From 04.09.2024 until 09.09.2024 (10am PT) the popular game distribution platform Steam is once again blessing all PC gamers with some really nice discounts on space themed games. Lets have a look through some of the most interesting ones from the bunch to help you decide which might be worth your hard earned money.

Universe Sandbox 19.42€ (-33%) – Play around with the Solar System

Searching for a fun physics simulator? Look no further. Universe Sandbox is a full on Sandbox game where you can tweak and change any parameters of the environment and the planets, suns, black holes, comets and more. You can spawn and create any astronomical object that comes to your mind and let them collide and interact with each other. Furthermore you can actually learn quite a few things about orbital mechanics from this game.

SpaceEngine 20.29€ (-30%) – The entire Universe on your Harddrive

SpaceEngine while in some parts similar to Universe Sandbox offers a much more open world approach. You can understand Universe Sandbox as a physics simulation while SpaceEngine doesn’t as such allow collisions and focuses more on the scientifically accurate 3D star map of the known universe. Another aspect that differentiates the two are the graphics. SpaceEngine is incredibly beautiful to look at with much more nuanced texture details.

No Man’s Sky 23.59€ (-60%) – Classic Universe exploration game

To be fair, the above two games are more simulations than games. But no worries, while No Mans Sky plays in a fictional Universe it still offers a vast space to explore. Because the game has a unique engine that generates planets and their ecosystems as you proceed there is effectively no way that you will ever run out of parts of the universe to discover. No Mans Sky is focused on discovery, survival and crafting allowing players to choose their own path through the universe.

Everspace 2 19.99€ (-60%) – Spaceship RPG shooter

Everspace 2 is a single-player space shooter that blends acction with RPG elects like looting, crafting and mining. You are the pilot of a spaceship that battles outlaws while exploring different regions of space. As the story progresses you upgrade you ship and encounter more difficult enemys. Aside from the good gameplay the graphics are also really good. You can read our more in depth test of this game here.

Spaceflight Simulator 5.99€ (-50%) – simple 2D spaceflight physics sim

Spaceflight Simulator is graphically very simple 2D game that allows you to build your own rockets and launch them to the stars. It can be seen as the two dimensional brother of KSP. But don’t underestimate the quite accurate physics engine behind the simple textures. With its Map view this game teaches the basics of orbital dynamics and rocket physics quite well and allows for a simple entry in simulation games. You can read our more detailed review of the game here. Should you struggle with some of the Moon missions check out our guide here.

Bonus: Kerbal Space Program 9.99€ (-70%) – Ultimate Spaceflight Game

Even though KSP is now quite old and already has a successor i still recommend this classic over the new KSP 2 where the development seems to have stopped. KSP is a classic all in one Spaceflight Simulation Game in which you can build your own rocket from a huge selection of rocket parts and steer it through the solar system to the planets. While this game might look childish, it packs quite a punch when it comes to the level of realism and with it the level of complexity to pull off a successful moon landing. Above all it is also heavily modable with a huge community developing mods for it. Check out our detailed guide on how to do this here.

Asteroids is a 2D science fiction space combat game released in 1979, over 44 years ago, by US based developer Atari. It was originally meant to run on arcade machines but was later even more popular as it was ported to one of the first programmable game consoles ever build by the same company named Atari 2600. With the 6-month birthday of this website coming up shortly we are going to celebrate by taking a look at exactly these origins and first steps of video games, with small reviews and history lessons in the next few weeks.

Pioneers of their time

Atari is one of the most iconic names in the history of video games. Founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in Sunnyvale, California the company pioneered the arcade game industry like no other with selling hits like Pong, Breakout, Lunar Lander and many more. One of the most successful and influential games Atari ever produced is the classical space themed shooter Asteroids that was released in 1979 and sold over 70.000 arcade cabinets worldwide putting it in the top 5 list of all arcade games.

