In observation, you play on a computer that could lose its damn spirit

In most science fiction stories, artificial intelligence is bad news. With the familiar rhythms of Greek tragedy, AI is almost always meant to ruin those who have hubris to create it. So, how would you feel if you were AI, and your job was to protect a human – even if something in your programming tells you not to do it?

Out this week on PC and PlayStation 4, Observation is a sci-fi thriller from No Code, the developers behind Unpublished stories. You play as a computer that could lose its mind, in space. It's a bit of Arrival, a lot of 2001: The Space Odysseyand a pinch of Night trap.

Installed in 2026 aboard an international space station of the same name, Observation puts players under the control of SAM, an artificial intelligence designed to support the crew in orbit over the Earth. After a mysterious disaster struck the sighting, Dr. Emma Fisher restarted SAM. When working with her, you must determine what is wrong and whether people are still alive. Oh, and something seems to be deeply ingrained in SAM's system, asking him to betray Dr. Fisher.

As an artificial intelligence program, you are linked to the observation infrastructure. You look through security cameras, moving them to find things you can connect to and interact with: laptops, liftgate controls, safety gear. Anything that is plugged in has the potential to be manipulated.

Thanks to your efforts to help Dr. Fisher, you will spend a lot of time identifying problems in each module of the station and solving them with short puzzles. In return, Fisher will provide more systems online, which will allow you to access more observations and open new modules to explore. This ultimately gives more clues about what went wrong and about whether the sighting is really alone in the space.

My time spent with the first hours of Observation it feels like an adventure game with a thriller thriller in science fiction. As in most adventure games, there are a number of environments in which you can work and a set of verbs that you can use to interact with them – scan it, redo it, link to it – low. There is a tactile sensation to ObservationPuzzles – linking to different objects requires matching with a three-digit code, rewiring devices requires the tracing of a prescribed pattern through a blank grid, and various systems have a very analog look working with dials at place of tactile pavers. Taken in conjunction with the limited perspective of SAM, Observation does a remarkable job of making you feel claustrophobic and tense, as your limited agency hampers your ability to respond to urgent crises.

That too, however, does Observation to feel slow and on stilts. Most of the time, everything is fine: switch between cameras and rooms, examine them carefully and connect them to various devices when you search for clues and the ephemeral has a pleasant and deliberate pace. Less enjoyable are the sequences when you have to move via floating spherical probes, partly because the zero gravity controls and the camera have made me dizzy, and partly because the probe control is a job tedious that harms the more intentional rhythm of the story.

Observation takes its time, giving you a number of small distracting crises to resolve while an existential crisis of greater magnitude becomes urgent. Something is wrong with SAM. Something tells you to take Dr. Fisher away from Earth, and you seem to be able to help you only to comply. The messages flood your screen uninvited, you have no choice but to follow instructions not given by Dr. Fisher, and something infects the station and kills people on board. I want to know what's wrong. I want to know if I will be different or if I will arouse the same misfortune that AI always seems to invoke. I do not know which answer is the best, and it's a credit for Observation.