The Soviets have been getting the short end of the stick in popular culture, often being little more than communist bogeymen. Because of this, a lot of cultural artifacts will eventually be lost to time, which is a crying shame. There's a whole world of unexplored cultural, scientific, and historical wonders out there - such as the Soviet space program, which fundamentally differs from its American counterpart both in aesthetics and scientific details. However, we still have our eyes firmly set westwards, taking little notice of what else is out there. Enter Pixel Spill with Outreach, a cold war conspiracy thriller set on a Soviet space station in the 1980s.

Playing as a cosmonaut arriving on said space station after contact was lost with its previous crew, your task is to find out whatever has occured here. The devs have mentioned the likes of Gone Home as an influence, so you should expect a lot of rummaging and uncovering of backstory. The Russian perspective serves to highlight the humanity in a conflict so often marked by division and statistics, and the distinct contrast between the vast coldness and isolation of space and whatever human drama has played out is a striking one. Outreach has me sold on its themes alone.
It certainly helps that the game looks beautiful. Space walking on the station's exterior, with Earth hovering majestically in the background, certainly left an impression on me at the Gamescom presentation. I reckon it's an immersion th...