper69]

Same but Guns of Glory

[@mateodavidgutierrezgonzale6556]

I got that commercial with a bunch of scenes saying "NO". LMAO

[@pixel3082]

@@mateodavidgutierrezgonzale6556 i got librety :(

[@natebit8130]

"Catherine, are we alive?" "MEET, A FUTURE MOM!"

[@lmproductions61]

i got breakfast rollers starting at 3.29

[@bboy32167]

we need more existential horror games

[@WobblesandBean]

AGREED

[@mango-dt2pv]

Definitely

[@FolstrimHori]

Have you played The Talos Principle?

[@aarcade6676]

@@FolstrimHori good, but not horror.

[@patrickwalsh8933]

Portal, Portals 2, Half Life 2 :)

[@robertcornhole5197]

Another twisted thing that dawned on me: Even if the original flesh-and-blood Simon agreed to basically donate himself for AI research...the guy who sat down in the chair sure didn't.

[@robertcornhole5197]

On that note, I thought the endgame conflict should have been Catherine vs. Catherine. I had this really ominous feeling that the big twist was going to be that the flesh-and-blood Catherine was still alive, and that after the copy who becomes your companion was made, something had happened to make her a very dangerous threat waiting for you on the bottom of the ocean. It would really nail home the themes of the game for the player to have to choose between the visceral act of killing a living, breathing human being, especially with Earth depopulated, or just unplugging and casually discarding a talking door opener that just happened to be a far more sympathetic character.

[@i.c.7489]

Robert Cornhole Now that you mention it, wouldn't it be more appropriate for the doctor to scan Simon again after he consents rather then using the old scan?

[@robertcornhole5197]

I imagine that was the point the creators wanted to suggest- when Munshi took Simon's brain data for research, he really had no idea about the implications.

[@BucketGamers]

Could you elaborate that? The flesh and blood Simon you play in the beginning is the guy who sits down in the chair, right? Im surely missing your point but i found your statement so interesting that i had to ask you to explain further for my dumb head to understand. Hope you see this :)

[@i.c.7489]

Bucket Gamers Flesh & blood Simon and scanned Simon are essentially two different people. Both Simons are exactly the same up until the scan. After that f&b lived out his life while data Simon is "frozen" at the moment the scan took place. Unless acted upon, data Simon's life/memories end there. This is what Robert meant. Because while f&b Simon allowed data Simon to be experimented on, that happened after the scan meaning that data Simon never consented.

[@TheBoundFenrir]

I'd like to point somethign out: you say SOMA isn't a horror game because it's not scary, but I think you're misunderstanding how Horror works. In it's simplist form, Horror focuses on three kinds of fear: Panic, Revulsion, and Dread. Panic is fear through surprise. It's what a "scary" game thrives on: the adreneline pumping through your veins as things jump out at you and you enter fight-or-flight. Revulsion is fear through association. Zombies are repulsive as symbols of a human without humanity. While panic is felt in the heart and lungs, revulsion hits you in the stomach. Dread is fear of the unknown. This is the stuff Lovecraft wrote about; The idea itself is unpleasant to think about. It's the slowest but also most lasting kind of fear: once the idea is in your head, it will take some time before it leaves your thoughts. SOMA doesn't rely on Panic, but it is heavily built on Dread, on unpleasant questions about "what part of me is me?" and "How do you define a person?" with some limited Revulsion as well. It's not a scary game, but it's absolutely a horror game.

[@Terabit3]

It's not a "traditional" horror game. It's an existential horror game

[@xayah9073]

Subnautica is a perfect example how fear of the unknown feels like.

[@draconic_sprinkles5203]

I had this same exact thing with Dead Space. Whenever I played the game, I felt some mild anxiety at the thought that I might be torn limb from limb at any moment, but that usually wasn't terrible. What really got me was the concept of "danger is everywhere, and you don't have control of it". For _months_ after I finished the game, I was constantly paranoid that there was a necromorph around every corner. That I might be torn up into some bloody gore and become a mindless, breathless, heartless pawn in the gruesome plans of some unimaginably nefarious higher power. That's really what got me. Not the panic. Not the adrenaline. The Dread.

[@applesmith9137]

I was absolutely revolted by the ending and hearing the “second” Simon speak

[@HighlyRegardted]

Damn that description made me wanna go hurry up n buy

[@TheEdgeoholic]

I love having an existential crisis at 3 a.m. wondering about the meaning of consciousness, and the future horrors of transhumanism.

[@DruNature]

same!! good night

[@jansuchanek4290]

existential crisis is natural, I believe everyone experience it sooner or later

[@drained1177]

Consciousness is a side effect of evolution, we've achieved amazing things because having the ability to innovate things and ideas from nothing is a necessity for "late game" survival. The belief of gods and a greater power is simply to compensate for the unstoppable amounts of fabtsies mankind can dream of.

[@ellieosteen]

Then you’ll really like H.P Lovecraft stories

[@beanswrldd]

first time?

[@guedeto1995]

i liked the two reviews I've seen but i have to disagree with you on one thing. being the copy left behind has to be the most powerful moment.

[@360.Tapestry]

sike!

[@360.Tapestry]

(sic)

[@360.Tapestry]

[sic]

[@Anzyll]

Agreed. Being the copy that moved on didn't strike me until I was the copy that didn't.

[@SacredDaturaa]

I 100% agree. Being the copy is more just disturbing in an abstract way, but that scene where your perspective stays with the one that remains made me physically shudder.

[@nemopotato4212]

In my opinion, the endings should've been swapped. I rather watch the happy ending first then get hit by the reality of the Copy-paste again.

[@aaa-zz5tj]

dude, why does it matter? its a coin toss. they both happened

[@silent_stalker3687]

Nemo Potato To be fair Cat may have shut down the Simon before, she does manipulate stuff, but I do see where you are with this, altho it would be a bit odd transition between the Simons

[@700Penguin]

That would have made the game even more perfect, but it's still a 10/10.

[@funky6942]

I don't know guys. I didn't feel any joy for the Simon on the ark tbh. It was even more depressing because Simon left behind cursed Catherine... While the other one is grateful. And the worst part is, Catherine is probably aware that the other Simon despises her right now.

[@tommcewan7936]

If you wanted to be absolutely *fiendish*, you could randomise which ending you get when played on a given computer...

[@AliceT3a]

'ain't as scary as you might think' Soma was fucking terrifying! I had existential dread for weeks after!

[@arken5959]

Jessica Bown all I wanted to to do was click a button on a computer but the WAU won't let me! so now I have ptsd.

[@nathaneskin3572]

Jessica Bown The story was scary in its implications, but the gameplay....... not really...

[@mattk6343]

this exactly. This game was more horrifying for me than any other. Amnesia does not even come close. Yes, Amnesia is scary. But stress-and-jumpscare type of scary. Soma is horrifying on another level. Maybe its not so terrible for other people, but for me it somehow works. It's been a long time since I played it, but I still feel uneasy when thinking about Soma.

[@ethhics]

I'm an old Amnesia fan/freak (played 150 hours of Amnesia) an I can say that Soma is definetely much more scary than Amnesia. I knew the monsters from Amnesia before, because I watched Markiplier and so on play various Custom Stories before getting my first PC and being able to play it, so that's probably part of the deal why I wasn't really affected by them. The first time I saw a monster in Amnesia I was creeped out, then never again, unless it was a reskin or a new monster in a Custom Story. In Soma however, I am always on edge, I actually dread and want to play the game at the same time. I also did not know what the enemies looked like (except for one because I looked at a Soma mod on the workshop) and so I always have a bad feeling when I see that it saves or when my screen starts glitching a bit.

[@redzeppelin6]

The monsters are not scary. The tones and ideas are scary in a being buried alive kind of way.

[@kristjanwashere]

I'm sad that you missed/skipped over the survey section. There are two in the game, both in difference sections, and the knowledge you have from the first survey to the second survey is different. There is something really important in that, in short, how your feelings changes about being in a simulation as you progress throughout the game. You also don't have to kill the WAU, you can run away, another choice in the game.

[@Aaron-de1ji]

It's 5 months since you left this comment but I'm letting you know that I agree! I was hoping to see discussion of this. During the first survey, I had very bleak feelings about being a simulation of myself (it helped that it was right after Catherine broke the news to me). During the second, in the paradisal environment, I had different feelings, although I still felt morose about my past selves. Was it the environment, as Simon alluded to with Toronto, or the journey changing my perspective and gratitude, or was it simply that I was the winner in one of the situations? I thought the two surveys, despite intentionally seeing them as simple researcher's questionnaires, added another layer of nuance to the game.

[@807D14M0ND5]

About that survey. I didn't actually change my mind between the first and the second one. I had no desire if living in a virtual heaven even before I learned everything. I was a bit disappointed that I could not choose to exclude myself from the ark in the end. I thought the game giving me kill/don't kill choices throughout would culminate in the final big decision of killing myself or living in artificial heaven.

[@AninoNiKugi]

@@807D14M0ND5 I think that's one of the missed opportunity in this game. The choices didn't seem to affect anything. I didn't kill most of the robots/humans and I didn't kill WAU either. Apparently, nothing really changed.

[@carloandresl]

The first time I completed the survey I stayed as neutral as possible. When the survey showed up a second time, I shed a tear because of how optimistic I felt. My favorite thing in the game

[@vincentjohnson7175]

@@AninoNiKugi You don't need to see a cutscene or whatever to imagine what will happen. Your choices still have consequences that are left to your imagination.

[@josephrobinson6171]

The ‘helper robot’ that you have the choice to kill might have actually had a human mind. The robot itself doesn’t have the capacity to speak but it shows human or animal characteristics such as being grateful that you freed it. I personally left the helper drone alive and killed the ‘sick’ robot that seemed to be having a conversation with itself, because to me the helper drone seemed to have a more intact human mind inside it even though its hardware couldn’t allow it to speak. The other robot seemed to have long since gone mad and was not aware of where it was or what it was doing. I saw it as a mercy killing.

[@-._.-KRiS-._.-]

Oh, yeah, that helper robot was my buddy. No way was I going to take a chip from it.

[@candanaci9258]

why would the robot then stop following you or running away from you when you kill the sick robot. doesn't he understand you had to kill one of them

[@norwegianboyee]

Well there's an log on the same level that basically confirms that the helper robot is purely AI and does not have any emotions whatsoever. While the talking delusional one is very much an human mind inserted into a machine. So the question isn't really whether you'd kill one helpful human for an unhelpful one, but if you'd destroy an helpful machine over the unhelpful human person.

