Title: Deliver Us The Moon
Developer: KeokeN Interactive
Publisher: Wired Production
Official Site: https://www.deliverusthemoon.com/
Genre: Sci-fi Thriller
Available on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam
Version Tested: PlayStation 4
Release Date: April 24, 2020, digitally, August 14, 2020, physically
Described as a sci-fi thriller, Deliver Us The Moon was a game I’d never heard of before this review. It’s now a game I’m not likely to forget anytime soon.
Set on, you guessed it, the Moon, Deliver Us The Moon is a relatively linear story-driven game. Words that may put off some players, but please don’t let them. The story here is excellent and has an ending that’ll stay with you for a while. A finish that may make some of the issues along the way feels much more worthwhile. More on those later.
I can’t mention the story as spoilers would rear their ugly head. What I can say though is Deliver Us The Moon is set in a time when Earth has been depleted of its natural resources, and the environment is in a bad way. Basically, our future if we aren’t careful.
Fly Me To The Moon
In this time, a colony has been set up on the Moon to harvest it and send the energy back to Earth, to deliver it if you will. That said, this isn’t Death Stranding in space, far from it.
As is the norm, things have gone wrong, and our playable character is sent to the colony to see what’s up and fix it. Along the way, his only companion is a little robot who bears more than a striking resemblance to Portal 2’s Wheatley.
That’s all I’m prepared to tell you regarding the story as any more will ruin the experience.
Gameplay-wise Deliver Us The Moon is almost a walking sim mixed in with some puzzle elements and exploration. It is a game that is all about the story, you know, the thing I can’t mention.
The gameplay itself is presented in a mix of first and third-person viewpoints. One moment you’re walking around looking for stuff, while the next, you’re floating in space, hoping that your oxygen tank doesn’t give out. That’s not even mentioning the excellent sections with the Moon buggy that are great fun.
We All Float Up Here in Deliver Us The Moon
The whole game primarily involves wandering (or floating) around looking for your next objective or bringing certain items to your next objective. Despite not telling you where to go, the game is pretty linear, and aimless wandering is kept to a minimum, which is a good thing for such a game.
The downside to that though, is the length of the whole adventure is on the short side. Even taking the time and looking for any of the collectibles along the way, the average playtime is between 5 and 7 hours, which is on the short side, even for a game that doesn’t retail at full price. Currently, it’s $24.99.
If you don’t go for the collectibles, the length would be even shorter, but to do so would be to miss out. Various items such as holographic and audio logs can be picked up to help develop the story as you piece together what happened. They are short but form a compelling whole that keeps you invested. So no slacking.
Puzzle wise there isn’t anything too taxing here; if anything, you will likely feel pretty smart when you solve them. Again, no suppliers, but an early puzzle in a third-person section sees you grabbing something, taking it to the problem area, and using it to resolve the issue. I’m being specifically vague as even though the puzzles are simple, they do feel fun to overcome.
What didn’t feel fun were the first person sections, at least not at first. If you are in the first person, the gravity won’t be there, and you’ll be floating around looking for the next objective. This can feel very disorientating as every direction can be moved in; it is also very, very slow.
This made for some tense moments when my oxygen was running out, death was looming, and I was heading slowly to pick some more up, but it also made for some frustrating moments. For example, having to navigate past some electric wires. I failed many times. It was then I changed the sensitivity to maximum, and the zero-gravity sections felt much more of a joy to play.
One other thing to mention is the R1 and L1 buttons. The game doesn’t tell you this (or at least it didn’t tell me, and I didn’t look), but using these will rotate your character and allows for much easier pinpoint precision. You’ll thank me later.
As this is all happening, the ambient sounds help to bring you into the atmosphere, at least they would if you could hear them over the PlayStation 4‘s fans that sound like they are forming their own mission to space, or at least mine did.
That said, Deliver Us The Moon does look very nice. There are plenty of moments that will see you just looking out of windows and admiring the view. It’s a beautiful game. There are issues, though, major ones.
In Space, Everyone Can Hear You Scream
Due to the lack of direction, some of the areas have a real trial and error feel to them, and there were a few sections where I was sure I was heading in the right direction, only to die over and over. Not a significant issue, I know, but there were times I wanted to score this game a perfect five and others where I wanted to give it a 1. There was a real love-hate relationship at points.
Exploration was pretty fun, but the game is dark, even with the use of a flashlight. I know this is space, but at times it was hard to see what was happening. Knitpicking, I know.
Knitpicking aside, the biggest issue comes down to quality, which is a shame when something looks this nice. The writing will blur when you move the screen, and there are so many moments of stuttering. Running through to a new area will cause the game to autosave, and this will freeze the entire screen for seconds at a time.
For a game that’s all about the story, this takes you out of the immersion, not to mention how long it takes to reload a checkpoint when you die. In all my years, I’ve never seen issues this bad, which is a shame with a game that shows this much promise.
At the end of the day, what you get out of Deliver Us The Moon depends on what you put in, how invested you are in the story, and how willing you are to overlook the issues. I did enjoy it and will remember it for some time to come.
Verdict: Deliver Us The Moon is a great story-driven game with issues that let it down. I’d recommend a playthrough as long as you’re prepared for the problems. As of writing, it’s available to download on game pass, so really there’s nothing to lose if you have that and an Xbox.
[review]