{"id":2090255,"date":"2026-08-12T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2090255"},"modified":"2026-08-12T19:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T16:30:00","slug":"immortality-creator-sam-barlows-new-video-scouring-game-is-sci-fi-horror-precognition-a-collab-with-filmmaker-brandon-cronenberg-in-which-you-see-and-change-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2090255","title":{"rendered":"Immortality creator Sam Barlow&#8217;s new video-scouring game is sci-fi horror Precognition, a collab with filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, in which you see and change the future"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Immortality creator Sam Barlow&#8217;s new video-scouring game is sci-fi horror Precognition, a collab with filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, in which you see and change the future<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;If you imagine something like the movie Memento&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/precognition-key-art.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"A red hued image with the words Precognition in white across the middle of it, and a refracted image of eyes, it looks like, spiralling behind.\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"precognition-key-art.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Half Mermaid<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/robert-purchese\">Robert Purchese<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Associate Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\n<p>Published on   <time datetime=\"2026-08-12T19:30:00+00:00\" data-auto-time-zone=\"true\" data-year=\"numeric\" data-month=\"short\" data-day=\"numeric\" data-hour=\"numeric\" data-minute=\"numeric\">Aug. 12, 2026, 7:30 p.m.<\/time>\n              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"087a7ee2-bc58-47f6-9fc8-d362dab6e98a\" data-name=\"Her Story\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Her Story\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Her Story\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Her Story\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Her Story\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Her Story\" title=\"Follow Her Story\"><br \/>\n  Follow Her Story<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>The new game from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/her-story\">Her Story<\/a> and Immortality maker Sam Barlow &#8211; and his studio Half Mermaid &#8211; has a name: it&#8217;s called Precognition. It&#8217;s a sci-fi horror and it&#8217;s releasing in spring 2028, as one of the debut games from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/phasmophobia\">Phasmophobia<\/a> company Kinetic&#8217;s new publishing label.<\/p>\n<p>As with Barlow&#8217;s previous games, Precognition is a game about scouring archives of video clips to solve a mystery. Here, in Precognition, those archives are the future memories of main character Diana.<\/p>\n<p>The set-up is that Diana received an experimental implant which allows her to see visions of her future. And when she does, she&#8217;s able to focus on moments within them and commit them to memory. But there&#8217;s a catch: by doing so, she&#8217;ll set off a butterfly effect that changes her future. The idea then is to actively manipulate her memories to change the outcome.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"Half Mermaid on PRECOGNITION | Kinetic Publishing\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kR78s95FONk?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/kR78s95FONk\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">Half Mermaid on PRECOGNITION | Kinetic Publishing<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>There isn&#8217;t much to see &#8211; nay, anything &#8211; of Precognition yet. But here&#8217;s Sam Barlow, producer Natalie Watson, and Brandon Cronenberg talking about it. <a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kR78s95FONk\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The other notable thing about Precognition is it&#8217;s being made in collaboration with horror filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, who I haven&#8217;t heard of because I&#8217;m that sort of person, but who made the films Infinity Pool, Possessor, and Antiviral. I have heard of his father David Cronenberg, though, who created legendary movies like The Fly. Brandon Cronenberg co-developed the story of Precognition and wrote it alongside Barlow.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In a Q&amp;A session following a showcase for Precognition, which I attended, Barlow revealed a few more details about the game. &#8220;The thing that&#8217;s really neat here is Diana is a former child prodigy,&#8221; he began. &#8220;She has a photographic memory and her brain is very malleable, and she&#8217;s brought into this experiment where they&#8217;re putting implants in people&#8217;s heads, ostensibly to augment or improve memory, fix how people&#8217;s memory works, and they discover a side effect of this device is that people start receiving memories of the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote right\"><p><em>&#8220;As a player, you watch these visions of the future and you hold the triggers down and that commits [it] to memory&#8221; -Sam Barlow<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Everyone else quickly forgets what they&#8217;ve seen but Diana: she doesn&#8217;t. &#8220;She is able to see these visions, these memories of her future, and watch them, and then choose an instant from these memories to collect and commit to memory,&#8221; Barlow said. &#8220;As a player, you watch these visions of the future and you hold the triggers down and that commits [it] to memory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So if you imagine something like the movie Memento, where he&#8217;s walking around with his Polaroids: Diana is collecting Polaroids of her future. So as the player, you have complete freedom to decide &#8216;What do I think is useful to send back &#8211; what is important information that I can send back from the future?&#8217;, and as soon as you do that, the future changes and you get a new vision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re effectively amassing an &#8220;inventory of alternate possible futures&#8221;, Barlow explained. And sure, you could do something boring with this power like get the winning lottery numbers, but you could also do more intriguing things. &#8220;It might be interesting to know that your partner of 10 years has been cheating on you with your brother or something, right?&#8221; Barlow mused.