Amnesia developers Frictional have finally done the decent thing and confirmed their much-teased follow-up to Soma, the much-beloved/dreaded underwater sci-fi horror game from 2015. Revealed just now at the Geoffrey Awards, the new game is called Ontos, which appears to be the Greek word for “Being”. It’s set in some kind of creepy lunar mad science resort called Samsara, and it honestly reminds me more of Bioshock at a glance than Soma, even though it’s set in outer space. That’s partly because it has a noticeably chattier NPC cast.
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There are a lot of talking heads in that trailer, for a project from the Amnesia devs. Admittedly, some of the talking heads are only half a head. There’s also a talking… wall of rats? One of the less ratty, fully jaw-equipped NPCs is voiced by Stellan Skarsgård. It sounds like he wants you to experiment on yourself.
Plot? Well, you are Aditi Amani, and you’ve been invited to the Moon to investigate something your estranged dad did. “What begins as a search for answers quickly spirals into something far stranger,” the blurb expounds. “As you delve deeper, guided by fragments of your father’s past, you must confront disturbing revelations about the nature of reality- and your place in it.
“Your beliefs will be questioned, and you will be pushed far out of your comfort zone,” it continues. “Choose your path and face the consequences.” Don’t wanna, Frictional! I know your methods. At least one of those paths is bound to be the domain of something I can’t kill that makes my vision glitch out.
It’s out for PC in 2026. There is a Steam page, from which we learn that Ontos “presents a gauntlet of chilling experiments and disturbing encounters that push the boundaries of both science and morality”. It sounds like the game is a series of tests, each an existential dilemma “that will make you question the nature of the soul, suffering, and the very fabric of reality itself”.
“These trials are not just puzzles–they are provocations,” the developers continue. I like you Frictional but I think you need to wind your neck in a little. Less grandly, the page characterises the game as “an immersive narrative with a tactile, systems-driven gameplay experience” in which you’ll “scavenge materials, manipulate intricate machinery, and engage with analog systems requiring careful calibration and hands-on interaction”.
I’m most attracted to the setting, which is “a vast, interconnected labyrinth built atop the ruins of a failed mining colony and an opulent hotel lost to time”. It’s divided between a bunch of warring philosophical factions, and features theatre stages, caves, casinos and laboratories. Again, definitely getting some Bioshock energy from this. In a promising way.
