Here’s some weird news: A video game studio in 2024 has announced that it’s making a new video game based on Mars Attacks. The new game, Mars Attracts, lets players create a theme park on Mars, complete with rides and abducted humans.
A quick bit of history. Mars Attacks started out as a popular series of collectible cards. The cards were released in 1962 and depicted a story of scary Martians invading Earth, killing humans, and humanity eventually heading to space to fight back. In 1996, Tim Burton directed Mars Attacks, a movie based on the cards’ storyline. And now, decades later, someone is making a Mars Attacks video game.
Announced on August 21, Mars Attracts is set in the Mars Attacks! universe and features the same evil aliens seen in the movie and cards. It’s set to arrive sometime in 2025 as an early access release on Steam. The first trailer for the game doesn’t really show off any gameplay, but it does a solid job of setting a tone.
Unlike in the movie or cards, this time, players won’t be invading Earth. Instead, Mars Attracts is a theme park management sim ala Roller Coaster Tycoon. According to the Steam page for Mars Attracts, you’ll need to build plenty of rides, and amenities, and keep Martians happy or you’ll be out of a job.
Over on Steam, the devs explain that you’ll have to abduct humans from different periods of time and create exhibits for them so your Martian visitors can see them and likely laugh at them. That’s something an evil alien would do. Speaking of evil aliens, the devs also promise you’ll be able to experiment on humans, too.
The devs behind Mars Attracts say it will be out in 2025 on PC and will stay in early access for about a year.
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