Memories of Mars - Alpha Impressions

There's a new trend that seems to fascinate the wider world of gaming, at least in terms of setting. If the interest in post-apocalyptic scenarios, where we're tormented by fatal calamities, radiation, and hostile wildlife, is seemingly coming to an end, now there's a new planet beyond Earth that's just begging to be explored: the mysterious and fascinating Mars.

Among the titles set on the fourth rock from the Sun there's the recently released Surviving Mars, but there are more on the way and with that in mind Limbic Entertainment is ready to take us to the Red Planet via its new and exciting open-world survival game, Memories of Mars. Recently, we were given the opportunity to get our hands on an alpha build of the game during a virtual event hosted by the developers, so we could better understand what the German studio behind Tropico 6 and the Might & Magic series is ready to offer players with their intriguing sci-fi adventure.

Players, alongside either friends or perfect strangers (each server contains up to 64 people), are called to explore the dusty red planet, this after the first colonisation of Mars failed a hundred years previously. Now, though, it's time for humanity to finally put down some roots. Or at least, try to. However, what makes our stay on this inhospitable world so exciting, but also particularly challenging, is being able to stay the course without succumbing to alien creatures, other survivors, and the many threats that will jeopardise our lives as we encounter them.

But no man is an island, and the best way to survive such a hostile world is to co-op with other players. Helping each other will make it much easier to find the resources and raw materials that'll be useful when creating your base, as well as ammunition, oxygen (which, as you can probably imagine, will be absolutely vital to your survival), provisions, and much more. The simplest and most immediate way to be able to grab these basic necessities is, of course, to try your luck and take advantage of a naive survivor from another faction, trying to kill them and take their equipment. It's clear that, despite being the quickest route, it's also the most dangerous, since the person in front of you has exactly the same objectives and, consequently, they won't give up easily. The risk of dying at the hands of another player is therefore quite high.

There is, however, a very interesting element that we noted during our time with the game; there are limits to what you can loot from the bodies of your enemies (and sometimes, even those of your fallen teammates), because if you're carrying a lot of materials and too much equipment, you'll find yourself literally stuck to the ground with no way to move. Therefore, it's highly recommended that you carefully evaluate which materials or items you want to keep and what to remove from your inventory, because the risk that an enemy will surprise you while you are overburdened is always lurking, and this would mean near-certain death.

If human enemies weren't enough, there will also be monstrous creatures lurking among the sand dunes and the red rocks that make up the Martian landscape. During our test session, we met a few and they proved to be very dangerous and treacherous, so pay attention to where you venture if you want to avoid crossing them, especially if you're poorly equipped or short of ammunition, as happens at the start of the game.

Being a survival game, one of the features in Memories of Mars is monitoring your vitals, and players will have to take constant care to avoid death from a lack of oxygen or even hunger. In order to ensure that this doesn't happen, it's necessary to equip your bases with special machines that allow you to cook provisions, load the oxygen tanks, and restore your health. To be able to set up your base you'll have to explore and find useful materials, but you can also use the in-game currency to expand and improve the facilities. Unfortunately, since the game session we took part in was very short, we couldn't explore this part of the game, however, during the pre-hands-on presentation, the devs showed us the different activities that we can engage with during our stay on Mars.

While our short demo intrigued us plenty, there were some problems. Of course, the game is still in alpha and therefore Limbic Entertainment still has a lot of work to do on the project, but we still have some doubts. First of all, a strong narrative thread is missing at the moment, something to push players into exploring this difficult planet. The risk is that lacking a real motivation means our adventures in Memories of Mars might get boring too soon, despite the tense action brought about due to the unpredictable behaviour of other players.

And then, from a technical point of view, the game suffers from some teething issues. The visual and technical side is still very basic, the environments are overly sterile (even for a planet as arid as Mars), and we noted some significant bugs that, on a couple of occasions, forced us to shut down and restart the game. We hope that the goal for the German outfit in the coming months is to work hard on these issues, but we also want them to enrich the experience with a story strong enough to motivate 64 players to populate each of the servers.

Memories of Mars is an intriguing experience, but at the same time, it's also brutal and uncompromising. You survive or die: this is made abundantly clear right away. It's also one of the most interesting strengths of Limbic's game, and that alone could make it a lot of fun to play with a group of friends.