SOMA’s live action video series shows us PATHOS-II before all the death

SOMA is good and you should play it. You shouldn’t watch the first video in this live-action video series if you haven’t already played it, though. So go away and play it first, yeah? 

You’re back? Good.

It’s not that the video really spoils anything, but SOMA deserves to be played through completely fresh, and with an open mind. PATHOS-II is derelict and haunting – you find out what it was like before your arrival through environmental storytelling and audio logs.

These storytelling mechanisms are nothing new for videogames, but they do the job far better than two average actors chatting exposition. It only serves to dispel some of that sense of mystery.

It’s better to be transported to PATHOS-II, plucked from your existence just like the game’s protagonist and plonked into this alien setting.

Having played through the game, I will be keeping an eye on this live action series of shorts from Frictional Games and Imagos Films, however. The first one doesn’t really say or do very much, but it’s still cool to see that world recreated in our own, even if they do suddenly use tablets to open doors instead of omni-tools. Take a look: