Soma is just the most brilliant game I've ever played, made me ponder so much about life itself. The survey thing was just amazing.

I am kinda sad that SOMA doesn't get the recognition it deserves. I've made so many friends play it and NONE of them thought the game was lame. One of my friends didn't take the game seriously at first but by the end he CRIED, it really made him emotional. It's a masterpiece - my favourite horror game.

I had never heard of Soma until I saw this video and thank god i did, Soma blew me away and i can't stop thinking about it. The story was out of this world, prob one of the best in any videogame

Soma ending was unforgettable !

Soma is one of the best games till date, its one of the ‘best story’ in a video game- its bad it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves..

Yep, he looks like a developer that would make some of the scariest games we have now.

SOMA wasn't just a game to me...it was a heart-wrenching life-changing experience! Thank you for that!

Hearing him say Silent Hill inspired Amnesia series makes me respect the devs more.

Soma was really the first horror game i actually "played" seriously, and It was a masterpiece, not as a horror game, but as any game, i loved the story, and I think only frictional can pull off these horror games that arent 80% jump scares

14:32 and they absolutely achieved their goal with Soma. it's such a masterpiece, that scares you on a level unreachable for any other game or movie. the story and its delivery is so great they should teach it in art schools

Can't believe its been 10 years. I still remember when I first played the game.

I have this uncanny feeling that Thomas is a genius.

Soma was just brilliant...F-ing B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T

Man SOMA messed me up. The idea that the "good" ending was to be uploaded to the satellite... (1) Never again able to interact with the real universe. No more discoveries, no more 'Wow, look at that!' moments. The only discoveries left are what would come from the imagination of whatever minds were in charge of generating their digital world, and that's it. (2) You're virtual world is still running on a physical computer in a real universe. Unless that satellite happens to have some really cool tech inside it that allows for self-repair then they're one good faulty transistor pop away from losing someone -- or everyone. Or drift off course / cross paths with an asteroid and it's complete oblivion. (3) No more babies/toddlers/kids. This is probably what bothered me the most, that the population that made it to the satellite would be static and unchanging forever. Unless the humans living inside the satellite figured out how to create a new human mind, then there won't ever be any new people to interact with. I found the whole thing very disturbing. I was depressed for weeks whenever I thought about it.

You can tell Thomas Grip greatly respects his audience and his projects. It's the mark of an excellent designer and a person worth supporting. I've thoroughly enjoyed the Penumbra games and Soma and I am absolutely stoked now to play this latest release in the Amnesia series. I would have played earlier Amnesia games, but from lets play videos I got the impression the pacing was too slow and the story was too abstract for my ADHD brain. Thomas saying that the environments and encounter designs are more dynamic really get me excited for this though. It's definitely going to be a day one purchase for me.

"It's gonna be very very exciting to finally release a proper sequel" Ohhh shots fired!

Frictional Games has never disappointed. Very excited to play rebirth. Sure to get something special

That moment in the closet in Amnesia was so scary to me. I thought I was safe because of the daylight and the rooms didn't feel scary at all, so when the monster came, I shat bricks =O

Brilliant. The guy should have to write a PhD dissertation about the topic.

SOMA is by far the most meaningful game I ever played. I always felt the monsters could have been removed entirely (they are my least favorite part of the game). At least they added the option to play without them hurting you, and I'm really glad they did, otherwise I would have missed this amazing story!

I love how open and truthful you (FRICTIONAL) are with all us fans. I truly believe your company has matured over the years in a great way. Soma, I believe, is the crowning achievement of what can be done when a gaming company can make whatever they want. Very creative and to this day is story-wise one of the best games ever made... Can NOT WAIT for "Rebirth" and I always wonder how you guys/girls could do making True Psychological Horror... Btw, thank you for the Silent Hill and Clock Tower shout out, Congratulations for FRICTIONAL being FRICTIONAL!! Much love from Georgia, USA

feels like he is starring into my soul with those eyes

I still have existential dread from playing Soma

The fact that he's looking to the camera like that makes the video scarier than it should be That's commitment and I appreciate it xD

Soma is the most terrifying horror games i played. Its not only gore but pure existential dread

(Incoherent Markiplier Noises) is the single best tagline I've seen on an Ars article, thank you for that

When he said " we have created something singnificant" i was like heh IF only you knew , its eve, bigger than what you think

Soma was my favorite game of the last generation of consoles. Really wish more people played it cause it’s absolutely brilliant. My favorite ending to a game ever, and god damn the transfer scene is amazing.

