‘The Coma 2B: Catacomb’ Uses Scary Sounds to Unsettle Players

The Coma 2B: Catacomb may be at its most terrifying when your monstrous enemy is nowhere in sight and all you hear is her rushing footsteps.

This game puts us back in the shoes of Youngho, the protagonist of the first The Coma, following their actions after that game and bridging the story into The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters. While it helps to know the story of both previous games to fully appreciate this one, most of your time with this series is spent running down hallways and hiding, praying you’ll survive the game’s fast, relentless enemies. You stop worrying about connecting past plot points as soon as you hear those monstrous footsteps getting louder.

Many horror games really get in my head when they take special care with the sound design, and the developers of this game really paid special attention to the audio. The above-mentioned footsteps really got under my skin every time. While they are nothing out of the ordinary, the developers captured the exact sound of footsteps in an empty, echoing hallway. You hear the slow taps of the creature’s feet against the floor somewhere in the distance. Then, those echoing footfalls get closer together. Louder. The monsters themselves are terrifying when they arrive (the comic book art style in these games is fantastic), but it’s the sound they make as they rush your way that really put me on edge.

Which makes sense, given the lethality and intelligence of the monsters in The Coma 2B: Catacomb. You can die very quickly if you get caught in this game, and given that it plays out in 2D, you’d better have a good hiding spot in mind somewhere in the rooms behind you. And you’d better hope the monster doesn’t figure out where you hid, either. These beasts are relentless when they come looking for you, making for some frightening chases and showing the developers still excel at creating tense chases in their latest horror foray.

The Coma 2B: Catacomb will be made available today on the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, and Steam.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.