True horror fans know that when a story references The King in Yellowonly the luckiest will survive with a full set of marbles. Signals (opens in new tab) practically opens by making you pick up the book, though somehow it never appears in your inventory. This is the first clue that Space Madness is just around the corner.
If I were being terribly reductive, I'd describe Signalis as a (mostly) top-down Silent Hill anime in space. But horror is a genre driven entirely by vibes and instincts, and my gut tells me Signalis is something special. It bills itself as "psychological horror" and mimics Silent Hill's tone, but just as Dead Space combined Resident Evil 4, System Shock, and Event Horizon into one experience, Signalis is a rich stew of science fiction and horror.
It's familiar, palatable, and accessible, until the moment it becomes something else.
Do they look like monsters to you?
This is how Signalis gets under your skin. Despite being set in a grounded (albeit deeply dystopian) low-tech universe with a lot of world-building text to consume, there's a pervasive sense of unreality here. The puzzles are surreal and abstract without a clear rationale, and protagonist Elster (a mass-produced 'Replika' android) has her own thoughts, feelings, impulses, and fragmented memories that you don't know about. Still, her mission is clear enough: search the remote ice planet of Leng for her ship's missing co-pilot.
There is a nagging feeling that, despite being the player, nothing here is inside your control. Or anyone's, for that matter. Every living character you meet seems to be as lost as you are.
Mechanically, Signalis is the most familiar: it's a classic survival horror game built on puzzles, exploration, and resource management. There's limited ammo and healing, claustrophobic tunnels patrolled by ancient androids-turned-monsters, and save rooms with storage chests that allow you to alleviate your limited inventory space. The combat most closely resembles the Resident Evil 1 remake, with simple gunplay made tense by reviving monsters that can only be permanently killed with limited incendiaries or stunned with consumable emergency items. Those who find this too stressful can also lower the difficulty, significantly reducing resource pressure. This aspect of Signalis is unremarkable.
Signalis looks remarkable in every other respect, however. Aside from some stylish cutscenes punctuated with classic set pieces, its world is built from impeccable pixel art backdrops with low-resolution 3D models overlaid in classic Resident Evil fashion, aided by a map that marks key rooms and doors as broken, open, or locked. Rather than obfuscating where to go, the camera remains still in a clear overhead perspective.
And then, suddenly, it doesn't: Signalis abruptly jumps into PlayStation-style first-person 3D for a puzzle or exploration sequence. Between these changes and the glitchy video effects surrounding the enemies you'll encounter, Signalis never lets you feel safe.
Channeling Silent Hill sound designer Akira Yamaoka, much of Signalis's soundscape is a layered industrial hum, the thrum of distant machinery and drive heads clicking. Until a monster sees you and screams—then the muffled white noise is replaced by a discordant mechanical cacophony; the sound of synthetic adrenaline and your android heart pounding in your ears until you escape or your attackers are dead.
The game's audio, puzzles, and overarching themes intersect at the radio panel. As a low-fidelity android, Elster has a built-in radio tuner that automatically decodes signals. Most frequencies contain only noise, station numbers, and distorted music, but others provide codes to access locked safes, transmit important sounds, or even harm enemies. As long as you have the radio on, the ever-present looping signals, cryptic messages, and noise add another layer of anxiety.
Shattered Memories
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Signalis' intentional ambiguity made me anxious all the timeDon't expect easy exposition: Signalis plays like a dream, often jumping ahead, letting the player figure out how much time has passed. First-person 3D flashback sequences further confuse the timeline, interspersing impossible scenes with more plausible memories. While your mission is always simple—a downward spiral in search of a missing person—many of the finer points are left to interpretation.
My complaints with Signalis begin and end with inventory management. Elster has a six-slot inventory. Unfortunately, a weapon and an ammo box make two items. Add healing items for three. A defensive item makes four. There's also a flashlight (for dark rooms) and a camera (for visual notes on puzzle hints), and that's before you need to carry a single puzzle key item. Needless to say, I found myself frequently returning to storage chests. Just an extra slot (or allowing me to permanently equip the torch and camera) would solve 80% of my inventory problems.
But that's all for rants. I'd love to talk more about the story and its world, but I don't want to spoil any surprises. Signalis launches on October 27th and will also be on Game Pass, and I can't wait to chat with the Silent Hill crowd about Elster's fractured memories. Signalis looks like a game I'll think about and remember (albeit vaguely) for a long time.
