Deliver Us The Moon

An enjoyable little game, but one I am glad I bought on sale and not at full price.

At it’s core I would describe it as an adventure game, mostly in 3rd person. It is not a walking sim, and to it’s credit has plenty of gameplay in the form of traversal, puzzles, interaction with the environment, and even a little stealth. There’s a decent story as well.

Unfortunately, while I liked the main plot of the story, I found the set up or background for it rather ridiculous. Earth has apparently run out of resources very rapidly after a decade or so, and now there’s massive desertification going on. Only the helium 3 reactor on the moon can provide the needed power for earth, and it suddenly goes dark. 5 years later, a single astronaut is is sent to investigate and restart the reactor.

This left me with some questions, such as why the space agency on earth had no contingency or backup plan to get ships to the moon if something went wrong, while it was the sole reliable power sauce. What happened to nuclear or renewable energy? Why is is desertification happening on such a massive scale if a clean energy source for years? How, if resources were rapidly running out, or had run out, did they manage to build a big space station, a 400km high space elevator, miles upon miles of monorail track on the moon, and multiple large bases? Finally if this was all so important, why was only 1 person sent (particularly as even the ship you are sent in has a second seat)?

This may seem like nitpicking, but I want stories in my game to make sense. The reason for some of this is because of budget, as they obviously couldn’t do a set up with multiple characters on an a mission to the moon, and all characters are either helmeted, seen in obscured holograms, or a voice on the radio, likely to work around the low budget. I wish they had adopted the story around these budget restrictions more, however.

Despite this, once into the game, I did actually enjoy the meat of the story, which had a number of good twists and turns and was well voice acted. The game had some muddy textures, but generally looked very good. It delivers on a semi realistic style space adventure, and was pretty exciting and interesting.

TLDR: An interesting setting grounded in plausible science. Some great intense moments that are heavily inspired by sci-fi movies. A bit minimal on the gameplay though.

PROS:
➕Graphics and RTX look beautiful
➕Interesting narrative grounded in current issues
➕Great moments of action/drama

NEUTRALS:
🔹Big RTX performance hit

CONS:
➖Cannot rebind keys
➖Typical Unreal Engine “Floatyness”
➖Some frustratingly difficult QTEs
➖Lack of personality with main character

Content (Game world/Narrative) –
The game world takes place in a few locations - Earth, a space station, and a few various moon bases. In each location, the areas showcase a very real, lived-in, science fiction environment. Furthermore, many of the locations gave me a feeling of famous movie scenes, like Interstellar and Gravity. Overall, a very well designed world.

The narrative is good. It takes place in a setting where the Earth is dying. Climate change has caused irreversible damage and the entire planet is turning into a dustball. Around 2030, a new element, Helium-3, was found on the moon. This element is able to provide enough energy for the earth to sustain itself. But in 2054, the moon base has gone silent, leaving Earth powered-down and in the dark. It’s taken 5 years to get enough resources together to finally start a trip to the moon to understand what happened and fix the issue.
I enjoy the concept and unraveling the mystery. The ending wasn’t mind-blowing, but good enough to where I didn’t feel disappointed.

Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) –
The mechanics can be deceptive. I would say for about a solid 60% of the game, the gameplay can be summarized as a walking simulator. As you progress, you slowly unlock tools that contribute to solving puzzles. Towards the end of the game, it’s much more puzzle-oriented.
There are also a few situations that combine puzzle solving with a constant loss of oxygen (timer). I found these to be exciting and intense.

The difficulty is generally very forgiving. I would say the only truly difficult part is a rather frustrating QTE on a speeding tram where you have about 1 second to press a button or you fail. There are multiple fail states in this game, but at most you’d lose a few minutes restarting at a checkpoint.

Graphics (Quality/Technical) –
Generally, astounding. I was able to run the game fully maxed out for the majority of the game. There are numerous graphical options and the RTX, when it works, is amazing to behold.
The game does show some “Inexperience” or “AA” development that I’ve noticed to be a constant issue with the Unreal Engine. This is especially noticeable in the third person view where your character just feels “Floaty” against the environment. Something like the movement just doesn’t match up with the distance you traverse. It’s hard to describe, but it definitely doesn’t feel perfect.

On the technical side - near the end of the game, once I got to Tombaugh, there was a clear issue with performance with RTX. I experienced crazy stuttering and dips of ~50 FPS. I tested this by even putting the game on low settings and the dips continued, indicating a clear issue with RTX. When I turned RTX off, it was smooth.
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | Windows 11 installed on SSD

Audio –
Good. It’s atmospheric most of the time with some subtle scores during intense dramatic moments. Nothing stood out to me as exceptional, but it's good.
Similar with the voice acting, I could tell that it wasn’t AAA quality, but it's still solid.

Replay Factor (Longevity) –
Low, there is no reason to replay this other than achievements. Also the way the chapters are broken out can make achievement hunting hard. Of the ~5 hour gameplay, there were only a few chapters, making each one fairly long.

Final Verdict –
Deliver Us The Moon (DUTM) is a great sci-fi game set in the very near future. It explores a potential outcome of runaway climate change and the scientific advances needed to combat it.

