10 Games That Went to the Moon Before Artemis II

3 weeks ago 9

Published Apr 2, 2026, 2:31 PM EDT

Daniel has been playing games for entirely too many years, with his Steam library currently numbering nearly 750 games and counting. When he's not working or watching anime, he's either playing or thinking about games, constantly on the lookout for fascinating new gameplay styles and stories to experience. Daniel has previously written lists for TheGamer, as well as guides for GamerJournalist, and he currently covers tech topics on SlashGear.

At the time of writing, NASA’s Artemis II mission has just begun, with four brave astronauts currently rocketing toward the Moon to perform the furthest manned spaceflight in history. While they’re not landing on the Moon this time, it’s still a pretty incredible mission, especially since it’ll set the stage for an actual Moon landing in two years' time.

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There’s something romantic about the Moon, humanity’s ever-present companion in the night sky. The original Moon landing realized our hope of actually setting foot on the natural satellite, and since then, many facets of sci-fi fiction and media have reflected our collective passion to one day return. Naturally, this includes video games; plenty of games across just about every genre have had stories that are either set entirely on the Moon or at least pay it a brief visit. In honor of this monumental step for space research, let’s recall some of gaming’s little treks to the Moon, and how lovably bizarre some of them got.

Spoilers for most of the following games ahead!

10 Killer is Dead

There’s Totally a Mansion on the Moon

If there’s anything I’d expect from a Suda51 game, it’s pointing at something random and saying, “you see that? That’s actually a crazy supernatural thing.” For example, did you know there’s apparently a massive, opulent mansion on the Moon? And that the ruler of said mansion controls the infinite supply of Dark Matter stored on the Dark Side? It’s totally true, just play Killer is Dead.

A major plot point of the game’s… mildly disjointed story is how its main antagonist, David, steals ownership of the Moon from its rightful ruler, a lady named Moon River, and is apparently using the spooky Dark Matter energy leaking from the Dark Side to create monstrous killers on Earth, as well as spawn an infinite army of mindless minions called Wires. Why is the Dark Side of the Moon suffused in malevolent mojo? I ‘unno! Don’t worry about it.

Amusingly, upon first arriving on the Moon early on in the game, Mondo is actually wearing a space helmet to safely breathe. No spacesuit, though, which isn’t really how this sort of thing works, but I think we’re well past asking for scientific accuracy here.

9 Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward

The Moon is a Great Place to Hide from a Viral Plague

In all three Zero Escape games, a major component of each game’s respective mystery is figuring out where, exactly, the story’s suckers are located, as they usually find themselves in some manner of sealed environment. In Virtue’s Last Reward, there are no windows in the solid metal facility Sigma and company are forced to navigate, so they can’t even begin to guess until they finally unseal the Number 9 Door. Guess what? They’re on the Moon.

Here’s the deal: unbeknownst to Sigma, it’s the year 2074, and the vast majority of humanity has been decimated by a viral scourge called Radical-6. All the AB Game participants have symptoms of this virus, which slows the brain’s processing speed, but due to the Moon’s gravitational differences, their brain’s perception kind of… evens out. This is why the AB Game was specifically hosted on the Moon, as they’d lose their minds if they tried to do it on Earth.

There are actually many hints to the game being on the Moon throughout the story. Phi and K are able to jump abnormally high, Sigma notices things feel lighter than he expects them to, and water in a sink seems to drain much slower than it should.

8 Sam & Max Save the World

It’s Not a Moon Cult, it’s a Cult on the Moon

Sam & Max: Save the World

In the original Sam & Max comics, the titular duo once paid a visit to the Moon. How did they get there? They drove, obviously. It’s so simple, in fact, they were able to visit again in the finale episode of Sam & Max Save the World.

