Video Game / SIGNALIS

Perhaps, this is hell

Remember our promise.

SIGNALIS is a retro-futuristic Survival Horror game created by rose_engine, a duo of indie developers based in Hamburg, Germany, 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 stumbles into a Cosmic Horror Story where time, space, and identity all begin to break down, set against the backdrop of a totalitarian nation and the people and Replikas who live in it.

The game was released on October 27th, 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 rein in their darker impulses.
  • Every FLKR unit is directly aided by a cadre of KLBR subordinants, who collectively work together to amplify the Falke's bioresonant signals, as well as produce their own signals to form a Hive Mind network. But a Kolibri's neural patterns are incredibly unstable due to their Bioresonance module also making them susceptible to outside influences. If they are not careful, a single jepordized Kolibri can potentially corrupt every other unit within their cadre, who in turn will corrupt others within their vicinity. The only solution is to immediately "decommission" any Kolibri showing early signs of persona degredation and keep whatever is left of their kin stablized by providing a well-stocked library for them to peruse at their leisure.
• A.K.A.-47:
  • The Type-75 'Protektor' pistol is essentially the CZ-75, rechambered for 10mm cartridges.
  • The Eu-K508 S 'Einhorn' Revolver is a dead ringer for the Chiappa Rhino 20D, rechambered for 12mm HP (.50 cal.) rounds.
  • The Type-84 'Drache' SMG is based on the experimental Heckler & Koch SMG II prototype, chambered in 8mm.
  • The EIN-12 Flechette Shotgun is a SPAS-12 with a foldable stock.
  • The LP-265a Leuchtpistole Flare Gun is inspired by the DIANA 26.5mm SP 4 flare pistol.
• 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 physically beaten by her classmates. It clearly influenced her decision to enlist in the Eusan People's Navy: being isolated on a tiny ship out there in the void was a preferred alternative to constant oppression and bullying... at first.
• Alternative Calendar: The game is set in a solar system where every world has been colonized by humanity, and as such runs on multiple different calendars.
  • A diary has a start date of 84-21-6, and the last number counting up. It also goes from day 9 to day A, suggesting that the date is in hexadecimal numbers.
  • In medical records found on Rotfront, all of the patients have dates of birth like "10S 62P a" or "29S 39P b".
  • The Itou twins' birthdate is 14S 52P c in Rotfront format, but their personal ID numbers also reveal their birthdate in Vineta format: a traditional six-digit numeric string, 56-05-24. This confirms that the other planets have their own dates.
  • Word of God confirms that Ariane's birthday is December 12 in Vineta format, which converts to R-18.6a in Rotfront format and 59-21-D in Heimat/Leng format.
• 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 Ariane's Dying Dream being broadcasted via bioresonance, locations such as the Sierpinski station or Rotfront could either be mere figments within the dream, or 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 written in detail on a note in the same room saying even the in-universe staff 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. After the October 2023 update, said tool and the Flashlight module also gained their own special slots in Elster's inventory, effectively "refunding" those blocks to the player.
  • 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 have line of sight to you won't react to your flashlight.
  • Aras don't alert other enemies with a scream when they emerge from their undetectable hiding places, allowing a level-headed player to remain stealthy even while being pursued.
  • While enemies do deal Collision Damage to Elster so the player can't just run through them if they're in an animation, it does do less damage than if enemies land a proper attack at least.
• 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. You can also find diaries by Alina Seo, providing the perspective of a gestalt laborer who wasn't privy to the finer details. Ariane's diary entires aboard the Penrose devolve into this as the cycles wear on and she suffers from severe Cabin Fever and 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 (the Rule of Six determining Elster's inventory limit, important doors needing six keys to open, the six seals represented by the Plates, the six Elsters and six pillars in the Artifact ending), 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 game's 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.
  • Each of the inhabited planets has its own symbol, which can be seen on posters and the like, e.g. Heimat has a four-pointed star, Rotfront has a circle. Knowing them is key to solving some puzzles.
  • Five squares arranged like the five on a dice are frequently seen. This is never explicitly identified, but may be a Eusan national symbol.
• Arc Words: "Remember our promise."
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The BW-5 Nitro Express rifle fires armor-piercing slugs that completely disregard any enemy armor, allowing the player to do full damage with each shot regardless of what they're shooting at.
• 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 — in fact, a newspaper article found later specifically centers on one planet's transit complicating the war against the Empire for the next few months.
• 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 the Blithe Spirit she is, did exactly all of this and beyond. In fact she didn't even bother opening the envelope with the manual, as it can be found still sealed inside Penrose-512 in the last chapter.