Amnesia was just gosh darn terrifying, I sadly never finished it, too much of a chicken I suppose 😱- it was actually one of the reasons I built my first computer.

Sad there were no bags of Milky Ways or Day[9] screaming "DANIEL"

Ars Technica is probably the best KZfaq channel out there. Congrats, guys. Always extremely interesting content/interviews very well edited with additional footage. Keep it up!

This guy is a genius. Where he talks about the minute details that don't always serve a gameplay purpose but an immersion purpose, is just super inspiring. It really does go a long way in building a relationship with the world and the character you play. Love this video

I love their sources for inspiration, great horror games like Silent Hill, yet also a diverse number of things like I shouldn't Be Alive, which has elements of survival horror yet no one watching it would consider it horror. The literature inspirations, odd bits of history and science is what I would expect from a professional writer who creates works of horror or science fiction. This is what separates Frictional Games from others, that willingness to be both thoughtful and artful in what they create. Few indie and AAA horror games bother with this level of seriousness, and that's why they tend to be fine but not great horror experiences. Soma is more akin to I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream than Resident Evil, and it's that high level of concept mixed with the bleakest of horrors that will remain with a person long afterwards.

18:53 I love what he said. I was watching the PS5 stream thing and the entire comment section was asking for graphics. It's like they don't care about the actual game.

Awesome, great longform interview! This was super interesting and well done. Thank you for making this!

I'm so glad I've found this amazing channel one day. Great interview, thanks for reminding me of Rebirth, the original Amnesia was the only game that made my heart beat faster.

18:09 YES It's so good hearing this from you because it makes me feel less bad about thinking this about the game haha To me Soma was a masterpiece in storytelling, perhaps the best of it's genre(and beyond) but gameplay-wise it lacked a certain compelling element: Even tho it's much shorter than amnesia, I actually quit Soma for long periods of time more than once, and had to replay the game twice to actually end it, and in the end after dwelling in amnesia again I think that comes down to the (lack of) a strong core gameplay loop, and the drive, and added horror and stress even, that comes with managing scarse resources, and being forced to spend them because of puzzles and finding your way, and being overall confused and lost but at the same time compelled to continue solely on the gameplay loop into the interesting events/story bits. And from what I've seen from Amnesia: Rebirth, and partially confirmed in this interview, is that a lot of these elements coming back, and improved upon! This really seems like it might be the ultimate Frictional masterpiece, as is every game you guys put out!

All of Frictional's games so far have been fantastic - from the story to the mechanics and their connection, deep philosophical themes, character characterization, great gameplay and phenomenal atmosphere. Penumbra, Amnesia, SOMA are masterpieces of the genre and gaming in general. Really great attention is paid to even the smallest details. In addition, they have their own engine, really every honor Frictional Games. If this game is at least half as good as the previous ones, a truly great work of art awaits us. Games are art - the proof are exactly those of Frictional Games.

I really love these insights. Thank you so much.

I would absolutely love to have a conversation with this guy. He really gets what horror is really all about and his approaches and inspiration for the work he and his team does is absolutely fascinating.

I didn't care for Amnesia (sorry, personal preference), however I absolutely loved the narrative and atmosphere in Soma, not expecting a sequel to it, but hoping for more wonderfully written story driven horror in the future. Once you added easy mode without monsters hunting you, (less hiding) I introduced friends and I feel it truly added to the experience in the narrative. Still the same atmosphere and tension, just less annoying replays through scenes.

