SOMA and What Does it Mean to Be Human

"I think, therefore I am" - René Descartes

You have probably read about the trolley problem before. This conflict where you have a trolley that is going to kill either three people or just one person, and whether it is ethical to make that decision. By virtue of utilitarianism and logic it seems like an easy choice, but what makes the trolley problem interesting is when you start characterizing the people. What if the one person is going a doctor? What if the one person is a child? What if the five people are murderers? What if the side with five people has a doctor but also a serial killer? We make these questions to debate about philosophy, but what if it was you who actually had to make that choice? 

SOMA is technically a horror game that released on 2015, but its horror is not the same as in just any other horror game. It is story that explores existence in a way that I have never experienced before or after having played it back in 2020. It uses the medium to immerse players in a sensible and haunting science fiction story that stares into one's soul. 

You play as a man called Simon who has a car crash in the contemporary year of 2015 that leads to irreversible and eventually fatal brain damage. Seeing his situation, Simon applies to an experimental new medical technique; getting his brained scan and ran through a simulation until they find a way to fix his issue. They scan his brain, get nowhere with it, and so Simon is going to die but the people doing this experimental new treatment ask if he is fine with them using his brain scan to further research. 

The year is 2114. Simon wakes up in a dark metal room, water and black goo dropping from the ceiling. He goes on to explore his surroundings looking for some kind of escape, and realizes that the black goo itself seems to be alive and wants to take him via robots that have left lying around. He keeps going, until he comes across a voice, screaming for help. A man called Carl Semken, who is lying in the floor as he complains about his pain and discomfort while begging for help. Simon, as confused as he has been all this time, has no clue what to do since, clearly, there are no medics around to help Carl. Carl thinks his legs are stuck in place due to an injury, but in reality, Carl is inside a manufacturing line robot. Simon feels very confused but chooses not to think much about it and move on. He soon comes to face a room, in it the real body of Carl Semken, and a door that leads to the exit but needs energy from somewhere to move. Simon has two options, to drain the energy from the room in which the robot Carl is in or the room in which another goo enemy is--which Simon is definitely not ready to confront. If you were me, you chose to take away Carl's life in that moment; not only is he 'not an actual human' but also is in pain--it would be giving Carl mercy right? You pull down the lever and the process of one room draining the other is not without pain. You hear Carl writhe in pain and exclaim with resentment to Simon--and it is haunting. 

Further into the game, Simon--who was come to accept he is now living inside a robot--is now accompanied by a woman called Catherine who wants to launch a self-sustaining computer that simulates a good environment for the brain scans to perpetuate humanity after everyone has died. Their mission is, to an extent, purely for the romanticization of  any kind of salvation. They find themselves in the situation in which Simon has to transfer unto a body that is able to swim through large distances to make it to the facility that will allow to launch the aforementioned computer. To succeed in this, Catherine makes Simon scan himself and transfer that scan into another robotic body. What Simon has somehow not understood up to this point is that scans are not a transference of consciousness, contrary to what the game may suggest by virtue of its interactability. Instead, it is more similar to a copy and paste. Simon by updating a brain scan and then inputting it into another body is essentially duplicating himself--his memories, his attitudes, bis beliefs, his consciousness itself, simply duplicated digitally. Simon wakes up and sees himself, not inside his own body but in front of him--the old Simon, the one you played as up to this point, is recovering from the process still while the new Simon is processing the fact that he has a choice: to leave himself to wake up and find out he is completely alone and without escape, knowing another version of him was the lucky one to make it through; or to kill him, and prohibiting it from the horror of that situation.

Putting that choice, and understanding the repercussions on the player is the horror I think about when I think of my experience with Soma. The game is full of moments like this that explore the philosophy of being, the horrors of the loss of identity when one no longer owns a body, and the challenging of one's existence, are all in ways that tease the sense of dread. Putting players into the role of decision-maker enforce and signify the need for SOMA to be an interactive story instead of a TV show or a book. 

There are many great moments in SOMA, and I personally believe you should give this game a go if you are in the least bit interested. Are you planning on grabbing it soon? Are you easily scared by horror games? Do you have a perfect solution to the trolley problem? Let us know!