In said episode, Sam and Max have tracked the global hypnotic conspiracy to TV stage magician-turned-creepy cult leader Hugh Bliss, who just so happens to run a Prismatology retreat on the Moon, complete with a visitor center and gift shop. The retreat is specifically on the Moon because Hugh Bliss wanted a vantage point to blast the Earth with a happiness-inducing laser so he could feed on humanity’s positive emotions forever. Oh, also, he’s actually a sapient colony of endorphin-feeding space bacteria. It’s a whole thing.

If you were wondering how Sam and Max are able to breathe on the Moon, they actually addressed that in the comics. They arrived on the Moon wearing “penny-conscious Moon gear,” i.e. paper bags over their heads, only to find out they didn’t need the bags at all. Max muses that the astronauts were just never brave enough to try taking their helmets off, but Sam says he could never say that about an astronaut.

7 DuckTales

The Moon’s Got Some Jammin’ Tunes

If there were a particular instance of Moon travel that every veteran gamer knows by heart, it would be the one that appears in the NES DuckTales game, as well as DuckTales Remastered. The original DuckTales cartoon didn’t do anything in particular on the Moon, so I don’t know why it was chosen as a level for this game, but it was cool, so who’s complaining.

The Moon stage sees Scrooge McDuck exploring both the satellite’s outer surface and a F.O.W.L. lunar base sequestered away beneath the surface. Neither Scrooge nor the F.O.W.L. agents need helmets, though Ducktales Remastered explained this with Gyro Gearloose’s Oxy-Chew, a chewing gum that supplies both oxygen and nutrients for space travel. Black licorice flavor only.

Of course, the most iconic element of the Moon stage is its awesome BGM, which has gone down in the gaming music hall of fame for many years. In fact, a remix of the track plays during scenes on the Moon in the 2017 DuckTales reboot, and serves as the basis for a lullaby sung by Della Duck.

6 Destroy All Humans 2

Obviously, the Alien Game has a Moon Level

Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed

It’s kind of a given that any game with an extensive focus on aliens would have at least one visit to the Moon. Surprisingly, the original Destroy All Humans did not have one, but this was rectified in Destroy All Humans 2, and in quite a spectacular fashion.

As it turns out, the game’s main antagonist, Soviet Union Premier Milenkov, is actually a member of an alien race called the Blisk, who are planning on bombarding the Earth with radiation to transform it into a new Blisk homeworld. The centerpiece of this plan is the Solaris Moon base, from which Milenkov can rain Blisk spores down from above. Crypto, in a fit of rage, flies up to the Moon and begins tearing the place apart to wreck Milenkov’s plans.

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Conveniently for Crypto, he’s always wearing a spacesuit, which includes a deployable airtight bubble shield around his head, so no need to worry about air. Also, in the Reprobed version of the game, there’s lots of empty space for rolling around on your hover skates, which is just fun in general.

5 Asura’s Wrath

Throwing Hands on the Moon

There’s something about the Moon that makes it a perfect stage for a big ol’ punch-up. Perhaps it’s the lack of buildings or distractions, or the uneven terrain creating lots of opportunities for scattering rocks and smashed cliffs. Whatever it is, if you’re going to have a big fight, like those in Asura’s Wrath, you could certainly find worse places to do it.

A few thousand years after Asura’s initial death, give or take a couple hundred after his defeat of Wyzen, Asura reconnects with his old master Augus. The two of them share some quality time together, soaking in a hot spring and reminiscing, before the two rocket off to the Moon to throw hands. They specifically chose to go to the barren planes of the Moon in order to ensure nobody would interfere while they beat the snot out of each other.

The Moon’s efficacy as an arena is revisited in the game’s DLC, as it’s also the spot where Asura battles both Evil Ryu and Akuma in the two Lost Episodes. If I had to guess, all three of them are too angry to be bothered by the fact that there’s no air on the Moon.

4 Wolfenstein: The New Order

There Would be a Nazi Moon Base

In the modern Wolfenstein games, the Nazi regime has set up bases all over the world to fully cement its dominance with its futuristic science. As it turns out, this dominance extends well past the Earth’s borders; in Wolfenstein: The New Order, the Nazis have also set up a fully functioning lunar colony, Mondbasis Eins (Moonbase One), located in one of the Moon’s massive craters.