SOMA was amazing. 10/10

I'll throw in my 2 cents about Let's Plays: A full game Let's Play is the most honest review a player can give of a game. It shows you the gameplay and a person's reaction to it for the entire game. There are a number of games I've played that I've only even considered playing because I've seen in an LP in advance. Subnautica I only played because I saw a part of a single stream of its sequel (and was told by the streamer that the original was very much in the same vein). I've played about 50 runs of a randomized version of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that turns the whole game into a meta-puzzle of finding the right items to do the dungeons you have to do and beat the final boss while knowing all the solutions to the original puzzles and where all the item checks are, all because I watched a streamer who'd just gotten into it. Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley, Ori and the Blind Forest. If you throw in games I watched my older brother and friends play as a child, throw in Halflife, TIE Fighter, Planescape: Torment, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Baldur's Gate II, Metal Gear Solid 1, 2 and 3, Civilization 2, Rome: Total War...Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy 10, Minecraft, Myst, Riven...of all these games, the only one that isn't still on my list of games worth replaying every once and a while is Civilization 2, and that's only because empire strategy games have developed so far past that point. I can only think of 3 games that I have played that a full let's play of would have made me less interested in: Return of the Obra Dinn, Fate/Stay Night, and Spec Ops: The Line. Return of the Obra Dinn is a very memorable puzzle game that requires you to take note of a lot of things in very exacting detail in order to find the solutions. The entire point of the game is the slow unravelling of the events that took place on the ship as you slowly work out, piece by piece, the fate of each of the 60 people aboard the Obra Dinn. Every plot twist and reveal is best experienced in person. Technically I was exposed to this by a Let's Play, but it was one that was very carefully curated to only show the introductory events in order to illustrate basic mechanics and cuts off right before the first significant departure from the norm. It's one of very few games that I feel that going knowing anything beyond that bit that I saw detracts from the experience of playing the game. (Other fixed-solution puzzle games might fall into this realm as well, but Obra Dinn is an exceptional example both in quality and in how damaging any spoiler would be to the experience) Fate/Stay Night is a visual novel. The entire experience of the game is reading it, and a let's play would cover that entirely. Most choice deviations from a path taken by a full LP will result in either slight scene changes or imminent demise, offering very little reward for a player choosing to exercise their own agency in playing the game they'd already watched an LP of. (Assuming they'd watched the full content of the game - it's 3 versions of the story, not just one) This definitely applies to other visual novels that are heavy in their narrative focus (the romance ones are usually more variable because the romance plot is dictated by who you decide to romance), and to a lesser extent applies to things like TellTale games, since those give an illusion of having way more agency than they actually have. Spec Ops: The Line is...special. It's a shooter that wants you to not like shooting. It's a deconstruction of its own genre that uses the very nature of the genre to trick you into doing things without hesitation when you really should have hesitated. It's gameplay is a slog, the gunplay is not fun, and the firefights feel very videogamey. That's kinda the point. If you've not played it or been spoiled about it, I recommend playing it despite these gigantic, crippling flaws. Unless you have a sensitivity to being manipulated, because the game is very manipulative. I'll just mention one spoiler, and it's the same bit almost everyone talking about the game will mention, because it's such a good example of how the game plays with you. There's a point about halfway through the game where you come across a large group of enemy soldiers. (Well, sort of enemies - you're a US Delta Force squad and they're ...USMC? Army? Something also American. But they've been shooting at you, and you've been shooting back long enough at this point that you're just assuming they're all enemies now.) You're at a position that has free access to a mortar equipped with white phosphorus shells and a drone of some kind that can give you a thermal scope image of the field below you. It feels like one of those big Call of Duty moments, like the AC130 mission in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - you get to take control of the big cool piece of artillery and go ham and watch the little white lights of the enemy get snuffed out by the awesome power of your big guns. You can look down on part of the field below you and see enemy soldiers, so when you see the gigantic clump of people huddled together just over the ridge from where you are, you assume it's just a big squad of enemy soldiers. It's a very big, very attractive target. It's a cinematic moment, you can't move forward without using the mortar and you can't cancel out of the mortar until every target is dead, but it's still your finger on the trigger. Then you get to walk through the ashes. Remember, you were using white phosphorus shells - incendiaries, not high explosives. The entire area is burned, soldiers charred or still burning. I think a few are still alive gasping in agony, just to drill home how awful this weapon is. Then you get to that ridgeline and see that big group of people that was huddled together in the flesh. That big juicy target. The group of civilians the soldiers were protecting. All burned, all dead, all murdered. By you. Yes the game didn't let you proceed without doing it, but you still did it. That guilt trip you experience in that moment is the core essence of the entire game. It's one of those games that grabs you by the unmentionables, forces your eyes open and makes you look at the consequences of the kind of unrestrained slaughter built into a lot of video games, especially shooters. It's a game I'm very glad I played. It's a game I will never play again. And if you see it as an LP, you probably won't want to either. Not just because of how it makes you feel, but because the gameplay is genuinely not that good. The stab-twist of story moments like that is what makes it worth playing, and the effect is ruined if you know it's coming.

