Catch a teasing glimpse of SOMA's monsters
New trailer for aquatic horror from the creators of Amnesia.
Under the sea, no one can hear you scream. More to the point, no one can tell you've wet yourself either.
Such are the thoughts that are likely to flutter through your brain when SOMA, the latest horror game from Amnesia studio Frictional Games, launches on 22 September.
Now, the developer is letting us know a little more about the soggy monsters that will be tearing us to shreds while we shriek and squeal. In a new post on the PlayStation blog, creative director Thomas Grip has offered five ways they've kept their critters creepy.
One is that you'll never know how a monster will react. They won't simply spot you and charge. "Some creatures might just stand and stare at you for a while," says Grip. "Others will ignore you until you disturb them. Some might not be dangerous at all - or at least, not in a dangerous mood right now."
Different creatures will also have different AI procedures, to keep things varied. They might respond to movement, or sound, or they might only attack if you look directly at them. Nor will you be encountering them often enough to work out their routines. "Each type of creature is only encountered a few times in the whole game," says Grip, "and you are never given enough time to fully figure them out. Instead you need to rely on narrative clues: things you find in notes or are told by other characters and so forth."
In addition to this, there'll be no life bar and health points. An attack may graze you or mangle you to pieces - it will all depend on what happens in the moment. Unpredictability, it seems, is what Frictional is aiming for. They also warn that healing will be done in a "slightly disturbing manner", which sounds ominous.
If that's not enough to get you spooked, here's the pant-cacking new trailer which offers the briefest of glimpses at what might be killing you.
