"Wake up." This simple command rouses the player from a collage of confusing and unsettling imagery only to find themselves in a crashed and empty ship on a mysterious snowy planet. With only the sound of cold, creaking metal and echoing footsteps, players navigate the ship's puzzle with a strong sense of unease, only to make it out into a deep fleshy hole that ignites a terrifying and mind-bending mystery. This is Signalis, a survival cosmic-horror game that combines classic Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Ghost in the Shell, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft to create a unique experience that tackles the fickleness of the mind and the nature of fascism.
Signalis features refined classic survival horror gameplay through its combination of scarcity, limited inventory, environmental storytelling, array of challenging enemies, and complex puzzles. Each level is masterfully designed with intertwining rooms and corridors that house a plethora of secrets, crucial resources, and the occasional safe room where players can save their progress and put excess inventory into storage - a mechanic that is crucial to surviving this world. As one would expect, ammunition and health items are the rarest video game resources to acquire in this world, so it's crucial to know when to run away or use non-lethal tools, though this system isn't perfect.
Ammunition management is easily the most frustrating part of Signalis' late-game and not necessarily because of scarcity, but because of the number of weapons. Most of the game revolves around three weapons: a semi-auto pistol, a shotgun, and a revolver. This selection is both powerful and well distributed, never giving the player too much ammo while never leaving them empty-handed. As the game progresses however, Signalis introduces several weapons that only serve to disrupt ammo distribution and leave the player with far fewer bullets and inventory space. There isn't an easy way to save ammo either because the aiming system is inaccurate at times and leads to wasted shots that make some rooms near impossible to clear. While these situations can ultimately be resolved with some creativity, it could have been avoided altogether by having a limited arsenal and better ammo distribution.
Thankfully, this is the only real criticism of Signalis' gameplay. The level design is brilliant, the U.I. and inventory systems are beautifully designed, and the puzzles are clever. Map navigation can feel annoying is small bursts thanks to the chance of enemies reviving and losing access to the map, but that annoyance quickly dissipates as players learn how to sneak around and navigate each level. Where Signalis really shines is in its art design, dystopian robo-scape, and storytelling.
Prior to players taking control of an android named Elster, known as a Replikant, a totalitarian regime conquered the solar system and littered it with surveillance and propaganda. Early on, players can find a file of arrests made that include someone who was arrested for being part of "a conspiracy against the state" because he had a fountain pen. Signalis makes several obvious allusions to the Nazi regime: all the Replikants are white, and the propaganda posters littered throughout the world praise Replikants as Wunderwaffens, or "wonder weapons," thus celebrating strength and power over individualism. This is only further emphasized through the game's cold, brutal, and violent world that's trying its hardest to break Elster's will and mind.
Much like NieR: Automata's storytelling, Signalis heavily focuses on philosophy and requires multiple playthroughs to get the true experience. While some may not resonate with ambiguous storytelling, the only true flaw is the inclusion of Lovecraft's mythos. The story is initiated when players find a copy of "The Yellow King," a powerful god of malevolence in Lovecraftian lore. This inclusion is not only distracting due to the anticipation of if/when he'll appear, but it gives the impression that the story isn't confident in its own identity. Cosmic horror doesn't require Lovecraft to succeed, and developers Barbara Wittman and Yuri Stern prove that through the unique story, world, and gameplay that define Signalis and make it a must-play 2022 release.
Signalis is available October 27 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a Steam digital download for the purpose of this review.