• Become a Real Boy: A classified AEON document titled "Operational Procedures: Control" reveals that "Persona Degradation", obliquely referred to in other documents as a Replika degenerative condition requiring sufferers to be immediately decommissioned, is actually nothing more than Replikas encountering new situations, diverging from their default personality and becoming their own person.
  • As this makes them less efficient for their intended purpose, AEON manipulates their psychology with "Persona Stabilization" - regular activities and Fetish objects that recall their former Gestalt life - in order to keep Replikas "as productive, loyal and docile for as long as possible". The conclusion even suggests that the Eusan Nation is seeking to develop bioresonant technology to the point that wide-scale direct Mind Control becomes practical, noting that such a technology would be far more effective than mere psychological manipulation.
  • After discovering this document, an ARAR unit abandoned her post and retreated to a tunnel beneath the STCR Dorm on Floor 8, refusing to return to work in favor of tending to her bamboo plants - and unknowingly escaping the psychic disaster that subsequently befell S-23 Sierpinski, seemingly completely unaware of the nightmarish events happening above.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The Eusan Nation is a totalitarian state with cameras and propaganda around every corner, psychic Secret Police monitoring citizens for Thoughtcrime, and remote reeducation/labor camps like Sierpenski.
• 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, while the latter is implied to be cultural 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 of Eusan is this. Whilst the Empire may resemble a stereotypical Empire in fiction, the Unreliable Narrator reputation of the Nation does not make this conflict black and white, given its totalitarian nature and surveillance.
• Blunt "No": A Kolibri block warden in Rotfront apparently sent an e-mail to AEON requesting a transfer to a different post. Examining the Kolibri's personal computer shows an e-mail named "RE: Relocation", where the only word is "No."
• 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; and STCR replikas, who have become nearly unrecognizable Armless Bipeds with oversized beak-heads.
  • Elster after the fake ending is missing an arm and has her chest ripped open exposing her ribs and organic internals behind them.
• Body of Bodies: The Chimera, a boss encountered in Act II, is a melded mass of replika meat with four pairs of grasping arms and two pairs of long Storch legs, held together within a rectangular metal frame. It's by far the most freakish enemy in the game, looking like it came straight from Silent Hill.
• 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.
• Book Safe: The Astrolabe required to unlock Adler's puzzle box is kept in a false hardcopy of The King in Yellow.
• Brain Uploading: A curious case in the form of Replikas and their neural patterns. A Replika's personality and disposition are inherited from their neural donor, with some alterations to erase memories of their past lives in order to make them easier to control and more effective in their intended occupation. The process is then repeated on an industrial level as Replikas enter mass production. As the process itself is poorly-understood even in-universe, there's always a chance of said past life memories to resurface and compromise the unit if exposed to specific stimuli, usually referred to as "persona degradation", and the "Bioresonance Technology and its Limitations" document heavily implies that the neural data is "uploaded" to an ordinary human brain with pre-existing patterns as a form of Wetware CPU, rather than synthetic processors.
• But You Were There, and You, and You: Based on the medical records Elster can uncover in Rotfront, all of the Replikas 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 Nation 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.
• Collision Damage: Elster will take damage if she physically touches an enemy, whether said enemy has actually gotten an attack in or not.
• Colonized Solar System: initially appears to be an Alternate Universe take, with unfamiliar planet names referencing mythical Slavic cities. Elster's comments when viewing an Orrery displaying the system's inhabited worlds, however, suggests that the solar system is actually our own.
  • Buyan, "home to the Imperial Palace, floating above poisonous clouds". Description matches Venus.
  • Vineta, "the ocean world ravaged by war" with a shattered white moon, homeworld of humanity. Description matches Earth.
  • Kitezh, "the red desert". Description matches Mars.
  • Rotfront, "the ice moon circling the largest gas giant. Still in the process of Klimaforming", with "a sunless sea below the ice" as well as a "red eye in the sky". Description matches Europa, Jupiter's fourth-largest moon.
  • Heimat, "home of the new Nation's government. The view of the gas giant's rings in the sky is beautiful there." Description matches Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
  • Leng, a frozen terrestrial world with rich mineral resources, orbiting beyond the gas giants. Description matches Pluto.
• Commie Land: Eusan is heavily based on East Germany, with a dash of Chinese thrown in.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Averted for the first two bosses, who can be killed with a single Thermite Flare (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.
