Back in July of last year, NASA launched a rover that was destined to land on Mars, and on February 18, 2021 the rover finally reached the Red Planet's surface. As Perseverance, or "Percy" for short, was confirmed to have safely landed on Mars, thousands of viewers began to celebrate. One game studio already had plans to celebrate the landing, and that is by adding Perseverance to its own game, Rover Mechanic Simulator.
Developed by Pyramid Games and released in November 2020, Rover Mechanic Simulator lets players work as a mechanic on Mars, in one of the first colonies on the planet. Players need to repair the different rovers in order to help the researchers on the planet, very much making this a "fix-it" game. All the while, players have the opportunity to learn different science facts through the game.
In anticipation of the Perseverance's landing on Mars, Pyramid Games developed its first DLC for the game around it. Aside from adding the Perseverance as a repairable rover, 30 additional quests come with the DLC. Players will also be able to toy with about 200 unique parts on the new rover, and learn about the real Perseverance's construction.
Additionally, Pyramid Games says the simulator will go into detail about all the different scientific instruments on the Perseverance rover that make it different from Curiosity, another NASA Mars rover. Gaming has often been used in interesting ways to educate people about different science topics, like a recent Microsoft partnership with Wonder Woman to teach computer science skills. It looks like Pyramid Games is continuing that trend.
While simulator games are not everyone's cup of tea, Rover Mechanic Simulator seems to be unique enough to stand out from Pyramid Games' other simulator games. For gamers who are interested in NASA, aerospace engineering, and the finer details of what makes a Mars rover, then this might be a worthwhile game to check out.
Rover Mechanic Simulator is available now on PC.