If you're into horror (and I assume you are, considering most of your content is based upon it) I highly recommend "Alien: Isolation". It's a fantastic game - even if you haven't seen the original movies. Story isn't quite as deep or thrilling as in Soma, but nevertheless, a great experience!
@@correctthatfilthygrammar I definitely think I'll check out Alien: Isolation, and since I don't exclusively make analysis videos, any horror game recommendation is welcomed! ^_^
@GuD0X I really appreciate it man, that's really considerate! You're already supporting the channel immensely by watching the videos and leaving a like, so thank you 😳
Funnily, Simon’s inability to understand properly, as well as everyone’s is what gets me. The entire situation is doomed, but Catherine endured so much abuse for trying to do something.
Had it on my steam for 6 years, originally didn't play it through due to having a inferior computer at the time, but I gave it a shot last week and finished it, SOMA truly is a unforgettable gem, with well detailed and realized story that is scattered across the game, and the way it makes you question your own ethics and philosophy is something I haven't seen done in many games. It left me in a state of existential dread..
I completely agree with you, games like that doesn't come around often and when they do they have an insanely lasting effect! I also had the game laying in my steam for years before I played it, and boy, was I blown away 😆
@@synhet84it very much is & I love it, it also makes me worry about technology. But you know something, if theres a line to plug brains into computers, im in it if not first
A friend told me that our bodies doesn't not define us and our soul, to which is asked her what if our soul has no place to go, and gets trapped into a robot body. She had no answer. This game answered my question in a very dark and realistic way. Knowing how much AI evolved suddenly, it truly makes me scared for my future. What if we get a scan of our brain without our knowledge and then waking up as robots in a destroyed world? I prefer to die without anyone knowing, than hurting those i love. This game helped me think about my life and i appreciate it even more, because every moment could be our last, and there could be copy of us living in far worse conditions, neither do i want my final moments to be an argument with a friend. No game and media has even made me think so much on my life. Just an amazing game!
The one thing that is never addressed is that Catherine already had her scan uploaded to the Ark, so with Simon uploading it again it should've resulted in two Catherines existing on the Ark - one not knowing who Simon is and the other one with full experience you had since meeting her in the game. And there is no mention of any filter that wouldn't allow that.
It's a shame that Frictional's latest offering doesn't warrant such a thorough and detailed analysis. I honestly feel that Soma is at the peak of what a game can be and how it can make you think and feel.
I completely agree with you. While I personally enjoyed playing Amnesia: Rebirth, I have to agree that SOMA outshines Rebirth in pretty much every aspect that makes a great horror game. I'm still gonna jump at the next horror game Frictional Games releases, because they're horror geniuses in my opinion.
'Good stunts are fine but Action has to _mean something_ for your audience to care about.' -George Miller, Mad Max. My favorite Games About Something: Psychonauts Senua's Sacrifice American McGee's Alice Silent Hill 2 SOMA Fallout: New Vegas tied with Disco Elysium. SOMA changed the way I think about memories & the way NLP effects our personalities. What if someone 'else' had all of your memories 'up to a point, 1 minute ago'. Would they truly be 'You'? Would it be better to be dead or completely alone at the bottom of a literal Abyss? What if the world you could interact with was 'literally proven' to be artificial? Would it ultimately matter? Could you 'personally' end the life of the last human on Earth if asked by that Human as an act of mercy? Or would you rather leave them 'alive' & alone for the 'rest' of their 'life'? Dead Space & Alien Isolation are like a crazy murderer running at you with murder in their eyes. SOMA is like realizing you only have (Gods willing) 15-20 years left to know your parents before they Pass. & learning to both accept & Hold that feeling every single second of the day. It makes everything Shine, with a single root of bitterness at the bottom of the feeling. Sublime.
At first when i saw that both Simon and Cat lost the coin toss i was happy in a way cuz there both togheter but Siomon was still dillusional abt the process (as a defense ) but this made Cats cortex overheat😢 and at the end Simon was truelly all alone with no one else
I was throughout the video thinking "this guy's accent is familiar to me". Then you reached to the coin toss and you talked about "the shance" and I was BOOM he is Swedish. Imagine being Swedish in 2021 :-D
Hahahaha I've recently noticed that I pronounce the "dj" sound in for example "join" as "Yoin" a lot, but it's funny you noticed another one xD Can't believe I'm still in this ridiculous cocoon that is being Swedish, we'll see what happens in 2022!
@@TrasherBiner Hahahaha your comments straight up made me laugh, if you ever visit southern sweden, hit me up and I can give you very limited and not-very-useful information since In haven't been in that many different places! :D
I heard a sequel for this game is on the making. Could they make it actually a little more hopeful this time ? The ending for the first game was perfect, I don't deny it. But I want to believe my choice to spare the WAU in the hopes of negotiating with him later on wasn't in vain on the sequel. Would that be disrespectful ?
There's a sequel where Simon in Omicron and the Simon left at ARK's launch met each other and had a baby and the baby had the original Simon copy. It's called SOMA: Predestination" 😂 SPOILER FOR OUTER WILDS Now we know what the Hatchling felt in every loop after they learned about the memory travelling back in time instead of "them" actually 😆
I don't know if I would call it that. For example, I did not find and interpret all of the tidbits of the story. A good game, but I felt that the story was not integral enough to the gameplay.
What an embarrassment of a title. You're clearly very young and inexperienced for entertainment as a whole let alone just games. This game was extremely overrated. It's just a protagonist perspective switch and it doesn't even utilize the uniqueness of being a video game. The gameplay isn't good and could have been just a short story, and the monster/sea/future backdrop was far removed from the plot that actually mattered. They were dissonant. Separated. The writing was honestly clunky a lot and Simon and Catherine don't really react as normal people or talk about much that they should, which is par for the course for horror because smart characters asking questions or being smart would kill the plot. What exactly is profound about this? Nothing. It's not a great game in itself and it's got one good twist that's milked at the end because we've already been through it with the previous switch.
Average Apex Legends player comment. I guess Apex Legends Battle Royal is considered a game for players with "experience for entertainment", as you put it. Really refined taste in games XD
Great idea! Make a statement against my claim, provide no counter-argument or point alongside it, proceed to not name any of said games that display more profundity with no reason to why they're profound.. If that makes sense to you then I don't think I'd be interested in hearing your game recommendations anyways 😅
when i hear the constant, increasingly more echoey beeps at the end of the final scene after the weight of simon's reality hits me, no matter how many times i watch it, i always find tears welling in my eyes
Great video! On a primal, guttural level, there are scarier games (Alien Isolation comes to mind), but in terms of sheer existential dread, Soma takes the cake. I remember being haunted by this game for weeks after playing (still get chilling flashbacks to it) far less so because of the "scary" bits of the game (getting chased by monsters n such) but because of the *actual* scary parts of it (the existential dread, the coin toss, the overall doom n gloom of the human race going extinct, etc.). Great, great game and I hope more games (horror or otherwise) will explore these kind of heady topics.
I haven't tried Alien: Isolation, but I'd love to! I agree that the existential terror is what makes it so much better than other horror games. Unlike some people, I loved the monsters and their designs, as well as the horror game factors they brought to the game, and I definitely wouldn't remove them. On the other hand, the story and the questions you're left with is what truly sticks with you, and they're what makes the game a true masterpiece! The team at Frictional Games really knows how to make a compelling story!
@@herghoules4365 Totally agreed! And you definitely should play Alien Isolation! I do mean it when I say it's the scariest game I've yet played. I played on the Nightmare difficulty setting and it's the only game I've ever been genuinely stressed about playing whenever I WASN'T playing it. The AI in the game is so good! Despite the monster being the xenomorph that we've seen for over 40 years, the game still makes it scary, and I would say a large part of that is due to how smart the AI is in the game. Soma definitely has the dread aspect down better than any other game, but if you're looking for primal terror of being chased by a 7-foot tall monster hunting for prey, then Alien Isolation takes the cake.
