For a certain kind of science fiction fan, the surprise news of a video game set in one of the most beloved TV and book series, The Expanse, hit like a freight train of hype. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is an action RPG currently in development from Owlcat Games with no release date yet, but that hasn’t stopped the studio’s creative director, Alexander Mishulin, from giving me some early details about the game.
There are many reasons The Expanse has been so successful, the largest of which is its deft mix of well-written characters interweaved with political intrigue affecting grand theaters. Unlike Star Wars and other popular space fiction, The Expanse — both the books by James S.A. Corey and the Syfy/Amazon Prime show — is “hard” science fiction with realistic physics and scenarios. From chatting with Mishulin, Cyprus-based Owlcat Games is making sure all of this makes it into its game.
The announcement trailer for Osiris Reborn, released during Summer Game Fest earlier this month, shows plenty of hallmarks from the TV show: zero-G ship combat, sealed flight suits, tactical gunplay and the protomolecule. But the end showed something even more promising: early gameplay footage that, despite being prealpha and not representative of how the final game will look, represents the third-person exploration that Owlcat Games is aiming to use.
It looks, well, very Mass Effect. Many of Mishulin’s teammates are fans of BioWare’s legendary sci-fi action RPG series, and he acknowledged that it in some way inspired Osiris Reborn. But he emphasized that the team also drew on RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 for its cinematic story focusing on companions, while Japanese RPGs served as models for great characterization that keeps you attached to characters through the long story of a game.
“I’m not saying we are taking something from, say, Persona 5, but the approach, the idea that characters are front and center of the story and how they evolve all through the story up until the end is a little bit similar,” Mishulin said.
Osiris Reborn is set in the same near-Earth area as its source material, specifically during the events of the first and second seasons of the show (or the first two books). It’ll have entirely new characters for the player to meet and add to their party, which was done to give Owlcat Games more creative room to tell stories rather than strictly adapt the books or show, though they may run into some more well-known heroes and villains.
“You will be seeing with your own eyes the repercussions of Holden’s actions, all the situations like The Canterbury, and how it affects people in the belt, people in the inner planets,” Mishulin said. “You will be having your own adventure with your own goals, choices, consequences in the same universe [with] all the major events unfolding in this universe alongside your story.”
What players will recognize more are the planets, moons and locations they’ll visit in Osiris Reborn — in fact, the game starts on Eros Station. Show and book fans will remember what was happening there at this point in the timeline, and yes, the human-altering extrasolar protomolecule will make an appearance in the game, evoking a similar horror as it does in the show. Relatedly, the corporate subsidiary Protogen that studies the alien molecule will also appear, Mishulin said, hinting that its most sinister project, the human-protomolecule hybrid Caliban, will also show up.
From the trailer and Mishulin’s descriptions, Osiris Reborn sounds like it will be very different from other adaptations of the franchise, such as Telltale’s narrative-driven Expanse game. And for Mass Effect fans, it sounds like Owlcat’s game will have RPG systems and combat that have some similar elements to BioWare’s classics, but give players more capability to build characters and play how they want. Mix in strong characters with comparisons to other popular RPGs and Osiris Reborn sounds like a lot of what fans want in a game adapting the franchise.
Modern third-person space RPG combat
Osiris Reborn’s combat will allow a variety of approaches, Mishulin said, letting players mix and match their reliance on gunplay and various abilities. In the announcement trailer, the trio of heroes showcased three different approaches to fights: traditional guns, drone-based support from a distance and a defensive ballistic shield (along with a shoulder-mounted weapon), which worked in tandem to hit enemies from all sides.
“The RPG system is very open, allowing you to build whatever character you like. It’s part of our vision of the game to allow you to experiment and find things you like,” Mishulin said.
