{"id":22627,"date":"2026-04-08T12:37:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/08\/how-games-capture-the-awe-and-terror-of-cosmic-isolation\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:37:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:37:42","slug":"how-games-capture-the-awe-and-terror-of-cosmic-isolation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/08\/how-games-capture-the-awe-and-terror-of-cosmic-isolation\/","title":{"rendered":"How games capture the awe and terror of cosmic isolation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As real astronauts vanish behind the moon, games have long tried to evoke the fragile quiet of drifting through space<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/ng-interactive\/2021\/nov\/24\/sign-up-for-pushing-buttons-keza-macdonalds-weekly-look-at-the-world-of-gaming\"><strong>Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last week\u2019s launch of the Artemis II space mission was a stunning spectacle, the 17-storey-high rockets erupting into cacophonous life before wrenching the craft through the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. But the images that have come since hold just as much impact: the tiny Orion craft and its four-person crew drifting silently through space, further and further from home.<\/p>\n<p>In his autobiography, the Apollo astronaut Michael Collins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rmg.co.uk\/stories\/space-astronomy\/michael-collinss-space-photo\">described this feeling perfectly<\/a>. Left in the command module as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface, he wrote: \u201cI am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/games\/2026\/apr\/08\/how-games-capture-the-humanity-in-the-loneliness-of-space-exploration\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/931c6080a17d7f6a8266c72a599d2f1aa6c52d33\/588_0_2700_2160\/master\/2700.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=588fbed895a58cdbe94100dfa80b6764\" title=\"How games capture the awe and terror of cosmic isolation\" \/>As real astronauts vanish behind the moon, games have long tried to evoke the fragile quiet of drifting through space<br \/>\n\u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<br \/>\nLast week\u2019s launch of the Artemis II space mission was a stunning spectacle, the 17-storey-high rockets erupting into cacophonous life before wrenching the craft through the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. But the images that have come since hold just as much impact: the tiny Orion craft and its four-person crew drifting silently through space, further and further from home.<br \/>\nIn his autobiography, the Apollo astronaut Michael Collins described this feeling perfectly. Left in the command module as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface, he wrote: \u201cI am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.\u201d Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As real astronauts vanish behind the moon, games have long tried to evoke the fragile quiet of drifting through space \u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Last week\u2019s launch of the Artemis II space mission was a stunning spectacle, the 17-storey-high rockets erupting into cacophonous life before wrenching the &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/08\/how-games-capture-the-awe-and-terror-of-cosmic-isolation\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How games capture the awe and terror of cosmic isolation<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22627"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}