Omg. Omg.
What if there was a Southern Reach themed ttrpg?
You create a new character for each mission. And your current character can access the info gathered from previous teams. Each mission has specific goals (i.e. try out different tech, map out the area, explore specific places, do experiments, study evolving ecology, look for surviving human residents, etc.)
Maybe there is a "compelling" aspect. Or a "mental health" resource.
This format also makes it easy for players to join or leave the game w/o throwing off a long-arching D&D style quest.
It would really benefit from having physical materials, like players keeping a journal for each character. Maybe photos or drawings or videos of locations that players can unlock (could just scan a photo of a thistle field if there's no "official" game to supply materials).
Maps could be puzzles that the GM puts together as the players explore.
GM would probably have some tables of random events to roll for.
Oooo this'll be fun to think about :)