Birth of an idea

Lyle Rains Ataris vice president of engineering and Ed Logg, a game designer who had previously worked on Breakout, came up with the idea for Asteroids during a meeting and developed the concept based on another unfinished Atari game called Cosmos. Further inspirations were taken from the hit game Space Invaders from Japan and one of the first video games ever, named Spacewar! that ran on a PDP-1 Computer the size of a room and was developed in 1962. Logg then refined the game design through trial and error, adding more features such as hyperspace, the UFOs and the splitting of asteroids (all of which will be described more closely in a second). The game was then finally released in 1979 and ported to the Atari 2600 in 1981.

Visual Appearance and Gameplay of Asteroids

Probably everyone has once seen the gameplay of this legendary piece of computer history but here is a quick run-down: In the black and white video game the player is able to control a triangle spaceship which is originally located in the middle of the screen. After pressing start the player is confronted with asteroids flying randomly through the screen. By shooting these asteroids with the help of projectiles coming out the front of the spaceship the player can earn points and the asteroids get smaller by splitting up until they vanish completely. If the spaceship is hit by an asteroid it looses one life out of three so one needs to be careful.

Maneuverabilty of the Spaceship

You are also able to maneuver inside the space by turning the spaceship left and right and pressing the forward button to fire the thrusters which will accelerate the ship in the turned direction. The spaceship will then keep moving into this direction unless it is turned and the thrusters are fired in the opposite direction. Should you be in an emergency situation with an asteroid straight on collision course you can also press the hyperspace button spawning the ship on a random location on the screen which is also not without its own dangers as you could rematerialize directly above a meteoroid or even fail to rematerialize at all.

Furthermore there are also other dangers you need to expect such as two versions of alien UFOs trying to shoot you down so you will need to be the faster one on the trigger.

Even today the simple yet trivial gameplay is really fun and brings joy across all generations playing it. As Asteroids was also one of the first games to integrate the possibility of adding a name tag after achieving a score in the top 10, the competitive feeling of getting a higher score than your friend is really amplified.

Technology behind it

The graphics are truly a result of their times. Of course a game released in times were programmable home computers weren’t even a thing to exist will have really basic textures and elements. As the original Asteroids was released on arcade machines its textures were therefore generated through hard wired computer boards performing the needed operations. Not only game development was in its early steps but also display technology.

Vector display technology

Howard Delman was a developer on the game Lunar lander and created a technology using vector calculations which was then also used on Asteroids. Due to these vectors, the elements all consist of lines that look like a wireframe and round objects do not really exists. Even if you have never been in an arcade, playing this game today really brings you back to the mid 1980s, known as the golden era of arcade machines, where these games really were everywhere.

Legacy

Today over 40 years after this era most young people playing a round of Fortnite of course do not know anymore about these pioneers of the game industry who build the foundations for our modern high definition video games. And although we should stand with our eyes and attention facing the future we shall not forget whom we owe the pioneering work behind this.

Conclusion

As already mentioned at the beginning, apart from the huge success in selling arcade cabins, Asteroids was later ported to the Atari 2600, a home game console with a 1.1 MHz processor, and sold an astonishing 30 million times. Furthermore the game has inspired countless of other developers and game designers. All in all Asteroids and with it also its developer Atari have undoubtedly earned their place in the video game hall of fame as a pioneer of arcade and home console technology and as one of the most successful games of the golden arcade era.

Play Atari Asteroids

You can play Ataris original Asteroids with a little bit of technical and computer background knowledge using an emulator. As the download of the needed files would be illegal though we are not going to get into how this works here. You can also take a look at the reloaded version Atari released of the game in 2021:

Project Aurora

Project Aurora is a space themed survival and adventure game in which you can explore the planet Aurora. Your means of travel to explore this huge map is a small rover that you control from a birdseye view through the rocky environment of Aurora. Aurora itself feels like a combination of Mars and Earth with a red and orange soil but some plants living there. From the dangerous looking fossils one might also come to the conclusion that there once have lived quite large animals there. Furthermore Aurora does not only has dangerous looking things but also possesses truly dangerous places such as green pulsating remnant of alien technology that can deplete the power of your rover. So be careful when exploring the unknown of Aurora. Moreover the game offers a great variety of construction elements such as mines which will then help you to build whole colonies and citys on the planet. All in all Aurora look like a really fun exploration game with a new approach to the player perspective.