amnesia is one of my favourite horror games ever . thank you for creating this game

I love this comment section praising SOMA, my all time fave from Frictional Games. ❤

Listening to this while exercising. Nice content.

I LOVE each of their games. They are simply masterpieces. I was most touched by Machine for pigs, but I truly loved all.

It's such a shame that his intentions for rebirth were spot on yet the game fails to deliver. While the direction he wanted to take with rebirth - mixing the best of both soma and TDD - is totally an understandable approach I feel like he overstates the failure of the story in TDD. Thomas tells us he believes he failed with making us relate to the character & fully experience the story, but I think the whole thing with Daniel is incredibly bleak and depressing if you really think about it. Even though I loved the first half of rebirth, imo it totally lost any tension in the last 1/3 of the game. It's obvious they were trying really hard to get the story across and you spend a lot of time in these dark world environments but I feel that more ambiguity was required to really make it work.

30:50 We don't want to just throw jump scares at the player. Litterally thirty seconds ago, you showed exactly that happening with the "Fear Flashes" in Rebirth. There are more subtle ways to indicate your mental state is declining. Dead Space 2 did something very similar with Isaac's scripted dimentia moments. They were used more as a means of telling the story and there was a set number of them. It really seems like Rebirth tried to merge that with the sanity mechanic and the game suffers as a result. Players do not need story tid-bits when they are running from a monster or everytime they're low on sanity. Many people, myself included, felt Frictional had almost replaced immersive screen distortions with cheap jump scares, thinking it would make a for a better experience. Even if they've since been toned down, they are still more annoying than immersive. For me, these "Fear Flashes" were the first indication that something was very different about this games production compared to Dark Decent and Soma and everything that went downhill from there just proved me right.

fascinating, Frictional are really a masterclass in horror at this point

Amnesia TDD was a genre defining game, a game to pave the way for other horror classics like Outlast and Alien: Isolation. What a masterpiece, I'm very excited for Rebirth!

I'm surprised he never talked about Layers of Fear since I can tell that Bloober Team took what Frictional Games/him made and were greatly inspired by it (to the point where I almost thought that Layers of Fear was made by Frictional Games until I looked up Bloober Team (and sure, you can say they copied Amnesia, but I hate using the word copied when it's not 1:1 or at least using the same plots)). I absolutely love how much of a genius Thomas is and have nothing but praise for the games he and the rest of Frictional Games have made, with Amnesia being a pace-setter and horror game renaissance creator for the past 10 years and SOMA being the absolutely most BRILLIANT games ever created regarding it's plot and narrative. Sure, it wasn't the best horror game, but it was a game that came closest to being a book I've ever played in my life, feeling like something even Stephen King would be proud of if written. I feel like, due to Frictional Games and what they've accomplished, that they're the reasons why we've gotten such phenomenal games like P.T., Layers of Fear, Alien: Isolation, Outlast, Until Dawn/Man of Medan, Slender: The Arrival, Kholat, etc. Yes, other fantastic/revolutionary games came out as well like Slender: The 8 Pages, FNaF, GTFO, Phasmophobia, Monstrum, etc., but those follow their own paths, like how Resident Evil games had theirs and had games that came out trying to replicate them like The Evil Within. The first list of games I listed have explicit details that shows them being inspired by (and probably even not ever existing without) Amnesia and what Frictional Games have managed to do. The horror genre of games had become stagnant after Dead Space and Resident Evil stopped making new games that were as good as their original games were, but Amnesia started a renaissance that, imho, gave birth to not just more, but even better, horror games than ever before. Whether anyone loves or hates Amnesia, they cannot deny the impact it had and the honor it deserves.

