While Frictional Games – the studio behind seminal horror titles like Soma, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: The Bunker – has already unveiled its next outing – Ontos – the studio has now revealed quite a few details about the game. Thanks to updates to its Steam page, as well as a post by creative director Thomas Grip over on Xbox Wire, we have now gotten an idea of what the upcoming horror game’s story will be about, as well as details about its setting.
“Since the release of Soma ten years ago, we’ve been hard at work trying to take that experience and bring it to the next level,” wrote Grip. “Something that pushes our gameplay, design scope, and philosophical themes further than we’ve ever gone before, and we’re finally able to show a little more for you today.”
Ontos will have players take on the role of Aditi, who has travelled to moon base Samsara after getting a message from her father that promises to explain the mysteries surrounding their past. Samsara itself has been described by Grip as being a shadow of its former glory, where every single inch is filled with mystery.
“We wanted it to feel lived-in and like a place players will want to explore every detail of,” he explained. “Every door can be opened, and every corner of the station has secrets that can lead to a deeper understanding of the story, clues on how to solve the next puzzle, and details revealing the truth of what happened there.”
Aditi will have to deal with plenty of strange things during her time at Samsara, including “complex Experiments” that she will have to partake in that will also make players question their own morality. According to Grip, Frictional Games has tried its best to ensure that these set piece Experiments are “nuanced and complex,” and players will get to experience “many potential outcomes and solutions”.
Grip also explained that Ontos isn’t really a traditional horror game. While it will have plenty of horrifying scenes, players don’t have to worry about being chased around by unkillable monsters like in the Amnesia series.
“Our game is complex and layered, and we want the tension to be more personal and cerebral rather than imminent danger from monsters – making players think ‘am I making the right decisions here? And if I’m not, what will the consequences be?’ That’s our goal with Ontos,” he wrote.
He also noted that quite a bit of Ontos came about thanks to lingering ideas that the studio had left over after having wrapped up its work on Soma. He also confirmed that the upcoming horror game – slated for release in 2026 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S – has been developed using a new proprietary game engine dubbed HPL4. Among other things, the engine helped the studio with creating big spaces with interconnectivity between its various stages. Grip described it as saying that “we wanted it to feel like ‘if you can see something from a window – you can go there.’”