• Critical Annoyance: Being at Critical health will cause the game screen to intermittently distort and display heavy static, while also occasionally desaturating the UI which affects even the pause menus. If playing on console or the PC version with a gamepad hooked up, the controller will also pulsate rhythmically to simulate Elster's strained heartbeats as well.
• 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.
• Dark World: There are two towards the end of the game. Initially, it seems that the S-23 Sierpinski mining station is being overrun by a typical zombie plague, with one case of Meat Moss in a kitchen. By the time the Elster jumps into the depths of the mines, she enters a nightmare realm made almost entirely of non-Euclidian rooms and hallways, meat moss everywhere, and distorted versions of prior locations, identified only as Nowhere. The final act of the game takes place in a recreation of an apartment complex in Rotfront, which is steadily overtaken by the flesh as Elster collects important items and solves puzzles.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Elster is one big homage to survival horror protagonists, being a Determinator in search of someone close like James from Silent Hill 2 and a skilled engineer that can also fend for herself like Isaac from Dead Space. Except she's a Doomed Protagonist; she seemingly died before the game even began, and no matter how far she goes, she'll inevitably die yet again and be sent back to start it all over - perhaps even if she does fulfill her "promise" with Ariane. Adler implies that Elster's endless repetition of her search for Ariane is destabilizing reality itself. Thus, unlike her inspirations, Elster may well be unable to die for good nor find closure, for herself or anyone else.
• 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.
• Deadly Euphemism: Replikas who experienced persona degradation or are otherwise deemed unfit for duty are "decommissioned". The Stolen Document note in Rotfront even suggests "alternative methods" of decommissioning when ammo rations are distributed, implying that malfunctioning Replikas are intended to be terminated when appropriate.
• Demonic Head Shake: Per the game's classic horror inspirations, the heads of corrupted Aras and Kolibris constantly jitter in homage to this trope.
• 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 and survive where others would despair.
• Degraded Boss: The first Mynah-class replika is treated as an unavoidable boss battle complete with her own intro, but later on shows up two more times as a regular enemy.
• Developer's Foresight: The developers have clearly accounted for the possibility of players being skilled (or daring) enough to beat Signalis in one sitting without saves. The post-game results screen will have a special message congratulating you for managing to do so.
• 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 unless she accomplishes this bleak task.
• Drone of Dread: That low humming noise that you can sometimes hear in the background isn't your system fan. It's the game.
• 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.
• End-Game Results Screen: A fairly detailed one, including time (both total and active), number of saves, number of kills, damage taken and healed, and which ending you got.
• 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 the Nation. 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 Lilith Itou (the Gestalt whose neural imprint LSTR-class Replikas were created from), 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 based in Hamburg most probably had something to do with that.
• 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 S-23 Sierpinski 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 to conserve ammunition.
• Fire Keeps It Dead: Corrupted Replikas have a chance of getting back up after a certain amount of time, even after you've used a Finishing Stomp on them, due to their cancerous biocomponents regenerating from injuries. Using Thermite Flares or Signal Flares will burn through their armor and damage the biological systems enough to keep them from getting back up.
• Fission Mailed: After getting to the the bottom of Nowhere and reaching the Penrose 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 taken back to the main menu. However, a few things (Elster's dead, lightless eye and the inability to switch profiles) hint that this isn't the end; pressing "Begin", "Credits", or "Quit" will instead pushes the game forward once more.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the fake ending, one of the shots is of 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 armored chest plate, with 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 incarnation 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.
  • A note found aboard the Penrose is a message to the pilot informing them that if their mission has gone on for a certain amount of time, the mission is deemed a failure and they are going to die as the ship deteriorates and life support systems fail. The briefing warns against trying to stave off the end by using spare parts to keep the ship going or eating their LSTR copilot and instead encourages either permanently interring themself in the ship's cyro pod or having the LSTR euthanize them. This is exactly what happened to Elster and Ariane, and they ignored the warning to try to keep the ship operational. Ariane ultimately became so sick she extracted a promise from Elster to Mercy Kill her, and is waiting for her aboard the Penrose in the cyro pod.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many cinematic sequences have flashing images/text appear on screen just for a glimpse. While many are there just 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 wasteland with a massive Red 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 sometimes be found looking at mirrors when idle.
  • Achieving the "false" ending counts as a death in the post-game stats, and appropriately nets the player a diagnostics triangle as if they'd died normally. Furthermore, this also averts Armor Is Useless in some manner, as the "free" diagnostics triangle's protection value reflects the body armor Elster looted off of a deceased unit, and thus will be golden regardless of the chosen combat difficulty. That being said, this will only happen if the player haven't already died before this point, as the diagnostics triangle (nor the associated death count) will not be granted if you've already had a few to begin with.
