The Expanse: Osiris Reborn hands-on: Owlcat's RPG nails the grounded sci-fi feel

Owlcat Games' The Expanse: Osiris Reborn got a 90-minute hands-on at Gamescom, and the PS5 RPG is shaping up to be exactly what fans of the TV show and book series have been hoping for. Game Design Director Leonid Rastorguev walked the previewer through a demo set on Ganymede.

The demo drops you into an infiltration mission on Ganymede Station, playing as one of a pair of twins hunting down a suspicious package. The level design is semi-open — cargo bays, worker areas, labs — and the environmental detail sells the grounded sci-fi tone the franchise is known for. One standout design choice: when skill checks appear, the game deliberately hides whether your stats are high enough to pass them. Owlcat wants those moments to feel like a genuine gamble, not a math problem. The demo also shifts gears dramatically when a Protomolecule creature gets loose, triggering a tense linear chase sequence that mixes cutscenes and gameplay to underline just how dangerous the thing is. Rastorguev noted the team put serious work into making each location feel historically layered — something lore-focused players will likely appreciate.

Owlcat is best known for Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, as well as Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader — all deep, systems-heavy CRPGs. Taking on The Expanse is a natural fit: the IP's commitment to hard science and political realism maps well onto the kind of detailed world-building Owlcat does best. The Expanse as a franchise spans nine novels by James S.A. Corey and a six-season Amazon Prime Video series that ran until 2022, building a devoted fanbase hungry for more content set in that universe.

No release date has been confirmed yet, but the Gamescom demo suggests the game is far enough along to make a strong first impression. If Owlcat can maintain that environmental detail and the tension of the Protomolecule sequence across a full RPG, Osiris Reborn could be a serious contender for fans of both the source material and the genre.