Rules of survival engine series#

You know very quickly that it's metaphorical, not straightforward. This isn't a secret, you realize what's going on the moment you start reading emails and the game starts playing with perspective and imagery. Signalis is a literal nightmare where the monsters you fight are both echoes of how androids are seen in this world (a manufactured labor force with repressed humanity) and symptoms of a personal conflict that's going on in Elster's head (or Ariane's). The gap between what's happening in front of you and what's happening on the periphery elevates what would otherwise be a serviceable survival horror game.

Rules of survival engine series#

I wouldn't be so obsessed with the Souls series and Elden Ring if I didn't. I love it when games, or any media, use dream logic to stretch your imagination.

What happened here? Very few games have a logic, let alone answers, that relate to these sorts of questions about the very structure of the game in relation to its narrative, but Signalis cares very deeply about imbuing everything it can with meaning.

You are encouraged to ask yourself about why a certain enemy type is here or why this room is packed with monsters and soaked in red light. And from then on, every room carries the same possibility of intentionality. This place has to feel lived-in on a microscopic level. It shows an entirely different discipline with the game's level design. This short sequence has you enter a room not unlike the ones you've already been in but at a level of detail you couldn't quite make out when looking down from above. The gap between what's happening in front of you and what's happening on the periphery elevates it.