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Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
Year
2021
Players
1–4
Play time
60min
Min age
14+
Weight
2.93
BGG rating
7.63
BGG rank
#195
Best with
2, 3

Board game

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

A Mars terraformálása: Árész-expedíció

Designed by Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius, Nick Little (I)

MeepleMates notes for Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Public snippets combine board game metadata with MeepleMates play history so visitors can evaluate the game for real group play and game night planning.

  • Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is available as a public board game page on MeepleMates for group planning and collection tracking.
  • Best with 2, 3 players according to player poll data.
  • BoardGameGeek average rating 7.63 and BGG rank #195.
  • Groups use this page to connect Card Game, Science Fiction, Space Exploration metadata with real play history, ratings and game night notes.
  • Recommended player counts include 1, 4.
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is an engine-building game in which players control interplanetary corporations with the goal of making Mars habitable (and profitable). You will do this by investing mega credits (MC) into project cards that will directly or indirectly contribute to the terraforming process. In order to win, you will want to accumulate a high terraform rating (TR) and as many victory points (VP) as you can. Players raise their TR by increasing global parameters: oceans, oxygen, and temperature. TR also determines each corporation's basic income, and, at the end of the game TR counts as VP. Additional VP and production capabilities are awarded for building project cards and other actions taken during the game. The game is played in rounds, and each round the players will choose one of five phases, which determines which activities will take place during that round. This means every round is different, but can consist of building new project cards, taking general and project-specific actions, producing income and resources (plants and heat), or researching to draw more project cards. Every player will take all the phases selected for the round, and will receive a special bonus during the phase that they selected. To speed up the game, within each phase, players can act simultaneously without waiting for each other! The game board has tracks for oxygen, temperature, and terraform rating, as well as a place for all of the ocean tiles that will be flipped over the course of the game. The game ends when there is enough oxygen to breath (14%), oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather (9), and the temperature is well above freezing (+8°C). It will then be possible, if not comfortable, to live on the surface of Mars! The winner is the player with the most VP at the end of the game.

Categories

Card GameScience FictionSpace Exploration

Mechanics

End Game BonusesHand ManagementMulti-Use CardsSet CollectionSimultaneous Action SelectionTagsTech Trees / Tech TracksVariable Player PowersVariable Set-upIncomeTrack MovementVariable Phase OrderMarketSolo / Solitaire GameFollow

Best with how many players

1
Recommended
2
Best
3
Best
4
Recommended
4+
Not rec.

Community votes from BoardGameGeek

Language dependence

Moderate in-game text(17 of 26 votes)

Sub-rankings

  • Strategy Game Rank#155

Videos

YouTube6

Instructional6

BoardGameGeek11

Review2

Session5

Instructional1

Unboxing3

External data

Wikidata enrichment: 3 links · 0 facts · latest game data 07/26/2026.

Latest Wikidata run: ok · 09/23/2026.

Links