Frictional Games delays spiritual SOMA successor Ontos to 2027

Frictional Games has a reputation for making you feel small and afraid. The studio behind Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the existential sci-fi horror SOMA revealed its next game, Ontos, during The Game Awards 2025. It was supposed to arrive this year. It won’t.

On July 2, the developer announced a delay to 2027. The reason, as the studio tells it, is ambition. Ontos is “the most ambitious project” Frictional has ever attempted — in scope, story, and gameplay depth — and the team needs more time to deliver on its own standards.

Ontos is a sci-fi psychological thriller set in a converted lunar hotel called Sensolo. The story follows a protagonist unraveling strange experiments and eerie encounters that blur the line between reality and something else entirely. Creative director Thomas Grip said the team has spent the decade since SOMA trying to push that game’s design philosophy and philosophical depth even further. The result, he suggests, is SOMA’s spiritual successor — a game that asks the same kinds of uncomfortable questions about consciousness and reality, but in a new setting.

The game was announced for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Frictional hasn’t given a more specific release window within 2027. But if their track record is any guide — SOMA remains one of the smartest horror games ever made — the wait is probably worth it.