Best games set on Mars released during Opportunity's mission

As NASA's rover clocks up 5000 sols, here's some games to celebrate.

3. Doom (2016)

After years at the cutting edge of technology and game design, id Software gradually lost relevance in the 2000s as the industry grew beyond its hardcore origins, and when Rage flopped in 2011 some of us feared the worst for the illustrious Dallas studio. But Bethesda Softworks kept the faith. A few years later in 2016, a fast-paced reboot of id's original FPS barnstormer Doom helped put the studio back on the right track.

Whereas Doom 3 had gone for a slower-paced, almost survival horror take on the shooter series, the new Doom took us back to a more colorful, aggressive version of Mars where demonic Hellspawn run rampant and the player has to sprint, jump and blast his or her way through their ranks with the sort of gore-soaked, power-up-heavy abandon that traditionalists feared we might not see again. After sneaking around unable to hold a torch at the same time as a gun in Doom 3, it was certainly refreshing to find ourselves double-jumping into a sea of imps with a chainsaw and watching them disintegrate in a shower of ammo pickups.

Mars proved to be a perfect setting again, a suitably alien backdrop to Doom's improbable levels of acrobatics and ultraviolence. It'll be interesting to see whether the series stays there when it presumably moves forward again.

4. Waking Mars

"is there life on Mars?" sang David Bowie. "Yes," says Waking Mars, "and it has assembled itself into a sort of flower-oriented Metroidvania." That's certainly the case in Tiger Style's Waking Mars, a 2D platform adventure game where you maneuver through a network of caverns beneath the surface of the Red Planet using a jetpack.

In order to escape, you have to harness the weird alien ecosystem that's been blossoming underground unbeknownst to the rest of the solar system, using various power-ups to bring things to life in a way that unbars further progress.

We make no apologies for the fact that most of the games on our list are about hopping wildly across the surface of Mars bearing all sorts of unlikely firearms (it's what Opportunity would have wanted), but if you're more of a lover than a fighter, Waking Mars may be better suited to your tastes.

5. Surviving Mars

Finally, we're tempting fate a little here by pointing to a game due out next month, but after 14 years probing the Martian surface, hopefully it's not too much to assume Opportunity lasts until then to keep the integrity of this listicle's structure intact.

Speaking of integrity, one of your priorities in Surviving Mars will be making sure the domes housing your colonists don't lose theirs. Developed by Haemimont Games, Surviving Mars sees you building your own little civilization on the Red Planet, setting up homesteads, agricultural and atmospheric processing equipment, and defences to prevent your colonists being smashed to bits by asteroids. In classic simulation fashion, you'll need to balance your resources and the desires of the populace as you expand.

Given that Opportunity is paving the way for future efforts to colonize the Red Planet, Surviving Mars feels like a fitting game to end on.

Editor-at-Large

Tom is probably best known for the 15 years - FIFTEEN YEARS! - he spent at Eurogamer, one of Europe's biggest independent gaming sites. Now he roams the earth, but will always have a home here at AllGamers. You can try and raise him from his deep, abyssal slumber through tom.bramwell@allgamers.com or he's also on Twitter.

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