Classic survival horror gameplay meets a futuristic setting as you explore a doomed facility in a dystopian world.
Signalis
Developer: rose-engine
Price: $20
Platform: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
Set in a dystopian future where androids called Replikas work as part of a totalitarian regime, Signalis puts you in the shoes of Elster, a Replika who wakes up on a crashed ship and begins searching for her missing partner. This search soon takes you to a facility with malfunctioning Replikas and other monstrosities roaming the halls. From the start, the visual and audio design are excellent, with a grim aesthetic to the environments, disturbing monster designs, and audio cues that increase the level of tension.
Signalis is a survival horror styled after the classics, and it pays homage to its predecessors on several occasions, most notably Silent Hill. Even without those nods, there would be no mistaking its inspirations. As you explore the facility, you’ll need to find keys and other items to unlock new areas, often with small puzzles to solve along the way. The puzzles are straightforward, usually with a hint nearby if necessary, although a handful are trickier and will require more time and effort devoted to them.
You’ll find a handful of weapons along the way, but ammo is scarce and encounters are dangerous. It’s often best to avoid combat and save your firepower for the times when you really need it. Aiming can be a bit unwieldy at times, but serves its purpose for a game where you’re supposed to feel underpowered. Together with the enemies’ unsettling designs and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the game’s environments, the risk of dying creates a persistent sense of unease. It’s always a welcome relief to open a door onto a safe room, where you can save your game and use your item box.
The game does suffer from one notable flaw, however, and that is its inventory system. I love a limited inventory in survival horror as much as anyone, but the inventory in Signalis is a bit too limited. You have 6 item slots. That doesn’t sound too bad until you realize everything takes a space. If you have a weapon and ammo, that’s two slots gone. Some areas require a flashlight to explore, which takes up a third. Bring a healing item with you or enter a room with several items to pick up, and suddenly you’re out of space before you can even grab everything you need. I had to run back to the storage box enough times to dampen what is otherwise excellent exploration.
Most of the game is played from a third-person perspective, but occasionally you’re put into a short first-person segment instead. These segments are often strange and dreamlike, disconnected from the main series of events and yet providing you with information you need to proceed. I have a rough idea of what these sequences might mean narratively, though I’m not entirely sure.
The story in Signalis is confusing and somewhat ambiguous. Cutscenes are presented in both 2D and 3D and occur at important points in the game, sometimes interspersed with images and messages that appear on the screen. Notes found throughout the facility flesh out the immediate backstory and lore of the world, and occasional encounters with other characters fill in some of the gaps, but I finished the game realizing I still had large gaps in my understanding of what really went on. I’m sure the pieces are somewhere in those many notes, waiting to be put together, but the story won’t be easy to follow on a casual level.
Nevertheless, it has everything I look for in a survival horror game–compelling environments to explore, puzzles, dangerous monsters, and a sense of dread. It should take under 10 hours to complete, much like the classics it pays homage to, and those hours feature an enjoyable progression into the darkness as you dig deeper into the facility’s secrets.
The Final Word
Despite some flaws, Signalis is a delightful addition to the survival horror genre in the style of the classics. A lot of care has been put into its world, and its gameplay never outstays its welcome. If you like traditional survival horror games and want another game that fills that niche, Signalis is a worthy title to keep in mind.
-MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
