PLATFORM: PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Cast as an unnamed astronaut, you find yourself separated from your crewmate, all alone on the surface of the moon. As you wander the barren wasteland, you spot something highly improbable – the remains of a small town. As unlikely as it seems, this turns out to be the tip of a very deep iceberg, as further investigation leads to a mystery that goes way beyond human understanding.

A spiritual successor to 2014’s Lifeless Planet, Lifeless Moon very much follows in its older cousin’s footsteps, although doesn’t quite manage to hit all of the same notes. Exploration is the name of the game, wandering around various locations above and below ground as you try to figure out just what exactly has happened. While Planet contained a decent amount of puzzles, the brainteasers in Moon are few and far between, and those that do exist are unlikely to pose too much of a challenge. Without them, though, Lifeless Moon would pretty much be a third-person walking simulator, so hats off to the developer for including a few bits and pieces here and there to break things up a bit.

The most rewarding aspect of Lifeless Moon is its story. Its 1960s Apollo-era sci-fi themes are superbly executed, and the story is told succinctly enough not to get itself bogged down in exposition but still containing enough information to maintain interest. It’s a fairly short game – you’ll have solved the mystery and rolled the credits within a couple of hours – but sometimes that’s exactly what you want. If you’re after something calm and stress-free to keep you engaged for a quiet evening, Lifeless Moon might just do the trick.