Telling Lies creator Sam Barlow has a new weird game called Project Ambrosio

By Austin Wood
published

Something about a half mermaid, I don't know

(Image credit: Sam Barlow)

Telling Lies and Her Story creator Sam Barlow is working on a new game called Project Ambrosio, and as you'd expect, it looks mighty weird. 

The newly minted Steam page for Project Ambrosio is covered with broken, cryptic details. The product description, for instance, reads "new Sam Barlow Half Mermaid is cinema death," with a bunch of blanks thrown in. And before we get hung up on the idea of a half-mermaid protagonist, note that Half Mermaid is actually the game's publisher and co-developer. 

There are also four cryptic timeline entries in its "About this game" section. The word Gothic appears under 1968; NYC under 1971; pop star under 1999; and "Barlow custodian concordance" under 2022. I suspect we'll see these entries filled out in the weeks ahead. 

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Apart from that, our only remaining clues lie in the game's mature content description - "Adult themes including some sex and violence" - and its attached media. Project Ambrosio has three short, deliberately corrupted, teaser-type videos on Steam: one showing a snake crawling over a rock, another showing a burning box (coffin?), and another of someone's legs kicking out of dark-lit water. There are also five creepy still images which seem to feature the same woman. They remind me of crime scene evidence logs, but that's about all I can surmise at first blush. 

As much as I'd like to believe that Project Ambrosio is a game about Barlow himself becoming a mermaid in a hardboiled crime drama spanning 54 years, we can't really come to any conclusions at this stage. Barlow's games often don't make any sense right up until you play them, so we certainly won't get very far with mere breadcrumbs. Nevertheless, it's exciting to see another Barlow game in the works. 

Naturally, Project Ambrosio doesn't have a release date just yet. From its Steam page, we can at least confirm that it will be out before the year 3000. 

Here are the other upcoming games of 2020 and beyond, which will also be out before the year 3000.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.