[@LazyBuddyBan]

bit of useless trivia: in development it had actual speaking human mind in it, but it got cut

[@Volth]

In Delta, you find information about the K8 (your little friend) and it shows that it doesn't support pilot seats (the thing that allowed the mind scans to take over other robots), so it's pretty much impossible for it to have a human scan inside, at least the way the game showed us how it works.

[@merchantarthurn]

Tbf to Simon, this version of his has terminal brain damage, so struggle to get up to speed with new, alien concepts is pretty understandable

[@testedhawk]

Also tbf, this is all happening in like one day from his perspective. Imagine going to the doctor's office on a normal day, everything's fine and you set up plans later Then you end up in a random place nearly a hundred years later, the world has ended, things want to kill you, you find out you're not *really* you, and you're now the only hope humanity has at any sort of continuity

[@kiyoshi3313]

@TestedHawk I feel like any normal person would just stress out their cpu on the spot. The game would be over hella fast if that was the case, though.

[@sentr.e]

@@kiyoshi3313maybe the brain damage did something

[@hemanthshankar9350]

A year late but I rarely see the following point brought up: Simon has a memory of winning 2 coin tosses by the end of the game. He has developed a bias that he will be cut and pasted, although that simon literally can't. It must not be easy to understand that you physically cannot win a coin toss despite having won 2 coin tosses. I think calling Simon stupid is the most surface level way of looking at it. Although simon and the player are meant to be thinking similar things a lot of the time, I really think simon not understanding it when the player does after a certain point is brilliant - and explainable for several reasons like yours and mine. Aswell as explanations like he's in denial, he doesn't want to think about it, the same way he can't see that he doesn't have a human body. Also theres Catherines manipulation of him, where she says she has explained it to him, only to rid herself of guilt - full well knowing Simon does not understand what's about to happen. I can't blame Catherine. If simon not knowing means the only thing that's left of humanity has a higher chance to survive, instead of Simon not being motivated to do anything because his version can't be on the ARK, well it might be a worthwhile suspension of morals. The same way you or Catherine might justify bringing a person back to life and killing them over and over is for the greater good.

[@Dutchyman]

Not only was his brain scan of a literally damaged brain. It was also a legacy scan. A prototype of sorts.

[@MyOrangeString]

Another thing: WAU is actively trying to save humanity. It's very likely (or explicitly stated?) that WAU put Simon's consciousness in that body, at the start of the game. It isn't trivial! It'd be a whole other game without WAU! Besides, isn't it a very good attempt at recreating human life? Can't we say that WAU is getting better and better at this, and that Simon 2 is very close to a clear-cut success? Isn't life as Simon 2 worth it? Isn't WAU the true God in this story? I thought WAU was the best AI I have seen in Sci Fi in a long while, and a very important part of the story.

[@WobblesandBean]

Exactly. The WAU was scary precisely _because_ it can't think. It has full control over humanity, yet it's still cold, unconscious and unfeeling. That's brutally horrifying to me. It's like I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, only the AI is a cold, dead algorithm that has no hope of understanding what it's doing and no way to tell it to stop.

[@galactica58]

I agree. I feel like the WAU is more akin to a modern day deep neural network than a scifi AI. You know, those things that always develop a personality and become a personification of something or other? The WAU, like many other things in this game, are more rooted in present time reality than in most horror games. And that, to me, makes the game better than scarier than most things I've played in a while.

[@askagorn]

You're absolutely right. In my original playthrough I destroyed the WAU because it seemed so scary and it's creations were grotesque. But when seeing all that was left of humanity in that box in space in the end I got so sad and I regretted it. The WAU creations weren't perfect, but in a sense it was preserving humanity's legacy. Such a great game.

[@strayiggytv]

Agreed so many people don't get the wua it insane.

[@crypto1223]

Rick 'Rick Berman' McCallum One can also think the WAU would’ve eventually got it right and started producing vessels like Simon’s diving suit and the sentient robots, but with their perception of being human remaining intact throughout. Or the WAU’s perfected viveriam becoming a sorta heaven for those scanned into its memory. It is even theoretically possible for the human’s saved on file to eventually coexist in peace with the WAU and begin expanding outward from Pathos-2, given its occupants freedom from its confines, and maybe walk on the surface again. Sure they doesn’t sound like a bright future. But it would beat purgatory in a machine’s virtual world, or at the bottom of the ocean, or none existence altogether.

[@erickschusterdeoliveira2662]

Funny seeing Joseph saying "people way smarter than you and me" while putting up an image of Elon Musk. This video is truly a product of its time.

[@lucess169]

@@-..._-. nah he definitely is

[@SnowPaw404]

@@-..._-. ratio

[@mtp1213]

@@lucess169 says the bum in KZbin comments

[@lucess169]

@@mtp1213 yes he does

[@ihaveasecret9539]

Joseph joked about that statement aging poorly during his Resident Evil 8 stream.

[@Flight_of_Icarus]

7:39 Many horror fans would instead call that "atmosphere" and praise the game for doing that instead of throwing jumpscare after jumpscare at you. If you don't _want_ to be scared by a horror game, you won't, just like you don't have to RP in an RPG. Brazenly ignoring the game's cues, playing it in a bright location and making sure you remember it's all fake can take you out of it. Jumpscares are startling, and what you seem to call "actually scaring" someone, but in reality all it is is shock value. A natural impulse that no one can avoid, unless you accustom yourself to them through repeated exposure. If you can scare someone without Jumpscares, that's the holy grail of quality horror games. It goes into different types of horror besides shock horror. Stuff like psychological horror. That's what SOMA is supposed to be. That's what good horror games shoot for. People who approach horror games expecting to be scared without allowing it, expecting the game to somehow scare them without any investment or allowances made by the player, like somehow thinking the game will force them to be scared and fighting against the game like a monster kind of annoy me, and can kill the genre, and I'm not even a major horror fan myself. I personally don't enjoy being scared. I don't enjoy the kind of experience which these games seek to provide, yet I shouldn't criticize them for trying to further their art form. Scaring people with uncomfortable ideas and thoughts, rather than with flashing a face on the screen with a loud sound.

[@rafavaliente741]

Totally agree with you and I think that was what frictional wanted here , that is why this game has gone beyond that and it is a master piece in my opinion!

[@EdwardOskarsson]

Ahh thank you for writing this. Cheap jumpscares are outweighed by good scary atmospheres easily everytime.

[@jarskil8862]

Jumpscares are only scary when you know there is a jumpscare coming. A good jumpscare warns you well before it will happen. It can be slowly intensing music, or sudden quietness. Or other things. Jumpscares in Little Hope for example are more annoying than scary. All sudden a monster just pops up on full screen without any warning or indication. When game did it once it was scary and funny. But when you realize all jumpscares in game work like that, it turns to shit.

[@doctordd-ey]

Yeahhh this I agree with

[@Feet_Sniffer]

I dont think its fair to say that the main character is dumb, he just refuses to accept the horrible reality that hes going to die alone, at the bottom of the sea with no real impact or consequence. I think when she told him there is a 50% chance he believed it because he wanted to believe it.

[@mystical_destroyer8628]

THANKYOU!

[@scnoz1430]

Exactly, and not to mention the in universe explanation of him being one of the most primitive scans. It’s such a shame that he seemed to miss a lot about Simons character

[@lord_man_king]

Yes, and we have to remember that not only is he a 'primitive' legacy scan, he's the scan of a damaged brain

[@rainbowratto1834]

There's also the fact that he was just a regular guy working in a bookshop in his previous life. The guys working on Pathos II were the top scientists and engineers and even they fell into the trap of believing those things, because all of those people were all in terrible situation that needed them to believe in something better.

[@scriggle3564]

He also has brain damage and is the oldest brain scan ever used so he ofc he's gonna be a bit slow to process things

[@WobblesandBean]

36:00 I never took it as her lying, she was just attempting one final time to explain to Simon how the process worked. The coin toss bit was referring to the sensation of unbroken consciousness; whether or not "Simon" would experience a smooth transfer into a new body or stay behind, as once the transfer is complete, the new copy immediately diverges into a separate entity with new thoughts and experiences than the original. It's not her fault Simon's an idiot.

[@Magiciansking]

Amelia Bee I really like the part where Catherine is explaining to him that shes gonna copy his brain to another body and hes like you gonna send me to future? -_- and she replay no you idiot! it was very funny to me lol

[@WobblesandBean]

magicians-king LOL yeah, I liked that bit. Part of me thinks that she lost it at the end on purpose, she knows the software shuts down if the person becomes too emotional, and death was better than spending an eternity in the dark with that idiot Simon. So she just unleashed all that frustration you know she's been holding in.

[@Magiciansking]

Amelia Bee Yeah you might be right, but I really feel sorry for Simon he just wanted to get in the ARK and leave this hopeless world, Now hes left alone with his worst nightmare, The place he doesn't wanna be in, I think the reason why Simon didn't know he can't get on the ARK is that he was blinded by hope, When Catherine first told him that you can get on the ARK, These words where his hope and he didn't think of anything that can take that away from him, Until the sad ugly truth came out, I understand why he would snap, Everything he hoped for all gone in one second.. And Catherine did lie to him in the beginning she said you can get on the ARK, She didn't say you will be copied, If she said those words I think it would be a whole different story and he might accept his faith, But to be honest Catherine only wanted whats good for her and didn't think of what Simon wants!

[@WobblesandBean]

magicians-king I think she did, she's not evil. She tried to explain to him how it works many times, and each and every time Simon ripped into her for it. She's socially awkward and a bit too obsessed with her work, but she's hardly manipulative or apathetic to Simon's plight.

[@dnrob7]

@magicians-king No, Simon is an idiot who needs to be told what he wants. You don't give emotionally driven, wide eyed dreamers the power to "make decisions" in a situation like that. Catherine was right about everything. The copy of Simon that got on the ark didn't spend one moment thinking about the version of him left behind and that alone shows he has no decisions to make. His job is to do as he's told, that's it. He doesn't base things on logic.

[@ivylastname5657]

the devs added a Safe Mode to the game where monsters cant hurt/kill you and talked about how the game's story and implications is scarier than the actual gameplay, even mentioning how if you die you just get to try again. seems like they were aware of its shortcomings.

[@aniket8350]

So in safe mode they don't do anything to you? I completed it with normal and i would like play it again because the horror part was interesting to me

[@skulldozer2259]

@@aniket8350 they follow you around and look at you, but don’t chase you. Still kinda creepy cuz it’s like their just curious and studying you but makes the screen glitch effect really annoying

[@creriss]

@@skulldozer2259 Sounds quite terrifying, who knows whenever they stop observing and start running after you? Of course they never do that, but the suspense is in there lol.

