There are teams in the industry who understand that choices in RPGs are what makes them rewarding. The best games are the ones where your choices come back in interesting ways later, and not just binary "good, bad, or neutral" with immediate effect. Owlcat are masters at this, with far-reaching consequences to just about any decision in games like Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It's less about finding the right or good answer, but the one with the least-worst outcome later. Or, as a famous guy once said, "If I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all."
The team is working hard towards their release date next year, but this morning they gave us a quick peek at the sorts of far-reaching consequences you'll face in their newest game, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. You can catch up on what I thought about the Beta above (or read it), but after you're done reading that, let's take a look at that update:
Origins
We have already talked about how your origin shapes your past, connections, and opportunities.
But where you come from does not decide where you stand. A Belter can support Earth, a Martian can turn against Mars, and an Earther can fight for the Belt. Your origin gives you a place in this world. Your choices determine what you do with it.
You Made the Choice. But You Haven’t Seen the Consequences.
Players who joined the Beta have already faced one of the game’s earliest dilemmas on Pinkwater 4. Protogen mercenaries have followed you back to the station, putting everyone’s lives at risk. You can convince the station’s personnel to fight back — or ask them to stand down while you find another way out.
What Beta players have not seen is just how far that decision ripples.
Fighting... makes it easier for you... but the station gets destroyed.
Avoiding the fight... allows the station and its personnel to avoid casualties…
An organized defense gives you valuable support during the escape, but it also escalates the attack. Asking the station to stand down leaves you to face a much harder route out, but may prevent the conflict from igniting. Neither decision ends when you leave Pinkwater 4.
Later, you may meet the families of station personnel and see for yourself how your one decision has affected them. The consequences can even reach the people behind the unauthorized raid — especially if your actions allowed the situation on the station to spiral beyond their control.
Choices Within the Crew
What if the most important choice in someone’s life does not look important when you make it?
For example, Polly, a Belter teenager and youngest member of your crew, is still trying to figure out her place in the universe. She is torn between doing something meaningful for her people and finding a path of her own.
Your influence over Polly builds gradually through conversations, reactions, and pieces of advice. You may not immediately know which moments she will remember — or how they will shape the person she becomes.
At one point, you will also choose someone from the crew to mentor her. This is not just a dialogue choice. Her mentor can shape the profession she pursues, unlock a unique non-combat skill line, change the role she can play during missions, and even influence her appearance.
Polly may become a cautious hacker, a capable engineer, or pursue a career in medicine. The mentor you choose will shape not only her abilities, but also who she will become.
Factions and Politics
The world of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is shaped by competing interests, and there is no simple way to stay out of them.
Earth, Mars, and the Belt each have their own priorities. Helping one side can create problems for another: a decision that benefits Earth's supply lines may seem a threat to Mars, regardless of your intentions.
The factions take your actions into account over the course of the game. You can work with different factions at different points in the story, but those decisions become part of your relationship with each of them. Keeping good relations with everyone won’t be easy — you’ll only get one chance to stay on everyone’s good side
How you deal with Earth, Mars, and the Belt ultimately affects how their stories unfold, including the fates of important characters. Building a strong relationship with a faction can also open up unique rewards, including exclusive items and a faction-specific quest. Those relationships can even pay off during missions, with factions potentially providing direct support.
In the End, Who Will You Become?
The game does not ask you to select your captain’s personality from a list. Instead, the game’s archetype system tracks and follows your every choice. Do you keep putting other people first? Chase profit? Defend your faction? Or simply do whatever it takes to keep yourself and your crew alive?
Over time, those choices begin to define the character you play. Not because you selected an archetype during character creation, but because you consistently acted in a manner consistent with that personality. That identity is reflected in the way certain characters react to you throughout the story and, most importantly, in the epilogues that unveil you and your crew's ultimate destination.
That's a HUGE update, and it speaks to the layer upon layer consequences that you'll face in this game. Decisions ripple, and the world around you can change dramatically. Each character seems to have their own backstory to tell and, with it, also shaping the team makeup and motivations. Let's look at Polly for an example:
An example is Polly, the youngest member of the crew. The teenager from the belt is looking for a way to help her people but also to find a path of her own. Players shape their relationship with her through several smaller decisions, but also have to make the major choice of finding a mentor for her. This will steer her development in a specific direction and will even unlock a unique non-combat skill line for her.
Every decision you make, or don't make, is all adding up to create a world that is meant to feel alive and organic. I can tell you that playing the beta more than twice, I found all sorts of new things that I'd missed on the previous run. This is one that'll demand extra playthroughs, and frankly I can't wait.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is coming to PC (via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with a Day One release on Xbox Game Pass at some point in Spring of 2027. Stay tuned...this is one of my most-anticipated, and it doesn't take much more than updates like this to see why.