  • 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.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Putting the Photograph item in the storage box will have Elster pulling out another one during Adler's introductory cutscene as if she still has it on her person.
  • Likewise, Elster is most consistently depicted with a handgun as her weapon of choice in the few cutscenes where she does hold a firearm, regardless of if the player has equipped her with something else beforehand, or even if it's already been stashed into the item box.
• Gate of Truth: At the bottom of the Sierpinski mine is the Gate, a simple stone post-and-lintel doorway, through which is a barren red wasteland where the Penrose-512 lays crashed. What the Gate is and why the Penrose is behind it are never explained, but Elster has delved through it over and over again in an endless effort to fulfill her promise to Ariane. Elster's journey has seemingly trapped Sierpinski in a time loop, and every time she goes through the Gate, reality unravels a little more — or so Adler perceives. When the Gate was first discovered, Falke went through it, and came back with Elster's memories overwriting her own.
• Glorious Leader: The Nation of Eusan is led, at least symbolically, by the Grand Revolutionary and her Daughter. Rooms throughout the game feature two paired portraits which are too low-res to make anything of, but are implied to be of them. The Super-Soldier Falke units are also built in their image.
• God-Emperor: It seems the Grand Empress of Eusan was this, as she was an extremely powerful bioresonant who created the Replikas and bent all of humanity to her will. It's also likely that the Grand Revolutionary and her Daughter are this for the Eusan Nation, as they created Falke in their image for the Replikas to worship.
• Gory Discretion Shot: One of the combat cutscenes concludes with "Violent scene missing".
• Great Offscreen War: The war between the Empire and the Eusan Nation is frequently mentioned and is clearly still happening, but the game takes place out of the combat zone.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Subverted, a Replika changing or growing is "Persona Degradation", which renders them inherently unstable and often requires "decomissioning" to avoid them turning violent or spreading insanity. Double Subverted, the 1st Anniversary Patch for the game added documents and an NPC that reveal the classified documents for dealing with Replikas are all also propaganda and unreliable, "Persona Degradation" is not inherently instability, but is a more broad development of personality that will "degrade" the original persona as the Replika becomes a unique, free-thinking individual. As a totalitarian state, the Eusan Nation has a vested interest in keeping the Replika's obedient and in-line, hence making it seem like any deviation is dangerous.
  • Several Replikas in Sierpinski show this, with Elster changing from an aloof, unemotional person to falling in love with Ariane. There's also a Eule and Star in the mines that have fallen in love, with the Eule lamenting the Star dying while the Star hopes to see her again in another life. The 1st Anniversary Patch also has an Ara who discovered the above documents and has hidden herself from the danger.
• "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 three very well-hidden Keys from three different sections 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.
  • Heck, even the game's three normal endings can be rather obtuse to figure out. To wit, Signalis uses a points system to determine which ending you'll get based on the tally you have at the end of the game, with different actions accumulating points towards different endings. The problem lies in how obscure and counter-intuitive some are to obtain, such as the one Death point contributing towards the Promise ending requiring the player to deliberately drag their playthrough out to twelve plus hours to get, while progressing through the game at a natural pace and being conservative with one's resources will steadily accumulate points towards the Leave ending instead. As the Memory ending is given higher point priority than either of the other two, and is as a result the "default" ending one will likely obtain in a typical playthrough, the only way to achieve them instead would be to deliberately go out of your way to farm points for them, which would be near-impossible without a guide on hand or datamining.
  • 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-powered Rifle. To get them requires finding key items to unlock the weapons before progressing to the next area, and if one doesn't know to look for them they can be missed entirely.
  • Anyone familiar with the Resident Evil remakes and resurrecting enemies would understandably assume that the Thermite Flares 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: the Flares can be used as a melee weapon, just like the Stun Rods, 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) will result in the message "YOU'LL REGRET THIS LATER" being briefly flashed on a blood-red background.
• Hell Is That Noise: Plenty, as per horror genre tradition.
  • The enemies let out an unearthly shriek whenever they detect you.
  • The battle themes take a page from Akira Yamaoka's work on the 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 inflicted by 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.
• Improbably Female Cast: Every character in the game (which takes place across an industrial facility and an apartment complex, among others) is female, including the incidental and unnamed ones. Even the tarot card for "The Lovers" is modified to feature two women. There are only two exceptions: Adler, and a Gestalt Identical Stranger of him who appears in a list of medical records.
