For a certain kind of science fiction fan, the surprise news of a video game set in one of the most beloved TV and book series, The Expanse, hit like a freight train of hype. The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is an action RPG currently in development from Owlcat Games with no release date yet, but that hasn’t stopped the studio’s creative director, Alexander Mishulin, from giving me some early details about the game.

There are many reasons The Expanse has been so successful, the largest of which is its deft mix of well-written characters interweaved with political intrigue affecting grand theaters. Unlike Star Wars and other popular space fiction, The Expanse — both the books by James S.A. Corey and the Syfy/Amazon Prime show — is «hard» science fiction with realistic physics and scenarios. From chatting with Mishulin, Cyprus-based Owlcat Games is making sure all of this makes it into its game.

The announcement trailer for Osiris Reborn, released during Summer Game Fest earlier this month, shows plenty of hallmarks from the TV show: zero-G ship combat, sealed flight suits, tactical gunplay and the protomolecule. But the end showed something even more promising: early gameplay footage that, despite being prealpha and not representative of how the final game will look, represents the third-person exploration that Owlcat Games is aiming to use. 

It looks, well, very Mass Effect. Many of Mishulin’s teammates are fans of BioWare’s legendary sci-fi action RPG series, and he acknowledged that it in some way inspired Osiris Reborn. But he emphasized that the team also drew on RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 for its cinematic story focusing on companions, while Japanese RPGs served as models for great characterization that keeps you attached to characters through the long story of a game. 

«I’m not saying we are taking something from, say, Persona 5, but the approach, the idea that characters are front and center of the story and how they evolve all through the story up until the end is a little bit similar,» Mishulin said.

Osiris Reborn is set in the same near-Earth area as its source material, specifically during the events of the first and second seasons of the show (or the first two books). It’ll have entirely new characters for the player to meet and add to their party, which was done to give Owlcat Games more creative room to tell stories rather than strictly adapt the books or show, though they may run into some more well-known heroes and villains. 

«You will be seeing with your own eyes the repercussions of Holden’s actions, all the situations like The Canterbury, and how it affects people in the belt, people in the inner planets,» Mishulin said. «You will be having your own adventure with your own goals, choices, consequences in the same universe [with] all the major events unfolding in this universe alongside your story.»

What players will recognize more are the planets, moons and locations they’ll visit in Osiris Reborn — in fact, the game starts on Eros Station. Show and book fans will remember what was happening there at this point in the timeline, and yes, the human-altering extrasolar protomolecule will make an appearance in the game, evoking a similar horror as it does in the show. Relatedly, the corporate subsidiary Protogen that studies the alien molecule will also appear, Mishulin said, hinting that its most sinister project, the human-protomolecule hybrid Caliban, will also show up.

From the trailer and Mishulin’s descriptions, Osiris Reborn sounds like it will be very different from other adaptations of the franchise, such as Telltale’s narrative-driven Expanse game. And for Mass Effect fans, it sounds like Owlcat’s game will have RPG systems and combat that have some similar elements to BioWare’s classics, but give players more capability to build characters and play how they want. Mix in strong characters with comparisons to other popular RPGs and Osiris Reborn sounds like a lot of what fans want in a game adapting the franchise.

Modern third-person space RPG combat

Osiris Reborn’s combat will allow a variety of approaches, Mishulin said, letting players mix and match their reliance on gunplay and various abilities. In the announcement trailer, the trio of heroes showcased three different approaches to fights: traditional guns, drone-based support from a distance and a defensive ballistic shield (along with a shoulder-mounted weapon), which worked in tandem to hit enemies from all sides.

«The RPG system is very open, allowing you to build whatever character you like. It’s part of our vision of the game to allow you to experiment and find things you like,» Mishulin said. 

Characters aren’t class-based, and players can try out weapons and devices they find along the way. Weapons you pick up will have different parameters, like damage, accuracy or recoil, so it behooves the player to find out which guns best fit their build. In that way, Mishulin vaguely compared Osiris Reborn to a Souls game — not in its difficulty, but in discovering weapons during the game and strengthening your play style around it. The team wants players to tinker with their abilities and weapons to find what’s best for them, including finding unique synergies. 

