"The Expanse Osiris Reborn": In the footsteps of "Mass Effect"
A big step for Owlcat: the studio known for CRPGs has dared to create a third-person RPG with "The Expanse Osiris Reborn". The role model is obvious.
(Image: Owlcat Games)
The sections in zero gravity are the most convincing: Heise online was able to see an early version of the Owlcat RPG "The Expanse: Osiris Reborn" at Gamescom. It is the first role-playing game from the RPG specialist ("Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader", "Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous") that is not played from an isometric perspective. As you can see, the transition is not easy. But "Osiris Reborn" seems to have its heart in the right place.
Owlcat makes no secret of the great role model: "Osiris Reborn" emulates the "Mass Effect" games. For example, there are the gun battles, which are played from a shoulder perspective and are geared towards diving into cover. You primarily control the main character, but can also roughly direct up to two companions. The basic game structure also seems to be very similar to "Mass Effect": The game consists of several hubs from which you can select missions, a bit like "Mass Effect" parts 2 and 3. There are no completely open game worlds.
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Show, don't tell
The complexity of such a game is significantly higher than in previous Owlcat games, explains game designer Yuliy Chernenko. A particular challenge: "It's no longer enough to simply describe everything. We now also have to show it."
In the early version, this still works somewhat unevenly: animations, facial expressions and gestures of the characters shown still seem a little wooden. In the mission shown, the main character and his twin brother are on a space station that is being attacked by protogen. This is a highly frightening situation, but the drama is still somewhat lost in the stiff movements and awkward faces. Owlcat still needs to make improvements here. There is still time: the studio has not yet announced a release date, but we are guessing 2027 rather than 2026.
Owlcat is no longer a small team: 180 people are working on "Osiris Reborn" in-house alone, and the role-playing game also employs around 100 external staff. In order to make the leap to a 3D game, veterans of games such as "Halo" and "Cyberpunk 2077" have also been brought on board.
Sensible self-restraint
"Osiris Reborn" was created using Unreal Engine 5 and looks good graphically, with the destruction effects being particularly impressive. Because Owlcat is allowed to use the license from both the books and the Amazon series, the designs already look familiar and convincing. Even some of the actors from the series are set to make an appearance in the game. The events from the books and the Amazon series are to be illuminated from an alternative perspective.
(Image:Â Owlcat Games)
Owlcat has at least limited the scope so as not to go completely crazy with its ambitions: In contrast to the studio's previous titles, all of which can eat up over 100 hours, "The Expanse: Osiris Reborn" should only take 20 to 30 hours to complete. The features have also been limited to the essentials: there are no controllable space battles or flights through space. That's a shame, but it also makes sense. In this way, Owlcat can prevent the game from getting completely out of hand. And in "Mass Effect" you couldn't control the Normandy directly either.
A section in zero gravity shows that "The Expanse: Osirirs Reborn" has potential: while fleeing from Protogen, the main character and his twin brother also land on the space station, where the atmosphere suddenly changes: Alarm noise gives way to the muffled silence of space, animations become slower, battles more intense as enemy corpses now float theatrically through the weightlessness. Owlcat is particularly proud of its physical realism. Such sections are intended as a highlight – and this already seems to be working very well.
(dahe)
