Video Game / Signalis

Perhaps, this is hell

Remember our promise.

"SIGNALIS" is a retro-futuristic Survival Horror game created by rose_engine and inspired by classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

You play as LSTR-512, otherwise known as Elster, the Replika technician of a small scouting starship sent out to parts unknown to find new worlds for humanity to colonize. Unfortunately, the mission is quickly cut short due to the ship crash-landing on a remote snow-covered planet. Forced to disembark and wander the planet's frozen surface in search of the ship's missing human pilot, Elster eventually discovers the ruins of a vast underground complex where she inadvertently unravels a government conspiracy of potentially Cosmic Horror proportions.

The game was released on October 27th of 2022, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC.

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"SIGNALIS" provides examples of:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Even before going rampant, many Replika units have personality quirks as a result of their AI being created from the neural patterns of human donors. Therefore, various accommodations needed to be made in order to prevent "persona degradation" from interfering with their tasks and endangering the humans entrusted in their care.
  • STCR Replikas in particular have incredibly volatile temperaments due to being based off of the neural patterns of an implied sadist and need to be trained in patience early in their deployments or else they will be prone to committing cruel acts of violence. To keep them stable, STCR units are assigned directly under a veteran STAR Replika who can reign in their darker impulses.
• A.K.A.-47:
  • Typ-75 handgun is a dead ringer of CZ-75 rechambered to 10mm cartridges.
  • Einhorn revolver is essentially Chiappa Rhino rechambered to .50 caliber.
  • Typ-84 Drache is based on experimental HK SMG II prototype.
  • EIN-12 Flechette is SPAS-12 with folded stock.
• All of the Other Reindeer: The inevitable consequence of Ariane being so different from others. Both official documents and notes left by her heavily imply she never quite fit in, and one first-person scene as viewed by Isa shows her being beaten down by her classmates. It clearly influenced her decision to enlist in the space corps: being isolated on a tiny ship out there in the void was a preferred alternative to constant oppression and bullying... at first.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Due to the nature of the game it's very hard to tell just how much of anything you see is real - since it's heavily implied to have been shaped by Arianes Dying Dream being broadcasted via bioresonance, it could take place entirely within or places like the Sierpinski station or Rotfront being real locations that are influenced by it, as there's evidence for both options and drawing a clear line is likely impossible. And given the inspirations and some vague hints in the game, it is just as possible that the whole thing is just Elster having gone mad.
  • Also, to the wider context of the story. It is unclear what happened to the Nation of Eusan and the Empire they were fighting against. All we know is that the Empire is collapsing under the Eusan revolution, but given the Unreliable Narrator of what is essentially East Germany in space, whether or not Eusan succeeded in overthrowing the Empire is up to debate.
• Animesque: Not as prevalent as some examples, but the character designs do have elements that harken back to 80's and 90's anime, particularly the somewhat larger eyes that have detailed highlights and hair rendered in stylized and often spiky clumps.
• Anti-Frustration Features: While an obvious throwback to old survival horror classics, Signalis does have a number of design choices to alleviate the experience.
  • Continuing the game after dying will fill in one of the sixteen grid-triangles on Elster's diagnostic screen with a yellow triangle on Standard and a red one on Survival. Elster's overall max health and ability to survive damage increases in accordance with how many triangles you have.
  • Surviving long enough at the lowest health level, "Critical", will have Elster automatically go back up to "Danger" without needing to use a healing item.
  • The water pump puzzle is one of the most difficult puzzles in the game to do... but the solution is also found on a note in the same room saying even the characters in-universe struggled with figuring it out.
  • Unlike every other enemy in the game, the final boss's attacks are not Friendly Fireproof and can kill the Aras that spawn partway through the fight.
  • The camera eye tool allows you to take snapshots of the game screen at any time that you can refer back to while solving puzzles.
  • If you find ammunition for a weapon, you will first try to use it to immediately reload the gun before creating a designated inventory space for it.
  • Enemies that don't see you won't react to your flashlight.
• Apophenia Plot: Discussed about the Red Eye imagery and the perception of it that is prevalent in Rotfront culture.
• Apocalyptic Log: There's plenty of diary entries left by Replikas, as writing diaries is a method of Persona Stabilization common to all the types. Ariane's diary entires aboard the Penrose devolve into this as the cycles wear on and she suffers from being cooped up in the ship and her worsening radiation poisoning.