Thanks for this Master class in horror and game design!

One thing I have to admit I wonder: was there any influence from the Shalebridge Cradle level from Thief: Deadly Shadows in these games? I'm reminded of all of the reasons that I remember my first experience of that level over a decade later. I can still tell you pretty much a blow by blow version of my experience. As a gamer, Thief: Deadly Shadows was a mix of two of my favourite things: interesting narrative and heavy stealth gameplay. You do have weapons, you can knock out or kill enemies, and the AI is honestly not that good on repeat playthroughs. But for a first time player, the AI is good enough to keep you on your toes, your more effective weapons have sufficiently limited ammo that you have to be careful how you use them, and most importantly, if you're actually in combat, you're all but helpless. The game teaches you to love the darkness, and to care about the deeply flawed, witty kleptomaniac, Garret, your player character. Shalebridge Cradle is about the 3/4 mark of the game, by which point you're getting quite comfortable with all the normal gameplay...and it makes you question everything that's happening. At this point in the game's narrative, you've retrieved a couple of magical artifacts for a secretive organization known as the Keepers, heard a prophecy, destroyed a clock tower to try to fulfill that prophecy ("When time stops the evil ones will be pointed out", or something like that), and been accused of murdering the person who can read the prophecy books (an old lady named Caduca, with a young girl apprentice named Gamall), been tracked through the city by Keeper enforcers, who commune telepathically with each other, but for some reason you can hear their voices in your head (this isn't well explained in the plot, but it has an impact on my experience in the Cradle), and broke into the Keeper stronghold, discovered that Caduca's body was literally turned to stone, found a note in her room addressed specifically to you indicating "we should meet" in the Hall of Statues, seen an ancient, monstrous Crone (fantasy Hag, essentially) turn all the statues into walking monsters with orders to kill you, then slipped away. There's one other person in the city who's been researching stories of The Crone, The Hag, the Gray Lady, etc - who's largely regarded as something of a madman by most of his fellows in another faction. You go to his place, and he tells you about his meeting with the Crone as a child, in an orphanage known as the Shalebridge Cradle. He and one other orphan saw her, and while he managed to escape, his companion, a young girl, did not. It's the one place in the city he's never dared to search for clues of the Crone, but Garrett dismisses that as childhood terror rather than very rational fear, and decides to go there. The briefing fills you in a bit on the history of the building: originally an orphanage, then converted to be half orphanage, half insane asylum (using good old pre-Freudian insanity treatments...some of which makes ECT seem civilized by comparison), then burned down, was boarded up and abandoned. There's one line I still remember: "This place looks like a house with bad dreams." That's one way to put it. This account got far longer than I realized, so this will be Part 1/3. Other parts covering the level itself are replies to this one.

Soma has one of the best ending I ever played. Perfec transhuman sci-fi

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have my like and well earned subscription. I love horror games and can't wait for Amnesia's sequel.

SOMA is probably the only game that if you remove all the monsters, it would still work.

Okay, I think Thomas is not giving himself and his company due credit; I found the story arc of the 1st and 3rd Amnesia games to be incredibly creepy and engaging, and it's incredible. Well done.

I thought the first act of resident evil 7 was way more frightening, the illusion that you can defend yourself is so much more frightening than not being able to defend yourself at all! Penumbra Overture is still my favourite gameplay output from this developer! FairPlay tho I love the vibe in amnesia

Was very nice of him to really dig into how much Let's Player's did for the game, and visa versa. Sort of birthed a generation even.

should be an interesting watch!