• Insistent Terminology: To contrast the Replikas, human characters are always referred to as "Gestalts", perhaps to downplay their humanity and individuality and instead emphasize that they're part of a collective.
• Interface Screw: Throughout the game, the rooms and corridors are all oriented facing north, and room doors are linked with each other in a logical way...except for Nowhere, a non-Euclidean nightmare realm where rooms and floors are linked together in physically impossible ways: a leftward door leads to a topward exit, climbing a ladder leads to a lower floor, a new room suddenly appears where there was nothing but a wall before. Combined with the lack of a map in Nowhere, this is designed to further confuse and disturb 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 paired with other enemies it's a real danger in a fight. Approaching the Kolibri too closely, in addition to dealing actual damage to Elster, will worsen the flashing static to the point that it consumes the entire screen.
  • Game saves are subtitled with the name of the Chapter the save point is located in: "Hospital Wing", "Mineshaft", and so on. The sole exception is the short segment immediately after the false ending, where Elster finds herself back in an infested version of the "Reeducation" chapter. Saving in this segment results in the Chapter name being replaced with corrupted static. The console command "intruder", which allows the player to load any chapter from a list, refers to this segment as "Corrupted Reeducation".
• 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. Thankfully, Patch 1.2 allows players to expand their inventory to eight slots, as well as allowing the Flashlight and Eidetic modules to be carried without taking up any slots.
• 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.
• Kill the Ones You Love: The nature of Elster's "promise" to Arianne Yeong, who's dying of radiation poisoning and wishes to be relieved of her suffering. Whether Elster can go through with this and fulfil her promise or not depends on the player's discretion.
• 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.
• Love Hurts: Arguably the crux of the story. The whole plot concerns Elster struggling to cope with loss and let go of Ariane, finding the resolve needed to grant her a promised Mercy Kill. Other characters aren't much better — Adler has an unrequited love for Commander Falke and is devastated by her coma. Falke, after gaining Elster's memories, has been driven insane by envy and longing for Ariane. Isolde Itou platonically loves her sister Erika and desperately wants to reunite with her, only to fail and succumb to Death by Despair. In the mines, you can find a dying Starling guard trying to comfort her sobbing lover in their final moments together.
• Lost Technology: The original neural data of the LSTR series of Replikas is this, having been lost during the destruction of the Neural Archives on Vineta. As a result, AEON had to resort to using the memories of a decommissioned Penrose program LSTR as a new master copy for future production.
• 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.
• Meat Moss: At first it only appears in a kitchen in the early game, but it is nearly everywhere in the Dark World that has replaced the bottom of the mining colony. It becomes highly symbolic of the fact that Ariane was dying of cancer, and the game is implied to take place in her Dying Dream. It gets dialed up to eleven with a "New Game Plus" taking place in the apartment complex Ariane grew up in, and as each section is explored, it becomes overrun with more meat moss that makes backtracking impossible.
• Media Watchdog: The small radio room at the end of the intro, later revealed to be Ariane's old bedroom on Rotfront, contains full shelves of Imperial 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, triggering the nightmare events to follow.
• Multiple Endings: Depending on Elster's actions, she can either fulfill her promise to Ariane and Mercy Kill her before succumbing to her own 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 very 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.
• Noodle Incident: The in-universe reason doors on the far side of dark rooms need a flashlight to be opened is due to an "incident" involving "a certain Starling who shall remain unnamed". The doors were adjusted by an Ara engineer to require visible light to open, in order to "hopefully stop any more non-service cadre personnel from endangering themselves by stumbling into dark rooms until we can take care of the lighting issues."
• Noodle People: The Storch and Falke Replikas have this vibe going on, due to their relatively slender frame with long, stilt-like legs that make up almost half of their total height. Starlings are a less exaggerated example, but still more or less play this straight due to them being essentially downscaled Storches.
• No OSHA Compliance: Medical records found on Rotfront show a suspiciously large number of citizens 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.
• No Party Like the Donner Party: Averted. When exploring the Penrose, there's a briefing document for the Gestalt pilot in the case of starvation situations, advising against eating their Replika co-pilot. The debrief points out that the organic components are mildly toxic, and the "blood" is actually anti-oxidant fluid which is poisonous to consume. The briefing instead suggests that they ask the Replika to euthanize the pilot, or enter the cryopod permanently. Despite being averted in the game itself, it's an open question whether this document was drafted with foresight, or from macabre experience.
• Notice This:
  • Items that you can pick up or interact with are usually a bit more brightly-colored than their surroundings, and always show a white frame when you get close enough. If the player is in an unlit room, then this only happens if you have the flashlight turned on. On PC, holding the F2 key will highlight all interactive objects in the current room with the white frame.
