Syndrome gamescom Preview

If you’ve ever played Amnesia; The Dark Descent and thought “this could do with more murderous robots” then Syndrome might be the game for you. At gamescom 2016 I got to see this upcoming survival horror release from developers Bigmoon Entertainment up close and personal.

Inspired by games like System Shock, Syndrome places the players in the boots of a spaceship crewman waking up from a stasis coma to find that their ship has been overcome with a serious case of the dead-bodies. Patrolling the corridors of this now-derelict ship are androids and robots gone crazy, with the intent of tearing any living flesh to pieces.

The story, stated Bigmoon, is slowly discovered by the player as they advance around the ship finding logs and information. All the while they have to avoid being tracked down and eviscerated by a metal monstrosity. Unlike the previously mentioned Amnesia, however, Syndrome gives the player an arsenal of weapons to deal with the bad guys. Even with this advantage, though, you still won’t want to battle it out with the crazy cyborgs. They’re all imbued with tough armour and take a fair few good shots to bring down, with larger specimens being almost bullet-sponges. Some sections of the game are set to be a little less high-octane, as it includes some puzzles for the player to solve to progress.

Syndrome makes good use of lighting and shadows to create an atmosphere of tension and fear – especially when the shadow of an angry android shifts around the corner. The game suffers a little from the niggles of early development in the form of some blurry textures and contrast issues but all in all in is a pretty good looking title at this stage.

Bigmoon revealed to GameGrin that they plan to implement virtual reality into Syndrome, too, to give it an extra edge. When that might occur, however, was less clear, as the game is currently in a submission stage with Sony. Syndrome is set to be released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and currently doesn’t have a concrete date set for when it might hit the virtual shelves,