Earth vs Mars: Relic's Fun New Strategy Game Explained

Relic Labs is a new team at Relic Entertainment that creates small indie-style games. Their first project is Earth vs Mars, a colorful turn-based strategy game that is very different from Relic's famous real-time strategy titles like Homeworld, Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes.

In Earth vs Mars, you control the military forces of Earth as they fight off an invasion from quirky Martians. The game blends ideas from classic games like Advance Wars and Impossible Creatures. You take turns moving units across a map, capturing bases and fighting enemies. The action is simple and easy to follow, making it great for beginners to strategy games.

A fun twist is the Splice-O-Tron tool. This lets you combine soldiers with animal traits to create custom hybrid units. For example, you can give a human the wings of a fly, the speed of a cheetah, or the strength of a rhino. Each animal part adds different stats or cool abilities, like double counterattacks or acid spraying. You can get creative and build hybrids that best fit your strategy. However, in the demo only a few animals were available, and you could only use a couple of hybrids at a time.

The rest of your army includes basic tanks, helicopters, and infantry. Commanders bring special powers that can turn the tide of battle. These abilities include powering up hybrids or calling in reinforcements. Some Martian powers are especially wild, like turning soldiers into walking bombs.

The graphics and animations are quite simple and feel a bit unfinished, likely because this is a smaller-scale project. The missions in the demo were straightforward, mostly revolving around defeating the enemy or capturing their headquarters. There was not much need to develop deep tactics, as the computer opponents acted predictably, and the fog of war did not add much challenge.

Overall, Earth vs Mars is lighthearted and easy to pick up. The highlight is definitely the wacky hybrid-making system. While the game may not have the depth or polish of Relic's older strategy hits, it could appeal to players who want a fun and accessible way to get started with turn-based tactics.

Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/relics-taken-a-break-from-real-time-strategy-to-make-a-turn-based-hybrid-of-advance-wars-and-cult-classic-impossible-creatures-but-it-feels-totally-removed-from-the-studios-legendary-legacy/