Immersion is Everything

RetroSpace is an immersive simulation game, like Prey from Bethesda or System Shock. These are the two I’m most familiar with, as I’m new to this whole genre and now completely hooked. What sets RetroSpace apart is the disco-punk atmosphere and the general tone of it all. From the moment you start the game, your character, who doesn’t remember anything, is thrown into a world of dry humor and forced happiness. I’m not kidding; the poor people who once lived on the station had to participate in disco parties. There is a whole theme in the demo of being forced to conform, hide your emotions, and put on a mask. Which I know, it might seem like I’m reading into things, but this is just the vibe I got.

Anyway, this section is called Immersion is Everything, so I want to talk a little bit about that. Starting with what happened when I picked up a fire extinguisher for the first time. See, one of my favorite games of all time is Abiotic Factor, so I’m used to being able to pull items apart in a game. It just makes sense and comes naturally to me. What didn’t come naturally is the fact that the fire extinguisher is completely interactive. I managed to get myself to leave the ground for a second and hover with it! I’m guessing it could also be used to sponge my falls, but I didn’t attempt that yet. 

Another cool thing is using the cleaner bottle to create puddles, which can be used to spread electricity around. I found this out on two separate occasions after I decided to simply smash things. Spoiler alert: getting electrocuted is bad for your health. I love this though; it makes the whole space station feel like a playground. It also gives you plenty of options for how you want to approach various challenges. Which leads me into the next thing I have to gush about…

Atmosphere and World Building

I can not stress this enough; I want to live in the world of RetroSpace. I want an art book, a hard copy of the game, and my own Janitor suite to live in. A big reason for this is the environmental storytelling. This collides with the narrative, which is not only told to you; it’s also something you experience. What I mean by that is that there are three points of narrative in this game. You have the environment, which is gorgeous and has been clearly hand-sculpted. Every set piece feels purposely placed. It reminds me a lot of a Dark Souls game with how the environment is telling its own story, a story which ties into everything else, but one we might not get to experience firsthand.

The forward-facing narrative is not at all simple to understand, which I appreciate. Too many times in these demos, even the ones I don’t write about, the narrative is simple. RetroSpace feels like it has some substance, which I desperately needed. So here is what the game’s website says the game’s story is. 

“2177 – Humanity’s last hope is the AURORA fleet, a convoy of floating space stations searching for a new home. On this mission spanning several centuries, humans spend their lives in deep sleep, while robots, androids, and a dedicated team of personnel guard their dreams. Until one of the gigantic city-ships derailed off its course…

Sucked into a black hole…

And now it drifts in the void, lost in the infinite blackness of space.

Corridors are infested with mutants, systems are jammed, and the ship is constantly jumping back and forth between two time periods. What is going to happen next? Will the madness ever end?

The Nameless Man is looking for a way out. A way out of the endless loop, the evil void, and the cosmic madness… This is… RETROSPACE!”

This was enough to get me hooked. But back to what I was saying, this narrative is told using a three-point narrative structure. You have a woman speaking to you when the game starts; she gives you your first objective and will appear later. But she is not holding your hand; there is no map clutter. The game is completely free-flow, which means you’ll run into the second narrative device, which is the audio logs. The voice acting is superb in this demo; honestly, there isn’t much I would even critique. Anyway, these logs give you some insight into how the human crew was feeling. The game needs these audio logs; they’re not just extra. This human touch makes you care about what’s going on. It makes you care about why your character lost their memory. If this human touch wasn’t there, the game would feel needlessly empty. 

The last piece of this puzzle is the emails. The reason I didn’t include them in this tangent about the narrative structure is that we don’t get a lot of them in the demo. Regardless, I’ll talk about them here and leave it here until the full release. The emails are written from the POV of different characters, and they’re written well. They normally provide you with insights into the work life of the crew. My favorite email in the demo is the one warning an important character to change their password from 1234 to anything else; play the demo, and you’ll know what I mean. I believe that these will expand on the narrative, but didn’t do enough in the demo for me to include them in the structure that I’m praising. 

The atmosphere of RetroSpace is further amplified by the game’s soundtrack, which I am completely obsessed with. I’ve never heard anything like it, so the best way that I can describe it is that it sounds like classic science fiction. If you watch more of the promotional material, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

Final Thoughts 

In RetroSpace, you have options. You can use the environment to kill the mutants around you, or you can use a weapon. Either way, the game features robust combat mechanics, which I’m already missing as I write this. 

The gunplay was a lot of fun. It’s nothing revolutionary, but the weapon design and sound effects do a good job of selling the combat. What I really like is that you can use your environment to your advantage. If you’re running low on bullets, you can stick to the shadows or use a melee weapon. What’s better is that most of what can hurt you will hurt the mutants. Except for the turrets, which I find super interesting. 

Speaking of the turrets, they do the cutest emotes when they get mad. It’s hard to take them seriously until they put like 15 bullets into you. I like evading them; it’s a lot of fun and adds a lot to the overall tension of the game. What I dislike is the sound effects of the doors; the sound is way too loud, even with the settings adjusted. 

Speaking of sounds, the ambient noise and sound effects caused by the moth mutants are amazing. They’re seriously creepy yet fit so well for the mutant. I am honestly extremely impressed with the sound design at work here. It makes the mutants feel like their biology has actually changed, which is no easy feat. I really like monsters and mutants, and I enjoy when games try to create their own. I think the Mothmen were nailed. 

One other thing I want to call attention to is the map. I know this will be an opinion that could cause a debate. But I love when the map is properly themed to the game, and I especially love when the map is a bit obtuse. For example, in Abiotic Factor, you get the equivalent of a slip of paper for a map. You mostly use the signs around the building to navigate. In RetroSpace, you unlock map pieces by interacting with terminals, but the map is not an overly labeled mess. I like this, and I hope that it doesn’t change for the full release.

To close off this Demo Spotlight, I really need to talk about how RetroSpace stands out this year. 2026 is absolutely packed with releases. Because of the release of the next GTA, a lot of releases are coming out in September and October, or simply next year. I think that RetroSpace fills a gap with this year’s releases. We got a lot of action-adventure games, some role-playing games, and a whole slew of others. But we didn’t get another simulation game like this, to my knowledge. We don’t get a lot of games with this kind of atmosphere and attention to detail, so I really think that if you read this or watch my video, you should try the demo. Just be aware that it is a little scary.