During the Opening Night Live event at Gamescom, Frictional Games and Kepler Interactive officially unveiled the first gameplay trailer for their new sci-fi horror title, ONTOS. Although only a minute and a half long, its deeply unsettling visuals and premise quickly overshadowed the new Silent Hill and Metro titles showcased at the same event, becoming the most physically discomforting yet attention-grabbing segment of the night.
Gameplay Trailer:
The trailer's central image features a "wall" made of live mice—each secured in an individual mount with power indicator lights, connected by cables, arranged between server racks labeled with numbers, and accompanied by audio waveforms displayed on the side. This is no ordinary laboratory animal facility; it is a computing machine constructed from living biological organisms, clearly operational.
The scene then cuts to a whiteboard displaying a diagram of the human brain, marked with multiple injection points: frontal lobe, motor cortex, limbic system, and brainstem. An adjacent table maps each brain region to corresponding behavioral outcome icons, while two additional items listed at the bottom read "Primary Agent" and "Sterilization Procedure." This is essentially an "operations manual" for staff—indicating where to inject to induce specific behaviors. The trailer's final shot shows the result: a person in a lab coat wearing an ID badge, with a device full of needles attached to their skull, eyes rolled back, and jaw hanging slack. A hovering mouse cursor on screen hints that players will eventually be able to interact with this body.
The game is set in "Samsara," a failed lunar hotel built atop the ruins of an abandoned mining colony, now occupied by some unknown entity. Players take on the role of engineer Aditi Amani, who travels there to uncover the truth about her father—a scientist who became something of a prophetic figure in his later years. Some characters are voiced by Stellan Skarsgård, known for his roles in Dune, Andor, and the Thor series.
This title is positioned as the spiritual successor to Amnesia. Creative Director Thomas Grip clearly stated that if Amnesia explored the nature of consciousness, then ONTOS aims directly at the nature of "reality" itself. Developed using the studio's proprietary HPL4 engine over more than ten years, it is considered Frictional Games' most ambitious project to date. The gameplay has also undergone significant innovation: traditional "find the key to open the door" puzzles have been completely removed. There is no single correct solution when facing obstacles; instead, players will encounter moral dilemmas and face the consequences of their choices.
ONTOS is scheduled to launch on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2027, though a specific release date has not yet been announced.
Video Screenshots:
