Owlcat Games
Owlcat Games is a video game development studio founded in 2016. Before The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, the studio built its reputation on complex, narrative-rich CRPGs (computer role-playing games) that earned a dedicated fanbase and strong critical reception. Osiris Reborn represents a major strategic shift for the studio: their first action RPG, their first console-first title, and their first game built on Unreal Engine 5.
Studio History and Previous Titles
Title | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Pathfinder: Kingmaker | 2018 | The studio's debut title. An isometric CRPG based on the Pathfinder tabletop RPG. Featured a unique kingdom management system alongside traditional party-based combat. Launched in a rough state but was significantly improved through post-launch patches. |
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous | 2021 | The sequel to Kingmaker and the game that established Owlcat as a top-tier CRPG developer. Sold over one million copies. Featured a mythic progression system that let players ascend to extraordinary power levels. Widely regarded as one of the best CRPGs of its generation. |
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader | 2023 | Owlcat's first game set outside the Pathfinder universe. A CRPG set in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Expanded the studio's audience beyond the Pathfinder fanbase and demonstrated their ability to work with established IPs from other companies. |
Each successive title showed growth in scope, polish, and commercial performance. Pathfinder: Kingmaker was a promising but rough debut. Wrath of the Righteous was a major success both critically and commercially, crossing the one-million-copies-sold threshold. Rogue Trader expanded the studio's reach into one of the largest IP universes in gaming.
The Transition to Action RPG
The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a departure from everything Owlcat has made before. The studio's three previous titles were all isometric CRPGs with party-based combat, deep character builds, and hundreds of hours of content. Osiris Reborn is a third-person action RPG with real-time cover-based combat, console-first design, and a 20-to-30-hour main story. The genres share some DNA (narrative choice, character progression, companion management) but the moment-to-moment gameplay is fundamentally different.
This transition required a massive expansion of the studio's capabilities. The team working on Osiris Reborn is reportedly three to four times larger than any previous Owlcat project. The studio has over 450 employees, a significant increase from the teams that shipped Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous.
Key Personnel
Name | Role | Background |
|---|---|---|
Alexander Mishulin | Creative Director | Leads the creative vision for Osiris Reborn. Has been with Owlcat through its previous titles and is responsible for ensuring the game's story, world, and tone are faithful to The Expanse. |
Leonid Rastorguev | Game Design Director | Oversees the game's mechanics, systems, and progression design. Responsible for translating Owlcat's CRPG design sensibilities into the action RPG format. |
Hiring and Team Growth
To build a game in a genre they had never worked in before, Owlcat invested heavily in hiring experienced developers from other studios. Notably, the studio brought on developers from CD Projekt Red, the studio behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. These hires brought experience with third-person action games, open-world design, and the kind of cinematic presentation that Owlcat had not previously attempted.
The hiring push was not limited to CD Projekt Red alumni. The studio recruited broadly across the industry, looking for developers with experience in third-person shooters, console development, and Unreal Engine 5. Building a team that could handle console-first development in UE5 was a prerequisite for the kind of game Owlcat wanted to make.
Engine Transition
Owlcat's previous titles were built on the Unity engine. The switch to Unreal Engine 5 for Osiris Reborn was driven by the demands of the project. UE5's Nanite (virtualized geometry) and Lumen (global illumination) technologies enable the level of visual fidelity that a modern third-person action game requires. The transition involved a learning curve for the studio, but it also opened up capabilities that would have been difficult or impossible to achieve in their previous engine.
The zero-gravity mechanics required significant engine modifications. UE5's physics and character movement systems assume a consistent gravity direction, and rewriting those systems to support full six-degrees-of-freedom movement in zero-g was one of the most technically demanding aspects of development.
Partnership with Alcon Interactive Group
The Expanse IP is owned by Alcon Entertainment (through its Alcon Interactive Group division), which also produced The Expanse television series. Owlcat's partnership with Alcon gives the studio access to the IP, its lore bible, and connections to the creative talent behind the show. Some TV show actors are reprising their roles in the game, though specific names have not been disclosed.
This is the second video game based on The Expanse. Telltale Games released The Expanse: A Telltale Series in 2023, an episodic narrative adventure game. Osiris Reborn is a very different kind of game: a full-scale action RPG rather than a point-and-click adventure.
Development Timeline
The game was officially announced on June 7, 2025 at the Future Games Show. A behind-closed-doors demo was shown to press at Gamescom 2025, with the build described as pre-alpha. The release window is 2026, with no specific date confirmed. Both the Miller's Pack and Collector's Edition pre-orders include beta access, suggesting a beta period will occur before the final release.
For a studio that shipped three CRPGs in five years (2018-2023), the timeline for Osiris Reborn reflects the larger team size and more ambitious scope. Moving to a new engine, a new genre, and a new platform paradigm (console-first) while scaling the team to over 450 people is a substantial organizational challenge on top of the game development itself.