A game that revived a long-dormant genre found new life with a remaster in November 2025. These days, it seems like just about every major release is getting a remaster, and thatโs not a bad thing. People enjoy playing these games, so seeing them updated to modern specs only increases enjoyment, and Paradox Interactive has gotten in on the practice with a remaster of a hit title from 2018 that wasnโt only a fantastic game โ it revived the city-building survival genre. Those kinds of games were common in the 1990s, and thankfully, theyโre still around and getting even better.
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On November 10, 2025, Paradox Interactive launched Surviving Mars: Relaunched, a remaster of its hit 2018 city builder survival game. The award-winning sci-fi title has been fully remastered and expanded, so itโs not just new graphics for new systems. Instead, itโs an explosion of content that takes the original and makes it better, adding all sorts of elements old and new fans are sure to love. It also includes the previously released DLC, so the game comes jam-packed with plenty to keep players busy for hours on end. Additionally, like the original, it can be found on multiple platforms.
Surviving Mars Is Back and Better Than Ever, Thanks to a Remaster
If youโre new to the franchise, the game is all about colonizing Mars, and it incorporates real geographical and topographical data to make it as authentic as possible. To survive, youโll have to explore and build out infrastructure to support colonists with long-term stability as the primary goal. Surviving Mars: Relaunched features additional strategy paths from the original, introducing new challenges that require players to think far ahead as they plan their settlement in this upgraded title from the company that brought the world Crusader Kings 3.
Surviving Mars was a hit upon its release in 2018, and it truly revived a dormant genre. Thereโve been a few city-building games over the years, including Cities: Skylines II, which came out in 2023, but the market has been largely devoid for some time. Add to that a lack of a survival element, and Surviving Mars is in a contemporary world of its own. The forthcoming game Drownlight from Crytivo will embrace the example set by the release of Surviving Mars: Relaunched, though itโs going to be a while before it arrives.
The graphics on the remaster are beautiful, and itโs clear that a lot of care went into bringing Surviving Mars into modern standards. It should be noted that, as of the time of writing, its Steam store page features โMixedโ reactions, based on only 15 reviews. Some of the negative comments pertain to bugs that were either present during development or identified shortly after launch. These will likely be squashed as the devs keep the game updated, so donโt let a handful of โMixedโ reactions keep you away from what promises to be a well-polished remake of an amazing game.
Are you ready to return to the Red Planet? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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