Title: Deliver Us the Moon: Fortuna
Developer: KeokeN Interactive
Publisher: KeokeN Interactive
Genre: Narrative Adventure
Available On: Windows PC
Official Site: https://www.deliverusthemoon.com/
Release Date: September 28, 2018
Where to Buy it: Steam
The world is out of energy. Fossil fuels have failed, and Earth’s energy needs have surpassed what solar energy and hydroelectricity can provide. Society is threatening to fail, but scientists have found a solution. Helium-3 can be processed and mined on the moon and can provide limitless energy. Rather than to waste fuel making trips back and forth to the moon, the moon is colonized, and a system called Microwave Power Transmission is invented to transfer power from the moon to Earth. A far-fetched concept for sure, but one that the plot-line of Deliver Us the Moon: Fortuna relies heavily upon.
Set five years after a disaster leaves the Microwave Power Transmission satellite on the moon functionless, Dutch developer KeokeN Interactive’s Deliver Us the Moon: Fortuna places you in the shoes of a member of a small contingency, dead set on figuring out exactly what happened on the moon and restoring energy to the entire world. The game begins with your protagonist, code-named Fortuna, strapping on their space suit and launching a rocket to the moon, while the voices of two women help guide your way. Once you make it to the control facility, the game truly begins, as you start to put the pieces together and hopefully solve this crisis once and for all.
Deliver Us the Moon is a somber, deep-space adventure game with impressive graphics and a looming, foreboding soundtrack. Voice acting is hit or miss; the two women who assist you in starting your mission do a wonderful job, but some holo-tapes and recorded messages you’ll find in the game sound flat and uninspired. The sound design and atmosphere lend to a moody and lonely experience, and the puzzles are actually a lot more involved than the game’s initial impression suggest.
While Deliver Us the Moon is a solid and engaging experience, it would be a mistake to not mention the elephant in the room. Despite being fully released on Steam, Deliver Us the Moon is not finished. There’s a moment a couple of hours into the game where you’ll be expecting a resolution to a story beat; but rather than resolving, the game instead cuts to black with a “To be continued” message. The game wasn’t released into Early Access, and it isn’t advertised to be an episodic game. The developers have stated that the DLC that “completes” the game will be free, but it seems deceptive to sell the game without noting that it is incomplete on the store page.
Deliver Us the Moon: Fortuna offers up a fairly comprehensive experience, one that could stand up alongside games like Firewatch and Gone Home; but drops the ball by being an incomplete game. Were the game released as a finished product as opposed to the state it’s in right now, it would likely be ranked among the best narrative adventure games, but right now it’s a hard game to recommend. The impressive visuals and immersive soundscapes do a lot to make this game a solid experience, but the hard cut to black without resolving any of the story is essentially an insult to your time and instantly sours the entire 3-hour experience.
Verdict: While the story itself is engaging, and the gameplay offers up more twists and turns than most games in this genre, it’s still unfinished; with a $20 price tag and with no hard release date for the DLC that finishes the story, it’s likely that this little moonwalk won’t make any ripples in the ocean of other PC releases this year.
Deliver Us the Moon: Fortuna Review
Immersive story experience
Impressive graphics
Expertly crafted sound design
Game is incomplete, ending cuts to black
Technical optimization issues
Some poor voice acting
