TL;DR – if you have never played the game before, this is by far the best version, and you should give it a go. If you have bought the game before, I am not sure there is enough to warrant the price tag.

Disclosure – I paid for this video game.

Surviving Mars: Relaunched Review Introduction –

Today, we are looking at a bit of an odd duck in that we are looking at what is apparently a from-the-ground-up remake for a game that is less than ten years old, which, for a strategy game, is quite odd. However, as I enjoyed my time with the first Surviving Mars, I thought it was only good to dive back in to see if it was worth the relaunch.

So, to set the scene, in Surviving Mars, as the title suggests, your job is to help manage the first colony on Mars and make sure everything runs smoothly. You begin by picking your mission’s sponsor, the USA, Europe, Blue Sun Corporation, and more. You then choose what type of commander you are going to be, an Ecologist, Oligarch, etc., and then you are off to the red planet. Here you have to pick your landing site on a very detailed map of Mars, you can select from one of the pre-determined locations or go ‘stuff it game I’m landing in the Utopia Planitia’, and then it is just you, a rocket and a couple of automated rovers to start you on building the first place for humankind away from Earth. Where you will face the needs of a growing colony, the harness of the environment, and the risk of declaring independence.

If You Have Not Played The Original Game

Is this a good game to play for those who might have missed the original game and its DLC packs, Green Planet & Below and Beyond? Having now played hundreds of Sols in the remake, I can honestly say that this is the best version of the game to date. All the visuals pop with that fresh new game engine smell. There are a bunch of quality-of-life improvements, such as not having to go digging to find where the button is to destroy a cable that you put in the wrong place. The gameplay loop of slowly building up your colony while you face off against rivals and make the world a new home is a delight. You can still accidentally kill your colony by creating a bad feedback loop, but slow and steady improvement, especially as the world starts to green, is a delight to behold.  

You also get all of the past expansions and DLC, and the new Martian Assembly DLC that I will talk about more in the next section. While some parts of the expanded works for the game, namely Below and Beyond and Martian Express, still feel undercooked. Getting to fundamentally terraform Mars, one lake or forestry station after another, is still such a joy to behold. Also, the current price point with what you get is probably at the right spot for those who have not played the game before, because you are getting a solid foundation of a game that will give you hours of fun.

If You Have Played The Original Game

Now, here is where it gets a touch dicier because at its core, you must ask the question: are all the improvements and additions to the game worth you buying it again? Honestly, while I still had a blast with my time here, and I didn’t have any significant bugs, bar a persistent tagging issue with a pasture. However, I am not sure that I found much of a difference between this and the last game I played. The factors that still bothered me last time I played were there. Namely, the very undercooked Below and Beyond pack. While I can see it has been ‘reworked’, the fact that you still can terraform those caves after all these years is a massive oversight. Also, while it is a touch better, trying to get supplies up and down is still a fiddly time-wasting experience, even if you do it right, and you won’t do it right the first time.  

If the update is not the point where I can recommend it to you, we can then ask if all the new additions are where they are. At the same time, I can’t speak to what they have brewing in the future. The base game does come with the new Martian Assembly addition to help mix up the gameplay. Here, you have factions in your midst that you have to keep happy through actions in-game or the proposals you submit to the assembly. All of this works fine; you can always see who will and won’t like what proposal you send in, and their desires are rather basic, so you know why people are burning down your buildings. It’s interesting, but it is also just something else you have to keep an eye on. So while you can get some good bonuses from it, it can also be intensely frustrating at times when it inserts itself while you are trying to do something with your game.       

Recommendation

So, in the end, do we recommend Surviving Mars: Relaunched? Well, that is both an easy and a tricky question to answer. If you have not played the game before, I absolutely recommend giving it a play. This is the best version of the game. If you have already bought the original, well, then, I am not sure there is enough here to recommend you purchase it again, especially in this current global economy.

Have you played Surviving Mars: Relaunched? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. 

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the staff of Surviving Mars: Relaunched
Creative Director – Boyan “Chimera” Ivanov [also Gabriel Dobrev]
Art Director – Nelson Inomvan
Lead Game Designer – Lyubomir Iliev
Lead Artist – Dimitar “Chrom” Tzvetanov & Tzviatkp Kinchev
Lead Programmer – Ivan-Assen Ivanov
Lead Level Designer – Irena “Faithkata” Waibl
Music – George Strezov
Developer – Haemimont Games
Publisher – Paradox Games