The TSH-1 space station contains the last remaining vestiges of mankind after a compet wiped out the surface of the Earth. Stranded and with no way of getting additional resources from earth the last humans face a slow death by starvation. You are part of a salvage team sent to the abandoned relay hub station ESS-Apollo in search for resources and a way to contact what remains of the Earth.
(Written as of Version 1.1 on Release Day)
The newest custom campaign from acclaimed, award-winning SOMA modder Draugemalf is an 'interactive trailer' about a salvage team searching the ESS Apollo for resources after their ship (the TSH-1 space station) faces starvation from being stranded in space after the comet Telos wiped out the planet's surface.
The main highlight of the mod is the level of detail Draugemalf puts into his maps. The amount of tiny details like the dust floating high above the ground like smoke to the layers and layers of scaffolding on the roofs is amazing to see.
With these maps and their beauty it can be both a blessing and a curse however as the one larger map you spend 90% of your time in is not optimized at all. On high settings I can get Frictional's vanilla campaign to run at 60fps but on low settings this mod drops to 25-40fps due to the level of detail. For higher spec PCs, you shouldn't need to worry. But for low-mid range PC expect some mild to moderate performance issues.
The story itself is pretty good and interesting to read. All throughout the station you can find audio logs, emails, logs and login information about the lives of the crew before your character arrives. The best part being the varied logs one of the characters leave around that really flesh out the story. The dialogue was written pretty well: straight forward talk with no flowery or simplistic phrasing (which is the safest but more balanced of the three choices). No complaints here.
The mod's voice acting is the third highlight as it has majorly improved since Echoes of Rain and Ariadne's Ocean. Gone are the robotic voice work and actual robots, now replaced with decent to great performances with highlights being the Station PA and a character we learn about on the ship itself.
The mod does have varied gameplay event it mostly amounts to collecting items to collect more items. While I do appreciate little touches like shortcuts being opened to help progress slower players the main meat of the mod is little more than backtracking with assorted items.
Unfortunately for horror fans the build up to the monster is great but is let down by a very easy to get around section that takes little more than a minute, at most, to complete. Very underwhelming moment that should've been improved upon.
Since the mod is a trailer to a bigger mod in production as of writing, it fades out after 20-30 minutes of gameplay (that is when looking through all the story tidbits). If not for the replayabilty of major changes to the ending of the mod and it being a teaser, I would've said that it was extremely short to cut off.
Overall, the mod is worth playing for people looking for a strong story. Gameplay is lacking and the horror builds up to a very disappointing moment in the mod. The voice acting was a giant improvement from his previous work but that and the brilliant level design doesn't save it from being an interesting walking simulator. A good mod but certainly not his best work.
Really liked this setting, and it's a shame we probably never get to see Calypso take form. I liked the environments, the space scenes looked really good, and I liked the brief personal story put into it.
As a whole, the mod brought the expected quality of the author, it's just a pity it's too short and the series lacks a proper ending. Could have featured a different monster too compared to Agony of Rain, the previous episode.
Still a worthy addition to the Soma modding collection, 9/10, one of the better short stories for HPL.
Althought there aren't monsters, still very good work. Design, gameplay, puzzles, story...
Very good idea for a mod. Can recommend.
good