Sam Barlow's next game is Precognition, a sci-fi horror co-written with Brandon Cronenberg

Sam Barlow, the designer behind Her Story and Immortality, has named the next game from his studio Half Mermaid: Precognition, a sci-fi horror title set for release in spring 2028. Eurogamer reported the reveal, made at a showcase and Q&A session for the game. Precognition will be one of the debut releases from a new publishing label run by Kinetic, the company behind Phasmophobia.

As with Barlow's previous games, Precognition is built around scouring an archive of video clips to solve a mystery. Here the archive is made up of the future memories of the main character, Diana, a former child prodigy with a photographic memory. Diana receives an experimental implant as part of a study ostensibly meant to augment or repair human memory; the side effect the researchers discover is that subjects begin receiving memories of the future.

Everyone else who receives a vision quickly forgets it. Diana does not. She can watch her visions and pick a single instant out of one to keep.

Committing a moment to memory carries a catch: it sets off a butterfly effect that changes Diana's future, and the player is handed a new vision in its place. Barlow compared the loop to Memento, with Diana collecting Polaroids of her own future, and described the result as an inventory of alternate possible futures the player assembles and then uses to steer events. He called the mechanic systemic and diegetic, with direct consequences for the story that unfolds, and said the freedom it offers extends well past obvious uses such as looking up winning lottery numbers.

The other notable element of the project is its co-writer. Precognition is being made in collaboration with horror filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, who made Antiviral, Possessor and Infinity Pool. Cronenberg co-developed the story and wrote it alongside Barlow.

Precognition is in development for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and X, and Switch 2.