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Terraforming Mars on Steam: the digital version of the legendary board game
Terraforming Mars is a card-driven strategy about a handful of corporations turning the dead Red Planet into a world fit for life. You raise the temperature, fill the atmosphere with oxygen, flood the oceans and place cities and forests across the hexes of the Martian map. Each of these global parameters is both victory points and a step toward the end of the game. The digital adaptation by Artefacts Studio and Twin Sails Interactive launched on October 17, 2018 and faithfully moved every rule of the paper game onto the screen: scoring is automatic, nothing gets lost, and a match runs noticeably faster than at a real table.
When you buy from us, you get a global Steam activation key for the base game on PC. No input fields or extra accounts are required from you — just a code that lands in your Steam library.
What the game is and why people sink hundreds of hours into it
At its core it's an engine built from cards. At the start you pick a corporation with its own starting capital and a unique ability, then each turn you play projects: you build mines and greenhouses, hurl asteroids at the planet, develop science and microbes. Some cards pay off right away, others give steady income or discounts on future plays. The beauty of it is that by mid-game your card set starts to work as one machine: one project feeds another, and a well-built "engine" erupts into a cascade of actions. Winning isn't one lucky move — it's a long chain of calculated decisions.
The base version: what the key actually unlocks
This key unlocks the base Terraforming Mars game — the full set of core rules, corporations and project cards, single-player against AI opponents, online multiplayer and pass-and-play on a single device (hotseat). That's plenty to learn every mechanic and play hundreds of matches. The expansions are not included — more on those below.
Expansions: what exists and how they work
Several DLC have been released for the digital version on Steam, and all of them are bought separately on top of the base game — they won't run without it. In short:
- Prelude — prelude cards that give you a head start on turn one and speed the match up noticeably.
- Venus Next — adds terraforming Venus as a separate global parameter and a whole new layer of cards.
- Hellas & Elysium — two new planet maps with different geography and bonus placement.
- Colonies — colonies on moons and in the asteroid belt, with resource trading between them.
If you're new to the game, grab the base — it's more than enough. The expansions are for players who've worn out the core set and want more depth and variety.
How to activate the key in Steam
It's standard and takes a minute. Launch the Steam client, open the "Games" menu and choose "Activate a Product on Steam". Paste the code you received, confirm, and Terraforming Mars appears in your library ready to download. The key is global: it activates in any region, no VPN or store-region tricks needed.
System support and where it runs
The game officially supports Windows (7 and newer) and macOS. There's no native Linux build, but on Steam Deck and Linux it runs fine through the Proton compatibility layer — this isn't a hardware-hungry title. The game is translated into several European languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish); a full Russian localization may be absent in the digital version, but the rules are intuitive and the interface guides you.
Who it's for
Terraforming Mars is for players who love thoughtful, unhurried strategy: board-gamers, fans of euro mechanics, and anyone into city-builders and civilization-style strategy. If you enjoy Sid Meier's Civilization VI for its long-term planning, the harsh-world survival atmosphere of Frostpunk, or the building and logistics of Cities: Skylines, you'll find the same joy of a well-built system here, in card-game form.
What you get at Brawl Games
A global Steam key for the base Terraforming Mars game that activates in any region. The key usually arrives quickly after payment, and activation takes a couple of minutes. If anything goes wrong on a step — message us and we'll help sort it out.
💚 Same game — another format
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