Sam Barlow’s long-teased “Project C” now has a real name: Precognition. Revealed during the first Kinetic Publishing Showcase, it is a live-action sci-fi horror game from Half Mermaid Productions, the studio behind Immortality and Her Story, made in collaboration with horror director Brandon Cronenberg.
Quick answer: Precognition is Sam Barlow’s next FMV game, co-developed with Brandon Cronenberg and published by Kinetic Publishing. It launches on PC, PS5, Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch 2 in spring 2028.
What Precognition is about
You play as Diana, a woman who receives an experimental implant in her brain that lets her see visions of her own future. She treats those visions as memories she hasn’t lived yet, then focuses on specific moments and commits them to memory in the present day.
There is a catch built into that mechanic. The instant Diana locks a detail into memory, the future she just saw changes. That cause-and-effect loop drives the whole experience, with the story branching as a direct result of your choices.
Precognition continues the style Barlow built with Immortality, Her Story, and Telling Lies. Expect cinematic full-motion video sequences, non-linear storytelling, and a heavy focus on player freedom. It leans into the feel of an investigation or “notebook” game, where you piece together what is really happening across different decades and timelines.
We’ve pushed ourselves even harder with Precognition by bringing the feel of investigation and mystery games into a world of cause-and-effect, with a story that spins out as a consequence of your choices.
The Brandon Cronenberg collaboration
Barlow brought in filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, known for Antiviral, Possessor, and Infinity Pool, to help make the horror land. Cronenberg is co-developing the story and sitting in the writing room alongside Barlow.
Barlow said he wanted “a very authentic sci-fi horror experience,” and that Cronenberg stood out because he had already played Immortality and Her Story. Cronenberg framed the fit around subjectivity, noting that his films center on one person’s perspective warping around them, and that Half Mermaid’s games are subjective by design because no two players share the same experience.
Platforms and release window
Precognition is a multi-platform release, published by Kinetic Publishing, the new wing of Phasmophobia developer Kinetic Games. Here is where it stands right now.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Precognition (formerly Project C) |
| Developer | Half Mermaid Productions |
| Publisher | Kinetic Publishing |
| Genre | Sci-fi horror, live-action FMV |
| Platforms | PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 |
| Release window | Spring 2028 |
Note: There is no confirmed day-and-time launch date yet, only the spring 2028 window. No gameplay footage was shown at the reveal, so the current look at the game is limited to screenshots.
Where Precognition came from
The idea started somewhere unexpected. Barlow, a longtime Metroid fan, spent years daydreaming about an FMV Metroid game, an idea he says even fed into Her Story through the screen-reflection effect inspired by the visor reflections in Metroid Prime.
He could never get that concept to fully click until he landed on a dark twist that gave it structure and made the mechanics and theme line up. That version was far too dark to ever attach to a Nintendo mascot, so it became its own original story instead. Precognition is also separate from Half Mermaid’s other in-development title, referred to as Project D, which has not been detailed.
How to wishlist Precognition on Steam
If you want to track the game and get notified when it launches, you can add it to your wishlist now on its official Steam page. The listing includes the current batch of screenshots.
With a spring 2028 window, Precognition is still a long way off, but the pieces are set: a Barlow-led FMV mystery about seeing and reshaping the future, sharpened by Cronenberg’s horror sensibility, arriving across every major current platform.
