Earlier this year, Paradox Interactive announced it is bringing Surviving Mars back into active development under a new studio, with Abstraction Games taking over the duties from the original developer Haemimont Games. The shift meant introducing more content for the 2018-released city builder set on the Red Planet, and that"s exactly what was announced today.
Paradox Interactive and Abstraction Games have unveiled Surviving Mars: Below and Beyond, a brand-new expansion that will take players below the surface of Mars for the first time. Ancient caves and lava tubes are being made available as expansion locations for bases, and both existing structures in the base game, as well as new underground-specific buildings, can be built here. Disastrous cave-ins are always a possibility though.
As the expansion"s name implies, aside from going below, players will also be able to explore outside of Mars by launching special resource mining expeditions. These "rocket-propelled buildings" can land on passing asteroids, mine exotic minerals and Data Samples, and come back with the resources, hopefully before the asteroids drift out of the planet"s reach.
"When we started planning out what was next for Surviving Mars, we really wanted to dive deep into the parts of the Red Planet we had not already explored. We know we had to come out swinging and Surviving Mars: Below & Beyond expands gameplay in a meaningful way," Surviving Mars Product Manager Magnus Lysell says. "The possibilities are endless and we’re eager to continue exploring the Red Planet with our players."
Surviving Mars: Below and Beyond launches on September 7 across PC (Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store), Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 with a $19.99 price tag. Alongside the expansion, Paradox is also bringing out a new radio pack for the game. Titled Mars Lifestyle it contains 16 original tracks, amounting to 70 minutes of music, for $3.99.