You’ll be able to’t leap in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, the upcoming third-person shooter set in James S.A. Corey’s expansive universe of interplanetary politics.
There’s precedent right here: You’ll be able to’t leap within the unique Mass Impact trilogy, the video games to which Osiris Reborn is steadily (and rightfully) in contrast. However there’s additionally a lore implication; most scenes in The Expanse are set in spaceships, on area stations, or at lunar ports with variable gravity. Its characters repeatedly put on magnetized boots in order to stay to the bottom. Leaping? Not precisely really useful.
To be clear, this rationale doesn’t come immediately from developer Owlcat Video games. At Gamescom 2026, I just lately performed 90 minutes of a mid-game stage of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. A producer watching alongside wouldn’t formally affirm or deny collection lore as the rationale why you may’t leap within the recreation. However it nonetheless struck me (hello, large fan of the present) as a small element displaying Owlcat is creating what could possibly be some of the devoted gaming diversifications ever.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a brand-new story in Expanse lore
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn takes place concurrently alongside occasions from seasons 1 by 3 (or Leviathan’s Wake and Caliban’s Conflict, for the ebook readers on the market). You don’t play as James Holden and the (in)well-known crew of the Rocinante. As a substitute, you’re a customized character, joined in your social gathering by your similar twin, named J, and a suitably BioWare-like solid of misfits. Although you’re not a serious participant in timeline-critical occasions, you expertise lots of them from a distinct perspective. And sure, characters like Holden do seem within the recreation in numerous capacities, although none confirmed up throughout my preview.
A lot ado has been written about how fight in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn mirrors fight from the primary three Mass Impact video games: third-person, cover-based capturing the place you direct two squad mates to carry out numerous strategic actions. Having performed it myself now, sure, everybody was proper — and the fight guidelines.
It’s punchy and responsive. Fights require each tactical planning and instinctual repositioning to outlive. There’s a frenetic rigidity evocative of the good hits from the golden age of third-person shooters, a technical brilliance right here that ought to enchantment even to gamers who don’t even know what a Beltalowda is. Given the deserves of Osiris Reborn’s fight, going into my demo, I totally anticipated the sport to primarily be occupied with capturing numerous dangerous guys. However very like the very best motion RPGs, I went greater than half an hour earlier than experiencing any fight, and bought the sense I may’ve spent manner longer exploring if I had extra time to do.
The mission I performed by, “Beetle within the Anthill,” was supposedly across the 10-hour mark and appeared to happen a while after the destruction of Eros Station. (The Expanse: Osiris Reborn will final roughly 30 hours, relying in your playstyle.) Your social gathering is contracted with the paramilitary group Pinkwater. You’re at Ganymede station, tasked with gathering compromising info on Protogen, a completely different paramilitary group that occurs to be accountable for lots of dangerous shit that occurs in The Expanse-iverse. In different phrases: You conveniently don’t must really feel dangerous about capturing these guys.
However “Beetle within the Anthill,” at the very least for its first half, doesn’t allow you to simply dive into all conditions with weapons blazing. On this, the devs behind Osiris Reborn perceive the essence of The Expanse, which has at all times been extra involved with the politics of how people find yourself preventing one another slightly than the combat itself. Regardless of how violent the collection and books can get, its characters usually try to unravel conflicts with out violence. And in Osiris Reborn, the nonlethal strategy leads to a Hitman-like stage of immersive sim.
As an illustration, at one level of the mission, I needed to entry the contents of a storage container, but it surely was blocked by a Protogen guard who wouldn’t let me move with out permission from the delivery officer. However that man wouldn’t give me permission except I may present him with an bill. However I noticed I didn’t have an bill and even know what one seemed like, so I needed to hack a pc to get a template. However I didn’t know the serial variety of the delivery container, so I needed to discover a vantage level the place I may scan it.
Extra sophisticated than simply capturing all these guys within the face? Positive. Additionally far more satisfying.
These quieter moments allowed me to soak up the surroundings. The extent to which the dockyards of Ganymede have been recreated is spectacular. There are, after all, direct references to the supply materials, however even these appear to manifest with outstanding restraint.
Take the Ganymede agricultural domes, a string of staggeringly giant spherical greenhouses that viewers of the present will keep in mind as a central a part of a serious catastrophe in season two. One such dome is rendered right here in all its grandeur, a little bit of meticulous manufacturing seemingly ripped straight from a SyFy set, however doesn’t include any ham-fisted “I bought that reference!” dialogue from its characters. For individuals who watched the present, it’s a sly reference towards issues to come back, a winking, nodding harbinger of loss of life and famine. For everybody else, it’s only a actually cool constructing.
My demo ended with the Hybrid — a human that’s remodeled right into a bullet-proof blue monster by publicity to the genetically modifying Protomolecule — chasing my crew down a community of tunnels as every little thing exploded within the background. We ended up in one of many ag domes, and I had to decide on one crew member to corral civilian scientists to security whereas one other hacked a pc to allow our escape. (I didn’t see the result of this selection however gathered that it’ll have Mass Impact-like penalties down the road.) Simply earlier than the “you’re caught in a round room with this factor” boss combat started, the demo ended. Having seen the present, I’ve a good suggestion of what occurs subsequent. I’m guessing potential gamers who aren’t acquainted with the lore gained’t, although.
Therein lies the most important problem going through The Expanse: Osiris Reborn: Regardless of its mechanical excellence, it’s nonetheless a licensed recreation on the finish of the day. Sure, The Expanse was an unlimited cultural phenomenon — in style sufficient to famously get un-canceled. However by the point Osiris Reborn comes out, it can have been 5 years because the TV present ended (regardless of its finale wrapping on a irritating cliffhanger with a number of books left unadapted). I don’t assume anybody would declare that Telltale spinoff left an Eros-sized impression, regardless that the very best actor from the present reprised her position as its greatest character.
This isn’t to say {that a} licensed recreation can’t succeed. (See: 007 First Gentle.) However it’s an uphill climb. I additionally don’t assume Osiris Reborn may conceivably be something aside from an Expanse recreation: every little thing from the set design to narrative to the armor your character wears is so interwoven . But when Osiris Reborn maintains its cautious stability all through, it may pull off the identical trick pulled years in the past different broadly hailed recreation collection primarily based on books, like The Witcher and Metro: give longtime followers the Disney Land they’ve been ready for, whereas displaying a brand new crop of gamers why it grew to become so beloved within the first place.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn shall be launched in spring 2027 for PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X.