Frictional Games, the developer behind critically acclaimed horror titles Penumbra, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and SOMA, has offered a tease of its next title, by way of an enigmatic new video discovered as part of an ongoing ARG.
The initial breadcrumb trail began over on NextFrictionalGame.com, a website the developer has used to tease all of its upcoming titles in the past, from The Dark Descent to now.
Astute fans initially noticed the site had been updated with the graphic of what appeared to be a pulsating foetus, and a bit of poking soon revealed a short, rather unremarkable video clip of rocks, purporting to be footage from Shetpe, a real village in Kazakhstan.
The next discovery led to a second hidden URL and a considerably more sinister video, featuring unearthly, distorted screaming. Titled “Partial Success” with the accompanying description “Triple Crown”, it would be fair to say it offered little in the way of additional enlightenment.
Now, however, a third unlisted video has been discovered on Frictional’s YouTube channel, and it’s potentially the most substantial yet in terms of its revelations about the developer’s next game. Titled “I am Tasi”, it features a woman’s panicked utterances as she roams a wind-blasted desert, searching for a mysterious “him” and seemingly struggling to keep hold of her identity as she does so, telling herself, “I am Tasi, I am still Tasi”.
Issues of identity are, of course, something of a preoccupation for Frictional, as those who’ve played the Amnesia series and SOMA will know.
Back in 2017, the developer revealed it currently had two projects in the work, neither of which have been revealed so far. One was described as being “horrific in nature”, while the other, said to be “quite far off” at the time, was “less about direct, visceral horror, and more about the player gaining an understanding of different concepts”. As to which of these the new teasers might relate, we won’t know for sure until Frictional is ready to reveal more.
