Radios have gone silent in a remote research facility, and some very strange things start to occur. Machines are acting as if they are people, taking on human traits and characteristics. Also, there is a dark presence lurking about that should be avoided at all costs, if you want to survive. SOMA provides the perfect setting for any thrill seeking gamer, with it's sparse lighting, tightly compact areas of maneuverability and absolutely no HUD, not even in the form of waypoints or a minimap. Therefore, it leaves sheer intuition and memory as the only tactics on your side.
Exploring the possibility of machines gaining a human consciousness is the central focus that SOMA revolves around. Being a philosophical game about this, and consciousness in general, don't expect there to be any clear-cut or obvious answers to what is going on at the underwater research facility.
In order to progress forward in the story, you will need to solve an array of puzzles which are required to open doors, fix machines, and complete a plethora of other tasks. Along with this, many objects can be picked up and thrown around. This feature has been added for no particular reason, unless you're faced with an enemy that you cannot fight, therefore giving you a useful distraction in which to hide or escape to another area. If any of these creatures catch you though, it isn't simply game over and you restart from the beginning of the mission. Instead, the current path you were taking will be narrowed down. This causes previously accessible areas to become closed off, while also opening up some new ones that may not have been available beforehand.
This new way of advancing throughout the story line gives SOMA a huge replay value, but does not hinder your possibility of progression within the game. All of this, along with breathtaking graphics and overall dark or barely lit surroundings, SOMA is sure to get a scare out of even the most hardened gamer.
If SOMA interests you, there seems to be some sort of additional content or information in the works, something called PathOS. It looks to be a kind of command prompt in which you can explore some of it's files when the right codes are entered.
Source: Game Informer
