Dread creeps up our spines and onto our screens ahead of scare season with gameplay revealed for ONTOS, an interstellar horror game from Frictional Games slated for 2027. Alongside publisher Kepler Interactive, Frictional Games has released a fresh, macabre gameplay trailer featuring a brief glimpse at one very disturbing puzzle.
Here’s what we know: As a child, Aditi Amani suffered from a deadly, incurable illness. Against all odds, she was miraculously cured by her father, Izaan Amani, who disappeared from her life ever since. Now an adult in the year 2076, Aditi has received a cryptic, posthumous letter from Izaan, prompting her to visit his final resting place: Samsara, a once-forgotten luxury lunar hotel. Despite a crash-landing and panicked warnings not to leave the transport ship, the promise of answers she’s sought all her life lures Aditi into Izaan’s cult-like lunar compound. There she slowly unravels his philosophical, nightmarish legacy: “a gauntlet of chilling experiments and disturbing encounters that push the boundaries of both science and morality… Confront existential questions that will make you question the nature of the soul, suffering, and the very fabric of reality itself.”
The new trailer sports imagery of gory human experiments, namely a large apparatus of over 50 lab rats alongside a sentient voice inside the machine. As the entity, Dr. Crombie, frantically calls out to the protagonist, and we see her dislodging needles from an unresponsive, corporeal doctor’s cranium. What could possibly go wrong? The game’s full cast has yet to be publicly available, with the exception of Stellan Skarsgård in an undisclosed role. That said, if a certain YouTube star’s footage is anything to go by, Skarsgård most likely portrays the assumed owner of Hotel Samsara, Felix Dumont, one of the first characters Aditi encounters.
While we won’t know the fate of Dr. Crombie, our ghoulish pin-cushion (or the still-living, wired-up fella that’s lost everything below his upper lip) until next year, one particular Irishman just might have some insight. Not long after the latest reveal, JackSepticEye (Seán McLoughlin) published a “world exclusive” YouTube preview showcasing just shy of 2 hours of gameplay.
It’s safe to assume this is a meaty portion of ONTOS’ exposition. Between marveling at the halls of Samsara, McLoughlin shared details about his own role in the world of ONTOS. “My character is a guy named Hopper,” he explains. “He is a podcaster, true crime… trying to find out what is going on on the base… So I bring on guests who have had experiences with characters like Izaan Amani to see what it’s all about. What’s actually going on on the moon? What are these crazy ideas that he had? What are the results and ramifications of it? What are some of the incidents that may have happened?”
Before tension truly begins to rise, there’s already a wealth of info and imagery with strong south Asian influences. Those with knowledge of either Buddhism or Hinduism notice the significance of the hotel’s name. Even the map layout resembles paintings of Samsara, The Wheel of Life. In brief, Samsara refers to “All existences that are conditioned by: ignorance, suffering and the inexplicable flow of time.”
Theistic symbolism isn’t just limited to our setting either. In both Arabic and Urdu, our central family name, Amani, can mean “wishes” or, more notably, “to tempt, to put to the test.” Izaan, the name of our protagonist’s mysterious father, derives from Arabic, meaning “obedience,” “compliance,” or “submission to God’s will;” quite fitting for a man described as “a brilliant mind-turned-prophet.” Meanwhile, Aditi is the name of a Hindu goddess that presides over the cosmos, motherhood and fertility. The actual meaning in Sanskrit is “boundless, entire” or “freedom, security.” (BehindTheName.com)
If you’re itching for more, Frictional Games and Kepler Interactive shared the process behind their recent Gamescom 2026 showcase, a lifelike recreation of Dr. Crombie’s aforementioned “rat server” apparatus.
The visual design of ONTOS thus far interwoven with religious themes in the futuristic void of space is enough to indicate we’re in for a rich story of terror and existentialism. Chances are that this spiritual successor to SOMA, while not a direct sequel, will be yet another terrifying masterpiece of existential horror from Frictional Games.
ONTOS is available to Wishlist on Steam and set to release sometime in 2027 for PC, Playstation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
