Image credit: Frictional Games

Frictional Games - the Swedish developer behind Soma and Amnesia: The Dark Descent - has announced its upcoming release Ontos is being delayed to 2027.

The game was announced with a general 2026 release window, so it's not as though people had already marked their calendars for some dedicated Ontos time. With the back half of 2026 suddenly looking mightily busy, and plenty of other developers making similar decisions, the delay won't be a total shock. Still, the news comes suddenly.

Here's the announcement trailer for Ontos.Watch on YouTube

In a social media post from the official Ontos account, the developer writes: "Ontos is our most ambitious game to date, both in terms of its size and scale, and in the depth and layers of our story and gameplay. In order to deliver this vision, we have decided to push the release of Ontos to 2027. We look forward to sharing more updates about Ontos, our characters, and our world soon."

First revealed in December 2025 during The Game Awards, Ontos is described by Frictional as a sci-fi mystery game with "tactile, systems-driven gameplay" and an immersive narrative. Stellan Skarsgård is also in the game, which certainly adds to the appeal. Hopefully he isn't too upset by the delay.

Ontos is the first game to come from Frictional Games after it announced it would "cut back a bit" from horror games for future projects, while ensuring fans that its games would still "feel like Frictional ones". Indeed, as first impressions go, the reveal trailer for Ontos did feel very Frictional. As that's all we have to go on, we'll have to wait a while longer with just that taste to tide us over.

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