Deliver Us The Moon (PS5) Game Review – Blast off into space with this immersive sci-fi puzzler

Blast off into space with this immersive sci-fi puzzler

Deliver Us The Moon is a space-based puzzler that originally launched on last-gen systems back in 2020. A current-gen version of the game recently became available for PS5 and Xbox Series X owners to play and while it’s the same game at heart, it has been given the graphical overhaul that we expect to see when gaming on the latest machines.

The game is set in the not-too-distant future when the Earth and its inhabitants are in danger of extinction due to a large-scale energy crisis. To counter this problem, the World Space Agency was formed and a plan put in place to set up a colony on the Moon where a newly-discovered source of energy could be beamed back down to our planet.

However, the project failed, for undisclosed reasons, and to find out what happened, a lone astronaut is sent on an investigative mission to the Moonbase. Unsurprisingly, you play as the astronaut who has to venture out into the vast expanse of space to both discover the location of the missing scientists and resume their project before the Earth is doomed forever.

Once again in a video game, humanity rests on your shoulders as you are the only person who can save the day. Are you up to the mission ahead? It’s certainly a complicated one, at least in theory, as you first have to fly to the Moon before setting foot in a space station where all kinds of dangers lie ahead.

Thankfully, in terms of gameplay, your quest isn’t as challenging as it might first appear. For the most part, this is a walking simulator where you traverse the space station in search of answers to the scientists’ disappearance. You do this by snooping around the crew’s headquarters, looking for holographic recordings that reveal more about the ill-fated Moon mission.

You don’t only walk around, of course. As you also have to move through various low-gravity settings both in and outside of the facility, you also spend a good deal of time floating from one location to another.

These moments are often quite tense as oxygen is in short supply so you have to find air canisters to replenish your depleting stock before you finally stop breathing. You also get to drive a Moon buggy but these sections are frustratingly short as you have to hurry from A to B to complete your tasks before your flow of oxygen runs out.

When you’re not driving on the Moon and leaping around the base, there are a number of puzzles to solve. These are rarely taxing as they are all quite similar and largely involve finding codes for doors, shuffling batteries around to power up the station, and aligning satellites so the Earth can receive power.

There is also a fetch quest where you have to find the pieces of a machine that eventually becomes your robotic companion, when you have put all of the necessary components together.

It’s all rather simple, although there are moments when the game gets a little bit trickier, such as the sequences involving hostile robots that you need to navigate past to get to your next location. Thankfully, even these moments can be made easier due to your robotic friend who can be manually piloted so you can chart out a route ahead.

You won’t mind the straightforward nature of your tasks as the game is often breathtakingly beautiful. This is especially true during the moments when you are able to look out at the moonscape from the space station windows, and when you’re forced to navigate your way through the vast emptiness of space in search of oxygen and shelter.

The game’s bright and shiny interiors are good to look at too, and they help to break up the monotony of moments when you are forced to move slowly from one area to the next.

On the whole, Deliver Us The Moon stands out thanks to its involving story, gorgeous aesthetics, and the way the developers have captured the immersive feeling of being alone within the cold depths of space.

However, Deliver Us The Moon is not without a few niggles. On my playthrough, the sound had a habit of cutting out and I had to restart the game several times to correct this annoying fault. There were also moments when the game’s loading times were longer than I expected. Such problems took me out of the game’s world and broke the immersive experience, which is a shame as for the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed my world-saving mission.

The game probably isn’t worth a second playthrough if you have already completed it on an earlier console, even though a free upgrade is available. Aside from the updated graphics, the story and gameplay elements are the same, so there’s little incentive for you to play this again.

But if you haven’t downloaded or picked up a copy of this game yet, I can definitely recommend this to you, especially if you’re a fan of games with a space setting.

With its excellent balance of exploration, puzzle-solving, and story-telling, as well as the very impressive visuals and immersive atmosphere, Deliver Us The Moon offers a great experience to anybody who is willing to strap themselves in for the ride.