@@sloanmurray6799 I think I've previously thought that it wouldn't be that scary because it's the alien we all know, but it definitely sounds like I should give it a try. Everyone says it's super scary and it sounds terrifying from your description! A great AI is game-changing :D
I find this scarier than Alien Isolation because my biggest fear is loneliness, and that is the fate most of the Pathos crew and their copies, as well as Simon's copies, experience for as long as the WAU or the station's power last.
@@josephrobinson6171 I think you're right, the sheer thought of needing to experience the same horrors and dilemmas the Pathos crew and Simon went through is a different kind of horror, a horror I'd definitely avoid going through over any monster-encounters in other games!
The note at 13:43 haunts me. Imagine knowing a freakin' comet will hit Earth in 21 minutes. Imagine how one minute everything is normal, with normal biodiversity, buildings, art, languages and so on, and then a collision, and within a few hours or so everything is gone. Everything. Billions dead. All forests incinerated.
@@herghoules4365 It's more frightening because: a) it very well may happen because of vast amount of asteroids and comet in Earth's vicinity (Oort cloud and Koiper belt); b) it definitely happened before during dinosaur era and earlier and most probably happened to couple of civilizations which we would call "lost", there are some quite shocking discoveries across the globe pieced together by Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, Robert Schoch and other archeologists that point to that.
I think our Simon "winning the coin toss" multiple times can be explained quite well by the fact, that we've played as the Simon who would launch the Ark all along. Our sense of past really just consists of our memories, and a perfect copy of our mind would obviously contain all of those memories and therefore share the same past as the original consciousness. This means that all of the would-be instances of Simons mind have lived his life up to the brain scan equally. A fresh copy of a scan may be just seconds old, while still having lived for an entire life up until that scan. So while a new body Simon just "transferred" his mind into my not have actually made the journey there, the "new" consciousness has experienced it just as much as "the original". This means, that the Simon who launched the Ark and stayed behind did actually change bodies multiple times in a way. It's just that before the scan, it would have been impossible for him to determine whether he's the one to make the swap, or the one who would stay behind, since there exists just one Instance of him at the time. It is because of this unpredictability, that the analogy of the coin toss is actually very fitting.
I've heard this theory that we are playing as the Diving suit Simon all along, but I disagree. If you are walking around as Simon 2, that's the body you are stuck with, there are ways to tell that the objects you interact with, exist beyond your memory, say you quickly skim through a book, you may remember some of it, but not the details and exact words, but that book is still in front of you with information that you are not aware of, this shows there is a good chance that book exist independently not just a part of your memory, if you are Diving suit Simon and experimence Simon 2's memory as a dream that book would have many blank pages. Uploading memory into your brain, I imagine it would be more similar to 3d movies rather than a game that you can freely walk around.
@@baishihua Yeah, I guess trying to figure out which Simon you are before the split even happens doesn't make a lot of sense, since then there are no multiples yet.
Great video. This game is probably the best videogame story I've ever experienced. The gameplay could've been improved in a couple of areas, but the story was so top notch and I'm still thinking about it almost a week later (and probably will for much longer). One horrifying revelation I had that you didn't have (or didn't mention in the video) was the fact that Munchi explained that the simulated brain would be "bombarded with stimuli" in order to test cures etc, meaning that millions of Simon copies throughout the past century were born into existence only to be tortured for medical research purposes etc. Simon v3 (the one left in Pathos at the end) is definitely not the third Simon. He's probably the billionth if not trillionth Simon, seeing as his scan was a legacy scan used for testing, AI development and medical purposes for a century. Also, I didn't see 4th Simon's ending as a happy one. If he ever realises that the other Simons are condemned to rot for eternity (or until their power runs out) at the bottom of the sea he may feel extreme survivor's guilt. Not only that, the ARK is a dead end for humanity. They can't have much interaction with the real world besides steering the ARK's course, and the hardware on the ARK is limited, so eventually they'll run out of virtual "space" to explore and play with. It's kind of implied that they cannot simulate an actual planet or solar system fully, so I believe that eventually many humans in the ARK will become bored or restless.
I really enjoyed reading your comment! I'm still thinking about the game every now and then haha! I'm not sure that necessarily millions or billions of Simons were tormented when testing cures, since I'm not sure Munshi's methods included actual conscious simulations. I think his work mostly included treating an actual copy of the brain with different plans, and that it wasn't until later that it became a legacy scan and was used in every AI development kit. Unfortunately there's no evidence to when they started transferring his scan into robots or if they transferred it to more robots than the ones we played as.. But I definitely agree with you that there's potentially a lot more Simon's we don't know of, and that mystery adds beautifully to the dread SOMA provides. There's also definitely a chance that the life on The Ark won't be as happy as they make it out to be. If they to come to the realization that their other copies are condemned to an underwater hell while they're celebrating, problems could definitely arise. I remember that the continuing versions mind after that scan tried to cover up the fact that their mind was transferred, so as to not cause the copy to go insane due to the heavy amount of stress the truth would induce. It sure did seem like Simon was ignorant to the fact that his previous copy was left on station "Phi", maybe his mind covered it up? I definitely agree that the Ark is a temporary solution that will eventually end. It is possible they'll live great lives on the Ark, and maybe their minds will develop differently due to diverging experiences which in turn could mean that they overcome the sense of boredom. Their other human senses would most likely fade in that scenario too, so I just don't see a sustainable way for The Ark to work out in the long run. I guess the bottom line is, if they'd try to work with the WAU to save humanity on Earth, they'd have the best chance to preserve humanity in the way that it actually matters.
@@herghoules4365 The game compares "legacy scans" or "flat scans" that Catherine originally used with the WAU's vivarium scans which are copied from the pilot seats. I'm not sure what the differences are as far sentience go.
Soma is just beyond words. It might be the bleakest piece of media I've ever seen, but it feels fascinating in a positive way, if that makes sense. It doesn't have the white-knuckle terror of Amnesia or other more popular horror games, but, the fear of those experiences fades almost as soon as it's felt. The fear of Soma burrows into your soul and lives there, impossible to forget. And that ending scene is the linchpin; it would have been so easy for Frictional to chicken out and force a happy ending. It still would have been an interesting game, but it would have had zero emotional impact. But they stuck to their guns and god DAMN the way it hits is brutal and brilliant. It is a sadly predictable shame that such a cerebral game is so slept-on, but hopefully as time passes it will gather a cult following and a greater legacy.
A very well made video about a masterpiece of a game (I agree with you that it is the most profound game of all time). Your editing is on point too. Kudos.
Of all the horror games I've played, this is beyond my favourite. I talked my half-brother into playing it and now we both are forcing my younger brother into it as well :P Simply incredible atmosphere and sound design. Just thinking about the part where you enter Theta sends shivers down my spine.
I'd definitely recommend the game to anyone, horror game enthusiast or not! The story and execution is just that incredible. I 100% agree with you, Theta was scary to enter even when I was just getting some footage for this video XD
I actually got pretty obsessed with this game. I've actually questioned whether the WAU actually intended to kill all the crew at Omicron at all. Yohan himself is the one that described the massacre as "the WAU shrieking", and he is openly hostile to WAU despite having created it, so his depiction will definitely be skewed. Instead I've often wondered if the black-box overload was completely unintentional and just an unfortunate consequence of WAU misusing the black boxes in its attempt to revive Yohan. In fact, it almost must be accidental since the WAU's singular goal is the preservation of human life. Deliberately destroying human life would be in direct contrast to this goal. As further evidence the WAU typically reserved its wild experimentations on humans that are at the brink of death due to starvation or traumatic injury, or other life-forms it deemed non-human. It also generally doesn't interfere or attempt to directly control any of its creations. Although I imagine given enough time it may realize they pose a danger to human life and seek to destroy them down the road. The rest of the WAU's actions are actually shockingly benevolent, even if it doesn't understand what the word means. What it does know is that the remaining humans within PATHOS are going to die without fresh water, food and oxygen. All of which are in short supply at the bottom of the ocean after an extinction event. Instead, its doing whatever it can to keep the dwindling number of humans available to it alive while it tries as hard as it can to find a more sustainable method of existence - given the tools it has to work with anyway. Even going as far as integrating them into virtual paradise while it does the heavy lifting. Even more astonishing, with Simon and to a lesser extent Catharine, it actually figured it out. It managed to create what is arguably a human consciousness in a familiar form, able to exist only requiring structure gel and electricity, which the WAU has more or less limitless access to. Even more wild to think about, is that WAU actually solved the coin toss problem in the end. You could simply move a cortex chip from one body to another with no need for a copy to take place. Catharine states herself that shutting down a cortex chip simply omits time. Perfect continuity between bodies, no need for copying.
