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If SOMA messed with your head in the best possible way, then get ready. ONTOS is about to do it all over again, only bigger, weirder, and way more existential. Coming to Xbox Series X|S in 2026, with Xbox Play Anywhere support so you can flip between console and PC like the indecisive gamer you are, ONTOS is the next narrative brain-twister from Frictional Games, the folks who made haunted water cool.
What Is ONTOS?
Think sci-fi thriller meets philosophy class meltdown. You play as Aditi Amani, an engineer with a traumatic past and a suspicious message from her estranged dad. Naturally, that leads her to Samsara, a once-fancy hotel on a lunar colony that’s now decaying and full of secrets. Imagine BioShock by way of SOMA, but with more emotional damage and fewer jump scares.
Samsara isn’t just set dressing. It’s a massive, interconnected space where everything can be opened, examined, or turned into a puzzle. Every dusty corridor and creepy lounge hides something important, like a memory, a moral dilemma, or just some poor soul who accidentally uploaded their consciousness into a server made of rats. Yes, really.
Not Your Typical Horror Ride
Let’s get this out of the way. ONTOS is not survival horror in the usual Frictional sense. You won’t be hiding in a corner praying a monster doesn’t sniff you out. The tension here is slower, smarter, and way more personal. It’s psychological, not scream-factory.
Instead of scripted scares, you’re thrown into situations called “Experiments”, morally gray narrative events where the right answer isn’t obvious and your choices will have consequences. The devs even said players might spend more time arguing over how they solved these dilemmas than actually solving them. Sounds about right.
Xbox Enhancements and Play Anywhere Support
Let’s talk brass tacks. ONTOS is built in a new engine called HPL4, and on Xbox Series X, that means Samsara’s scale and detail actually pay off. You’ll see somewhere in the distance and think, “can I go there?” and most of the time, the answer is yes. It’s not just flavor text, it’s full-on immersive sim territory.
And if you’re using both an Xbox and a PC, here’s the good news. ONTOS supports Xbox Play Anywhere, so you only need to buy it once to play across both platforms. It’s a small win for those of us who treat our gaming setup like a relay race.
The Verdict (So Far)
With Stellan Skarsgård lending some gravitas and a dev team that clearly wants to make you question your life choices, ONTOS is shaping up to be one of those games that sticks with you long after the credits roll. Or long after you shut it off out of existential dread.
We’ve still got a year to wait, but if Frictional pulls this off, ONTOS might be the narrative-heavy, mind-warping experience Xbox needs in 2026.