Indie developer duo, rose-engine, will be releasing Signalis to PS4 this October 27. Though the game is being marketed as sci-fi survival horror, the developers are eager to explain that it will also be so much more. Players will control a technician Replika named Elster, who wakes up after her spaceship has crash landed. With her pilot nowhere to be found, Elster goes looking and discovers something mysterious under the ice. She searches an abandoned mining facility, but soon has to fight for her life against “horribly distorted figures.”
The game is from the third-person perspective with moments of first-person POV to solve puzzles and gather clues. Signalis combines several types of horror in its storyline. For example, the mysterious finding under the ice is very Cosmic horror, while there is the overarching threat of a totalitarian government watching your every move. Also, it is survival horror, so you will have limited weapons and supplies that you will need to find around the facility. This will include rummaging through drawers to find a gun or you have to assemple a tool before you can use it. For one puzzle, you will even have to use a chemical to dissolve something, so there is an inherent real-world logic to solving them. Finally, the psychological horror is layered throughout as you try to understand where you are and why you are there.
Check out the trailer below:
Signalis has a very retro feel to it as well. Floppy disks, self-developing photos, and Cold War-era number stations are present throughout the game. And the use of old-fashioned computer operating systems with CRT displays may have players feeling nostalgic. Overall, the game is described by the developers as a “love letter to the classic PS1-era survival horror games.” Fans of Resident Evil and Silent Hill have something to look forward to in October then!
