Signalis review: potent, terrifying sci-fi survival-horror on Game Pass

Signalis, a brand new survival horror sci-fi game by developer rose-engine (aka Barbara Wittmann & Yuri Stern), starts with an excerpt from H.P. Lovecraft’s 1925 short story “The Festival”:

Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.

As far as epigraphs go, it’s a pretty apt one considering that, over the course of the dozen or so hours it will take to complete the game, you’ll be crawling through quite a few dark, cramped, inhospitable spaces populated by horrors that should have never learned to walk, let alone have existed in the first place.

A shot of an anime character reeling backwards as their severed right arm explodes into pieces, reminiscent of a scene from 1995’s Ghost in the Shell.

Players assume the role of Elster, a “Replika” android on a reconnaissance mission aboard a small spaceship who awakes from hypersleep after crash-landing on a remote, snowy planet. Elster, who has no memory of the events that occurred, ventures underground to find her missing companion and seeks out answers. However, she discovers that there are a number of zombie androids wandering around, searching for survivors. They have apparently been affected by an alien signal.

This is a self-described love note to the golden age survival horror. SignalisIt is a horror game in the third person, with top-down camera angles. Interactive puzzles are very similar to Resident Evil. During important story moments, the game will occasionally switch to a first-person perspective à la Silent Hill 4, The RoomPlayers will be guided through fugue-like dream sequences in order to find important objects and solve puzzles.

It is explicit sinister and conveyed more through imagery, dark music, and environmental storytelling than through spoken dialogue. Themes of identity, abuse, trauma, and suicide abound throughout the game’s duration, creating an oppressive and evocative atmosphere that gestures toward answers all while challenging players to put the pieces together themselves. While the game’s oblique storytelling leaves some of the finer details of the relationship between its secondary characters and Elster a bit difficult to parse, the broader emotional stakes of her personal arc ultimately land to devastating effect.

A third-person view of an anime character aiming a laser-sighted pistol at two zombie-like androids holding cleavers in a dark industrial hallway.

Signalis’ aesthetic draws liberally from anime and manga like Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame!, and Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 film Ghost in the Shell It’s also stylistically reminiscent of director Tatsuya Oishi’s work on the Kizumonogatari trilogy, what with its usage of fast-cut intertitle cards during cutscenes that combine superimposed Japanese kanji text with ominous German phrases. These elements are initially jarring, but they soon become part of a visual language that is both deeply engrossing as well as extremely strange.

The universe of SignalisIt revolves around a space-faring, fascistic civilization that has a Eurasian retro science-fi bent and rules every part of its citizens’ lives with extreme precision. This totalitarianism extends as far as the game’s inventory system, restricting the players to carrying up to only six objects at a time in accordance with the empire’s “Rule of Six” protocol. In reality, though, it’s just a clever in-universe way of lampshading the game’s deference to the design principles of its forebears. That same DNA is also evident in another defining aspect of the game’s design: its difficulty.

Combat encounters in the early stages of combat are easy. You can scavenge ammunition, and then take down your slow-moving enemies with laser-sighted weapons. You may even add a healthy stomp to spice things up. It’s not until approximately five or so hours in, however, that the challenges ramp up. Fallen enemies will randomly recover from fatal injuries if their bodies aren’t incinerated with either thermite torches or flare gun rounds, adding another element of tension and uncertainty to the game when you find yourself low on ammunition.

An interactive locksmith puzzle in Signalis.

With a limited amount of ammo in each level of the complex, you’ll have to be judicious with where or when you choose to spend your bullets and health items. Killing a lone enemy now may mean putting yourself at the mercy of a horde of enemies later, and excessively spamming your health packs might mean putting yourself close to the edge of death for long durations of one’s playtime.

But even this is nothing compared to the precipitously steep difficulty curve of the game’s puzzles. The initial dozen puzzles are simple enough for intuition, close observation or brute force guesswork. The late-game puzzles require a near pinpoint recall of even the most inconspicuous details found in various posters and documents scattered throughout the complex.

Often this leads to, in true Resident Evil throwback fashion, an exhausting amount of backtracking, something that’s especially prevalent in the final third of the game, and throttles the momentum of what would have otherwise been an adrenaline-pumping race to the finish. One puzzle I was unable to solve, however, I did manage it because of the Steam overlay. If you are not playing Steam, it is possible to download the screenshots from Steam. Signalis features its own handy in-game screenshot feature in the form of an equippable “eidetic module” that can record a total of up to six pictures at a time.

A shot of an inventory menu screen, complete with an anime-style character portrait and several item descriptions.

Another important element introduced partway through the game, one which informs not only the game’s combat and puzzle mechanics but also thematically brings these modes of gameplay into alignment, is a radio module which allows the player to listen in on specific sound frequencies. Certain enemies are able to distort the player’s field of vision, causing a flood of static noise and visual artifacting to obscure the heads-up display. The only way to fight back is to tune one’s radio to the same frequency emitted by these creatures (the precise number flashes momentarily on the screen upon entering an area), triggering a feedback loop that incapacitates them.

Whether it’s the high pitch of a radio signal or the low growl of an android zombie, Signalis’ sound design is impeccable. Its music is equally impressive. Co-composers 1000 Eyes and Cicada Sirens weave together a plaintive and occasionally abrasive score that easily complements such classic arrangements as Chopin’s “Raindrop Prelude” and Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Combined with the eerie postindustrial sci-fi setting, both the sound design and the music create an atmospheric and immersive experience that draws the player in.

SignalisThis game requires you to immerse yourself in the deepest part of the unknown and confront what you find. If you are willing to overlook its annoying pain points and tribute-laden surface, then this game will offer a very personal take on cosmic terror. It invites players to think about what makes them unique and how far they would go to fulfill a friendship promise.

Signalis On October 27, the game will be available on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. It also comes with Game Pass for Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Humble Games gave the pre-release code to review the game on PC. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. They do not affect editorial content. However, Vox Media might earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.