There is a moment in the game where you get captured and connected to WAU's virtual reality. So, it did it's best in trying not only to have people (or their consciousness) preserved, but also to provide a pleasurable experience to them, while residing at the bottom of the ocean. However, this is opposed to main mission - to get to the Ark, where people (or their consciousness) will have a pleasurable experience in VR while floating in outer space. Basically, it's bargaining one trouble for another, the only difference being that WAU decides for you and does everything for you, while launching the Ark is your choice and your "achievement".
theres a wonderful Reccording of Julia Dahls that made me question whether the WAU is as "non-Persona" or "non-Sentient" or "non-intellegent" or something than what we've been told. "The WAU has been **getting more aggressive -- pushing all systems to their limits**, Ironically **the dead Dr Johan Ross would be the perfect person to ask why the WAU is making such a big buzz about his passing**. After all, **the WAU isn't supposed to want anything, and definitely not to mourn people**. The system overload affects the staff considerably -- headaches, loss of sleep, unwarranted stress. And it seems to be getting worse. I could use some advice, if you can get through. Delenda est." - Julia Dahl, Undelivered Report #2
have played through it about five or six times now, and I am still flabbergasted by this amazing and compelling story. truly a on of a kind masterpiece of this world. with that said this video sums a lot of it up great, love it.
and thus the final conversation between two sentient beings on the bottom of the sea ended with a swear This ending always saddened me, I mean following the logic of what you are presented with you should kind of anticipate what will happen and expect it but I guess a part of me playing joined in on the wishful thinking of Simon which in the end comes crumbling down on you as the screen goes black
Damn dude, found this video via reddit just now and wow, really excellent quality video. Keep up the good work, the editing job really steals the show from the great script!
One of my favourite implications from SOMA is when you find out Simon's "Legacy Scan" was used as a testing dummy for the last 100 years. If those Simons are as real as the Simons we play as, then potential millions of Simons suffered the most inhumane labrat treatments emagineable.
I always thought that "the survivors" could try to collaborate with the WAU and rebuild the earth. I mean, they are not human anymore, they can survive the most hostile condition on earth, given a better robot suit. If they die, they could just respawn, and continue the progress. They might be able to find some human survivors or extract DNA samples to create human clone.
i would have left the WAU alive, considering all humans were dead. Why not still let the robots live on that earth thats already destroyed for organic life to live.
@@herghoules4365 imagine the thing that literally scares you the most. Oh yeah you can't imagine it because your subconciousness creates it for you yourself and in this case it happens to be existential dread
Absolutely love your breakdown of this amazing game. This game really got under my skin on a level that I've never experienced before and even though I played it a couple years ago now, I still find myself thinking about it and recommending it to people I know who like thinking about these philosophical / existential concepts. I have to say, you did make me a bit more... idk if sympathetic is the right word - maybe understanding?, of the WAU and it's purpose. It's challenging to separate these completely human feelings of ethics, morality and body horror from the very literal goal of an entity that's been programmed to do a particular thing - sustain human life at any cost. The requirement of removing those human attachments and see through to the real, and realized goal of the WAU has changed my perspective on "it" as an enemy into... something else. And yet, being human, I still cannot see that change in perspective as positive. Even partly. The idea of the WAU is even scarier to me now thinking of it as carrying out this very singular purpose devoid of any malice or intent to harm rather than being the a more traditional kind of "monster". Regardless, it still very much feels like the abomination that it first appeared to me to be - now more so. I suppose my thought while destroying the WAU was... can I see this as being "better" than having no humanity left at all? I get it's making progress and Simon is a clear example of that. But the horrors his copies (and the others he encountered) have endured show me that no... I can't see it as being better at all. Holy shit, I just love thinking about this kind of thing! So glad your video randomly showed up in my recommended list today. Thank you.
This video is SO well done. SOMA is a game I've continued to think about 6 years later. One of the best experiences ever. For anyone that liked the themes, morality, and philosophical tones of SOMA, you absolutely must play The Talos Principle. The best game I've ever played.
Simon didn't deserve ANY OF THIS. I just wanna give the man a hug, he had everything taken away from him at the brain scan in Toronto, was given hope with Catherine and the Ark, only to have that too ripped away from him in an instant. So fucking soul crushing.
I still think they should have switched the final scenes… flash onto the ark oh happy ending yaay and then bam back to the bottom of the ocean, fight w Catherine, darkness. THAT would have been solid. Or once the ark is shown flying over earth, we see earth isn’t actually destroyed. It was all some psy-op for the people on Pathos2 and then everything went to hell and the company tried to bury it. Idk just a thought.
Soma to me is more than about souls or no souls its about the endurance of the memory of the human race after we're gone, the hope that we won't disappear into nothing that some how some day we will be known by someone, we want to endure after we're gone and I think it's both sad and sweet, this game is a very original take on the premise of eternal life but one that we can control. I love the the exploration of what people would be willing to do to not die what would they be willing to gamble if there was a chance that they could carry on into eternity I mean it's horrifying and it's understandable but at the end of the day this game is one of the most lonely and depressing things I have ever seen I cried watching this game cuz it touches on a one of my very real and darkest thoughts when I was very sad and very lonely the idea that we're all just temporary and forgettable nothings who won't get anywhere unless we have the money to cement our memory into the foundations of the future now. It makes me wonder why more people who ask this question don't at least consider faith of some kind cuz at least the Christian faith says that you don't have to have money you don't have to have power you don't have to have prestige to be remembered and for eternity to actually exist. all you need to know is who God is and what he did for you but I'm not going to go into that I know that I'm not going to preach a whole thing it just makes me wonder. Soma is a beautiful game with a demonstration of profound kindness and conscience and empathy it demonstrates a human capacity for applying value to things that don't gain us anything letting robots who just honestly want to exist have a chance, they give them a voice and a mind to forage forward into a future it really is a good story.
beautiful, this was deep and very informative i love it i played this game years ago but every once in a while i d look up youtube videos of people talkiing about the story of soma. i find it very entreating
I just found this game like a week ago and finished it... I went into it with zero expectations and was blown away by how great it was... The story is one thing but for a horror game to me the most important things and they nailed it are the sound design and environment/atmosphere. I don't think I've ever cried at a horror game before but holy shit there were a few moments that brought me to tears or at least almost... This game is so unsettling and confusing most of the game but probably about halfway through maybe little after half the existential dread comes too and doesn't leave even after finishing game.... I finished this game a few days ago and can't stop thinking about it... Also my friend just happened to be towards the end of playing amnesia for the first time so I told him about this and he just started like yesterday I can't wait for him to finish it so I can talk about it with him without being careful what I say and how I word things to avoid spoilers
I like to think that Catherine didn't die in the end - the power just went out after the railgun drained it all. I know the monitor says something about a critical failure and her cortex chip, but I've never been able to make out exactly what it says about her chip.
This game to me was an absolute masterpiece. One of my top favorites in horror. I loved amnesia and penumbra but this was such a perfect experience that stuck with me since I played it years ago.
Hahah you should give it a try, and if it's too scary you could always play it in safe mode where the monsters won't chase you ;D It's one hell of a game!
@@herghoules4365 For now my hunt for meaningful content has been sated. I'm preplexed whether it's meaningful to complete the game when I've seen the end and I feel like this is one avenue I could've tried exploring for content, yet there's no reason as this content alone was just amazing
@@Pufty I'm really thrilled you liked the video, it's the whole reason I became a UA-camr, so I'm immensely happy I managed to spread SOMA just a little bit so you could experience it! I didn't cover the whole playthrough, so playing it could still be enjoyable for you if you ever change your mind ^_^
There needs to be more games like this especially since AI is thriving at an exponential rate. At least Elon Musk brought up the existential concern to the public once, but it needs to happen more often. Well done video!