[@alexxx4434]

Almost as if monsters were intenionally not the point of the game's horror, which the author of this critique overlooked.

[@NineHundredOne]

@@alexxx4434 yes, hence why they failed at being scary. they weren't the point.

[@MinorityRespecter88]

SOMA was so terrifying that it left me feeling a sense of dread for weeks after I finished playing it.

[@rx500android]

Same.

[@bmi8958]

Same

[@Bloodlinedev]

Same. Good.

[@DangerBay]

same!

[@Nepycros]

I think the WAU was a fun inclusion into the story. Even if it failed on the horror element, what you were seeing was a "new kind of evolution." The WAU was incorporating into organic structures and trying countless different strategies, parasitizing fish, manipulating human corpses (and half-living or pseudo-living monstrosities), but the breadth of diversity and the possibility for further modification could have led to some really amazing structures down the line. Supposing that the restriction on "preserving human life" was loosened enough that it started recognizing all organic structures as "human life" and allowed for the full scope of possible body structures. You could even one day see WAU-grafted butterflies flying through a world otherwise inhospitable to normal humans. The WAU was a horrific and inhumane monster... to humans. That's why the robot that wanted you to destroy the WAU was so adamant, and why the game was giving you a choice (in my opinion). You had the option not to destroy the WAU, which would have perpetuated the cycle of forced preservation for the remaining humans... But at the same time it would mean that, eventually, the WAU could branch out and become something new, something even potentially beautiful, from a certain point of view. Destroying the WAU shut down that possibility, however grotesque its initial prospects looked. I'm sure that, if we rolled back the clock 2 billion years, early life would have appeared similarly strange, chaotic, primeval, and even a little nightmarish... Yet here we are. So the monsters, while they failed their intended value in terms of gameplay, introduced another level of ethics and choice that I think Simon was too emotionally immature to comprehend, and that actually provided a block against the player really exploring the full consequences of killing or saving the WAU. A hidden gem for story lovers.

[@Niriixa]

Agreed. I think the writers deliberately chose to write Simon this dense to avoid a more nuanced and difficult in-game discussion and exploration of humanity and human consciousness. The game could have gone some really interesting directions if there had been a less "WAU is bad" attitude throughout. Sure, the player can choose not to destroy the WAU, but the gameplay itself is so heavily geared towards destroying it that it's not really an equal choice. Plus, the fact that so much of what made the ARK project fully possible is based on the corrupted/evolved WAU: The seats used to scan people were created by the WAU. The Vivarium simulation was based on a machine corrupted by the WAU and Catherine actively made use of these things to improve the ARK project. There's an interesting implication about the ARK and its inhabitants being much closer to the WAU than we might think. Edited to add: I just remembered that Simon's original scan was used as the basis for AI research. Makes me wonder how much of Simon may or may not have been left in the base code of all the AI. Catherine sure shrugs it off easily, but *that* would have been an interesting direction to explore as well.

[@spiker1113]

@@Niriixa @Albdruck But it is an equal choice if you take 2 seconds to think about it you will notice the big door like 5 meters to your right. And there isn't a "wau is bad" attitude, the humans in the basement at theta are happy in their simulation that's why akers put them there. At omicron, johan ross got everyone killed by yelling at them to kill it. The wau reacted in a way that any treathend animal would. And simon isn't dense he just can't accept the circumstances of his situation. At the beggining simon's mind only accepts he's a robot when it is literally imposible to pretend otherwise, when he is underwater. The same can be said for the copy or transfer thing Also the player should be left to think about some things themselfs not have simon understand and discuss everything.

[@GlenoWarrior]

The WAU and its creations represent the ultimate hope of the story to me. The Simon and Katherine just want to have a copy of themselves preserved in a tin can locked away from the world, and they don't care what they leave behind or break along the way, even if that is themselves which have to sleep in the bed they made. The WAU is the opposite, it wants to preserve what life can be, in the only way that will work. Fish will die if they aren't hybridized, humans will die without machine bodies. Potentially the only pocket of life in the universe that is still able to interact with reality is trapped down there in the dark, potentially this little pocket of life is the seed that will grow into a new and beautiful civilization that spans the universe. I think it was a really important option to have in the game to leave the WAU alive. I think I left a copy of Simon alive with the hope that he can grow to live with the WAU to make some life worth living that is still a part of the world. Same with the Simon that thought he would be uploaded to the ark, with the WAU still alive that Simon may still have some hope of a form of company.

[@joshuafleming5380]

I still think the game is horrifying, idc what anyone says lol, I find it even more scary than Amnesia.

[@norwegianboyee]

@@joshuafleming5380 I will always find it strange how people are like "SOMA ISN'T SCARY", it's incredibly scary if you play through slowly and really take your time to get immersed into the environment. If you rush through and just want to stare at the monster then of course it won't be as scary.

[@bravebooce2731]

"l e t m e t e l l y o u t h e s t o r y o f m y p e o p l e"

[@ArcFenixDelacroix]

"One day, we are peaceful..."

[@MS-np2nf]

then the fire nation attacked

[@TheMinman808]

sure

[@juliannatale6743]

Is this a New vegas or Avatar reference

[@B0B4]

>Techno Music Plays

[@unregisteredassaultbutterk1185]

It was scary, but not because of the monsters. It made you afraid in the same way Lovecraft's stuff does, it makes you feel small and hopeless.

[@agiuggio1]

i mean they picked someone with brain trauma....

[@thefalloutwiki]

agiuggio1 you make a Really good point

[@addydiesel6627]

The reason why humanity became extinct

[@joedean2597]

Almost he had a clot, a permanent bleed. not quite a tumour but close enough.

[@bleepbloop101010101]

@@joedean2597 trauma, not tumour

[@CaveyMoth]

Jeez, guys, are we talking hemorrhagic or thrombotic here?

[@maksphoto78]

Disagree, SOMA is a thoroughly spooky game, it's horror on a quite particular level. WAU is essential to this story, as being a neutral, impersonal force that generates so much horror and disturebance.

[@iamdopeasfcuk]

@DrTheKay only virgins use the word virgin as an insult. it's not hard to fuck a girl bro, just talk to them ok

[@zuresei]

@coolthingy incel

[@sleepythemis]

I think that's probably the one thing I disagree with Joseph on, and mostly because I think that he meant to say it's not a SCARY game, but it's still HORROR.

[@fredspofford]

Exactly. Think of it like the weather or some other random force of nature that harasses you while you try to go about adapting to and conquering your new chilling situation which turns out to be impossible from a subjective point of view. That's scary to me.

[@dorema4377]

I agree with every word u just said

[@Mothbean]

"Frictional was trying to make Soma a scary and tense experience, and they failed" I'm sorry, did we play the same game? I've played a ton of horror games, and Soma still stands out as one of the scariest. The atmosphere, setting, story, and monsters are all done in a way that is meant to evoke fear in one form or another, and it is done incredibly well in my opinion. Soma is objectively a horror game and you personally not getting scared doesn't change that fact.

[@JJ-mm4pw]

@DrTheKay Might aswell call you the loser for replying to every comment you see.

[@arvidtonning6348]

DrTheKay You’re a litte bitch!

[@mrburger3540]

DrTheKay can’t you respect other people’s opinions you look like a child

[@t.o.p.4175]

@@mrburger3540There's a channel called mauler and he rips joseph a new one. It's savage how he conpletely negates everything joe said in this video.

[@royaloreo1275]

Reviews are usually subjective, so Joseph judged it based on his own experience.

[@Zebbehog]

19:51 - 20:21 is some of the best editing ive seen on youtube, It's so amazingly put together, the voice over just hits right and the little black screen to end it off. It's so good! Great job! :D

[@sharkymcshark3392]

SOMA was like a black mirror episode turned into a game, and I loved every second of it.

[@Drakyry]

Nah, most of the stories in black mirror episodes are far worse than this game's

[@Ezcobarr]

@@Millllim like this dude in a gta mission is saying, if the fbi catches us shoot me in the brain otherwise they gonna bring me back in a fish tank

[@popdogfool]

@@Millllim The bright side, is that you as a flesh and blood human never have to worry about it. Only AI/copy or not has that to worry about. Just a matter of weather our empathy will allow it, we slaughter animals just because they taste good after all.

[@jeromealday614]

You mean the episode White Christmas? Yeah it was exactly like this

[@Whippets]

Dying with no penalty? Sounds like most games. I loved SOMA, it was more suspenseful and creepy (story based) than scary. It's a masterpiece.

[@dc8836]

A masterpiece is generally something with few to no substantial flaws. SOMA is good, but it can't be classified as a masterpiece :P

[@leticiabarreiros5621]

Ugh, I know. I like his videos, but every time he mentions dying with no penalty as if it was a flaw, I roll my eyes.

[@1234mikedaman]

fuck you

[@dc8836]

Well, horror requires the player to feel threatened, endangered. If you know that you lose nothing for dying, then the monsters and traps and whatever else stop being scary and just become tiresome. Resident Evil having limited saves and limited save locations was a core element of its design. Especially on Hard (and even more so on Real Survival, which removes the magical teleporting item boxes), you don't actually ever have enough ink ribbons to save whenever you'd like. If you die, you lose all progress since your last save. I'm a fan of games that have modular difficulty, rather than discrete difficulty. For example, limited ink ribbons would be something you could toggle before starting the game to customize the difficulty. That's a bit off topic, though.

[@Whippets]

David Carper Don't get me wrong, I prefer games with a penalty for death, but there just aren't that many that really punish you for it so it's a hard "criticism" to take all that seriously. When I play a game I take death somewhat seriously, not because of any penalty the game may impose on me, but because it injures my pride as a player. lol Re: the masterpiece comment, the story is so good that the minor criticisms leveled against the game doesn't detract from that fact. It's just my opinion, I can't nitpick a game that gives me such a great story ---- and I felt a lot of the criticisms were just after the fact nitpicking. I can do that with most any game, even the ones I enjoyed the most.

[@Corrupted]

My #1 Story in a game, by far

[@aeugnewtype]

It seems you haven't played too many games

[@filo5524]

@@aeugnewtype I liked it but I would not say the best. Best story in a horror game though imo

[@del5582]

Soma is brilliant, but it's no Silent Hill 2.

[@TykoBrian7]

@@del5582 silent hill 2 put me to sleep

[@mew5170]

@@aeugnewtype you couldnt be more wrong

[@Sara3346]

The A.I isn't misguided though just poorly built, it followed its instructions absolutely to the best of its abilities and I feel sorry for it.

