When Owlcat announced The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, I was excited. Not because I’m necessarily a fan of the television series, but because I’m excited to see the team at Owlcat leave its comfort zone and develop something other than a CRPG.
My first thought when I saw the trailer for Osiris Reborn was simply ‘Mass Effect’. It’s a third-person, sci-fi action RPG developed by a studio known for quality, though Osiris Reborn appears to be a step-up in production value for Owlcat.
It would appear my first impression wasn’t far from the truth, as, in an interview withPolygon, creative director Alexander Mishulin revealed that Mass Effect is an inspiration for Osiris Reborn.
Mass Effect Inspired Osiris Reborn
“First of all, [we feel] humbled by the comparisons,” Mishulin said. “Mass Effect is a great inspiration for us because it’s an iconic game for [the] Xbox 360 generation, and a lot of team members played it in their youth. We’re inspired by it. Some [people] got into the industry of making games because they saw [Mass Effect] and were inspired and decided for themselves they want to do something similar, or just make games, as a living. It would be impossible for us to deny Mass Effect had a lot of impact on us as game developers.”
However, Owlcat isn’t necessarily trying to create something similar to Mass Effect. The studio has honed its own style over the years and will be bringing the Owlcat touch to Osiris Reborn.
“It’s an [Owlcat game] and it’s different [from Mass Effect] in many ways,” Mishulin continued. “First of all, we make our story a little bit differently. We’re making more choices and consequences, and we want to make sure that this game still has a lot of them, and [a lot of agency].”
Osiris Reborn won’t have binary choices between good and evil, a system that Mass Effect embraced. Rather, the choices in Osiris Reborn are going to be nuanced, with a wide range of effects on the player character and their companions. Some of the design in Mass Effect is also a little dated, considering the tools that developers have at their disposal these days.
“Mass Effect is a game that was released quite a long time ago,” Mishulin explained. “The games industry is now a little bit different. Other systems were introduced, players are more accustomed to convenient user interfaces, convenient approaches to gameplay, and we are doing that. [We’re not] modernising Mass Effect, but just making a game in the same genre, with all of the modern trappings.”
