Welcome to Mars 9 feels like playing my favorite kind of sci-fi novel

I’ve developed something of a love for dystopian, space-based dark comedies in the last year or so. I read Project Hail Mary, moved on to We Are Legion, We Are Bob and consumed the entire series up to book six like air, and then Dungeon Crawler Carl rapidly became my favorite book series of all time. Why am I telling you about my book tastes on an indie games site? Because Welcome to Mars 9 feels like a game version of the genre. 

Welcome to Mars 9 by Sonomio Games is a pixel adventure game with point-and-click gameplay elements. It’s set on a space station orbiting Mars, and everything is a mystery, from your own background to how you got there and what the hell is happening. You need to solve puzzles, question other people on board, and deal with the frankly untrustworthy built-in AI while you try to piece things together. 

How did we get here

There’s only one piece of background-building lore in the demo of Welcome to Mars 9, but it’s a doozy; apparently, prior to the events of the game, a massive solar flare known as “The Event” wiped out all life on Earth and yeeted every satellite out of the sky except one: Mars 9. Somehow, this one leisure-focused space station was spared during The Event, and you’ve mysteriously come to be on it with no memory of your life before or how you got there. 

That’s already a killer set-up for an absorbing story. But wait! There’s more!

Alongside the questionable AI, which we’ll discuss more shortly, there are a few other inhabitants on the space station, but interacting with them is far from reassuring. Instead of being grateful to be alive, as one might expect after the apocalypse, they seem… resigned. They talk as though they’ve given up on anything other than simply existing, and they’re unable or unwilling to give straightforward answers to the many questions you have. 

“You get used to how things work here” is a common thread through all of the conversations in the demo, and it’s frankly unsettling in the best way possible.

I do not trust BrAId

BrAId is the space station’s built-in AI system and the first entity you come into contact with when you awaken aboard the station. And there is something very suspicious about this computer system. Rather than telling you how you got here or what you’re meant to do, it offers you something similar to a sales pitch while simultaneously trying to keep you confined to a room because your vital signs are unstable. 

BrAId tells you that you’ve been rescued, because apparently your ship ran out of fuel. At first, it’s easy to accept that you were floating around in outer space when Mars 9 picked you up, but with The Event wiping out the majority of existence, it’s hard to believe you managed to survive out there alone. Not to mention all the logical questions that come with that thought. 

The thing is, even when you get out of the room and begin exploring the space station, BrAId steps into proceedings at the strangest moments. At one point, when you’ve begun to feel stressed, BrAId directs you to the spa and into a sauna, only for the door to get stuck. After you puzzle your way out, BrAId tells you someone tampered with the door.  

Call me skeptical, but that seems mighty convenient for the AI, and I have a sneaking suspicion it might be trying to kill me. 

BrAId also says “you will” a lot. The AI’s helpful advice comes across as vaguely threatening at times, which does nothing to help me trust it. The other people on board do the same thing, and my brain has been trained to notice moments of foreshadowing, so I feel like there may be some form of brainwashing going on in this floating tin can.

A classic yet dystopian adventure

Welcome to Mars 9 is played entirely with a controller or keyboard, so the traditional namesake parts of point-and-click are noticeably absent. However, aside from the fact that your mouse is obsolete during gameplay, everything else about the game is absolutely a point-and-click. You have an inventory at the bottom of your screen where found items go to rest, and interacting with anything around you brings up a little menu with look, touch, speak, and other icons that appear if you have items in your inventory.

According to the game’s Steam page, Welcome to Mars 9 will focus on ethical decisions that guide the story as it progresses, though there are none of those in the demo. I’m excited to see how big of an impact my choices will have on where the story goes, and what happens in each of the different endings you can unlock. I love pondering moral conundrums, and if the story of Welcome to Mars 9 goes where I think it’s going to go, then I know I’m in for a wild and enjoyable ride. 

Welcome to Mars 9 is coming out on September 16, 2026, and may even already be out by the time you read this. It’s available on Steam and Nintendo Switch, and well worth diving into if you’re a fan of space-based post-apocalyptic weirdness.