• Arc Number:
  • 512 is the serial number of the Penrose scouting ship crewed by Ariane and Elster and it keeps appearing throughout the game: Ariane's class during her time on Rotfront, her apartment number and the corresponding postbox, and also part of the default wall safe combination. It may go even further than that since the unit Alina Seo served in was Unit 12 of 5th Vinetan Infantry Division.
  • The number 6 also features heavily, although typically is represented as a quantity rather than the number itself. Oftentimes this "6" is closer to a case of "5+1", where one of the six in the set is distinct and different from the rest.
• Arc Symbol: Relating to the above Arc Number of 6, hexagons are a repeating symbol, and many puzzle doors requiring arranging objects along a pattern that forms one.
  • Semi-related is the games symbol, which appears from time to time throughout, looking vaguely like a hexagon at a glance but in fact being a far more complex pattern.
• Artistic License – Space: One of the game's puzzles relies on all the planets in the setting's solar system having the exact same orbital period. While technically possible, this is extraordinarily unlikely, and the planets would not realistically maintain the same relative positions from each other as they orbit. This is somewhat downplayed in that only the model of the setting's solar system has matching orbit speeds, and there is no indication that the real planets follow that pattern.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: This is how Elster fell in love with Ariane. The LSTR manual given to the Gestalt Officers explicitly states to not to befriend the Replika, not to show them various media and generally not to interact with them more than necessary. Ariane, being Blithe Spirit she is, did exactly all of this and beyond. In fact she didn't even bother opening the envelope with the manual, and it can be found sealed inside Penrose-512 in the last chapter.
• Big Sleep: In the Memory ending, Elster manages to make it to Ariane's cryo pod, only for her to be so weak from blood loss that she simply sits down by her side, closes her eyes, and calmly passes on.
• Bilingual Bonus: All inscriptions, wall signs and documents are in German with a dash of Chinese thrown in. The former's justified as the setting is heavily inspired by East Germany, the latter is implied to be remnants from The Empire.
• Black Box: While the Nation is able to exploit Bioresonance to create Replikas and other advanced technology, one scientist points out that nobody actually knows how Bioresonance works.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: The conflict between the Nation of Eusan and the Empire is this. Whilst the Empire may resemble a stereotypical Empire in fiction. The Unreliable Narrator reputation of the Nation of Eusan does not make this conflict black and white given the totalitarian nature and surveillance of Eusan.
• Body Horror: The corrupted Replikas running rampant throughout the facility come in various states of mutilation and grotesque deformation depending on their vocation before turning. Special mention goes to the KLBR Replikas, who have their "brains" expanded into fleshy mounds oozing with blood and subject anybody near them to severe Sensory Abuse. It gets worse by the time Elster gets spirited away to "Nowhere", a rusted nightmare realm covered in pulsing Meat Moss where a Body of Bodies lurks in the depths.
• Bold Explorer: A propaganda leaflet claims the crew of the ship were this. The two-person scout crews really were sent out to explore space, but the Nation never intended for them to come back home.
• But You Were There, and You, and You: Based on the medical records Elster can uncover in Rotfront, all of the Replika's encountered throughout her journey are dead ringers of people in Rotfront. While there are more people in the records, all of their photos are corrupted in some way with only those that have Replika equivalents being legible, raising further questions about the true nature of the narrative.
• Cassette Futurism: The game has a very Soviet style of futurism. Computers are blocky CRT affairs with huge buttons and tape decks. A magazine article that can be found near the end of the game says that the Republic of Eusan went all-in on study and exploitation of bioresonance and Replikas, while letting virtually every other area of technological development wither on the vine. Eusan is all about the inexhaustible labor force of replaceable robots and couldn't care less about anything else.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Averted for the first two bosses who can be killed with a single Thermite (which can be used as a melee weapon) if you're able to hit them. The final boss needs to be defeated conventionally though.
• Cosmic Horror Story: The events of the story are heavily implied to be tied to some form of eldritch-level shenanigans. Most notably, there are repeated and vague references to something called the Red Eye that seems to be something man was never meant to meddle with and that seems heavily tied into the plot somehow.
