The Expanse: Osiris Reborn Interview – Sci-Fi Setting, Companions, Console Performance, And More

Owlcat Games is well known for its RPGs, like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The studio has made a name for itself for being able to successfully capture the essence of the source materials it adapted into video games. With its ambitions now growing to releasing a 3D third-person RPG with The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, Owlcat Games has also been quite open about its development processes. Game design director Leonid Rastorguev was kind enough to answer some of our questions about the upcoming sci-fi RPG.

What made The Expanse the right project to push the studio toward a third-person action RPG format? 

The Expanse is a rich and layered universe with multiple narrative levels and a huge amount of detail. That’s exactly what we look for in a setting—it’s the kind of foundation that works really well for a narrative-driven RPG.

At the same time, the TV series gives the universe a strong cinematic tone and provides a wealth of visual references to build on. Taken together, that makes The Expanse a very natural fit for a third-person action RPG. 

That said, it’s still very much an Owlcat game at its core, with our approach to narrative, player choice, and consequences. We’re not trying to recreate the events of the show or the books exactly—we’re aiming to expand the universe and contribute our own stories and perspective to it. 

Even though Osiris Reborn is a very different kind of game structurally, what parts of your RPG DNA from Pathfinder or Rogue Trader were most important to preserve? 

First and foremost, it’s our approach to choice and consequences. That’s a core part of how we design RPGs, and it remains just as important in The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Companions are another key pillar—how you interact with them through dialogue, events. That layer of character-driven storytelling is very much part of our DNA and carries over directly. 

Beyond that, we still place a strong emphasis on building deep RPG systems. Even within a more grounded and realistic setting, we designed a progression system that allows players to experiment with different playstyles and builds. So while the structure of the game has evolved, the underlying philosophy remains very much the same. 

"First and foremost, it’s our approach to choice and consequences."

The Expanse is loved for its grounded sci-fi and political realism. What were the biggest challenges in turning that into a video game without losing what makes the setting feel authentic? 

The most obvious challenge comes from the constraints of realism itself. The Expanse is grounded in science, which means we can’t rely on familiar sci-fi tropes like energy shields, anti-gravity, or exotic weapons. Every ability and piece of equipment had to be designed around plausible technology or extensions of what already exists within the universe. That naturally limits the design space, but it also helps maintain authenticity. 

On the narrative side, we also had to work around the established storyline of Holden and his crew. Those events define the broader context of the setting, so our goal was to approach them from a different perspective—through our own characters—while preserving enough freedom to tell a distinct story. Politics plays a major role in that as well, but that’s something we’re planning to explore in more detail later. 

Official descriptions mention that players may run into familiar faces or voices from the wider Expanse universe. How are you approaching canon connections in a way that rewards fans without alienating newcomers? 

That’s a great question. The Expanse has a number of well-known figures within its world—major political players like Chrisjen Avasarala, Fred Johnson, or Anderson Dawes, as well as more localized but still recognizable characters like Camina Drummer, Detective Miller, or Holden’s crew. 

When we bring those characters into the game, we approach them from the perspective of what an average person in the Expanse universe would realistically know about them. That means players who are new to the setting can understand the context without prior knowledge, while longtime fans will still recognize the references and connections. 

For example, events like Holden’s broadcast about the destruction of the Canterbury would have been widely seen across the system. That gives us a natural way to anchor key moments of the canon without requiring players to know the full story of the Rocinante. It’s enough to provide context, while still keeping the focus on the story we’re telling. 

Despite the darker tone, are there meaningful opportunities for lighter crew moments, banter, or side content that help balance the overall experience? 

Absolutely. While The Expanse is heavily focused on political tension and the idea of characters struggling to survive situations far beyond their control, even the main storyline has room for lighter moments and humor. 

In our game, we wanted to reflect that range more explicitly. There are still difficult moral choices, heavy consequences, and stories about inequality and conflict, but there are also more personal, sometimes even warm or humorous moments. 

A big part of that comes from life on the ship itself. The crew spends a lot of time traveling between locations, and those quieter stretches create space for bonding, support, and a more “home-like” atmosphere that helps balance the overall experience.

Starting as a Pinkwater Security mercenary gives the game a different perspective from the main Expanse protagonists. How did that framing device shape the overall story arc and the kinds of choices players get to make? 

One of the strengths of The Expanse as a setting is that it’s broad and well-developed enough to support stories beyond the main protagonists. While Holden and his crew are dealing with the protomolecule, the consequences of their actions ripple across the rest of the system—and that creates a strong foundation for telling a parallel story. 