Station to Station

Station to Station is a railway building simulator in which you need to connect separate buildings like wheat farms, mills and towns with a carefully thought out railway network. The game developers describe the game as a relaxing and minimalist experience which I can definitely agree on. With its combination of Voxel art like models and truly beautiful lighting with realistic shadows, the game offers not only a nice puzzle to solve but also a stunning view. With increasing difficulty from level to level the game introduces new buildings which need different resources and railway connection methods to work making it more challenging. The player also gets introduced into cards making you railways cheaper. Now even more than before a little bit of puzzle thinking is required before you use a card for a railway that it might not be worth it for. In conclusion Station to Station is a fun and diverting puzzle game for short breaks where you want to escape the stressful everyday life and challenge you brain a bit.

Uproar

Uproar is a rogue-like dungeon crawler where you need to fight through procedurally generated worlds, looking for artifacts. The cool thing is that nearly everything around you can be used as a weapon.

In the beginning of each run you jump through a portal which takes you to a new level. Inside the dungeon or on the flying islands you have to defeat enemies like slimes, skeletons and minibosses to reach red portal that takes you further. Every five levels you’ll find a save space, the “Nowhere”. At the end of the run before the final portal you need to defeat a final boss. I was able to play one successful run through 5 levels and met the “Golem”, a huge monster constructed out of stones that tries to throw stones at you and jump on you. Quite a challenging boss fight but also a really cool one and it really showed of the possibilites of the game.

Once you’ve killed a certain amount of monsters you’re able to unlock perks that for instance improve your movement speed or critical hit chance. You also need to open chest to gain new weapons and avoid traps. Throughout the run you’ll collect money and matter. Money can be used at the shop while matter is currently unused as stated by one of the Support Team members on the Uproar discord server. Artifacts can be found scattered around the levels and improve your player stats. There are currently eleven of them.

What I really enjoyed about the game is the beautifully crafted intro cinematic sequence. The idea of everything being a weapon or throwable was really fun and it really adds diversity to the game as you can’t always play with the same weapon as melee weapons have a limited durability and ranged weapons can run out of ammunition.

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Surviving in space is hard

In the survival game Life Not Supported you start on a small piece which was once part of the space station orbiting the earth like planet. Apparently you are the only person that has survived the destruction of the spacecraft. You now need to survive in the harsh environment by collecting small pieces of basic material that you can find in the orbit around you. This concept is quite similar to another popular game named Raft which basically works the same way but the setting is on an ocean. While you need to throw your hook in Raft, in Life Not Supported you simply float up to the objects and gather them.

But don’t be mislead by the seemingly more easy gathering because the spacesuit your character is wearing needs air bottles for fuel and for keeping you breathing. Moreover you need to keep track of the direction you are flying as it is quite is easy to get lost in the vast space. Thankfully the developer thought of that and build in a beacon that can be crafted and placed on your provisionary shelter. Should you now go on to longer trips away from you spacecraft you can see it from far away.

Duct tape to the rescue

At the moment the game has a really good amount of basic crafting blueprints to offer but as it is not even released yet so you can expect that to change in the near future to include even more elements. When you aren’t building something with the duct tape you are holding the general working tool of the game is a crowbar. Is this a reference to Half Life the mighty origin of all modern first person shooter games? Well to be honest we don’t know but it is quite a cool touch to the emergency situation the game plays in.

Stunning graphics

Graphic wise it already looks great for a game fresh out of development. It is quite clear that the developer took much time to set the texture bar high, resulting in an truly beautiful view on the planet you are orbiting. The textures of parts, tools and stuff the player interacts with are also well designed. In general the game builds not only on a concept that reminds of Raft but also the texture is quite similar with the cartoonish but realistic and utiliaristic look.

Bugs and Alpha Demos

Don’t get me wrong, a not even released game demo can’t really be judged for a few bugs and issues as this is totally normal with games in early development. But in most cases the amount and significance of bugs in pre release games can already indicate the time it will take for it to become really good. Regarding Life Not Supported this actually seems like not a big issue at all. I did only encounter small graphic bugs and a few physics bugs were my player would be repelled weirdly from parts floating around.

