The Expanse: Osiris Reborn

Overview

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a third-person action RPG set in the universe of The Expanse, the bestselling science fiction book series by James S.A. Corey. Developed and published by Owlcat Games in partnership with Alcon Interactive Group (which holds the rights to The Expanse IP), the game puts players in the boots of a Pinkwater Security mercenary caught up in a conspiracy that stretches across the entire solar system. The title was officially announced on June 7, 2025 during the Future Games Show, marking the first time Owlcat publicly revealed the project after years of secretive development.

The game is being built in Unreal Engine 5, making full use of Nanite for detailed geometry streaming and Lumen for real-time global illumination. This marks a major departure for Owlcat Games, a studio previously known for top-down CRPGs like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Those titles were built in Unity; Osiris Reborn required the entire technical team to learn a new engine from scratch. CTO Alexey Drobyshevsky led the engine transition, which included rebuilding Owlcat's proprietary "etude system" (a narrative state-tracking tool originally created for the Pathfinder games) from the ground up in UE5.

At its core, Osiris Reborn is a singleplayer experience with no multiplayer or co-op component. The main story runs approximately 20 to 30 hours, with side content pushing total playtime to 30 to 40 hours depending on how thoroughly players explore the solar system. This makes it Owlcat's shortest RPG by a wide margin; Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous regularly ran past 100 hours, and Rogue Trader clocked in around 80. The shorter runtime was a deliberate design choice, not a compromise. Creative Director Alexander Mishulin has said the team wanted every hour to feel dense and purposeful rather than padding the experience.

Design inspirations span a wide range. The developers have cited Mass Effect for companion dynamics and hub-ship design, Gears of War and The Division for cover-based shooting feel, Persona and Final Fantasy for social systems and downtime structure, Soulslike games for open build philosophy, and The Last of Us and Uncharted for cinematic pacing and environmental storytelling. That is a broad list, but the team has been clear that these are reference points for specific systems rather than an attempt to replicate any single game.

Key Details

Development History

Development on Osiris Reborn started in 2021, with nearly a full year spent on prototyping before full production began. During that prototyping phase the team built six separate combat prototypes, each exploring a different approach to the third-person shooting that would become the game's foundation. The final combat model was selected after extensive internal playtesting and iteration. This kind of extended prototyping period is unusual for mid-sized studios but reflects Owlcat's recognition that they were entering unfamiliar territory.

The team working on Osiris Reborn is three to four times larger than any previous Owlcat project, with over 280 people dedicated to the game. The studio as a whole has grown to more than 450 employees, a massive increase from the roughly 100-person teams that shipped the Pathfinder titles. To staff the project, Owlcat hired aggressively across the industry, including developers from CD Projekt Red who brought experience with third-person action games and cinematic presentation. The studio also brought on NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao as a consultant for the zero-gravity systems.

Console-First Development

Unlike Owlcat's previous projects, which were designed primarily for PC and later ported to consoles, Osiris Reborn was built with consoles in mind from the start. The studio has described the development philosophy as "console-first," meaning controller input, performance targets, and UI layout were designed for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S before being adapted for mouse and keyboard. This approach influenced everything from the combat pacing to the camera positioning to the size of text on screen. The team wanted the game to feel native on a controller, not like a PC game awkwardly remapped to a gamepad.

Gamescom 2025 Demo

At Gamescom 2025, Owlcat presented a behind-closed-doors demo to press and content creators. The build was described as pre-alpha, featuring early combat encounters and a walkthrough of one of the game's space stations. Reception was generally positive, with journalists noting the attention to zero-gravity physics and the fidelity of the station interiors. Several previews highlighted the destruction system, where panels flew off walls, ceilings buckled, and cover disintegrated under sustained fire. The demo also showed companion commands in action, with the player directing squadmates to target specific enemies and exploit structural weaknesses in the environment.

Alcon Interactive Group

Alcon Interactive Group was founded in 2016 by Scott Parish and Dan Offner as the video game division of Alcon Entertainment, the film and television production company. Alcon holds the interactive rights to The Expanse IP and has previously published Telltale's The Expanse: A Telltale Series (2023) as well as Blade Runner titles. For Osiris Reborn, Alcon approves major story beats to ensure consistency with the broader Expanse canon, but Owlcat retains creative control over gameplay systems and moment-to-moment design decisions.

Authenticity and Consultation

To ground the game's depiction of space travel and zero-gravity environments in reality, Owlcat brought on NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao as a consultant. Chiao, who spent over 229 days in space across four missions, provided feedback on movement in zero-G, what breathing feels like in a spacesuit, the mechanics of eating in microgravity, pressure changes during EVAs, and the psychology of spacewalks. One detail Chiao shared that made it into the game's environmental design: crew members in prolonged zero-G crave spicy food because reduced blood flow to the head dulls the sense of taste.

The game also prioritizes book canon over TV show depictions where the two diverge. Belter characters use Creole language and unique gestures (hand signals, body language adapted for low-gravity living) that are described in detail in the novels but were only partially represented on screen. Owlcat worked to bring these cultural details into NPC dialogue and animation.

Music

The main theme was composed by Pawel Perepelica, who also composed the scores for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The theme was publicly revealed on November 7, 2025. A digital version of the full original soundtrack is included in the Miller's Pack and Collector's Edition pre-order tiers.

Mature Content

Osiris Reborn does not shy away from the grittier aspects of The Expanse setting. The game includes depictions of blood and violence, slavery (particularly the exploitation of Belters), and textual references to abuse. These themes are handled as part of the broader political and social commentary that the source material is known for, rather than as gratuitous content. The Expanse has always been a setting where humanity's worst impulses follow it into space, and Owlcat leans into that tone.

