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CladInShadows on 18 July 2016
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Wright said:
CladInShadows said:

Perhaps, though the game isn't really all Simon 3.0.  It's Simon 1.0 in the intro, 2.0 up until the body switch, and 3.0 for the rest of the game.  Switching immediately to 4.0 at the conclusion wouldn't have interrupted any sort of continuity, in my opinion.

 

That's not how I see it. You're Simon 3.0 throughout the entirety of the game, because the game ends right up when Simon 3.0 is told that he doesn't transfer conscience, but rather copy his memories into the ARK.

Think about it. The game tries to trick the player into thinking that there's some sort of "coin toss" that you can either win or lose, but that's not really the truth. Truth is that you merely copy your memory in each instance with your previous memories in place. All this time you're playing with Simon 3.0 for both narrative and dramatic purposes, and everything you experience up until the third switch is the memories of Simon, who believes he was perfectly transferred into the new suit (which in reality had his mind copied into, and Simon 2.0 is rotting on the previous suit). Hence why the game tries to pull the final trick of "you lost" at the end, and the game really ends with Simon 3.0 having lost everything, rotting down in the sea.

The fact that we keep playing after original Simon and Simon 2.0, but credits roll when Simon 3.0's fate is told is a heavy indicator of this. It's no different than making the discovery of the fate of the original Simon throughout your adventure of SOMA, a fate we never really get to see as our playable memory extents to Simon 3.0 (a memory that never left the laboratory in Toronto and that firmly believes he was successfully transfered into the Power Suit).

I made this quick draft:

 

The Simon 4.0 part is thrown in it as a post-credits sequence, some sort of bonus epilogue where the "surviving" Simon truly believes he was transfered before the ARK went to space. If this sequence had played first before the Simon 3.0 I'd be inclined to believe the game really gave a switch theory, but given that it finishes with Simon 3.0 heavily implies you were him all along.

Actually, yeah, you make a good point there. Not sure why I never thought of it that way.

I didn't buy into the switch (coin toss) theory anyways.  I know it's like copying a file to a new disk (or USB drive for you young whipper snappers).  The old file and new file are identical and have experienced the same history.  The new file thinks it's the original file.  You'd think that in the future, they'd make more use of cut and paste rather than copy and paste, though.