What is scary is Google is dabbling with AI technologies that are likely comparable to the WAU. Their system called LaMDA is actually an ASI (Artificial Super- Intelligence) that has access to everything we post on the internet and spawns personalities or "chat bots" that can carry on a subjective conversation like any ordinary human, only it learns much faster.
has anyone ever heard of the Chinese Room experiment? i also like the fact that all this is happening underwater, you know, where abiogenesis happened.
This was a great video to watch and loved your analysis of one of my favorite games and story. Love your work and I'll definitely love to check out the rest of your work 👍
Thank you so much for taking the time to write that, it means a lot! This is the first analysis video I've made, but I will soon start posting regularly and will make more! I'm glad to have you here :D
I haven't actually played it! I have seen a few things from the game that displays a lot of profundity, but I would have to play it all to know. It's also tough to decide since the profundity of something can be very subjective. In addition to the subjective nature of profundity in games (and other things), a game can also display great insight or knowledge in more than a single thing. Game #1 can show extremely deep insight in one particular area, while Game #2 shows deep insight in many areas. This is what makes it very difficult for everyone to agree to the same game, which in turn results in the discussions being all the more interesting and exciting! :D
Wow, this is super cool. The moment i heard your voice i thought you were Swedish, and it appears that i was right. Amazing video by the way, SOMA truly is an incredible game. But i cant play it because im such a coward when it comes to playing horror games. But i can watch walkthroughs and lore videos.
Hahaha I sometimes do those Swedish-English pronunciations on words, but it's funny how quickly you noticed xD Thank you a lot for watching the video, and yeah, the game really is terrifying!
Do you mean the people ripping their faces open? It's still-images of two of the Pathos 2 crewmembers that you will see in the death screens that has flashing images (Imogen Reed and Raleigh) Which face you see depends on where you are in the game. You can also find those images on the SOMA wiki site, frictional games twitter if you google "death screen faces SOMA", or perhaps in the game files.
Either that, or a completely new game with the same themes! Would hate to get a sequel that would be awful, although if Frictional Games genuinely think it's a good idea, I'd trust them xD
@@herghoules4365 yes, I would like that idea. I mean there are plenty of themes to choose from... Maybe people who survived above water in form of brain scans Or the story of second Simon who built a society with his own brain scans, like a tribe of clones Or maybe another AI like the WAU (or even the original one because it isnt restrained by it's main chamber anymore) that genetically modified the humans to be able to live under these condutions (wich would already open up new creative problems and situations ). As much as I would like these Ideas it would be nice to start at the point at wich the original game ended. Maybe at some point the people on the arc try to return to earth and already have like established sites on asteroids. You could describe a society in wich the people choose when they want to die and can "make" children throughout a special algorithm. These new humans rediscover the old network of earth and try to acces it or something like that and at that point they try to contact whatever may have developed in earth. Maybe some split versions of the WAU wich changed the environment in different ways so the writers have more creative freedom for the new world. Either way I think this world has got such a potential, it would really be a shame If there wasnt a continuation in some form
I have, and it's amazing! In fact, Amnesia was one of the games that got me into horror games, even as far as to making my own amnesia map as a kid . Maybe I should make an Amnesia video, but I still do prefer SOMA :P
Considering she's been portrayed as such a horrible person throughout the entirety of the game, I really hope not. It begs the question, though. Can computer programs even conceive children? There would be no need for reproduction in any case, since they're not alive, or "undying", I suppose.
@@correctthatfilthygrammar Many people believe that one's consciousness evolves differently inside of a machine due to diverging experiences. But as you point out, it isn't just about the difference of experience, but about their needs. Reproduction (if possible) wouldn't ensure further survival of the species, since their life would depend on the state of the "ARK-vessel". On the other hand, they live on in a simulation where probably most things are possible - where their copies are made from the "human brain template" - which might mean that they still have their human desires. Simon definitely acted the same when he reached the ARK, in my opinion ^_^
If there's any game you'd wish to see an analysis of, let me know in the comments so I can check it out! ^^
If you're into horror (and I assume you are, considering most of your content is based upon it) I highly recommend "Alien: Isolation". It's a fantastic game - even if you haven't seen the original movies. Story isn't quite as deep or thrilling as in Soma, but nevertheless, a great experience!
@@correctthatfilthygrammar I definitely think I'll check out Alien: Isolation, and since I don't exclusively make analysis videos, any horror game recommendation is welcomed! ^_^
@@herghoules4365 I'll happily provide you with a key, if money's tight! Just give me a holler if the need arises :D
@GuD0X I really appreciate it man, that's really considerate! You're already supporting the channel immensely by watching the videos and leaving a like, so thank you 😳
I would love to see your take on Outlast.
"Catherine? Please don't leave me alone." It still haunts me to this day... God...
you and me both >
Funnily, Simon’s inability to understand properly, as well as everyone’s is what gets me. The entire situation is doomed, but Catherine endured so much abuse for trying to do something.
Similar feels to those when Ryo ended up alone in Devilman Crybaby…
„We are born alone and we die alone” 💙
Had it on my steam for 6 years, originally didn't play it through due to having a inferior computer at the time, but I gave it a shot last week and finished it, SOMA truly is a unforgettable gem, with well detailed and realized story that is scattered across the game, and the way it makes you question your own ethics and philosophy is something I haven't seen done in many games.
It left me in a state of existential dread..
I completely agree with you, games like that doesn't come around often and when they do they have an insanely lasting effect! I also had the game laying in my steam for years before I played it, and boy, was I blown away 😆
@@herghoules4365 Do you know other games that are in the same vibe? i know "observer". I heard it's similar...
@@synhet84 I think I'll actually give Observer a go, it seems very similar indeed!
@@synhet84it very much is & I love it, it also makes me worry about technology. But you know something, if theres a line to plug brains into computers, im in it if not first
an absolute experience this game was.
I couldn't agree with you more, a masterpiece
its truly frictionals best game
@@johnvermintide I definitely agree with that statement
It's hard to find the right words forthis game. It's so undeniably great.
A friend told me that our bodies doesn't not define us and our soul, to which is asked her what if our soul has no place to go, and gets trapped into a robot body. She had no answer. This game answered my question in a very dark and realistic way. Knowing how much AI evolved suddenly, it truly makes me scared for my future. What if we get a scan of our brain without our knowledge and then waking up as robots in a destroyed world? I prefer to die without anyone knowing, than hurting those i love. This game helped me think about my life and i appreciate it even more, because every moment could be our last, and there could be copy of us living in far worse conditions, neither do i want my final moments to be an argument with a friend. No game and media has even made me think so much on my life. Just an amazing game!
great video essay and expertly edited. SOMA is one of my all time favorite games.
Thank you so much for the comment, I read all of them and it truly means a lot! SOMA will definitely always be one of my favourite games!
The one thing that is never addressed is that Catherine already had her scan uploaded to the Ark, so with Simon uploading it again it should've resulted in two Catherines existing on the Ark - one not knowing who Simon is and the other one with full experience you had since meeting her in the game. And there is no mention of any filter that wouldn't allow that.
I just finished observer system redux I would love to play this game
It's a shame that Frictional's latest offering doesn't warrant such a thorough and detailed analysis. I honestly feel that Soma is at the peak of what a game can be and how it can make you think and feel.
I completely agree with you. While I personally enjoyed playing Amnesia: Rebirth, I have to agree that SOMA outshines Rebirth in pretty much every aspect that makes a great horror game. I'm still gonna jump at the next horror game Frictional Games releases, because they're horror geniuses in my opinion.
This is what I was waiting for 🥳🤩
And this is what I've been waiting for 😌
'Good stunts are fine but Action has to _mean something_ for your audience to care about.' -George Miller, Mad Max.
My favorite Games About Something:
Psychonauts
Senua's Sacrifice
American McGee's Alice
Silent Hill 2
SOMA
Fallout: New Vegas tied with Disco Elysium.
