Outer Space And Humanity Are Equally Terrifying in ‘Observation’

Twelve white American men are the only people in history to have walked on the Moon. To mark their visits, each NASA Apollo mission planted a US flag on the lunar surface. The six flags, which at the time cost around $5, were proudly staked into the Moon’s surface as both a proclamation of human achievement and a statement of intent to claim our planet’s closest orbiting neighbour as the property of Uncle Sam. In terms of space exploration, this is the furthest distance humans have travelled and nobody has gone back since 1972.

Glasgow-based developer No Code has bigger dreams for humanity. In Observation, a multinational six-crew space station has suffered an unknown disaster and, as the onboard AI system, the player needs to reconstruct past and present events while also working to ensure the future of its one surviving crew member, Dr. Emma Fisher.

Using only the station’s surveillance system and a free-floating 3D camera sphere, Observation immediately jettisons any emotional connection we might have with a playable human character and instead, relies on function over form. By storytelling standards, this is a risk when telling such a confined tale of humanity in deep space. However, this decision succeeds in two areas.

Firstly, the bond between the station’s artificial intelligence and its lone human occupant becomes the pulsating heart of the game which grows more acute with every passing hour. Second, No Code’s concept of our own solar system is so effectively terrifying that an emotionless computer is the best candidate to unlock every breathtaking secret that it holds.

On some level, human beings all share the expectation that one day our species will probably expand into the stars. We’ll go back to the Moon, colonise Mars and eventually maybe explore the rest of our solar system and see what we can claim for ourselves out in the darkness of our galaxy. This belief also comes with the cheerful assumption that once we start to make such advancements, our individual differences which we spend so much time fighting about on Earth will be lessened by our joint efforts in reaching out into the cosmos. It makes sense that when faced with the vast, incredible nature of our universe, any petty squabbles a species may have with itself would fade into history. At least, that’s the best case scenario.

Another dimension of horror is added when the player is reminded that this environment isn’t fictional.

If there is an unseen character in Observation, it is claustrophobia. The cramped corridors and meticulous three-dimensional design of the space station are constantly oppressive. As you navigate its paths, ceilings become floors and regular duties become terror-filled events. Constantly switching views from different areas and modules begins to twist your understanding of what actually exists in this station as you catch things out of the corner of your eye and gasp at the implications of the story. All while trapped inside a silent, fragile environment.

Throughout your journey, it becomes clear that the structure of Observation consists of a small haunted house inside a larger one: the titular station and outer space itself. While Emma’s confined workplace is scary enough, the sheer scope of our solar system is presented not as exciting territory to be explored, but rather an incomprehensible and terrible void which human beings should avoid at all costs.

Another dimension of horror is added when the player is reminded that this environment isn’t fictional. Every day, we live on a cold watery rock that is floating in deep space and everything beyond the thin veneer of this space station’s windows is in fact, our own reality. And every bone of Observation screams that we shouldn’t be out here.

If there’s a reality in this story which is more urgent than the dangers of space exploration, it is the inescapable force of human nature. Our default state of malicious self-interest which has survived somewhere inside our DNA for thousands of years goes against everything inherent to discovery and exploration. Most of the time, whenever humans have travelled into new areas of our own planet, murder and destruction have been our trusty companions. Now that we’ve conquered most corners of our world, this violent nature can’t just lay dormant – it must be directed somewhere. It’s just a question of whether we can afford it.

Somehow, we’re all wired to believe humans will come together as one if we’re ever visited by an extraterrestrial intelligence.

As of 2019, the current yearly budget for NASA is around $20 billion. This is spread throughout all projects including telescopes, satellites, Mars missions, rocket propulsion systems and technology to send probes to places like Europa, Jupiter and the Sun. This most recent budget surplus came with a request from the current administration for NASA to return to the Moon and put humans on Mars by 2033. NASA estimates that the Apollo missions that got us to the Moon in the first place would require six times its current funding amount in 2019 dollars. As a contrast, the annual budget for the US military is just under $700 billion.

If NASA can’t afford to make a significant push into our solar system anytime soon, that leaves private companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to pick up where they left off. Billionaires who have left a trail of public scandals, employee mistreatment and stunning detachment from the rest of humanity throughout their careers. Men whose desire to covet their own fortunes is only overshadowed by staggering new strides in personal ownership. Like someone planting a flag on the Moon.

