“The threat of death isn’t the scariest thing in SOMA”
Playing it safe in SOMA and Alien : Isolation .
I now have more opportunities to explore Sevastopol
When I reviewed sci-fi horror game SOMA in 2015, my biggest complaint was that having to play hide-and-seek with its monsters often got in the way of the story it was trying to tell. So, wanting to immerse myself in that world again without the hassle, I thought I’d give Safe Mode a go. This lets you explore the underwater nightmare of Pathos-II without being constantly murdered. The monsters are still there, but they can’t harm you. And I was amazed by how, despite this, it’s still a really powerful horror game. The threat of death isn’t the scariest thing in SOMA. It’s the existential dread and the claustrophobic, suffocating atmosphere. And I felt like maybe this is what the experience should have been all along. The story was brought to the forefront and it had room to breathe.
Yearning for more industrial corridor action, I decided yet another replay of Alien: Isolation was in order. This time, though, I thought I’d play on the novice difficulty setting, which doesn’t neuter the alien, but makes it a lot less formidable. And, again, it’s remarkable how well the game holds up when the threat is reduced.
The alien is still unpredictable, making my heart race whenever I hear the telltale sound of it dropping out of a vent. But it’s, well, a bit thicker. I don’t have to be quite as well hidden and it’ll get bored of hunting for me a lot sooner than in other modes. The upside of this dumber alien is that, similar to SOMA, I now have more opportunities to explore Sevastopol. There are a lot of stories on the station, told through computer terminals and environmental details, that I missed the first time because I was too concerned with staying alive.
Safe haven
It does spoil the illusion a little, though. Sometimes you’ll be caught out in the open, the alien will be staring right at you, and you’ll brace yourself for the sweet embrace of death. But then it just wanders away, oblivious to your presence. Balancing the AI for this mode must have been difficult, but I think, overall, they pulled it off. I don’t think you should go through SOMA in Safe Mode or Alien: Isolation on novice the first time you play them. It’s worth experiencing both as the developers intended. But for a replay it really gives you a chance to appreciate the game on a much deeper level, uncovering more about the setting and story than you would otherwise.
Honestly, I think all horror games should have these modes. I know a lot of people who couldn’t enjoy SOMA at all because they found the hide-and-seek bits way too stressful. And because of that they missed out on, for my money, one of the best stories ever told by a game. And that’s a shame. It’s in a developer’s interest to have as many people playing their games as possible, and being able to make stealth, horror, survival, or other ‘hardcore’ elements a little less intense is a big step towards this.