I’ve talked in the past about my love/hate relationship with Surviving Mars. Well, I guess “love/hate” isn’t really the most apt way to describe it — more accurately, my relationship with Surviving Mars is similar to an alcoholic’s relationship with alcohol. I love it so much that I binge it until I see other parts of my life start to fall apart.
So I personally can’t allow myself to play Surviving Mars anymore, unless I want to find myself looking at the calendar on my phone to see that three days have passed, I haven’t eaten or seen sunlight for days, and my friends have been worried about where I disappeared to.
For those of you who can play Surviving Mars responsibly, however, there’s a lot to enjoy here. And there will be even more to enjoy soon, since publisher Paradox Interactive just announced three new Content Creator packs for the game, due to land on April 28.
The biggest of these packs is the Martian Express Pack, created by modders Lucian “LukeH” Hada and Sylvain “Silva” Maupetit. According to a recent press release:
With the Martian Express pack, gamers will be able to move their colonists and resources between stations facilitating access to far away domes and remote resource deposits. Other outside manned buildings will also be buildable near stations without needing a dome.
Here’s a partial list of features:
Welcome commuters! – Build your stations anywhere on the map and help your colonists get to work and back. Click on the info panel to see their reason for traveling and make sure that everyone gets their seat. otherwise, they’ll have to wait for the next train – and be frustrated, nobody likes to miss the train.
New tracks – Click and drag to create tracks that connect your stations. Tracks will be elevated allowing your rovers and drones to pass underneath together with power cables, while pipes can cross over them.
Same train, different cargo – Traveling on the red planet has never been safer (and efficient!). Trains will have 2 wagons to transport colonists and resources at the same time. Don’t worry: they’ll travel on the same track with no risk of collision. Build your trains in the stations, assign them to the connected tracks and watch them go.
There’s a quick teaser trailer to really get your appetite going, though it admittedly doesn’t show anything besides a slick little animation.
This pack will sell for 6.99 USD/EUR.
On top of that, you’ve got two more packs. The Future Contemporary Cosmetic Pack will add 10 terrestrial building skins and retail for 4.99 USD/EUR. The Revolution Radio pack adds 16 new music tracks, giving you 70 additional minutes of music to listen to while you build. This one retails for 3.99 USD/EUR.
If you want to pick up all three of these packs, you can nab them in a bundle for 14.99 USD/EUR, which saves you a couple bucks.
If you’ve read this far and you don’t know what Surviving Mars even is, well, think of it as SimCity set on Mars (with the added challenge of terraforming and creating breathable living spaces and repairing the damage done by meteor crashes). You can check out this trailer from 2018:
Honestly, I really wish I had more impulse control, because it seems like this would be an excellent time to jump back into Surviving Mars.
