Before I got my start with Lifeless Moon, I had a sneaking suspicion that I had heard of it before. That’s when I checked my Steam wishlist and found that I had added Lifeless Planet almost eight years ago. I was intrigued by the concept of playing as an astronaut, and it helped that it had some intrigue with a psychological-thriller kind of approach. While I may not have experience with the previous game, I’m excited to see how Lifeless Moon pans out. Luckily, I got a hands-on preview ahead of its launch later this year.

Lifeless Moon throws you into a similar premise as its predecessor. You’re an astronaut on a mission, but you happen to end up in a place where not everything is as it seems. There’s transmissions with another member of your team, but the voice acting from this actor isn’t particularly convincing and could use another take or two to feel more believable. After that, though, I found a really cool effect come into play where it felt like my movement was being fast-forwarded rapidly to simulate a tension most games fail to capture.

After some time moving about, you’ll come across a town in Lifeless Moon that definitely shouldn’t be there. After some digging around, you’re prompted in needing a key to progress. Once I was able to track down the key, I got all kinds of stuck. What did this unmarked key open? The only building with its lights on in the entire town was the diner, which, with a gaming mindset, spoke to me as that’s where I needed to go. It turned out it wasn’t, and the real frustration set in. Puzzle games are supposed to challenge the brain and not present roadblocks.

After some dialogue with our press partner, I discovered that this key was designated for a schoolhouse. In order to do this, I had to re-enter the game and re-do several minutes of progress multiple times due to Lifeless Moon not being generous with auto-saves. This could have been completely avoided if my lackadaisical tendencies instead decided to check the notebook, but it still served as a frustration point.

With some more hemming and hawing, I found another key designated for the diner. It was at this point that I had to take a step away after realizing I’m doing point A to point B puzzle shenanigans and not being captivated by the mystery caper that was being presented to me.

Once I finally got to the illuminated diner in Lifeless Moon, the view shifted from third-person to first-person. This was a nice touch to get me immersed again while trying to unravel the mystique of a rogue town on the moon. This massive hiccup put a damper on my fun, but once I got back into the swing of things, Lifeless Moon served as a breath of fresh air into the puzzle genre that I typically don’t find myself enjoying. There’s plenty of potential for this to be a nice hidden gem, and its target audience (along with Lifeless Planet players) are in for a nice surprise.

A PC preview key for Lifeless Moon was provided by Serenity Forge for this preview.

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