SOMA changed the way I think about memories & the way NLP effects our personalities. What if someone 'else' had all of your memories 'up to a point, 1 minute ago'. Would they truly be 'You'?
Would it be better to be dead or completely alone at the bottom of a literal Abyss?
What if the world you could interact with was 'literally proven' to be artificial? Would it ultimately matter?
Could you 'personally' end the life of the last human on Earth if asked by that Human as an act of mercy? Or would you rather leave them 'alive' & alone for the 'rest' of their 'life'?
Dead Space & Alien Isolation are like a crazy murderer running at you with murder in their eyes.
SOMA is like realizing you only have (Gods willing) 15-20 years left to know your parents before they Pass. & learning to both accept & Hold that feeling every single second of the day. It makes everything Shine, with a single root of bitterness at the bottom of the feeling. Sublime.
Played it a few days ago now and it keeps occupying my mind, which has lead me here for now lol. It is just unbelievably good.
Absolutely awesome content man! Love from India :)
Thank you man, I really appreciate it! Have a great day! :D
At first when i saw that both Simon and Cat lost the coin toss i was happy in a way cuz there both togheter but Siomon was still dillusional abt the process (as a defense ) but this made Cats cortex overheat😢 and at the end Simon was truelly all alone with no one else
It's truly a haunting ending :/
Watched this yesterday. Kicked ass!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Loads of hours of work paid off! :D
@@herghoules4365 It sure did.
Wow, wonderful content!
Thank you, I really appreciate it! ^_^
I was throughout the video thinking "this guy's accent is familiar to me". Then you reached to the coin toss and you talked about "the shance" and I was BOOM he is Swedish. Imagine being Swedish in 2021 :-D
Hahahaha I've recently noticed that I pronounce the "dj" sound in for example "join" as "Yoin" a lot, but it's funny you noticed another one xD Can't believe I'm still in this ridiculous cocoon that is being Swedish, we'll see what happens in 2022!
@@herghoules4365 I'm yoking, I'm yoking :-D ... Sweden is a paradise I was there in 2019, loved it.
@@TrasherBiner Hahahaha your comments straight up made me laugh, if you ever visit southern sweden, hit me up and I can give you very limited and not-very-useful information since In haven't been in that many different places! :D
@@herghoules4365 I was in ösmo. Good stuff.
Really good video about this brilliant masterpiece!!
Thank you bro, I'm glad you liked it! Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next one! ^^
I LOVE YOUUUUUU
♡〜 ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ 〜♡
I heard a sequel for this game is on the making. Could they make it actually a little more hopeful this time ? The ending for the first game was perfect, I don't deny it. But I want to believe my choice to spare the WAU in the hopes of negotiating with him later on wasn't in vain on the sequel.
Would that be disrespectful ?
There's a sequel where Simon in Omicron and the Simon left at ARK's launch met each other and had a baby and the baby had the original Simon copy. It's called SOMA: Predestination" 😂
SPOILER FOR OUTER WILDS
Now we know what the Hatchling felt in every loop after they learned about the memory travelling back in time instead of "them" actually 😆
Damn, I have to check it out xDD
The Cake isn't real.
The Coin Toss isn't real.
I don't know if I would call it that. For example, I did not find and interpret all of the tidbits of the story. A good game, but I felt that the story was not integral enough to the gameplay.
No Soma Shokugeki
intelligence is intelligence.. you are a machine.. just because youre carbon based and not silicon based doesnt make you any more divine..
What an embarrassment of a title. You're clearly very young and inexperienced for entertainment as a whole let alone just games. This game was extremely overrated. It's just a protagonist perspective switch and it doesn't even utilize the uniqueness of being a video game. The gameplay isn't good and could have been just a short story, and the monster/sea/future backdrop was far removed from the plot that actually mattered. They were dissonant. Separated. The writing was honestly clunky a lot and Simon and Catherine don't really react as normal people or talk about much that they should, which is par for the course for horror because smart characters asking questions or being smart would kill the plot. What exactly is profound about this? Nothing. It's not a great game in itself and it's got one good twist that's milked at the end because we've already been through it with the previous switch.
Average Apex Legends player comment. I guess Apex Legends Battle Royal is considered a game for players with "experience for entertainment", as you put it. Really refined taste in games XD
If you think this is profound then you havenàt played too many games...
Great idea! Make a statement against my claim, provide no counter-argument or point alongside it, proceed to not name any of said games that display more profundity with no reason to why they're profound.. If that makes sense to you then I don't think I'd be interested in hearing your game recommendations anyways 😅
when i hear the constant, increasingly more echoey beeps at the end of the final scene after the weight of simon's reality hits me, no matter how many times i watch it, i always find tears welling in my eyes
Yeah, that's a very powerful scene.. Just imagining what you'd feel if you were in his shoes is truly frightening
Not to mention how sad and scary it is to hear him say "Please don't leave me alone"
Great video! On a primal, guttural level, there are scarier games (Alien Isolation comes to mind), but in terms of sheer existential dread, Soma takes the cake. I remember being haunted by this game for weeks after playing (still get chilling flashbacks to it) far less so because of the "scary" bits of the game (getting chased by monsters n such) but because of the *actual* scary parts of it (the existential dread, the coin toss, the overall doom n gloom of the human race going extinct, etc.). Great, great game and I hope more games (horror or otherwise) will explore these kind of heady topics.
I haven't tried Alien: Isolation, but I'd love to! I agree that the existential terror is what makes it so much better than other horror games. Unlike some people, I loved the monsters and their designs, as well as the horror game factors they brought to the game, and I definitely wouldn't remove them. On the other hand, the story and the questions you're left with is what truly sticks with you, and they're what makes the game a true masterpiece! The team at Frictional Games really knows how to make a compelling story!
@@herghoules4365 Totally agreed! And you definitely should play Alien Isolation! I do mean it when I say it's the scariest game I've yet played. I played on the Nightmare difficulty setting and it's the only game I've ever been genuinely stressed about playing whenever I WASN'T playing it. The AI in the game is so good! Despite the monster being the xenomorph that we've seen for over 40 years, the game still makes it scary, and I would say a large part of that is due to how smart the AI is in the game. Soma definitely has the dread aspect down better than any other game, but if you're looking for primal terror of being chased by a 7-foot tall monster hunting for prey, then Alien Isolation takes the cake.
@@sloanmurray6799 I think I've previously thought that it wouldn't be that scary because it's the alien we all know, but it definitely sounds like I should give it a try. Everyone says it's super scary and it sounds terrifying from your description! A great AI is game-changing :D
I find this scarier than Alien Isolation because my biggest fear is loneliness, and that is the fate most of the Pathos crew and their copies, as well as Simon's copies, experience for as long as the WAU or the station's power last.
@@josephrobinson6171 I think you're right, the sheer thought of needing to experience the same horrors and dilemmas the Pathos crew and Simon went through is a different kind of horror, a horror I'd definitely avoid going through over any monster-encounters in other games!
This game changed me. That’s all I can say. I’ll never view the world the same way as I did before playing it.
The note at 13:43 haunts me. Imagine knowing a freakin' comet will hit Earth in 21 minutes. Imagine how one minute everything is normal, with normal biodiversity, buildings, art, languages and so on, and then a collision, and within a few hours or so everything is gone. Everything. Billions dead. All forests incinerated.
That's a very frightening thought, can't even imagine what went through their heads at that point.
@@herghoules4365 It's more frightening because: a) it very well may happen because of vast amount of asteroids and comet in Earth's vicinity (Oort cloud and Koiper belt); b) it definitely happened before during dinosaur era and earlier and most probably happened to couple of civilizations which we would call "lost", there are some quite shocking discoveries across the globe pieced together by Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, Robert Schoch and other archeologists that point to that.
I think our Simon "winning the coin toss" multiple times can be explained quite well by the fact, that we've played as the Simon who would launch the Ark all along.
Our sense of past really just consists of our memories, and a perfect copy of our mind would obviously contain all of those memories and therefore share the same past as the original consciousness.