I really enjoyed every game from the original Penumbra: Overture up until Soma. The only thing I have a gripe with in Soma is the frequency of the enemy encounters. I have started the game (from the beginning) twice. The first time I went all the way to this part where you're inside a sunken ship of sorts and it's full of these scary monsters that you can't look at. The second time I managed to get to a really creepy part where you need to sneak your way into an elevator, and right after that there's a couple cutscenes, you take two steps and boom, another monster sneaking part. It was a real turnoff, it felt like all that sneaking around I did earlier was for naught. Sadly, I haven't touched the game again since December, 2019. And it's a damn shame since I was really enjoying the story and I could tell it was masterfully crafted, but now I find myself in a conundrum, because I would like to start it again sometime to get through to see the end, but I feel like I should start from the beginning since I fear I may have forgotten chunks of the story. And I really, really don't want to start back up from the beginning.

so hyped for this game

Can We please have more ppl like Mr. Grip?

I don't usually like getting hyped about games since I've been disappointed so many times but I just can't help myself. I can't wait for Rebirth!

The water monster chase... btw Frictional you owe me a new pair of pants.

I was in highschool when Amnesia released. The environments and monsters may have scared me, but the story traumatized me. I had nightmares that look like birthday parties compared to the torture scenes.

Nice to see you Aaron Bruckhart.....

Soma is an absolute masterpiece

32:07 Yes after playing Amnesia I miss this in pretty much every game, and it's so well done and sleek as far back as Amnesia that I really don't see why it isn't done more (And when it's done you can clearly see that Penumbra and amnesia set the roots to influence it, like with HL:Alyx) I specially miss it in horror or ambience heavy games.

Great video

Frictional games still slaying it till now. It really shocked me that they went meta with SOMA rather than scaring the player in a primal way like in Amnesia Dark Descent. Can't Wait to play Rebirth 😁

Yea. Its 12:30 atm. I will watch this tomorrow. I'll leave a like tho.

Frictional is so on point

I wonder how the game would work in VR. I hope this will be their next project!

Great stuff! Would love a better microphone though.

I have NEVER seen anything as scary as Mr Thomas Grip (narrator). Now, I'll have nightmares for the rest of my life! Aaaaaahhhh.... ಠ_ಠ

Haha way to go Lilia TV!

The first person I ever saw play this was Mangaminx in late 2010.

31:05 THAT SCREAM!!! LMAO IM DYING XDXD PLEASE KEEP IT IN THE GAME ITS FUNNY AF Also when she backs off its looks weird... glitched...

Welp, I'm hoping for an explanation, Thomas

Loved soma so much, That I might name my child soma!

I couldn’t finish amnesia as a teen. I watched the whole game first on cryoatics KZfaq but the game was so great at horror even knowing what to do and how the monsters worked I was still scared shitless and couldn’t finish.

The first Amnesia, is the only game to date, that could really scare me.

I believe this game will bring back some old memories some are good and some are just terrifying well time to piss my pants once again

34:16 Something comes out of the hole 0_0

I hope they port this to VR eventually

The voice acting in amnesia rebirth doesn't do much for player isolation.

31:06 future me playing Amnesia: Rebirth

I'm not watching beyond 23 Minutes to avoid Rebirth spoilers. :) Anyway, cool video!

the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock once said, to get real terror, real suspense, you have to give the audience information. And it has stood true to this day, with video games. If it is just a scare out of the blue, with no warning, no sign of threat, thats all it is, a jumpscare. Just a jolting moment. I think too many games these days rely on that.

It's a shame he forgot some of his own philosophies in Rebirth.

It's opensourced now btw

10:35 like Silent Hill and Rule of Rose

Love how Machine For Pigs isn't directly referred to. We don't speak that name here.

If someone wants play amnesia I recommend trying the amnesia remastered mod

nice

still havent finished amnesia... too scary.

That one guy behind the bro looks like the old beta Chris walker from the trailer (outlast)

Amnesia and Alien Isolation are two games I've owned for years and still haven't gotten past 30 minutes because I get too scared each time.