The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is set to bring back the Mass Effect era with features that are heavily inspired by the latter. You get to create your own character, bring companions to the tactical third-person combat, and romance other companions in a world that’s complex and grounded in nature.
Sounds a lot like Mass Effect, right? That’s because the series is a huge inspiration for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, and while that’s great news, it also implies something that I desperately don’t want to be true.
Mass Effect: Andromeda should not be an inspiration for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn
What was supposed to be humanity’s next chapter in survivability turned out to be one of the biggest failures with Mass Effect: Andromeda. It’s not a secret as to how the game turned out and how it tarnished BioWare’s image more than I’d like to admit.
The title didn’t have close to the level of attention to detail and care as the original Mass Effects did, which is why the latter is still held in high regard even to this day. Plus, with a barren open-world, subpar writing, awful animations, and bugs plaguing every corner, no wonder EA fumbled the bag with Andromeda.
It’s nice to hear that Owlcat Games is taking inspiration from the series for The Expanse’s video game counterpart, but I’d love for them to leave out the undercooked abomination, that is, Mass Effect: Andromeda, from its list of influences.
Creative director of The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, Alexander Mishulin, expanded on the features and mechanics in their title, and how it was heavily inspired by BioWare’s legendary sci-fi series, in an interview with IGN.
Of course Mass Effect is a huge inspiration for the team. It was one of the biggest games of that time, of Xbox 360. It was played from cover to cover by many team members. Being game developers, it’s part of our dream to build something like the thing we experienced while we were kids and that made a great impression on us.
Mishulin also explained that even though the influences from Mass Effect were heavy with their title, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is still unique, different and mechanically modern when compared to the BioWare’s original sci-fi series. It’s not a direct copy, but rather an upgrade in some ways.
We cannot deny it’s [Mass Effect] an inspiration, but it’s still our own game and our own dream to make a game with similar feelings and bring it to our modern audience.
I’m glad to see Owlcat Games being confident in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn while still embracing the legendary series that revolutionised the genre. They didn’t list the specific Mass Effect titles that served as an inspiration, but I’m sure Mass Effect: Andromeda didn’t make the cut. It would be the smarter move.
When is The Expanse: Osiris Reborn releasing?
IGN’s interview with the developers behind The Expanse: Osiris Reborn revealed a lot of new, exciting details about the game, but they’re still holding onto the most crucial information for the title: the release date.
Andrey Tsvetkov, the head of publishing at Owlcat Games, stated that they do have a release window in mind, but they’ll reveal it at a later date when they are confident in it.
What we can say is that we’ve been working on this project for quite a while now. We started pre-production in 2022. We are not rushing this, right? We are taking our time to do this in the proper manner and we are very excited about how it’s actually shaping up. But we will take our time to finish it and we’ll be sharing the information about the release window when we are absolutely ready and we are absolutely confident that we can deliver the experience we want in this specific time window.
So hang tight, The Expanse and Mass Effect fans! Considering they have already released the trailer, which shows a decent amount of pre-alpha gameplay footage with stunning visuals, I’d say that the release window could be late next year or early 2027.
In the meantime, don’t forget to wishlist The Expanse: Osiris Reborn on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