• Crew of One: According to a field operations manual, all Penrose-Type vessels are designed to be piloted by a single Gestalt Scout Officer who is supported by a Replika Technician that doubles as their Number Two. This Human-Replika partner system has apparently proven to be a key factor in the success of countless scouting missions, as their mutual control over the ship's systems allows the crew to perform at their optimal capacity.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Eusan nation went all in on pursuing Bioresonance related technologies to the point that research into other technologies such as electronics stagnated for decades. One scientist is concerned that since only very few individuals in the nation are capable of Bioresonance, the nation may lose access to it entirely if said individuals die out.
• Culture Chop Suey: The Eusan nation is a combination of a few real-life influences: Their official language is German (with Chinese showing up rarely), their nationalistic stylings and technology aesthetics are generally based on Eastern Bloc while their names/culture is predominately taken from various Asian countries.
• Dead All Along: After Isa succumbs to the "reality sickness" in her family bookstore in Rotfront, you can find a simple shrine behind the counter that features photos of both Isa and her sister Erika. The implication is that not only was Erika dead before Isa went looking for her, but that Isa herself has been dead since before Ariane left on the Penrose mission.
• Determinator: Elster is determined to find her human crewmate and fulfill some sort of promise she made, even if that means fighting various Humanoid Abominations with scarce resources while her sanity dwindles by the second. This is a trait that is actually shared by all LSTR type Replikas, who were designed to be tough-as-nails Combat Engineers who boast both the technical knowledge and fighting capabilities that allow them to persevere as survivalists where others would despair.
• Degraded Boss: The first Mynah-class replica is treated as an unavoidable boss battle complete with her own intro but later on shows up as a regular (if rare) enemy.
• Dies Wide Open: In both the Fake and Promise endings, Elster slowly dies with the camera zoomed in on her left eye as it rolls back and the light fades from it.
• Discovering Your Own Dead Body: In the Memory and Promise endings Elster can find her own corpse inside the ship, confirming she's not the original Elster but either a construct of Ariane's mind or another Elster with the original's resurfaced memories. Which is which is just as up to interpretation as the rest of the game.
• Downer Ending: The three conventional endings conclude the game with Elster ultimately dying of her wounds, with the main variation being down to whether or not she is capable of keeping her promise to Mercy Kill Ariane, and the implication that the "Groundhog Day" Loop of the game will continue until reality falls apart.
• Dug Too Deep: It's implied early in the game that the horrors in the mining facility were caused by something they dug up deep beneath the planet's surface. The reality, for a given definition of "reality," is likely more complicated.
• Dying Dream: Possibly, and in a highly convoluted sense. Ariane was suspected to be "bioresonant," capable of transmitting her thoughts and memories to others. Much of the game's more nightmarish events are warped versions of her life, suggesting that she may have trapped Elster in her memories as they both slowly die of radiation poisoning in the Penrose. However, the setting leaves it ambiguous as to whether these events are strictly mental or being literally manifested into reality by whatever was dug up from Leng.
• The Empire: There is the Empire literally called the Empire which is treated as a Greater-Scope Villain for the Nation of Eusan. However, Eusan itself can be considered one given its 'reported' campaigns of 'liberation' across the star system.
• Expy: Isa Itou is one to Angela Orosco, repeatedly coming across Elster as she pursues her own agenda while armed with nothing but a kitchen knife. Like Angela, she makes it to the very end of the game, but gives into her despair and succumbs to the corruption of Leng.
• Evil vs. Evil: The Empire is depicted as imperialistic, cruel and despotic by Eusan. But given the clear Unreliable Narrator at play, they don't really have that much leg to stand upon as they are just as much a despotic, totalitarian state.
• Eye Scream: In the three standard endings: Alder stabs Elster directly in the head, destroying her right eye completely. In keeping with the game's looping narrative, a shot from the fake ending shows a soldier, one who looks very similar to Elster, sitting in a trench with her own right eye gone, bleeding in the same way.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Aside from the character names being a wild mix of German, Slavic and Asian origins, the main influence is East Germany: from Eusan's flag and emblem being modified GDR ones, to ubiquitous surveillance, to stereotypically German pedantic instructions for everything and enforcing the rules and order. Rose-engine being German most probably had something to do with that.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: After getting to the the bottom of Nowhere and reaching the Primrose in a Mind Screw sequence, Elster attempts to open the door to the ship, fails and seemingly dies as (shortened) credits roll and the player is taking back to the main menu. However few things (the lack of the light in Elsters eye and the inability to switch profiles) hint that this isn't the end and pressing "Begin" once more pushes the game forward.
