Sony State of Play 3/25 - Observation Release Date

Published: March 25, 2019 6:12 PM /

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observation

Sony showed off a new trailer for Devolver Digital's Observation, a horror game where you control a space station and observe the crew. The game will be launching on May 21st for the PlayStation 4.

Developed by No Code and published by Devolver Digital, the game's trailer features a rather unnerving situation. Emma is a woman trapped alone in a space station. None of the crew appears to be present, and indeed she's trying to investigate what exactly happened to them. However, you're not playing as Emma. Instead, you play as S.A.M., the AI that runs the station. If you ever wanted your chance to let our your inner HAL, this appears to be your moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blOv94g8DwM

In a blog post after the trailer, creative director Jon McKellan talks a bit more about the game. Sure enough, he says the original pitch was simply "2001 only you play as HAL". After some sort of accident causes S.A.M. to reboot, it has to work with Emma, who is the only crew member that it can still find, to figure out what exactly happened. The game is described as a narrative thriller, and you'll be watching it unfold solely through the cameras installed on the station.

While you may be watching it, you don't have a passive role. S.A.M. will have to use his position as AI to help Emma out, solving puzzles and assisting her where possible. Examples of these puzzles haven't been given, but one can assume it will likely involve hacking. In addition, S.A.M. is suddenly self-aware, with the player sort of taking the role of that self-awareness. While it may not know what it was doing before the incident, it sure can react to current happenings in ways that will likely keep Emma off-guard.

Observation will be launching on May 21st for PlayStation 4. A PC version was mentioned when the game was first announced, but there hasn't been any mention of it recently.

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Samuel Guglielmo TechRaptor
| Reviews Editor

I'm Sam. I have been playing video games since my parents brought home a PlayStation whenever that came out. Started writing for TechRaptor for 2016 and,… More about Samuel