Nearly a decade ago, The Expanse launched onto Netflix. I watched the season despite not knowing much about its book series, and it became the sort of show I couldn’t shut up about. The attention to detail, the hard sci-fi, the politics – it was all fantastic. Now I get to hail the prophecy again as Owlcat’s The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is pushing the same good buttons.
I was recently fortunate enough to grab a beta code for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. And while the beta itself is only an hour long, it did give me that science-first worldbuilding The Expanse is known for, while glimpsing the traditional Owlcat build gameplay combined with a Mass Effect-like overlay.
First steps on a Jupiter station
The beta takes place on a space station floating around Jupiter. It’s not some shiny plastic space station, but a classic belter-type station with its rustic metallic environment, with some sense of office-like aesthetics. You get to pick a character from one of four presets, ranging from different classes and playstyles. You also have a companion, which you’ll learn more about as you dock on the space station.
While on there, you’re introduced to characters who have some Mass Effect-like dialogue options across the screen. Go through the conversation as you want to.
From there, go through the mission and explore this platform on this space station. As you explore, you’ll find crafting materials with different items for different upgrades. There’s a vendor where you can hear gossip and buy new weapons and crafting materials. There’s also plenty of lore stuff around. One terminal in a reception area alone had a dozen entries, and buried there was an actual side quest in one of the various emails. It’s that Owlcat attention to missable content. I suspect that is something that will become more apparent in the full game, but it’s clear Owlcat wants you engaging with the world a bit more.
You’ll also stumble across workbenches scattered throughout the station where you can upgrade your weapons and gear. The game features a proper build system, as any Owlcat veteran would tell you. I found a nice pistol, then upgraded it via the skill tree and some of those item slots to make a super deadly, accurate, and strong firepower pistol. It pretty much one-hit killed with headshots on normal difficulty. It might just be beta balance, but it felt rather strong, as Owlcat builds can often get. Not bad, hey.
There’s also some classic Owlcat map objectives. If you’ve managed to play the Dark Heresy beta, Rogue Trader, or other Pathfinder games from Owlcat, you’ll recognize condition checks. Some require engineering checks to pass, others require science checks. Some others are perception checks. Depending on what character you picked, you might find you can pass one and fail the other. I picked a character that passed the engineering checks, and it allowed me to track some wiring, which led to opening a door and getting some loot. One of the items included a build item for either me or my companion to wear to improve our stats and build archetypes.
Not long after some messing around, I visited the head of the station, who then presented a few dialogue options. Things went south during that meeting, and I had the chance to run some sort of persuasion check. It worked in my favour, and I got some covering fire from the station’s guards while hell broke loose. I can imagine another playthrough might mean a slightly different experience on that, even if the overall outcome won’t change. This is likely something that will matter more in the full game, but it’s a taste of it, adapting to your character’s role play.
Mass Effect’s cover system meets more wacky science detail
The rest of the mission introduced you to some of the combat. Again, it’s rather Mass Effect meets Gears of War. You get to play third person, switch guns, use abilities and things like that. There’s also a slower tactical mode where you can give orders to your crew to use their abilities somewhere, focus a target, things like that. It’s a fairly standard part-RPG in a third-person shooter setting.
But this is where it gets interesting. The game throws you outside the station for a firefight, and suddenly, cover isn’t just crouched behind a half-wall like it was inside. The Coriolis effect means you’re walking across curved surfaces, the camera tilting as artificial gravity shifts beneath your boots. I was flanking enemies by literally walking around the station’s curved exterior while they stayed locked to their own surface. Moving ever so slightly allowed you to peek over their cover and get a glimpse of their head. It’s the kind of environmental storytelling and gameplay interaction that makes The Expanse grounded in science, but also offers something incredibly unique in a shooter.
Despite finishing this segment in an hour, I got a good feeling for what the game was trying to do. We are yet to see more details of the builds, items, dialogue, romance, and other things work in the game. Those are detailed in blog posts already, but it would be nice to see them in action at some point. Though if the little slice of the game is reflective of other areas come launch, Expanse should be on track to be a very exciting release in 2027.
If you want to try the Expanse beta out, you can check how to do so.
Last Updated On: Apr 22, 2026 4:00 pm CEST