[@montypython5521]

Apparently you don't have to kill it, and as we see with Simon it's getting better at making functioning people.

[@Volth]

@@montypython5521 It doesn't get better, it just does its stuff and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The WAU doesn't have the capacity to say that an experiment was more successful than another one. It's only command is to keep life alive. Doesn't matter the state of that life (as we can see with Amy, for example, or those monsters on the CURIE), as long as it respects its own definition of "alive", it's successful. It just got lucky with Simon, because it used a mind scan in a flesh body, which helped Simon not go crazy. But the next Simon it would build could simply be another Carl or one of the many robots gone crazy in the station.

[@LineOfThy]

@@Volth I think the WAU is like evolution, finding which random thing led to better humans than others

[@scnoz1430]

One could argue that it isn’t even poorly built. The game implies that the horrible monsters it creates is how a super advanced AI would view life and that aspect is also terrifying. Imagine asking a super computer to build human life and based on its perspective it creates the creatures in Soma, isn’t that a horrifying self reflection of what it means to be human? It’s such a shame that all of this stuff flew over Jospeh’s head.

[@Dutchyman]

It isn't poorly built. It was simply never built with the intention of using structure gel as it's tool to "preserve humanity". Plus, It was only after it learned about all the humans on the surface of the Earth being gone, that it started being more aggressively trying to reach it's goal.

[@nemtudom5074]

I wish that happy ending would have lasted longer. I wanted Simon and Catherine to talk some more. I get it that only that version of him is happy, but, like, as a player, i wanted to enjoy the serenity of that situation more. It felt awful to see catherine, as a human this time, only for it to fade to black IMMEDIATELY

[@kosmara1901]

One has to wonder how long before the people at the Ark lose their sanity too? I mean, they aren't going to grow old or have children. They're going to be around for thousands of years with the same few people to socialize with. How much control do they have in the Matrix? Can they choose to forget the truth? Can they chose to simulate growing old and dying and being reborn? Won't that be a pointless loop? Can they copy and clone and create thousands of each person (like in Galactica) to try to find a solution? Can they even do anything to affect their condition or is it a permanent, unaltering state? Is the Ark heaven or hell?

[@fredspofford]

@@kosmara1901 Well considering that even life as we know it can feel like it's stretching for eternity at times yet we're not expected to lose sanity tells me your question is one only you could answer for yourself. I as well as many others would be just fine other than the normal ups and downs that go with existing whereas there are people on the streets right now that lost their minds simply after a painful divorce. It's subjective.

[@kosmara1901]

@@fredspofford the point is, it won't be really you. The you is part of a whole that includes a biological body. Without that part, your mind is going to be differently "abled" from the start. I guess it depends on what you can actually do in the simulation after all.

[@Wapitikorn77]

@@kosmara1901 Well the ark was supposed to be some sort of eden, right? i assume you can do what you want, my copy for example would probably continue to make music for the rest of time, just because I would enjoy that if I could. Although of course I can't really picture figurative immortality.

[@-._.-KRiS-._.-]

Perhaps that fade to black was exactly how long it took for something to happen to the A.R.K., ending the data stream, for lack of a better term.

[@brockhiebert3338]

Idk bro creepy robots stomping about with glitchy audio playing is pretty spooky

[@dementedavenger2784]

The scariest parts of Soma were the claustrophobic parts. Walking through the Abyss. That feeling of being crushed by the pressure. And then climbing through the tiny caves. Yeesh

[@lupaloops4166]

I personally think the mix of the calm and intense moments is what makes the game a more engaging experience. Even if it can be a nuisance sometimes, at least it didn't feel like it was purely a walking simulator.

[@birdieberry]

Me: "I'm so scared!" Video: "...not really jump-scares, more like jump-startles." Me: "I'm so startled!"

[@fredspofford]

Why are you defending the artistic integrity of something a toaster can achieve?

[@fredspofford]

@Cameron Oh lol, I was wondering how that seemed so on the nose.

[@aguspuig6615]

i dont know how ironic this comment is but the comment section in a nutshell tbh, everyone knows soma is scary but then they act like this video is fine

[@mothsforeyes]

@@aguspuig6615 Because it is fine. Not everyone needs their tastes affirmed or biases confirmed to enjoy another person's perspective.

[@chipflavoredtoes6412]

@@aguspuig6615 Soma for me holds all the intimidation of my Gran calling me in for cookies. I honestly just felt sorry for the "monsters".

[@Marcara081]

Existential horror is a thing. It's arguably not as visceral (shocking, heart-pounding) as traditional horror, but it's arguably more terrifying. The reason being that existential horror borrows from the core of sci-fi in that it asks an open-ended question. But it becomes terrifying because unlike Jason Voorhees or Alien, the question sticks with you past your engagement with the media. Moreover, the answer the existential horror presents, or at least one potential answer, is itself horrifying. Horrifying both in what it entails and that it is entirely possible, true, and sometimes even inevitable. The sort of person who isn't affected by existential horror is someone who can't be. Either they're too arrogant and self-assured to indulge the terrifying questions, or they're too stupid to consider their terrifying implications. The power of traditional horror can leave you permanently afraid of the dark or the basement or the woods. But the power of existential horror can drive you mad.

[@lunarthunder1269]

Yeah, definitely made me go slightly mad/crazy and making my depression, and existential crisis worse for while... probably not best type of game to play with unstable mental health.

[@mistydayremainsofthejudgment]

this is exactly why soma is the scariest game i have played. it made me so deeply uncomfortable because i could easily relate it to real-world terrors of the unknown relating to life and death. it's a masterpiece that i will never be able to play again. i felt sick to my stomach with existential dread at too many parts.

[@BRUXXUS]

I think this, in particular, is even more disturbing because it's a very realistic and similar moral dilemma humanity will have to deal with in the not too distant future.

[@Novashadow115]

Weird seeing you places Marcara

[@plugshirt1684]

Hence why he complimented all of the existential horror and the fear created by the atmosphere the entire video. He just didn’t find the monster bits scary because they are far less scary than other monsters in games and the other moments in this game.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

SOMA = I have no body, and I must scream.

[@atdrawn]

Locutus Borg now that's a smart comment

[@n00bie51]

Yes that's good I Have No Body, And I Must Fart

[@macledou]

n00bie51 I have no butt but I must twerk?

[@JajeczkoV47]

That's a stupid comment. Both creations are different. I have to scream is not similar to soma.

[@Maggbba]

Paddington Miś 3 Not a stupid comment. There ARE some similarities.

[@greathornedowl1783]

I don't understand why people say Soma isn't scary. I find this to be one of the scariest games I've ever played, its got some terrifying jump scares

[@jezefelto333]

I agree it's very scary and terrifying but what jumpscares are you talking about? :D

[@S_F_Brew]

They might not think it’s scary because one of the most influential video game reviewers said it wasnt a horror game

[@greathornedowl1783]

@@jezefelto333 The Flesher

[@limonada4347]

I feel like if all you got from this video is "this dude doesn't think SOMA is scary" you should try watching it again

[@Phoenix80675]

​@@limonada4347 is your reading comprehension non-existent?

[@Thlormby]

You don't have to kill the WAU btw. You can actually just leave, and you keep both arms.

[@galacticreggie]

You lose an arm? Didn't know that, I chose to let the WAU live because I thought that the facility was screwed anyway, and I had no way of knowing what the impact of destroying WAU would have on the space gun. For all I knew, the WAU was the only thing keeping it powered, so I elected not to destroy it.

[@Gentamoru]

@@galacticreggie I killed it because like you said, the station and pretty much the entire world was already fucked anyways... though I kinda regret my decision

[@akiraigarashi2874]

It's better off dead imo. It's the reason the last (known) bastion of human survivors got killed plus who knows what it would have done in the future considering it's actions in the present (mutating animals, resurrecting corpses etc).

[@JH24821]

@@akiraigarashi2874 Agreed. Over time its creations could have spread all over the world.

[@JH24821]

@@samanthacino But does the WAU actually know what it's doing? Does it learn from its experiences or will it just randomly keep inserting brain scans into every object it can find? And even then, how much is the survival of humanity worth? How many times will the people stored within brain scans have to suffer before the WAU gets it "right?" Will it ever understand what being alive truly means?

[@scottbeale1825]

Also I completely disagree with your suggestion for a different direction of the game. Regardless of whether the monsters were scary or not, the WAU was incredibly important for establishing the tone of a universally hostile world. That made Catherine's companionship, as the only human, despite her just being a computer chip, much more meaningful. It primes you for the existential horror of the story. Also, there's a case to be made that the WAU is the best chance that humanity has. It's already DOING what you propose the humans in your story revamp would do. It's experimenting. Improving. Learning. Growing.

[@theuncalledfor]

There's also a strong case to be made against the WAU. Namely, the people stuck inside it, that instruct you to help them by killing it. There's no guarantee that the WAU will ever figure out how to revive humanity. Was it really improving? Or was it just randomly trying all kinds of nonsense while never learning a thing from any of it? Can we know for sure?

[@scottbeale1825]

Yes, that's true, but that's part of what makes the WAU a much more compelling antagonist than just a random collection of failed experiments by well intentioned humans that the video author suggests.

[@theuncalledfor]

Scott Beale Nonetheless, I agree with him that a different direction would have been better. Just not the exact one that he suggested.

[@scottbeale1825]

I mean, you can hold that opinion, but the guy is wrong that the WAU wasn't a critical actor in tying the motifs of the story together, and I have yet to hear of any alternative suggestion that would not have significantly detracted from the game and its themes.

[@SETHthegodofchaos]

+theuncalledfor As Oliver Beener pointed out in an other comment: "Also, one more thing, nobody ever actually begs you to kill them. In fact, they ask the opposite: they ask you NOT to unplug them. The Carl Semken robot asks you to get help, the robot plugged into the geothermal power conduit begs you not to unplug her and then asks why with her dying breath. ("Why? I was okay. I was happy.") Amy is terrified with her situation, but she wants you to get help, and if you start to unplug her she says, "Nooooo!" The only person who asks you to kill anything is Ross, and he wants you to kill the WAU." People want to survive. That is their instinct. They rely on the WAU to survive. The WAU simulates a world based on their happy memories. Nobody wants to see the WAU dead, except Ross because he was against the whole project in the first place way before everybody died and he ended up as a "monster". He was fueled by rage and hate, even going to kill Simon if you dont go and kill the WAU. The Simon robot we play as is the latest invention by the WAU, coming very close to a physical and psychical human, even thought it is based on the gel, robot parts and the brain scan of Simon. From there it can only get better, dont you think? The WAU was finally on track. You (the first real success) killing of the WAU, feels like a kick in the nuts for the WAU. It is what we usually fear about when creating AI and it will overcome and try to kill us.

