SOMA and the Horror of Reality
This article was first published in video form on Sep. 16, 2019, by Subpixel.
“Reality is that which, when we stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”
This quote, often attributed to the late author Philip K. Dick, is how Frictional Games’ 2015 masterpiece SOMA drops you into its mind-bending universe. Few games have captured my attention like SOMA, a game that nearly four years ago to the day broke me on a fundamental level.
Now, It’s often hard for me to really articulate what draws me to games I really enjoy, since I very often could summarize it as everything about the game. It’s rare that I’m lukewarm on any given artistic work — I usually either like it or I don’t. And, folks, I like SOMA.
Before SOMA I only knew Frictional in the context of the Amnesia and Penumbra series, and neither had done much for me when I played them. I’m generally not big on the horror genre. I’ve seen too far behind the curtain to properly appreciate the lengths most works go to to try and frighten me, and often I can only find them enjoyable amongst friends who are more inclined than me to leap from their chairs when presented with something scary. But then I saw a trailer for SOMA. I knew then and there that this was a game I needed to play.
SOMA is not a typical “horror” game with jump scares and blood and death — it’s a horror game about the nature of what it means to be human. It’s a horror game about reality and existence. But the concepts SOMA lays out for you are much deeper than the typical Descartian “I think, therefore I am”. While that may be a good philosophical jumping off point, the real meat of the narrative and thematic concepts casts a much broader net over myriad classical and modern philosophical ideas.
I failed two philosophy classes in college, not for lack of interest in the material, but because of the complete lack of accessibility in the way the material was presented. SOMA did in thirteen hours more for my understanding of philosophy than either of those classes did in two whole semesters. And if at any point during those classes you had told me that one of my favorite games of 2015 would have a bit about Derek Parfit’s philosophy of identity (and be my favorite bit of the whole game), I’d have laughed in your face.
But if Mike Schur’s The Good Place is the most joyful way of making philosophy accessible for the masses, SOMA is the most melancholy. Most of the narrative takes place in the wake of a monumental apocalypse on the Earth’s surface, with the only survivors living in and around a series of undersea laboratories deep in the Atlantic. But a minor prologue takes place in Canada near a hundred years before the main events of the game. The prologue introduces Simon Jarrett, our protagonist, after a car accident claims the life of his friend Ashley and leaves him with some amount brain damage — the extent of which is yet to be determined. While undergoing an experimental brain scan that will hopefully provide answers to how Simon might recover from the trauma, he finds himself aboard the aforementioned Pathos II undersea complex.
As the narrative rolls along, there is very little for Simon to be optimistic about; and with each twist in the story, what little optimism Simon (and by proxy, me) has goes right out the window and into the deep sea trench of the game’s final moments.
The narrative is linear, for all intents and purposes, but does allow for some extra exploration for nerds like me who want to track down every lost audio log, stray email, and scrap of hastily written paper hiding within the miles of miles of the Pathos II undersea complex. I should be clear though, I’m not a completionist for completionism’s sake. But the story had me hooked. I needed to know what had happened to Pathos and what had happened to Simon, so I checked every nook and cranny I could to find anything that might reveal Pathos’ secrets to me. And what begins as a grim situation only becomes more grim as you stumble across more and more of Pathos’ lost archives. While one audio log might be locked in a desk or left discarded on the floor of some crewmember’s abode, the next one you find might be on that same crewmember’s body — and it might be a recording of their final moments. And buckle up for the times when that happens, because there is not a single bad voice actor in the whole of the SOMA ensemble. They’re all extraordinary.
Actual survivors of the apocalypse are very few and far between by the time Simon shows up on Pathos, but regardless of their infrequency in the narrative your few interactions with them will linger far beyond the game’s credits. Because for what linear structure SOMA provides, it also allows for some choice in your interactions with the denizens of Pathos — and it’s in these moments that Frictional’s naming of the Pathos complex becomes less than subtle.
I can’t say much more for fear of spoiling the experience, so I’ll wrap it up with this anecdote: I played SOMA alone over two fall afternoons, wherein I had our family’s apartment all to myself. When the games credits finished rolling, I just sat at my computer for a half and hour. I can’t really explain why I never got up during that time, but I just sat there and processed what I’d just experienced. And when I did finally get up, my first thoughts were of telling my friends about this game.
Additionally, the art direction in SOMA is wonderful, as the environment of Pathos II provides a remarkable amount of atmospheric dread. And I’d be remiss without mentioning the voice cast again. Jared Zeus’ performance as Simon is a towering achievement in vocal craft, easily matched by Nell Mooney’s Catherine Chun — Simon’s undersea counterpart and guide through Pathos. The real heart of SOMA is the relationship between Simon and Catherine. Down there at the bottom of the ocean were two people trying to survive and find a way home, and I willingly went with them on that journey. I hope you will too.