• Fictional Currency: The Rationmarks. While the name derives from German Mark^note  used before Euro was introduced, the "ration" part implies it may not be a hard currency but some sort of a government account tab used to distribute resources. The Sierpinski S-23 introduction pamphlet also mentions a plan for sharing Rationmarks with the relatives or close ones.
• Finishing Stomp: The player is encouraged to finish off downed enemies with a stomp or baton to conserve ammunition.
• Fire Keeps It Dead: Corrupted Replikas will get up after a certain amount of time, even after you've used a Finishing Stomp on them. Using thermite flares or signal flares will burn through their armor and damage the biological systems enough to keep them from getting back up.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the fake ending, one of the shots is multiple Elsters standing in a line, one of them missing her right arm. Seconds later, Elster rips her right arm in two trying to open the escape hatch on the Penrose.
• Foreshadowing:
  • A found document describes early LSTR units as having a white chest plate, with the later models possessing a black one due to changes in design. Elster finds the dead body of one such unit after the false ending, and takes her chest plate and arm to repair her own body.
  • Elster is shoved down an elevator shaft at the midway point of the game, with her landing on top of a pile of LSTR corpses that fill most of the shaft. The revelation in the finale that the events of the game are a "Groundhog Day" Loop very heavily implies that those LSTR corpses are actually prior versions of Elster herself; Adler having killed her this way so many times that all the bodies of her prior incarnations cushioned her fall and allowed the latest variant to survive.
  • At one point while traversing the wasteland surrounding the Penrose in the false ending, Elster walks past several LSTR units who have died in the same position; lying on the ground and curled in a ball. In the Leave ending, this is what Elster herself winds up doing during her Death by Despair.
  • An early note expresses frustration and confusion how a recently-installed wall safe's combination lock keeps resetting to the factory default. This serves as one of the first hints at the Time Loop nature of the plot, especially when the start of the third act has you once more open up the same safe and get the same key from it as before.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many cinematic sequences have flashing images/text appear on screen just for a glimpse. While most seem there for aesthetic purposes, quite a few contain plot-relevant information.
• Gainax Ending: The secret "Artifact" ending has Elster completing some kind of esoteric ritual that seems to kill her, with the camera panning back to reveal the seemingly dead bodies of five other LSTR units in positions similar to Elster surrounding a stone sarcophagus with a glowing object resembling the game's logo inside. It then cuts to the Penrose in the red desert with a massive eye in the sky looking down on it, which then cuts to Elster dancing with a seemingly healed Ariane in the wreckage of the Penrose, all with no explanation as to what happened or why.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The "Rule of Six," which limits Elster's inventory to six slots, is an in-universe rule that limits an individual's ability to have private possessions, and appears to be hard-coded into Elster's persona.
  • In a similar fashion, every inhabited location features at least one stern warning about no running in the hallways. So Elster doesn't: pressing the run button will just make her walk faster.
  • Mynah-class Replikas are stated to have a "motherly" attitude to others. That doesn't change even after being turned: every Mynah-class the player encounters is accompanied by a flock of corrupted Replikas who they heal and revive until killed.
  • Ara-class are known to make a tunnel network accessible only to them on every workplace they're stationed. And then hide there after becoming unstable. And then crawl out of floor panels in a seemingly safe room.
  • Eule-class are designated cooks and maids who among other things need at least one mirror per dorm. True to form, all corrupted Eules carry knives or cleavers and can be found looking at the mirrors when idle.
  • Yuri Stern, the game's writer/director, has said that Signalis adopts "oppressive mechanics" of old-school survival horror as a deliberate stylistic decision, to mirror the repression of living in Eusan.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Implied by the false ending, confirmed after the final boss. Elster seems to be trapped in an eternal loop of making her way back to the Penrose to fulfil her promise to Ariane to Mercy Kill her, with the random LSTR corpses found throughout the game possibly being past incarnations of Elster who failed to accomplish it. Tellingly, the LSTR body that Elster scavenges from to repair her own body after the false ending is in the same place and position Elster ultimately dies in during the Memory and Promise ending, implying that the cycle will continue regardless of what ending Elster gets. The one exception is the mysterious Artifact Ending, but that one is very hard to interpret.
