Signalis Review

It can be difficult to step out of the shadow of what has come before in game design. Genre inspiration frequently veers into imitation, mistaking loyalty to core concepts as a bible rather than a launch pad. Signalis, the latest attempt to recapture the vaguely nostalgic, loosely-defined PS1/2 era of survival-horror gaming, seems to understand its time to launch. By colliding old and new in varying degrees, Signalis manages to feel both traditional and contemporary, a largely successful bit of design that still occasionally fails to fully shake the grip of its roots.

Coming by way of two-person team rose-engine, Signalis coolly unfurls a dystopic and intimate nightmare across its roughly ten-hour runtime. In its far off sci-fi world, bureaucratically entrenched late-stage capitalism has decimated humanity, crushing them under a meat grinder of a system that relies on the use of Replikas, humanoid androids, to function even remotely successfully. Against a broadly drawn but compelling space-imperial backdrop, you play as Elster, a Replika designed for basic technical assistance and combat if necessary, as she attempts to navigate a world in its death throes as a rapidly spreading virus rips apart its technological and ideological foundations.

In terms of pure building blocks, it’s not the most revolutionary setup or even world at large. Signalis uses the same retrofuturism techno-aesthetic as a dozen other stories of its kind and its ruminations on capitalism are fast becoming standardised by, unfortunately, real-world capitalism. But Signalis is so radically committed to the bit, kicking off with one of the strongest game openings I’ve seen in recent memory and maintaining that stark sense of self throughout. Yes, you’ve seen these toys before, but rose-engine plays with them with such relentless style, often fusing cultural signifiers and horror iconography resulting in a game that is remarkably self-assured.

Every shot counts in Signalis

The core loop of Signalis will also be immediately familiar to genre fans, as Elster navigates interconnected play spaces solving puzzles to unlock pathways, juggling inventory slots and, if necessary, engaging other Replikas in combat. You’ll quickly settle into a snug routine with the game, arriving in a new area and using the excellent map to get the lay of the land before pushing forward to find the necessary combination of keys and environmental puzzles to solve to progress. It’s a classic loop but Signalis knows you know its design bones and smartly uses a series of both mechanical and stylistic subversions to keep the experience from becoming rote.

Each component of this loop has its merit, though some do shine brighter than others. The game’s puzzles are an absolute joy, combining pattern recognition, basic number problem solving and some wonderfully tactile button-pressing animations. More often than not you can find the solutions littered elsewhere in the environment but several times I hadn’t ventured far enough yet and brute forced my way through by intuition alone, a genuine thrill to achieve. Your reward for solving these little delights is usually a themed key (Owl Key to Owl Door and so on), or sometimes even environmental changes. My only gripe being that these keys share the same limited inventory slots as your weapons and consumables, resulting in a fair bit of item-induced backtracking.

Elster only has six available item slots at any given moment which demands the use of Resident Evil style save rooms, complete with magically teleporting item boxes for good measure. It’s a nice bit of tension building, constantly having to juggle your defensive and offensive capabilities with key-items. There is a decent selection of firearms to wield, along with elemental damage single-use items mapped to LB for close encounters, and the usual assortment of healing items. Guns all feel solid to use, requiring Elster to hold down the trigger to aim a red laser at foes, and the longer it’s held the more accurate the shot. You can move, slowly, while aiming but as several ravenous robots lurch toward you, the risk-reward of that next shot is palpably fun.

Classic inventory management is tense, sometimes in the wrong ways

Signalis also lets you conserve your ammo and items if you wish by nimbly moving around foes, though the more times you push your luck, the sooner it’s likely to break. There was this one room, smack bang in the middle of my most often used pathway in the level, that was full of enemies. I couldn’t bring myself to waste my resources on them and would be forced to dance around them over and over, eventually and inevitably placing a foot wrong and finding myself brutally beaten to death for my hubris. There is a viciousness to Signalis’ foes, a limited but intimidating roster of Replika’s in various states of decay, each unleashing a scream when they spot you.

Elster is forced to descend into some truly unsettling places, both physically and emotionally, with level design that’s perfectly suited to this grotesque freefall. You’ll kick things off in unassuming brutalist spaces like ships and education facilities, but even here you notice the encroaching horror of what’s to come. Later levels in particular are brilliantly foul to explore, ripping away your mechanical comforts just as the true horror of Signalis’ world slithers its way out of the shadows. The pixel-perfect art direction brings all of this to life with sickening effectiveness, often combining impressive lighting and experimental camera work with its subdued base art direction.

There are dozens of small touches that make Signalis an aesthetic and tonal triumph, though most are best discovered in the moment. I’m reminded of the traditional save room soothing melody being violently interrupted by the sound of the save system kicking in, or the layering of technical glitches and filters to give cutscenes an otherworldly but tangible horror. In these moments, rose-engine flex a sense of style well beyond the medium, drawing on arthouse cinema techniques and minimalist storytelling. Countless inspiration points are colliding here, from anime to Lynch, but somehow Signalis holds its nerve and thrives in the maelstrom.

Signalis has a fantastic cinematic eye

Signalis is also a game with more on its mind than your standard dystopian robot story. The Replika series is a deeply fascinating narrative choice, fusing existential ruminations on humanity with stark working-class commentary and gender role ideology. Each Replika, the vast majority based on traditional presentations of femininity, has its own unique technical history and lore, often building on societal expectations and psychology. Part way through the story a masculine Replika appears and through his actions, and journal entries you can find, Signalis’ gender study snaps into focus with terrifying and tragic clarity. There are some issues with the moment-to-moment writing, nothing that truly derails the game’s aspirations, but Signalis can occasionally feel a little too cloying in its capitalism parody or obtuse with its tropes.

Final Thoughts

Signalis is a kaleidoscope of horror tropes and foundational mechanics elevated by insightful tonal work and tightly constructed core gameplay. Even more surprising and thrilling that this is rose-engine’s first commercial release, signalling a tremendous command of systems, aesthetics and, most importantly, intent. Signalis is independent game development at its best, reverential to the past but unafraid to infuse classic genre work with exciting, and deeply personal, new blood.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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