On February 18, 2021 at 8:55 UTC, the Perseverance rover landed on the surface of Mars. Millions watched the final intense moments as the team over at NASA orchestrated the rover’s landing, and almost immediately got rewarded with the first new image from the surface of the planet. While many people congratulated NASA for the successful landing, some people, and even some game developers, decided to celebrate with the best way they know how: memes.
For those who don’t know, the Perseverance is a Mars rover manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was launched by NASA on July 30 last year. Perseverance is designed to look for signs of life on the planet, and collect rock and soil samples to hopefully return to Earth. In the meantime, the rover will join Curiosity, NASA’s other Mars rover, in sending data back to Earth with its variety of scientific instruments.
Watchers were eagerly awaiting the successful landing of Perseverance today, and possibly even more hopeful to see the first images captured by the rover on the surface. While the original image is interesting in its own right, the memes that several game developers and gaming accounts are making from it are sure to give any gamer a chuckle.
Annapurna Interactive posted an image with a character from The Outer Wilds, which is coming to the Nintendo Switch this summer.
The Twitter Gaming account posted a familiar face. At the very least, if Doom Guy is on Mars, then Perseverance doesn't have to worry about running into any demons.
Apparently, the reason fans haven't heard anything about Metroid Prime 4 is because a certain bounty hunter is hiding out on Mars.
Even games without space themes hopped in on the fun. While Mars isn't exactly the plane of Oblivion, perseverance is definitely needed to get through either.
For anyone who has wanted to be one of the first investors on Mars, look no further than AdVenture Capitalist. It looks like even mobile game capitalism simulators are happy that Perseverance made it to the Red Planet.
Interestingly enough, even though Destiny 2 players used to be able to travel to Mars, the game account hasn’t joined in on the fun. Nonetheless, it will surely be interesting to see what kind of information Perseverance sends back to Earth, and how that can change the current perception of the planet. Congratulations are in order for all the teams at NASA that made the mission possible, even through the difficulties caused by the pandemic.
There are also many gaming accounts and game developers that congratulated NASA without memes. While this trend might not be as pervasive as the Bernie Sanders inauguration memes (even though there are multiple edits of Bernie on Mars), it will be fun while it lasts.