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s &#8220;a huge amount&#8221; of freedom in the game &#8211; it&#8217;s very systemic &#8211; and he said that &#8220;very quickly you get into this really cool gameplay [loop] of creating and kind of sculpting an inventory to steer the future &#8230; and it gets very exciting and surprising&#8221;. There&#8217;s a few more layers to it but that&#8217;s it in essence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the most grokkable &#8211; I can&#8217;t say grok any more, can I? Damn you, [Elon] Musk! It&#8217;s the most grokkable mechanic of our games in terms of there&#8217;s a really concrete understanding of its role in the story,&#8221; Barlow concluded. &#8220;It is a diegetic mechanic and it has these direct consequences for the story that unfolds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Precognition is in development for PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S\/X and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\">Switch 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>The new game from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/her-story\">Her Story<\/a> and Immortality maker Sam Barlow &#8211; and his studio Half Mermaid &#8211; has a name: it&#8217;s called Precognition. It&#8217;s a sci-fi horror and it&#8217;s releasing in spring 2028, as one of the debut games from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/phasmophobia\">Phasmophobia<\/a> company Kinetic&#8217;s new publishing label.<\/p>\n<p>As with Barlow&#8217;s previous games, Precognition is a game about scouring archives of video clips to solve a mystery. Here, in Precognition, those archives are the future memories of main character Diana.<\/p>\n<p>The set-up is that Diana received an experimental implant which allows her to see visions of her future. And when she does, she&#8217;s able to focus on moments within them and commit them to memory. But there&#8217;s a catch: by doing so, she&#8217;ll set off a butterfly effect that changes her future. The idea then is to actively manipulate her memories to change the outcome.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"Half Mermaid on PRECOGNITION | Kinetic Publishing\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kR78s95FONk?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/kR78s95FONk\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">Half Mermaid on PRECOGNITION | Kinetic Publishing<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>There isn&#8217;t much to see &#8211; nay, anything &#8211; of Precognition yet. But here&#8217;s Sam Barlow, producer Natalie Watson, and Brandon Cronenberg talking about it. <a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kR78s95FONk\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The other notable thing about Precognition is it&#8217;s being made in collaboration with horror filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, who I haven&#8217;t heard of because I&#8217;m that sort of person, but who made the films Infinity Pool, Possessor, and Antiviral. I have heard of his father David Cronenberg, though, who created legendary movies like The Fly. Brandon Cronenberg co-developed the story of Precognition and wrote it alongside Barlow.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In a Q&amp;A session following a showcase for Precognition, which I attended, Barlow revealed a few more details about the game. &#8220;The thing that&#8217;s really neat here is Diana is a former child prodigy,&#8221; he began. &#8220;She has a photographic memory and her brain is very malleable, and she&#8217;s brought into this experiment where they&#8217;re putting implants in people&#8217;s heads, ostensibly to augment or improve memory, fix how people&#8217;s memory works, and they discover a side effect of this device is that people start receiving memories of the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote right\"><p><em>&#8220;As a player, you watch these visions of the future and you hold the triggers down and that commits [it] to memory&#8221; -Sam Barlow<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Everyone else quickly forgets what they&#8217;ve seen but Diana: she doesn&#8217;t. &#8220;She is able to see these visions, these memories of her future, and watch them, and then choose an instant from these memories to collect and commit to memory,&#8221; Barlow said. &#8220;As a player, you watch these visions of the future and you hold the triggers down and that commits [it] to memory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So if you imagine something like the movie Memento, where he&#8217;s walking around with his Polaroids: Diana is collecting Polaroids of her future. So as the player, you have complete freedom to decide &#8216;What do I think is useful to send back &#8211; what is important information that I can send back from the future?&#8217;, and as soon as you do that, the future changes and you get a new vision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re effectively amassing an &#8220;inventory of alternate possible futures&#8221;, Barlow explained. And sure, you could do something boring with this power like get the winning lottery numbers, but you could also do more intriguing things. &#8220;It might be interesting to know that your partner of 10 years has been cheating on you with your brother or something, right?&#8221; Barlow mused.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s &#8220;a huge amount&#8221; of freedom in the game &#8211; it&#8217;s very systemic &#8211; and he said that &#8220;very quickly you get into this really cool gameplay [loop] of creating and kind of sculpting an inventory to steer the future &#8230; and it gets very exciting and surprising&#8221;. There&#8217;s a few more layers to it but that&#8217;s it in essence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the most grokkable &#8211; I can&#8217;t say grok any more, can I? Damn you, [Elon] Musk! It&#8217;s the most grokkable mechanic of our games in terms of there&#8217;s a really concrete understanding of its role in the story,&#8221; Barlow concluded. &#8220;It is a diegetic mechanic and it has these direct consequences for the story that unfolds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Precognition is in development for PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S\/X and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\">Switch 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News Immortality creator Sam Barlow&#8217;s new video-scouring game is sci-fi horror Precognition, a collab with filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, in which you see and change the future &#8220;If you imagine something like the movie Memento&#8230;&#8221; Image credit: Half Mermaid News by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Published on Aug. 12, 2026, 7:30 p.m. Follow Her Story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-2090255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2090255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2090255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2090255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2090255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2090255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2090255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}