When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a new narrative-driven sci-fi RPG inspired by Mass Effect Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Neowin @LoneWolfSL · Jun 7, 2025 17:18 EDT Out of nowhere, a narrative-driven sci-fi action RPG has been announced that will take players into the universe of The Expanse TV show and novels. The reveal trailer landed today during the Future Games Showcase, offering both a cinematic look at the setting as well as snippets of gameplay. Check out the The Expanse: Osiris Reborn debut trailer above. The studio behind the project is Owlcat Games. Some may remember that name from being involved in the role-playing titles Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, as well as the most recent hugely well-received RPG Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Now, the studio's sights are set on The Expanse universe, and it's going for the over-the-shoulder third-person gameplay route for the first time. “We’ve been dreaming about building a sci-fi action RPG of this scale for a long time, and The Expanse is the perfect universe to bring that vision to life,” says Owlcat’s Creative Director, Alexander Mishulin. “It’s a world grounded in realism and complexity, perfect for telling a story the way we like it— mature and character-driven, where your choices truly matter." The story will have players taking the role of a custom captain that can be from the Earth, Mars, or the Belt to take control of the most advanced ship currently available. There's a crew to meet and lead, tactical third-person combat, and, as expected from this franchise, a divided solar system to navigate and make decisions on. The studio was also very direct about this experience being inspired by BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy. Aside from the action-heavy gameplay seen in the trailer, Owlcat is promising plenty of political intrigue, as well as romance options for players to dive into. Game Design Producer Yuliya Chernenko added "many of us first played it in our teenage years, and it left a lasting impression," and that "we are building on that legacy and expanding what players anticipate from this experience." The Expanse: Osiris Reborn does not have a release window just yet, but it will be coming out on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. Tags Report a problem with article Follow @NeowinFeed

Owlcat Games’ countdown led to an announcement at the Future Games Show Summer Showcase for a brand new title, one completely unlike its previous games. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is in development on Unreal Engine 5 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out the first trailer below. It starts with a space crew attacking a fortified asteroid, using zero gravity to take out threats. During one firefight, they deploy a drone (which targets an explosive barrel to eliminate enemies) and a riot shield, which can soak up damage and base threats. Eventually, they happen upon some people contaminated by crystals. The trailer then cuts to some pre-alpha gameplay, showcasing third-person, cover-based shooting. Some set pieces involve traversing zero gravity outside of space stations and futuristic settlements. Stay tuned for more details on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn in the coming months. Owlcat is also working on a new Warhammer 40,000 CRPG called Dark Heresy. Head here for more details.

Former Bungie developers blame corporate ‘greed’ as cancelled subscription plans revealed Adam Starkey Published May 22, 2025 1:32pm Updated May 22, 2025 1:33pm A marathon of issues (Sony Interactive Entertainment) Former staff at Destiny developer Bungie have spoken out about the studio’s downfall, citing ‘disconnected leadership’ and a toxic work culture. Bungie were once one of the most respected developers in the world, following their work on Halo and Destiny, but the situation at the studio is drastically different as we approach its next project, Marathon. Since the launch of Destiny 2 in 2017, the studio was acquired by Sony and subject to several rounds of layoffs. While job cuts have been widespread across the industry over the past few years, the situation at Bungie goes beyond post-pandemic cuts; with missed financial targets leading to drastic structural shifts. Reports of leadership mismanagement at Bungie have cropped up before, but several ex-employees have now spoken out about their own experiences within the studio. In a video by YouTuber Destin Legarie, former employees at Bungie cite various reasons for the studio’s decline, including a ‘lack of player empathy, disconnected leadership, and a corporate-first