Soma is a 2015 survival horror video game created and released by Frictional Games. The story follows Simon Jarrett, who finds himself on an underwater research facility under unknown reasons. The facility contains machines that show human traits, such as having a personality and consciousness. Simon tries to learn about the facility’s history while trying to understand his situation and what might happen next.
The game uses ideas from earlier horror games by Frictional Games, like Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It includes elements such as hiding from dangers, solving puzzles, and creating a strong sense of being in the game. However, it focuses less on managing items and more on the story and characters.
Soma was released on September 22, 2015, for Windows, macOS, Linux, and PlayStation 4. It was later released on December 1, 2017, for Xbox One. A version for Nintendo Switch, made by Abylight Studios, came out on July 24, 2025. Critics gave the game mostly positive reviews, praising its story, themes, atmosphere, sound, and voice acting. However, some criticized the design of enemies and how they appear in the game. A new game called Ontos, inspired by Soma, is planned for release in 2026.
Gameplay
Soma is a type of horror video game that includes psychological horror elements. Players experience the game from a first-person perspective, meaning they see the action as if they are in the game themselves. Throughout the game, players encounter many creatures, each of which represents a part of the game's themes. Players can find many clues, such as notes and audio tapes, which help create the game's mood and explain the story. Like other games made by Frictional Games, players move the story forward by solving puzzles, exploring the environment, and hiding quietly. Players can die if they are caught by monsters. Two years after the game was first released, a feature called "Safe Mode" was added. This mode keeps the monsters in the game but stops them from harming the player. As in previous games by Frictional Games, players cannot obtain weapons. The only way to survive is to try to run away from or hide from the monsters.
Plot
Soma is set in the year 2104 at a place called PATHOS-II, an advanced research facility located underwater in the North Atlantic Ocean. PATHOS-II was originally built in the 2060s by companies named Haimatsu and Carthage Industries to mine thermal energy. Later, its purpose changed to space technology, including the use of the Omega Space Gun, a powerful device that launches satellites into orbit without needing rockets. All operations at PATHOS-II are managed by the Warden Unit (WAU), an artificial general intelligence that controls all the computers in the facility.
The people working at PATHOS-II became the last humans on Earth after a comet struck the planet, causing a major extinction event. These humans struggled to survive, dealing with the challenges of being isolated and facing new dangers.
In 2015, a man named Simon Jarrett survives a car accident but suffers serious brain damage and bleeding. He agrees to undergo an experimental brain scan. During the scan, he loses consciousness and wakes up in 2104 at Site Upsilon, a geothermal power center that appears abandoned. There, he meets a woman named Catherine Chun, who tells him he is in the year 2104, one year after the comet destroyed Earth. Catherine invites him to Site Lambda and explains that PATHOS-II is the last human outpost. While talking to her, a communication system fails, and Simon tries to fix it. When the platform he is on floods, he blacks out and wakes up inside a diving suit. He explores the seabed, finds a working train, and travels to Site Lambda. Along the way, he meets robots that believe they are human.
At Site Lambda, Simon learns that Catherine is not human but a brain scan of a PATHOS-II employee stored in a robot. He later discovers that Catherine died in 2015 after her brain reconstruction failed. Her brain scan was used as a model for AI development and was later uploaded into the body of another PATHOS-II employee by the WAU 89 years later. The WAU took control of the facility and turned surviving humans into bio-mechanical mutants to preserve humanity. The only way for human life to escape Earth is through the ARK, a digital storage device created by Catherine that holds a simulated world with brain scans of PATHOS-II personnel. The ARK has not yet been sent into space, and Simon agrees to help Catherine recover it.
The ARK is located at Site Tau, deep in the Atlantic Ocean. To reach it, Simon must first retrieve a submarine named DUNBAT from Site Theta, but the WAU has damaged it. He travels to Site Omicron to build a new body that can survive the deep sea. There, he receives messages from Johan Ross, a WAU-converted AI specialist who urges him to destroy the WAU. After creating his new body, Catherine transfers his consciousness into it. Simon realizes his old body is still conscious, forcing him to decide whether to end its life or leave it behind.
Simon descends to the ocean floor, facing mutated creatures, and retrieves the ARK from Site Tau, where it is guarded by the last human survivor of PATHOS-II. The survivor asks Simon to end her life, a choice the player may make. Simon takes the ARK to Site Phi, where the Omega Space Gun is located. However, he must first go through Site Alpha, where the WAU’s core is. Ross reveals that the material used to build Simon’s new body was designed to destroy the WAU, but his colleagues did not use it in time. Ross secretly plans to kill Simon to stop the WAU from adapting to his immunity. Before Ross can act, he is killed by a mutated creature, and Simon escapes to Site Phi.
At Site Phi, Simon finds the body of the original Catherine, who was killed during a conflict with other PATHOS-II staff who refused to launch the ARK. Catherine copies the brain scans of the staff into the ARK before launching it into space. Simon realizes that the version of himself on the ARK is a copy, while he remains in the pilot seat. Catherine’s brain chip fails, and she dies. Simon is left alone in the deep ocean.
In a post-credits scene, the copy of Simon on the ARK awakens and reunites with Catherine in a peaceful, simulated world. Meanwhile, the ARK drifts into space, leaving Earth behind.
Development
Soma began development in 2010 with the creation of new technology for the game engine. The idea to set the game at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean came suddenly to Frictional Games co-founders Thomas Grip and Jens Nilsson, who said they had wanted to try this idea for a long time. During development, the game’s story changed many times before reaching its final version. An older version of the game was later released as an easter egg. The storytelling was designed to depend on what the player does instead of telling them what to do, so players who skip clues like audio logs and notes could still follow the plot. Soma’s main theme is about consciousness, and the game was created to explore what free will and the self mean. The game’s atmosphere was inspired by the work of Philip K. Dick, China Miéville, and Greg Egan.