Mishulin gave one example: a visor that highlights enemies through smoke and cover (which «allows you to start feeling a little bit like a character in a lot of ’80s or ’90s movies,» Mishulin said) that will help players shoot enemies through walls. It works better with slow and hard-hitting weapons than with a fast-firing submachine gun, he noted, so it’s only helpful with certain play styles.

In Osiris Reborn, players will also have two companions to bring into combat, though the rest of your ragtag crew won’t just stay on the ship, killing time, Mishulin noted. They’ll help you fulfill objectives as the missions progress — sometimes even forming second teams to handle situations elsewhere. 

As seen in the trailer, players will have their own small ship (similar to the Rocinante in The Expanse books and show) that the main characters call home and use to launch into missions. And while ship-to-ship combat won’t be in Osiris Reborn — at least not controlling it like other dogfighting simulator games — players will get to roam around and lightly customize their vessel.

And while it won’t necessarily relate to combat, players will create their main character and establish their backstory as being from Earth, Mars or the Belt (the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter). Player characters will face hostility due to their origins and other choices or consequences, but later in the game, they’ll be able to shift their allegiances as they choose — perhaps they’ll be born a Belter but slowly shift toward the ideology of Mars, Minshulin suggested, or choose to be a double agent. Ultimately, there will be a lot of paths and choices for players to pick their own experience, one defined by choices.

Adapting The Expanse after working on Warhammer 40K and other franchises

Owlcat Games is most known for its titles taking place in the universes of popular nerdy properties like Warhammer 40K and Pathfinder (a tabletop game similar to Dungeons & Dragons). Games like Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader showed how Owlcat’s developers can bring a specific scenario and story to life in the world of an intellectual property through close involvement with those who hold the rights.

«Our previous games taught us how to communicate this approach, how to communicate our vision and our passion for this particular universe to an IP holder,» Mishulin said. 

Fans of The Expanse among the developers at Owlcat Games put together a pitch for an adaptation and approached Alcon Entertainment. The Expanse universe was a good fit for the studio’s type of storytelling, Mishulin said: grounded, gritty sci-fi with a lot of political power plays and webs of intrigue. More importantly for Owlcat, the universe has lots of opportunities to introduce player agency in choices, consequences and big decisions — which is pretty evident in the books and show. 

Owlcat started developing Osiris Reborn in 2021 and spent almost a year prototyping the game, as it switched from the Unity engine used for its previous games to Unreal Engine 5 to better suit its vision. While its prior games were isometric tactical games controlling multiple characters from above, Osiris Reborn positions the camera over the main character’s shoulder for a more intense experience that suits the shooter gameplay and cinematic approach. 

Owlcat’s game aims to preserve The Expanse’s realistic approach to science fiction, Minshulin said, including how it treats the lethal vacuum of space. 

«One big part of our Expanse experience is [conveying] that space is a very dangerous and unwelcoming place to be,» Minshulin said.

From decompression to navigating zero-G environments to the «click» of boots magnetizing on surfaces, players should see authentic visual and audio touches from the show and books. The one exception they’re making: gunshots will make sounds in space, but should respect the «feeling of the physics and how it should be» in their game, Minshulin said. The studio will have a similar approach to the physics phenomena of traveling in space or being on a space station, especially when it looks cool and immerses the player.

Regrettably, Minshulin couldn’t give me an example of one of these physics phenomena — because it would spoil content that’s going to be in the game’s hands-off demo Owlcat is showing off in August at this year’s Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany. While Owlcat hasn’t yet set a release date for the game, fans of The Expanse will soon get to see more of what Owlcat has in store for what’s looking like the biggest adaptation of the sci-fi franchise so far.

The Xbox App on PC is now integrating purchased games from people’s libraries across various supported storefronts, including Steam, Microsoft announced Monday. This feature is currently limited to those in the Xbox Insider program, which gives early access to software updates. Windows users can access the Xbox Insider Hub here. 

The update aggregates all titles across supported PC gaming storefronts to turn the Xbox App into a universal launcher. This is especially handy for people who buy games on Steam, Epic Games, Battle.net and other stores. Microsoft didn’t provide a full list of which storefronts are currently supported, and didn’t immediately respond to a request for further comment. 

