I REALLY, REALLY WANT YOU TO REMEMBER ONE THING: IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE GAME, THEN THIS MIGHT RUIN THE EXPERIENCE, SINCE A LOT OF THE THE SUSPENSE AND HORROR IN THE GAME COMES FROM THE MONSTERS AND NOT KNOWING HOW THEY ARE!

I RECOMMEND YOU TO READ IT ONLY IF:
- YOU ALREADY HAVE FINISHED THE GAME AND YOU ARE CURIOUS
- YOU ALREADY HAVE DISCOVERED BY YOURSELF HOW IS THE MONSTER FOR THE MOST PART BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE
- YOU SHOULD DO THIS ONLY AT LAST RESORT, WHEN YOU ARE REALLY STUCK AND THAT YOU REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. AND BY NO IDEA OF WHAT TO DO, I MEAN YOU HAVE SPENT AT LEAST A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME ACTUALLY TRYING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM BY YOURSELF







-YOU LIKE TO BE SPOILED!!!!!!!!

In SOMA, most monsters will be encountered once or twice. Therefore, from the moment you notice it's been two encounters, you can tell yourself that you're done with it.

A general advice I could give is to never stare at enemies. It almost seems like Frictional Games have a set rule in which any enemy you stare automatically knows where you are, in absolutely every game... Yes, that's weird, especially for blind enemies...

Also, there will ALWAYS be only one monster spawned at a time (the only area I'm not sure is the Deep Seas). Therefore, don't stress on being caught on the back when you have an enemy in front of you.

Oh yeah, and they can open doors... So don't rely on them too much...

Then, although it is a bit more specific to one enemy, there is a hostile robot outside Upsilon. I'm not including it in the guide because for it to attack you, you need to be very close, and you can escape it just by running away... No big deal, really.

This enemy is very basic, and it doesn't have any special abilities. It is very similar to the Grunt from Amnesia, but still a bit smarter.

It is the very first enemy you meet in the game. You encounter it twice in Upsilon.

Since it is a basic enemy, all I can tell you is to try to hide behind walls, desks, anything, and try NOT to make noise, because it will attract it (and even then, some noises won't even bother him). It should kill you in quite a few hits if I remember well (since he is the first guy you meet), so you don't need to stress about being killed in one hit.

He emits a light in front of him. You can use this to try and predict wether he is here or not.

You won't spend much time with this guy, so don't worry too much about him. Just be stealthy.






Yeah, I know it is a bit hard to see, but you can DEFINITELY see him!



See the faint light? This is the signal that you should NOT go out of your hiding place!

This one is the first trickier ennemy you will meet. This guy is enountered in Lambda and the CURIE shipwreck.

The thing with him, is that he teleports. Don't worry, he won't teleport like that if you haven't provoked him, so just be careful.

The key thing to remember about him is that he won't directly attack you when it sees you (most of the time). It will let you go for a tiny amount of time, so use it well. This guy usually reacts to the distance between him and you (EVEN TROUGH WALLS) and eye contact, and just him seeing you for too long. So, if you see him, my best advice would be to make sure that you stay away from him, and that if he just walks around, DO NOT look at him, or it could anger him (I say that because he seems to be more reactive to staring at him, at least in my experience).
Also, it does seem like it is blind (at least 'partially'), and that it doesn't react to sound.

He won't pose much of a threat in Lambda, but the CURIE can be quite challenging, and you may die here (maybe for the first time in the game). Try to learn from him so that you can deal with later monsters more easily.

That ennemy scared the ♥♥♥♥ out of me when I had to deal with him. Is it his look? The noises he makes? Well... actually, yes. This monster, gameplay wise isn't THAT hard to deal with.

There are 2 versions of this monsters. They both have the same abilities, so their difference is onlt visual.

This enemy, which is encoutered at Theta, is blind. Therefore, quietly hiding in a corner, even in full light, shouldn't be a problem. However, it is VERY sensitive to sound. Therefore, you should always crouch when one is around and never move an object around or even touch anything... From the moment you get used to move around without making any noise, you should be fine (BEWARE: DOORS MAKE NOISE, AND MONSTERS CAN OPEN DOORS... BE CAREFUL OF YOUR CHOICE WHEN OPENING/CLOSING A DOOR...).