By framing the player as a Pinkwater Security mercenary, we place them in a position with their own agenda and limited information. They don’t have full insight into the events surrounding the Rocinante, but they experience the impact of those events and interpret them through their own perspective. 

That gives us room to create meaningful choices and a self-contained narrative, while occasionally bringing the story close to major canon events. The challenge is to make the player’s story feel significant without overshadowing Holden’s arc or contradicting it—and that’s exactly the balance we’re aiming for. 

The closed beta focuses on a full mission and already showcases squad support, cover combat, and the Exploits system. What were you most hoping to learn from players through that slice of the game? 

Any feedback from players is valuable to us. We’re already getting a lot of useful input from people who’ve played the beta or watched streams and coverage. It’s less about discovering something completely new and more about understanding where to focus our efforts. 

Within the development team, opinions can vary quite a bit when it comes to how critical certain issues are. Broader player feedback helps us align on priorities and decide what to address first to have the biggest impact on the overall experience. So yes, we’re paying close attention and reading as much feedback as we can. 

Companion support seems to be a major differentiator, especially with crew members helping even when they are not in the active two-person field squad. How central is that system to both combat and narrative identity? 

Companions are one of the core pillars of the project. From the very beginning, our goal was to push their depth further than what you typically see in similar games, and to make them part of all key systems. 

That starts with the familiar elements—having two companions in your active squad during combat and building relationships with them outside of missions. But we wanted to go beyond that. We introduced systems like combat opportunities, where companions can have a more meaningful impact on the flow of battle, as well as narrative and mechanical involvement from crew members who aren’t in the active squad. That includes things like mission briefings, where companions can contribute ideas and influence your approach. 

So yes, the companion system is absolutely central to both the combat experience and the overall narrative identity of the game. 

"Companions are one of the core pillars of the project."

The protagonist’s identical twin seems like a potentially major narrative device. How important is that relationship to the emotional core of the story and to player choice? 

That’s a difficult question to answer without getting into major spoilers. What I can say is that the relationship between the protagonist and their sibling is an important emotional anchor and a key driver of the narrative. 

At the same time, this is still an RPG. We give players the freedom to shape that relationship in different ways, including taking a more distant or pragmatic approach. That choice then naturally affects the tone of the story and the motivations behind the player’s actions. 

Players can create a captain from Earth, Mars, or the Belt. How deeply do those origins affect dialogue, faction reactions, quest paths, or even companion relationships? 

Starting with companions, your origin may influence first impressions, but in the long run it doesn’t define your relationships with them—that’s shaped much more by your actions and choices. 

Beyond that, origin plays a meaningful role in how the world reacts to you. It affects how you’re perceived in key hubs, which major figures you encounter, and even what quests become available. There’s also some origin-specific content that only certain players will experience. 

And of course, it ties directly into role-playing. Your background informs your motivations, the choices you’re likely to make, and how you engage with the major political factions in the setting. 

You have a strong post-launch reputation. Even if it is early, should players expect Osiris Reborn to follow a similar model with major expansions, story DLC, or long-tail support? 

It’s still a bit early to talk about that in detail. Of course, we’ve had some internal discussions about what we might want to do post-launch—formats, ideas, and potential directions—but nothing is finalized at this point. We’ll be able to share more specifics closer to launch. 

"Your background informs your motivations, the choices you’re likely to make, and how you engage with the major political factions in the setting. "

What are your thoughts on PSSR, and what opportunities does it open up for your game? 

We plan to integrate the latest PSSR2.0 on PS5 Pro. This tech is a significant leap forward, allowing us to achieve better visual fidelity without sacrificing performance. For our players, this basically means almost the same detail level and quality as powerful PCs can achieve with the help of the latest DLSS and FSR tech. With PSSR, we can minimize graphical artifacts and get a stable picture quality and a stable frame rate, even in dynamic scenes.

What resolutions and frame rates are you targeting on PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PS5 Pro? 

We aim to give the players options when it comes to choosing between graphical fidelity and frame rates. On all platforms, the render resolution is dynamic, and upscaling is used to bring it to the target resolution, to make sure the frame rate stays stable even under load. Our target resolution is 4K for all platforms except XBox Series S. 

And all these platforms get three possible settings – Performance (60 FPS), Balanced (40 FPS) and Quality (30 FPS). PS5 Pro will get additional options and no-frame-cap mode to support VRR displays. 

For Xbox Series S the target resolution is 2K (1440p) and it will only get 30 FPS. 

Of course, with a whole year until our planned release, some specifics here might change – this table is not set in stone, but it is our “target numbers” right now.