It has been five months since Ryan Gosling floated across cinema screens and turned a science teacher into the crush of half the auditorium, in the rather excellent Project Hail Mary movie. The credits rolled back then. The adventure, it turns out, kept going.
Project Hail Mary: Journey Among The Stars is nearly upon us, and it tells a chapter nobody has read.
A story that isn’t in the book or the film
Here’s the detail worth paying attention to. Journey Among The Stars is set during Ryland Grace’s space mission, yet it dramatises an entirely new stretch of that trip — material that hasn’t appeared in either telling of the story so far.
Rocky is coming too. Keeping the Hail Mary alive falls to you.
The ship’s cockpit becomes your play space, and your hours are spent doing whatever needs doing to hold every system together.
Zero-G, hand gestures and your living room
Maze Theory is the mixed reality team behind it, with the game due on mixed reality and virtual reality platforms in late 2026. Meta Quest 3/Pro, Android XR and Pico are the confirmed destinations.
Andy Weir, who wrote the original, is fully behind the project — which makes speculating about what’s on the way considerably more interesting.
Manipulating objects in zero-G and communicating with Rocky through hand gestures alone looks like a genuinely good time. There’s one trick mixed reality never tires of pulling: your living room becomes a working cockpit, and the space where your fireplace sat opens out onto the void.
As a space survival sim it looks visually strong, and speaking personally, any expansion of this book and movie is welcome.
The team has the receipts
This isn’t Maze Theory’s first outing. The studio has Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom, Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow and Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time to its name, each of which reached VR headsets ahead of this one.
Project Hail Mary looks like a natural fit for a team with that record. Their newsletter is open for sign-ups now if you want early news, access and more.
How much Weir is in this, exactly
Weir already has his next project underway, so exactly how involved he’ll be in bringing Journey Among The Stars to VR remains unclear. With Maze Theory handling development, though, the game is in safe hands.
Another sci-fi adventure has been a long time coming for VR fans — Half-Life: Alyx arrived years ago now — and there’s genuine hope this one delivers across the board.
If nothing else, it should see to the space adventure itch while everyone holds out for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, due later next year.
Fist my bump!