One of my favorite things about The Expanse (both the show and the books) is that, despite being set in the far flung future, it is grounded in reality. The world is believable, the politics are the darkest shade of neoliberal dystopia, and the gritty realism feels like a lens into a very possible future of our own. The factions involved each have their own axe to grind with one another, and more often than not it feels like the political movers and shakers are the only ones who benefit. Beyond the science, society is equally as dystopian. From the opening moments through the closing credits, all bets are off. The Earthers struggle to keep their people fed thanks to mass unemployment and societal collapse. The Belters are born, work, and die in space – a veritable working class with no hopes and dreams beyond more work. The Martians have colonized, but are looking to break away from the control of Earth. The problem is the inky blackness that separates Mars, Earth, and anything in between is dangerous, making reliable food, water, and supplies a scarce commodity. The promise and freedom of space is as dangerous as it is near-infinite. Welcome to the world of James S.A. Corey's The Expanse.
Recently I went hands-on with an early Beta of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, a third-person ARPG set in the titular universe, and dis da ting a pensating á da Beta, inyalowda.
Much like James Holden from the series, Osiris Reborn tells the story of a person in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now cast into the inky blackness amidst tectonic forces far larger than a single crew.
While a single run of the demo runs about 90 minutes, it’s already clear that Osiris Reborn is aiming for the “choices matter” vacuum left behind by the likes of classic Bioware games. As exciting as that is, I’m even more excited for this title because frankly, Owlcat does it better. Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader are all absolutely magnificent games, all being incredible RPGs in their own right. Now they’re working on Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy as well as The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, but the latter is very different from their previous work. While the other titles have all been isometric CRPGs, Osiris Reborn is their first foray into the third person action RPG genre. Shooting mechanics aren’t new to Owlcat, and neither is cover-based combat, but Osiris Reborn is a new engine, new mechanics, and a completely new setting. They’ve got a lot riding on this, but I’m happy to say that they seem to be on track.
The setting, as you can infer from the trailers, is the 24th century. The first thing you’ll pick is either hard or normal difficulty, determining how much of a challenge you’ll face in combat, and likely some invisible dice rolls against your skills. You and your twin are Pinkwater Security mercenaries, coming back from Eros Station. While there, some unknown substance infects the entire population, forcing you to flee the station in a stolen ship, the Maat, but losing your whole crew in the process. As you approach Pinkwater 4 Station to debrief your boss, Oscar O’Connell, you’re left with the unenviable task of explaining the loss of your team, the stolen ship, and the mass casualty event on Eros. It's here that you'll make your next pair of choices – whether you and your twin are male or female, and also whether you're a Belter or Earther Officer or Hacker, respectively. With one of these four choices made, we make our landing.
Before we get into the Beta proper, Owlcat Games isn’t showing all of their cards. We obviously didn’t get to see the preceding events, nor did we get to create our own captain or pick the third option – Belter. Given how much of a difference your origin story matters in their other games, I suspect there are a lot of options we’re not seeing here in this first taste.
From the opening moments of this game, Unreal Engine 5 and the team’s expertise are on full display. This game is absolutely gorgeous. The facial features, armor, cloth, weapons, coffee cups, facial hair, and so much more are lovingly detailed to an extreme degree. Rogue Trader was pretty, but Osiris Reborn is a massive step forward for the team. While the facial movements and body kinematic animations aren’t quite nailed down (it is beta after all), the team has an incredible foundation here.
Like the show, and the descriptions from the books, the details in the game are lovingly crafted. Looking at my captain’s armor, I can see the cobbled together nature of all of it. Exposed RS-232 cables connect to well-worn metal connection points that clearly have been tugged on numerous times by teammates to ensure they’re right and tight. My twin, J, appears to have her pouches mounted right side up and upside down, something I’d done in my own military career for gear ergonomics. Right-side-up is affectionately known as “beer can grip”, which is used for smaller tools that need to stay right-side-up and free from debris (e.g. radios, GPS, items with already-open tops), but things like med packs and magazines were kept facing down for when you need the object to fall into your hand for rapid reload or fastest possible use, held only by Esstac webbing or other friction retention inserts. Here, it’s likely that J is keeping it handy for EVAs and other times when up isn’t necessarily up. Her more squared away setup was far more orderly than my hacker setup, complete with flight suit tubing and quick-release buckles, and that attention to detail is pervasive throughout every aspect of the game.