(Oh, and like for all enemies in all of Frictional Games' games, they somehow sense you if you stare at them for too long... Please, don't stare at them. And seeing how they look, I don't think you really want to look at them anyway)

VERY IMPORTANT!!!!

NekoiNemo said:

Originally posted by NekoiNemo:

It DOES react to flashlights, even if it's not pointed toward it, it clearly NOT blind as it can see me even from some distance away, it's indeed react to the slightest sound even from the opposite side of the area. Oh, and also it can somehow sniff me out (even through walls) if i stay close to it for some time.

Of course, there is evidence that they are blind (they are the only monster which don't spot you if you hide in a well lit room, in a corner, while they themselves are in the same room), but however, it seems that I was wrong concerning the gameplay: you have to be very careful, because it seems that its natural instinct is very powerful...

So PLEASE, consider this well!

ANOTHER ADVICE:

This time, it is from Milky Udders. Thank you! :D

Originally posted by Milky Udders:

I didn't realise the crying girl was not sound/sight sensitive. The Akers Proxy can't see very well after pulling his own eyes out, but is sensitive to light and sound changes. You can hide behind a desk in the room that's fully lit up and not be spotted through the window or even if he comes in the door. Turning the flashlight on and off and crouch footsteps attract the proxy though. He is VERY sound sensitive as you say so when crouching tap the W key in 2 second bursts to avoid making footstep noises.

( I still think Theta was the scariest part of the game D': )

Oh, and if you're curious (warning, lore spoilers!!!), one of the Proxies is Terry Akers!

And speaking of Terry Akers, he is located in the Theta Labs

Here is something which Antiochus had to say about him:

Originally posted by Antiochus:

managed to lock one of the proxies in a room, and whilst staring at it, it couldn't get me even though it howled like crazy. However, you can't lock him in there and go exploring, because he will teleport out if you get far enough away. Kind of annoying considering how hard it was to get him to go into a room. I got the scare of my life after I was all happy and carefree with my "victory", and I turn a corner and there he was
Oh and not just closing the door, there's a terminal where you can lock and unlock the doors in theta.

WARNING ABOUT ANTIOCHUS' ADVICE (IN CASE YOU'RE NOT ATTENTIVE ENOUGH): THAT DAMN PROXY CAN DAMN TP OUT OF ROOMS YOU LOCK HIM IN!!!

That one is met in Omicron. She doesn't react to seeing you. She doesn't react to sound. She doesn't react to the distance (although it does contribute to what she DOES react to) between you and her. She reacts to movement. If you do a lot of movement, at a certain range of distance, but the closer being the more reactive, you WILL anger her and start a chase sequence. She doesn't run THAT fast though, so you can outrun her, but only if you manage to find a good hiding place for her to abandon.

Oh, and objects moving around and flashlight's flicker when turning on and off make her react... Be careful with that!

To deal with that, you must crouch and walk step by step. You press W once. You press it again. And again. Slowly. You take all the time you need. You DON'T rush things. If you do that, then there won't be any problems with doing Omicron.



THANK YOU {PhN}Chris FOR TAKING THE SCREENSHOT! :D

When you reach the Deep Sea, you will have to deal with numerous huge "fishes".

However, I can't say really a lot about this one, because the game already pretty much tells you what to do: follow the lights!

The only one which can trap you, really, is the Angler Fish, which will try to attract you with its white light (WHAT YOU SEARCH AT THIS POINT IS BLUE LIGHT, NOT WHITE). But don't worry, you iterally see him once, for a few seconds only if you manage to NOT go to its light.


No, this thing isn't the Angler Fish. But, that dude can eat you if you don't follow the game's instrutions.



Oh, and during one particular moment, (WARNING: STORY SPOILER) After killing/sparing the WAU, you will have to face one Abyss fish (HUGE) which won't care wether you are next to light or not. You will have to hide behind or under rocks to not be caught in its mouth. If it catches you, it won't kill you immediately, but it will drop you farther away, and you know, if you fall in an area where there are no rocks to hide... You're ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Don't worry, there are a lot of WAU connections (pretty sure they are called similarly to that...) to regenerate your life if you need to, because you WILL get caught, and you MIGHT DIE, pretty easily, if you don't regenerate regularly.

