Plot Theories

[Acies]

Far as I'm concerned, I see the machines as creating virtual copies of people and containing them within themselves. Imogen Reed has a copy made of her in the first video, Golaski's copy is contained inside the robot in the second video, and the gameplay trailer shows the plight of someone copied into one of the machines.

So when 'Golaski 2.0' said he was standing up, he WAS - at the very least, he was standing within that particular machine's consciousness. Hell, the anonymous fellow in the gameplay trailer may actually BE 'Golaski 2.0'.

I thought something similar as well. Machines storing people. Instead of having the classical 'insanity' as in a lot of cases; horror coming from deluded visions of the person played, in this case, the 'unreal visions of horror' might simply stem from the fact that you might be a machine/virtual copy of yourself. As seen in the video, realization of that fact seems impossible for the machine - everytime it comes close (to realize that it's not a real person) there is always a strong denial, taking it back into the deluded vision of being a real person rather than a machine.

The main character of this game might struggle in the same way potentially; am I real or am I not? Are these things I see real or not (notice that the machine in the trailer video answers questions - but answers them wrong; as if it truly believed and created in its mind what it answered). You might have 'the symptoms' of insanity (difficult to differentiate reality from imagination), but not be insane; as the plot twist = you are not you - you are a machine/your existance is meaningless, in a sense (oh the horror!).