It doesn’t take long before Pinkwater 4 turns into a shooting gallery. A group called Protogen would like a word with you, and they’re more than willing to kill every single person on the station to have that conversation. It’s here that we get our first look at the cover-based combat, and the companions that’ll help us along the way. A total of six companions (not including Larry – we’ll talk about him in a moment) have been revealed so far.
You and your brother or sister, J, will take the fight to the enemy directly, but it’s far from turning into Call of Duty – there are choices to be made. During one sequence, I had to choose whether to head up to the left for a better vantage point, or the more direct entrance to the right complete with cover. It’s a minor choice, but just the start. As enemies flowed into the room, we kept quiet until they crossed underneath a bulkhead. I asked J to take a shot with her pistol to loosen the locks, dropping debris on their heads and thinning the herd a bit. Dropping the foolish few running at pistol and rifle-toting twins with headshots, I then took aim at some nearby explosives, immolating the few shooters who thought they had solid cover of their own. I let them burn to save ammo – it’s not unlimited.
In my equipment I got a glimpse of the equipment RPG mechanics – damage, fire rate, range, accuracy, mag size, reload time, critical damage modifiers and more. I even saw that I was using Plastic Bullets, which are 20% weaker than standard rounds. Headed into the mod systems for my "Unmodified Kovach M42" showed another side of the RPG mechanics.
The modifications available on my rifle allows me to add traits like "Marksmanship", "Extended Mag", and "Rapid Reload" at Grade 1, adding "Critical Damage", a larger extended mag, and "Structural Damage" at Grade 2. The final upgrade for this weapon, Grade 3, let me add "Hip Fire" and "Vantage Point", both of which bumps up critical damage and accuracy when behind cover or when fired from the hip, respectively, but also adds to the same values for my companion as well. It's likely that each piece of equipment will have its own mod sets, be it weapon, armor, equipment, or anything in between.
Aside from my sidearm, I had a wide variety of gadgets and subsystems to tinker with – with slots for two of the former and four of the latter. The first accessory I used was called a "Gremlin Drone Swarm". It deploys an invulnerable swarm of manually controlled drones that do area of effect damage. It has to be targeted, has a 24 second cooldown, and lasts for 15 seconds. It's listed as Level 1, against suggesting progression we've not yet seen. A second choice is the Tactical Scanner which, every 3 seconds, emits a wave that applies "Exposed" status to all enemies, highlighting their position. Again, we see "Explosed 1" suggesting that we might find or upgrade this beyond the "increase damage dealt by 30%". The last gadget I had in my pack was called Pandemic Algorithm – a "control" gadget that applies a Shocked status to 1-3 enemies. Holding down the left bumper re-triggers it, intensifying the length, but weakening over time.
Subsystems seem to be more addition to my armor -- the aforementioned tubing, cables, and mechanical bits that augment my gear. One, a Kopeng Module reduces my ability cooldowns by 10% while increasing my armor regen by 10%. The Prolongation Interface increased the duration of my timed abilities by 30% and reduced the cooldown for the same by 20%. These again list as "unmodified", so again I suspect RPG-like rarities and the ability to tweak these to match your playstyle. All of these numbers are subject to change ahead of launch, obviously, but we get the general RPG sense.
Beyond the gear, there is a skill system to augment your combat, exploration, and personal capabilities. As a Hacker, I had Shooter, Gadgets, Survivalist, and Leader under the Combat heading. Under Exploration I had Cyber Sabotage and Persuasion, with "Tekimang" to increase my Engineering skill by 1 under Personal. Underneath each tree is roughly 20 upgrades, meaning a great deal of flexibility in your overall build. Some are obvious like increased weapon critical damage, and others deploy turrets, break armor, stun targets, initiate repairs, and more. The Leader tree helps your companions, increases your mastery over leading them into combat, helps their skill cooldowns, and improves their overall ability to help you in various ways. The Exploration tree is all about RPG moments like persuading folks in conversations, hacking computers, and the other elements that make Owlcat titles shine.
The last two slots in my equipment panel are decorative -- my helmet and armor. The helmet, a Weltewala Helmet (Weltewala being Belter Creole for "Welder" and "Person"), and my armor to match. These don't have a mechanical effect, being purely cosmetic, but cool just the same.
Switching to J, I had a smaller subset of choices. I could equip their primary weapon (a "Rattler" submachine gun in this case, or a shotgun), their gadgets, and subsystems. It's not as complete a list for them, but that could also be a function of this being an early beta slice. It did, however, give me a lot of control over how J comported themselves in combat, be it up close and personal, or hanging back for support. These are not the only folks who will help us in our journey.
