Big Rook Games has announced that they are releasing a free prologue for their upcoming survival game Hostile Mars. You can expect to play the prologue on September 30th later this year, with a combat-focused demo releasing on the 17th of August.

Story

Hostile Mars is a tower defense base-building survival game set on Mars.

The events occur in 2096, shortly after an environmental disaster that nearly whipped out humanity. While most people are recovering on Earth, some of the larger corporations have set their sights on other planets’ resources. The alliance of governments has set up one simple rule. You are only allowed to claim a plot of land outside of Earth’s atmosphere if your company can establish a work site and keep it functioning.

Gameplay loop

Your job is to set up a mining drill on Mars and protect your factory’s core at all costs. Explore and scavenge Mars for components and other resources to build up defenses and robots to automate most of your tasks in order to construct the drill.

While expanding your base, you can get attacked by waves of either small groups of enemies or a large horde of difficult enemies, with some stragglers in between the waves to keep you on your toes.

Road to full release

Tower defense survival focused Hostile Mars will release sometime after the launch of the prologue on September 30th.

When the game’s early access becomes available, it will start with a single-player campaign only. A few updates to look forward to will be the multiplayer update where you and up to four people can play in a world at once. A creative and sandbox mode where you can experiment with different base ideas. Xbox Series X/S and PS5 will also be getting Hostile Mars later down the line. Cosmetics have been confirmed, but not until after the full release of the game.

Check out the Hostile Mars Steam page and join the playtest on August 19th.

Are you going to play the game when the combat demo releases, or will you be waiting until the prologue is available to get a better feel for the game? Let me know in the comments.