According to the game files, this dude is called the Deep Sea Diver. However, I like to call him Tentacle face... If you get caught by this guy, you will understand why I like calling him Tentacle face...

You meet this guy once only, at site Tau, at the end of the game. He is the most challenging enemy in the game. This is because he has ALL his senses perfectly clear, and he is VERY reactive to ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. You open a door? SAY HELLO TO TENTACLE FACE! You accidently drop a mug on the floor? SAY HELLO TO TENTACLE FACE! You hide in a dark corner, with just a tinyyyyyyyy amount of light on you? SAY HELLO TO TENTACLE FACE!

(I think I'll calm down a bit)

So, by now, I guess you understood that this is your final confrontation with a monster (or is it?). The level design has been specifically built so that you can easily get lost and yet very easily meet him in a corridor. Fortunately though,there is ONE desk (the only desk in the whole game in which you can do that) in which you can hide under, Alien Isolation-like! It is in the first room in which you find a map on a computer (NOT counting the dive room on your right when entering Tau or the room Tentacle face comes from). Under it, you are COMPLETELY SAFE, as long as you have broken line of sight before hiding and that you don't stare at him when he is in the room.

One other advice I can give you is that whenever you enter a room, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!!!!!! I know you've pretty much spent the whole game dealing with enemies which mostly didn't react visually to you, but this one does!!! After all, you DON'T want to be caught off-guard by Tentacle face when you're chilling learning the game's lore though anything you find in the rooms. Especially that unless you can break line of sight and hide quickly enough, he is faster than you when running, and therefore, quickly catches up to you...

WARNING: AFTER WATCHING HIS BEHAVIOR, IT SEEMS THAT IT SORTS OF ALWAYS HAS AN IDEA OF WHERE YOU ARE... IN OTHER WORDS? ALWAYS BE ON THE MOVE, OR HE WILL FIND YOU!!!

And you know... At this point in the game, you surely know how to stealth effectively. Use the skills you acquired thoughout the game, and hope for the best so that the game doesn't send a big midddle finger in your face when the game decides to just be a ♥♥♥♥♥ towards you...

However, here is another method from Crafekster (which seems to work) that he posted in the comments:

Originally posted by Crafekster:

Did not exactly understand what you said in the end, but i just baited him to chase me trough the first set off doors, that bought me more than enough time to make a full circle for the second big door. As it was opening. Then i went to investigate the areas. Whenever he just wouldnt led up moving away from a damn hall way, i waited for him to turn and move where it was most optimal for me to stealth off. As i stealthed, by the time he saw me. I started to run for the small lab room, closed door and hid behind a cupboard. He didnt find me, so as he turned around and went into the hall way, i stealthed my way again until he saw me then i ran and closed doors behind me.

So simply running and closing doors was the trick for me (I believe when you turn to close the doors just turn left and it is on the right side of the door)

THANK YOU for your method, Crafeskster! :)
After all, we all use different methods to deal with monsters, so it can be good to see others' methods to see if ours is good!



SAY HELLO TO TENTACLE FACE! (The map comes from my mod SOMA: Invasion so don't try to find it in the game)





If it can help, here is a map of Tau. The green dot is where I am, and it happens to be where the desk in which you can hide under is!

What is special about him is that he IS NOT a threat... But man, when you don't understand that, the scares are REAL...

I first started to see him in the living section of Tau. He basically appears and dissapears, opens doors you just closed, and says stuff when he does appear. I won't say anything plot wise regarding him, but seriously, when I saw him, I just... I don't have the words to describe apart from scary.

TL;DR : THAT GUY ISN'T DANGEROUS. SCARY, YES, BUT NOT DANGEROUS. IGNORE HIM.












(STORY SPOILER WARNING): Unless you don't kill the WAU...

And so ends this guide. I would like to say a big THANK YOU if you read it and appreciated it. Of course, not everything is done (later, I will add more screenshots and more details on the monsters), but what IS here should be fine for the moment. This is my second guide.

Obviously, DO NOT HESITATE to correct me if I said something wrong. I don't want new players to be misleaded and die uselessely because I gave wrong information...

I absolutely don't know what end sentence I could put, so I'll just say bye bye, I guess.