Signalis: The First Preview – IGN
When I first saw Signalis, I was immediately mesmerized by its futuristic sci-fi setting and the enigmatic aura it entailed. I knew very little about how it went into my demo, but after my 30-minute playtime with the opening segment, I moved on with more questions about what lies within this mysterious adventure.
Signalis put me in the shoes of a replica named Magpie waking up from cryosleep on an abandoned spaceship. In my explorations, I quickly encountered alien lifeforms that had infiltrated the ship, but lacked any apparent intelligence aside from their only known goal – which is to kill you. I also learned that the ship’s goal was to find planets that were habitable to eventually migrate there, and for some unknown reason the ship crashed on a snowy planet.
I immediately felt locked into a claustrophobic room aboard the ship, with each room being small with little room to move. This lack of capacity would have been even more effective if enemies followed you into other rooms, but for some reason they don’t. If you manage to escape, just stay where you were when you entered the next room. If they had continued chasing me throughout the ship I would have gained a sense of urgency and realism to the experience.
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Searching the ship for answers, I found documents that listed his objective along with other lore that I couldn’t connect to as it was only a very small part of the full game. However, there were a few puzzles to solve, some of which required experimentation, like aligning power sticks to power a door or finding the right combination of pads to open a security chamber.
Getting through gave me access to several weapons, including a handgun and a stun bar. Because Signalis is a survival horror game, resources are limited and hard to come by. Even the stun baton has a limited number of uses. Not only resources are scarce, but also your inventory. More than once I had one item too many on me so I had to put something in a storage box for safekeeping.
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Enemies can be weakened, but even with a weapon it never seemed like they could be permanently neutralized. Once knocked down, you can hit them to incapacitate them and gain ammo, but over time they will inevitably get back up. Health is managed in a similar way to Resident Evil, where it’s indicated by your vital signs, but you’ll know when you’re close to death because of the red aura that outlines the screen. I was able to restore my health by using patches or repair spray, but if I ended up dying I would just go back to the previous room I was in.
Escape the ship was just a small glimpse of what Signalis has to offer and based on where my demo ended up there seems to be plenty of surprises in store once the full game releases later this year. I’m excited to learn more about the history of Signalis, the mysteries that lie on this unknown ice planet, and how it all connects. Hope everything comes out.
https://www.ign.com/articles/signalis-the-first-preview-pixel-art-survival-horror-space-mystery-pc Signalis: The First Preview – IGN