This means that all of the would-be instances of Simons mind have lived his life up to the brain scan equally.
A fresh copy of a scan may be just seconds old, while still having lived for an entire life up until that scan.
So while a new body Simon just "transferred" his mind into my not have actually made the journey there, the "new" consciousness has experienced it just as much as "the original".
This means, that the Simon who launched the Ark and stayed behind did actually change bodies multiple times in a way.
It's just that before the scan, it would have been impossible for him to determine whether he's the one to make the swap, or the one who would stay behind, since there exists just one Instance of him at the time.
It is because of this unpredictability, that the analogy of the coin toss is actually very fitting.
I've heard this theory that we are playing as the Diving suit Simon all along, but I disagree. If you are walking around as Simon 2, that's the body you are stuck with, there are ways to tell that the objects you interact with, exist beyond your memory, say you quickly skim through a book, you may remember some of it, but not the details and exact words, but that book is still in front of you with information that you are not aware of, this shows there is a good chance that book exist independently not just a part of your memory, if you are Diving suit Simon and experimence Simon 2's memory as a dream that book would have many blank pages. Uploading memory into your brain, I imagine it would be more similar to 3d movies rather than a game that you can freely walk around.
@@baishihua Yeah, I guess trying to figure out which Simon you are before the split even happens doesn't make a lot of sense, since then there are no multiples yet.
This is one of those game you wish you could play for the first time again.
I totally agree, almost want to backseat game it again with one of the boys or something
Exactly, I wish I made a copy of myself so I could play it for the first time again. Or at least the other me could ;)
@@REVV0219 Hell yeah, brother!
This one and Hellblade for me.
Great video. This game is probably the best videogame story I've ever experienced. The gameplay could've been improved in a couple of areas, but the story was so top notch and I'm still thinking about it almost a week later (and probably will for much longer).
One horrifying revelation I had that you didn't have (or didn't mention in the video) was the fact that Munchi explained that the simulated brain would be "bombarded with stimuli" in order to test cures etc, meaning that millions of Simon copies throughout the past century were born into existence only to be tortured for medical research purposes etc. Simon v3 (the one left in Pathos at the end) is definitely not the third Simon. He's probably the billionth if not trillionth Simon, seeing as his scan was a legacy scan used for testing, AI development and medical purposes for a century.
Also, I didn't see 4th Simon's ending as a happy one. If he ever realises that the other Simons are condemned to rot for eternity (or until their power runs out) at the bottom of the sea he may feel extreme survivor's guilt. Not only that, the ARK is a dead end for humanity. They can't have much interaction with the real world besides steering the ARK's course, and the hardware on the ARK is limited, so eventually they'll run out of virtual "space" to explore and play with. It's kind of implied that they cannot simulate an actual planet or solar system fully, so I believe that eventually many humans in the ARK will become bored or restless.
I really enjoyed reading your comment! I'm still thinking about the game every now and then haha! I'm not sure that necessarily millions or billions of Simons were tormented when testing cures, since I'm not sure Munshi's methods included actual conscious simulations. I think his work mostly included treating an actual copy of the brain with different plans, and that it wasn't until later that it became a legacy scan and was used in every AI development kit. Unfortunately there's no evidence to when they started transferring his scan into robots or if they transferred it to more robots than the ones we played as.. But I definitely agree with you that there's potentially a lot more Simon's we don't know of, and that mystery adds beautifully to the dread SOMA provides.
There's also definitely a chance that the life on The Ark won't be as happy as they make it out to be. If they to come to the realization that their other copies are condemned to an underwater hell while they're celebrating, problems could definitely arise. I remember that the continuing versions mind after that scan tried to cover up the fact that their mind was transferred, so as to not cause the copy to go insane due to the heavy amount of stress the truth would induce. It sure did seem like Simon was ignorant to the fact that his previous copy was left on station "Phi", maybe his mind covered it up? I definitely agree that the Ark is a temporary solution that will eventually end. It is possible they'll live great lives on the Ark, and maybe their minds will develop differently due to diverging experiences which in turn could mean that they overcome the sense of boredom. Their other human senses would most likely fade in that scenario too, so I just don't see a sustainable way for The Ark to work out in the long run.
I guess the bottom line is, if they'd try to work with the WAU to save humanity on Earth, they'd have the best chance to preserve humanity in the way that it actually matters.
@@herghoules4365 The game compares "legacy scans" or "flat scans" that Catherine originally used with the WAU's vivarium scans which are copied from the pilot seats. I'm not sure what the differences are as far sentience go.
“ i have no mouth, and i must scream “
Ooo, been meaning to check that out, definitely will!
Currently on my 4th playthrough of Soma. Never gets old. Great video btw.
That just means you're truly a real one, hell yeah. Thank you for watching the video!
Soma is just beyond words. It might be the bleakest piece of media I've ever seen, but it feels fascinating in a positive way, if that makes sense. It doesn't have the white-knuckle terror of Amnesia or other more popular horror games, but, the fear of those experiences fades almost as soon as it's felt. The fear of Soma burrows into your soul and lives there, impossible to forget. And that ending scene is the linchpin; it would have been so easy for Frictional to chicken out and force a happy ending. It still would have been an interesting game, but it would have had zero emotional impact. But they stuck to their guns and god DAMN the way it hits is brutal and brilliant. It is a sadly predictable shame that such a cerebral game is so slept-on, but hopefully as time passes it will gather a cult following and a greater legacy.
Fellow SOMA enthusiast, thank you for watching the video! :D
A very well made video about a masterpiece of a game (I agree with you that it is the most profound game of all time). Your editing is on point too. Kudos.
It truly is one hell of a game. I'm really happy you enjoyed the video, I appreciate the kind words!
Of all the horror games I've played, this is beyond my favourite. I talked my half-brother into playing it and now we both are forcing my younger brother into it as well :P Simply incredible atmosphere and sound design. Just thinking about the part where you enter Theta sends shivers down my spine.
I'd definitely recommend the game to anyone, horror game enthusiast or not! The story and execution is just that incredible. I 100% agree with you, Theta was scary to enter even when I was just getting some footage for this video XD
I actually got pretty obsessed with this game. I've actually questioned whether the WAU actually intended to kill all the crew at Omicron at all. Yohan himself is the one that described the massacre as "the WAU shrieking", and he is openly hostile to WAU despite having created it, so his depiction will definitely be skewed. Instead I've often wondered if the black-box overload was completely unintentional and just an unfortunate consequence of WAU misusing the black boxes in its attempt to revive Yohan.
In fact, it almost must be accidental since the WAU's singular goal is the preservation of human life. Deliberately destroying human life would be in direct contrast to this goal. As further evidence the WAU typically reserved its wild experimentations on humans that are at the brink of death due to starvation or traumatic injury, or other life-forms it deemed non-human. It also generally doesn't interfere or attempt to directly control any of its creations. Although I imagine given enough time it may realize they pose a danger to human life and seek to destroy them down the road.
The rest of the WAU's actions are actually shockingly benevolent, even if it doesn't understand what the word means. What it does know is that the remaining humans within PATHOS are going to die without fresh water, food and oxygen. All of which are in short supply at the bottom of the ocean after an extinction event. Instead, its doing whatever it can to keep the dwindling number of humans available to it alive while it tries as hard as it can to find a more sustainable method of existence - given the tools it has to work with anyway. Even going as far as integrating them into virtual paradise while it does the heavy lifting. Even more astonishing, with Simon and to a lesser extent Catharine, it actually figured it out. It managed to create what is arguably a human consciousness in a familiar form, able to exist only requiring structure gel and electricity, which the WAU has more or less limitless access to.
Even more wild to think about, is that WAU actually solved the coin toss problem in the end. You could simply move a cortex chip from one body to another with no need for a copy to take place. Catharine states herself that shutting down a cortex chip simply omits time. Perfect continuity between bodies, no need for copying.
