As an indie horror sicko, I am bound by union regulations to mention Signalis every time I write this kind of article. It’d be weirder if I didn’t.
Signalis just celebrated its second anniversary, but if you’re new to survival horror with the SH2 remake or haven’t paid attention to the genre for a while, it’s worth bringing it up again. It also put out a patch last year with several optional improvements to its inventory system, which addressed one of fans’ most common complaints.
Self-described as “a dream about dreaming,” Signalis is a story of cosmic space horror. As an android worker in a dystopian society, you survived a shipwreck on the distant ice planet Leng, but your co-pilot is missing. Your search for her takes you into a nearby mining colony, where the humans have fallen prey to an inexplicable disease and the other androids have gone insane.
It’s also possible that this is all a dream, and not necessarily yours; that you’re lost in some Lovecraftian nightmare realm; and/or that you’re trapped in an endless cycle of violence by an insane god. All of these can be true at once. Signalis is a dream. Old rules no longer apply.
It’s by turns oppressive, frightening, and surreal, with a visual style that’s uniquely its own. If you haven’t played it, or you bounced off it at launch due to its inventory mechanics, now is a good time to check it out.
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