Signalis
92

Signalis review

One of the best psychological sci-fi chillers in years.

(Image: © Humble Games)

Our Verdict

Tense, haunting and beautiful. Inventory shenanigans aside, one of the best survival horror games yet.

PC Gamer's got your back Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.

Need to know

What Is It?: Psychological sci-fi survival horror inspired by Silent Hill.
Expect To Pay $20/£16
Developer Rose Engine
Publisher Humble Games
Reviewed On Windows 11, Nvidia 2080 Ti, Intel i9-9900k @ 4.9ghz, 32gb RAM
Multiplayer? No
Link Official site

Horror is hard to do right, especially when not relying on cheap, reliable jump-scares. It’s why the original Silent Hill trilogy are regarded as classics, while their many sequels and imitators are largely forgotten. Despite being the debut release from tiny two-person indie studio Rose-Engine, sci-fi horror adventure Signalis joins that coveted pantheon as one of the best in the genre, and a personal favorite from a jam-packed year.

At a glance, Signalis is familiar and accessible (right down to the low-fi PS1-inspired graphics) to anyone who has played a classic-style survival horror game. Played from an overhead perspective, there’s a labyrinth of interconnected rooms to explore, many locked doors, a mixture of logical and more abstract puzzles and an assortment of monsters to shoot. Inventory space is at a premium, healing is finite, and the game can only be saved at safe-rooms where you can stash unused items in a storage chest.

(Image credit: Humble Games)

Aesthetically, it feels like a refinement of those PlayStation gems as well. Backdrops are pin-sharp, crisp pixel-art, while characters are smoothly animated 3D models, always clear and readable despite their relatively small size. The UI is similarly sharp, despite its diegetic retro-tech aesthetics, and the map screen is especially good, automatically marking off any door you’ve been near as locked, barred or open. Audio-wise, it channels the best in the business, with some very Akira Yamaoka industrial drones accompanying quieter moments, chaotic, panicked noise kicking in during combat, and an assortment of nostalgic tones, beeps and warbles accompanying menu actions.

It’s old-school survival horror done right. Combat is tense and resource-limited, encouraging evasion and ammo-hoarding. Puzzles are cleverly designed, stalling progress just long enough to deliver a Eureka moment. The only truly unfamiliar mechanical element is the radio tuner. Found early on, it allows you to listen into and decode radio signals. Sometimes just creepy numbers stations, other times key clues to items, and occasionally it even gets used in combat. While not game-redefining, it’s a consistent enough presence to put a refreshing spin on even Signalis’ more familiar systems.

Other elements are borrowed more directly from the Resident Evil 1 remake, including a ‘panic item’ slot for escaping close combat, and a limited supply of incendiaries to burn corpses and permanently clear frequently traveled halls. While most similar to Resident Evil mechanically, its overall atmosphere hews far closer to Silent Hill, telling the story of a lone technician android named Elster descending into metaphorical (and potentially literal) hell in search of her missing co-pilot.

(Image credit: Humble Games)

While Signalis trades in familiar sci-fi horror tropes (including an assortment of warped biomechanical creatures to shoot), this is psychological horror at heart. It’s a character-driven and emotionally charged story. An intentionally fragmented and dreamlike downward spiral, following a potentially unreliable narrator—where Elster goes, the player is dragged forcibly along, whether they want to or not.

This is psychological horror at heart. It’s a character-driven and emotionally charged story.

To go into too much detail risks spoiling some surprises, but Signalis eschews sudden, loud scares in favor of making the player feel constantly insecure, from persistent resource scarcity to hard narrative curveballs. Enemies can rise again in once-cleared locations, the game’s perspective may suddenly shift from locked overhead to first-person, and plot twists may carry heavy enough implications to demolish any previously-held understanding of what’s happening.

Machine women with machine minds

So much of why Signalis works hinges on its worldbuilding. While mostly set in an incredibly cursed mining facility on a remote planet, there are dozens of diaries, logs and documents painting a broader and more tragic picture. The universe of Signalis is some alternate, dark timeline where most technology stalled around early ‘90s levels, but strange new sciences allowed the creation of sentient androids (known as Replikas) and interstellar expansion, and a war between a largely-unseen Empire, and the hideously fascistic Eusan nation.

(Image credit: Humble Games)

It’s under the Eusan banner that the cast struggle, and despite the sci-fi setting and many characters being man-made constructs, their stories are hauntingly human. They’re ordinary people trying to live normal lives while the gears of their cruel society threaten to grind them into dust. It would be horrifying enough without dark secrets lurking deep in distant planets and pseudo-undead androids stalking the halls. With them, it’s a rich, layered dessert of despair, lending motivation to even the most desperate character’s actions.

