Mars - Preview From Strategy Informer

Strategy Informer has a preview of Mars War Logs.

It’s fair to say at the moment that unless you’re a AAA-funded project, supported by a well-known publisher or even a smaller budgeted indie title with a crazy idea, things get a little tricky for you in terms of what you can do, and how well you might be received.

The ‘middle-ground’ is a dangerous place to be, publishers and developers are being forced to develop new ways of thinking to tackle this problem. Take Mars War Logs for example – a gritty, post-apocalyptic sci-fi RPG set on Mars. It’s got everything you’d expect from an ‘epic’ RPG – companions, crafting, quests, mystery, levelling systems, combat & skills… but it’s only 15 hours long. And releasing over digital platforms only.

This is probably a result of developer Spiders Studios being a smaller team than what may be required for something like an RPG’s scale, but also because of the limited resources available to them. Even with Focus Home Interactive (who are more known for Strategy/Simulation games anyway), there’s every danger that if War Logs had been a 40+ hour epic, the quality wouldn’t be there and it would be largely ignored because of the other big-hitters.

But the best franchises, especially science-fiction franchises, start by giving you bite-sized chunks of the world, about hinting at what may or may not be, and Spiders Strategy of doing that here with a short view into the world of Mars War Logs (and the intention is to develop more, similar length titles to form part of a larger franchise) could be one that pays of greatly. We hope it does well, as what we’ve seen so far seems intriguing, to say the least.