culture’. The recurring point of contention is the studio’s ‘toxic’ leadership, who allegedly ‘shut down creatives on a core level’ and prioritised monetisation over player satisfaction. According to one ex-employee, staff received a huge ‘scolding’ in a meeting with leadership over monetisation. ‘Everything happening to Bungie is because of greed,’ said one former employee. This alleged push for further monetisation was presented in various ways. One source claimed the studio’s leadership pitched the idea of adding a subscription model to Destiny 2 at one point, but the idea was ‘vehemently’ shut down by the team. Another source claimed Bungie leadership were concerned the Trials Of Osiris PvP armour was ‘too attractive with its glow effect’, which might negatively impact Eververse sales (Destiny 2’s cosmetic store). Destiny 2 launched as a paid-for game but it became free-to-play in October 2019, with DLC expansions being sold separately. The next expansion, The Edge Of Fate, is set to launch on July 15, 2025. The video features other allegations, including ‘HR working in their own best interest’ and claims leadership undermined the ideas of staff in public. ‘If they didn’t think of it, it wasn’t worth doing,’ one former employee said. GameCentral has reached out to Bungie for comment. Marathon is in trouble too (Sony Interactive Entertainment) One former employee suggested these issues have now ‘just shifted to Marathon instead’, which is currently in the middle of a plagiarism scandal, after an ex-artist at the studio took assets from someone else’s work without permission. More Trending As detailed in livestream last week, Bungie is currently in the process of ‘auditing all of the previous work by the internal artist’ and is looking to remove ‘anything which is questionably or inappropriately sourced’. Beyond this controversy, Marathon hasn’t exactly hit the ground running. A closed alpha test last month was met with mixed reactions, which has reportedly led to several changes to the game’s future plans. Marathon is set to launch on September 23 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but all signs suggest it could be delayed. More expansions are coming to Destiny 2 (Bungie) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Bungie management "vehemently shut down" Destiny 2 subscription idea, as reports of toxicity continue Prioritised "monetisation over player experience". Image credit: Bungie News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on May 22, 2025 Bungie once considered a subscription model for its online shooter Destiny, but the idea was "vehemently shut down" by management. Destiny 2 went free-to-play in 2019, but players need to pay for the most recent DLC expansions. There's also a store for paid cosmetics. Other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14, run on a subscription model, where players pay a monthly fee for access. According to a new report, Bungie considered this but management decided against it. Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate | Official Gameplay RevealWatch on YouTube The news comes as part of a report into the current state of Bungie, following word last week that Bungie morale is in "free fall" following the fallout of stolen assets used in its next game, Marathon. YouTuber and journalist Destin Legarie has spoken to former employees this week. Bungie management were described as "toxic and shut down creatives on a core level", with one former employee stating: "If [management] didn't think of it, it wasn't worth doing." In this context, when one employee brought up the possibility of a subscription model, it was reportedly "vehemently shut down". In another example, management was concerned the glowing Trials of Osiris PvP armour was too attractive, which would impact sales of armours in the Eververse store. Decisions by management "prioritised monetisation over player experience", a former Bungie employee said. Another added: "Everything happening to Bungie is because of greed." One former employee surmised: "Bungie's problems stem from a lack of player empathy, disconnected leadership, and a corporate-first culture." Eurogamer has contacted Bungie for comment. In 2024, Bungie CEO Peter Parsons was criticised for spending millions of dollars on classic cars. This news followed a round of layoffs where 220 staff, roughly 17 percent of the company's workforce, lost their jobs. Last week, Bungie admitted to including designs in Marathon without the artist's consent. And this wasn't the first time Bungie had made this mistake. The company showed off Marathon back in April. It's a PvP extraction shooter set to release on 23rd September this year.