• Guide Dang It!: There's a secret ending that's ridiculously hard to find. If you aren't into amateur radio transmission, it's almost impossible to figure out on your own. The Artifact ending, which is as close to a Golden Ending as Signalis gets, requires the player to collect 3 very well-hidden keys from 3 different parts of the game, which are only available if Elster's radio is on and tuned to a specific frequency. The only in-game hints to the keys' locations are SSTV radio signals that can be picked up via the radio, then decoded via third-party programs into pictures.
  • There are a couple of very useful weapons in the game that it's not hard to miss. First a revolver and later on a high power rifle. To get them requires finding key items to unlock the weapons before progressing to the next area, and if one dosn't know to look for them they can be missed entirely.
  • Anyone familiar with the Resident Evil 1 remake and resurrecting enemies would understandably assume that the thermite charges that can permanently kill a Replika require said Replika to be defeated before using it. Although never stated in the game, this is not the case and the thermite flares can be used similar to the stun rods as a melee option to immediately kill just about any enemy.
• Guilt-Based Gaming: Interacting with a save terminal without actually saving the game (through the "continue without saving" option) brings you the "You'll regret this later" message.
• Hell Is That Noise: Plenty as per horror genre's tradition.
  • The enemies let out an unearthly shriek whenever they detect you.
  • The battle themes take a page from Akira Yamaoka's work on Silent Hill series and provide a nightmarish combination of various screeches, buzzes and other unnerving noises.
  • And even amongst those one track still stands out: "Riot Control", associated with the areas that have Storch-class enemies. That rhythmic beat? The base of it is a distorted sound of a marching column.
  • Upon accessing the save terminal a horrible screech is emitted. The fact that all the terminals' screens are blood red doesn't help either.
  • The first thing the player notices when entering a room with a Kolibri-class is loud distorted sound of a carrier signal. And it's the least of their problems.
• The Hero Dies: All of the main endings end with Elster dying of blood-loss from a wound sustained from Adler with the only difference between them being where and with what tone she passes. The jury is still out on what happened to her in the Artifact ending though.
• Humans Are Psychic in the Future: Gestalts, seemingly humans by another name, have instances of Psychic Powers cropping up. Falke and Kolibri-class Replikas also have this power, though for them all Replikas of that class have it. Presumably this is because the Gestalts their minds were copied from also had said abilities.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Discussed and discouraged. Replikas have a lot of flesh parts inside but the Penrose captain manual specifically states it's a) not edible and b) actually poisonous. Thus maintaining the Replika technician in critical situations is encouraged over trying to eat them to stave off starvation: the mission is more likely to succeed even if the Gestalt dies that way, and the mission takes priority.
• Incredibly Lame Pun:
  • It's possible to find a doodle of a Kolibri-class with a cabbage for a head. How is it signed? "Kohlibri" (or "Caulibri").
  • The revolver is based on Chiappa Rhino. Its named "Einhorn", German for Unicorn.
• Insistent Terminology: To contrast the Replikas, human characters are always referred to as "Gestalts", perhaps to downplay their humanity and individuality and instead emphasise the fact that they're part of a collective.
• Interface Screw: The rooms and corridors are all oriented facing north... except for Nowhere, where some of them will be rotated. Combined with the lack of a map in Nowhere this is designed to further confuse the player.
  • One particular enemy, the corrupt Kolibri-class Replika, uses this as their actual method of attack by scrambling your perception of the room they're in. Which is merely annoying by itself, but when pared with other enemies it's a real danger in a fight.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: The game's main source of backtracking. A hard limit is imposed with only six slots for everything including weapons and tools equipped in respective slots, and no way to increase it.
• Justified Tutorial: Replikas apparently need to have every little thing explained to them, as in-game instruction manuals for items like guns and healing items have separate sections for Replika crew to equip things from the inventory screen.
• Last Chance Hit Point: While the game mostly replicated Resident Evil's health system with "Nominal", "Caution", and "Danger", taking a hit from an enemy at "Danger" does not kill you but instead drops you to "Critical" status, where another attack from any source will kill you. Surviving long enough in this state will cause you to go back up to the "Danger" state. This also influences your ending, counting as the "Deaths Cheated" criteria.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: In the game's final chapter, Elster is revealed to have been in a relationship with her Gestalt Officer Ariane. Elster is a cold and stoic Robot Soldier, while Ariane is a warm and passionate human non-combatant.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: What is bioresonance, how does it work, what are the risks? Nobody knows. And because bioresonance is so useful, nobody seems to care. Then again, one could argue that it's better not to know.
