
The game would have started right where Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! ended, when the cruise ship (with Larry onboard) is abducted by a UFO. The UFO belongs to a race of alien amazonians who needed a human male to give birth to human-looking aliens and conquer the Earth, and chose Larry because he was the winner of the Thygh's Man Trophy competition and declared "the sexiest man alive". They brainwash Larry into seeing the interiors of the alien ship as a heavenly world of 1970s Disco, and the ugly alien creatures as beautiful women just waiting for him to make love to them. Upon awakening from hypnosis, Larry needs to thwart their plot to save himself and the Earth.
LSL8 was in development in 1998-1999, but the project was eventually cancelled due to a change in Sierra's directorship. One video trailer showing a 3D model of Larry
was published, and in 2010, Al Lowe revealed the game's plot
. In the late 2000s, the rights to Larry franchise were acquired by Codemasters, who licensed it to Replay Games to produce a remake of Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Replay Games had plans to create Lust in Space as well, but they lost the rights to franchise in 2013, and they were transferred to the German company Crazy Bunch who made two more Larry titles: Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry (2018) and Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice (2020). It remains to be seen whether Lust in Space will eventually see the light of the day.
This game provides examples of:
- Accidental Hero: Larry has to be the one who saves the world from aliens just because they abducted him, and he has no other option.
- Aliens Are Bastards: The alien amazons are the villains of the game.
- Anal Probing: This is what the aliens do to Larry to find out his preferences and create a perfect illusory world for him.
- Darker and Edgier: Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! had a lighthearted story with very few drama elements. This game would have had Larry saving the Earth from sinister aliens.
- Does Not Like Men: The alien amazons have exterminated all their males, and they only need Larry as breeding stock.
- Genre Shift: This was to be the first Larry game with a sci-fi storyline.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: Zig-Zagged. The alien amazons are hideous creatures, but they pose as beautiful women to seduce Larry.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The illusory heaven created by the aliens for Larry.
- Punny Name: Both of the game's titles are punny: Lust in Space (a pun on "Lost in Space") and Leisure Suit Larry Explores Uranus.
- Space Episode: The first Leisure Suit Larry game set in space.
