ONTOS: Surreal Sci-Fi Horror Coming In 2026
I believe, without fear of being mistaken, that I can say Frictional Games has made history. Their title Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) was the first to popularize mechanics that we would later see in other major titles such as Alien: Isolation (2014), which introduced us to a new kind of suffocating and claustrophobic survival horror, where above all else we felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness, being stalked by a terrible evil that we could only avoid by hiding and praying it would not detect our presence. Frictional Games has delivered few games, that is true, but all of them significant. Beyond the Amnesia saga, there is the controversial SOMA (2015), as well as Penumbra Overture (2009) and its expansions.
That said, everything suggests that the studio intends to continue this tradition of delivering heavyweight experiences. At some point in 2026, it will release its new game ONTOS, a science fiction survival horror strongly driven by its narrative and loaded with moral decisions that aims to make us question our own reality. This new story will take us to a hotel on the Moon, where from the very beginning we will be able to sense that existence itself is starting to crack… If you want to get an idea of how ONTOS looks, you can check out its Reveal Trailer on Frictional Games’ official YouTube channel:
“What is existence, really?”
ONTOS invites us to uncover a series of disturbing experiments that go beyond ethics, forcing reflections on concepts such as the soul, suffering, and reality itself. In its story, we will step into the role of Aditi Amani, a young woman who embarks on a very particular journey to learn more about her father, once a brilliant scientist, who would end up becoming something of a prophet. To do so, she accepts an invitation to the Hotel Samsara, an incredible and labyrinthine structure on the Moon, filled with interconnected instances, each stranger and more surreal than the last. In this place, reality seems to fracture, hiding deeply disturbing mysteries that aim to make us question what existence is, and what our role in it might be.
What begins as a search for answers soon becomes something far stranger, as Samsara is not just any ordinary lunar base, but a place where the truth hides behind a veil of bizarre deceptions and secrets. The boundaries between science and morality will very quickly be put into question, presenting us with ethical decisions that will have consequences in the future and will force us, in a raw way, to face each and every one of them. We will need to be extremely perceptive, since even those decisions that seem morally correct could lead to terrible outcomes!
Gameplay and Experience
ONTOS offers a deeply immersive narrative experience in which we will interact with all kinds of objects in the environment. Ingenuity and investigation will be our greatest tools. We will have to search for materials, manipulate complex machines, and precisely calibrate analog systems, and we will need to plan every movement carefully, or well… we have already talked about the consequences. ONTOS does not expect us to find a single solution to its problems, but rather to adapt to each situation in order to move forward. To do so, we will also need to thoroughly explore that immense lunar chaos known as Samsara.
The base is, as mentioned, a huge interconnected labyrinth built atop the ruins of a failed mining colony and an opulent hotel forgotten by time. It is now an environment that easily reminds us of Columbia or Rapture from BioShock, dominated by philosophical factions where science blends with faith. Here, every setting has been transformed to serve a new purpose: laboratories set up inside luxurious casinos and imposing theaters, experiments carried out in empty swimming pools, or even strange machines of unknown purpose, built inside ancient lunar caves. Every corner of Samsara tells a story, and every story hides a secret that we will have to uncover.
So…
Okay, ONTOS will be released at some point in 2026 and will be available on PS5, Xbox Series, and on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. It would be great if you added it to your Wishlist right now so you do not miss any news about its development and release. It would also be great if you visited its Official Website and checked out that very cool thing that happens when you use the mouse scroll wheel. Do it and you will understand, do not ask. Obviously, you will find all the links down below, and after you do your homework, come back here and tell us in the comments what you think about this spectacular proposal from Frictional Games. You know gamer, we’ll be reading you! 🙂
Images Source: Frictional Games Official YouTube Channel, ONTOS on Steam, ONTOS Official Website
