Ontos: Frictional Games' Existential Horror Showcased at Gamescom

Gamescom's Opening Night Live event has been a mixed bag for many gaming enthusiasts, with a heavy focus on conventional fantasy action titles that often feel repetitive and indistinguishable from one another. One game stood out—a haunting and thought-provoking experience that captured attention through its unique blend of horror and existential questioning. Frictional Games' latest title, Ontos, emerged as the standout showcase, offering a compelling glimpse into a world where reality itself becomes a battleground.

The Unsettling World of Ontos

Ontos presents a chilling narrative set within a repurposed 'Moon Hotel' called Samsara, where the player character, Aditi, navigates through a hospital wing via an internal railway system. The game's atmosphere is immediately oppressive, with unsettling imagery such as rodent server-racks and characters with electrodes protruding from their heads. Frictional Games' trailer for Ontos showcased these elements, but the 10-minute showcase provided deeper context on how the game functions and the challenges players will face.

Aditi's journey begins with her arrival at the hospital wing, where she uncovers an experiment conducted by a scientist named Crombie. The game's core mechanic involves tactile environment interaction, such as exploring computers for text logs and engaging in grisly sequences like plucking electrodes from a live rat's exposed brain. Stealth elements also play a role, as Aditi must evade security cameras by throwing objects across rooms, with the camera tracking the movement of these items in real time.

What sets Ontos apart is the philosophical depth of its narrative. Crombie, speaking through the rat server, reveals that he attempted to create a copy of his personality in a rat's RAM but accidentally uploaded his consciousness from his own body, which now sits in a near-vegetative state. The game challenges players to question the nature of identity and reality, echoing the themes that made SOMA a groundbreaking horror experience. This existential crisis generator is designed to provoke deep thought rather than rely on jump scares.

Philosophical Challenges and Player Experience

Ontos' narrative structure is built around the player's interactions with Crombie's experiment, which involves a complex interplay between the physical and digital realms. The game's mechanics encourage exploration and careful decision-making, with each choice potentially altering the player's understanding of the world. Aditi's role as a participant in Crombie's experiment creates a sense of moral ambiguity, as she must decide whether to help restore Crombie's consciousness to his body.

While the game's voice acting for Aditi has been described as 'a bit too chipper' for the gravity of the situation, the overall experience remains compelling. Frictional Games has a history of creating games that prioritize narrative depth over conventional horror tropes, and Ontos seems to follow this tradition. The 10-minute showcase provided enough context to understand that Ontos is more than just another survival horror title—it's an existential puzzle that demands player engagement with its themes.

The game's potential impact on the gaming industry is significant, particularly within the survival horror genre. By focusing on philosophical dilemmas rather than traditional scares, Ontos offers a fresh take on a well-established genre. This approach aligns with Frictional Games' previous successes, such as SOMA and Amnesia: The Bunker, but with a unique twist that could redefine what players expect from horror games.