Indie horror SOMA is nearly finished

SOMA developer Frictional Games is about to lock down the PC and PS4 horror effort.

SOMA only has one more week of content development, Frictional Games has announced, before entering the "Content Lock" stage.

"After this, no new non-trivial content can be added to the game. Instead, all efforts will solely focus on bug fixing, tweaking details and low-level optimization," the developer said in a Facebook update.

"Having this kind of lock is vital as things that might seem really simple additions could have ramifications that cause all sort of unforeseen consequences. In the final weeks leading up to release, you want to make sure that you only fix issues and not cause new ones."

Frictional members have been working very hard to get their ideas in-game ahead of this deadline, and the team believes it has everything in there now - but this last week will act as "a buffer zone in case something unexpected shows up".

As well as optimisation, tweaking and fixes, Frictional has to get cracking on making videos and store pages, contacting press and making and distributing review builds. It does not expect to be able to slack off right up until release date - September 22.

"After such a long development time, five whole years, it feels insane to be this close to the finishing line," Frictional said.

"In just a month we will have unleashed our game, and all of you will be able to play it."

Can't wait, slash will wait forever because am expecting to be severely traumatised. SOMA is the first Frictional game since Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and we fully expect it to be equally terrifying.

Update: Pre-orders are now open at a 10% discount on Steam, where you can also check the system requirements.