> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.killscreen.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A stranded astronaut meets Voyager 1 in a free Steam game
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/a-stranded-astronaut-meets-voyager-1-in-a-free-steam-game/
- Published: 2026-09-11T15:04:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-11T15:04:58.000Z
- Description: Control, I’m Not Coming Back is Desborde Games’ hopecore walking sim
- Author: Kill Screen Staff
- Tags: Control, I’m Not Coming Back, Desborde Games, steam, walking simulator, Free, space, News

The premise of *Control, I’m Not Coming Back* fits in a sentence: an accident sets a space cadet adrift, and the hour that follows becomes a conversation with Voyager 1\. Desborde Games [released it free on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4515660/Control%5FIm%5FNot%5FComing%5FBack/?ref=killscreen.com) on May 29—Windows first, macOS since—and the response has been wildly out of proportion to the price. As of this writing it sits at Overwhelmingly Positive: 5,838 reviews, 98 percent of them positive, for a walking sim that runs about an hour, with branching paths that reward a second pass.

The studio calls it hopecore, and for once the aesthetic label earns its keep. [The announcement reel](https://www.instagram.com/p/DY6rZ2VElPV/?ref=killscreen.com) filled up with people saying the game made them cry, but the pattern in the response interests me more than any single reaction: readers keep filing it, independently, next to *17776*, Jon Bois’s serialized fiction narrated by space probes watching humanity from a distance. The comparison is exactly right. Both run on the same sincerity—the conviction that the machines we fling farthest from ourselves are the most human things we have ever made. Voyager 1 is a real spacecraft carrying a real golden record, which means a game about befriending it is only half fiction to begin with.

Killscreen has a long-standing soft spot for this register. We once fell for [a stop-motion Voyager made of needlework](https://www.killscreen.com/needlework-voyager-mission-stop-motion-voyager-ios-absolute-whimsy/), and we have argued before that [astronaut games are simple pleasures](https://www.killscreen.com/astronaut-games-are-simple-pleasures/). What is new here is the economics: a free, hour-long game landing this hard suggests the walking sim may have found its natural format—short, sincere, and priced like a gift. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/control-incb-screenshot-2.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/control-incb-screenshot-3.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/control-incb-screenshot-4.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/2026/08/control-incb-screenshot-5.jpg)

**Control, I’m Not Coming Back* screenshots via Steam.

When a free hour on Steam lands harder than most prestige releases, Radar is where we say so. Get it free, three times a week.

[Get Radar free ](https://www.killscreen.com/start/?ref=radar-cta)