Mars: War Logs

Lore & Background

The game takes place a century after a cataclysmic upheaval called the Turmoil, which severed all communication with Earth. Powerful water guilds, notably Aurora and Abundance, fight over scarce water sources. The player controls Roy Temperance, an Auroran man with a mysterious past, who begins the game as a prisoner in Camp 19, an Abundance POW camp. He escapes with a young prisoner named Innocence, during which he kills a technomancer named Sean and reveals himself to be a renegade technomancer. Technomancers are specially trained soldiers who use pre-Turmoil technology to channel and discharge electricity generated by their bodies.

Later, Roy and Innocence reach Shadowlair, Aurora's capital. A ceasefire is in place after an Auroran victory at Green Hope, but the city is on high alert due to a power struggle between technomancers and the citizens' militia. Innocence joins a local resistance cell led by Marco, while Roy is contacted by General Honour Grant, supreme commander of the Auroran military, who suspects that political leader Dowser Wisdom is being manipulated by technomancers. Roy initially refuses Grant's request for help. After a raid on a military train, Innocence is captured, forcing Roy to choose between allying with Marco's rebels or Grant's task force.

If Roy joins Marco, the rebels fail to rescue Innocence, who is executed. Roy then performs sabotage missions and discovers that technomancers are colluding with Wisdom, conducting unethical experiments on citizens. The rebels attack the technomancers' base, the Source, where Grant executes Wisdom. The rebels establish a new democratic government, and Roy may stay in Shadowlair as an agent. If Roy joins Grant, he secures Innocence's release and relocation to Shadevalley. Roy investigates the experiments and learns that Wisdom, affected by radiation and showing early mutation, traded political autonomy to technomancers for a cure. Grant executes Wisdom, then threatens Roy, who reveals he has documented the task force's operations and arranged for the documents' release if harmed. Grant lets Roy leave, and Roy joins Innocence in Shadevalley, musing that Aurora will become more authoritarian and war with Abundance will reignite.

Reader's Guide

Mars: War Logs received mixed reviews, with PC and console versions scoring in the 59–61 range on Metacritic and GameRankings. IGN praised the game's ambition, comparing it to Mass Effect or The Witcher 2 on a smaller budget, but criticized its clumsy storyline, stiff characters, and silly virtue names. PC Gamer noted the need to wrestle with the camera, criticized the combat, UI design, and facial animation, yet recommended the game for its B-movie charm and entertaining nature, stating it was 'more entertaining than all my complaints about it would seem to imply.' The game was followed by The Technomancer in 2016. A new English localization was released in June 2013, featuring rewritten game text and rerecorded dialog. Spiders CEO Jehanne Rousseau described the game as featuring a variety of companions and side-quests, as well as a world that reacts to moral choices.

Did You Know?

• The game is set on a colonized Mars a century after a cataclysm called the Turmoil, which cut all communication with Earth.
• Three characters—Mary, Judy, and Devotion—can become Roy's romantic interests depending on player choices.
• A new English localization was released in June 2013 with rewritten text and rerecorded dialog.