  • If you find an item in a room that needs unlocking (either by finding a key or by solving a puzzle), then a black shield with a red edge will appear on the map, serving as a reminder to come back later. After you've opened the container and picked up the item within, the shield will turn plain black.
• 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 code, and synthesized tones. Several of them, while seemingly unused, are actually instructions to obtain the Keys to the secret ending.
• One Hit Poly Kill: Can be done with disposable stun prods and thermite flares, due to how their attacks actually hit a small area in front of Elster rather than just individual targets, allowing the player to get rid of several enemies bunched together if managed properly. The shotgun can also do this if there are other enemies packed around one's target, as well as the flare gun if loaded with grenade rounds.
• 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 "people's 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 prevents 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 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 permission, Elster has to wake her up first. The only way to do that is to find a particular item in a different room before a certain point in the game. To make things worse, the entrance to the room in question only opens after meeting Isa and slaying Chimera; players who have already explored the area can easily miss the new room. The 1st Anniversary update added another means to acquire the rifle if you missed it the first time, but only by approaching the entrance to the Final Boss and then running back to the door you entered by to find a recreation of Adler's study.
  • In Rotfront, the Meat Moss 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. Furthermore, all three Keys must be in the player's inventory before solving the final Moon puzzle, as solving it will lock the player into entering the radio room.
• 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 former's guilt over the inability to keep her promise. Later levels take on an even more personal tone, being based on Ariane's old life and current suffering, which is implied to have influenced her surroundings via bioresonance.
• Pivotal Wake-up: When fighting Commander Falke, she wakes up from her coma by levitating over her bed and twirling upright.
• Point of No Return: Naturally, the end of each chapter is a cut-off point where one can't backtrack to earlier areas anymore (e.g. the drop into the operating theater in Chapter 1, taking the lift down into the mines in Chapter 2, the moon phase puzzle in Rotfront, etc...), meaning any uncollected notes, weapons, or resources will be lost.
• Power Up Letdown: The six-item limit (which includes key items and your torch) makes it hard to justify bringing utility items.
  • The Eidetic Module, a cybernetic eye, is an in-game camera designed to take photos of important puzzle solutions. Unfortunately it takes up 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.
  • For the most part remedied by Patch 1.2, which allows players to expand their inventory to eight slots, and furthermore allows the Flashlight and Eidetic modules to be carried without taking up any slots.
• Psychic Powers: Referred to as "bioresonance" - it apparently allows certain Gestalts (and specialized Replikas such as Falke and Kolibri) to either project their own thoughts and memories onto other people, and also lift and move objects around. Somehow, it's key to artificial gravity and terraforming technology, and is necessary in the creation of Replikas as it is used in the process of copying neural patterns. The power itself is poorly-understood in-universe, with other technological progress taking a backseat due to the Eusan Nation's single-minded focus on bioresonance research (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 being played on repeat by the Eules in the Floor 7 music room, and an angry note written by a Storch complaining about it in an adjacent room.
• 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 the Chiappa Rhino 20D. Its named "Einhorn", German for Unicorn.
• 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 stabs into the ground and stab her with them during those periods of incapacitation.
• Queer Romance: The game's backstory features a romantic relationship between Ariane Yeong and Elster. We are not told how their society views same-sex relationships, but it is explicitly against regulations for human pilot Ariane to even be friendly with Replika engineer Elster.
• Quick Melee: In addition to Stun Rods using their own button for quick-use, Elster will shove enemies back with her weapon if they are too close which doesn't do any damage but does briefly stun them.
• 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, working and living in the 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 there's 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.
• Resurrected Romance: Twice, and unusually within the same lifetime.
  • First is the unusual resemblance between Ariane and Alina Seo, with Ariane's mother thinking they could be sisters. The photo with Alina has a fellow soldier next to her, Lilith Itou; she is a dead ringer for Elster, and is suggested to be the template for her Replika model. Both even have a tendency to have their right eye be injured.
  • This trope happens again with the revelation that Elster actually died on the Penrose, and the one seen in the game is likely a Living Memory made by Ariane's bioresonance in an effort to finally die and/or Elster's own obsession refusing to let her promise to Ariane go unfulfilled in an eldritch realm where the latter's bioresonance is twisting the rules of reality more and more.
• 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, a visual filter that gives the illusion of the game being played on an old curved monitor.
