The Summer Game Fest is always a mixed bag-sometimes you get burst pipe leaks, sometimes you find an announcement that makes you actually stop, rewind, and watch the trailer again. That’s what happened when Owlcat Games dropped the curtain on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn at this year’s Future Games Show. As someone who has argued for years that sci-fi RPGs deserve to sit comfortably beside their grimdark-fantasy counterparts, this news made me sit up for two reasons: Owlcat’s RPG pedigree, and the weighty IP of The Expanse itself.
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Owlcat Games |
| Release Date | TBA |
| Genres | Action RPG, Sci-Fi, Narrative Adventure |
| Platforms | PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S |
Let’s be honest: licensed TV and movie RPGs are usually a minefield. For every Knights of the Old Republic, there are a dozen games you remember for the wrong reasons. But this isn’t a throwaway tie-in—it’s Owlcat, a developer that’s consistently delivered dense, tactical, and lore-obsessed RPGs. They may not be a household name to mainstream console gamers, but if you played Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, you know Owlcat means business when it comes to narrative depth and player agency. The real eyebrow-raiser here is the significant genre pivot: no isometric camera this time. We’re talking fully 3D, over-the-shoulder action-RPG mechanics with the kind of “CGI cinematic” energy that tries to go toe-to-toe with the big BioWare classics.
First impressions from the debut trailer spark legitimate curiosity: polished visuals, big stakes (rebellion, starships, and betrayals), and—crucially—a gameplay loop that looks fast, not turn-based. That automatically sets it apart from the Baldur’s Gate 3 imitators, and puts it on a collision course with Mass Effect. The Owlcat team even openly cites Mass Effect 1 as a core inspiration, particularly in terms of branching narratives and the balance of action and dialogue. If they nail that mix, and pull off meaningful player choice in this universe, it could finally give sci-fi RPG fans something fresh after the genre fatigue of post-Starfield disappointment and the long drought since BioWare’s heyday.
Borrowing the political and moral messiness of The Expanse TV series is a bold call. The show (and novels) thrive on ambiguity: nobody is totally good, and factional conflicts are intensely personal. The best RPGs thrive in this territory. Owlcat has proven they can handle complex party dynamics in their past work, but the studio isn’t known for high-octane, real-time action. Their willingness to leave the comfort zone of top-down gameplay and aim for mainstream cinematic flair is risky, but exciting—if they stick the landing.
One red flag: there’s no mention of a release window, and only next-gen hardware is named. Owlcat’s recent games have sometimes been buggy at launch and have required a few patches to live up to their promise. Is their reach exceeding their grasp with this technical leap? And, bluntly, will they be able to make the moment-to-moment third-person combat feel as meaty as the best in the genre, or will it play like a serviceable but forgettable sidestep from their strengths?
If you’ve been burned by shallow licensed games before, skepticism is justified. But The Expanse: Osiris Reborn lands at a time when the appetite for ambitious sci-fi stories is seriously underfed. Starfield didn’t scratch the deep narrative itch for a lot of us, and Mass Effect is still just a promise on the horizon. An Expanse RPG with genuine, impactful dialogue choices and faction interplay, made by a dev with real RPG chops? That’s worth getting interested in.
Don’t expect this to be a fast-follow “action blockbuster”—the lack of a release window suggests Owlcat is playing the long game. Still, if you want an RPG where your choices might actually matter (and not just which color explosion you pick), this should be on your watchlist. Sci-fi settings deserve nuance, and The Expanse has a track record of delivering it. Whether Owlcat can capture that in an action RPG shell—well, that’s the question that’ll keep the true RPG heads checking for updates.
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn looks like Owlcat’s most ambitious swing yet—a narrative-rich, action-heavy RPG borrowing the best ideas from Baldur’s Gate 3 and Mass Effect, transplanted into one of modern sci-fi’s most complex universes. It could be the next big thing for fans of meaningful RPG storytelling…if the devs can stick the landing. There’s no release date, so temper the hype, but keep a close eye if you crave more than just laser pew-pew from your sci-fi adventures.