• Media Watchdog: The small radio room at the end of the demo contains full shelves of literature that Elster states have been banned by The Nation.
• Mercy Kill: The "promise" that keeps being alluded to throughout the game was Elster's promise to kill Ariane when her radiation poisoning from the Penrose's failing reactor became too much to bear. However, Elster's love for Ariane drove her to put it off until she succumbed to the radiation as well.
• Multiple Endings: Depending on Elster's actions, she can either fulfill her promise to Ariane and Mercy Kill her before succumbing to her injuries, choose to bleed out at Ariane's side, or give in to despair and simply walk away to die alone in the middle of nowhere. The catch is, it depends not on some conscious choices but on how aggressive the playstyle is, reminding of Silent Hill 2's unintuitive conditions for certain endings. The only directly choosable ending is the Artifact Ending if several well hidden steps are taken.
• Names Given to Computers: The main character's designation is: Land Survey/Ship Technician Replika-512, or LSTR-512, but she's referred to as Elster.
• No OSHA Compliance: Medical records found on the Rotfront segment show suspiciously big amount of inhabitants with all sorts of heavy respiratory diseases, and not all of them are even mine workers. The fences inside the Sierpinski mine made from monofilament razor wire take the cake, though.
• Numbers Stations: Prevalent throughout the game as the source of coded sequences for solving the puzzles. The game makes use of every variety out there: voiced (with authentic musical tones starting a broadcast), Morse and synthesized tones. Several of them, while seemingly unused, are actually the way to obtain the keys to the secret ending.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: The Eusan nation is a fictional stand-in for the GDR, as such it tries to pretend to be a democratically run government even when it is clear that it is anything but.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • There are several Points Of No Return in the game, after which any missed ammo, consumable or lore will be unacceptable. Also, killing Mynah will trigger a cutscene that will prevent you from picking up the items in her Boss Room.
  • While finding the gun case with the revolver is relatively simple (the shooting range it's in also has a duct tape key item), opening it requires a separate key found in an easily missable corner in another room across the map.
  • Elster simply refuses to take Isa's high caliber rifle without her permission. To ask for a permission Elster has to wake her up first. The only way to do that is to find ammonia salt in a different room before a certain point in the game. Many players didn't.
  • In Rotfront, the meat will infest the rooms, and sometimes whole sections adjacent to the rooms, when you take the Tarot cards out of them. Anything you forgot to take or examine there will be lost.
  • The Artifact Ending requires collecting three special keys throughout the game. If even one isn't collected before leaving the area it's in, that ending becomes impossible in that run.
• Personal Horror: While there is plenty of body and eldritch horror, as the story progresses it's clear that the crux of the matter lies in the relationship between Elster and Ariane and the formers guilt over the inability to keep her promise. Later levels even take on a more personal tone, being based on Arianes life and situation which is implied to have influenced her surroundings via bioresonance.
• Power Up Letdown: The six item limit (which includes key items and your torch) makes it hard to justify bringing utility items.
  • The eye item is an in-game camera designed to take photos of important puzzle solutions. Unfortunately it takes an inventory slot, only holds six images and most importantly all modern game platforms include some sort of screenshot feature which renders it completely useless.
  • Stun prods are capable of instantly downing most regular enemies, even chaining to nearby targets if you're close enough. Unfortunately each has only a single use making it tough to devote a slot to.
• Psychic Powers: Referred to as "bioresonance" - it apparently allows certain Gestalts (and all Falke and Kolibri-class Replikas) to either project their own thoughts/memories onto other people but also lift and move objects around. It's also necessary in creation of Replikas as it's used in the process of copying neural patterns. The power itself is poorly-understood in-universe, with a lot of technological development of the Eusan nation taking the backseat to try and research it better (with poor results), but is implied to be eldritch in origin.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: There are several classic pieces heard throughout the game, such as Fryderyk Chopin's "Raindrop Prelude (Op. 28 No. 15)", Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky "Swan Lake - Act II pt.1", among others. Like a lot of other things in the game, it's directly related to Ariane, in this case her affinity for music. One specific example is Moonlight Sonata playing on repeat in one of the save rooms and an angry note complaining about that nearby, which was most probably Ariane pranking everyone out of spite.
• Puzzle Boss: Falke is only momentarily incapacitated by conventional damage. The only way to progress in the fight against her is to pick up the spears she drops on the ground and stab her with them during those periods of incapacitation.