[@MarqZePancakeNinja]

The ending has a much greater impact when you get them reversed. Seeing your copy on the arch thinking everything was fine and then being shown the copy left behind, scared and alone. Getting the ending that way is gut wrenching.

[@paolumouse]

This was my only gripe with the ending. It was so close to being perfect...

[@EmpaGalactica]

I read somewhere I cannot remember that, THAT was the original ending, but test audiences said it was "too depressing".

[@joshuafleming5380]

Honestly I think this game is even more scary than Amnesia, not just because of the monsters which are absolutely horrifying but the isolated, post apocalyptic, Mariana Trench-like setting added so much more horror to it as well, not to mention the feeling of hopelessness throughout the game.

[@ftwftn6157]

That moment very Early in the game when you are walking out of the first compound through a tunnel with see-through walls and see that you are DEEP UNDER THE WATER blew my mind in a way no other game had. I still would have been scared from beginning to end if there were no monsters at all. Just being alone in the deep. And going deeper. And deeper. It was like Bioshock but way more real.

[@justwungo]

There's...something about the pre-credits ending that, really gets to me. That's not to say it's the saddest game I've played, but I think if all the sad moments in games, this is the one that feels the most personal to me. Everything Simon says after Catherine goes offline...it reminds me of things I've been through. Things I've said and done. To the point where they way he says "Please don't leave me alone" reminds me of a time where I said that exact sentence, with the exact same affliction. When people are angry, confused, just generally don't understand what's happening? They don't think rationally, and lash out at the people they need the most. In a way I think in that moment I realised that Simon *is* one of the most human characters in videogames...possibly *the* most. The post credits scene, it's cute, and I think that laying off the sadness with a happy ending is cute, though it really wasn't necessary, and I'd actually like to hear why the devs chose to do that. But...yeah. Soma's pretty impactful to me.

[@Leo122188]

"The simulation is so good that it functions identically to reality as we know it." I sorta get what you're getting at, but the simulation would BE reality as we know it.

[@DanielTejnicky]

Well actually I think you made big mistake of expecting it to be a monster horror game. THIS is not fkin Outlast. I found the SOMA's "monsters" great and fresh change, because they are not monsters, they are lost, suffering humans, kept alive against all natural odds by the WAU. I've felt compassion for them the whole time and I was very pealsently surprised as to how much more depth this fact alone gives the SOMA. Things are not that black and white as in other games. Some of those things are agressive because they are frustrated to no end by their condition - went crazy. Other deliberetly try to imobilize you (yes not to kill you) so that you can be plugged in in to the WAU "matrix" to preserve your mind. I really liked that ! It made whole experiance very intimately human, even tho you encounter almost no humans. It contrasts with normal everyday reality very nicely, yet it is right on the point of themes like what does it mean to be alive and what is reality vs mind experiencing something subjective. I felt like I'm in very shitty situation where EVERYONE is suffering even the "monsters". I think this is point that many players missed about it, maybe because most players don't care about phyllosophy?

[@WobblesandBean]

^ This. Also, you're not "canonically faster" as there are several key moments in the game where it becomes quite clear they can outrun you. I dunno about you but there's a very primal fear I feel when I'm being chased or stalked. Even though I knew dying had no real consequences, it stills cared the shit out of me every time I was caught.

[@Nabekukka]

The root for the reason why everybody starts out with the assumption that it is a monster horror game is precisely because that is what Frictional is known for, and that is what all of their previous games have been and have aimed for. The Penumbra trilogy (with the exception of Penumbra: Requiem) and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. And you can clearly tell that SOMA did aim for this as well, only the reason why it fell short in this open for questioning. Whether it's because Frictional didn't quite recognize that they could've broken away from the mold of the previous games and attempted to go back to what they are used to making and didn't get it quite right, or whether it's a case similar to what I think happened with Clock Tower 3. It starts out laying the horror atmosphere, similar to what Haunting Grounds is, but after the first 30 minutes (pulled that number somewhat from my ass, but perhaps you get the idea) it turns completely ridiculous, to the point where you start thinking that the devs for whatever reason totally gave up on that idea and said "Fuck it, let's make this into a magical schoolgirl game instead" without scrubbing the beginning and starting from scratch. Or perhaps they genuinely tried to make a horror monster game from the start and didn't realize that they didn't get it quite right. Or something completely different. That's my take on this anyway.

[@WobblesandBean]

Petri Helenius I still disagree, the concept, atmosphere, and stalking/hiding mechanic all unsettled me deeply.

[@BRUXXUS]

That final section in Omicron is a moment that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Probably one of the most chilling and upsetting experiences I have ever had. Edit: I don't really agree with your proposed revision of the game. I think it would work better as a totally different game/story, though. If you were walking around Pathos II and it was just full of people, and the lights were all on you'd totally lose that feeling of utter oppressive dread that there is truly no one left. That feeling of isolation and hopelessness is exactly what makes SOMA a truly horrifying experience, one that has embedded itself into my memories since I played it 5 years ago. The WAU makes such a good enigmatic and alien antagonist that adds to the whole package. I will agree, though, the monsters and stealth sections feel shunted in, and even Frictional have said they agree. They felt pressure to have more traditional "scary" stuff that people were used to from their previous games. Although, I do think that there needed to be some iteration of the WAU that was mobile to make certain things possible. that said, SOMA is one of my all-time favorite games. Just brilliant.

[@MadMaxBLD]

I did NOT expect the story to be about Simon's brain simulation like you said you were. The game did not "set this up" at all. It did misdirect the player in the intro, but when Simon woke up in the underwater base my first question was "is this real and/or time travel" - I was actually theorizing that the scan was more of a transfer into a virtual world or something. Which *is* kind of a topic of SOMA as well... My point is, not every player will come to the same conclusions.

[@ordinarytree4678]

@@Dunmerdog Id call you "triggered" but I think thatd just make you more hysterical. I hope youve reached some kind of calm in the past three months, taken a break from these youtubers you hate yet?

[@emiki6]

I thought at first that he end up on a spaceship, but I didn't know how. It blew my mind though, as well as the whole game. I loved the storytelling.

[@mishal2401]

I feel that the ending of SOMA isn't as bleak as even the game is convinced it is. We see that the WAU is getting increasingly good at building artificial humans, plus robot Cathrine and robot Simon still remain in the facility. There's also the original robot Simon they could go get, for 3 people to start off with. As robots, they only need power to continue to exist in the facility, which the facility seems to be able to keep producing. If they were to start making sure that the facility doesn't collapse altogether, then their numbers would be bolstered over time by the WAU's efforts and they could start a robot society. Eventually, with enough effort, they could set up shop on the surface and repopulate the planet because as machines they have no need for a functioning ecosystem and are much hardier than any human.

[@Spartain14]

Interesting. Do you think WAU could get to the point where it could make proper bodies for the brain scans? Like the closest thing to a 'real' body?

[@jimijenkins2548]

@@Spartain14 I'd argue that without a standard for a 'proper' body, the shape hardly matters so long as it's a vessel through which a consciousness can interact with the world. The WAU isn't the villain of this story. Come to think of it, there are no villains, only tragic antagonists. Much better to let the WAU continue trying until it gets something right.

[@michaelandrews117]

The WAU also, however, makes any intelligent synthetic or organic life go absolutely insane when it takes over however, so relying on that doesn't seem to be an option. Catherine would need to be rebooted and reinstalled into the base, something Simon has absolutely no idea how to do and would require finding a way to access Catherine's existing data. As for the Simon's on the base: One is trapped at the bottom of the trench without a working Omnitool (as it fried when Catherine short-circuited), meaning he can't use the elevator to reach the top of the trench again, and the other Simon is stuck in a room that *also* requires an Omnitool to get between doors. So yeah. The ending is bleak as fuck.

[@montypython5521]

@@michaelandrews117 it'd take a while but trench Simon could climb up hypothetically

[@Atlessa]

Except that robot Catherine accidentally fries herself getting angry at Simon...

[@Mike-hb4qz]

Strongly disagree about the game being not scary. The game has bags of tension and suspense, and some monsters (not the fish or robot) are legitimately creepy. You mention the very first monster looking cool not scary as if a good horror game is going to reveal the big scare in the first 5 minutes. This isnt Outlast and I think its a testiment to the devs that they could create such an ominous atmosphere without having some meat suit with a halloween mask jump out of every closet

[@alexradice8163]

I feel like they tried to copy Outlast and that's a big part of why the gameplay was not scary

[@andre_601]

​@@alexradice8163 That would be a general insult towards SOMA to say it tried to copy Outlast. Outlast tries too many times to scare you with gore and annoying jump scares while SOMA is more about giving you thoughts you don't want to think about, like what makes you human. When is a robot a robot and when a human being? When are you "killing" a robot and not just shut it down? Like for real... If you seriously claim that SOMA copied from Outlast would that be like saying Portal and Portal 2 copied from Minecraft in terms of portals. It would be a gigantic insult.

[@thomasssssssssssssssss]

@@andre_601 I know I'm late but I think they were saying that the general 'hide from monster' gameplay copies Outlast, even though I would think Outlast copied from Amnesia which Frictional Games made but idk. I agree with them in the sense that the monster sections feel incredibly shoehorned and boring, and make exploring locations with amazing atmosphere frustrating as a result. The horror IS more in the existential crises, but the monster sections make the game worse.

[@smonk2479]

@@thomasssssssssssssssss I'm not sure that I agree with that, the monster sections are the bits that help to lessen the built tension by genuinely scaring you. Frictional did an excellent job of making every chase that happened feel like a near miss.

[@plugshirt1684]

He said in the video that all of the horror worked except for the monster sections he just worded it poorly at the start by saying the game wasn’t scary at all but the rest of the video he says how the existential horror and fear from the atmosphere are great but the monster sections in this game aren’t very scary with the exceptions of Akers and the water monsters(excluding water robots) and that the monster sections are tedious and take away from the great story, atmosphere, and existential horror.

[@markgregory2746]

This video made me weep please just experience this masterpiece for yourselves.

[@TheCivildecay]

I like your video essays, but you often state that a game is not scary or too easy where you seem to be in the minority, likely giving off the wrong expectations to people that still need to play the game.

[@JameboHayabusa]

Should he lie then?

