Deliver Us The Moon is a sci-fi thriller set in the distant future where the resources on Earth have been completely depleted, and a lone astronaut is sent on a critical mission to the Moon to save humanity from extinction. Originally released in 2019, the game has been revamped on next-gen consoles with a slew of technical improvements. No new content has been added, but the development team is working on a sequel: Deliver Us Mars, set to come out in Sept.
“The developers nailed the ‘man on the moon’ experience.”
No monsters are hiding in outer space. It is just you against the world in this claustrophobic thriller. The gameplay revolves around exploration and puzzle-solving. A variety of engaging and brain-teasing obstacles stand in your way to immerse you in the world. The only caveat to all this is that some puzzles get repetitive after a while and others are too vague. Puzzles range from looking for a code to unlock a door to grabbing battery packs to power up the space station before your oxygen levels run out.
Most of the story is told through documents and clues found throughout the environment, but also from a handful of cutscenes and voiceovers. Your mission commander is actually the protagonist of the next game in the series. Throughout the game, you will encounter a cute little robot helper, and you even get to drive a moon buggy. The developers nailed the ‘man on the moon’ experience.
The game often switches between third and first-person perspectives periodically. It makes certain sequences much more intimate or tense. The game is excellently paced, as sometimes you are exploring at your own speed, but other times you’ll feel the pressure to get the ball rolling.
“Everything looks breathtaking, from the cratered surface of the moon to the complex buttons on your rocket.”
This game looks amazing, even before the next-gen update, with crisp visuals and insane attention to detail. I often found myself gazing at the final frontier with beady eyes in the hopes that one day I could go to space. Everything looks breathtaking, from the cratered surface of the Moon to the complex buttons on your rocket. Immersion is further elevated by the ambiance provided by the game’s soundtrack. The music ranges from laid back to emotional and perfectly fits each scene.
Performance on the PlayStation 5 version runs at a stable 60 frames per second while maintaining the above-mentioned visual quality. There are two visual modes. A quality mode renders the game in 4K but locks the frame rate to 30 FPS, and a performance mode caps resolution at 1440p but runs at 60 FPS. Ray tracing is included in the quality mode, which affects the shadows and lighting in space. Playing the game with double the framerate is the best overall experience. But both modes are a major improvement on the PlayStation 4 version, which suffered from various freezes and stutters when saving or entering new areas.
However, it is a shame that the next-gen version of the game introduces minor improvements. The load times are lightning-fast and seamless thanks to the PlayStation 5’s SSD but the graphics, which are supposed to be fully remastered in 4K, look virtually the same as the original. But this might be because the graphical fidelity was already excellent before. The DualSense controller features adaptive triggers and rumbling, but Deliver Us The Moon hardly ever utilizes these.
“The next-gen update is undoubtedly an upgrade, albeit a minor one.”
It should be noted that the PlayStation 5 upgrade for Deliver Us The Moon is free for existing owners of the PlayStation 4 version of the game, which is a huge plus. PlayStation Plus Extra tier members can also claim the next-gen version for free as part of the service’s ever-growing catalog of games. Regardless of the number of improvements, the game is reasonably priced, at a humble $24.99 (USD), and contains about 5-6 hours of gameplay.
Deliver Us The Moon serves up a unique atmospheric science fiction adventure filled with interesting puzzles, excellent voice acting, and a thought-provoking narrative. The next-gen update is undoubtedly an upgrade, albeit a minor one. The controls can still be janky, and the developers could have done much more with this re-release. The game starts strong and enticing but suffers from repetition near the end. Nevertheless, there’s a considerable lack of single-player story-driven, combat-less games in space, and this game more than fits that anti-gravity void.
*Disclaimer: Reviewed on Playstation 5. Code was provided by the Publisher.