As money decides who’s next in line to explore beyond Earth, the half dozen US flags remain on the lunar surface. In the decades since 1972, if these nylon flags haven’t already been destroyed by the Moon’s extreme conditions, NASA estimates the red and blue colours have been bleached away. Due to inhospitable temperatures and harsh UV radiation, the flags are now completely white and this claim of property has been rendered null and void by the universe itself.

Playing as an artificial intelligence with no such environmental risks, Observation’s ability to intertwine the most mundane of actions with this bewildering power of outer space is consistently effortless. It gives the player a familiar sense of tactile interaction inside the most extraordinary story concepts. All to lead you by the hand from recognisable and expected game design into truly unknown waters, never to return.

Whereas the player is pushed through the first half of Observation by sheer curiosity, unknown forces pull at the space station’s onboard computer by its second half. As players, we can do little but witness Emma Fisher’s mind begin to crumble under the weight of the universe while discovering new things about ourselves and powerful new forces which exist a couple of planets away from our own.

An alien race with even a basic understanding of linear time would struggle to believe we were a kind, honourable species if they studied the actions of even one of our planet’s governments.

The same assumption which convinces us that we’ll improve as species in the face of galactic discovery is even further cemented when we entertain the possibility of contact with aliens. Somehow, we’re all wired to believe humans will come together as one if we’re ever visited by an extraterrestrial intelligence. But, as far as anyone knows, there’s never been a species quite like us before.

Observation presents a refreshingly new vision of first contact and it is nothing short of intoxicating. As encounters with this ‘antagonist’ increase, both we and Emma can’t help but stare into the gaping maw of darkness which subverts the player’s expectations of our known universe. Due to intricate design and precise storytelling, the game never stumbles in its journey into the unknown.

No Code’s unsettling concepts go against what we normally expect when we imagine humanity making contact with aliens. Preferably, a higher species will be nice to us. Maybe they’ll have advanced technology that cures our diseases or expands our horizons. If not, we’ll hope we have enough weapons to take them down. It’s all very black and white but Observation doesn’t stop for a second to rely on such conventional thinking.

Humans rarely make such lofty demands of ourselves in these first contact scenarios. These otherworldly beings always have to accept us how we are. The onus is on them to help us, not the other way around. If by some miracle we ever reached this stage of contact, we would need to first redact a massive amount of detail about our planet’s history if we didn’t want to scare our new extraterrestrial friends into fleeing for their own safety. An alien race with even a basic understanding of linear time would struggle to believe we were a kind, honourable species if they studied the actions of even one of our planet’s governments.

In this respect, every moment of Observation feels brutally honest. Emma Fisher and her AI companion tell a story in which the concept of humanity is deemed secondary to the needs of our solar system. It is a confronting idea which slowly seems more desirable as the story progresses. Innovative gameplay mixes with jaw-dropping implications of what lies hidden in our solar system to create a remarkable tale of science-fiction horror.

Our natural presumption that we somehow deserve to explore space seems like pure, uncut arrogance in the face of how much we still don’t know about our universe.

As Observation suggests, humans haven’t made nearly enough strides in civilised society to warrant their own place in the stars. Our natural presumption that we somehow deserve to explore space seems like pure, uncut arrogance in the face of how much we still don’t know about our universe. Combine that revelation with our rush to launch rockets into the sky despite our inherent cruelty on the ground, and it writes the recipe for creating the first villains of the universe: the human race.

By accident of design, NASA’s six white flags that we planted on the Moon fifty years ago no longer stake any claim to our lunar neighbour. Instead, they now appear to declare our surrender to the galaxy. If an alien civilisation ever visited our planet, this announcement of our intention to submit to the better angels of our nature is a new, refreshing road to take when imagining our own interstellar future.

Observation is an alarming study of the best and worst humanity has to offer in an exhilarating adventure which is stunning to play and thrilling to explore. No Code has created grim evidence of our existence which we are forced to face in the blackness of space through staggering horror, meticulous investigation and the untapped potential of human beings.

We first planted flags on the Moon fifty years ago. For the sake of our universe, it’s probably for the best if we wait for another half-century before we even think about leaving our planet again.

David Rayfield writes good things in good places like Gamespot, Kotaku, Medium and…elsewhere. Tweet him at @raygunbrown