[@TwistedScarlett60]

@@JameboHayabusa While subjectivity is implied, Joseph talks about how unscary SOMA is multiple times and hammers that point as one of the biggest flaws the game has. In reality he should have realized he was in a minority and explained that the game is perhaps scary to most, but it just wasn't scary to him. By stating so matter of factually that the game isn't scary he's giving the impression that this game is some walk in the park, when in reality it's still one of the scariest experiences in media. I personally think it's scarier than Amnesia TDD.

[@RileyRivalle2]

Also, from what I can see, he's playing the game in "safe mode", where enemies won't chase him or harm him unless very provoked. Obviously this takes away a lot of the horror experience.

[@ayazyaman6506]

@@RileyRivalle2 if you know joseph by streams you'd know he isn't the person to play games at easy difficulties

[@texmurph]

ayaz yaman His encounter with the first robot looks like safe mode. If I recall, if the robot catches you in its line of sight, you’re screwed pretty quickly, and have nowhere near that amount of time to stare at it while it just stands there. It should always be in a looping patrol animation.

[@noricardas1]

TBH I got Soma from Epic shop for free for the story and it was my first ever horror game. Even if the monsters don't kill you and I played in safe mode I had to stop before every encounter and find the courage to go through it. In my honest opinion the horror part is not lacking. And I am 22...

[@ghihbgyu]

I second this. I find the monsters in soma more frightening than their counterparts in Resident Evil or Amnesia: The dark descent.

[@ImOkWithThis]

never realized the "your vision is malfunctioning because you have cameras not eyes" never put 2 and 2 together

[@theuncalledfor]

It is stated. Explicitly. By Catherine.

[@bebe7C9]

well those are still words you have to put 2gether

[@acrazyguy14]

It also actually excuses lens flare this time.

[@scnoz1430]

Such a shame that Joseph didn’t even realise that you had the choice to keep the WAU running. One would question why you would leave it running but remember, one of the first robots that you meet, when you take them off the WAU, they beg you to plug him back in, indicating that some people or even some of the monsters made by the WAU are living in total bliss. Of course this flew right over Anderson’s head.

[@MrNinjaBurger]

For me the weird part is at the end when he talks about rewriting it but instead of the WAU doing the stitching together it's just people? Like it's the same thing but he has a problem with one and not the other, and if it were people doing it then it lessens the story immensely and what it's trying to tell. It's bizarre to me.

[@subzeroalphaq]

Note: killing the WAU was also a choice.

[@lostingames5657]

check 39:20

[@subzeroalphaq]

LostInGames oh the way he was talking about it seemed like he didn't realize that it was still a choice

[@lostingames5657]

Nick Orie Well, misinterpreting 1 single point out of a video this long isn't bad :P

[@subzeroalphaq]

mh yeah, I just think that he couldve elaborated more on the implications of killing (or not killing) the WAU

[@dalekmun2010]

The implications being fuck all, as the game writes "Lost the coin toss" Simon off as dead (I can't keep track of which # simons are which" "Lol, here's another choice which could change everything but doesn't change a second of the remaining gameplay, just the story for you to work out yourself WOOOO" which is shit because the only good parts of the story to work out yourself are non-monster related. MAYBE if you left the WAO alive it'll rebuild everything and everyone will end up having tea and cookies like suggested at the end of the video! No. If you're not gonna even hint that a player has a choice, it isn't important. Especially not when it comes to part of a game most people just wanted to get past so they could get back to the good stuff.

[@krabbcake8371]

I just found your channel and I have to honestly say, you are the best, most dedicated game reviewer on here.

[@andariel654789]

Check out the Lorerunner if you haven't heard of him.

[@remembertotakeshowerspleas355]

Have you heard of Matthewmattosis? Or Noah Caldwell-Gervais? He's a good game reviewer and all, but the best? Seems a little unfair.

[@jmiquelmb]

pttoau Weldezion I won't discuss which one is better, but adding to this list of reviewers, there's also game maker's toolkit and ethos

[@remembertotakeshowerspleas355]

jmiquelmb Game maker's toolkit isn't really a reviewer. His videos are more aimed at game design, rather than full reviews. And he rarely says anything negative. Haven't head of ethos.

[@jmiquelmb]

pttoau Weldezion Yeah, you're right. I put him in the list because it's one of those "academic" gaming channels.

[@buzer2011]

"SOMA isn't really a horror game. It isn't scary" Well if it isn't, then I really don't want to know how "really scary" games can be, because I was afraid to play SOMA for a week after meeting Akers first time.

[@matthewknudson8610]

buzer2011 it’s extensional horror , because while it has horror elements, the game is disturbing, tense and gripping because it paints a strong picture of this bleak conclusion to humanity. It’s you being placed inside jarret and with him, coming to terms this horribly depressing new world, and trying to deal with the end of the world. Your trying to find meaning. That’s one of the experiences I found it offers. Your drowning in a sea of pitch and clinging onto a piece of wreckage that’s sliding deeper and deeper. Your coming to terms with this is why the game is so emotionally draining.

[@david_escalante]

Alien Isolation?

[@buzer2011]

@@david_escalante That game frightened me with its UI alone.

[@nobody2021]

at this point i am convinced that the only way he would find a game to be scary is if there was a person standing next to him with a bat, and if he takes damage in the game, the guy will hit him with the bat in real life.

[@david_escalante]

@Toptierganon maybe because what soma presents wasn't new for me, but it was more fascinating than traumatizing

[@somebvnny]

This is an old video, but I've grown and learned so much since the release of SOMA. There's a lot of points in this video that I disagree with, and I'm not fond of how the script seems to state opinions as fact. This game relies heavily on fridge horror-- you said it yourself perfectly when you said, "the real horror [of this scene] snuck up on me slowly, with layers that I didn't grasp until I thought about it later." you're not meant to be frightened by it in an in-your-face way like some other horror games do. That's what makes it _psychological_ horror. First of all, horror is subjective. Just because you didn't find the enemies frightening doesn't mean that they aren't for some others. Personally I like the monster designs and they draw parallels to early Silent Hill monsters, as well as sci-fi concepts from the Dead Space series. The usage of glitch effects is actually clever, for reasons you said yourself: it obscures parts of the monster, and leaves the mind to fill in the blanks. This is horror 101! Fear of the unknown, "nothing is scarier" trope territory. Often times things being left unexplained or not directly shown is scarier than revealing a monster or jumpscare. There's also the neat fact you pointed out, that these glitches are likely a result of Simon having artificial eyes. I'm not saying the enemies are perfect, I mean they aren't much of a threat to Simon, but their designs have more genius than you may realize. The important thing to remember about the enemies in SOMA is that they were once human, like Simon is. That's the psychological horror aspect. Similar to Splicers in BioShock, they were once normal people and are now monsters. Just like Simon's scan being used repeatedly, or the fact that we're essentially bringing Brandon to life over and over again, we're left only with the implication and need to fill in the blanks with our own imagination. What did those people go through in order to end up as deformed monstrous flesh robots? We even meet a character who is being kept alive against her will because, and I quote, "they won't let me die." Can you imagine yourself in that situation? _That's_ horrific. Put yourself in her situation and revel in the existential anxiety. In any case, SOMA has a gamemode that completely disables the monsters and allows you to just experience the story. I won't say that it makes the monster critiques invalid, but it does show that SOMA is meant to be mostly a story experience, and not a Resident Evil-type game where you're at risk because something is actively hunting you. They're meant to creep you out in concept, not make you scared of the consequences of being caught. You say that the game wants to be partially a slow-burning story and a thrilling gaming experience... why can't it be both? For example, awesome horror films like Hereditary have sequences of slow, subtle horror _and_ tense moments of panic. The Descent starts off extremely slow, relying on claustrophobia and environmental threats before we're introduced to the "supernatural" monster threat way into the film. Despite that, its still one of my very favorite horror films. Maybe it isn't pulled off perfectly in SOMA, but I think a key element is good horror is having a combination of these moods and good pacing. As a huge horror fan (I love horror games, movies, manga/novels, you name it!), I personally disagree with jumpscares being a "cheap" tactic. Sometimes its used cheaply, yes, but most of the time it _does_ do what its mean to. Startle you. Catch you off guard, maybe hit you with something else now that you're still recollecting yourself from the scare. When used correctly, jumpscares can be a useful asset to horror media. Also I'm a naturally anxious person, so jumpscares do often work on me if I'm invested; it just backs up what I said earlier about horror being subjective. Also, little note about the sound design; the reason you're given subtle ambient cues along with louder banging and such is because horror relies heavily on ambience. Actually, sound design is important for setting the mood in any media. Can you imagine if dramatic MCU scenes were backed with comical music? Its similar in horror media, including both games and even films. Subtly is key, but the addition of the loud noises along with it is meant to drive a sensory overload. As someone with auditory integration issues, sound design like this really piques my anxiety levels. Maybe the subtly is the problem. Maybe because a good chunk of modern horror is in-your-face, people forget to appreciate the subtle nuances and terrifying implications of games like SOMA, or even Prey. The overall theme of this game is existentialism, what it means to be human and if we can still be considered "human" if we're without our bodies. Its a game that makes you think. You're so close to making the connection, too. 31:32 "which is something I didn't think about until I _finished the game"_

[@Neo2266.]

Oh my fucking god a smart person. That's rare for this comment section. Hey, ever heard of Mauler? He did an in-depth comparison of Soma vs Amnesia, which is actually good unlike this shitstorm

[@MrTomyCJ]

Subjectivity is implied. The game does not present itself as a game meant to be mostly a story experience. There's no reason to say that they didn't want you to be scared of being caught, other than it didn't happen because of bad design. It can't be both because one experience is partially ruined by the other. Again, this is at least what happened to him. And it's fine. Subjectivity is implied. Some people like this video because it expresses well their own subjective opinion, and that's fine too. Many people consider jump scares cheap because they are: they don't take much effort to create. That's it. They don't deny that they are scary, they just say they are cheap and thus don't deserve credit *on their own*. What takes effort is the ambience, which then can make jump scares effective, among many other good things. I think Joseph did notice and appreciate many of the things that you're mentioning as if he hadn't.

[@dark-ambition]

"It's not like you show up here and Catherine says "Let me tell you the story of my people" and then starts blasting techno music" crangratulations you win i cant this A++

[@Antiformed]

I thought the punishment for getting caught in Soma was the bloody screen and limping until you can find another wall-anus.

[@mrbitbot]

It's game over if you get caught while limping

[@JosephAndersonChannel]

Haha wall-anus.

