SIGNALIS is a survival horror game that takes place in a dystopian future that may reveal a terrible secret. Solve the riddle, escape the nightmarish creatures, and search the off-planet factory with voice-driven technician Elster as he searches for lost dreams.
Horror is back in fashion and many different forms. Remakes of Resident Evil and new parts of the series, a remake of Dead Space and its spiritual successor, The Callisto Protocol, the implementation of a copy of Silent Hill from different ones – you can’t count everything. Sometimes indie games in the genre have been forgotten. SIGNALIS is one of the latest releases by a German team that has been creating it for eight years. The game is not perfect, but it is at least worthy of attention.
About the game
The game was developed by the German studio Rose-Engine, which was founded by just two people. Yuri Stern and Barbara Wittmann are Hamburg developers and the creators of Signalis. Yuri Stern is the game’s main scriptwriter, director, and programmer. Barbara Wittmann did the design and helped write the script. The development of the project began in 2014 and lasted eight years. Finally in 2022 the game received its release.
At the same time, the creators of Signalis do not use the same old horror techniques. Most of the game sequences take place with the camera on top, but sometimes the game switches to a first-person view. Such moments are usually short, but they change the gameplay perfectly. This part of the game is reminiscent of the first Resident Evil, narrow corridors, monsters that suddenly appear and attack you, and puzzles without them.
Calling Signalis a horror is not entirely correct – it seems they are trying not to scare. The atmosphere here is quite tense and uncomfortable. Empty rooms, where basically if someone meets, then he is already dead. Posters with appeals in German and Japanese. And in the middle of the videos, strange phrases can suddenly appear, saying that the story is far from being as simple as it seems at first glance.
Plot
Instead of bombarding the player with dialogues and rich cutscenes, the developers prefer other ways of storytelling – the conversations here are very short, and you will learn the details of the universe by studying the environment. It is more like putting together a puzzle, the pieces of which eventually add up to a big picture. The plot is interesting to watch until the very end.
In the future, humanity will be divided into two interplanetary states: the Empire and the Nation. People have already learned how to make androids and called them replicas. Their consciousness is built based on the human gestalt brain, with which they can work in tandem. Our heroine is a model named Elster (LSTR) and a replica technician on a spaceship. Along with her Gestalt Ariana, she participated in some reconnaissance missions, but the shuttle Penrose-512 crashed in the territory of the Nation. Once on an unknown planet in the icy world of Leng, covered with snow from one pole to the other, our adventures begin.
A bit later, Elster makes his way to the Sierpinski 23 mining complex through heavy snow and fog. She quickly discovers that most of the Gestalt’s employees are dead, and the workforce is out of control, somehow turned into hostile, mindless creatures that attack her as soon as they see it. She then meets the replica administrator Adler, who has yet to play a role in the story.
Elster later digs into the mines beneath the complex and discovers that the lower levels are made up of a giant mass of flesh.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Signalis is based on the classic survival horror. For most of the game, we will be exploring locations and solving puzzles, which are the main driving force behind our story. There will also be plenty of enemies in the locations, but you are unlikely to want to kill them all because of the plot and limited resources.
What can scare off a little is the inventory. They decided to make it as old school as possible (according to all the precepts of RE) it has only six cells, and you will find many items. Different types of first-aid kits, stun guns, weapons, and cartridges for them – and there are a lot of plot items, including passes and keys. Anything you don’t need can be boxed in the save room.
But too often, you have to run to the box: the cartridges for one of the weapons will run out, and you need to replace it with another, then you accidentally hide something wrong there.
Music
Words are redundant here. The soundtrack is a must-listen. 1000 Eyes and Cicada Sirens, as the composers are called, did their best and created that atmosphere. The monster screams shoots, and saves sounds. All this is fraught with mystery and fear.
The feeling of claustrophobia and loneliness in the ransacked building is further enhanced by chilling music and sound effects, including a radio that can be tuned to different frequencies. Imagine turning on the radio and hearing anything from crackling static to the likeness of laughter…
What we end up with
Initially, I did not expect anything from this game when passing, but now I have a pleasant shock. If you delve into the plot and not just complete tasks like “take an object to open the door” but find out what fate befell this world and why it happened, then the game is addictive, and the world is written very interesting and addictive. Music, sounds, visuals – I liked everything, both the pleasant appearance of the characters and the disgusting creatures that cause fear.
The unpleasant sound of conservation cuts the ear, the walkie-talkie on which they seem to want to contact you, but nothing comes out. I sat and tried to save my heroine from the fate that could await her in this world. I tried to kill enemies to a minimum and take as little damage as possible.
Conclusion
The advantages of Signalis outweigh the disadvantages. For two developers, this is an exciting debut. The game is worth a try for fans of classic horror and high-quality puzzles. Even if the release went relatively unnoticed, it says nothing about the quality of the new product. It’s hard not to notice how much the creators love the genre and how well they understand what it lacks.
Editor’s Note: Signalis is now available on multiple platforms. This review was completed thanks to a key provided by PR.
