By Hoaseng Thao

WARNING” This article contains spoilers about the game ‘SIGNALIS’.

‘SIGNALIS’ is a survival horror game created by Rose Engine Games, being released on October 27th, 2022, and has since then won many awards for its unique story and overall theme of cosmic horror.

Personally, I love this game to death for not only its gameplay and aesthetic but for its story, which sent me down the rabbit hole of cosmic horror and in a deep state of depression from finishing the game’s story over and over again.

PREMISE

Set in a dystopian future where humanity has ventured far into space and into the unknown a Replika or Humanoid Android named Elster, is awakened from cryostasis from having crash landed on a cold planet. She must find a missing crew member in an underground facility being overrun by corrupted Replikas and the memories of a mysterious girl in white.

VISUALS

Do not let the low polygon style dissuade you into thinking that the game is just one of many PS1 style games in recent years that you play once and refund after finishing it. Personally, I believe this low polygon style really portrays the overall feeling of desolation the further you go in the game.

The visuals of the facility intrigues the sci-fi nerd in me, mostly because of the similarities it has with the game ‘Dead Space’ by Motive Studios as well as the movie ‘Alien’ by Ridley Scott. They also intrigue me with how the visuals make the facility a character in the story, with little details such as propaganda posters being laid out around the facility to seeing the aftermaths of bloody battles and last stands.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay plays just like the classic of the PS1 era, and plays similarly like the early Resident Evil’ games by Capcom, but it adds its own touch to it. Instead of having a complex inventory system, the game forces you to use six inventory slots (you can change this in the settings) which effectively forces the player to decide how you manage your items in your runs.

The shooting in the game feels very smooth, as you have to aim at your target first to get a shot out, and with the brilliant sound designs of each weapon you use, adds to the overall action when playing the game.

Puzzles are found throughout the game and are not that particularly hard to solve, and most of the time in my playthroughs where I had difficulty trying to solve the puzzles, came out of my own faults and not from the game.

The enemies you face in the game are relatively easy to handle once you get a hang of what items you have in your inventory, with guns being used to knock down the enemy while consumable items allow you to heal or take down an enemy without wasting ammo. One key thing to note is that “killing” an enemy won’t stop it from getting back up unless burnt with a flare or flare gun, which forces the player to consider using a flare to insure the enemy is destroyed or to secure chokepoints for backtracking.

Bosses in this game are relatively easy to defeat once you get a hang of each of the bosses movement mechanics, added with that you bring enough ammo to defeat them.

Ammo/items are scattered across the facility, and are very small in number when found, forcing you to have to take in account how many bullets/items you should bring when solving the mysteries of the facility.

STORY

This part of the article will summarize the story of ‘SIGNALIS’ and contains spoilers to the story and ending, skip over this part if you have yet to play ‘SIGNALIS’.

Following a forced wake up sequence, Elster finds herself in the desolate interior of the Penrose spaceship, a spaceship created by the Eusan Nation, and finds a photograph of a white haired female crewmember, sending her onto a journey to find this crewmember. Stepping outside, the Penrose is a total mess as it crash landed on a cold planet before entering a hole that leads into someone’s personal room, and on a table lies the book ‘THE KING IN YELLOW’. After opening the book, Elster receives flashes of memories that are not hers.

Elster then finds herself inside an abandoned facility in which she explores to only find out through one of the survivors, a STAR unit Replika, that the facility has been overrun by corrupted Replika units and the person she’s looking for could be at the bottom of the facility. Elster is also met by an actual human or Gestalt, whose name is Isa, she too is in search of someone, however Elster would venture on alone to find the person she’s looking for.

The more Elster goes down the facility, the more corrupt it becomes as the halls become grittier and messier with each floor she descends revealing the true nature of the facility. The facility the game takes place in is known as S-23 Sierpinski, on the planet Leng, and has been used as a mining facility for the Eusan nation. Through the many readable files scattered across the facility though, it shows that life in the facility was harsh and cruel.

The Eusan Nation was facing a massive shortage of food and materials as it fought a war against the Eusan Empire, leading to many human colonies to starve including S-23 Sierpinski, and it doesn’t help that the Eusan Nation is a repressive totalitarian regime that conducts cruel experiments and punishments on its people.

Following an encounter with a corrupted Mynah Replika, Elster is confronted by a non-corrupted Adler Replika, who warns her that she should’ve never returned before pushing her off an elevator, only to be saved by a mass pile of other Elster units. Elster would continue to scour across the facility, getting flashes of someone else’s memories as she helps Isa along the way (Isa is back).

After a near death experience in the deepest parts of the facility, Elster finally escapes the facility and finally reaches the surface but it is no longer a frozen landscape, but an open red mass that can only resemble that of blood. Confronted by Adler again, he remarked about how his commander, Falke had fallen ill, sending the entire facility into disarray and subtly hinting to a repeated cycle of Elsters journey. Elster crosses the red landscapes, seeing the remains of her previous attempts before reaching the Penrose again, but this time going unconscious as she fails to open the hatch.

Following a forced wake up sequence, Elster finds herself in the interior of the Penrose spaceship again, this time more lively in lighting and color, a clear memory of the past. Onboard the ship is key information as to why Elster is on the ship. She had taken a part on the Penrose program to find a habitable planet for the future of the Eusan Nation, and a part of this program was the missing crew member, Ariane Yeong.

After finishing her chores, she presents herself to Ariane’s quarters where it is revealed that the two are in a romantic relationship established out of isolation and the necessity for human interaction. After this memory sequence, Elster wakes up again, back onto the cold landscape but this time motivated to find Ariane as she reminds her of a promise they both swore to.

Returning back to the Sierpinski, Elster would find herself not on Leng but in a colony on the moon Rotfront. Here, Elster would meet Isa again, but this time Isa apologizes for not finding the person she’s looking for, before eventually becoming corrupted. It is hinted throughout the memory sequences that Isa was looking for her sister, Erika.

Elster would eventually meet the person in charge of Sierpinski, Falke, who remarks to Elster that Ariane will never dance with them again and that both she and Elster are incomplete, before engaging in battle with Elster. As Falke kneels defeated, she would remark to Elster that they are now one.

Elster would return back to the red landscape, this time, a corrupted Adler awaits her and belittles her for continuing the cycle before ultimately meeting his fate after a failed attempt at killing her. Returning back to the Penrose, Elster finally opens the latch and gets back inside, this time revealing what happened on the Penroe’s demise.

The Penrose program was a last ditch effort for the Eusan nation, essentially both Elster and Ariane were doomed to die in space as the Penrose ship began to deteriorate from leaking radiation, which had slowly been poisoning Ariane and had forced her inside a cryo chamber, but before she went into cryo, both she and Elster promised to die side by side so that one would never be alone.

Entering the cryo room, Elster is finally reunited with Ariane, who asks Elster to keep her end of the promise to which Elster hesitates but ultimately concedes to. Placing her hands on the neck of Ariane, Elster would end Ariane’s suffering before eventually succumbing to her wounds.

CONCLUSION

I love this game to death, its story, gameplay, and visuals are by far one of the best I’ve seen so far and is definitely a game everyone must play once in their lifetime. From the horrors that are the corrupted Replikas to the sad but bittersweet story, ‘SIGNALIS’ is a brilliant game that will forever stay in the hearts of many including myself.

You can buy ‘SIGNALIS’ on their official Steam Store Page here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwinlZ6cgZqEAxWqAHkGHRnYDSUQFnoECCIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.steampowered.com%2Fapp%2F1262350%2FSIGNALIS%2F&usg=AOvVaw0uwdgI22Owy-MiAc1sbdta&opi=89978449