Help build colonies on Mars by designing remote-controlled rovers and moving material from point A to point B. That’s the concept for Mars First Logistics, an upcoming physics-based sandbox that’ll have you delivering colonization cargo solo or cooperatively with a friend some time in 2023.
We first got a look at it last year (opens in new tab), when developer Ian MacLarty’s Shape Shop started posting a bit of in-progress teasing of silly robots falling off cliffs. Now they’ve released a full gameplay trailer. (opens in new tab)
The basic loop of Mars First Logistics will be to find a new job, get a rover that can move it, and then trek to the destination. Sometimes you won’t have a rover that can tackle your new cargo, so you’ll have to go into the editor and bash something together that can do the job.
You do that with the parts you have unlocked, or by using credits you’ve previously earned to unlock whatever new parts you need to transport whatever weird length of pipe you’ve got going on. The cool twist here is that as you build you’re actually changing the outpost, putting in new pieces of tech, and developing Mars.
That should make a cool change of pace from other logistics games, like Snowrunner for example, where changes that actually alter the map and what’s on it are fairly rare. As you help the colonists complete new buildings you unlock new parts and new missions, each of which will take you into ever-more-complex terrain and ever-more-unwieldy cargoes.
It also has shades of Kerbal Space Program, where you’re encouraged to both make very practical designs and push the building and physics engines to their wildest limits. I can tell because the game description mentions, among other things, rocket engines for your craft, so you can go full Evel Knieval on all those Martian canyons.
The real appealing feature? You can bring a friend along. The ability to double up for weird jobs adds a certain… potential for chaos, let’s say.
You can find Mars First Logistics on Steam. (opens in new tab)