I have sat on this review longer than I sit on most, and I honestly have no idea why. Perhaps I am worried that it will be empty in some way or missing bits of important information that should be included. It could also very well be the fact that the brevity of Lifeless Moon didn’t allow me to soak in the story enough, at least for me to fully understand what Stage 2 Studios was aiming for. Regardless, it has now been over a month since I played Lifeless Moon, so it is more than time for me to put pen to paper and explain my thoughts.

While not a sequel as far as I could tell of Lifeless Planet, Lifeless Moon was developed by the same studio. Released nearly a decade apart, I remember when the first game came out that a lot of people were making playthroughs of it. For those who are wondering, this is not a game for those seeking thrilling gameplay or stunning graphics. This is a game that will hook you or lose you based off of the story. 

Lifeless Moon‘s story takes place on the moon and follows a lone astronaut who finds himself in a strange environment after getting hit by an unknown energy source. What begins as a journey to find your missing fellow astronaut quickly turns into a bizarre sci-fi mystery involving teleported towns, humans with god-like powers, and a few trips into insanity.

Considering that the story is the only thing that Lifeless Moon seems to have as a hook, I won’t dive into any major spoilers. I can tell you that the story touches on some interesting themes and has the bones of a good narrative, but doesn’t quite stay around long enough or go deep into these themes in order to excel at exploring the world.

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The main gameplay that you will deal with throughout Lifeless Moon is various puzzles. There are about three puzzles per stage with many of them simply telling you what you need and then having you gallivant across the map in search of that thing. The one puzzle that popped up on multiple occasions was one where you had to direct a beam of light from one side of the table to another.

I’m not entirely sure why the developers had multiple of these, but they all followed the same logic so they were simple once you figured out the first one. For the most part, the puzzles are simple to solve, but there was at least one I couldn’t quite get a handle on. The tried and tested slapping things around a few times still worked.

The writing for Lifeless Moon is not the greatest, but definitely surpasses the rest of the game in terms of quality. Not everything is given to you efficiently, however, the game manages to have a decent balance of showing and telling for the player. There are a few scenes where the lack of great-looking graphics really lets the storytelling down.

The writing and clues definitely try their best to make up for those shortcomings. There are certainly some things in the plot that you have to connect the dots on your own, especially with how the ending turns out. Despite this, the story does make the most of using the environments given to make a somewhat intriguing story.

Overall, Lifeless Moon is an alright experience if you are there purely for the story. There are a few interesting concepts that Stage 2 Studios tried to tackle that I think would’ve landed. However, we don’t get to stick around long enough for them to be fully realized. This is definitely a one-shot game unless you plan to do some achievement hunting and 100% it. As far as I can tell, it isn’t a direct continuation of the first title, so you can easily play it without having played Lifeless Planet. However, if you end up liking Lifeless Moon then I would recommend giving it a chance.

A PS5 review copy of Lifeless Moon was provided by Serenity Forge for the purposes of this review

Lifeless Moon

$12.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Interesting Story
• Decent Price
• No Bugs

Cons

• Bad Graphics
• No Significant Soundtrack
• Some Ideas Don't Work