The Expanse: Osiris Reborn turns the best Mass Effect mission into an entire game

I played an hour of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn at Gamescom, and despite doing it in a sweltering room with a dev judging me for every death, I came away pretty impressed. It deserves to stand on its own merits, but unfortunately I am about to talk about Mass Effect quite a lot—it's hard not to.

Like the BioWare of old, Owlcat is an isometric CRPG developer now trying its hand at a cinematic third-person RPG, which turns into a cover-heavy squad-based shooter when the guns come out. Mass Effect, then, is an obvious point of comparison.

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

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 was worried Owlcat couldn't pull off Mass Effect-style cinematic action in its big new RPG, but after an hour of blowing stuff up in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, I'm feeling very reassured," Robin said back then. And I'm feeling the same way.

Mass Effect took three games to get its shooting up to snuff, but The Expanse might have nailed it on the first go. It's more responsive, varied, and you can order your teammates to pull off some explosively neat tricks. They're called exploits, and depending on who you have in your three-person squad, you'll see different parts of the environment highlighted in red—these are places where your pals can do their thing.

Double trouble

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

J, my identical twin who serves as the first companion, seems to mostly enjoy blowing things up. Usually that means cover. I was fighting Protogen goons—the villainous Earth corporation—and took every opportunity to stop them from cowardly hiding behind walls. But I also used J to take out bridges, a lift and other objects, with each instance rewarding me with a spectacular explosion and some dead foes.

A quick stun, a bullet in the head, job done.

Another companion sows chaos with their technical knowledge. If there are wires running underneath the floor in a combat area, they can electrify the floor and swiftly take out a bunch of enemies.

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Not that I needed any help electrocuting people. I was playing as the engineer class, which allowed me to deploy turrets and drones. Midway through the demo, I got access to a new type of drone that could stun foes, which was a real game-changer when I started encountering dudes with flamethrowers that seemed to ignore cover. A quick stun, a bullet in the head, job done.

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

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

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

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.

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

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

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

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.

(Image credit: Owlcat Games)

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.