There is a moment in the game where you get captured and connected to WAU's virtual reality. So, it did it's best in trying not only to have people (or their consciousness) preserved, but also to provide a pleasurable experience to them, while residing at the bottom of the ocean. However, this is opposed to main mission - to get to the Ark, where people (or their consciousness) will have a pleasurable experience in VR while floating in outer space. Basically, it's bargaining one trouble for another, the only difference being that WAU decides for you and does everything for you, while launching the Ark is your choice and your "achievement".
theres a wonderful Reccording of Julia Dahls that made me question whether the WAU is as "non-Persona" or "non-Sentient" or "non-intellegent" or something than what we've been told.
"The WAU has been **getting more aggressive -- pushing all systems to their limits**, Ironically **the dead Dr Johan Ross would be the perfect person to ask why the WAU is making such a big buzz about his passing**. After all, **the WAU isn't supposed to want anything, and definitely not to mourn people**. The system overload affects the staff considerably -- headaches, loss of sleep, unwarranted stress. And it seems to be getting worse. I could use some advice, if you can get through. Delenda est." - Julia Dahl, Undelivered Report #2
this game changed my perspective of life
Same for me, enough to spend countless hours expressing it in a video hahahah
have played through it about five or six times now, and I am still flabbergasted by this amazing and compelling story. truly a on of a kind masterpiece of this world.
with that said this video sums a lot of it up great, love it.
Thank you man, I really appreciate it! ^^
and thus the final conversation between two sentient beings on the bottom of the sea ended with a swear
This ending always saddened me, I mean following the logic of what you are presented with you should kind of anticipate what will happen and expect it but I guess a part of me playing joined in on the wishful thinking of Simon which in the end comes crumbling down on you as the screen goes black
I completely agree, I also had some hope that things would turn out alright, but it was indeed wishful thinking 😅
What a fantastic video man, you deserve so much more attention mate
I really appreciate it man, let me know if you ever want me to check a game out 😄
Going in blind to Soma is one of the best decisions I've ever made. Brilliant stuff.
Damn dude, found this video via reddit just now and wow, really excellent quality video. Keep up the good work, the editing job really steals the show from the great script!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I really appreciate it! ^^
This game changed my life.
I agree with you, definitely gave me some new perspectives
I couldn't finish this game, it fucked me up that much.
I've never had that happen before.
Bugs me out to think about.
One of my favourite implications from SOMA is when you find out Simon's "Legacy Scan" was used as a testing dummy for the last 100 years. If those Simons are as real as the Simons we play as, then potential millions of Simons suffered the most inhumane labrat treatments emagineable.
I always thought that "the survivors" could try to collaborate with the WAU and rebuild the earth. I mean, they are not human anymore, they can survive the most hostile condition on earth, given a better robot suit. If they die, they could just respawn, and continue the progress. They might be able to find some human survivors or extract DNA samples to create human clone.
God i loved replaying this game, i wish i could just forget how the game went and play it again and enjoy the masterpiece
i would have left the WAU alive, considering all humans were dead. Why not still let the robots live on that earth thats already destroyed for organic life to live.
13:37 i watched this in 11:00 PM, 1 hour before january 10.
also my birthday is on january 10.
sometimes things just align
That's eerily suspicious.. I hope that isn't some kind of crazy foreshadowing of what's to come
Soma is not just an ordinary horror game.
it's a bad acid trip. (which is good i guess)
That's an interesting perspective, can't say I know what that's like though xd
@@herghoules4365 imagine the thing that literally scares you the most.
Oh yeah you can't imagine it because your subconciousness creates it for you yourself and in this case it happens to be existential dread
Absolutely love your breakdown of this amazing game. This game really got under my skin on a level that I've never experienced before and even though I played it a couple years ago now, I still find myself thinking about it and recommending it to people I know who like thinking about these philosophical / existential concepts.
I have to say, you did make me a bit more... idk if sympathetic is the right word - maybe understanding?, of the WAU and it's purpose. It's challenging to separate these completely human feelings of ethics, morality and body horror from the very literal goal of an entity that's been programmed to do a particular thing - sustain human life at any cost. The requirement of removing those human attachments and see through to the real, and realized goal of the WAU has changed my perspective on "it" as an enemy into... something else. And yet, being human, I still cannot see that change in perspective as positive. Even partly. The idea of the WAU is even scarier to me now thinking of it as carrying out this very singular purpose devoid of any malice or intent to harm rather than being the a more traditional kind of "monster". Regardless, it still very much feels like the abomination that it first appeared to me to be - now more so. I suppose my thought while destroying the WAU was... can I see this as being "better" than having no humanity left at all? I get it's making progress and Simon is a clear example of that. But the horrors his copies (and the others he encountered) have endured show me that no... I can't see it as being better at all.
Holy shit, I just love thinking about this kind of thing! So glad your video randomly showed up in my recommended list today. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
This video is SO well done.
SOMA is a game I've continued to think about 6 years later. One of the best experiences ever.
For anyone that liked the themes, morality, and philosophical tones of SOMA, you absolutely must play The Talos Principle. The best game I've ever played.
I'm definitely going to check it out! And thank you for the kind words about the video, it truly means a lot! ^^
@@herghoules4365 I hope you do. Even if it's just a reply to this comment, I'd love to eventually hear what you think about it. :)
I finished this today... And I'm crying, I know you are too
Crazy game, and yeah, the game definitely tugged on my heartstrings xD
@@herghoules4365 the concept itself blew my mind.... I hope Simon finds a copy of
catherine somehow 🥺
@@deformedcube I hope so too, that he manages to at least have Catherine as a companion in that dark and desolate abyss..
Simon didn't deserve ANY OF THIS. I just wanna give the man a hug, he had everything taken away from him at the brain scan in Toronto, was given hope with Catherine and the Ark, only to have that too ripped away from him in an instant. So fucking soul crushing.
I still think they should have switched the final scenes… flash onto the ark oh happy ending yaay and then bam back to the bottom of the ocean, fight w Catherine, darkness. THAT would have been solid.
Or once the ark is shown flying over earth, we see earth isn’t actually destroyed. It was all some psy-op for the people on Pathos2 and then everything went to hell and the company tried to bury it. Idk just a thought.
Soma to me is more than about souls or no souls its about the endurance of the memory of the human race after we're gone, the hope that we won't disappear into nothing that some how some day we will be known by someone, we want to endure after we're gone and I think it's both sad and sweet, this game is a very original take on the premise of eternal life but one that we can control.
I love the the exploration of what people would be willing to do to not die what would they be willing to gamble if there was a chance that they could carry on into eternity I mean it's horrifying and it's understandable but at the end of the day this game is one of the most lonely and depressing things I have ever seen I cried watching this game cuz it touches on a one of my very real and darkest thoughts when I was very sad and very lonely the idea that we're all just temporary and forgettable nothings who won't get anywhere unless we have the money to cement our memory into the foundations of the future now.
It makes me wonder why more people who ask this question don't at least consider faith of some kind cuz at least the Christian faith says that you don't have to have money you don't have to have power you don't have to have prestige to be remembered and for eternity to actually exist. all you need to know is who God is and what he did for you but I'm not going to go into that I know that I'm not going to preach a whole thing it just makes me wonder.
Soma is a beautiful game with a demonstration of profound kindness and conscience and empathy it demonstrates a human capacity for applying value to things that don't gain us anything letting robots who just honestly want to exist have a chance, they give them a voice and a mind to forage forward into a future it really is a good story.
Completely Agree
Just completed SOMA, what an incredible game! It's a deeply immersive journey that left me questioning the very essence of life and humanity.
SOMA was a fucking masterpiece. Not a day goes by where I don't think about it. Very well made video, great job.
You and me both.. Such an amazing game that often flies under people's radar. Thank you for watching the video, I really appreciate it! ^^
you made a great video, thank you for this!
