Jett: The Far Shore's vision of space exploration a far cry from today's billionaire space race

On the surface, the new video game Jett: The Far Shore tackles themes very familiar to the medium: exploration, discovery and the depths of outer space.

Released earlier in October, it happens to come at a time when space exploration is back in the news, with high-profile billionaires engaging in a new space race even proposing to build human settlements on Mars.

But the team behind Jett, including Canadian designer Craig Adams, are consciously flipping some of the genre's tropes on their heads.

Instead, it tells a story about environmentalism, climate change, faith and the future.

"This game ... is kind of a record of myself and [co-designer] Patrick [McAllister] kind of just honestly reckoning with our concept of what's to come," he told Tapestry.

"In fact, the code name that we had for years was simply The Future."

In Jett, players take on the role of Mei, a scout who has left her home planet, ravaged by industry-fuelled pollution, in search of a new home for her people. She explores a newfound planet, its surface mostly covered by a vast ocean, aboard a tiny ship — the titular Jett.

Its narrative also actively questions what space exploration might look like, even as enthusiastic discussions of space exploration have percolated back into the headlines in recent years.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is hoping to send rich tourists into the upper atmosphere. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wants to move all kinds of heavy industry from Earth into space.

That's to say nothing of Tesla's Elon Musk, who dreams of going even further, to building human settlements on Mars.

It's an "irresponsible" version of a spacefaring future, according to Adams.

"Maybe there's people naive enough to buy into the singularity of colonizing Mars or whatever these idiots talk about. But no, we've got a finite amount of planet, and it's increasingly finite," he said.

Parallels to European colonial era

Ted McCormick, a history professor at Concordia University in Montreal, has similar criticisms. He sees some clear similarities between the modern space race and another so-called era of discovery: early European colonialism into Africa and the Americas.

"I think a big part of the appeal [of space] is probably that it's like a clean slate, which incidentally, is a metaphor used for colonization in the early modern period, too," he told Tapestry host Mary Hines.

He added that even though we know there aren't humans on Mars, like the Europeans encountered on their voyages, that doesn't mean we can't disturb the planet's ecosystem in some way we haven't yet anticipated.

Crossing the oceans and finding a new world brought with it promises of solving "a whole bunch of sort of interconnected, but also quite distinct political and geopolitical and religious and economic problems," McCormick explained.

"Mars is no more limitless than Earth is…. So I think rather than, you know, transcending current limitations, this is a sort of failure to grapple with them," he said.

Much of the language used to sell the new space programs ring similar to these cases, despite their "bold vision" on paper, he added.

"If you read what Elon Musk has to say about [colonizing Mars], is that there are going to be new investment opportunities and maybe pizza joints. It seems like we're throwing our very boldest imagination at, you know, maybe one day emulating a strip mall."

Flipping the genre on its head

For decades, video games have plumbed the depths of exploration and, often, colonization.

In many of these games, players expand into new, wild territories by exploiting the natural resources available, and conquering rival tribes or nations.

It's even the name of an entire genre of strategy games: 4X, short for "explore, expand, exploit, exterminate." Some of the most popular games in history, like the Sid Meier's Civilization series, fall in this genre.

Leap forward into science fiction and you'll find similar structures in popular space exploration games. In No Man's Sky, for example, your character's hand-held tool doubles as a mineral extraction device as well as a laser weapon for self-defence.

For Jett, Adams deliberately avoided elements that evoked exploitation or violence, to simply try new things that haven't been seen in games as often.

"The meat and potatoes, the sort of tried and true is, you kill stuff, you stab stuff, you shoot stuff. And then you pick up some loot, and you collect it. And, yeah, obviously, that's pretty satisfying," he explained.

But if your game's storyline and characters aren't inherently violent, forcing the player to commit violent acts can create a sense of disconnect, he explained.

Instead, Jett steers the player to do other kinds of actions. Players will juggle skimming and bounding across the ocean, encountering the world's flora and fauna, and investigating unusual mysteries about their supposed new home.

While it isn't entirely devoid of combat, you're nudged to resolve conflicts peacefully more often than not.

"The theoretical upside here is that if the mechanics that you're up to in the video game mesh with the story that you're telling, then you don't have that dissonance anymore…. You don't have to sort of turn a blind eye to the video game stuff. It's all sort of one piece," said Adams.

Faith in the future

Jett: The Far Shore also includes a strong "theological layer," as Adams describes it. Mei's people were drawn to the new planet because of an interstellar signal that her people dubbed the hymnwave. That signal became a spiritual beacon, inspiring myths and sagas. 

Throughout her journey, Mei and her scouting team face several challenges — some of which raise difficult questions about their faith in the hymnwave and their journey.

It also tackles questions of people's impacts on the environment, as climate change looms large on the world, and his mind.

Despite that, he said he needed his story to have "a ray of hope," thanks in no small part to his young family.

"I think one thing is if you make the decision to summon a new human being from beyond the cosmic veil — if you choose to create a child — you have to maintain some minimum level of positivity. Otherwise what are you doing?" he said.

"So maybe … there's a limit to how bleak I allow myself to be."

Jett: The Far Shore is available now for Windows PCs, and Sony's PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

Written by Jonathan Ore. Produced by Arman Aghbali.