Xbox Game Pass and Platform Availability

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn will be available day one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The title is also confirmed as an Xbox Play Anywhere title, meaning a single digital purchase grants access on both Xbox consoles and Windows PC. The game remains available for purchase on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, and PlayStation 5 for players who prefer to buy outright.

The Game Pass inclusion was announced at the Xbox Partner Preview on March 26, 2026. For Game Pass subscribers, this represents one of the most notable day-one additions in the service, given the pedigree of both the IP and the development studio. The Play Anywhere designation also means save data syncs between Xbox and PC, allowing players to continue their campaign across devices.

Closed Beta

A closed beta begins on April 22, 2026. Access is granted to purchasers of the Miller's Pack and Collector's Edition through the Owlcat Games website. The beta features a self-contained mission set on Pinkwater Station, a spin station not featured in the original books or TV show. Full details on scope and content are covered in the Closed Beta article.

TV Series Cast Involvement

Game Design Director Leonid Rastorguev confirmed that some actors from the 2015 Expanse TV series will reprise their roles through voice acting and digital scanning. No specific actors have been officially named as of the March 2026 reveal. James Holden appears in the game via broadcast message, though this footage is recreated without Steven Strait's original voice work.

Title Meaning

The subtitle "Osiris Reborn" likely references the Osiris, a Protogen stealth frigate of the Amun-Ra class that appears in the books and TV show. In the source material, the Osiris is disabled by the Rocinante near Thoth Station during events concurrent with the game's timeline. The connection between the game's title and this specific ship has not been officially confirmed, but the naming convention (Amun-Ra class ships named after Egyptian mythology) and the Protogen ties make it a strong inference.

The Game at a Glance

At its highest level, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a single-player third-person cover-based action RPG set in the Expanse universe, developed and published by Owlcat Games on Unreal Engine 5. The game is targeting a 2027 release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store), with a day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass. The closed-beta build ships in English, Spanish, French, Russian, simplified Chinese, and German, and those six languages are the confirmed launch-day languages for the full release.

Story Setup

The game tells an original story threaded through events from roughly the first two Expanse novels and about the first two-and-a-half to three seasons of the television adaptation, touching known beats like the Eros incident from a new perspective. The player is a Pinkwater Security mercenary and one of a pair of twins. The opening of the campaign picks up in the aftermath of the Eros incident: the twins escape aboard a ship they took from the attacking forces and return to Pinkwater Four Station to debrief their boss, Oscar O'Connell, before Protogen catches up to retrieve the stolen ship and the twins themselves. For the full narrative backdrop, the characters involved, and the longer arc the game is building toward, see story and setting.

Core Systems at a Glance

The preview build exposes the systems that define the moment-to-moment game. Each point below is expanded in its own dedicated article.

• Cover-based third-person combat with a tactical slow-motion pause used to line up shots, queue squad orders, or cycle gadgets. See combat and gameplay.

• Crew-level XP with four combat skill trees (Shooter, Gadget, Survivalist, and the leader-only Leader tree). Each level-up rewards points to the player and to each companion for their own trees.

• Six social and exploration skills: Persuasion, Athletics, Cyber Sabotage, Perception, Analysis, and Engineering. Companion scores stack with the player's during skill checks. See character creation and progression.

• Three origins (Earther, Belter, and Martian) with per-origin passive bonuses. The beta exposes Earther and Belter; Martian unlocks in the full release.

• Seven companions across the full campaign, with romance options and personal companion quests. Only J and Zafar appear in the closed-beta mission. For the roster, see companions.

• Five weapon categories (handguns, submachine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles) loaded across two weapon slots (one rifle-sized primary, one hip sidearm). No rarity tiers; every weapon is unique and fully upgradeable. See weapons and equipment.

• Three gadget slots and four subsystem slots on the player. Each companion carries one signature gadget plus one free gadget slot, and three subsystem slots (one signature). Gadgets span shoulder, program, and helmet types; subsystems include Mechanical and Digital variants tied to armor, reload speed, ability damage, and cooldown stats.

• Destructible cover everywhere and EVA combat sequences that use magnetic boots to anchor the player to station exteriors. See zero-gravity mechanics.

• Deep choice and consequence with no morality meter. Dialogue and quest outcomes branch on skill checks and player decisions rather than a good-versus-evil slider. See choices and consequences.

Release Scope and Closed Beta

The closed beta opened in April 2026 as a founder reward for the Miller's Pack and Collector's Edition pre-order tiers. The beta content is one story mission set on Pinkwater Four Station, playable in roughly one to two-and-a-half hours depending on dialogue coverage and skill-check paths, with Normal and Hard difficulty settings available. The full game is planned to reach destinations across the solar system, including Ceres Station, Ganymede, Mars, Luna, and several asteroid-belt bunker complexes that the developers have highlighted as future story hubs. For the broader list of confirmed destinations, see locations.

Editions and Pricing

Four purchasable tiers were available during the closed-beta window. Beta access is limited to the top two tiers. For the full contents of each pack, see pre-order editions.

How This Article Fits the Wiki

This page is the broad-strokes introduction to the game. Dedicated articles cover each subsystem in depth. For the developer and the studio's background, see Owlcat Games. For the player's ship and crew, see the Gemini. For the Expanse setting itself, see the Expanse universe. The remaining articles cover individual companions, factions, locations, and gameplay systems as separate pages.