Outreach promises a sinister mystery aboard an 80s-era Soviet space station

Outreach is a “Cold War conspiracy thriller” set on a covert Soviet space station during the tail-end of the Cold War in the 1980s. You play a famed cosmonaut, sent up alone to discover why the station has suddenly halted all communications. Based on the announcement trailer released earlier this week, whatever it is you discover while you're up there, it's really, really not good.

“Outreach is an historical fiction set in the 1980s, blurring the line between fact and conspiracy theory. The narrative is told from the Soviet perspective, focusing on the details that highlighted the humanity in a conflict so often marked by division and statistics,” the game's Steam page says. “The dangers and isolation present in the narrative of Outreach are reflected in the movement system, as Outreach takes place entirely in zero-gravity. Push yourself off, time your landings, and grapple for handrails on the exterior of the station. Inside the station, move through confined environments on your search for clues. Your coordination and reflexes are the only protection you have from the void.”

That part of it sounds vaguely arcade-like, but the core of Outreach is a “narrative adventure” in which you must “discover the lives and motivations of the station crew, ground control and military personnel involved in Operation Outreach.” It's inspired by both history and conspiracy theories from the Cold War and the Space Race, with locations and objects being recreated in “meticulous detail” to match their real-world counterparts from that era. It will also feature the work of veteran voice actor Adam Harrington, who has appeared in games including Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and the 20th anniversary edition of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.

Outreach won't be ready for release until sometime in 2017 so for now all we've got to go on are a handful of screens and the trailer, which, while deliciously ominous, says nothing whatsoever about the game. Even so, this is definitely one I'm interested in. A website is up at outreachthegame.co.uk—there's really nothing to see at the moment, but I expect that will change as the launch draws closer.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.