Ontos is a game about rats, liars, and lying rats. At least, I think that's what it is

Lauren Bergin News Editor
Lauren spends most of her time dead in League of Legends, or equally as dead in Valorant. Don't ask her about Vampire: The Masquerade.
Published: September 15, 2026

There are a lot of rats in Ontos. During my relatively short Gamescom preview, I encountered well over 50. The first decision I face is whether or not to let a captured rodent escape. It's got an eerie, Star Trek-esque mind control helmet plugged into its brain, monitoring its brainwaves and presumably causing it a decent amount of discomfort. One wrong move effectively lobotomizes it, but if you check the clues surrounding it, you can let it run free. Or, you can put it out of its misery. Much like Soma did before it, Ontos is quick to place weighty choices in your hands.

I'm warned before I even begin playing that Ontos will allow you to do bad things, sometimes for the right reason, and sometimes simply because you can. It's a heavy introduction; while other videogames let you commit some serious sins - take Baldur's Gate 3's Dark Urge for example, or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's infamous No Russian - it often feels like the really bad stuff is kept outside of your reach. In Frictional's horror game, however, you can kill people simply because it's easy - you can destroy simply because it's fun. In some ways it's tantalizing. In others, it's unsettling.

The Gamescom demo's experiment (Ontos' equivalent of levels or missions) revolves around lying. I free the rat, and am guided through to another laboratory, where I'm informed that a scientist called Crombie has the access key I need to progress. Crombie, rather unfortunately, has tied himself up to an eerie circuit board which appears to use myriad, semi-sentient rats as its power source. Saturday afternoons on the Samsara (the repurposed moon hotel that serves as our setting) are looking weird.

Crombie, who's sitting on a chair in the vegetative state with several needles plugged into his head, seems to be in a decent amount of discomfort - understandable, I suppose. As I approach the rat circuit, however, the computer informs me in Crombie's voice that his consciousness is actually trapped within the fuzzy network, and that I need to free him. I'm struck immediately by his Scottish accent (as a Glaswegian, I'll admit I'm judgy), and the fact that there's an odd Terminator-esque feel to all of this.

As I go on to question the machine, I ask it who's sitting in the chair in the next room. After a short pause, it insists that it's 'me, the real Crombie!' but I find myself not entirely convinced. This is partly because the dialogue itself feels a little heavy-handed - from the urgency and defensiveness in its tone, it's relatively clear that this eerie machine isn't Crombie - as well as a vocal prompt from Aditi, our protagonist, that effectively tells me that she doesn't believe it either. It's an odd, very obvious 'gotcha' moment that feels somewhat ill-placed in a game that revolves around deception and investigation.

In my first playthrough, I choose to save Crombie, be it out of patriotism or an undying sense of righteousness. He gives me the key as a thank you, and the demo ends. I replay the entire sequence, effectively euthanizing the initial rat, then allowing the network to take over Crombie's body. His garbled moans and protestations fill the room as I rewire his mind, and the result is a twitching, almost corpse-like shadow of Crombie that gives me the key and sets me on my way. It's uncomfortable to watch the 'procedure' unfold, and perhaps worse knowing that you're the one performing it.

I'm then informed that you could have simply killed him outright and taken the key if I'd been feeling particularly bloodthirsty. Much like the initial rat, there are three choices here: kill Crombie, let an eerie sentient program overtake his body, or kill him. A part of me, however, wondered why I couldn't just grab the key from his lifeless corpse and move on. It'd leave him in eternal agony, sure, but it'd be less work.

It's hard to gauge the impact of these changes in isolation - the demo ended as soon as I headed into the next area using my newly acquired key. I'm sure they'll significantly alter how the game plays out, but at the moment, I can't speculate as to what could come next. Ontos left me in a bit of an odd state, then: I'd made a series of decisions that will likely have repercussions, but I don't know their outcome.

I also didn't feel like I'd had to work very hard to arrive at the 'right' conclusion - and it did seem like there was a right answer. Both the vocal hints from Aditi and the rat board were relatively obvious; for a game that prides itself on having "layers of deception and obscurity," decision-making felt pretty easy. Perhaps that's intentional: the good path is the obvious one, so it in some ways tempts you to take the bad one. It makes you question your morals if you do; it makes you face what you've done. For me, however, it all simply rang a little hollow.

Soma - which still sits in the coveted 'overwhelmingly positive' bracket on Steam - is renowned for its impressive writing; it really does delve into what it means to be human. In its current form, I'm not sure if Ontos achieves that, but I'd be a liar (not a rat) if I said I was intrigued by what comes next.