Dawn of Anarchy
Dawn of Anarchy
Game
Game2020
Per Aspera
Developer Tlön Industries
Per Aspera is a city-building game developed by Tlön Industries and published by Raw Fury for Windows on December 3, 2020. The player takes the role of AMI, an artificial intelligence with the objective of terraforming Mars for human colonization. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
198 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
68
Fresh
123 positive · 58 negative
95% range 61–74%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 123 | 58 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 4 | 0 | 12 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
2,650 of 3,482 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
69% recommend · 121 yes, 55 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 176 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (4,393 of 5,787 positive).
Players praise the game's story and atmosphere, calling it a gripping narrative with meaningful choices. [1][2][3] Many find the gameplay slow and tedious, with excessive waiting and poor logistics. [4][5][6] Some are turned off by pro-AI and pro-Elon Musk content, calling it preachy or offensive. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [4]
I might be blunt, but I feel the game tags and description to be misleading. Steam suggested me this game "because it's similar to other games i played" such as Factorio, ONI, Surviving Mars... yet, the only thing in common with SOME of them, is the top-down visual. TL,DR: This is no managerial base building sim, it's an idle game with some cliché graphic novel elements. Almost non-existent challenge, very few …
- [9]
Kinda mid but when I encountered the Musk related content I was pretty turned off of the game. Not really into celebrating NAZIs.
- [1]
Per Aspera might just be the greatest bait-and-switch I've ever come across. I bought it expecting a terraforming simulator/strategy, and started with the campaign (something I almost never touch in strategy games), mainly because the extremely atmospheric main menu gave me good vibes. What I found, instead, was one of the most gripping stories I've experienced in recent memory. The logistics system was essentially …
- [14]
Per Aspera isn't great in my opinion but certainly not bad. Its good enough that I finished the main campaign (about 20hrs). Other users said it well; this game is a visual novel that acts like a colony builder. Most of the time playing this game (for me) was on max speed watching Netflix on the side waiting for certain events to happen from story-related moments to visual updates to Mars as you terraform. My …
- [12]
I enjoy this game quite a lot. There's a mode where a rival faction sometimes attacks you, but I prefer peaceful sandbox mode where you build and manage facilities to transform the planet. It's extremely satisfying to turn the planet from rusty brown to green, and it's a pretty low-key game since you can do better or worse but not really lose (with the combat off, anyway). A campaign can be a fairly long project, …
Summarised from 34 of the 193 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
69% of the 176 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Per Aspera. The complaint that keeps coming up: extremely slow pacing with excessive waiting. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Per Aspera received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 86% of critics. Davide Pessach of Italian Eurogamer said that "Per Aspera is a very interesting colony builder narrative game that has a stellar esthetic, a very engaging story and a super cast of actors. The gameplay is fluid, rewarding and rich of surprises and references to cool tech (both fictional and kinda realistic). If you like the genre and the setting you will have a blast." Jonathan Bolding of PC Gamer summarized: "Per Aspera's novel adaptation of nonlinear narrative to fit a strategy…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 198 · most liked first1. City On The Edge Of Forever 2. The Counter-Clock Incident 3. Tapestry 4. The Visitor 5. The Killing Game 6. Carbon Creek 7. Such Sweet Sorrow 8. Calypso 9. Nepenthe 10. Wej Duj 11. Ouroboros 12. Ad Astra Per Aspera 13. SAM 14. Holograms All The Way Down Fav Trek Ep per show? GO! #startrek
neutral · AI labelView post →I might be blunt, but I feel the game tags and description to be misleading. Steam suggested me this game "because it's similar to other games i played" such as Factorio, ONI, Surviving Mars... yet, the only thing in common with SOME of them, is the top-down visual. TL,DR: This is no managerial base building sim, it's an idle game with some cliché graphic novel elements. Almost non-existent challenge, very few manageable variables, loads of non-consequential diaolgues that do not affect…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like space games. I like colonising planets and terraforming them. I like city builders. So how come I didn’t like this game? Pacing. The game is 90% waiting. And I mean waiting at 16x speed, the maximum this game allows, still feels extremely slow, as everything takes an absolutely insane amount of time. And this isn’t some kind of waiting that will be interrupted by an event or something interesting to do - nope, you launch the game and go do things around the house. By the time you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera might just be the greatest bait-and-switch I've ever come across. I bought it expecting a terraforming simulator/strategy, and started with the campaign (something I almost never touch in strategy games), mainly because the extremely atmospheric main menu gave me good vibes. What I found, instead, was one of the most gripping stories I've experienced in recent memory. The logistics system was essentially left unexplained, my drones were struggling to get things done the entire time,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Kinda mid but when I encountered the Musk related content I was pretty turned off of the game. Not really into celebrating NAZIs.