SOMA is a game that is known for its deep and sometimes frightening atmosphere. A ‘Safe Mode’ option for the game was released for Xbox One and PC last year which allows players to explore the game’s unsettling atmosphere safely without the risk of death. In a new update, the Safe Mode has also been added for the PS4.

The developer Frictional Games explained how Safe Mode works as follows, “Our goal has been for Safe Mode to not feel like a cheat, but for it to be a genuine way of experiencing the game. So we’ve considered what each creature should be doing, given their appearance, sound, and voice.” This means that creatures in the game will still respond to the behavior in certain ways with their sounds and movements. Furthermore, the game’s atmosphere ensures that players will still find the game to be quite scary.

The developer stated that they want players to still experience the game in a “genuine way” without losing out on some important aspects of the story. This mode should definitely make it easier and fun for some players who may not have tried out the game at all on account of its difficulty.

Frictional Games, the guys behind Amnesia: Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, two of the most terrifying games released this generation, have updated their website and revealed a new game; their newest project seems to be called SOMA, and it appears to be a science fiction action adventure title.

The trailer you see above has absolutely no context, so I have no clue what is going on, although I can say it leaves me feeling uneasy (which is, perhaps, fitting, given that this is by Frictional). It’s easy to see that they are talking about some sort of salvage mission, and an item that was recovered during that mission. More information on their website gives very little details, so right now we have nothing to go on.

No, we have absolutely nothing. It looks like this might do psychological horror in an outer space setting correct, but that’s really not enough to report any facts. We don’t know when it’s coming out, what systems it is targeting, or even when we learn more about it. Hang tight, I guess.

However, Frictional in the mean time is occupying itself with a brand new first person horror title “and a lot of it will be built upon lessons learned from Amnesia,” says co-founder Thomas Grip in conversation with Beefjack.

“The way we handled horror in Amnesia was that we just threw stuff in without thinking too much about why it was there. Our main goal was simply to build up a scary atmosphere, and whatever contributed to that was added. This means that you as a player can not really think too deeply about any element, since there often was not any deeper intent with it.

“For our next game we want to have more thought behind everything that happens, and tie things together so if the player thinks some more about it, it will take things a step further. So we want these extra layers to the gameplay that will really get below the skin of the player.”

It’s quite surprising to note that Frictional’s next didn’t begin life as a horror game. But as Grip notes, “because of the subject matters involved it slowly turned into one.”