Signalis [Xbox]
Developed by rose-engine, Signalis is a love letter to old-school survival-horror exploration games, such as Resident Evil and Sillent Hill. You play as Elster, an android unit known as a Replika, who, after crash-landing on a snow-covered mining planet, awakens from hypersleep to find her accompanying human (known as a Gestalt), missing. With fleeting glances at memories as she searches through a nearby facility infested with monsters: the contaminated remains of other android units, warped by some sort of horrifying mind-altering virus; Elster must track down her Gestalt and get her to safety.
There are a myriad of puzzles with often complex solutions that require intricate details to be uncovered in order for you to solve them. It does a fantastic job of keeping the puzzles fresh and interesting throughout: you’ve got various wall-safes that will need to be unlocked, with each one being figured out in different ways, from reading the manuals and scrawled notes you’ll find lying around the rooms for clues, to calibrating a radio earpiece to pick up signals that can be decoded. There are also different types of keys, from keycards to plates and tarot cards, and these all serve as individual groups to form the solutions to move on further.
Whilst the storyline given to you throughout your exploration is deep, it also somehow manages to be vague enough to keep you guessing as to the finer details. Just what has gone on at this facility - and why? Characters you’ll encounter along the way provide glimpses of their current state of mind, and what issues they have faced, with some in similar positions to yourself trying desperately to track down comrades, and others holing up in rooms away from the chaos, frozen in fear of the violent, malfunctioning androids lurking in the corridors, as well as the potential of becoming just that, themselves.
Moving through the facility with enemies shuffling towards you fills you with dread. You’ve got a limited amount of ammo, though more can be found over time - providing you’ve got inventory space to pick it up - so sometimes you’ll need to just make a break for it if things get too intense. Differing enemy types will have their own behaviours, with some wielding sharp blades or shields, and others crawling up through the flooring to catch you off guard. Taking aim further adds to the tension, with your reticule shrinking upon a longer aim - giving you better accuracy, and an increased chance of the enemy taking extra damage. Once downed, you can stomp them to keep them down - though this is often just a temporary measure.
The survival aspect of trying to manage your extremely small inventory can be frustrating at times, as you ferry back and forward to drop things off in the storage chests within save rooms and locate keys to unlock doors to new areas, as well as various new artifacts that will help you on your journey. Add to this the eventual inclusion of enemies recovering from their wounds - making every fallen enemy you pass by a source of well-placed fear - particularly when you’re already struggling to conserve ammo. Eventually you will gain access to thermite and flares, which can be used to incinerate fallen enemies - though as with every other aspect of this survival game, you can never be sure as to how easily these will be found, so you’ll have to think carefully about the worth of burning any particular enemy.
Some items you’ll find on your journey will make a massive difference to how easily you’ll be able to progress, with a revolver being hidden away - and missable - or items that you’ll store for later ending up being needed urgently, leading to an avoidable death or a buttload of backtracking. An eyeball module hidden away in a safe allows for photos to be taken in-game (up to a max of 6) of anything you think you might need to refer back to later, but I actually ended up taking photos on my phone for ease of looking at alongside the game. It really makes you think about what exactly is important to you as you move through the rooms - from repair patches to give you a health boost, or stun prods to deal with enemies quickly - as with such limited storage space, you’ll inevitably witness the warning of having no space to pick up items more than a few times!
The retro styled anime graphics are visually interesting, with beautifully eerie lighting throughout, and a fantastic use of shadows to obscure enemies lurking nearby, increasing the tension. Shiny surfaces are reflective, too, which further enhances the ethereal, spooky qualities of this mysterious facility. At some points in the game, the view will shift from a top-down view into first person, both for gaining a new perspective on things, as well as alternate story sections where you’ll recover key items before snapping back to your current state.
Progressing onto the second chapter brings with it a new location, moving from the derelict, infiltrated facility to the glistening depths of the mineshaft below. Sound design is brilliant, with a haunting atmosphere permeating through the world, and an absolutely outstanding soundtrack by Cicada Sirens & 1000 Eyes that encapsulates the mystery and wonder of exploring such a terrifyingly surreal world. When enemies spot you, a loud, repeated clattering and chainsaw sound occurs which escalates your panic further, leaving you in a state of fight or flight as you decide whether to attack (and potentially waste your valuable ammo in the process), or scurry past to safety - praying for the clanging to cease.
Overall, Signalis offered up a truly magnificent experience with a compelling, mysterious story and deeply intertwined world filled with lore, along with all of the best parts of classic survival horror. The entire game had both of us gripped from start to finish, with twists and turns and a story that continued beyond our expectations, with eldritch horrors engulfing the world like a cancerous growth. There are multiple endings available, with some being significantly more common to achieve - but this encourages you to go back and dig further into the mysteries that Signalis has to offer. Priced at £16.74 on Xbox, though also available via Xbox Game Pass, which - as I always say - is a fantastic excuse to give it a try even if it doesn’t look like something that would normally interest you. After all, it won’t cost you any extra - and it might just surprise you, so I’d highly recommend that you check it out!
In the end, we decided to give Signalis the Collecting Asylum rating of 9.5/10.
Are you interested in Signalis? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Plan of Attack for the Signalis Xbox review code!