For my biggest negative, I’d probably have to go with the lack of personality with the main character.
I don’t understand why the developers decided to go with a faceless, “Nameless”, silent protagonist when so much of what this mission should have been about was teamwork and communication from mankind in order to overcome challenges. Instead, you get a barely functioning robot man as your main character. It’s especially interesting this choice given that it’s heavily hinted that you’re actually playing as one of the characters you HEAR speak in the logs, Rolf. So it's like I know this character is capable of speech, I hear the other characters call him by name, I would have loved some inner monologue like Cooper in Interstellar, or Mark in The Martian. It really would have added some liveliness to an otherwise completely dead environment.

For my biggest positives, I would have to say it's a few notable things - narrative, graphics, and mechanics.
All of my positives are not something that DUTM does exceptionally well, but each are done to a good/great extent and complement each other to a great extent. The superb graphics and artstyle really makes the narrative pop and become all the more believable as you retrace the steps of those just a few years ago. The mechanics, while simple and few in count, do a good job at showcasing the unique dramatic narrative elements.

Overall, I enjoyed Deliver Us The Moon and do recommend it. I’d call it an “Advanced walking simulator”, where the gameplay is minimal for normal interactivity, but expansive beyond just moving forward. Due to the length, picking it up on sale for $10 seems fair.

This game interest you? Should also check out The Invincible, one of my highest rated games of all time. Review:
Recommend?
Yes
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A story-driven exploration game with intuitive, not-too-difficult puzzles that could honestly stand to be a little longer, but at the same time feels just long enough for what it is, and probably would feel padded if it were longer.

I don't know if I can call it fun; the gameplay is, even if it's a bit janky at times (like I'm pretty sure I started A-posing every time my feet touched a surface they weren't supposed to) but the story is more drama/tragedy with a semi-happy ending. Going to the moon is really fun though, and that's the first thing you do in the game. After that, you go around the colony and try to find out what went wrong with our big energy machine and how to fix it. You find audio logs and hologram recordings that tell the story of how some people wanted to save Earth, and some didn't.

The gameplay is overall very chill, although there are some more stressful sections in which you have to hurry it up a bit lest you run out of air, die alone in space, and doom Earth to a slow death. So there's some pressure, sometimes, but even most of the parts that have you rely on a limited air supply are fairly generous; there's maybe two or three opportunities with tighter timing. At one point there is a sudden QTE that I had to attempt three times because I was not expecting it and am very slow. Anyone with a reaction time slightly faster than a mouldy baguette shouldn't have much trouble with it, though.

The music and atmosphere are spot-on for the setting. Not that I've ever been to the moon myself, but I imagine it's pretty much like that (maybe without the lovely music). When you're outside the sound is muted. Your space suit feels weighty but not clunky. The lighting feels appropriately artificial inside the station, bright and cool outside of it. It's never so dark you couldn't see, but for the darker bits you do have a flashlight.

Pro: You get a little drone friend, very cute.
Con: Can't pet the drone friend (outside of cutscenes).

One of my favorite sci-fi games. While it doesn't have much to offer gameplay wise, the story, acting, and world they created is incredible. Really enjoyable.

A quiet, emotional journey, somewhere between Firewatch and Observation.
This game isn't about action - it's about atmosphere, loneliness, and hope. Only you and traces of those who came before, grounded sci-fi tone with solid story that defo worth your time.

Deliver Us The Moon is a short adventure-puzzle game in which you play as a nameless astronaut sent to the moon to restore power and save Earth from an energy crisis.
The gameplay is straightforward: you explore each location, solving a variety of puzzles to progress while collecting documents, listening to audio logs, and watching holograms. These pieces gradually reveal the narrative and unravel the mystery at the heart of the game.
Without giving away spoilers, I found the story cohesive and its themes of corruption and sacrifice well executed. Despite the game’s brief runtime, it delivered its core messages clearly, and I left with a full understanding of both the plot and its meaning. The ending, while bittersweet, felt emotional, unexpected, and ultimately satisfying.
While not a horror game, it does explore the psychological toll of isolation in space. The environments - eerily quiet and unsettling - heighten this sense of unease, helping the player empathize with the characters’ motivations and actions.
For the most part, it plays like a walking simulator, but it’s broken up with platforming sequences, driving sections, and moments where you use your robotic companion, ASE, to solve puzzles. These additions helped keep the experience engaging and prevented it from feeling monotonous.
I encountered very few technical issues playing on the Steam Deck. Performance hiccups mostly cropped up in the final chapters, with noticeable frame rate drops and stuttering, but these resolved themselves after a few minutes. I never experienced any crashes.
The game is visually stunning, particularly during the “Outward” chapter, where you can traverse the moon’s surface in a vehicle. You can even take short detours - playing with zero gravity for a few minutes if you like - and there are some charming easter eggs for curious players to discover.
My main criticism lies in the puzzle design, which often felt too simplistic. I would have appreciated a greater challenge in certain sections. In some cases, puzzle solutions didn’t feel consistent with the story - for example, finding door codes on notes left behind by characters who were supposedly locked out of the very areas those codes opened.
That said, I enjoyed the few environmental puzzles included in the game, even if they were relatively quick to solve.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Deliver Us The Moon. Despite the occasional technical hiccup and a few overly simple or narratively inconsistent puzzles, it delivers a cohesive, impactful story and a satisfying gameplay experience. I’m looking forward to playing Deliver Us Mars next.

Beautiful, depressing, emotional, and an amazing game. You just need to play it when you have a chance. It may be short but damn, the story is so good, and it's such a cinematic experience. The music is just fantastic, and visually it's pleasant. You just need to experience it: just trust me.