An artist’s impression of Earth’s quasi-satellite Kamo`oalewa, the first destination of the Tianwen-2 missionAddy Graham/University of Arizona Final preparations are under way for China to launch an uncrewed craft to visit both an asteroid and a comet, in the hope of learning more about the space rocks in our solar system. The Tianwen-2 mission by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) will collect a 100-gram sample from the asteroid Kamoʻoalewa and return it to Earth. After dropping off the sample, the probe will use our planet’s gravity as a slingshot Advertisement The mission is due to launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province on 29 May. It won’t be the first to return samples of asteroids to Earth, as both NASA’s OSIRIS-REx and JAXA’s Hayabusa missions have already done that. But it will be China’s first mission to an asteroid involving the return of a rock sample, and it is likely to be the first mission to a unique type of body called a quasi-satellite. Quasi-satellites like Kamoʻoalewa don’t strictly orbit Earth, but travel in a similar orbit to us around the sun, swinging elliptically around our planet as they do so. This unusual situation has led scientists to suspect that this particular one is a chunk of the moon ejected millions of years ago by an asteroid impact. On the other hand, 311P/PanSTARRS has an asteroid-like orbit – spinning around our sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter – but with an appearance more like a comet because it has tails. These are suspected of being bits of dust and rubble flung out from its spinning body. Voyage across the galaxy and beyond with our space newsletter every month. Sign up to newsletter The CNSA has previously said that 311P/PanSTARRS is a “living fossil”, making it useful for studying the early material composition, formation process and evolutionary history of the solar system. And Tianwen-2 will provide scientists with a better understanding of both Kamoʻoalewa and 311P/PanSTARRS. However, the results won’t come quickly: the craft is due to reach 311P/PanSTARRS in 2034, and even the Kamoʻoalewa sample is expected to return to Earth only in late 2027. Exactly how much the CNSA will share about the discoveries is also unclear. Leah-Nani Alconcel at the University of Birmingham, UK, says the mission’s outline is known, and one likely goal is to study the differences between the asteroid and the comet to gain a deeper understanding of the range of bodies in our solar system, but precise details haven’t been forthcoming. Alconcel’s previous experience working with the CNSA on the Double Star satellite leads her to suspect that the agency will hold on to the resulting scientific data tightly. “It was extremely difficult to negotiate [with the CNSA],” says Alconcel.
”Once they kind of had some information from us, they were not very keen to reciprocate. There will not be a public repository of this data, I don’t think.” She says that the mission is daring, as Kamoʻoalewa is spinning, which will make landing harder. Navigation algorithms are likely to demand such powerful computers that images and sensor readings will be sent back to Earth for computation. “If we were to always pick lovely, cooperative objects, we wouldn’t learn a lot,” she says. “There’s a lot that could potentially go wrong.” The CNSA didn’t respond to New Scientist‘s request for interview. Topics:

The year’s just getting started, but there’s already a lot happening. Peruse our latest monthly roundup of Made with Unity highlights to learn what’s up in the Unity community.#MadeWithUnity games reached some exciting milestones in January.To start, we celebrated the return of a classic as Colossal Cave was released in VR. Death in the Water 2 by Lighthouse Games also launched, and it’s proving to be quite a terrifying experience.Finally, it’s great to see so many Made with Unity games nominated for the upcoming Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ D.I.C.E. Awards. The nominees include:Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, IMMORTALITY, and MARVEL SNAP for Mobile Game of the YearTUNIC and NORCO for Adventure Game of the YearCosmonious High, Tentacular, and The Last Clockwinder for Immersive Reality Game of the YearMARVEL SNAP for Online Game of the YearSpiderHeck for Fighting Game of the YearDisney Dreamlight Valley, Lost in Play, and Trombone Champ for Family Game of the YearCitizen Sleeper for Role-Playing Game of the YearIXION, Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator, and Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters for Strategy/Simulation Game of the YearOlliOlli World for Sports Game of the YearNeon White for