• Ret-Gone: Seemingly the fate of LSTR-S2301, who only showed up in one loop instance of Adler's journals and never again once the "Groundhog Day" Loop started. A note penned by a Kolibri unit found in the dorms implies that Falke's neural degradation and corruption during the later loops prevented S2301's requisition. The playable character is strongly hinted to be S2301 imprinted with the memories of the "real" Elster via Ariane's bioresonance, as revealed by the unit serial number that's briefly shown in the bluescreen of death.
• Reviving Enemy: Defeated enemies have a small chance to spontaneously reanimate when the player passes close by, thanks to their bodies being riddled with regenerating tumors. The only way to ensure an enemy doesn't return to life while backtracking is to burn the living tissue with (very limited) thermite or (even more limited) flares.
• 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 "anti-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.
• Roar Before Beating: Enemies usually scream when they spot you.
• 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 Grand Revolutionary and her Daughter.
• Robot Girl: Elster herself, as well as the other female-presenting Replika.
• Save-Game Limits: You can only save in save rooms, and there are only four save slots. However, the game does allow you to save new runs in new "Profiles," up to five times.
• 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 briefly collapse on the ground before eventually picking itself back up. During all of this, however, Isa will gradually come back to her senses, load her powerful Rifle, and blow the monster away in one shot. Damaging the Chimera prior to this will decrease the time it takes for Isa to load her weapon, while running will increase said time.
• 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 static alongside the usual loud, grating combat "music", which is an example in itself. The closer you approach a Kolibri, the more aggressive the static appears, until it consumes the entire screen; Elster will also suffer continuous health damage as a result.
• Servant Race: The Replikas are a very unusual case.
  • At first, it seems obvious that this is their entire purpose: from frontline combat to industrial work to household cleaning, Replikas are created for the purpose of carrying out whatever task the government needs handled, and are "decommissioned" as soon as they show signs of diverging from their default personality and becoming their own person - euphemistically referred to as "Persona Degradation".
  • Yet unlike the vast majority of Servant Races in other works, Replikas actually appear to stand on a higher rung of the societal ladder than the organic Gestalts they work with and oversee. Indeed, Replikas are shown in positions of authority and privilege throughout the entire setting:
    • In S-23 Sierpinski, command, administration and security posts are all held by Replika staff. Gestalt workers reside in cage-like triple-bunk beds enclosed with metal grills, allowed extremely minimal personal belongings, and lives in constant fear of interrogation, imprisonment, torture and even death for the smallest of infractions; in sharp contrast to the Replika quarters' colorful decor, spacious accommodation, and extensive recreational facilities.
    • In Rotfront's Sektor C, the Blockwart ("block warden") is a Kolibri unit who maintains order and roots out dissidents and spies with bioresonant telepathy; her commanding officer is also another Replika, a Kranich unit.
    • The only known exceptions are Project Penrose vessels, where the Gestalt officer holds authority over the LSTR technician unit; and the Grand Revolutionary and her Daughter ruling over the Eusan Nation 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.
    • Adler directly quotes 'The King in Yellow', with the line, "I wear no mask."
  • The painting Ariane has been working on is "Die Toteninsel" (or "Island of the Dead") by Arnold Böcklin. The fact that "Lovers" Tarot card was embedded into one of the paintings clearly references Ariane and Elster's journey.
    • 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 saw and was inspired by a black-and-white reproduction of the painting.
  • The surreal island where the player spends several first-person segments on is a macabre recreation of the painting "Gestade der Vergessenheit" ("Shores of Oblivion") by Eugen Bracht.
  • Sierpinski station and its logo refer to the 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, an important location 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." message associated with the game comes from the 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 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.
  • Save Points in Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 are red shapes. In SIGNALIS, they are monitors with red screens.
  • 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 seen throughout the game bears a near-perfect match to the pattern used in The Shining.
• State Sec: The Arbeits- und Erziehungsorgan der Nation (National Ministry for Work and Education), abbreviated as AEON, governs seemingly everything from the allocation of protektor forces, to national survellience and persecution of Thoughtcrime, to the bleak labor camp of S-23 Sierpinski. Written announcements to replika staff by Administrator Adler often state that changes are being made "by order of AEON".
• Suicide Mission: The Penrose Program. The briefing document for the final phase of the mission states "if you have not found a suitable world for landing at this point, accept that you will not" and recommends the Gestalt avoid a prolonged and painful death by either asking their Replika to kill them or going into permanent cryogenic hibernation until the ship breaks down.
• 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 stock of the gun into her face and knocks her unconscious.