You will also get thrown around pretty badly from comet showers appearing randomly so make sure you have a protection against them as they definitely are not only graphic bugs but real dangers for you poor astronaut :). Furthermore the FPS performance of the game is also totally acceptable for a demo game with these kind of graphics but should be improved as it currently is quite heavy even on higher end hardware.

Conclusion

Get Life Not Supported here:

Should you be intersted in other space themed games, check out our review of Kerbal Space Program and Spaceflight Simulator.

Preparations

The first challenge is reaching low lunar orbit, technically specified as an orbit around the moon with a maximum distance of 100km to the surface. But before even entering the sphere of influence of the moon we of course need to leave the earth’s atmosphere first.

Moon rocket – Where is my Saturn V?

The rocket we will be using for all of the challenges is built only out of basic parts keeping it simple and easy to replicate. Furthermore all the moon challenges can be accomplished in one flight. You can download the blueprint for the rocket here and unzip it and then copy it into the saves/blueprint folder to proceed without needing to build the rocket yourself.

Reach low earth orbit

After building or downloading the rocket proceeds to launch to put it on the launch  pad. Now activate the first stage by activating (tapping on it) all 4 of the first engines. Now crank the power up to 100% and turn the engines on. On your way to space follow the tilting guide to get into an earth orbit. Once the first stage has run out of liquid fuel separate it from the second stage and activate the engine once you crossed the karman line (80km height).

Fire the engine until you have reached a highly elliptical orbit around the earth that intersects with the moon orbit and speed the time up until your spacecraft will have an encounter with the moon. By tapping on the moon in the map view you are also able to select the navigate to option which will then show you when an encounter is coming up.

Enter moon orbit

Once you have entered the sphere of influence of the moon, fire your engines in the opposite direction of flight causing the spacecraft to slow down and enter a high moon orbit.

Challenge 1: Reach low lunar orbit

By firing the engines at the highest point of the orbit (Perigee) and lowest (Apogee) in the opposite direction of flight you can lower the orbit to a low orbit of around 20km around the moon. Descending so far doesn’t only allow for a more precise landing on the moon but as a side effect also gives you the first achievement of reaching low lunar orbit.

Challenge 2: Land on the moon surface

To finally land on the lunar surface you need to lower your theoretical orbit so much that it intersects with the moon surface. Ideally do this so that you will land on one of the landmarks such as the craters. Now speed forward until your spacecraft has reached a height of 5km. Now you need to perform a few carefull engine burns to equalize both of the speed arrows you can see next to your spacecraft to zero before you reach the surface. Here it is advised to first anulate the horizontal speed and then trim the engine power accordingly to softly touch down. Also remember to fold out the landing legs to reduce the risk of damaging the engine. Success! You have landed on a moon landmark.

Challenge 3: visit 3 landmarks on the moon

After successfully landing on the moon at the first landmark you can fire the engines of your rocket again an blast off to the next landmark. Always check the estimated trajectory in the map view to not overshot your landing site. After reaching a height of 5 km again simply repeat the steps from challenge 1 and land on the new landmark. Now redo everything for the last landmark.

Finish all challenges

To finish all challenges and get back to earth, blast of with your rocket into a low lunar orbit again. Then higher the orbit so much that you leave the sphere of influence of the moon and enter a high earth orbit. Now when reaching the Apoapsis of the orbit fire the engines and slow down so that the “orbit trajectory intersects” with the earth’s surface. Now speed up until about 120km before entering Earth’s atmosphere and separate the 3rd stage of the capsule. Proceed with entering the earth’s atmosphere by pointing the heatshield of the capsule always into the direction of flight, which is marked by the little arrow.

Should you not enter with the heatshield first in the atmosphere the capsule will get destroyed by the heat generated. Survived reentry?

Great, now wait until your capsule has reached a height of 1km above the surface and deploy the parachute by tapping on it once.
Congratulations, enjoy watching your spacecraft slowly descend back to it’s home planet after a long and successful space mission to the moon. By pressing recover you will get an overview of all the achievements of your tedious space adventure. Under these are, as expected, all the moon missions and as a side effect if you are lucky also all the earth missions.

