As a regular old layman who has never been to outer space and is filled with terror at the thought of ever attempting space flight, few things scare me more than the idea of being trapped up there with no way of returning to Earth. And yet that’s exactly what’s happened to a pair of NASA astronauts, who traveled to the International Space Station in June on a Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
As Boeings are now infamously wont to do, the Starliner malfunctioned during a test flight, and engineers weren’t sure that the astronauts would survive the trip back down to Earth. That means that both astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station for ten weeks now, while NASA decides on the safest way to bring them back.
For what it’s worth, NASA insists the astronauts aren’t technically ‘stranded’.
While the astronauts aren’t nearly as harrowed as the average person would be if they were unexpectedly trapped in space – they seem to mostly be doing chores nobody else wants to do and otherwise chilling out – I couldn’t help but think about what it would feel like to be out there in space, knowing it wasn’t safe for me to go home. You know how William Shatner was overcome with pure existential grief upon observing Earth from space? I think that’s how I’d feel, too.
In order to purge these demons, I’m writing a list of every video game this scenario (that I’m well aware will never happen to me) reminds me of.
Alien: Isolation
We’re starting off strong with a survival horror game that’s considered by some to be one of the best video games ever made, and has recently been in the news because of its influence on the recently released Alien: Romulus. In Alien: Isolation, Amanda Ripley (daughter of the original protagonist of the series, Ellen Ripley) joins a mission to retrieve the flight recorder of her mother’s ship so she can find closure over Ellen’s disappearance. She’s separated from her team, finds the flight recorder, discovers the data has been corrupted, and also realises the station is out of control because there’s a deadly alien creature wandering around.
As far as we know, there is no hostile alien life in the International Space Station orbiting Earth. I’d probably still have nightmares about that if I were an astronaut, though. Thank god I write about games instead.
Dead Space
That’s right, more survival horror to fuel your nightmares. Dead Space also follows a crew in space, on its way to a ship that’s gone silent and has been overrun by dangerous alien life. That said, Dead Space is perhaps more terrifying as it leans on portrayals of psychosis and delusions. Considering how many people in the world have histories of mental health issues and the fact space flight is known to trigger psychiatric issues, this is a far more realistic and scary possibility than being attacked by sentient alien life. There’s a reason astronauts get psychiatric screenings before being sent up there.
Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds differs from the games I’ve listed so far by virtue of not being a survival horror game. I’ve only played just over an hour of it, back in 2022, yet it’s seared itself into my memory because of one terrifying moment. Early in the game, I got sucked into a black hole – happens to the best of us – and got spat out into the dark, empty depths of space, where I promptly died, alone and afraid. I was so profoundly disturbed by the experience that I put the game down and never picked it back up again. It’s still on my to play list, but every time I think about the game, I’m reminded of the absolute desolation of space and the very real terror that I felt getting dragged into that hole.
Among Us
Crewmates murdering each other in space. These astronauts are already doing chores and maintenance work up there, which means they’re really not that far from Among Us. Like a violent alien attack, this is incredibly unlikely to happen, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the news for sus behaviour… just in case.