Not only is Mondbasis Eins one of the Reich’s foremost research facilities, it’s roughly the size of a small city, and got to that size in just a few years’ time. Apparently, there were even plans to establish labor camps in the facility’s vicinity, whatever that would’ve even looked like.

Not that it matters, as B.J. Blazkowicz infiltrates the place in order to find the nuclear launch codes for his group’s commandeered U-Boat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, by the time he’s done, the whole place has been completely totaled. In subsequent games, the Nazis still have lunar bases, but they’re pretty paltry compared to Mondbasis Eins, probably because they decided to move everything over to Venus, not that it was any safer from B.J.’s wrath.

3 Portal 2

“Ground Up Moon Rocks is Pure Poison!”

Midway through Portal 2, while Chell and the potato-ified GLaDOS are exploring the abandoned bowels of Aperture Science, they come across the last few experiments ordered by its late founder, Cave Johnson. In an ill-advised financial move, Cave purchased several million dollars worth of genuine space rocks and ground them up into a gel to see if they’d do anything cool. Good news, Moon stuff is inherently receptive to the Portal Gun. Bad news, breathing it in made Cave deathly ill, and ultimately caused his passing.

In the game’s climax, while Chell and GLaDOS are battling Wheatley, who’s gone mad with power while the enrichment center melts down, a hole is blown open in the ceiling, revealing the night sky and the full Moon shining above. By shooting a portal directly at its compatible surface, Chell is able to open a portal into the yawning void of space, blasting Wheatley out into the vacuum.

Fun science fact, despite Cave’s assertions that moon rocks are “pure poison,” lunar regolith is not poisonous to the human body. It is, however, incredibly sharp down to the microscopic level, which means breathing it in will completely destroy your lungs.

2 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Turns Out a Cannon Can Get you to the Moon

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

In the classic Jules Verne novel From the Earth to the Moon, a gaggle of engineers and gun enthusiasts attempt to construct a gigantic gun to launch themselves straight to the Moon. Obviously, this is ridiculous. A giant gun can’t get you to the Moon. A giant cannon, on the other hand, can totally get you to the Moon, as it did in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

In the game’s seventh chapter, aptly titled “Mario Shoots the Moon,” Mario and company discover that the final Crystal Star they’ve been hunting for is, in fact, on the Moon. Lacking a rocket, the party decide the next best option is a Bob-omb-powered cannon, which they secure the use of in the snowy reaches of Fahr Outpost. With the Bob-ombs’ help, Mario shoots straight to the Moon, no capsule or spacesuits necessary. Paper doesn’t need to breathe.

As it turns out, not only is the final Crystal Star on the Moon, but that’s also the location of the hidden X-Nauts base, where Peach had been held for most of the game. The X-Nauts are proponents of the classics in more ways than one, I suppose.

1 Super Mario Odyssey

Wanna Visit the Moon? Fly Up

Speaking of Mario, our favorite plumber has actually visited the lunar surface a few times throughout his career, as well as comparable planetoids during his voyages in Super Mario Galaxy. One of his most interesting treks to the capital-M Moon, however, came about in Super Mario Odyssey, as it was the perfect setting for a white wedding.

The Moon Kingdom is the final locale of the game, and apparently a very popular destination for vacation weddings thanks to a very lovely chapel up on its tallest ridge. This is precisely why Bowser occupies the place, so he can host his dream wedding to Peach. With enough Power Moons, Mario and Cappy were able to reach the Moon Kingdom by simply flying the Odyssey directly upward. Who knew it was so easy?

Once again, Mario does not need a helmet or suit to survive on the Moon. In fact, when he arrives, Cappy instead makes a very stylish ensemble for him consisting of a white tux and top hat. Though, if you’d prefer a more traditional approach, you can purchase a spacesuit and helmet from the local Crazy Cap branch. Hey, if you’re gonna sell souvenirs, sell something people expect.