Enjoy and thanks for flying with the GLPC space program.

Conclusion

As explained in detail in this tutorial, accomplishing all the moon challenges isn’t as difficult as it might seem on first glance. Have fun in spaceflight simulator and godspeed on your future rocket launches. Interested in other spaceflight themed games? Take a look at our Kerbal Spaceflight Review or the first look at the new Everspace 2.

Get Spaceflight Simulator:

Gameplay – more than a sandbox

Rocket editor

Spaceflight Simulator gives you the freedom to build whatever rocket you want and fly it to the different planets in the solar system. Of course similar to KSP before you can fly a rocket you need to build it. The editor offers an intuitive interface where you can drag an drop the parts out of the menu. While building you rocket you don’t need to worry about any financial limitations as the game is currently a full sandbox game without any implemented money system. Regarding the parts you are given a basic arrangement of rocket parts concisting of Fuel tanks in different sizes, an astronaut capsule, 3 different types of engines, stage seperators and a lot more parts like docking ports, landing legs and RCS thrusters for control. When building you first rocket dont forget to equip a capsule or a probe as you will not be able to control you rocket otherwise.

Simulation physics

Although the game makes some technical and physical simplifications to improve the ease of use, the actual function of the parts in SFS is also refreshingly realistic done. The amount of parts is a little bit scarse when comparing SFS to its big cousin KSP but as the whole thing runs on your phone this is absolutely expected and gives you more than enough to play with. Should you get bored of the basic parts you also have the option to get an expansion via an in app purchase that unlocks more parts like more engines, skins and planets. Talking about planets, you are able to occupy mars, its two moons phobos and deimos, the earth moon, venus and mercury. All orbit the sun in the place they would in the real world, allowing for great simulations of real world space mission like landing a rover on mars.

Challenges

In the new update you are now also able to complete challenges like achieving a certain height with your rocket, or reaching a given orbit around a planet/moon. Some of them are also a bit more challenging like taking a tour around the moon by landing on three landmarks on its surface. To get the achievment of the challenge you will need to design and fly a rocket capable of the needed requirements. We will cover the challenges on here seperatly in a tutorial for the moon tour but in general they add a nice change to the otherwise pure sandbox game and keep the fun upright even after many play hours.

Graphics and sound – Basic and functional

The game goes for a minimalistic 2D view onto everything with a good spacing between the elements making it declutterd and easy to overview even on small phone screens. The rocket parts themself have a very functional design with a simple cartoonish look without much texture to them. The different planets follow this idea and have very simple terrain. Earth for example has no mountains, sea or tress and consist simply out of a green areal. This gets a little boring after a while but is not too much of a problem as you are spending most of your time in space anyway.

In recent years the game also got a great aerodynamic physics update making it a challenge to survive reentry into the atmosphere with the help of a headshield part. The plasma and fire animations on reentry are very well done and look absolutely great. When reentering make sure to enter earths atmosphere straight in the flight direction as your spacecraft will otherwise tumble out of control and will burn up.

Sound design

The sounds of the game are kept similar to the graphics very functional and simple. For a smartphone game that is played without sound most of the time anyway, they are perfectly fine and above average for a non competitive shooter mobile game.

Ease of use – not as hard as you might think

The simple two dimensional perspective is not only easy on the graphics but also great for controls because as you can imagine it would be quite difficult to implement the complex control mechanism of KSP into a touchscreen app. In general the controls are very intuitive and easy to learn as they mostly consist out of two buttons to steer your rocket in flight left to right. Should you equip the RCS part (reaction control system) and activate it by tapping on it you will also be able to rotate your spacecraft around its center of mass. All the buttons are also well enough separated from each other, big enough and are therefore great to use and navigate with.

Steering you rocket to orbit is quite easy thanks to a display in the top left showing you how far you have to tilt you rocket. Docking in orbit on the other hand is a bit more tricky and offers quite a challenge. To make this easier by selecting and focusing the spacecraft you want to dock with there will appear the relative speed of your spacecraft to the other so that you can approach it more easily.

