Owlcat Games Brings Real Space Science To The Expanse: Osiris Reborn

Owlcat Games is best known for deep, isometric role playing games, but its next project is boldly stepping out of that comfort zone and straight into vacuum. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a fully fledged third person action RPG set in the universe of the acclaimed sci fi series, and it marks the studio’s first real attempt at cinematic, over the shoulder combat and traversal. First revealed during Summer Game Fest, the game resurfaced at the Golden Joystick Awards with a fresh developer diary that does more than just show pretty shots of a spaceship interior. It lays out how Owlcat is trying to build a believable, grounded depiction of life and danger in orbit, without sacrificing the responsiveness and spectacle players expect from a modern action RPG.

A key part of that ambition is the decision to anchor the project in real spaceflight experience.

Rather than just guessing how zero gravity might feel or cribbing from other games, Owlcat brought in former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander Leroy Chiao as a consultant. His role is not to nitpick every frame, but to help the team understand how people truly work, move, and survive in space. What does a spacewalk actually involve, step by step. How do tiny details like tool placement, safety checks, and body posture change when you are hanging above Earth with nothing but a suit between you and the void. Those insights then feed into design decisions, shaping everything from animation to mission structure.

However, there is always a tension between realism and fun. Chiao’s experience makes it very clear that operating outside a spacecraft is slow, meticulous, and constrained by strict procedures. In reality, astronauts are secured by tethers and constantly monitoring their connection to the ship. Translate that one to one into a video game and you get the kind of fussy micromanagement that quickly becomes more chore than challenge. Owlcat knew that players do not want to babysit a digital lifeline every time they step outside an airlock, no matter how accurate it might be. So the studio, together with Chiao, started looking for believable compromises that keep the feel of danger while streamlining the experience.

One of the clearest examples of this approach is how the game handles movement on the hull. Instead of forcing players to wrestle with a visible tether at all times, Owlcat uses magnetized boots as a design pillar. It is not pure science fiction, but it builds on real ideas about magnetic adherence while providing a cleaner, more readable way of getting around. Characters can stride along the ship’s surface with a sense of weight and purpose, which helps third person camera framing and combat readability, yet that constant astronaut nightmare of drifting off into deep space has not been erased. The possibility of detaching and being flung away still exists as a dramatic threat, just deployed at specific moments where it serves tension and story rather than becoming an everyday annoyance.

The latest developer diary focuses heavily on that mix of mood and mechanics. Much of the footage is intentionally cinematic, tracking characters as they move through narrow corridors, busy crew areas, and panoramic observation decks. You get to see how the ship is laid out, how the camera follows the protagonist, and how conversations and quieter scenes are framed to feel more like a prestige television drama than a traditional isometric dungeon crawl. Nestled between those atmospheric shots is a brief but telling glimpse of third person cover gunplay in microgravity. It hints at firefights where you snap to cover, return fire, and use the environment around the hull or interior bulkheads while still dealing with the disorienting realities of space.

Concrete details about broader systems, character builds, or branching storylines are still being kept close to the chest, but Owlcat’s message is already clear. The team wants The Expanse: Osiris Reborn to be a spacefaring action RPG that respects real science while staying approachable for players who are not hardcore sim fans. PC and console players can already add the game to their wishlist, yet the studio is not tying itself to a specific launch window. At the moment, everything points to a project that will need time to mature, and expectations should be set accordingly: it does not look likely to land in 2026.

That longer runway gives Owlcat room to refine the blend of science and spectacle, and it gives fans more opportunities to peek behind the scenes. For anyone hungry for extra context, there is already an in depth Wccftech interview with the developers from Gamescom 2025, where they discuss the tone of the story, their respect for The Expanse as a setting, and how they are building a new kind of adventure rather than simply reskinning their previous work. If the final game can truly fuse Chiao’s real world experience with Owlcat’s talent for intricate role playing systems, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn could end up setting a new standard for how licensed sci fi and hard science coexist in an accessible, character driven RPG.