Thank you for the kind words, I'm really happy you enjoyed it! There's more to come
beautiful, this was deep and very informative i love it i played this game years ago but every once in a while i d look up youtube videos of people talkiing about the story of soma. i find it very entreating
I just found this game like a week ago and finished it... I went into it with zero expectations and was blown away by how great it was... The story is one thing but for a horror game to me the most important things and they nailed it are the sound design and environment/atmosphere. I don't think I've ever cried at a horror game before but holy shit there were a few moments that brought me to tears or at least almost... This game is so unsettling and confusing most of the game but probably about halfway through maybe little after half the existential dread comes too and doesn't leave even after finishing game.... I finished this game a few days ago and can't stop thinking about it... Also my friend just happened to be towards the end of playing amnesia for the first time so I told him about this and he just started like yesterday I can't wait for him to finish it so I can talk about it with him without being careful what I say and how I word things to avoid spoilers
I like to think that Catherine didn't die in the end - the power just went out after the railgun drained it all. I know the monitor says something about a critical failure and her cortex chip, but I've never been able to make out exactly what it says about her chip.
Interesting that throughout the game you play as four iterations of Simon, but the one that you "really" are is the third (power-suit) Simon.
can't really blame him for the coin toss theory... poor guys got brain damage.
Easily my favourite horror experience of all time. Going into this game without knowing what it's about is an experience I want to relive
This game to me was an absolute masterpiece. One of my top favorites in horror. I loved amnesia and penumbra but this was such a perfect experience that stuck with me since I played it years ago.
My heart sinks watching this and realizing I never finished the game, but that's the problem... My heart sinks and I couldn't go through it myself :D
Hahah you should give it a try, and if it's too scary you could always play it in safe mode where the monsters won't chase you ;D
It's one hell of a game!
@@herghoules4365 For now my hunt for meaningful content has been sated. I'm preplexed whether it's meaningful to complete the game when I've seen the end and I feel like this is one avenue I could've tried exploring for content, yet there's no reason as this content alone was just amazing
@@Pufty I'm really thrilled you liked the video, it's the whole reason I became a UA-camr, so I'm immensely happy I managed to spread SOMA just a little bit so you could experience it!
I didn't cover the whole playthrough, so playing it could still be enjoyable for you if you ever change your mind ^_^
One of the Best experiences of my life playing this game. Anyone knows if there is a sequel in plans?
Very nicely put together. Subscribing for more content like this. Thank you!
Thanks a lot man, I really appreciate it! Happy to have you here!
Very well explained cause I didn't know what the hell was going on with this game. All I know it was a great game and enjoyed it very much.
Thank you for watching the video and deciding to leave a comment, I read every single one!
It really is a great game :o
There needs to be more games like this especially since AI is thriving at an exponential rate. At least Elon Musk brought up the existential concern to the public once, but it needs to happen more often. Well done video!
What is scary is Google is dabbling with AI technologies that are likely comparable to the WAU. Their system called LaMDA is actually an ASI (Artificial Super- Intelligence) that has access to everything we post on the internet and spawns personalities or "chat bots" that can carry on a subjective conversation like any ordinary human, only it learns much faster.
fucking great video
Thank you man! It means a lot 😄
Excellent video. This game is haunting to say the least.
This Game has probably one of The Stories in Game History and btw Very good Video
Masterpiece. Another game such as good is Observer!
I'm pretty much 100% sure I'll play observer, it's looking very juicy in my steam library..
The coin toss is real, when considered from an a posteriori perspective. It is always false, a priori.
has anyone ever heard of the Chinese Room experiment? i also like the fact that all this is happening underwater, you know, where abiogenesis happened.
Yeah, it's a very interesting thought experiment in the field of AI! AI is a super interesting topic with loads of cool theories ^^
the imagery from this video essay frightened me more than the creatures in the game itself.
Then I'm satisfied with the editing ;D
This was a great video to watch and loved your analysis of one of my favorite games and story. Love your work and I'll definitely love to check out the rest of your work 👍
Thank you so much for taking the time to write that, it means a lot! This is the first analysis video I've made, but I will soon start posting regularly and will make more!
I'm glad to have you here :D
Isn't MGS2 more profound in a way?
I haven't actually played it! I have seen a few things from the game that displays a lot of profundity, but I would have to play it all to know. It's also tough to decide since the profundity of something can be very subjective. In addition to the subjective nature of profundity in games (and other things), a game can also display great insight or knowledge in more than a single thing. Game #1 can show extremely deep insight in one particular area, while Game #2 shows deep insight in many areas.
This is what makes it very difficult for everyone to agree to the same game, which in turn results in the discussions being all the more interesting and exciting! :D
Wow, this is super cool. The moment i heard your voice i thought you were Swedish, and it appears that i was right. Amazing video by the way, SOMA truly is an incredible game. But i cant play it because im such a coward when it comes to playing horror games. But i can watch walkthroughs and lore videos.
Hahaha I sometimes do those Swedish-English pronunciations on words, but it's funny how quickly you noticed xD
Thank you a lot for watching the video, and yeah, the game really is terrifying!
whats the video in 14:39 ? i never watch it before
Do you mean the people ripping their faces open? It's still-images of two of the Pathos 2 crewmembers that you will see in the death screens that has flashing images (Imogen Reed and Raleigh) Which face you see depends on where you are in the game. You can also find those images on the SOMA wiki site, frictional games twitter if you google "death screen faces SOMA", or perhaps in the game files.
Wow, really good editing then. It's really creepy
@@zaru1503 Thank you, I really appreciate it xD It is one hell of a creepy game, very fascinating art.
@@herghoules4365 I was trapped by the philosophycal and narrative story, it just outstanding work
I really enjoyed the game. The ending gave me the chills.
I thought Silent Hill 2 was deep. Shit got DEEPER!!!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! 😳
SOMA deserves a remake
consciousness comes from the word consensus... it means common sense.. the collective conscious..
Great video. Would love your analysis on bioshock infinite if possible.
I have never played the bioshock games, but maybe I should check them out! :D It's probably best to play all of them in that case
I need a sequel
Either that, or a completely new game with the same themes! Would hate to get a sequel that would be awful, although if Frictional Games genuinely think it's a good idea, I'd trust them xD
@@herghoules4365 yes, I would like that idea. I mean there are plenty of themes to choose from...
Maybe people who survived above water in form of brain scans
Or the story of second Simon who built a society with his own brain scans, like a tribe of clones
Or maybe another AI like the WAU (or even the original one because it isnt restrained by it's main chamber anymore) that genetically modified the humans to be able to live under these condutions (wich would already open up new creative problems and situations ).
As much as I would like these Ideas it would be nice to start at the point at wich the original game ended. Maybe at some point the people on the arc try to return to earth and already have like established sites on asteroids. You could describe a society in wich the people choose when they want to die and can "make" children throughout a special algorithm. These new humans rediscover the old network of earth and try to acces it or something like that and at that point they try to contact whatever may have developed in earth. Maybe some split versions of the WAU wich changed the environment in different ways so the writers have more creative freedom for the new world. Either way I think this world has got such a potential, it would really be a shame If there wasnt a continuation in some form
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subbed
That's great! I appreciate it! ^^
Soma was such a great game
I totally agree, no doubt about it!
Clearly you havent played amnesia dark descent
I have, and it's amazing! In fact, Amnesia was one of the games that got me into horror games, even as far as to making my own amnesia map as a kid . Maybe I should make an Amnesia video, but I still do prefer SOMA :P
I literally even have amnesia played on the channel you're commenting on hahaha
I wonder if Simon and Catherine had kids on the ARK.
Perhaps the most important unanswered philosophical question...
Considering she's been portrayed as such a horrible person throughout the entirety of the game, I really hope not. It begs the question, though. Can computer programs even conceive children? There would be no need for reproduction in any case, since they're not alive, or "undying", I suppose.
@@correctthatfilthygrammar Many people believe that one's consciousness evolves differently inside of a machine due to diverging experiences. But as you point out, it isn't just about the difference of experience, but about their needs. Reproduction (if possible) wouldn't ensure further survival of the species, since their life would depend on the state of the "ARK-vessel". On the other hand, they live on in a simulation where probably most things are possible - where their copies are made from the "human brain template" - which might mean that they still have their human desires. Simon definitely acted the same when he reached the ARK, in my opinion ^_^
I just picked up the game. It looks good
11:50 Thank you for including the Upsilon station flooding sequence I made long ago.
You're the one who needs thanks, great videos man!
Borg origin.