Lunar Strike offers a pessimistic, and worryingly realistic look at the future of space travel

It's impossible not to be optimistic about our future among the stars at the moment. The Artemis 2 mission just blasted four astronauts in a loop around the moon, taking humanity one step closer to once again setting foot on our natural satellite. But, ironically, NASA's achievement doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it’s time for a reality check. As rocket launches become more common, and the goal shifts away from exploration for the good of humanity towards exploitation for the profit of billionaires, interest and excitement around spaceflight is waning. That's the cold future that the upcoming space game "Lunar Strike" presents. Cognition, the developers behind the game, gave us a sneak peek into the lore and backstory of their upcoming narrative-driven adventure, which sees you step into the boots of a junior archivist sent to document humanity's final lunar settlement. (Image credit: Cognition) Set in the year 2119, Lunar Strike imagines a world where humanity's reach for the stars fizzled out with a whimper, as problems at home forced us to refocus our efforts. Global warming led to international tensions, and a mixture of religious fanaticism and failures in governance gave way to nuclear annihilation. Suffice to say, this string of disasters left humanity risk-averse. As an in-universe essay notes, "humanity recoiled and retrenched and withdrew and atrophied". It's a strangely pragmatic look forward that we rarely see in games. …