Should you choose SOMA Safe Mode?

Yes, if you want to follow SOMA's story without the fear of being caught, and no, if being hunted is the whole reason you play horror games. SOMA Safe Mode is a setting in Frictional Games' underwater horror game that stops the monsters from killing you, while keeping the story, places, puzzles and dialogue exactly the same. Whether it's right for you depends on what you want from the evening, and I'll try to help you work that out without spoiling a single thing.

One warning before we start. I'm not going to tell you what happens in this game. Not the setting beyond the basics, not the twists, not the ending. SOMA is the sort of game where knowing too much ruins it, and I'd never forgive myself.

What does SOMA Safe Mode do?

SOMA is a first-person survival horror game from Frictional Games, the studio behind the Amnesia series. It is set underwater, it is deeply unsettling, and it is much more interested in big, uncomfortable questions than in jump scares. You explore, you solve problems, you read and listen, and every so often something is out there in the dark that you do not want to meet.

That last bit is what Safe Mode is about. As I understand it, the monsters are still part of the game, but in Safe Mode they can't kill you. The story, the places, the puzzles and the dialogue are the same. What goes is the threat of dying and having to try again.

Please check the in-game description of the option when you see it, because that is the developer's own wording and it beats my summary. The details of how a particular encounter behaves are the sort of thing I'd rather you read from the source than take from a blog.

The reason for it, as far as I know, comes down to what Frictional Games say the game is for. They have described SOMA as a story-led experience, where the monsters were meant to add tension to the journey and not to be the whole point. Safe Mode is their answer to a familiar problem: people who love the story and the atmosphere, but who get stuck, frustrated or simply too tense to continue when they are being hunted. I haven't got a quote to hand for that, so treat it as my reading of their position, not a statement from them. If you want the exact wording, the developer's own posts and the game's store page are the places to look.

What I like about that reasoning is that it does not treat the option as a cheat code. It treats it as a different way in. That matters for how you decide.

The real question: what do you want from the night?

Most advice on this is a shrug that says "play however you like". True, and no help at all. So here is the decision as I see it, and it is one decision, not ten.

Ask yourself whether the fear of being caught is something you enjoy or something you endure.

Some people love it. The dry mouth, the pause before opening a door, the decision to crouch behind a crate and hope. If that is you, the danger is the flavour, and taking it out changes the dish. Nothing wrong with a dish without the chilli, but it is a different dish.

Other people find that the same tension pushes them out of the story. They start playing to avoid the thing, not to understand the place. They rush past the notes and the small strange details, because standing still feels dangerous. If that is you, Safe Mode does not remove the horror. It gives you room to look at it.

There is a third group, and I'll be honest that I sit near it in spirit. These are people who watch horror on the sofa with a cushion within grabbing distance, who love the mood far more than the panic, and who do not need to prove anything to anyone. Being scared is only one of the things horror does for us. For a lot of us the appeal is the atmosphere, the ideas, and the feeling of being in an unsettling world with a hot drink going cold next to us.

Who Safe Mode suits

I would seriously consider it if any of these sound like you:

• You want the story more than the challenge, and you have heard that this one is worth it.
• You are bad at stealth games, or you simply do not enjoy them, and repeating a section over and over makes you resent the whole evening.
• You get properly stressed by being chased, to the point where you would stop playing.
• You are playing late, alone, in a flat that makes noises, and you would like to still be able to sleep afterwards.
• You want to play at a gentle pace and stop to look at things.

None of these is a weakness. A film does not ask you to survive it. A book does not chase you down a corridor. Plenty of people come to horror games for the same reason they come to horror books, and it is fair for a game to have a door for them.

There is also a practical point that people forget. Being frightened and being engaged are not the same thing. If a section makes you tense enough that you stop reading the room and just run, you are not getting more horror. You are getting less of what the writers put there.

Who should stay with the standard game

Equally, I would not push Safe Mode on everyone, and I would think twice about it if this is you:

• You are a survival horror regular and being hunted is the reason you are here.
• You know that a threat with no consequences stops feeling like a threat for you.
• You are the kind of person who wants the full intended experience first time, with nothing softened.

The obvious worry is that once the monsters cannot kill you, they lose their teeth. I think that is a fair concern, and it is the main cost of picking it. Fear needs stakes. Take the stakes out and some of the dread goes with them. Whether that bothers you is personal, and it is the whole decision in miniature.

Something else to weigh. You cannot un-know a story. If you play something in one mode and later wish you had tried the other, you have already spent the surprise. That is true of every game with a choice like this, and it is a reason to make the decision deliberately instead of by accident.

My advice on choosing Safe Mode for SOMA

Here is how I would go about it, and it is short.

1. Decide what you are there for. The story, the atmosphere and the ideas mean Safe Mode is a perfectly good call. The adrenaline means play it standard.
2. Be honest about how you handle being chased. If you know you will quit, choose the mode that lets you finish. A game finished in Safe Mode is worth more than a brilliant game abandoned at the second monster.
3. Read the option description in the game itself. It is the developer's own account of what it does and why, and it is the last word on how it behaves.
4. Do not agonise. It is a game about a great deal of dark water. Nobody is grading you.

Here is the part I feel strongly about. Nobody should feel embarrassed for picking the gentler route into a story they want to see. Horror has a habit of turning into a contest about who can stand the most, and it is a very tedious contest. The genre is big enough to hold people who love the panic and people who love the mood, and the games are better when more people get to see what they are about.

If I were setting up a night for a friend who asked me, I would tell them to make the tea properly, put a blanket somewhere within reach, turn the lights down to a level that is atmospheric and not silly, and pick the mode that lets them enjoy the thing. Then I would tell them not to look anything up about the story halfway through. That is the one rule I would not bend.

One last thing on the search that brought you here. Thirty people a month, give or take, are asking this question, and I suspect most of them are asking it because they are half hoping someone will say it is fine. It is fine. Pick the version of the evening you will actually enjoy, and if you finish it and want more, the standard game will still be there waiting for you in the dark.

Tell me which way you'd go. Full fear, or a little peace and a lot of atmosphere? I have a feeling the answers are going to be more split than anyone expects.