Conclusion

Get Spaceflight Simulator here

Mod manager

To install mods you basically have to copy the files of the mods into the main game folder. As this gets confusing really fast it is advised to use a so called mod manager which downloads and copies to mods for you.

CKAN

CKAN (Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network) is a neat little application which was purposely build for Kerbal Space Programm mod managment making it minimalistic and functional for the job. It was build with feedback from the community and features versions for Windows, Linux and MacOS. Furthermore it always checks if youre version of the game is compatible with the version of the modification and installs needed dependencies. You can read more here.

To start you simply need to download the application from GitHub and install the programm with the wizard. Once having done that you are ready to install the mods that are available by clicking the “installed” field so that a check mark appears. Then press apply changes. As some mods have other mods they are dependent on to function CKAN will then ask you if you want them installed which you can agree with by clicking continue/agree. Having done that you are ready to go and can press “launch game”.

CurseForge

Another good mod manager is the popular mod distribution platform CurseForge which is also known for its huge Minecraft mod sortiment. CurseForge also works similar to CKAN and automatically downloads mods and sets them up correctly inside the folder structure. Simply select the game from the overview, navigate to the “get more mods” tab, choose a mod and click on install. Now you are able to enjoy your new mods once you restart KSP.

Mods to try

1. Starship Expansion

The Starship Expansion pack (installed with CKAN) bring SpaceX Starbase into Kerbal Space Program. With this mod you are able to try launching the incredible Starship yourself, understand how it works and of course try to occupy mars sorry occupy Duna with it.

2. Waterfall Core

Watefall Core is a plugin that can be used by other engine mods. It generates beautiful engine exhausts with realistic shock diamonds and plume behaviour.

3. Textures Unlimited

Textures Unlimited is a mod that ads shaders to KSP making it possible for Starship to shine so metallic as it can bee seen above. There is also an addition (Textures Unlimited Default Stock Config) that enables these textures for the stock parts of the game.

4. Others

• Environmental Visual Enhancement – improve the visual features of the planets
• Artemis Construction kit – adds parts to the game that allow you to build the giant NASA Space Launch System
• If you have any more favourites please leave them in the comments!

Get Kerbal Space Program, CurseForge and CKAN:

Story – rocket goes brrrrr

“Sandbox games don’t have a story”… but Kerbal space program is no normal sandbox. Upon releasing you to your new home Kerbin, which is a planet inhabited by a small green humanoid species, it is your job to advance the space program of these cute beings. While managing the finances, the scientist teams, the rocket design, and the final launch of rockets you need to expand the spaceport on Kerbin to help the Kerbals leave their planet and master the whole solar system.

This story might sound weird at first glance but immediately brings out the inner child in everybody remotely interested in space flight and airplanes. So should you be tired by boring repetitive sandbox and simulation games then Kerbal Space Program might be worth a try as it challenges the players capabilities for creative and technical thinking.

Furthermore, you will also learn a lot of knowledge about how real rockets work as the game is, despite its cartoonish graphics, extremly accurate when it comes to rocket physics, aerodynamics, orbits and the control of the spaceships.

Gameplay

The two main game modes are the campaign mode, where you are the chief of a whole space port facility and need to manage everything from the engineering department all the way to the hiring of new workers, and the sandbox mode. In the sandbox you are as in most sandbox games free to do whatever your imagination allows. Both modes are really fun. The third possible game mode is the science mode which is similar to the campaign mode but more focused on the science gathering and exploring aspect of the game.

Since I like to play around with the different rocket parts, I particularly like the sandbox mode, which to my surprise is still fun even after many hours and at the same time capable to playfully explain the physics behind rockets. Apart from building rockets and propelling them into orbit you are also able to build satellites, rovers, spaceplanes, helicopters and much more. You can leave your creative imagination full freedom and build the spaceships of you dreams.

Graphics – you can see the years

As the game already has a successor named Kerbal space programm 2 that’s currently in the beta test phase you can’t expect all too much from a game that was released in 2011. Especially when looking at the environment of the basic spawn planet Kerbin you will quickly realize that the textures and surface relief have gotten quite a bit below the standard of today’s video game industry.

