5 Best Games Like Occupy Mars

Occupy Mars is the latest space survival sandbox that sees you stranded on Mars, left to survive and colonize it from the ground up. That means you'll have to build your base, conduct mining operations, retrieve water, generate oxygen, and grow crops, all at a highly technical level. Sounds suspiciously similar to a situation our friend Matt Damon encountered in the film The Martian. Nonetheless, if you wanted to put yourself in his shoes, Occupy Mars is the newest game for it. That being said, it isn't the only game that allows you to do so. There are other games like Occupy Mars that place you in a similar situation. So, keep reading to find out what they are.

5. No Man's Sky

Though it may not be as technically adept as Occupy Mars, No Man's Sky shares many similarities with the title. Similar to Occupy Mars, you must survive in No Man's Sky by building and upgrading your base, discovering new regions, conducting mining operations, and establishing crops for farming. The main distinction is that in Occupy Mars, you are dealing with a single planet, whereas, in No Man's Sky, you are dealing with a procedurally generated universe. So you're dealing with a much larger sample size.

Still, the goal at the end of the day is still to survive through the means of technology and science. Evidently why we consider No Man's Sky one of the games like Occupy Mars. And if you're hesitant about it due to its rocky launch, don't be. No Man's Sky is lightyears from its early days, receiving constant updates since the game's release. Now more than ever, the game is becoming what it has always aspired to be. An infinite space exploration game in which no two planets are the same and your options are limitless.

4. Stationeers

When looking at the best games like Occupy Mars, you're practically begging for games that entail complex space technology and science. Nonetheless, if that's what you're after, it's a good thing we're showing you Stationeers because it's jam-packed with it. Essentially, Stationeers puts you in control of a space station that you're left to run by yourself. That means you're in charge of all the “Complex atmospheric, electrical, manufacturing, agriculture, and gravitational systems”.

So if you want to survive in Stationeers, you better start crunching some numbers and brushing up on your astrophysics. With that said, it's also where the fun lies in Stationeers. You have complete control over your space station. You can build farms, factories, and even spaceships to explore nearby planets and asteroid belts. There's no shortage of highly technical space-based survival problems in this game. In fact, there are nearly too many to wrap your head around.

3. Planet Crafter

If you thought surviving alone on Mars was a challenge, then give Planet Crafter a try. In this game, you're sent to a hostile planet with the sole goal of making it habitable for humans. Fresh off your ship and starting from the ground up, you'll have to gather minerals and resources, build a base and machines, and even figure out how to create an atmosphere with oxygen. But that's getting ahead of ourselves; just focus on surviving and taking care of yourself first. On that note, you will need to find a way to keep yourself hydrated.

We guess there's no escaping the hard-hitting questions in Planet Crafter, so you might as well dive right in because you'll have to solve a lot of them. All for the sole purpose of eventually terraforming an entire planet to support human life. Which, we won't lie, sounds like a lot to chew off. However, if you're coming from Occupy Mars, this games just like it. So, you should feel a bit more at ease with confronting insurmountable challenges. After all, that's sort of the job description in open-world space survival games.

2. Satisfactory

Although we consider Satisfactory to be one of the games like Occupy Mars, it fails to deliver on one aspect: survival. Instead, Satisfactory puts all of its chips into being an open-world factory-building game set on alien planets with a dash of exploration and combat. As a result, your goal isn't to survive. It's to make complicated automated factories to farm resources and produce things like vehicles, jetpacks, and jump pads to aid in your exploration. And we will say, it doe's an excellent job of it.

Through your research, you'll “build intricate webs of conveyor belts to supply all your needs. Automate trucks and trains to reach your faraway outposts and be sure to handle liquids properly by transporting them in pipes.” The game is all about highly technical micro-management and slowly piecing together every bit of the puzzle until you have a well-oiled factory. So, if you're looking for an intergalactic engineering machine, Satisfactory has you covered.

1. Astroneer

Last on our list of games like Occupy Mars is Astroneer. One of the more friendlier space-based survival and crafting games, Astroneer isn't as technical in its science as others on this list. Nonetheless, its less complicated, bite-sized approach makes it a great game to play alone or with friends. Essentially, in Astroneer, you risk your life to explore the harsh environments of space in the hopes of making rare discoveries and unlocking the mysteries of the universe.

Just like in Occupy Mars, you can build a custom base, above or below ground we may add, create vehicles to help your search for resources and minerals, and delve into science to create cool gadgets and systems to assist you in your adventure. So, don't dismiss this space-sandbox survival for being to simplistic, because many of its technical aspects are where the fun is.

So, what's your take? Do you agree with our top five? Are there other games like Occupy Mars that we should know about? Let us know in the comments below or over on our socials here!