Deliver Us Mars Review – Fantastic Sequel

Deliver Us Mars, by Keoken Interactive and Frontier Foundry, is an atmospheric sci-fi adventure and a follow-up sequel to 2019’s Deliver Us The Moon, releasing on February 2, 2023. If you haven’t played the first game, I would recommend playing it first, but you can also go straight into the story of Deliver Us Mars on its own. This game is beautifully crafted with a rich story line that left me wanting more.

Ten years after the Fortuna mission, humanity is closer than ever to extinction. After a mysterious distress call from Mars, Earth’s youngest astronaut Kathy Johanson joins the Zephyr and its crew on one last mission: to recover the ARK colony ships stolen by the mysterious Outward, and with them, ensure the survival of humanity. Board the Zephyr as you journey from Earth to the surface of Mars. Traverse and endure its harsh and unforgiving terrain as you quest to discover the secrets left behind by Outward. Use both brains and brawn to overcome mental and physical challenges, find the ARKs, and uncover the motivations of those behind the distress call that brought you here.

Without giving away any story spoilers, it’s a nice introduction to Deliver Us Mars and the story gets very immersive with some nice tie-ins to the first game throughout. There were some heart-racing moments in there too which were great. The story ends with a similar feeling as the first, leaving you pondering your thoughts with a decent conclusion, but also wondering whether there could be a sequel which is an exciting prospect. Graphically the game is beautiful and is a noticeable upgrade from the first game. The music score is perfect for the style of game and really suits as you explore the levels. Body movements of NPC’s didn’t always match the terrain when following or were out of sync. Room for improvement there but overall, the gameplay is excellent.

The voice acting in Deliver Us Mars is outstanding and really sets the tone, emotion and intensity throughout the story. In saying that, in some cut scenes there are voices speaking but the characters’ mouths are not moving, and this was quite immersion breaking. This happened sporadically throughout the game but not too often. While most of the game is a walking simulator like the first, there are sequences and puzzles that are far and beyond what we saw in Deliver Us The Moon. Cutting items and working out what to remove was a fun addition. There were some climbing sections that felt like Tomb Raider, as well as a steady increase in complexity to the puzzles.

Overall, Deliver Us Mars is a fantastic sequel to an already awesome game. The beautifully crafted scenes and landscapes were fun to explore and the rich, engaging storyline was intense in parts and left me wanting more. There were some niggling animation issues at times, but the new gameplay elements were a lot of fun to play through.

This review utilised a key provided by Heaven Media and Deliver Us Mars is available now on PC, PlayStation 4/5 and Xbox One/Series X|S.

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