Get “ Surviving Mars ” and these mods for free

As Survive Mars—Paradox Interactive and Haemimont Games’ smart take on the city-building game – today celebrates its third birthday, it takes on a new lease of life in the form of a new developer (Abstraction Games), a new extension coming later this year, and two new updates will be released today (a free update on tourism and a building pack). And did I mention that the game itself is free?

Go to the Epic Games store, where you can purchase the base version of Survive Mars for the small price of nothing. You have until 8 a.m. ET on Thursday, March 18 to take advantage of the deal, in which case the price will likely drop back to its usual $ 30. You don’t want to miss this opportunity – I’ve spent 44 hours of my life turning Mars into a habitable environment, and I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of what the game has to offer.

And if you really spend time in the game until then, you can also enjoy its expansion packs with a discount:

However, you don’t need it to get started. You will spend a lot of time understanding how the Mars infrastructure works over the course of your few games. Consider grabbing expansions once you’ve optimized a shot and are ready for more twists and challenges; otherwise, if you give up because Mars is a pretty harsh environment, you won’t run out of money.

The first mods you’ll want for March

Speaking of, Survive Mars supports modding, and there are a few that you might want to consider picking up even for your first game. This is very easy to do if you buy the game on Steam; if not, you’ll want to use the in-game mod manager or type Nexus’ Vortex mod manager to keep track of everything, as the Epic Games store does not natively support mods for the game.

If I played again – and I probably will, once the new expansion becomes available / if I tire of the Dyson Sphere program – these are the mods I would use on Mars:

The most of ChoGGi QoL Mods: ChoGGi has released a ton of different mods for Survive Mars, and a number of them won’t make sense to you unless you’ve played the game a bit. Once you’re ready to start modding, I’ll check out the quality collection first. of life; mods that will improve your gaming experience without letting you cheat. You still want a few kind of Martian challenge, right?

However, you can start with this one, which turns off the annoying “Welcome to Mars!” voiceover when you start a new game. this one, which gives you a small flying drone near you to keep you company. Mars can get lonely (at least, at first).

The Pause loading The mod is also great, in case you want to fire up the game and walk away for coffee or take a bio break while loading. I also like the Best zoom distance mod, which lets you, well, zoom out a lot more than the game allows you to by default. It’s great for basic planning or if you just want to sit back and admire your work. While you’re at it, take the NASA logo mod, so that you can spruce up your rockets with a sure brand image.

If you really want to transform your game, check out Silva’s mod collection. Some of these new buildings and modifications seem a bit cheating, so I recommend that you use them after you’ve had a few “hard” parts – otherwise known as “suffering from your first attempts to survive Mars when you don’t.” have not. idea of ​​what you are doing. Once you get past that point and really start to worry about your stats, a mod like Infobar More information can help you really optimize your Spartan Martian life.

Drone load rebalancing is a great way to automatically assign your mechanical assistants to areas that need more help and away from those that don’t. (You’ll understand what I mean once you’ve played the game a bit and find yourself manually doing a tedious job like this.) And while you’re at it, take Fewer clicks for mass replenishment, too, and live the easy life on Mars. Which reminds me that you will want best martian radio stations to listen too.