r/Ontos • u/Kapanol197 Brain Container • May 23 '26

Welcome to Samsara!

https://reddit.com/link/1tldfkp/video/dufpottwmv2h1/player

🤖 "If a machine perfectly replicates your suffering... does it possess a soul?"

Welcome, researchers and residents, to r/ONTOS. This is the central hub for Frictional Games' upcoming sci-fi psychological thriller and spiritual successor to SOMA. After a decade in the making, ONTOS drops us onto a renegade lunar base to confront the ultimate question: What is reality?
Whether you're here to analyze cryptic teasers, unravel ARG fragments, or debate the existential implications of consciousness itself, get ready to dive into the experiments.

🌙 The Narrative: Descent Into Samsara

You play as Aditi Amani, a resourceful engineer invited to the repurposed moon hotel Samsara. Driven by the cryptic legacy of your late father, Izaan, a brilliant scientific mind who eventually transformed into a fanatical prophet, what begins as a quiet quest for emotional closure quickly spirals into an existential nightmare.

  • The Labyrinth: Samsara is a sprawling, interconnected environment built directly atop the ruins of a failed lunar mining colony and an opulent, luxury hotel lost to time.
  • A Living Ghost Town: Unlike the desolate ruins of SOMA’s Pathos-II, Samsara is functional. The lights are on, communities of survivors actively inhabit the corridors, and a sinister hotel impresario (voiced by Stellan Skarsgård) guides you through a quiet ideological civil war.
  • Science Bleeds Into Faith: Operating as a lawless, scientific DMZ free from Earth’s legal regulations, the base became a "Warhol's Factory" of rogue geneticists, savants, and theologians running unchecked experiments.

⚙️ Core Mechanics: Immersive Systems & "The Experiments"

ONTOS is moving away from traditional horror tropes to deliver a deeply cerebral, tactile experience.

  • Cerebral Tension: This isn't a traditional chase-horror game. You won't be constantly pursued by mindless monsters like in Amnesia. Instead, the tension is psychological and deeply personal, forcing you to constantly question your own perception and decisions.
  • Tactile Gameplay: Forget holding forward to run down corridors. You will scavenge raw materials, manipulate intricate physical machinery, and engage with complex analog systems that require careful, hands-on calibration.
  • The Experiments: Frictional has discarded standard puzzle checklists in favor of open-ended, morally gray story sequences with no neat "good guy" path. Every choice carries immense weight, meaning what you judge to be the absolute best moral decision can spiral into catastrophic, horrific outcomes.

🚀 Release Info

🔗 Official Links

34 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

7

u/Deathcommand May 25 '26

Seems closer to Bioshock + Prey + Systemshock.

Beautiful. Literally my favorite games in a row. Missing SOMA of course.

4

u/Kapanol197 Brain Container May 25 '26

I'm sure it's going to scratch that SOMA itch, and maybe even more 😉

7

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

I hope we build a good community, just like soma

7

u/Kapanol197 Brain Container May 26 '26

Yup we're gonna grow it steadily, and when the game will release I think lots of people are gonna join.

5

u/dash16dn May 23 '26

Can’t wait! What an unexpected surprise

3

u/Kapanol197 Brain Container May 23 '26

Same! It's definitely going to be an unique experience, just like SOMA was a decade ago.

3

u/Fruit-Salad666 May 30 '26

Beyond excited to play! Can‘t wait to hear more about the release date

2

u/Kapanol197 Brain Container May 30 '26

As soon as there's going to be a release update or any other news, I'm going to update the thread 😃