• Radio: One of the prevalent themes in the game. Encoded broadcasts provide codes needed to solve the puzzles, the receiver itself can be used to kill Kolibri-class Replikas by following their resonance frequencies and creating a feedback loop overload. This is directly tied to Ariane's upbringing as a daughter of a radio operator living in a middle of nowhere.
• Razor Floss: In the form of barbed fences made from industrial-grade monofilament wire meant for cutting minerals. Touching it will damage the player and lead to a Death of a Thousand Cuts. To make it extra nasty it's nearly invisible without the flashlight. The Nowhere features entire labyrinths made from the wires. And the corrupted Replikas inside them are actually smart enough to avoid being cut. It is possible to power through the wires if one doesn't mind taking the damage, but it's usually better to just go around, since they're always a path.
• Reality Is Out to Lunch: Space and time start to fracture at the game's halfway point, and things keep deteriorating from there. The Adler unit even speculates that reality itself has become "sick" from whatever was unearthed beneath Leng.
• Retraux: The game is specifically styled after Playstation 1-era horror games and so has heavily pixelated and blocky artwork. There's even a CRT mode in the options menu that activates a visual filter that gives the illusion that you're playing the game on an old television.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: The Replikas are fully humanoid in appearance (minus a few clearly mechanical facial markings and a complete lack of feet) and seem to be capable of not only emotions, but full-on mental breakdowns. This is because all Replika units are created from the neural patterns of human beings, which has the inadvertent side effect of the Replikas inheriting the quirks of their respective donors and occasionally have vivid recollections of their previous lives. They are even described as having "biocomponents" and "oxidant fluid" which seem to be analogues to muscles/organs and blood respectively but are also stated to not be actual human body parts. There are even a couple of restrooms on Leng that are dedicated to the Replika Protektors, though the latter is more probably due to the fact some of the Protektor models are easily over 2 meters tall.
• Robot Religion: The Führungskommando-Leiteinheit-Replika, AKA "Falke", is the statuesque commander of every AEON Facility's Protektor Force and serves as their ultimate authority. Every Replika is known to worship Falke as the closest thing they have to a Physical God due to her powerful bioresonant abilities and her uncanny resemblance to both of Eusan's tyrannical leaders: The Great Revolutionary and her Daughter.
• Robot Girl: Elster herself, as well as the other female-presenting Replika.
• Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight: The... thing that Elster rescues Isa from halfway through her journey through Nowhere. No matter the weapon you use, shooting it will at best cause it to collapse on the ground momentarily before it will eventually pick itself back up. During all of this, however, Isa will gradually come back to her senses, load her rifle, and blow it away in one shot. Damaging the monster prior to this will decrease the time it takes for Isa to do this.
• Sensory Abuse: The Kolibri-class enemies "attack" you via this: entering the room in which one of them resides causes your screen to be filled with multiple flashing messages, text-boxes and so on along with the usual loud, grating combat "music" which is an example in itself.
• Shout-Out:
  • The game developers directly acknowledge several literary works as a source of inspiration: The King in Yellow by Robert William Chambers, The Festival by H.P Lovecraft and An Inhabitant of Carcosa by Ambrose Bierce. Ariane explicitly read the former and is heavily implied to read the latter among other things, which clearly shows in her Dying Dream.
  • The painting Ariane has been working on is Toteninsel (or "Island of the Dead") by Arnold Böcklin. The fact that "Lovers" Tarot card was embedded into one of the paintings clearly implied something.
  • The theme frequently accompanying visions of the island is "Die Toteninsel (Emptiness)" and is a reprise of Op.29 "Isle of the Dead", written after Sergei Rachmaninoff had seen the black and white reproduction of the painting.
  • The surreal island the player spends several first person segments on is a macabric recreation of Gestade der Vergessenheit (or "Shores of Oblivion") by Eugen Bracht.
  • Sierpinski station and its logo refer to Sierpinski triangle, the Penrose Program logo refers to the Penrose Triangle, while the school on Rotfront Ariane was sent to is named Mandelbrot Polytechnical School. If one also keeps in mind the Penrose cyclic universe theory it results in one too many references to an infinite "Groundhog Day" Loop happening in the game.
  • Three out of six important celestial bodies are named after legendary locations: Kitezh city, Buyan island and the city of Vineta. Leng, the planetoid where Sierpinski mine is located refers to the Plateau of Leng apppearing in several works by H. P. Lovecraft. Lastly, Rotfront is named after a paramilitary leftist organization.
