Lunar missionspublic and private, commercial outposts in Earth orbit or elsewhere in the cosmos, but also a strategic role which promises to reconfigure war scenarios: that space is one of the geopolitical nodes of today and tomorrow is demonstrated by the growing centrality of the sector on the global agenda and the growth in turnover, which from 176 billion dollars moved in 2005 has reached volume of 447 billion in 2020 (source: Space Economy Evolution Lab, Bocconi University). An increase, according to experts, destined to accelerate over the next fifteen years.
That even from the point of view of public narration, space is regaining an importance that has long since disappeared, as evidenced by the daily chronicles, not infrequently dominated by space billionaire on duty, with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos now become modern rock stars. Of course, for better or for worse.
Sensitive thermometer of collective fantasies, the gaming is further confirmation: there are more and more video games with a space theme or setting. Between products already in orbit and news on the launch pad, here are five tips to celebrate the end of 2022 among the stars, joypad in hand.
Video games
For those who want a PlayStation 5, it will be a complicated Christmas. Again
by Emanuele Capone
Dead Space Remake
(for Playstation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S. Release date: January 27, 2023)
Isaac Clarke is back: one of the most iconic characters in videogame history – and not just space, so much so that he even deserved cameos in Nba Jam: on Fire Edition e in Skate 3 – starts from where his legend was born in 2008, when Dead Space managed to translate into pixels the spirit and feeling of pervasive menace of which Alien he was a cinematographic standard bearer. Conceived by Steve Papoutsis and Glen Schofield, general manager of Visceral Games at the time, Dead Space inaugurated a trilogy that had risen to paradigm of survival horror sidereal (and sold in almost ten million copies overall): set on the usual and hypertrophic spaceship/maternal womb – the Usg Ishimura, an obvious homage to Ridley Scott’s Nostromo – the game tells the frightening discoveries of a rescue team, of which Clarke (the player) is the mining engineer doomed to survive. The story, however, certainly not a manifesto of originality, counts (is) for little: they are the suffocating feeling of being trapped, the disproportion between Clarke’s strength and that of who – or what – he has to face, a ton of splatter and the perception of being a microscopic pawn in a boundless mechanism to do Dead Space a pearl worthy, fifteen years later, to be rebuilt from scratch.
Out on January 27, the Remake will do without Schofield, long since moved shack and puppets elsewhere (we write about it in the following lines), but as promised by Jo Berry, senior writer by Ea Motive, the studio in charge of the new production will try to deepen the narrative intuitions of the original and the psychology of the characters, primarily that of Clarke.
The heated controversy over some of the artistic choices shown in preview – in particular for the performance of some protagonists – confirms a feverish wait: living (and dying) in space today involves the world.
Video games
Game Awards: Who won in 2022 and what we’ll be playing in 2023 (and beyond)
by Emanuele Capone
The Callisto Protocol
(Disponibile su Playstation Network, Xbox Live, Steam ed Epic Games Store)
Freed from Dead Space immediately after the first chapter, especially to devote himself to the series Call of Duty, Glen Schofield has never hidden that he is very fond of his space monstrosities. The result, fifteen years after his debut in horror among the stars, is entitled The Callisto Protocol and declares its authorship at every juncture (after all, Striking Distance Studios, in addition to Schofield, Steve Papoutsis and animation director Chris Stone, employ many of the developers of Dead Space).
Boarded by unidentified terrorists, space truck driver Jacob Lee crashes on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons. Rescued, he inexplicably ends up a prisoner of the local jails, from where he nevertheless manages to escape due to a mysterious emergency that upsets the penitentiary. Needless to add it is only the beginning of a terrifying epic.
A kilo of Aliena quintal of Point of no return and a ton of The thing are the ingredients ready to openly declare the true obsession with The Callisto Protocol: distilling the essence of a horror story through visuals and gameplay. And, in this case, combat dynamics, the real jewel of the title, able to perceive the tiring violence of the most hostile environment of all. Obsessions, in spite of the critics for now not very generous, perfectly satisfied, in a title that has little or nothing new, but which manages to glue the player from the first moment. It’s a trap! Meta-narrative and perfect.
Scorn
(Disponibile per Windows, Xbox Series X/S)
For any space and science fiction enthusiast, Hans Ruedi Giger is a tutelary deity, a titan among titans. The disturbing visions of the Swiss artist, a powerful blend of biomechanics, eroticism and nightmare, transcend the work done for Alien (Oscar winner in 1980), Deadly species where he Dune (never realized) by Alejandro Jodorowsky: they are a symbolic, imaginative and conceptual casket out of time, able to translate without any need for explanations something obscure and at the same time seductive of our reality.
The guys from Ebb Software know it well, a Serbian studio skilled – and philologically obsessive – not only in declining the style and mice by Giger (to which several homages are added to the work of another artist, the Polish painter and sculptor Zdzis?aw Beksi?ski), but also perfect in not ruining its evocative, disturbing and yet irresistible charge.
Scorn it has no dialogues or texts: you can only look at it and listen to it, while traveling through the world. To summarize its plot would be disrespectful to it: born out of a curiosity about Alien – the origin and journey of the “Space Jockey” – is an invitation to discover everything about the Universe. Even the most cruel and incomprehensible nature of him. Or maybe the other way around.
Kerbal Space Program 2
(In Early Access February 24, 2023. For Playstation 5, Windows, Xbox Series S/X)
Don’t be deceived by the cartoonish figure of Kerbal: their odyssey is the most ruthless space simulation since Orbiter Space Flight Simulator which, to understand each other, is also used for educational purposes.
While waiting for the second epiphany in pixels, of which a preview can be tasted from February 24th, it is good to underline its development in collaboration with the European Space Agency. Obvious cooperation: Kerbal Space Program he has the rare ability to demonstrate how a space enterprise – whatever it is – requires the utmost attention and rigorous organization. Sorry, failure.
The game requires you to build your own launch systems to escape your home planet’s atmosphere, then turn the Universe into your own territory for exploration and conquest.
Calculations on thrusters, orbital rendezvous, landers, ascension systems, rovers: in a game with a hilarious appearance, every choice causes trembling. For this reason, the satisfaction of crossing yet another frontier repays any sacrifice.
It’s hard to say if it’s a metaphor for our destiny as cosmic migrants, but it’s very similar. And it’s beautiful.
Starfield
(Release date: 2023. For Windows, Xbox Series X/S)
It is not yet known when, in 2023, it will be published, but for five years it has been inflaming the fantasies of millions of gamers: Starfield promises, on an unspecified day in 2023, to make space exploration experience like never before, at least with a joypad in hand. It will be the first new intellectual property in 25 years from Bethesda Games Studio, the creators of videogame franchises such as Doom, Skyrim e Wolfenstein. But the reasons for such trepidation go beyond the confines of the business: for what was shown in a Microsoft showcase (which is now the owner of Bethesda) the merit must be credited to a prodigal graphic design – difficult to distinguish it from a blockbuster film – and to a rigorous role-playing approach, a feature which, added to the spatial setting and the wide possibility of configuring characters, equipment and vehicles, could translate into the deepest simulator of extra-terrestrial life in gamer’s memory. Ad astra.