Ontos Creative Director Compares its Larger Experiments to Shadow of the Colossus

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With Frictional Games preparing to launch its new game, Ontos, later this year, creative director Thomas Grip has reiterated that it won’t be the frightening, high-pressure experience players expect from their previous titles. In a recent GamesRadar interview, Grip explained that Ontos will offer something completely different than typical survival horror games.

According to Grip, most traditional horror games, like the original Amnesia, aim to scare players by making them simply survive a frightening setting. The goal is to trigger a basic, instinctual fear. However, Ontos takes a different approach – it’s more about challenging the player intellectually. Instead of focusing on immediate threats, it presents unsettling and bizarre scenarios that require careful thought and problem-solving. While a game like Amnesia might have you running from a pursuing monster, Ontos confronts you with something truly strange – a man imprisoned within a computer constructed from rats.

He explained that the creators didn’t want Ontos to be a typical, frightening game. It won’t just be about trying to survive. Instead, the developers aim to create an immersive experience that explores serious and thought-provoking ideas, with the goal of leaving players with a lasting sense of existential dread even after they’ve finished playing.

Regarding puzzles in the game, the developers explained that major challenges will focus on interactive storytelling, while simpler, traditional puzzles will be scattered throughout. Players will have complete freedom to solve these puzzles in their own way, with many different possible solutions. Importantly, failing puzzles won’t simply stop you – your choices and failures will actually impact the story and have consequences within the game.

Grip calls the game’s larger puzzles, known as Experiments, its most exciting parts. He compares them to the epic boss battles in the PlayStation 2 game Shadow of the Colossus. These Experiments often require players to spend time getting ready – testing their tools and figuring out how everything works – before they can actually begin the puzzle itself.

He described the game as being similar to Shadow of the Colossus, where the challenging boss battles are the main focus. A lot of the gameplay revolves around getting ready for these ‘Experiments’ – finding tools, learning how things work, gathering resources, and figuring out what’s at stake. Essentially, much of the game is about building anticipation and a sense of unease for what each new Experiment will bring.

The new game Ontos was revealed last month with a chilling trailer. It’s scheduled to launch later this year on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, and stars Stellan Skarsgård, known for his role in Andor.

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2026-01-09 15:41