Mars Horizon

Mars Horizon puts you in charge of a major space agency, leading it from the dawn of the space age through the race to land astronauts on Mars. Create an agency, make strategic decisions and manage the work of designing spacecraft, training crews and running missions. Your choices shape an alternate history of space travel: any agency can be first to land on the Moon, and there are multiple ways to put the first person on Mars under your command.

Build your space agency

Create an agency and base with launch pads, research labs, astronaut training facilities and more. Hire and train crew, build spacecraft from historically inspired vehicle parts, and use contractors to construct vehicles with their own benefits. Custom vehicles can be assembled from hundreds of combinations, while an extensive tech tree lets you plan research and development on the road to Mars.

You can choose from five space agencies, each with its own traits, base, vehicles and spacecraft. Compete with other agencies, form diplomatic partnerships to share the rewards of exploration, or go it alone for greater prestige. You can also choose how to balance research, testing and advanced technology against the risks of a faster push to Mars.

Plan and run missions

Launch satellites and crewed spacecraft to explore the Solar System. As Flight Director, you manage missions through turn-based challenges, balancing spacecraft resources and responding to problems to earn scientific advancement and public support. Decisions can include spending power to repair a malfunctioning antenna or saving it in case of an oxygen leak; more mission planning may help prevent problems, but takes extra time.

The game draws on actual events and missions, including recreations of missions by NASA, ESA and CNSA. These include the Perseverance Rover, Ingenuity Helicopter, Zhurong Rover and Rosetta space probe missions. Space is unforgiving, and getting a payload into orbit is only the first step toward completing a mission.

Sandbox mode

Sandbox Mode lets you build with unlimited freedom in a fully customisable setting.