• Techno Dystopia: The game is set within a Retro Universe where most of humanity has fallen under the banner of a totalitarian regime known as the Nation of Eusan, which has overthrown the Empire of Eusan and 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. Notably, the replikas are granted much more autonomy than humans by the regime, occupying positions of relative power and given much better accomodations and luxuries, compared to the cramped apartment complexes and cage-like barracks of "gestalt" workers.
• Temporal Sickness: An interesting variation, with the world itself getting more and more degraded and sick with each new iteration of the time loop. By the time Elster reaches Ariane for the final time, the world is just barely holding together, being twisted and diseased beyond recognition.
• Theme Naming: All Replika models are named after birds:
  • FLKR Falke ("Falcon"), a 250cm 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 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 judgmental.
  • STCR Storch ("Stork"). Controller and squad leaders in charge of Star-class Protektors.
  • ARAR Ara ("Macaw"). The base workforce Replikas who have replaced humans in dangerous industrial work.
  • EULR Eule ("Owl"). The general-purpose units in working in cooking, cleaning, office and medical. Outgoing, highly social and gets along with everyone.
  • KLBR Kolibri ("Hummingbird"). Bioresonant 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 both read and directly influence the minds of others.
  • KNCR Kranich ("Crane"). An unseen high-ranked controller unit, in charge of Kolibri Blockwarts. Only mentioned once in an email, with their logo being a stylised crane.
  • 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.
  • SAPR Schnäpper ("Flycatcher"). An unseen combat variant deployed for anti-armor engagements, using the same frame as Mynah units but with a different, combat-capable Persona.
  • 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.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: Invoked by name through an achievement granted for dying at least 16 times during a single playthrough. As Elster is given a permanent health buff upon dying and loading a save, effectively obtaining an "upgrade" part in so doing that's visualized by the grid of triangles in her diagnostics screen, the question is thus are you still really "you" after replacing every single component of your body throughout the course of your journey?
• 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 (who is strongly suggested to be the ADLR line's neural pattern donor) being present; the rest being all women. Possibly a Justified Trope, as there is numerous in-game notes that heavily suggest that both the Nation of Eusan and its Imperial predecessor are hardcore Matriarchies led by female dictators: the Grand Revolutionary and the Grand Empress, respectively.
• Unconventional Formatting: One of the notes you can find is written right-to-left and top-to-bottom in monospaced capitals, with each column being one word, resembling (and likely meant to represent) the traditional Chinese method of vertical writing. It is a clue to solving a puzzle, so before you can work out what it means, you have to work out what it says. It helps that the right-most column clearly says EMPRESS.
  • Similarly, the in-game copy of The King in Yellow (which has its title written in Japanese) is reverse-binded with its spine on the right side of the cover, clearly implying that it's meant to be read right-to-left.
• Unperson: According to a document found in Rotfront, the Gestalts who "donated" their neural patterns to Replika forms are put on ice after their brain scans and effectively erased from all public records by the Eusan Nation. This is to preserve the illusion that Replikas are the living, incorruptible ideals of the regime.
• Vague Hit Points: Elster's health varies between Nominal, Caution, Danger and Critical, with a blue/yellow/orange/red background on her character portrait. She holds her stomach on lower health statuses, and if you're playing on console, your controller will pulse on Critical. Healing items are described as providing a small, medium or large amount of healing. There is no indication of how much damage enemies have taken, but most of them go down in two or three hits.
  • Entering the console command "scouter" reveals the actual numerical value of enemy health, by way of a floating number on top of their heads.
• 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.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Although there are numerous surviving Replikas that Elster can come across in Sierpinski, such as Storch Sieben, the Mynah Beo, or Kolibri S2302, nothing is ultimately revealed about their fates after the player has moved on from the area they inhabited. It can be inferred that some of them have met an Uncertain Doom, such as the wounded Star encountered at the start of Chapter 1, though one is never definitively shown any proof of their demise beyond an implication.
• Womb Level: Sierpinski mine is one from the get go. The Rotfront quarters has fleshy overgrowth gradually appear and block out rooms and whole sections of the level as plot-critical items are picked up. Just as Ariane slowly dies from radiation-induced cancer.
• Your Days Are Numbered: According to the Project Penrose manuals, the LSTR line of Replikas has an estimated life expectancy of 3,000 cycles, or around 8.2 years of real time^note Though it's unsure if this is their actual intended lifetime, or just an approximation based on when the containment of their space vessel's reactor would start to fail and kill them via radiation poisoning. The real Elster was strongly implied to have hit this expiration date before she was able to fulfil her promise to Mercy Kill Ariane.
• 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.

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