Occupy Mars: The Game – is this real Mars colonization, or just another Polish fantasy with a wrench in hand?

Occupy Mars: The Game review

Listen up. Imagine: you’re dropping onto Mars in a rocket that looks like Elon Musk sketched it after three energy drinks. The engine roars, dust flies everywhere, and you think, “Alright, this is going to be just like the movies.” Then you wake up in a busted capsule surrounded by red dust, and the very first thing you need to do — not save the world — is find water, because if you don’t, you’ll be the next frozen tourist on the Red Planet in about 20 minutes.

That’s how Occupy Mars: The Game begins (version 1.0, which finally launched on January 30, 2026 — check occupy mars platforms for the full release and platform breakdown). And you know what? This isn’t just another survival base-builder. It’s a game that genuinely tries to stay as close as possible to what SpaceX and NASA are actually planning right now. And most of the time, it pulls it off. But sometimes… well, sometimes it just decides that the laws of physics are for the weak.

Starship? Yep, that’s him — just without Musk’s tweets

The game kicks off with a landing in a rocket that looks exactly like Starship — that tall, shiny thing SpaceX plans to launch in batches. In the game it’s called the ITS Rocket (the old Starship name), and in version 1.0 you can even build your own landing pad and assemble it from scratch.

The reality? SpaceX’s actual plan is exactly that: Starship is the only ship capable of hauling tons of cargo and people to Mars, then getting refueled on-site and flying back. All of that is in the game. You can even see a crashed ship on the horizon — a clear nod to real-world test history.

The one exaggeration: you do it alone. One person (or a small group in co-op) builds a rocket like it’s Lego. In reality, that takes an army of engineers and a decade of work. But for a game — forgiven. Because it looks awesome.

ISRU — this isn’t science fiction, it’s a real process already being tested

This is where the game genuinely shines. The Sabatier Reactor isn’t some fantastical device. It’s a faithful recreation of what NASA already tested with Perseverance (MOXIE produced oxygen from CO₂), and what SpaceX plans to use for fueling Starship.

You pump water from underground deposits (Mars really does have ice), run electrolysis, get hydrogen, mix it with CO₂ from the atmosphere — and voilà: methane + oxygen. Rocket fuel, made right on Mars. In the game this is called fuel generators and methane production. Version 1.0 added an entire chemistry branch with 24 recipes — you can even brew alcohol if you get bored enough.

This isn’t fiction. This is the actual colonization roadmap. NASA and SpaceX call it ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization) — “use what’s already there, dummy, don’t haul everything from Earth.” The game works exactly that way. And it’s brilliant.

Greenhouses? Yes — but not quite as fast as the game suggests

Green domes, hydroponic shelves, potatoes, soybeans, coffee (yes, version 1.0 added coffee — because colonization without coffee is a non-starter). All of it is drawn from real NASA concepts: Veggie, proposed Mars greenhouse designs, The Martian (both the book and the film). Mars has CO₂, there’s sunlight (weak, but there), there’s ice. In theory — you can grow food.

In the game, you plop down a greenhouse, connect some pipes and lights, and a few in-game days later you’re harvesting crops. Reality? First harvests would take months, the soil is poisoned by perchlorates, radiation degrades everything, and dust storms can block sunlight for weeks. In the game you just curse at the cables and keep going. Exaggerated? Sure. But honestly — otherwise the game would be unbearably tedious.

What’s pure fiction here?

• Spotty the Robot (added in version 1.0). A cute companion robot that trots around helping you out. In reality we have Perseverance and Ingenuity, but they don’t bring you coffee in bed. This one’s pure fun.
• The idea that a single engineer can, in one week, build an entire city of pipes, cables, and solar farms. In reality, the first colony means 20–50 people minimum and a decade of hard labor.
• “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly” (the game literally uses that phrase every time something explodes). It’s a nod to Starship, but in-game everything blows up constantly if you mis-wire a single cable. Reality is slightly less dramatic… for now.

The bottom line from a grumpy veteran who’s seen it all

Occupy Mars is the best Mars colonization game currently in existence. It’s not just “survive and build a base.” It forces you to think like a real engineer: where to route the pipes, how to stay warm through the night, how not to run out of oxygen. This isn’t Planet Crafter where you terraform a whole planet in five hours. It’s a demanding, technical simulator that tells you: “Want a colony? Then work, damn it.”

Yes, some things are exaggerated. Yes, Spotty is just adorable fluff. But 90% of what you actually do in the game is what SpaceX and NASA are genuinely planning right now. And that, for the love of all things red and dusty, is impressive.

If you’ve ever dreamed of being the first Martian — but without a real ticket costing half a billion dollars — this is your game.

Now excuse me. My base is running out of methane, and Spotty has once again vanished with my wrench.

Mars is waiting. Don’t screw it up.