To create realistic sounds that match the game’s mood, audio director Samuel Justice used a system he called "the room size system." Instead of making sounds artificially, he recorded real environments that fit the needs of the game, such as the echo from a large hall. Using this system, over 2,000 footstep sounds were recorded.
In January 2025, publisher Abylight Studios said they would work with developer Frictional Games to bring three of their newest games (Soma, Amnesia: The Bunker, and Amnesia: Rebirth) to the Nintendo Switch.
Marketing
A teaser trailer showing gameplay from the game Soma was released on October 11, 2013. The official website's information page includes a quote from author Philip K. Dick. Another trailer for the game was released in April 2014.
Two live-action short films, Vivarium and Mockingbird, were filmed one after the other at LeftJet Studios in Seattle over nine days. The films were produced by Imagos Films, an independent film company based in Seattle. Imagos Films also created a series of live-action clips for Frictional Games, which were planned to be released monthly in 2015 and connected to the story of an upcoming game. Because of production issues, the release was delayed. On September 28, shortly after the game's release, Frictional Games shared the first clip on their YouTube channel under the title "SOMA – Transmission #1," with seven additional clips to follow each day. The live-action miniseries serves as a prequel to the game's events, though it is inspired by the game's plot and characters rather than being strictly part of the game's story.
In partnership with Frictional Games, Imagos Films produced a feature film temporarily named DEPTH under the code name "Project Apophis." The film's director is Don Thacker, and clips from it were used in Soma's marketing campaign, such as the "Transmissions" webseries. The film features actors Trin Miller, Josh Truax, and Rachelle Henry, and was expected to release in 2016.
Reception
Soma received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.
Richard Wakeling from GameSpot gave the game a 9 out of 10. He praised the "engaging and thought-provoking" story, the "impressive" writing and voice acting, and the atmosphere and sound design, which together create a "dread" and "chilling" feeling. However, he disliked the sections where the player walks on the ocean floor, calling them "dull" and "incredibly linear." Philip Kollar of Polygon also gave the game a 9/10. He wrote: "I don't know if SOMA will scare people as much as Amnesia did, but it is without a doubt a stronger game, with better pacing, smarter writing, and more powerful subject matter. This isn't a horror game about obfuscation; events aren't building to a huge, shocking twist. More than anything, it's about the process of dealing with the horror of reality." Caitlin Cooke from Destructoid awarded the game a 9/10 as well. She stated, "SOMA gets everything right about the survival horror genre. It's like someone created the perfect video game mixtape — a little bit of abandoned underwater atmosphere from BioShock, detailed environments a la Gone Home, and (of course) the frenzied monster mechanics from Amnesia. Even if you dislike non-combat-oriented games, I dare you to give it a try."
Tim Turi from Game Informer awarded the game an 8.5 out of 10. He commended the sound for convincingly immersing the player in the game, as well as the "eerie" environments, the "simple," "reliable" controls, and the "intriguing" narrative. In his review for GamesRadar+, Leon Hurley wrote: "A disturbingly different take on interesting sci-fi concepts let down by a slow start… but worth it overall." Hurley praised the "great" story, "likeable" characters, and the "interesting and unpredictable" locations. He also commended the game for its ability to pull the player through the story by providing rewarding situations, although Hurley did feel "lost" at times, as there are no distinct directions. IGN's Daniel Krupa scored the game an 8.1/10 and wrote: "SOMA is a sustained exploration of an original and thought-provoking idea. The concept of artificial intelligence has been explored by lots of science fiction, so it isn't unique in that regard, but it makes particularly intelligent use of video game conventions to present those familiar ideas in new and surprising ways."
Criticism of Soma focused on the implementation and design of its enemies. While Cooke generally enjoyed the monster encounters and their "unique and frightening" designs, she felt disappointed that there were only a few different types, most of which only made one appearance in the game. Turi found that the cat and mouse gameplay of stealthily evading monsters now felt "formulaic" in the genre and "required patience." Wakeling wrote that while the encounters were necessary to provide adversity, he felt they were otherwise "tedious" and found himself "clambering to get back to the story." Hurley wrote that the monsters lacked "threat" and "never really deliver… they're little more than dumb ambulatory obstacles," being overcome by the player "looping around behind them, or slipping past while they obediently investigate thrown objects." Alex Avard of GamesRadar+ praised the game's "Safe Mode" update from 2017 that decreased the threat of the monsters, having felt they were originally "unwelcome interruptions to an otherwise enthralling mystery," but instead in Safe Mode gave the "high-minded story the space it always needed to breathe." He wrote that the enemies' typically passive behavior and discernible forms improved the game's atmosphere and themes while allowing him to fully engage in the narrative, writing: "I'm no longer beset with frustrated paranoia or constantly distracted by my own survival instincts. Instead, my attention is entirely focused on engaging with Simon's personal journey and learning more about the history of PATHOS-II."
After ten days of release, Soma had sold 92,000 copies, exceeding the 20,000 copies made by the developer's previous game Amnesia: The Dark Descent in its first week. In March 2016, Frictional Games announced that the game had sold more than 250,000 copies and that the company was close to breaking even, which required them to sell 276,000 units. In a blog post commemorating one year of release, Frictional Games estimated that the sales figures had exceeded 450,000 copies. By March 2021, 1 million copies were sold on PC alone. At the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards, Soma was nominated for three categories: Best Original Game, Best Storytelling, and Best Visual Design. In 2018, GamesRadar+ ranked the game 8th in their list of "the 20 best horror games of all time."