Xbox as universal gaming hub

The push for Xbox to become a universal gaming hub rather than a distinct separate environment comes as Microsoft hasn’t been able to gain ground against PlayStation and Nintendo. As of September 2024, the Sony PlayStation 5 had sold 61.7 million units versus Xbox Series consoles’ 28.3 million, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cites Aldora Intelligence. 

To chart the future of Xbox, Microsoft seems to be taking a more egalitarian approach. Last week, Microsoft said that it’s actively developing its next-generation gaming ecosystem, which will encompass console, handheld, PC and Cloud. This falls in line with the company’s recent marketing strategy of calling every screen you own an Xbox. Rumors are even pointing to an Xbox-branded Meta Quest 3S headset. 

Xbox President Sarah Bond said that the Xbox division is working closely with the Windows team to ensure that «Windows is the number one platform for gaming.» This implies that the next Xbox might resemble something closer to a gaming PC. A vision of this experience was shown at the Xbox Games Showcase earlier this month with the reveal of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally handheld. 

During a live event today at its Tech Experience 5G Hub in Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile announced that it has been named the Best Mobile Network in the US by Ookla, based on half a billion real-world usage tests conducted over a six-month period. This marks the first time T-Mobile has taken the overall top spot. 

(Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

«We made big bets on 5G, pushing the limits to deliver speed and coverage no one thought possible,» said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. «Now, as the Best Mobile Network in America, with unmatched satellite-to-mobile capability, it’s clear we’re shaping the future of wireless with a network built not just for speed, but for possibility.»

The company also announced additional features as well as a July 23 commercial launch date for T-Satellite, its Starlink-based satellite connectivity service. Because T-Mobile has associated its wireless brand with an ongoing array of perks, the company is also adding free DoorDash DashPass memberships for T-Mobile subscribers with Magenta status.

In less than a decade, T-Mobile has gone from a limited-spectrum upstart with a penchant for bright pink branding to the top of the competitive US mobile industry, largely due to the way it has navigated the transition to 5G networking (and maybe some help from the magenta colors). Merging T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum with Sprint’s mid-band became one of the main reasons T-Mobile is now crowing about its spot in Ookla’s rankings.

As part of these announcements, T-Mobile invited CNET to an exclusive behind-the-scenes conversation about how it arrived at this point and a tour of some of the technologies at work at its headquarters and labs.

An unconventional road to 5G

Every company says it’s the best at something, and for a long time, T-Mobile claimed it was the best value among the major wireless carriers. «US consumers have always had to make a choice between going to a much higher priced but higher quality network, or make a trade-off in network and get a better value,» said Mike Katz, T-Mobile president of marketing, strategy and products. «Now it’s validated by a third party [that] customers don’t have to make this choice. They can get both the best value, which T Mobile has always been known and famous for, and get the best network.»

But how did T-Mobile get to this point? It’s easy to say you have the best value and that customers love you, but those are results. At this scale — being one of the top three providers in the US competing for an essential market — it takes a series of technical decisions, a vision of how technology will evolve and the willingness to take big risks.

From a consumer point of view, a few years ago, the focus of every carrier seemed to be to expand coverage, especially 5G coverage. Specifics got lost in the 5G marketing shuffle — every phone-maker touted its 5G compatibility, and the carriers wanted everyone to know that they were expanding their 5G footprint as fast as possible.

But wireless coverage isn’t like a blanket that covers everything equally, and 5G in particular is made up of several speeds and flavors. That’s why your 5G-enabled phone will sometimes indicate the network as «5G,» «5G+,» «5G UC» or other variations, depending on your carrier.

When 5G technologies began to appear in 2020, one focus was on the high speeds possible using the millimeter wave spectrum. But, although millimeter wave can deliver swift connections, it can be thwarted by obstacles such as windows or even plants.

«Primarily, [5G] was going to be a millimeter wave play, which is very high bandwidth with very poor reach,» said Ulf Ewaldsson, T-Mobile’s president of technology. «We went all-in on a very different strategy. We said, ‘it’s going to be a mid-band play, and it’s going to be TDD [Time Division Duplex, a way to send and receive data in the same frequency] spectrum in the mid-band that you pair with a very strong low band.’ We were able to get our hands on the best possible spectrum, thanks to merging with Sprint.»