If it weren’t for this additional depth, I don’t think Signalis would stick the landing narratively. The moment-to-moment storytelling is intentionally fragmented. Timelines are uncertain, and while Elster’s goal is always to continue her search deeper into the facility, some elements are always vague enough to invite interpretation. It’s in these narrative gaps that the earthy, grounded world-building fits, and replaying in search of secrets and alternate endings only becomes more satisfying when revisiting old scenes with additional context.

You're not here

It’s hard to talk about Signalis without mentioning its many inspirations, which it openly and eagerly references. From nods to works of classic horror such as The King In Yellow, to sequences riffing off heavyweight anime like Ghost In The Shell and Evangelion, there’s familiar touchstones everywhere. Famous paintings and haunting classical music both ground the game’s setting in the familiar, while further accentuating its more surreal elements in how they’re used. There’s just enough of the real world here, framed strangely enough to feel like a dream.

(Image credit: Humble Games)

Even after completing it twice, the only real complaint I can level at Signalis is that inventory management is a little too fiddly. While you can store endless amounts in your save-room stash, Elster can only carry six items. Five, once you’re carrying around the frequently-used flashlight, and some puzzles require multiple spaces free. Leaving healing items behind and only carrying one gun can mitigate frustrations, but there will be times where you’re arbitrarily forced to backtrack through hostile hallways to store gear.

Despite this one persistent wrinkle, Signalis is one of the best horror games I’ve played in years. Tense, upsetting and thought-provoking. It takes a hundred familiar elements, inspirations and references and weaves them into something entirely new, and thoroughly worthwhile.

The Verdict
Signalis

Tense, haunting and beautiful. Inventory shenanigans aside, one of the best survival horror games yet.

Dominic Tarason
Contributing Writer

The product of a wasted youth, wasted prime and getting into wasted middle age, Dominic Tarason is a freelance writer, occasional indie PR guy and professional techno-hermit seen in many strange corners of the internet and seldom in reality. Based deep in the Welsh hinterlands where no food delivery dares to go, videogames provide a gritty, realistic escape from the idyllic views and fresh country air. If you're looking for something new and potentially very weird to play, feel free to poke him on Twitter. He's almost sociable, most of the time.

Read more
Close up of Curly post-crash in Mouthwashing, showing his one remaining eye and bandaged body.
Mouthwashing review
Close up of Curly post-crash in Mouthwashing, showing his one remaining eye and bandaged body.
This year has proved yet again that horror games do best when devs keep it small-scale
The demon Pharaoh screaming
Ancient Egyptian horror game Amenti had everything lined up to make it a stellar scarefest—except it forgot to include some actual horror
The fox swordsman Yi in Nine Sols.
Nine Sols review
1000xResist
The Allmother is dead, long live the Allmother!: Why 1000XResist is the best sci-fi story I've experienced in years
Facing an enemy in No-Skin
No-Skin is an incredibly simple horror roguelike about the worst party ever, full of strong booze, bad conversation and eldritch violence
Latest in Survival & Crafting
Three sheep with big guns in Palworld.
It was 'super popular to hate Palworld' after launch, says community manager: 'A lot of companies might crumble under the threats, under the pressure'
Palworld Ancient Civilization Parts - Grizzbolt with a minigun
'It was a very depressing day': Palworld community manager reveals studio's reaction to Nintendo lawsuit
Ark: Lost Colony teaser still.
Ark 2 is still on: The next Ark expansion 'leads into the events of Ark 2,' says Studio Wildcard
Crying laughing emoji with disturbing realistic elements for REPO
REPO's first update will add a new map and a 'duck bucket' so we can finally give that pesky quacker a time out
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Sunset in the desert in Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a desert survival sandbox where you live in the literal shadow of the colossus
Latest in Reviews
Endorfy Fortis 5 air cooler on a desk and loaded onto a motherboard.
Endorfy Fortis 5 Dual Fan review
A castle being beset by horrors.
Cataclismo review
XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC review
assassin's creed shadows review
Assassin's Creed Shadows review
The Cherry MX 8.2 Wireless Xaga gaming keyboard sits on a large mouse mat depicting a nebula. This visual motif ties into the shooting star design on the keyboard's space bar. The keyboard's RGB lights are on, but the design on the space bar is opaque, so the RGB lights only shine through the frosted sides of the keyboard's alphanumeric keycaps.
Cherry MX 8.2 TKL Wireless XAGA review
The Cherry Xtrfy K4V2 TKL gaming keyboard on top of a mouse pad depicting a nebula. The keyboard is grey with red accent keys, a grey braided wire, and the bright RGB lights switched on.
Cherry Xtrfy K4V2 TKL review