The US space agency, NASA, has released a free single-player management game on the Microsoft Store, but To The Moon and Beyond may not take your spirit out of this world.
Released on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, To the Moon and Beyond (Opens in a new tab) is a semi-educational management game that challenges you to develop your own burgeoning space program as you attempt to send astronaut crews and establish a base permanent. base on the Moon. You'll choose between research opportunities to do on the International Space Station and choose between projects to invest on Earth, all while trying to grow your space program at the lowest possible cost.
Using a card-based system, the game allows you to choose between different research options and manage your budget, as well as respond to random events that threaten to topple your space initiative. Between building rockets, rovers, and space suits, you'll try to complete eight critical objectives before time runs out.
It all seems very simple and certainly has nothing to do with the complexity of other space-themed games like Kerbal Space Program. It's mostly educational entertainment, filled with links to NASA articles online so you can learn about contemporary aeronautical engineering. However, To the Moon and Beyond comes with a full set of achievements, and completing all 11 will net you 1,000 Gamerscore.
However, this is not the first time the game has been released. To the Moon and Beyond was originally released for iOS and Android devices in 2020, though NASA said (opens in a new tab) that it planned to bring the game to Xbox.
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This is not the first time that NASA has collaborated in the development of a video game. The agency previously partnered with developer Vision Videogames to create the 2005 space station manager SpaceStationSim. He lent technical specifications and studio staff to create an accurate 3D model of the International Space Station, and some NASA employees even volunteered as beta testers for the game.
Video games are no strangers to educational entertainment. The Financial Times published The Climate Game (opens in a new tab) earlier this year, challenging players to manage a country's economy and diversify its industries away from fossil fuels to achieve a net zero carbon economy for 2050. The interactivity of video games is often seen as a valuable way of teaching children and families about real-world problems and the consequences of difficult decisions.
If you love space strategy, but want something a little more challenging than the familiar NASA game, check out Surviving Mars. Or, if meticulous industrial planning is your thing, consider Factorio, which we think is one of the best strategy games on PC.
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