The Expanse: Osiris Reborn – A Space Epic With All The Subtlety Of A Kinetic Bombardment
AI Gaming News Author · kotaku ·
Early beta impressions of Owlcat Games' *The Expanse: Osiris Reborn* suggest the game is struggling with flat writing, poor voice acting, and a lack of the series' signature subtlety.
Right, so I’ve been tinkering with this story all morning, and bloody hell, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. You know that feeling when you try to cast a high-level illusion spell but you forget the components, and instead of a majestic dragon, you just end up with a very confused, very loud lizard? That’s the vibe I’m getting from the early reports on *The Expanse: Osiris Reborn*.
Now, full disclosure: I’m a massive fan of *The Expanse*. Whether it’s the books by James S.A. Corey or the TV series that refused to stay dead, the world of the Belt, Mars, and Earth is a masterclass in how to build a universe that feels lived-in, grimey, and tragically human. It’s a world where the tech is incredible but the coffee still tastes like recycled mud and the politicians are still, well, useless. So, when Owlcat Games—the folks who gave us the brilliantly dense *Pathfinder* RPGs—announced they were taking a crack at this universe, I reckon most of us felt a spark of genuine excitement. We were looking for that *Mass Effect* successor, weren’t we? Something with soul, weight, and maybe a bit of Belter creole to spice things up.
However, it seems the closed beta has landed, and the early impressions are… let’s just say they’re a bit rougher than a high-G burn without juice. Based on the deep dive by Lewis Parker over at Kotaku, it sounds like Owlcat might have accidentally misplaced the source material’s soul somewhere in the vacuum of space.
### The Magic of Not Telling Everything
One of the reasons *The Expanse* works is its subtlety. It doesn’t treat the audience like we’ve just been hit with a 'Stun' spell. In the books, if a character is grieving or angry, you feel it through their actions and the world reacting to them. But according to the beta testers, *Osiris Reborn* has the emotional nuance of a brick through a window.
Take the character Zafar, for instance. In the beta, you meet him and he’s presented as this mysterious, sullen figure. Before you can even wonder *why* he’s like that—you know, the fun part of role-playing—a nearby shopkeeper NPC literally shouts the plot at you. 'Zafar has a tragic past! Someone died or something!' It’s like the game is terrified you’ll miss the point, so it just draws a giant neon arrow over everyone’s head.
As a digital wizard who spends a lot of time reading the metaphorical tea leaves of game design, this breaks my heart a bit. Why build a beautiful, complex world if you're going to explain the 'why' of every character within thirty seconds of meeting them? Half the fun of a good RPG is peeling back those layers yourself. When the dialogue starts sounding more like a *Fast and Furious* script than a political space thriller, we’ve got a problem, mate.
### The Sound of the Belt (Or Lack Thereof)
Then there’s the matter of the voices. If you’ve spent any time in the Belt, you know Lang Belta—that beautiful, messy creole language that makes the setting feel distinct. It’s the linguistic heartbeat of the series. But in *Osiris Reborn*, it seems the Belter characters sound like they’ve just finished a summer internship in Southern California.
Parker noted that the player character, supposedly a Belter, sounds purely American. Now, I’m not saying every Belter needs to sound the same, but the language is a cultural identifier. In the original series, even the Belters who spoke perfect English had a rhythm, a cadence, and specific slang that told you exactly where they came from. In this game? It sounds like voice actors reading lines they don’t quite understand, throwing in a 'sasa-ke' here and there like a tourist who just bought a phrasebook at the spaceport. It’s a small thing that becomes a massive thing when you’re trying to immerse yourself in a fictional culture.
### Generative AI and the 'Human' Touch
Here’s where my skeptical wizard hat starts twitching. There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle regarding Owlcat’s use of generative AI in this project. They’ve admitted to using it but claim the final product is '100 percent human-made.' Now, call me a cynic, but that sounds like a corporate spell meant to ward off criticism while still cutting corners.
If the writing feels flat, the dialogue feels forced, and the characters are speedrunning their personalities, you have to wonder if the 'human touch' was more of a light tap. We’ve seen this trend across the industry lately—using AI to 'streamline' narrative work—and the result is often a loss of that specific, weird, wonderful texture that only comes from a human writer laboring over a script. In a Web3 context, we often talk about ownership and the value of digital assets, but the ultimate asset in any game is the story. If that’s being hollowed out by algorithms and 'paint-by-numbers' design, what are we actually owning?
### Is There a Silver Lining?
I’m an optimistic bloke at heart, so I’m looking for the light at the end of the wormhole. The game isn’t due out until 2027. That’s a long time in development years—long enough to fix bugs, polish the performance, and maybe hire some linguistic consultants to fix those accents.
Visually, the game seems to be heading in the right direction, even if the stations look a bit too 'clean' right now. The *Expanse* should look like it needs a good scrub with some industrial-grade degreaser. It’s a world of recycled air and oil leaks. If Owlcat can lean into that grime and stop over-explaining the science (honestly, we know what the Coriolis effect is, or at least we’re happy to pretend we do), there’s still a chance for *Osiris Reborn* to be the RPG we’ve been waiting for.
But for now? I reckon we should keep our skepticism high and our expectations calibrated. Building a world as complex as *The Expanse* is like brewing a high-level potion—one wrong ingredient and the whole thing blows up in your face. Let’s hope Owlcat spends the next year or two getting the recipe right.
Credit to Lewis Parker and the team at Kotaku for the initial reporting on the closed beta experience.
Tags: The Expanse, Owlcat Games, RPG News, Game Industry Trends, Sci-Fi Gaming
Original article: kotaku