Nevertheless, the game still looks fine considering that its main aspect are the physics. Don’t be misled by its age though. KSP still manages to bring modern higher end graphics cards to its limits. Mostly due to the extensive physics rendering on many parts of the rocket simultaneously.

Mods

As many sandbox games Kerbal Space Program also allows for extensive mod use which resulted in the community creating a lot of them. Like Minecraft, this has helped keeping the game alive by allowing the community to interact with the game more than it would be otherwise possible.

Especially with a game that is oriented at a complicated and constantly evolving topic (such as rocket science) this comes in useful as people started to implement the new technology that emerged over the years into the game and thus keeped the engagement of the players constantly high. In recent years there even have been rebuilds of the enormous SpaceX Starship! Furthermore, there are mods reaching from graphics enhancements to completely new parts in the game making it possible to customize and expand the possibilities in nearly all categories the video game has to offer.

Conclusion

Kerbal Space Program is the perfect game for everyone who is interested in science and space. Furthermore, it offers a great and playful way to learn the physics and engineering marvels behind rockets. Even though the successor has already been released we would still recommend you this classic sandbox game if you can find it on a sale.

Get Kerbal Space Program:

Occupy Mars is a hardcore open-world sandbox survival game. It’s currently in early access and expected to be released on 10th of May this year, tomorrow. We interviewed our friend who had access to the earlier versions of the game and summarized his experiences in this quick first look article.

Game content

Starting out you receive a starter pack with some items needed to start your jouney. The landing animation on the planet is also very detailed and well-made.

Occupy Mars has a relatively rough visual appearance at the moment but this is expected to change with new updates. The game is running on the Unity engine. Although there’s room for improvement you can perceive some beautiful sunrises. The environment is based on real maps of the planet and you really recognize that red planet look from the pictures humanity has received so far from NASA’s rovers.

Your goal as a player is to survive on mars, fighting against changing weather conditions and the hostile environment. To build your base you need to collect materials. This grinding can get a bit repetitive as there a lack of content in the game at the moment but at the same time it’s exciting to get all of the different materials. As a player you can construct not only housing but also vehicles like rovers or jetpacks.

There are some minor bugs in the game version before the now releasing early access on steam but these are getting fixed fast as the devs at Pyramid Games have set up a community discord server for their games.

Development in the future

The diversity of gameplay and graphics will be improved. In addition to that a change to the user interface was announced and there are multiple vehicles and other structures expected to release soon. There are even plans for an online coop-mode. The developers are working on improving the day and will regularly release new updates as their roadmap suggests.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in survival games check out our review about the classic: Minecraft.

Get Occupy Mars here

DISCLAIMER: You’ll see some screenshots from the first missions of the game. So if you don’t want to get spoilered maybe read some of our other articles.

Things I like

The first thing that surprised me is how well the graphics look. I would say these have no big difference to today’s big AAA-games. The lighting is really well done which for example helps convey a spooky atmosphere.

So far I’ve played around 5 hours and haven’t encountered a single bug except for some small rendering issues in some cut scenes.

As a new player you’re learning how to move and fight in a really nice tutorial mission which also tells you some of the backstory of the main character Cal Kestis. Here are some impressions of the first mission:

Sound-wise the intro music immediately made me think of Star Wars when first booting up the game. In general the music feels very well made as it was made by 2 composers that have worked with many game developer in the past. The environmental design with noises also feels realistic to me and the voice actors did a great job (keep in mind in playing the game in German).

Another thing I really enjoy is the many customization options for both the character your playing, Cal Kestis a young jedi knight, your ship and your droid.

The game is well optimized and is running smoothly on epic graphics (the highest possible setting) using around 23% of my CPU and 35 of my GPU (playing on R9 5900HX, laptop RTX 3060).

Things I don’t like

Let’s star with the obvious: needing to register for another game launcher, in this case the one for EA games was a bit annoying.

Other than that I wasn’t able to get angry at the game only at myself for not being able to complete jump and run elements or fights.

Just a quite heads-up: if you’re more of an open-world / sandbox game enjoyer I would be careful with purchasing this game as you can’t really go off track. There is a lot to explore but just keep in mind that this isn’t an open world and more a story focused game.

Get Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order here