You don't need us to tell you Project Hail Mary was a smash hit earlier this year. The uplifting sci-fi movie, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, went on to make about $685 million worldwide at the box office; an impressive feat for a non-franchise blockbuster these days. Now, it's making the jump to video games through mixed-reality and VR with Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars.
At Gamescom, I was lucky enough to go hands-on with an in-development build of the game, which is currently targeting a launch later this year. Developer Maze Theory was there to show off how it looked and played, but I was also able to sit down with Sandy Lockie — gameplay and creative lead — to discuss what made Project Hail Mary a must-play for fans of both the movie and Andy Weir's novel.
"We worked with Andy a lot in the early stages to set the direction, the time, and the framing of our narrative," Lockie told me when asked about the project's conception. "We've seen how people respond to the film and the book... Our goal was to remain authentic to that, so working with Andy was super important to us."
The book and movie's story follows Dr. Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher who wakes up aboard an interstellar spacecraft with no memory of how he got there, as he tries to save humanity with the help of an unexpected alien pal.
The demo threw me right into the action. Something is broken inside the Hail Mary, so the player, embodying Grace, has to check for the warning lights and, really, anything that looks off. While the mixed-reality setup still needs a VR headset, the impressive part is that no controllers are needed to interact with your digital surroundings.
As seen in the gameplay reveal trailer released during Gamescom, the game can be calibrated in any open-enough space to adjust the "play area", which is overlaid on top of the real world. It works shockingly well, with my hands being registered instantly as Grace's, which allowed me to push buttons and grab cranks and items all around me. Even when Rocky — voiced by James Ortiz once again — was waiting for me to finish a task, I couldn't stop toying with objects floating in zero gravity.
"Maybe it's the idea of confined environments and being transported into a place that people can't usually go to, but space games are quite a prolific theme in VR and MR," Lockie said about the boom of VR space games built with the still-evolving tech. "I think the real differentiator (for us) and the real unique opportunity is Rocky... It's kind of a unique responsibility to try and bring that to life, to make the player feel like they are collaborating with Rocky. It's not just a non-player character or kind of quest giver. He's your companion throughout the game," he noted.
Indeed, Rocky's presence and surprisingly fluid interactions with the player are what might ultimately separate Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars from many of the "safer" VR and MR space adventures out there. Lockie also mentioned the devs at Maze Theory like to talk about the idea of "single-player co-op", and that feels like an apt way to describe what they're going for here.
These space-set experiences can feel isolating and lonely at times, and while I'd say the situation Ryland Grace finds himself in remains stressful and dangerous, having Rocky around — doing "jazz hands" and other hand gestures taken straight from the movie — is oddly comforting. Lockie compared the overall collaboration process to the ones we're used to in other space co-op games, but of course, being inside the Hail Mary and using your actual hands makes Journey Among the Stars more immersive.
There are, of course, limitations to what mixed reality can do even at this stage, and Lockie was happy to go into the process of getting it right: "I love design in this space. It's still a relatively new space. Things like hand-tracking were important to us because we wanted to remove as many barriers between you feeling that you're there with Rocky as possible... A lot of work goes into that kind of tactility and feedback... If you do it well, the player doesn't even know it's there, things like mapping the hands to different objects."
Going back to my own hands-on experience with the game, I found myself quite impressed by the precision of my movements. As someone who'd spent more time playing a few VR games in the past, it was a reminder that the tech has been making massive leaps in recent years, even if the entry bar remains high. The mixed-reality element helps make it more convincing and less cumbersome, too. Still, you need to have a large-enough space devoid of obstacles.
At Gamescom, Maze Theory didn't have control over the space they were given for their booth, so this isn't a problem of the game or its developers, but it was slightly frustrating to have to reach out to grab a battery in the digital world, only to smack my hand against a pillar.
Don't expect to be able to play this one inside a small, regular room. You'll need to secure a larger space for "three to four hours", according to its developers. "There's puzzle-solving and exploration in there, and sandbox sections where you just get to futz around with Rocky."
Mostly influenced by the movie, Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars also wants to dig into a bit of the science involved, serving as an introduction to Andy Weir's approach to it. "We want people to feel like they're pros and know what they're doing, but we simplify things without getting bogged down too much in stuff like the chemical formulas," Lockie told me. "The idea is the player is Grace, and Grace knows his science. We have him explain things in a very grounded way, which is what Andy Weir excels at."
As a final note, Lockie mentioned Maze Theory is still looking at ways to inject more of that "science element" for people who want to go deeper, even if the governing idea is to allow anyone to fully play through this new story set within the continuity of the movie.
So far, it gets an "amaze" from me.
Project Hail Mary: Journey Among the Stars is releasing on Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S, Meta Quest Pro, PICO 4, and Android XR platforms in autumn 2026. Players can pre-order it now to get extra in-game digital assets.
