An important thing to remember about Surviving Mars is that it takes place on Mars, a planet that has a relentlessly hostile environment and requires people to mainly stay indoors. Well, no more: Suviving Mars’ second expansion, called Green Planet, is adding terraforming mechanics to the game.

You’ll be able to reshape the terrain and grow plants, eventually creating a breathable atmosphere. The trailer shows massive stacks releasing steam into the air and filling in ancient craters with water, with trees and grass eventually sprouting up around a colony. 

The paid expansion will arrive alongside a free update for all Surviving Mars players, and Paradox says this will “bring new layers of mid-to-late-game strategic depth” to the game.

Haemimont Games CEO Gabriel Dobrev says terraforming has been the community’s most-requested feature since the game launched.

“Terraforming the surface of Mars is something that has captivated gamers and the human imagination for as long as we can remember,” he said. “It’s something that we took special care to develop and make sure we got right.”

Details on the expansion are thin at the moment, but you can expect Green Planet to arrive in the next few months.

Paradox Interactive has launched Paradox Mods, a modding platform that works across both PC and Xbox One. The publisher partnered with Microsoft to launch it, and you can start downloading mods now. 

Paradox's games typically have great mod support and armies of diligent modders churning out everything for overhauls to minute tweaks right from the get-go, so this probably isn't going to change much on PC. I use Steam Workshop for all my Paradox games, and it's fine. 

The new platform will allow Xbox One users to enjoy some of those mods, however, or at least the 30 console-tested Surviving Mars mods it's launching with. For modders, getting their mods out to both PC and console players is as simple as uploading it, where it will become available for everyone. Presumably, however, some mods will be more suited to the PC version. There are considerably more mods available on PC, too, where the platform also supports Cities: Skylines and Stellaris.

“Modding has been, and remains an important part of the Paradox community. As we have diversified the way we distribute our games, we want to make sure all our players can take part in the creation process,” said Paradox Mods product owner Anders Törlind. “For Surviving Mars, we have worked with mod creators to support Paradox Mods with some of the best mods available, all in one place and downloadable in-game or simply using a web browser. We really look forward to unlocking the world of modding for all members of our community, regardless of what system they are using to play our games.”  

Paradox Mods is live now, with support for more games planned later this year.