Surviving Mars similar games & best alternatives

Surviving Mars - Trailer
Surviving Mars - surviving-mars_1.avif
Surviving Mars - surviving-mars_2.avif
Surviving Mars - surviving-mars_3.avif
Surviving Mars - surviving-mars_4.avif
Surviving Mars - surviving-mars_5.avif
Surviving Mars - surviving-mars_6.avif

Surviving Mars

PlayStation 4, Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac, Xbox One • 2018

Should you play it?

There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony’s chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world. Are you ready? Mars is waiting for you.

What works

  • Challenging and deep resource management
  • Immersive sci-fi setting
  • Randomized tech trees for replayability
  • Detailed colony and drone management
  • Beautiful graphics and soundtrack

Things to keep in mind

  • Steep learning curve and poor tutorial
  • Micromanagement can be tedious
  • Late game can become repetitive
  • Some ai and ui issues
  • Dlc content fragmented and costly

What to play next

Top picks

Games that feels the closest overall

  • The Wandering Village

  • Whiskerwood

  • Nova Roma

  • Timberborn

  • The Crust

  • Pharaoh™: A New Era

More violent

Games that feels like Surviving Mars but with more combat and destruction

  • Ark of Charon

  • After Long Night

  • Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes

  • Citadelum

  • Sintopia

  • Surviving the Aftermath

Less fantastical

Games that feels like Surviving Mars but with less imaginative fiction

  • Sumerians

  • Oxygen: First Breath

  • Outlanders

  • Havendock

  • Sapiens

  • Endzone - A World Apart

Choose your own criteria ->

From the same developer

From the same developer, ranked by motivational fit.

  • Grand Ages: Rome

  • Tropico 4

  • Stranded: Alien Dawn

  • Imperium Romanum Gold Edition

  • Tropico 3

Similarity map

How to compare these games

Compare nearby games

Each card is a nearby game on the similarity map, compared with Surviving Mars. Swipe sideways to move between games. Titles already listed in What to play next are left out.

  • Cover and title: open that game’s page.
  • What works / keep in mind: the same highlights as the desktop comparison panel.
  • Bars: the main motivational differences versus this game.
How to use the graph

Similarity map

Each dot is a game placed from its motivation profile relative to this page’s game. Direction shows which motivation differs most; distance along that axis shows how large the gap is.

  • Purple star: this page’s game at the centre — everything is relative to it.
  • Direction: each axis is a main motivational difference vs this game (e.g. more / less competitive).
  • Distance on an axis: how large that difference is (ring scales show +/− points).
  • Coloured chips: click to highlight games that mainly differ on that motivation; click again to reset.
  • Dotted line: link between this page’s game and the one selected for comparison.
  • Hover a dot to preview that game in the panel on the right; click to keep that comparison.
  • Scroll or double-click the chart to zoom.

How to read the map This is a polar difference map: direction = which motivation differs, and distance = how much (same units as the sidebar deltas).

Swipe to compare nearby games with Surviving Mars. These titles are not in What to play next.

Surviving Mars: Less representative of its motivational profile, with noticeable differences. Motivations that often define this kind of title include Violence, Survival, Fellowship, Intimacy. Here, the score leans higher than usual among comparable games on Leadership. It leans lower than usual among comparable games on Violence, Value.

Last update: 21/08/2026