Ontos is “Not Really a Horror Game in the Traditional Sense” Says Creative Director

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Frictional Games, known for popular horror games like Soma, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Amnesia: The Bunker, recently announced their next project, Ontos. They’ve now shared more information about the game, including details about the story and setting, through updates on its Steam page and a post by creative director Thomas Grip on Xbox Wire.

According to Grip, they’ve been working for the past decade to build upon the experience of their game, Soma. They’re aiming to create something even more ambitious in terms of gameplay, design, and the philosophical ideas it explores, and they’re now ready to share a first look.

In Ontos, you play as Aditi, who journeys to the moon base Samsara after receiving a cryptic message from her father hinting at secrets from their family’s past. The game developers at Grip describe Samsara as a once-great place now steeped in mystery, with every corner holding a hidden story.

The team aimed to create a space that felt realistic and inviting, encouraging players to thoroughly investigate everything. Players can interact with every part of the environment – open any door, and explore every corner – to uncover hidden secrets, story details, puzzle clues, and the truth about what happened at the station.

While at Samsara, Aditi will face a series of challenging and unusual situations, including intricate experiments designed to make players think about their own ethics. According to the developers at Frictional Games, these experiments are carefully crafted to be complex and offer a variety of different outcomes and ways to solve them.

Grip also clarified that Ontos isn’t a typical horror game. Although it will feature frightening moments, players won’t experience the relentless, inescapable pursuit of monsters seen in games like Amnesia.

We’re aiming for a game that’s intricate and thought-provoking, focusing on the personal impact of choices rather than jump scares or monster threats. We want players to constantly question their decisions and consider the potential consequences. That’s the core idea behind Ontos.

So, I learned that a lot of the ideas for Ontos actually came from stuff we were already thinking about after finishing Soma. And get this – the new horror game, which is coming out in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, is built on a brand new engine we made ourselves, called HPL4. It’s been a huge help letting us build these massive, connected spaces. We really wanted that feeling of, if you can see somewhere in the distance, you can actually go there – that’s what we were aiming for.

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2025-12-12 14:41