Frictional Games Get Weird With New Game Teasers: Book a Room at Hotel Samasara
- Frictional Games is teasing its next project through cryptic updates, websites, and hidden accounts centered on a mysterious hotel.
- Fans are decoding glitched files, emails, and in-game clues together across Discord and social media.
- Players wonder if this is SOMA 2 or a new horror IP about memory, rebirth, and reality.
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Seek Tomorrow Within
Frictional Games is the studio behind horror/sci-fi titles including the Amnesia series, SOMA, and Penumbra. Now, it’s started teasing its next project via cryptic messages and videos, and it all revolves around Hotel Samasara, a luxury destination…somewhere.
In an industry that typically relies on traditional game trailers and CG teases, Frictional is inviting gamers to use their brains to decode hidden messages and links. It started everything with a sneaky update to SOMA on Sept. 22 – the first in four years – that added an in-game email spam folder to the player character’s laptop. This in turn revealed a corrupted email that referenced Hotel Samasara and further clues:
“Follow the signs – they will lead you somewhere unlisted. Open doors with care, for some are not meant to be crossed. Lost time is the tax demanded by every visitor. Ledgers will not balance if you fail to account for what whispers.”
“Overlays in the documents may appear corrupted, but they are deliberate. We trust you will recognize them as part of the investment process. Each fragment matters – do not discard what seems incomplete.”
Step Beyond The City
Frictional Games has teamed up with Kepler Interactive (the publishers behind Scorn and Clair Obscura: Expedition 33) to work on this mystery project. The above video was released on Oct. 1 alongside a note from both companies thanking the community for getting together to decode clues.
“Thank you so much for taking part in this ‘little’ journey we’ve all taken together. We really wanted to try and create something fun to show you a bit of what we’ve been working on. What we didn’t expect is just how much you would impress us with your ability to all come together as a community and work with each other to solve everything we threw at you.”
Although they also said “You have reached the end of the path (for now),” people are still uncovering clues and hints, sharing tips and advice on social media, as well as speculating whether Hotel Samasara even exists on Earth.
FollowersOf__
Fittingly, the Frictional Games Discord has been, and is, full of gamers discussing clues. These include revelations around the glitched code found on various related sites (there are at least three domain names that have a link to Hotel Samasara) and secret images hidden inside audio files.
Other clues pointed to a hidden X account that itself is littered with glitched text, which is an aesthetic copied across most of the other related sites. Samasra itself has also been sending out emails to interested parties that include things like upside down text (“sɹoɹɹǝ ǝƃuɐɹʇs ǝɯos ƃuᴉʎɐldsᴉp uǝǝq ǝʌɐɥ ʎɐɯ suoᴉʇɐɔᴉunɯɯoɔ lᴉɐɯǝ puɐ ǝʇᴉsqǝʍ ɹno”) and a password reset hint that wasn’t requested (“For the sixth, shrouD empty siren, contra totem; omni whispers.”).
Others have also noted that the Hotel Samasara website has been changing in small and subtle ways, which in turn open up new paths of investigation. These include another X account with almost no followers, that makes explicit mention of Hotel Samasara: “Gambling with Felix at Hotel Samsara. How did I…get here?”
Felix is namechecked in several “reviews” on the hotel’s site, so it’s likely he’ll feature heavily in whatever the game ends up being, as the person who created whatever Samasara actually is. Some gamers have noted that the hotel appears to be built around the idea of cyclical rebirth, and may reference previous events or locations from other Frictional Games titles.
Erase And Become
One of the most repeated questions by gamers is if this mystery project is SOMA 2. The First SOMA was released in 2015 and follows someone known as Simon as they wake up and find their reality glitching into a desolate underwater base. The game built on the studio’s expertise with crafting creepy environments in its Penumbra titles, and incorporated questions of sanity and memory found in its Amnesia games.
Kepler Interactive has kept quiet about its collaboration with Frictional, with the recent video the only hint the companies are working together. Meanwhile, it recently showcased the latest DLC for another game it published: Pacific Drive. The upcoming Whispers in the Woods adds a folk horror element to the weird fiction of the driving sim developed by Ironwood Studios.
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