Paradox Interactive today announced Below and Beyond, an all-new expansion for Surviving Mars, marking the the title’s first major update since 2019.
Hooray!
Surviving Mars is an experience unlike any other. Equal parts survival game and city-builder (you get to build the beautiful Martian colony of your dreams but if you screw up everyone dies), the game tasks you with exploiting the red planet on behalf of your sponsors.
The news: long-time Paradox Interactive fans already know the drill. A typical Paradox DLC expansion usually involves a plethora of updates including new mechanics and entirely new ways of playing the game.
And the Below and Beyond expansion certainly appears as though it’ll live up to that pedigree.
New mechanics will include the ability to expand your colony underground, mine passing asteroids, and a suite of customization items for both.
Per a Paradox Interactive press release:
Expand horizons with additional buildings, more resources, and a cavernous world full of mysteries. Players can tunnel beneath the surface and construct subterranean bases below the colony or in nearby underground caves. Enterprising players can attach rocket-propelled buildings to passing asteroids and mine exotic resources, but you’ll need to make it back to the Red Planet’s surface before the asteroid leaves orbit or else you lose your stuff and your colonists.
Why it’s interesting: it’s been awhile since Surviving Mars got a major update. When you consider that there isn’t really anything else out there that can scratch the same itch, it’s about damn time! The idea of digging tunnels beneath the surface is intriguing and could completely change how players approach colonizing the planet.
This update should give us all a reason to blow the red dust off our copies and dive back into Surviving Mars.
For those who haven’t taken the plunge, Surviving Mars is a deep strategy game that’s as fun to play as it is complex.
Paradox does a good job of explaining the ins and outs of running your own colony through a series of tutorials, but ultimately this is the kind of game you can put dozens of hours into and barely scratch the surface.
And, speaking of scratching the surface, the Below and Beyond expansion launches on 7 September for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.