Ewaldsson emphasized that it’s not just a prevalence of low-band that’s advantageous. It’s that, at 600 megahertz, T-Mobile has the lowest band in the low-band area. Why is that important? It has better reach, about 25% to 30% wider than the competition.

That Sprint merger in 2020 sounded like a quick way to buy into the top of the market, a shortcut to expand one’s footprint. (Indeed, T-Mobile is taking a similar tack right now in the broadband market by acquiring fiber provider Lumos in April). But buying Sprint wasn’t an immediate ticket to the top.

«It took about a year extra to get through all the regulatory approvals to get this thing done,» Ewaldsson said, noting that AT&T’s and Verizon’s lead in the market made it a challenge for T-Mobile or Sprint alone to actually enter the 5G race. But with a plan in place to use Sprint’s spectrum and infrastructure, «once we came out [of the approval process], we were right out of the blocks,» he said.

Katz explained that many of T-Mobile’s early disadvantages have turned into benefits. «We have more towers than anybody else, and our towers are closer together,» he said. «We had to build more towers than AT&T and Verizon. We didn’t have any low-band spectrum, which propagates better. So we had to build more towers that were closer together.»

Ewaldsson was more specific. «We have about [and here he paused briefly] 82,715 towers,» he said. «Now, as a turn of events, that happened to be the best possible asset when we merged with Sprint, because we could power up all those towers with that TDD spectrum … and create a formidable downlink speed experience.»

The benefits of the standalone core

Merging T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum with Sprint’s mid-band became one of the main reasons T-Mobile is now crowing about its spot in Ookla’s rankings.

«We have [a] secret that nobody else has, which is a standalone core. A standalone core is a smarter control over all those towers that stand alone,» Ewaldsson said. «Core allows us to combine low-band and mid-band and all our bands to get higher and faster experiences for our customers.»

He explained that building out the network more consistently is something other carriers haven’t done. Every T-Mobile tower has nearly the same tri-band configuration.

«You have the same speeds, latency and performance on your apps, wherever you are, and that’s also a secret sauce, too,» he said.

The standalone core enables T-Mobile’s next wave of wireless advancements. In April, the company announced that it had rolled out and successfully tested — with consumer handsets — 5G-Advanced networking, achieving uplink speeds of 550 Mbps. It did so by combining multiple spectrums in a technique called carrier aggregation, which is enabled by the standalone core hardware.

This technology also enables network slicing, a technique T-Mobile has been using commercially for the last two years to guarantee network performance for a specific range of devices, even in crowded or noisy wireless environments. First responders, for example, can be assured they can communicate, even in an emergency environment where other people are all accessing the network.

«You can have a number of different frequencies supporting one single device, one mobile phone,» said Ewaldsson. «If you combine all those resources [into] one device, you can get an incredible bandwidth for a short time, and you can get done with what needs to be done faster. So it creates a better customer experience, because you have an enormous bandwidth that is allocated toward one device, instead of sharing it in one frequency with a bunch of devices.»

How Ookla named T-Mobile the Best Mobile Network in the US

«We’ve known for a long time that the 5G portion of our network is the best,» said Katz, «but this [test] concluded that T-Mobile had the best network. And obviously, we’re very excited about that.»

Both Katz and Ewaldsson emphasized that Ookla’s testing was larger and more comprehensive than earlier metrics. It was performed on over 6 million devices and 500 million test points over a six-month period.

Ewaldsson said it’s an active test, collecting data when customers run the SpeedTest app on their phones, «but it’s also a passive test where, in the background, they’re pulling data from millions of different handsets that are in the hands of real consumers, wherever they are.»

He contrasted that with drive testing, an accepted methodology in which a tester drives routes with a collection of representative phones «to prove that a network is good,» said Ewaldsson. We don’t believe in that. We believe that if you really want to test this, you’re going to crowdsource it, and that’s exactly what this test has done… and it’s a third-party test.»

The benefit to this approach is that it more closely captures real mobile usage — people texting and sending email, viewing social apps, watching video clips, playing games and more. Millions of people are also operating under real-world conditions, which can include factors such as pockets of interference or scarcity.