  • The voiced numbers stations used throughout the game are actual German-speaking stations active throughout the Cold War. For example, the "Achtung Achtung" people associate the game with comes from G04 Three-Note Oddity station, along with coded messages provided in the sample recording.
  • The designs of the Replikas are heavily inspired by the Safeguard Androids from Blame, right down to their long limbs and lack of feet. Elster herself also resembles the manga's protagonist Killy, as a raven-haired humanoid robot with a near single-minded fixation on accomplishing their goals at any cost.
  • The "Nowhere" level is giant homage to the Otherworlds from Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3, as a rusted, blood-drenched distortion of a "real" location that gradually becomes a Womb Level the deeper you go.
  • During the barrage of images that occurs in the cutscene before Elster enters the Penrose for the second time, a girl can be seen standing on a railway platform with the tracks and surrounding area submerged under water, similar to the train Chihiro takes in Spirited Away.
  • The scene where Elster tears her own arm off while trying to open the hull of the Penrose is a direct homage to the climax of Ghost in the Shell (1995), where Major Kusanagi does the same thing while attempting to rip open the door of the Spider Tank.
  • The carpet pattern in one of the game's save rooms bears a near perfect match to the pattern used in The Shining.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Isa fires a hunting rifle chambered in .700 Action Express, which is a caliber meant for hunting big game, without bracing herself first. The recoil drives the barrel of the gun into her face and knocks her unconscious.
• Techno Dystopia: The game is set within a Bad Future where all of humanity has fallen under the banner of a totalitarian regime known as The Nation of Eusan, which has rapidly expanded its sphere of influence across the entire solar system while maintaining an iron grip on its territories through aggressive surveillance and 24/7 propaganda. Humanoid androids known as Replikas also live among the populace, acting as workers, civil servants, and "Protektors" alongside the citizens they are designed to resemble.
• Theme Naming: All Replika models are named after birds:
  • FLKR Falke ("Falkon"), a 250 centimeters tall law enforcement head and an object of worship and adoration among humans and Replikas alike.
  • ADLR Adler ("Eagle"), Falke's adjutant, administrator and data processor. The Sierpinski Adler is the first one to analyze the strange data and realize the whole facility is inside an infinite cycle.
  • STAR Star ("Starling"). The bulk of Protektor corps. Keeping a level head in combat situations but also quiet and judgemental.
  • STCR Storch ("Stork"). Controller and squad leaders in charge of Star-class Protektors.
  • ARAR Ara ("Ara macaw"). The base workforce Replikas who have replaced humans in dangerous lines of work.
  • EULR Eule ("Owl"). The general purpose units in working in cooking, cleaning, office and medical. Outgoing, highly social and getting along with everyone.
  • KLBR Kolibri ("Hummingbird"). Bioresonance adjutants managing the mental state of the cadre. While the shortest of all Replikas they are a force to be reckoned with as they can convince and suggest anything and to anyone.
  • MNHR Mynah ("Myna"). The rugged heavy mine workers for hazardous environments. While the tallest (at 260cm) they show motherly care for others and their Persona Stabilization only requires stuffed toys.
  • LSTR Elster ("Magpie"). The ship technician for autonomous deep space expeditions. Smart, crafty and resourceful just like their namesakes, but also aloof and keeping to themselves.
• The One Guy: ADLER appears to not only be the only male Replika on Sierpinski, but the only male character with a speaking role in the entire game. The medical records Elster can find paint a similar picture with only one man being present with the rest being women. Possibly a Justified Trope, as there is numerous in-game notes that heavily suggest that Eusan's society is a hardcore Matriarchy led by two female dictators.
• The Walls Have Eyes: The Nowhere has whole grids of monitors inside the walls that constantly show black eyes on a red background. In the later segments some of the save room terminals will also show them for a brief moment when entering the room for the first time.
• Womb Level: Sierpinski mine is one from the get go. Rotfront quarters has fleshy overgrowth gradually appear and block several convenient doors as puzzles get solved. Just as Ariane slowly dies from radiation-induced cancer.
• Zeerust: As aforementioned in Cassette Futurism, the Nation of Eusan looks perpetually stuck in the late 1970s in not only in the tech, but also in the style of its propaganda, which heavily resembles communist propaganda posters from the late 1970s to early 1980s of the Cold War.