[@MetalMockingjay]

That's something I find interesting as well. Those ports are made by/part of the WAU construct, right? So by using them, you're basically taking advantage of the same thing that you're trying to kill because it's providing the same service to other beings, albeit in a flawed manor.

[@tetrahedron_in_space]

I think one of my favorite moments in the game is the decision you have to make between the helper bot and the human bot wandering around in order to get the chip so you can progress the story. I would be very interested to see which one was picked to be sacrificed more often by players; with no hesitation, I went for the human bot because the helper bot had helped me twice at that point. Isn't that weird? I more willingly hunted down what is essentially a human being (I think the game really drives this idea home, you have to shock the human bot 3 times and each time it flies away a small distance, which forces you to have to chase it around) rather than eliminate a bot that literally follows you around, that we KNOW doesn't have a human consciousness inside of it, and would probably gladly let you eliminate it in order to continue fulfilling its purpose of helping you. It's quite an uncomfortable predicament and definitely helps aid the themes already present in the game at that point (as you said, throwing away the idea that a human must look human to be so). I love when games provide choices like this that make you wildly uncomfortable.

[@aniket8350]

I did not even know that the helper bot can be killed

[@mono8476]

@@aniket8350 yep. when u kill the big one the little one gets scared of u

[@thereprehensible435]

16:09 I mean... The "cut" operation is in fact just copying and then deleting source information when a location to paste is chosen. This is because on a drive, information is stored in the form of electromagnetic blips, 0s and 1s so to speak. It's physiclly impossible to "cut" and move these. Instead, the signals are read, recorded... Then replicated/written. Soma is a realistic take on transhuman mind-transfer, but I doubt most people understand the limit and method in which data is "cut"... Because this very understanding is*why* so many humans involved with the project committed suicide after their copies were made. This also makes sense when discussing the idea of quantum teleportation, as perfect duplicates of information existing simultaneously is impossible. The *only* way to make sure the copy of their consciousness isn't scrambled due to this phenomenon... Is to destroy and scramble the old.

[@HangMrH]

The problem is that it isn't a teleportation, and i have to actually kill myself and i am not gonna know what the other version experience from that point forward, why that hell would i want to do that…

[@HangMrH]

Even if rhd information is scrambled and the old will be deleted at that moment this conscious is done it's no more, i don't get to experience the 1000 version of me, only other observers get to see me appearing again.

[@montypython5521]

"This also makes sense when discussing the idea of quantum teleportation, as perfect duplicates of information existing simultaneously is impossible. The only way to make sure the copy of their consciousness isn't scrambled due to this phenomenon... Is to destroy and scramble the old." No because from the moment the copy is created it ceases to be a perfect copy

[@Bakersvill]

soma is a master piece. frictional games are on another level when it comes to making games

[@aviatorhawk37]

Ah yes, f r i c t i o n

[@puffnisse]

Counting this game game, they have made one good game at least.

[@dmin5782]

@@puffnisse The Dark Descent?

[@jazz8000]

You don't have to destroy the WAU though. You are the latest WAU creation, and you are doing really well, unlike the other robots. WAU is getting better and better with creating new life, if we choose not to destroy WAU we can think that it keeps on going making more and better robot-people.

[@firstgalacticempire8928]

Johan Ross who helped devlop the WAU thought that you should destroy it though, and would you really want those poor souls like Akers and others to continue aimless, painful, wandering?

[@MyOrangeString]

Thing is, you can infer that WAU is learning along the way. Its latest creation is Simon 2, who's pretty damn close to an actual human being...

[@stridernfs1]

The WAU was getting better at creating life, and when you do kill it Johan Ross talks about killing you because you’re the only one able to read the new signals or whatever. I’m guess that was an implication was that the wau wasn’t actually destroyed, just changed a little.

[@Sidecutt3]

WAU is pretty much the best change for humanity at this point.

[@Fergit_]

If robot is human then who was phone?

[@SETHthegodofchaos]

wat

[@nathaneskin3572]

anxietydown Phone human robot is the robot phone obviously

[@LordRambo]

phone was YOU all along!

[@nathaneskin3572]

LordRambo Nooooooooooo

[@chasedesperado]

The ring...

[@Somehowstillkicking]

legit this is just the "my 4am existencial dread (tm)" the game, not really 'scary' but something that would leave me with the most uncomfortable feeling of paranoia for weeks

[@harry_page]

It really рissеs me off that videos like this have probably put thousands of people off giving this game a chance

[@garblewarble6965]

I'm actually surprised by the lack of critique on the enemies in the game. They were the main problems for me because of how they were introduced. The first few ones were alright with the hints "Don't look at it" and "The proxy listens". Those were obvious signs on how to avoid the monsters. However, everything after was so vague I had to look them up online. For example the robot girl. With all the garbage just lying around the best guess was she would be activated by sound. Nope, she gets activated by movement, the closer you are the slower you must move. Or the leviathan and how it would attack you sometimes regardless of lights nearby.

[@makaronaldo]

I really like your videos in general but I must argue on some points: 1. you say the monsters ruin the gameplay and yet your best moments of the game were the quiet, haunting, tense moments...I don't see how you can get that effect in the atmosphere of the game without the monsters...removing the monsters and just having people you can interact with? Then what's the point of the game? The people would launch the ARK and there is no game. Also, the monsters get you and you die...since when is that a problem in any game? Sure it ruins the immersion if it happens too often but the encounters aren't too tough to get through fo that reason. 2. I'm surprised you don't touch on the subject that who we are playing all along is Simon_v3. The game just doesn't work any other way. It's the Simon who "won" the coin toss twice in a row but lost the third time around. He has the memories but not the experience, if that makes sense. That's why the ark is shown AFTER the credits...this signifies that this is a different Simon, a different game, a different player. It wouldn't make sense to experience both the ark AND the dark moments after the launch during the same game. 3. I also think it would have been a nice touch if we were playing as Simon_v2 all along and at the powersuit moment witness Simon_v3 take the omnitool and leave. We would then be trying to catch up with Simon_v3 and have to eventually fight him and yet STILL not end up in the ark.

[@peoplehumans939]

Isn’t there a mod that just makes the monsters passive that lots of people like explicitly because the monster sections suck

[@Ekkobelli]

@IntergalacticNobody I'm pretty sure he knows that. That's why he wrote "...Simon who 'won' the coin toss...". He just took the term and ran with it, as it's a good fitting and relatable metaphor.

[@SacredDaturaa]

@@peoplehumans939 That's a vanilla game setting, I think. At the start of the game you get to choose between "Normal" and "Safe".

[@netglitch5943]

"It's like the opposite of SCP-173" could've also said "It's like SCP-096"

[@minidreschi2]

there is a SCP for everything nearly

[@lordprotektorwurstgesicht6526]

096 is the enderman, isn't it?

[@netglitch5943]

@@lordprotektorwurstgesicht6526 Shy guy, yes.

[@generatoralignmentdevalue]

Or just an actual weeping angel.

[@ericcheese7594]

34:40 'There are only 5 people in the world, somehow you are still the dumbest.'

[@MrTomyCJ]

32:10 The simulations you run in Pathos 2 are different from the ones Simon is used thousands of times. Catherine explains that she invented this new type of simulation. The prior ones weren't nearly as self conscious, because they weren't intended to fully simulate a person (to put it in the ark), but to simulate brain responses to certain stimuli.

[@PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim]

thank you! that answered my question

[@jeanremi8384]

Well still, in function this is what any brain, simulated or not, does, it responds to stimuli. You could argue they were still alive

[@KartsSafespace]

imagine what the brain scans in that computer would do. they don’t have a body to control, no eyes to see through, no ears to hear with. i’d assume that the reason Munshi’s experiments didn’t work would be because that brain was freaking out trying to comprehend living as a computer file. actually quite scary i never considered that before.

[@LaserGadgets]

So.....its not a shooter!?

[@taylorm3560]

Well, technically, no. But you do fire a bullet at some point... 😏

[@owentayygaming7567]

not a shooter.

[@LaserGadgets]

@@owentayygaming7567 Bought it back then, not bad, awesome story. But Im still not into hide and sneak.

[@uckyou30]

"it's not scary" 12:10 *Hears loud noise* *Crouches and looks around* 🤣 Ookayyyy

[@plugshirt1684]

He said the atmosphere and existential horror were scary he said the monster sections were not scary as they were tedious and took away from the parts of the game that are actually good

[@plugshirt1684]

@Toptierganon none of the monsters besides Akers were scary in the slightest as besides Akers every other enemy you just need to hit one button or get past them it some other small thing and that’s all you ever see of them so they leave little to no impact and aren’t scary at all

[@plugshirt1684]

@Toptierganon you didn’t address my point at all in that entire paragraph how is that even possible I didn’t once mention the design of the monsters or the sound design no shit it’s good but that doesn’t matter with how little you interact with each monster. Take some examples I’ll use the names they have on the wiki to simplify things: robot head you get past hit one button and then a little later you run past tot the exit and that is all you get to see if this monster for the entire game. Jin yoshida has great build up, design, and sound design and all you get to see of him is you hit one button and go through the door and never see him again. The problem isn’t that they themselves aren’t scary it’s that you barely see them in the game though the fleshers I just don’t find scary since they are so easy to deal with you just don’t look at them. Most of the monsters show up for about less than a minute to the point where they barely even have time to leave an impact. The only monster who truly breaks this rule is Akers who has the entirety of delta building up his character and then when you finally meet him in theta you have to complete a puzzle made around his mechanics breaking a window when he is sound sensitive. After you get in you have to watch as it slowly walks past your window and decide when you want to leave only to be told your keycard isn’t high enough so you have to go to a room where you can lick yourself in and lock the monster in a different room as you have to decide when to get back to the elevator. He is the only monster in the game who feels like he wasn’t just shoehorned in at the last moment and was actually developed. Okay now for the other part of what you said it isn’t falsely criticizing something when I legitimately found it to be a weak point of the game it’s subjective and to me this was a major flaw in it regardless of if it scared you or not. Also I don’t get how you really can’t get that it’s implied that it’s my opinion obviously it doesn’t apply to everyone to me the monster sections in this game are far less scary than what else the game has to offer and the monster sections of nearly any other horror game. Ironic however that you try and call me out on saying this as a statement when it is obviously just my opinion right after stating my criticism of the game is objectively false you should be called out on that.

