Frictional Games Teases New Project with ARG

Frictional Games, the minds behind the existential horror masterpiece Soma and livestream favorite Amnesia: The Dark Descent, have a new project in the works. How do we know? Well, visit nextfrictionalgame.com to find out. The domain has been in Frictional’s possession for over 10 years, updating and changing to reflect each of their releases, using it to tease Penumbra follow-up Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Amnesia’s sequel A Machine for Pigs, and Soma. About two years ago, the company announced they had two projects in the works, with one in the midst of full production.

As it stands, the site simply displays a black background and a dull-grey pulsating … something. Honestly, it kind of looks like a fetus, or the empty phantasm shell from Bloodborne (which, by the way, is also pretty gross). If their previous work is any indication, it’s sure to be of embryonic proportions, given Frictional consistently provides visceral depictions of terror and offers a philosophical approach to their unique, cerebral brand of horror.

If you scroll, you’ll find a social media bar complete with an odd eyeball symbol. Scrolling over it reveals the ending of a YouTube URL, and upon inputting it, it takes you to a short unlisted video posted by Frictional themselves. It’s a short video depicting heavily edited live-action footage of some rocks. The description reads “Video Cassette 16/2/83, copy from a private collection. Marked Shetpe, KSSR,” referencing the country of Kazakhstan (or Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, circa 1983). Shetpe is a real village in Kazakhstan.

There’s also a second hidden URL. It leads to another unlisted video posted by Frictional, which features no visual footage—just cavernous screaming. It’s captioned “Artefact 1/7/115, marked ‘Triple Crown’. Video unrecoverable, Audio track fragment reconstructed, denoised.” It’s all a little SCP Foundation, if you ask us, what with the “partial success” experiments.

Stay tuned for any further updates as Frictional continues to tease and confuse their audience.