Characters aren’t class-based, and players can try out weapons and devices they find along the way. Weapons you pick up will have different parameters, like damage, accuracy or recoil, so it behooves the player to find out which guns best fit their build. In that way, Mishulin vaguely compared Osiris Reborn to a Souls game — not in its difficulty, but in discovering weapons during the game and strengthening your play style around it. The team wants players to tinker with their abilities and weapons to find what’s best for them, including finding unique synergies.
Mishulin gave one example: a visor that highlights enemies through smoke and cover (which “allows you to start feeling a little bit like a character in a lot of ’80s or ’90s movies,” Mishulin said) that will help players shoot enemies through walls. It works better with slow and hard-hitting weapons than with a fast-firing submachine gun, he noted, so it’s only helpful with certain play styles.
In Osiris Reborn, players will also have two companions to bring into combat, though the rest of your ragtag crew won’t just stay on the ship, killing time, Mishulin noted. They’ll help you fulfill objectives as the missions progress — sometimes even forming second teams to handle situations elsewhere.
As seen in the trailer, players will have their own small ship (similar to the Rocinante in The Expanse books and show) that the main characters call home and use to launch into missions. And while ship-to-ship combat won’t be in Osiris Reborn — at least not controlling it like other dogfighting simulator games — players will get to roam around and lightly customize their vessel.
And while it won’t necessarily relate to combat, players will create their main character and establish their backstory as being from Earth, Mars or the Belt (the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter). Player characters will face hostility due to their origins and other choices or consequences, but later in the game, they’ll be able to shift their allegiances as they choose — perhaps they’ll be born a Belter but slowly shift toward the ideology of Mars, Minshulin suggested, or choose to be a double agent. Ultimately, there will be a lot of paths and choices for players to pick their own experience, one defined by choices.
Adapting The Expanse after working on Warhammer 40K and other franchises
Owlcat Games is most known for its titles taking place in the universes of popular nerdy properties like Warhammer 40K and Pathfinder (a tabletop game similar to Dungeons & Dragons). Games like Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader showed how Owlcat’s developers can bring a specific scenario and story to life in the world of an intellectual property through close involvement with those who hold the rights.
“Our previous games taught us how to communicate this approach, how to communicate our vision and our passion for this particular universe to an IP holder,” Mishulin said.
Fans of The Expanse among the developers at Owlcat Games put together a pitch for an adaptation and approached Alcon Entertainment. The Expanse universe was a good fit for the studio’s type of storytelling, Mishulin said: grounded, gritty sci-fi with a lot of political power plays and webs of intrigue. More importantly for Owlcat, the universe has lots of opportunities to introduce player agency in choices, consequences and big decisions — which is pretty evident in the books and show.
Owlcat started developing Osiris Reborn in 2021 and spent almost a year prototyping the game, as it switched from the Unity engine used for its previous games to Unreal Engine 5 to better suit its vision. While its prior games were isometric tactical games controlling multiple characters from above, Osiris Reborn positions the camera over the main character’s shoulder for a more intense experience that suits the shooter gameplay and cinematic approach.
Owlcat’s game aims to preserve The Expanse’s realistic approach to science fiction, Minshulin said, including how it treats the lethal vacuum of space.
“One big part of our Expanse experience is [conveying] that space is a very dangerous and unwelcoming place to be,” Minshulin said.
From decompression to navigating zero-G environments to the “click” of boots magnetizing on surfaces, players should see authentic visual and audio touches from the show and books. The one exception they’re making: gunshots will make sounds in space, but should respect the “feeling of the physics and how it should be” in their game, Minshulin said. The studio will have a similar approach to the physics phenomena of traveling in space or being on a space station, especially when it looks cool and immerses the player.
Regrettably, Minshulin couldn’t give me an example of one of these physics phenomena — because it would spoil content that’s going to be in the game’s hands-off demo Owlcat is showing off in August at this year’s Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany. While Owlcat hasn’t yet set a release date for the game, fans of The Expanse will soon get to see more of what Owlcat has in store for what’s looking like the biggest adaptation of the sci-fi franchise so far.
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