[@plugshirt1684]

@Toptierganon I said you you see the robot girl twice not once but even then there both so minimal that it might as well have not shown up the second time. Yes that’s it’s only purpose that’s my problem when the monsters only purpose is too block a button and a door and you deal with them for thirty seconds it doesn’t last long enough to be scary. The fleshers I will agree aren’t poorly made I just don’t find them scary. The big difference between the fleshers and the amnesia monsters is that the fleshers don’t attack you when looking away but the monsters in amnesia do so you have to know where they are without ever looking directly at them. Though I will admit the fleshers are an exception to the rule along with Akers I just didn’t find the fleshers even remotely as scary as Akers. Regarding the opinions once again I don’t think it’s necessary to say in my opinion when I’m telling you why I personally find them not scary it’s implied that it is my opinion.

[@pixel3082]

@Toptierganon lol

[@TNJX]

Best game I've played in 10 years

[@sanda2318]

I second that

[@hectoreguiluz]

Third. Probably since Team Silent dissapear.

[@musefan7775]

I fourth that

[@justinkroboth360]

I put Bloodborne as #1, but there's a strong case for SOMA being second. These are the only two games in recent years that I can say I still ponder, even years after having first finished them. What an experience.

[@tilberry19]

Man Idk.. I'm only 2 hrs in and don't see it being that great. Bloodborne, witcher 3, last of us are 9.5 - 10/10 games. Feel like soma is at an 8 right now, where as Amnesia tdd was a 9+

[@AdonisOuranios]

This critique gave me an existential crisis

[@rpersen]

SOMA is the best game I have ever played, it is truly a masterpiece. I would even go as far as calling it art. It stays with you loooong after you finish it, and you owe yourself to play through it at least once.

[@Zach-cn4lb]

All video games are art though?

[@scnoz1430]

I love how he says that Soma is a complete gameplay failure but doesn’t elaborate at all. Also, I don’t know why he chooses to crucify Soma for the “problem” of respawning in video games, that is just the nature of the medium. Unless he wants a horror game to blowup your computer when you die, his critique of dying having no consequences because you can just try again makes no sense.

[@marcelog590]

I have to disagree about Soma not have a good focus on being scary. It is. It has a good atmosphere. And in the mid-end part of the game, it really does that job. At the start, it's true, it's not like Amnesia. But Amnesia is just like that: Atmosphere, sounds, not being able to attack. Sure, now you don't need to manage light and sanity, but you still have to survive. I think your point is actually "SOMA has such a great story that the gameplay part is small compared to it", because for an Indie game, it really has a n excellent story but not much tools for the gameplay part. But that doesn't mean it's gameplay aspect is bad or terrible. It's good. The story just shadows it at the end.

[@trdi]

Couple of things to add, that I didn't see mentioned (apart from WAU choice - you don't have to kill it): - Personally I thought that voice acting was very good. The speech was realistic, not dramatic like it is in most games. I thought that it was more immersive this way. - The enemies did differ and only probably the easiest one was mentioned. Some of them have an amazing hearing and others can only see. Some of them can be distracted by throwing objects and others can't. Some of them will chase you through automatic doors and others won't. Some enemies are indeed slow, but others are much faster than Simon. Some creatures kill Simon and others just make him unconscious. Some creatures don't see or hear, but will react to you looking at them or being in close proximity. Some creatures teleport. Some creatures will only attack if you DON'T look at them.

[@strawberrysunshine]

pretty sure he mentioned most of those enemies actually

[@ethhics]

TubineGaming Wasn't that the same in Amnesia though? I hated sitting in a dark corner, waiting for that Grunt to piss off

[@ethhics]

trdi All creatures can open doors. At least those you meet inside a station. Also, there is no monster that attacks you if you don't look at it. Slender mechanics are thankfully absent in this game.

[@bubbleman2002]

In Amnesia the enemies can outrun you in a straight line, also the monsters are actually scary looking. Also real men just carry a box around and continuously bounce it off the grunt as they backpedal towards the objective.

[@kurtlawson2004]

I was constantly refreshing my KZbin page until you posted your next video! Finally I can sleep! ... In 42 Minutes.

[@timstalam]

It's unfortunate you didn't find the gameplay horror and monsters up to snuff. For me, the tension and dread of navigating each location combined with the stellar existential and sci-fi storytelling made this such a great experience.

[@kxhunter88]

Hey man, I just gotta say I started watching your videos only a few days ago, first seeing your The Witness commentary in my recommended videos list, and I was really impressed by how in-depth you go into these games and how candid you are with your thoughts. I went from that to your Inside video, to your Bloodborne one and this one, and I just had to write this because I got more impressed with each one. The quality of your uploads is so consistent and genuinely interesting that I couldn't stop watching. Well done sir, you earned another subscriber.

[@JosephAndersonChannel]

Thanks so much. The Witness brought in a ton of new viewers this week and it's great to hear that some of you liked it enough to try some other videos--and enjoyed those too.

[@James-zz6nq]

I have a similar story to Kxhunter, I saw the Witness in recommended and i decided to watch it for noise, while i did something else. I was pleasantly surprised and i have watched a few of your videos, The script in this video was amazing and now about 10 minutes after watching im basically forcing my friend to watch so that we can discuss how fucked up we are by your amazing explanation +1 sub

[@slash_estio]

kxhunter88 same... love his videos

[@EternalGoldenNight]

Also I'm pretty sure you have the choice to not kill the WAU. You can just run right trough.

[@catiseith]

1. You can choose not to kill the WAU too. 2. As inconsequential the monsters are, I like them much better how they are implemented here than in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. 3. I have wondered about the endings myself, and if not having the happy part would had been better or worse. It isn't unheard of movies and books having depressing endings working really well.

[@Duriel181]

the order in which the happy and unhappy ending sequences. eg which part comes before and after the credits. changes based on your other choices in the game. the ending becomes A LOT more powerful by having the happy bit first. im quite disappointed by the fact that joseph didnt research that detail. Joseph Anderson

[@mastergwaha]

no shit? this is the first I've heard about that and I've listened to hours of youtubers talk about it! you should +Joseph Anderson

[@catiseith]

TheDuriel Which specific choices? In all my playthroughs I always got the depressing before and happy after. Although imagining them in a different order, they definitely would feel different.

[@Duriel181]

CaitSeith if i remember correctly it happens when you try to avoid killing others as best as possible. including whiping the legacy scans, attacking the robot with the shock weapon. and of course when you "switch bodies." (from the players perspective)

[@maskedmolereviews5715]

I liked the ending because it didn't force feed you lies that everything would be okay in the end. It was harshly honest.

[@Bread-mm5xy]

I played this game with my partner in complete darkness over the course of like a week, and it was incredible. Playing in the dark and being easily spooked really helped elevate the game from being scary, to being scary but hyper-immersive. I also thought the story was fantastic, and it's a great 9/10 game

[@anhbayar11]

Man, The ending was goddamn sad and depressing...

[@WaxTheDolphin]

yea but think about this: a robot booty cures mr moody

[@nnnn20430]

I think you missed a possible side of the story with the WAU, i think the WAU is great and i don't think the monsters should have been removed, the thing is i consider the WAU the actual good solution rather than the ARK, the ARK is more of a death trap flying trough space with nothing being able to repair some of the damage that can happen to it while it's traveling and letting all of the humans just die, instead in the game you have the choice to let WAU live you DON'T have to kill it (and by the way i think you are real monster because you did) you can walk away from it, off course Ross gets mad and tries to kill you but he gets killed by WAU, but the thing is WAU is just like a simple organism that can replicate solve problems and preserve it self, it can even thrive in the post apocalyptic earth, as you saw at bottom of the ocean it even started to experiment with the fish creating new type of life, eventually after thousands of years of experiments it could maybe even reach the scorched land, and create new human 2.0 civilization with more developed bodies that it may be able to create after all those years and maybe create mix of conscious from all the templates to create better stable beings that would be able to live on the new earth and that would be able to continue the legacy of humanity in their own way, where they would get second chance to explore the earth build new civilizations we could never imagine and maybe even reach space eventually and maybe even finding the ARK after thousands of years, and you took all that away, a new chance for a new type of life on earth never before seen all by killing the WAU.....( "you monster" -GLaDOS). also i never thought about the monsters as being scary or in the way, they were part of the story, part of the WAU story of trying to build stable bodies for humans, and this were all of long line of failures leading up to you, the body you start the game with was made by WAU,the WAU also takes care of you all the way through the game by giving you health in form of those big glowing masses that you stick you hand into, also the part of the game where you get killed by one of WAU's creations and you go into a dream where Simon thinks he's seeing his girlfriend i think it was a manifestation of WAU, trying to figure out why you keep dying while repairing your body since when you wake up you are strapped to the wall with the structure gel (WAU repairing you), and all -she's- it's trying to do is figure out why all of her -children- experiments keep dying. i even had a great idea for SOMA2 plot where ARK gets found by an alien civilization that loads em from the ARK into bodies and you get to explore this weird alien civilization and weird creatures and beings all living in sort of hive mind, just to discover that you're actually on earth thousands of years later and this is what the WAU evolved into

[@theuncalledfor]

+nnnn20430 "you have the choice to let WAU live you DON'T have to kill it (and by the way i think you are real monster because you did)" Then you're a fucking idiot. The people stuck in the WAU were suffering, _begging_ to be killed. Clearly the WAU wasn't a good solution. Maybe at some point it would have become a good solution, but the experiments were clearly hurting people a lot, and it's _arguably_ the right choice to kill it. It's surprising to hear something so fucking idiotic from you after you rightly pointed out that the ARK is a death trap - it's stated explicitly that the ARK would survive for a few thousand years. Not forever. You're right, they can't repair or modify it. Civilization in the ARK could exist for a long time, but I don't think a few thousand years are long enough. Which is why I don't understand how you can have such a narrow-minded, retarded view on the morality of ending the WAU. A _monster?_ Really? Because he ended their suffering at their request? Think before you judge.

[@nnnn20430]

theuncalledfor i didn't mean "monster" so aggressively, calm down.

[@theuncalledfor]

nnnn20430 There isn't really any other way to mean it.

[@nnnn20430]

theuncalledfor i gues you can call me a monster too since i would happily let those people suffer for thousands of years, life is pain, i will chose whatever means necessary to survive.

[@nnnn20430]

theuncalledfor well i quoted "you monster" from GLaDOS a psychotic killing machine so yeah

[@mesyslexiyesnomaybesp82646]

You make some of the best video game analysis videos, and this continues that legacy. Keep up the good work.

[@brandoferg6460]

I think about Soma so often, but it's never the monster parts. The part at the end when you duplicate yourself, for some reason it really stuck with me. The concept of this game scares me more than the jump scares, etc.