The Expanse: Osiris Reborn has attracted a fair few Mass Effect comparisons for its sci-fi squad combat and romanceable companions since its announcement last month. Not least from developers Owlcat themselves, who’ve namechecked the “iconic” RPGs as inspirations. In a recent interview with Polygon, creative director Alexander Mishulin said he’s humbled, but that Osiris Reborn also has its own approach to choice, consequence, and storytelling that’s a bit different from Bioware’s sci-fi trilogy and also the other one (Andromeda was actually pretty solid though).
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“Some [people] get into the industry of making games because they saw [Mass Effect] and were inspired. So it would be impossible to deny that Mass Effect had a lot of impact on us as game developers,” Mishulin told Polygon. “On the other hand, it’s an Owlcat Games game and it’s different in many ways. 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 provided with a lot of agency.”
Which I choose to interpret as him very diplomatically calling Mass Effect’s morality system a bit naff, at least in comparison to the CRPG lineage Owlcat are used to working with in games like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Warty Thou: Rogue Trader. Which, fair, but also choices like “do the horrible Genophage and annoy your best Krogan mates or don’t do that” felt monumental at the time.
“If you happen to be playing a character of Mars origin or Earth origin — and you will be able to select your origin from the start — you will not be very welcomed on Ceres because of those events,” Mishulin offers as an example of how your character’s background will set the stage for future encounters. But if you’re playing as a Belter in the same situation, there’ll more “opportunities, more places to visit, probably some new side quests and everything”.
Owlcat aren’t “modernising” Mass Effect, Mishulin goes on to say, “just making a game in the same genre but with all the modern trappings.”