During one sequence we were suddenly ambushed by Protogen troops that have seemingly impenetrable armor and laser weapons. Falling back, we’re pinned down, unable to penetrate their armor (which is infused with some blue material) with our conventional weapons. Without the ability to fall back further, things are looking grim until Larry, the dispatcher that helped us guide the Maat into the hangar before the shooting started, comes popping out of an adjacent door! Putting his own neck on the line, he reaches around a bulkhead, gets clipped in the shoulder, but does the heroic thing, slamming the reinforced door down and cutting off the enemy’s advance. We’re given multiple dialogue choices to navigate, offering Larry the chance to come with us. He suggests we should head to the dock and clear the path after releasing the docking clamps. He suggests he’ll head to the central terminal computer to see if anyone else needs help – a true hero. He wishes us luck and heads out.
Further into the base, we began to face overwhelming odds, and we were given an opportunity to engage our support companions. During a sequence that has you and J doing an EVA on the surface of the station (which feels amazing – the team has NAILED the low-gravity combat and movement!), you'll be talking with your companion Zafar on how you might even up the odds a bit. Using his skills, he taps into a ship's PDCs – the large guns that they use to shred incoming asteroids in flight. He offers to turn them against our enemies on the station’s surface, but instead, we opt for a safer route, heading down a nearby hatch and abandoning his plan for a distraction and some mayhem. Inside the maintenance corridors we see various athletic skill checks, some hacking opportunities to bypass computers, and even an environmental moment where we shot a coolant pipe to clear a new path. That's when we found ourselves face to face with those same heavily armored Protogen troops we ran into earlier.
If we can get to the hangar to release the clamps from the command center, we'll be able to free the Maat and all of us can escape. As we reach our destination we see that the Proteus team has executed the crew of the station and are stealing the servers from the facility -- it turns out they weren't here for us after all, instead looking to snag the Pinkwater 4 employee database. As they're encrypted, they decide to brute force the situation, dragging the entire server out of the rack and transporting it back to their ship.
Unfortunately, our plan to unlock the clamps hit a snag, and we'll need to head down to do it manually. Dangerous as that is, our friend Zafar comes in over comms with a nod to his previous plan, firing the PDCs from the Maat to clear out the Proteus team in brutal violent fashion. Boarding the Maat and giving it a new name (I’m not going to spoil that here), we make good our escape…but what about Larry?
The final scenes of the beta show the results of our choices. The Proteus troops finish killing off everyone on the station, including Larry who is captured. They also set nuclear charges to ensure no trace remains of their heist.
I was sad to see the demo end as we sailed off into the horizon, because it meant I didn’t get to experience a critical part of the game – space combat. Combat in The Expanse is similar to submarine conflicts, with both parties angling for firing solutions, launching weapons, and then waiting for the result. I’m hoping we’ll see more of that in upcoming gameplay trailers. As it stands we don’t have any idea what that could look like.
It’s very easy to see the Owlcat Games DNA in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Based on their other games, it’s clear that there will be a lot more to learn about these main characters, our companions, and even the ship itself. Decisions, dialogue, and combat should come together to create a compelling RPG, but what has the team learned from the Beta?
One thing that fans universally agreed on was that the main characters, be they female or male, could use a new voiceover. The combat barks from J are repetitive, and the male protagonists were both flat and lifeless. The female protagonists came across a bit too cheery for the grittier world of The Expanse. Both were Belters without Belter accents or Belter Creole – something that fans like myself are going to expect to be remedied, sasa ke, beratna? Frankly, there were concerns about voice work for Rogue Trader hitting the mark for the 40K universe, and they nailed it in the end. I have no doubt that’ll be the case here as well.
In addition to some writing and VO work, the team is making some adjustments to animations that were close but not quite there. Cover, combat balance, and skills will also get tweaks, but none of that comes as a surprise as that’s normal for a game 6-8 months away from launch. While there are some elements that could use work, the developers are already hard at work on all of them. One thing is for sure – Owlcat is exactly the right team to bring The Expanse to life, based on their previous game installments, and I can’t wait to see all that it holds in store.
The good news? You don’t have to say oyedeng to the beta– it’ll stay up all the way till launch. If you want to add your voice to the chorus of folks giving their feedback on the Beta, you can experience it for yourself by picking up Miller’s Pack or the Collector's Edition on the website.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn will launch on PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG, and on console via Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
