I performed an hour of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn at Gamescom, and regardless of doing it in a sweltering room with a dev judging me for each dying, I got here away fairly impressed. It deserves to face by itself deserves, however sadly I’m about to speak about Mass Impact rather a lot—it is laborious to not.
Just like the BioWare of previous, Owlcat is an isometric CRPG developer now attempting its hand at a cinematic third-person RPG, which turns right into a cover-heavy squad-based shooter when the weapons come out. Mass Impact, then, is an apparent level of comparability.
But it’s a comparison that serves The Expanse well, because in the short time I played it, I saw a multitude of ways in which it has improved upon BioWare’s formula. How it handles exploration, combat and crew interactions makes me think, if it can keep it up, that The Expanse is going to make Mass Effect diehards extremely happy, without leaving Owlcat’s CRPG fans out in the cold.
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We already wrote about The Expanse’s hi-tech fights after checking it out in April. “I used to be nervous Owlcat could not pull off Mass Impact-style cinematic motion in its large new RPG, however after an hour of blowing stuff up in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, I am feeling very reassured,” Robin mentioned again then. And I am feeling the identical means.
Mass Impact took three video games to get its capturing as much as snuff, however The Expanse may need nailed it on the primary go. It is extra responsive, diverse, and you may order your teammates to tug off some explosively neat methods. They’re known as exploits, and relying on who you could have in your three-person squad, you will see totally different components of the atmosphere highlighted in pink—these are locations the place your friends can do their factor.
Double bother
J, my similar twin who serves as the primary companion, appears to largely take pleasure in blowing issues up. Often which means cowl. I used to be preventing Protogen goons—the villainous Earth company—and took each alternative to cease them from cowardly hiding behind partitions. However I additionally used J to take out bridges, a raise and different objects, with every occasion rewarding me with a spectacular explosion and a few lifeless foes.
A fast stun, a bullet within the head, job carried out.
One other companion sows chaos with their technical data. If there are wires operating beneath the ground in a fight space, they will electrify the ground and swiftly take out a bunch of enemies.
Not that I wanted any assist electrocuting folks. I used to be enjoying because the engineer class, which allowed me to deploy turrets and drones. Halfway via the demo, I obtained entry to a brand new kind of drone that would stun foes, which was an actual game-changer after I began encountering dudes with flamethrowers that appeared to disregard cowl. A fast stun, a bullet within the head, job carried out.
Unlike the previous demo, though, my Gamescom playthrough gave me lots of time for chatting and exploration. My twin and I were infiltrating a Protogen facility, disguised as employees of the titular Osiris organisation, so we didn’t need to go in guns blazing.
The Expanse will see you putting together a crew for a heist, much in the same way Shep put one together for the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2. But even before you get to the actual heist, there are lots of smaller crimes and thematically adjacent missions that have the same heist energy.
I’m reminded of my favourite Mass Effect 2 loyalty mission, where you recruit Kasumi by helping her with a robbery. There are disguises, there’s subterfuge, there’s a lot of sticking it to rich dorks—it’s a whole heap of fun. But that seems to just be a normal day in The Expanse, which is a thrilling prospect.
Team building
Anyway! Back to the infiltration. I was able to talk my way through most encounters with Protogen losers, and while The Expanse doesn’t have the density of text or varied dialogue options of, say, Owlcat’s Rogue Trader, I still felt able to make meaningful decisions and find different routes past obstacles.
When I needed to get into a crate, for instance, I failed to persuade a Protogen employee that it didn’t matter that I had no paperwork. My persuasion skill wasn’t high enough. But I was able to download some documents from a terminal, which one of my pals onboard my ship used to create a forgery.
This is possibly my favourite feature—that you have access to all these specialists who can lend you their expertise when you’re off gallivanting on another mission. Interjections and offers of assistance seem common, too, making it feel like you’re part of a proper heist crew. And sometimes it’s just flavourful banter, allowing you to get a clearer picture of who these characters are, without you needing to walk up to them and have a full conversation.
Sometimes they’ll have requests too, asking you to check something out that they’ve spotted on your feed. It’s a level of teamwork that I haven’t really seen represented in an RPG before, and one that gives your NPC pals a convincing illusion of agency.
Now I wish some of this stuff could have been in Mass Effect. You’ve got this crewed up ship, and that’s cool, but outside of the companions you take with you on missions, the crew is barely even ancillary. Yes, you can date Kelly Chambers, and occasionally you’ll hear from Joker or pre-android EDI when you’re on a mission, but their participation is minimal. It’s the same with your companions who you leave behind—they might as well not exist unless you’re standing right next to them.
The Expanse, meanwhile, makes your companions just as critical to the mission as you, even when they’re not with you in person. They are the solutions to your problems, they come up with plans, and they can even give you hints about how to take down a difficult enemy. By the end of the demo, I’d only met a couple of them in person, but I was already a fan of the whole bunch.
Spacecation
I really dug the quieter moments, too. At one point, we had to sneak through Ganymede’s original colony, an underground warren that was constructed before the domes. Suddenly we’d gone from a corporate sci-fi thriller into something more horror-themed, slinking through dark, dilapidated ruins. It felt haunted.
I really dug the quieter moments, too.
Similarly, I enjoyed just wandering around the Protogen facility, when they still thought I was an ally. There’s plenty of environmental storytelling and NPCs getting on with their day or having chats. With only an hour to spare, however, I had to start rushing through it, but I encountered quite a few diversions, locked doors and points of interest that I would have otherwise been keen to dive into.
If you’ve watched the show or read the books, you’ll be rewarded for your foreknowledge with plenty of little nods here and there—especially when you’re snooping around and reading everyone’s emails. But if this is all new to you, it’ll just appear to be worldbuilding rather than gatekeeping.
The demo ended on a cliffhanger, with my squad ready to pull off an audacious plan to stop a protomolecule mutant from doing more damage. I was ready to get stuck in, and then the “Thanks for playing” message appeared. It was devastating. I had to rush to another appointment anyway, but if Owlcat said “Nah, it’s cool, you can play more,” I don’t think I would have been able to decline.
I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year! The Expanse: Osiris Reborn should be appearing in the second quarter of 2027.
Hi, I’m Rishab. I’m a passionate pc gamer and an avid video game content writer. I have been involved with video games for over 2 decades now, and even today, after playing an astronomical number of games over the years, I’m still eager for more. In my free time, you will find me enjoying a hot cup of coffee and playing my favorite relaxing fishing game, Dave the Diver.