Getting to this point hasn’t been a glide path for T-Mobile, and it still faces turbulence. Just in the past few months, T-Mobile has raised prices on many of its legacy plans (and then turned around and gave out free lines to some). It has also switched all of its current plans to a model that does not include taxes and fees, some of which incrementally increased this spring. Until this year, the main unlimited data plans incorporated taxes and fees into the monthly cost.

T-Satellite goes online in July with more features

T-Mobile’s wireless performance is not the only thing looking skyward. The T-Satellite service, which enables texting from most smartphones via the network of over 620 Starlink satellites when out of range of cellular or Wi-Fi networks, will leave beta status on July 23 and be open to anyone. Pricing for the service will be $10 a month, except for customers on the Experience Beyond and Go5G Next plan, which includes T-Satellite as part of the package.

That price will apply even if you’re a customer of a competing service like AT&T or Verizon; T-Satellite can be activated as a second eSIM on supported devices. Katz said there are currently over 1.8 million customers in the beta program, including tens of thousands of competitors’ customers.

He also pointed out that during the beta, three times more messages were received than sent. «If you can’t receive an incoming message because you haven’t manually connected your phone, you’re not really reachable and, in my opinion, you’re not really connected,» he said, referring to the way competitors’ phones initiate a satellite link.

The T-Satellite service will include 911 emergency texting later this year, which will be available to any mobile subscriber, even if they haven’t signed up for T-Satellite service (provided their devices can make the connection).

«We just think that with a technology like this, no customer should ever be in a situation where they are unconnected in an emergency,» said Katz.

That’s not the last of the satellite news, though. T-Satellite will enable MMS messaging to send pictures and short audio clips via satellite on Android phones, with iOS support coming later. In a demonstration I witnessed at T-Mobile’s 5G Hub, sending an image, text and requisite burst of emojis wasn’t exactly speedy, but they arrived within 30 to 90 seconds.

Building on that, T-Mobile will bring data service to T-Satellite starting Oct. 1. Considering how satellite bandwidth is constrained, T-Mobile is working with operating system providers to implement an API that developers can use to allow reasonable data access in their apps over the satellite connection. Don’t expect to stream Netflix while you’re camping in the wilderness, but apps such as All Trails will be able to fetch updated information.

«This will be the first time you’ve seen a direct-to-cell satellite network support data services,» said Katz. «We’ve worked with many different app developers to help them build their apps to recognize that they’re connected to satellite and optimize for satellite data.»

DoorDash deliveries without all the fees

When it comes to mobile plan perks, T-Mobile has found success with its Magenta Status goodies, which range from everyday discounts on stays at Hilton hotels to T-Mobile Tuesdays, which offer deals such as a recent Wingstop promotion (during which many of the restaurant’s locations ran out of chicken nationwide). Katz said the company has seen 1.2 billion redemptions of T-Mobile Tuesdays offers.

On July 8, Magenta Status is gaining a new perk: T-Mobile is partnering with DoorDash to give customers on the most popular plans DashPass service free for a year. Eligible customers can claim the offer through Aug. 4 via T-Mobile Tuesdays in the T-Life app. 

«I think DoorDash did something like 2 billion deliveries last year, and the average price of a delivery is $3 to $4,» said Katz. «If you have DashPass, you don’t pay delivery fees at all. This can save our customers hundreds and hundreds of dollars.»

Incentives to switch and T-Mobile’s future

Eager to entice customers of the major competing services, T-Mobile is launching the Easy Upgrade program that makes it «screamingly simple,» in Katz’s words, to switch to T-Mobile. He specifically mentioned Verizon customers «who signed up with Verizon because they believed, and for years it was true, that Verizon had the best network,» he said. «And now that we’re in a place where it’s definitively clear that T-Mobile has the best network, we want to make it really easy for Verizon customers to come and join the Un-carrier.»

Katz said T-Mobile will pay off every cost to switch, including the remaining cost of devices up to $800, and give customers a new Apple or Android device without requiring a trade-in (be sure to read the details of these deals).

T-Mobile’s ascent to the top of Ookla’s list shows that, even though the mobile market in the US is dominated by just a few large players, the field is in flux. AT&T and Verizon continue to build out their own networks and strategies — Verizon has teased a «Project 624» that is rumored to be revealed on June 24, for instance. Now that T-Mobile has established this lead, I’m eager to see how it plans to hold onto it.