Parents' Guide to

Deliver Us Mars

By Angelica Guarino, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 11+

Sci-fi adventure has strong story, some clunky gameplay.

Game Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 2023
Deliver Us Mars Product Image: Kathy uses her ice picks to scale uneven Martian terrain.

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What’s It About?

DELIVER US MARS takes places in the not-so-distant future as Earth experiences a horrific energy crisis brought on by climate change. Players follow protagonist Kathy, a young astronaut, as she joins her older sister, Claire, on a crucial mission to Mars. The sisters, joined by engineer Sarah and her husband, Ryan, must respond to a distress signal sent from the ARKs, a set of ships sent to colonize Mars ten years earlier. Seeing as Claire and Kathy's father, Isaac, left Earth on the ARKs as part of the Fortuna mission, the stakes are incredibly high for both of them. While Kathy may forgive her father for leaving her and Claire behind, Claire doesn't feel the same way. Issues in their relationship with their father have put walls between Claire and Kathy as well, with Claire acting as a surrogate mother figure to Kathy, and Kathy desperately trying to prove to her sister that she's grown into an adult. To make matters more complicated, Earth is running out of many resources as a result of the energy crisis, including what's needed to make various space ship parts. On the morning of the group's mission, nicknamed Mission Opera, Claire tells the group that the ship's construction is subpar, making an already dangerous trip even more risky. Unable to turn back, the team is forced to face their uncertain fate, the doubt growing among each character as their ship lifts off and travels further and further away from Earth.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

Interactive, story-rich drama is difficult to pull off well in video games, and this adventure unfortunately reminds players why. Though the storytelling in Deliver Us Mars is full of emotion and compelling to watch, some stretches feel like they're tedious breaks between cutscenes instead of bridges between them. Though the graphics are beautiful, many of the environments don't encourage free exploration. Kathy starts in one place, and has to get to another before the next cutscene triggers, and that's really it. There are puzzles and platforming sections, but they end up feeling like a way to kill time instead of seamless transitions. This makes the game feel disjointed and difficult to get through when players come to a long platforming section or a puzzle that's tedious. It's not game-ruining, but it's easy to see how the game may struggle to hold players' attention all the way from beginning to end.

It's a mixed bag, though. While many puzzles feel like a drag to complete, there are a few truly outstanding gameplay sequences. The lift-off sequence is impeccably designed. Though players are essentially just responding to a few simple commands from Claire to get the ship ready for take-off, the suspense and excitement builds at a steady rate. Moreover, it pays off once the ship does take off. It's a deeply immersive scene that begs to be ported over to VR. The second standout sequence takes place when Kathy performs a space walk to fix some damage outside of the ship. The zero-gravity mechanic can take a second to figure out, but it's very effective in getting players to feel the stress and excitement of space travel that most people will never actually experience. These two sequences alone may be able to redeem the so-so gameplay for players who are interested in them, but it's a disappointment that they come fairly early in the game and aren't followed by many more first-person scenes.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about climate change. Deliver Us Mars depicts Earth as a declining planet that's becoming impossible for people to live on, so how can people in real life work to protect our planet's resources, like water and energy?

  • Characters in Deliver Us Mars don't always tell each other the truth about how they're feeling, but if they did, what would be different about how the story unfolds?

Game Details

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