Cognition sets its sights on a future launch for its debut title, as the first playtest gets underway
Friday, 29th May 2026, Zaventem, Belgium – A brand new story and gameplay trailer for the upcoming serious sci-fi adventure Lunar Strike debuted exclusively during yesterday’s Insider Gaming Showcase, offering players a fresh look at life inside humanity’s final inhabited lunar colony.
Developed by Belgian studio Cognition, Lunar Strike is a narrative-driven science fiction game set in a permanently inhabited settlement at the Moon’s south pole. Instead of heroic missions, the game highlights the everyday challenges of survival, maintaining knowledge, and protecting humanity’s legacy within a fragile lunar society.
Alongside the new trailer reveal, Cognition has also confirmed that a playtest for Lunar Strike is now available. Taking place during the early stages of the adventure the playtest is a snapshot of the pre-alpha build of the game, introducing players to some of the main characters and the last lunar colony, New Arcadia. As they explore their surroundings, they’ll experience the game’s grounded vision of lunar life, including exploration, scanning systems, environmental storytelling, and its distinctive approach to “hard” science fiction.
Lunar Strike trades combat for survival, atmosphere, and character-driven storytelling as players step into the role of a tech-augmented archivist racing to preserve humanity’s legacy before New Arcadia collapses. Following a devastating attack by the extremist Earth First faction – known as the MudBoots – the Moon’s final inhabited colony is left facing destruction – forcing players to make impossible choices over which real-world artefacts, discoveries, and records of human achievement are saved… and which are lost forever.
Lunar Strike launches later in 2026 and is available to wishlist now on Steam.
About Cognition Europe
Cognition Europe is an independent studio based in Belgium, focused on narrative design, speculative science, and system-based storytelling. The team includes developers, researchers, sound designers, and advisors from across the space science and cultural heritage sectors. Lunar Strike is the studio’s debut title.
