Making The Ultimate Decision In Cold War Thriller Outreach

The heights of the Cold War had the future of the world hanging in the balance on more than a few occasions. Thankfully, the war never actually turned ‘hot’, as it were, but there were more than a few occasions when the we stood on the precipice. At times, just a single person’s actions and decisions stood between peace and all out nuclear war.

Vasili Arkhipov was one such man, the second in command on a nuclear submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis – albeit commander of a flotilla of submarines and of the same rank as the ship’s captain – who stood in the way of a decision to fire nuclear torpedoes. His actions that day were remarkable, and yet could almost have never been told. He wasn’t a Navy General, he wasn’t General Secretary of the USSR, he was just a cog in the machine.

It is these remarkable, but forgotten, moments and people that serve as the inspiration for Outreach. Set on a Russian space station 1986, the protracted stalemate between the USA and USSR continues below, but something’s gone wrong. Cosmonaut Radomir Volkov is sent up to the space station as a single man to try and investigate, leading to a climactic and defining decision. This isn’t the sensationalised outer space action of Call of Duty, let alone Adr1ft or films like Gravity. There’s no jet packs, there’s no laser guns; it’s deliberately slower, more considered and more about the story of this one cosmonaut’s choice.

To that end, Pixel Spill have obsessively researched Russian technology of the era. This space station is based on the Mir space station and takes the no-nonsense attitude to technology design that the USSR had. There are no airs and graces, as you might expect from an American created space craft, but an almost brutalist approach to practicality in all aspects. While many parts of the station have been designed and only lightly adapted, others have been created from scratch in a Russian style.

Again, Pixel Spill’s attention to detail is quite extreme. This isn’t just a scientific research station, a symbol of national pride, but a military project as well. When they designed new parts like an advanced communications array module, though, they made sure that it adhered to the technical standards of the USSR, that the way it connects to the other, more utilitarian parts of the ship would actually work. Similarly, Radomir’s suit has been given a more advanced, military spin. Based on the Sokol KV2 suit, it’s been given a more advanced glove with several attachments.

But all of this takes a back seat to the drama. The demo they showed was actually the game’s prologue, as opposed to spoiling any part of the actual game. It starts with you playing as Nika, a female Cosmonaut, during an EVA. The communications array has been knocked out of commission, and you need to traverse the hull of the ship to get to the tools necessary to fix it. All the while, she’s talking to one of her fellow crew members within the station, building these characters up a small amount.

One of the fascinating little details, adding a human touch to the stark and hostile environment of space, is in the form of the handholds which Nika is moving between. They’re all unevenly placed and spaced, having been added only after the modules had exited the Earth’s orbit. Moving between them is simple enough, until you come to a gap, for whatever reason, and have to push off into space, losing all ability to change your direction or control your movement until you can look at and manually grab another handhold. Get it wrong and you’re dead, floating off into the vastness of space with no hope of rescue.

The one thing missing is actual arms. At the moment, there’s a strange look to the game, as you can’t see hands gripping onto things, making Nika feel detached, in my opinion. Pixel Spill readily admit that they’d love to show the Cosmonaut’s arms in view as you traverse the outside of the hull, but also recognise the challenge of making this look good. As a small studio, it’s better not to have arms than to have something that looks bad, they told me.

Once Radomir makes it out of the Earth’s atmosphere, the game changes. You’ll be investigating what happened to Nika and her comrades, searching through the station for clues and calling down to ground control about what you’ve found. There’s a difference between what they’ve told you is going on and what you actually find up there, and the more contradictory evidence you find, the more back and forth dialogue there is.

It all leads up to that one moment. A decision that you have to base off what you know and think has happened. A decision that could change the world. Will you choose wisely?