What I find so unsettling about Signalis is that it plays on every person’s biggest fear, being alone. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all want connection. Relationships with other people allow us to understand ourselves, it gives us a place to talk and be heard to declare to another person “this is who I am!” We just want some understanding in this world.

The replikas in Signalis are a dime a dozen, there are countless numbers of every unit. In some ways, this makes them more united, but just like in real life the crowd obfuscates and can make one feel even more alone. How do you navigate the desire to have a connection and be an individual when being an individual inherently requires you to be somewhat separated from those around you? Many of these themes are also at the heart of Shinji Ikari’s story in Neon Genesis Evangelion, a work that heavily inspired the developers of Signalis.

Elster’s unit specifically is said to be better off alone, and advice to human officers is to not try and create bonds with them. Yet Elster and Ariane have the closest bond in Signalis, having both surmounted their fears of not fitting in with the rest of the world around them. They rely on one another, being alone together. They are each other’s missing half.

It makes sense that Elster’s motivation is to find her lover. Why else would you put yourself through hell and hordes of undead? When you find that connection, there is nothing you wouldn’t do to keep it.

I get it. We all just want to be loved.

Signalis has many endings, each one no truer than the other. My ending saw Elster reunite with Arianne, at great cost. In the end the two embrace again in the confines of the ship they shared as a home. Both changed, but both still completing each other, they dance to Schubert’s “Ständchen” as warmly as before.

“Make me immortal with a kiss,” wrote Christopher Marlowe, and in the last moment of Signalis, Elster and Ariane become immortal with a final kiss.