SOMBRAS: negative frames will launch on December 3, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC via Steam. Entalto Publishing and Maboroshi Artworks have also confirmed a physical edition for PlayStation 5, while the new “Release Date” trailer sets the tone for the game’s first-person light horror adventure. Photography is not a side activity here, but the main way the player interacts with the world and moves through its more unsettling spaces.
The story follows Shiomi Alterio, a Japanese-Spanish photography student living with her father in a quiet Japanese town after her parents’ recent divorce. Her life is shaped by separation, mixed identity, and the distance from the European life she was forced to leave behind. One night, Shiomi is pulled into a dark reflection of the town, where familiar streets become unstable, hostile presences roam the area, and girls who look exactly like her turn the journey home into something more psychological.
Gameplay centers on observing, framing, and developing photographs. Players explore liminal streets, capture unusual sights, develop film rolls, and collect enough inspiration to upgrade the camera. The system gives photography a practical role in progression, making each image part of how Shiomi understands the distorted space around her. The horror side appears built around atmosphere, pressure, and uneasy encounters rather than constant combat, with the town itself becoming a manifestation of what she is trying to face.
Shiomi will also meet alternate versions of herself, run from repressed fears, and gather occult trinkets that help unlock strange doors blocking the way forward. The adventure ties its supernatural structure to themes of youth, art, mixed cultural identity, and dysfunctional family systems, placing personal fractures at the center of the mystery. SOMBRAS: negative frames is the second game from Maboroshi Artworks, following Last Time I Saw You.