Action Game of the YearIMMORTALITY, Neon White, and TUNIC for Outstanding Achievement for an Independent GameAmong Us VR, Cosmonious High, and The Last Clockwinder for Immersive Reality Technical AchievementMARVEL SNAP and TUNIC for Outstanding Achievement in Game DesignSomerville for Outstanding Achievement in Audio DesignCuphead: The Delicious Last Course for Outstanding Achievement in AnimationIMMORTALITY and TUNIC for Outstanding Achievement in Game DirectionIMMORTALITY, NORCO, and I Was a Teenage Exocolonist for Outstanding Achievement in StoryWe share new releases or milestone spotlights every Monday through @UnityGames on Twitter.Tuesdays are dedicated to #UnityTips on Twitter. Here are two we found helpful in January:@elvismdd shared a classic tip to highlight the GameObject causing trouble@SunnyVStudio offered some nice interactive bow strings to show off in VRWe also published a recap of highlights from our 2022 developer Twitter takeovers right here on the blog. Stay tuned for plenty more throughout the year, and keep tagging us using the #UnityTips hashtag.We love all the incredible-looking projects we see using the #MadeWithUnity hashtag.Twitter’s @Vhalenn_ showcased a breathtaking world that’s worth exploring and @HakanssonAugust demonstrated some on-point camera work. Then, @inresin’s lizard friend took us on all sorts of adventures.On Instagram, @Throwdrow’s floating sword (above) looked straight out of a fantasy world, while @chibig.studio’s witch had some errands to run.We’re so excited for a new year of #MadeWithUnity, so keep adding the hashtag to your posts to show us what you’ve been up to.There were no new Creator Spotlight streams on Twitch in January, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t busy. To close out the month, we sat down with three Unity Insiders – Samyam, Andy Touch, and Code Monkey – ahead of Global Game Jam 2023 for a kickoff panel (also on YouTube) and joined the Global Game Jam team for its Day 2 Prep Week stream.In addition, we continued the revitalizing clips on YouTube with not one but four videos highlighting snippets from recent Creator Spotlight streams, including insight on layered explosions and stylized graphics in Rollerdrome, tips on building your email list from Thomas Brush (above), and the power of command buffers with JellyCar Worlds.Don’t forget to follow us on Twitch and hit the notification bell so you never miss a stream. If you miss a future Creator Spotlight live broadcast, don’t worry: We upload all streams to this YouTube playlist.On January 26, we had our first Dev Blitz Day of the year, focusing on authoring. The event was held in both the forums and the Discord server. Throughout the day, we answered more than 200 developer questions and would like to thank everyone who participated.Our next Dev Blitz Day will be held this month (February), but the date is still TBD. Keep an eye on the forums and our Discord for future announcements.Just in case you’re prioritizing vibes this season, we’ve got you covered with cozy assets for cozy games. What are “cozy games” you might ask? Read up on the emerging genre, and maybe it’ll spark some creative ideas for your next project.Plus, catch up with some of our favorite creator showcases on Twitter last month:Nordic Landscape | John Leonard FrenchWaterCausticsEffect for URP v2 | Masataka HakozakiTerraWorld SRP (Coming Soon) | ShadercrewPoly HP – Wildman | Downrain DCIf you’re using any Unity #AssetStore assets or have published assets to show off, be sure to tag us on Twitter with your latest creations. We’re excited to see what everyone creates throughout the year.Last but not least, here’s a non-exhaustive list of Made with Unity titles released in January. Do you see any on the list that have already become favorites or notice that something is missing? Tell us about it in the forums.Gorilla Tag, Another Axiom (January 1)We Are The Caretakers, Heart Shaped Games LLC (January 6)Children of Silentown, Elf Games, Luna2 Studio (January 11)LONE RUIN, Cuddle Monster Games (January 12)Surviving the Abyss, Rocket Flair Studios (January 17)Osiris: New Dawn, Fenix Fire Entertainment (January 18)A Space for the Unbound, Mojiken (January 19)Colossal Cave, Cygnus Entertainment (January 19)The Pioneers: Surviving Desolation, Supercube (January 20)Fire Emblem™ Engage, Nintendo (January 20)Catch Me!, ByteRockers' Games (January 24)NBA All-World, Niantic (January 24)Death in the Water 2, Lighthouse Games Studio (January 26)Power Chord, Big Blue Bubble (January 26)Roller Drama, Open Lab Games (January 26)That’s a wrap for January! Want more community news as it happens? Don’t forget to follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitch.