



Horror has been a staple of gaming culture since its infancy, as an interactive form of media, games are able to immerse players into terrifying situations much easier than television or movies. From Resident Evil to Five Nights at Freddy’s these horror experiences are extremely varied in their style and implementation. Games like Five Nights prey on a fear of looming dread and the classic jump scare, whereas games like P.T. utilize a claustrophobic atmosphere and anticipation to truly terrify. Frictional game’s SOMA combines many of these aspects but also includes a new type of horror that is very rare in modern gaming.

To get any further in this explanation you first need to understand the concept of transhumanism. Transhumanism is a term popularized by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley which focuses on the idea that using technology humanity can enhance itself, we can change our bodies to surpass human limitations. In a broader sense this evokes themes involving the digitization of human consciousness, the advent of technological prosthesis and how integrating technology within ourselves will change to human experience. This concept has been examined before in games like Deus Ex but few of these games deal with the darker side of what happens when we change the very nature of our humanity.

Now SOMA is a very story focused game so I’m going to try and tip toe around key story elements, but be aware there may be some spoilers. In SOMA you play as Simon Jarrett a man who wakes up after a undergoing a medical experiment, in an underwater facility called Pathos-II filled with what can charitably be called a horde of psychotic killer robots. As you explore the facility and progress through the story you come across a device called a pilot chair. You find out it was originally designed to simply control the various types of robots around Pathos-II but that it has been modified to scan the brains of those who use it, producing a perfect digital copy of the users mind. Eventually you realize that the rogue artificial intelligence creating the monsters around the facility is doing so by injecting the brain scans and as a result personalities of the staff of Pathos-II into the maintenance robots throughout the base. In many cases to progress the story you are confronted with the question, are these robots, who are in some cases sentient and fully cognitively functioning, truly alive? This question and the philosophical implications of the choices you have to make within the game force the player to confront some heavy concepts.

One of these concepts is existentialism, a set of philosophical assertions culminated from the works of various 19th and 20th century philosophers that have to do with individuality and concept of self. It focuses how individuals define themselves and how the past affects what makes you, you. But what happens when you’re not the only you. Existentialism is an important part of Transhumanist horror because it as a concept helps redefine where the horror is derived from. Instead of being about your safety or the safety of people or things you care about, transhumanist horror forces you to confront the validity of your existence. In many ways it is similar to the concept of “Cosmic Horror” popularized by H.P. Lovecraft. However, SOMA instead adopts a type of horror that focuses on consciousness and the question of what can truly be considered a sentient existence. When you consider that within SOMA technology exists that allows you to download a copy of yourself into a machine, what does that mean for your concept of self? If you copy yourself is that copy still you? As the original do you have the right to dictate what happens to the copy or does the copy itself have the right to self-determination? What happens if you yourself are a copy? There are no clear answers to these questions and SOMA uses that uncertainty to great effect. It sprinkles choices throughout that make the player confront their own definition of humanity and in many cases make you question the morality of your past decisions. There are no red and blue prompts that tell you the relative karma of your choices and there are no messages that pop up telling you whether or not the choice will have an effect on the story. This departure from mechanics makes the choices more impactful, apart from the necessity of advancing the plot there’s nothing forcing you to choose one way or another. This leaves the player alone with the choice, and the feeling of uncomfortable uncertainty that this brings is the essence of transhumanist horror.

By giving the player agency in these situations, allowing them to make the final determinations on who lives or dies, or what is or isn’t human SOMA really drives home its themes in a way that simply could not be done in any other medium. As a game it enables the player to have the final say but also instills within them a sense of dread as they have to consider the consequences of their decisions. This allows SOMA to highlight a type horror that isn’t simply about survival.

If you’re interested in this type of horror and want to see more of it, check out Posthuman Studios and their tabletop game Eclipse Phase.