Official Poll Regarding SOMA's Monsters

[PathOS]

What I did love about the Monsters was they were not overused, and that each section of the game had its own monster. That was very good as you didn't grow accustomed and used to them for too long.

It is a tricky balance. On the one hand by reducing monster encounters you could potentially be reducing the "scare" factor. On the other by making monsters more frequent they become less scary as well the more you get used to them (for example, the Alien in Isolation who is mainly just something that only exists to keep you tense as opposed to being scared). This is why even in the original Amnesia once you got to the final third of the game the monsters ceased to be scary.

SOMA succeeded for me in actually ensuring that the monsters encountered later in the game were actually more frightening, thanks to the lack of them in the first third of the game. But I would also argue there needs to somehow be more "inventive" ways of progressing past monsters, while somehow avoiding the "game-ification" of them.

I think one thing that should be explored more is less "humanoid" monsters. I think some of the biggest scares I got were actually by the Fauna in The Abyss

Here are my biggest scares I can recall:

Good Jump Scare after Lambda:

Spoiler below!

Teleporting Disco-Ball-Head right in front of me. Bad Frictional Bad

In the CURIE:

Spoiler below!

Thought I could outrun Disco-Ball-Head. It's footsteps running after me were chilling

Jump Scare in Theta:

Spoiler below!

Akers running down the stairs after you

That damn thing in The Abyss:

Spoiler below!

The Angler Fish. That was just mean!

God damn Tau:

Spoiler below!

The monster is just standing there after you open the door. And then you can't get away from it