Has anyone else noticed that space missions in adventure games ALWAYS go wrong?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially with Artemis II literally flying around the Moon right now. In real life we're finally going back after 54 years... but in point & click adventures, every single mission ends in disaster. The Dig, Mission Critical, Observation, Tacoma, Event[0], Analogue: A Hate Story — nobody comes home safe.
I ended up going down a rabbit hole connecting this pattern to Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Ridley Scott, and even Joseph Conrad, and it turned into a full video essay exploring why games have spent 30 years rehearsing space disasters while humanity couldn't even get back to the Moon.
The video is in Spanish but has subtitles in English, French, Portuguese and more.
Would love to hear what this community thinks — especially if there are space-themed adventure games I missed.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially with Artemis II literally flying around the Moon right now. In real life we're finally going back after 54 years... but in point & click adventures, every single mission ends in disaster. The Dig, Mission Critical, Observation, Tacoma, Event[0], Analogue: A Hate Story — nobody comes home safe.
I ended up going down a rabbit hole connecting this pattern to Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Ridley Scott, and even Joseph Conrad, and it turned into a full video essay exploring why games have spent 30 years rehearsing space disasters while humanity couldn't even get back to the Moon.
The video is in Spanish but has subtitles in English, French, Portuguese and more.
Would love to hear what this community thinks — especially if there are space-themed adventure games I missed.
This post was last modified: 04-16-2026, 03:05 PM by PIEDRA_Adventure_Gaming.
Interesting thought!
Maybe because it's something to do how we, humans, behave and function?
I am developing currently a space adventure game. I've released already The Silent Sky Part-I, which is a humble prologue to the series and doesn't explore the space yet, but the second part will get a fair chunk of it, thats for sure. I am a very big sci-fi and space enthusiast and appreciate you bringing up these topics.
Indeed this specific topic has been rehearsed since the sci-fi was invented, but disasters and catastrophes have always sent human species along, and I guess we like to put our attention to it. The bigger the bang, the longer we look. Other way to say it, we seek problems, and then solve them. And space is a dangerous place, as far as we know it - really doesn't hold any form of life, unless one is protected beyond measures. Any small detail that you miss or don't consider not just can but will cost you your life and extra, with any mercy. But as awful as it may sound, problems and mistakes move us forward.
And to be fair, if nothing goes wrong, and you don't get any sense of fear during the mission, then where is the adventure, really?
Maybe because it's something to do how we, humans, behave and function?
I am developing currently a space adventure game. I've released already The Silent Sky Part-I, which is a humble prologue to the series and doesn't explore the space yet, but the second part will get a fair chunk of it, thats for sure. I am a very big sci-fi and space enthusiast and appreciate you bringing up these topics.
Indeed this specific topic has been rehearsed since the sci-fi was invented, but disasters and catastrophes have always sent human species along, and I guess we like to put our attention to it. The bigger the bang, the longer we look. Other way to say it, we seek problems, and then solve them. And space is a dangerous place, as far as we know it - really doesn't hold any form of life, unless one is protected beyond measures. Any small detail that you miss or don't consider not just can but will cost you your life and extra, with any mercy. But as awful as it may sound, problems and mistakes move us forward.
And to be fair, if nothing goes wrong, and you don't get any sense of fear during the mission, then where is the adventure, really?
It's like I said to my wife when she was watching one of her favorite TV shows...
"You know something about the plots of Star Trek episodes? It's ALWAYS SOMETHING."
"You know something about the plots of Star Trek episodes? It's ALWAYS SOMETHING."