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's kinda cool as always to terraform a planet but there's no depth to this game. The gameplay is super boring. You place buildings, maybe prioritize one or two, then wait. The logistics are kind of annoying, it's all automated and there's no way for you to specify which materials get transported where. You have to build a crap ton of worker drone hubs. They call them hubs, but you literally have more of them than any other building. You can do a couple different 'projects' but they are…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has one of the most annoying gameplay loops I've seen in a while. - Logistics feels underwhelming. It is always not enough rovers to deliver everything, rovers like to take long routes. As a result, important buildings might stay idle for a very long time. - The user might mark these important buildings as high priority, and rovers will do everything to support these buildings. However, this will make all other buildings less important and idle. - If you have marked any of your…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the game has GREAT POTENTIAL but the interfac is AWAFULL when U have thousands of buildings it is impossible to find factories and chect their status
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is simplistic, the pace is painfully slow, the graphics are basic, and the autosave doesn't work. I've lost a few hours of play when it crashed, and the thought of going back and slogging through the part I've already done... I'd rather just uninstall it. It's a no from me.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was writing a positive review but the more I wrote the more I dislike the game. Only buy if you ignore there is a campaign and find it on sale there is no difficulty in this game, and there really isn't any decision making to be had that leads to replay value, besides optimization. Story wise there is no post human design, there is no enslave the humans, there is no reject the humans, there is no subvert the humans. it is all an illusion of player choice that ends with a standard 'pick your…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera was something I thought was absolutely fresh and new. Upon playing it further, it's kind of not, but at the same time still retains some appeal from games similar to this series. In essence, Per Aspera is similar to games like Bulwark and other expanding node type building games. The player is tasked with harvesting material, refining it, and building with it. In short, the game isn't bad, but I can see how it may not appeal to everyone. Per Aspera's gameplay is alright overall.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera is a slog that attempts to insert a cliche story through painfully bad dialogue that is poorly delivered. The game lacks motivating progression and meaningful strategy. One of the selling points was how people boasted of the story in the game. I found it to be a weak copy of a slew of games that came out with the exact same premise. This is only made worse, being an overplayed cliche story, by the very poorly written dialogue and even worse delivery. I eventually downloaded a mod…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While I enjoyed the premise of the game, the voice acting, and graphics. It's still full of bugs. You can terraform too fast, skip important milestones causing quest errors. Some buildings just don't work (still). I've been waiting since 2019 for them to polish the game, fix the UI, add accessibility options.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera, the game where solar panels (starter power gen) have no day/night cycle and wind farms (first researched power gen) have day/night cycles.. Imagine thinking you can research better power generation? Couldn't be Per Aspera. (Yes, I made the mistake of thinking that the researched wind farms would actually be better then solar and replaced all of the solar panels. Never would have guessed that would turn my power into a repeat stroke victim.)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’ve put over 125 hours into Per Aspera, and it’s one of those rare games I keep coming back to. What really stands out is how unique it feels compared to other city-builders. Managing the transformation of Mars while balancing resources, expansion, and long-term planning keeps every playthrough engaging. There’s always something new to learn, optimize, or try differently, which gives it a ton of replayability. It’s also a fantastic “time killer” in the best way—easy to get into, but deep…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The logistics system in a game is so frustrating that made me give up at phase 3 of terraforming. Over and over again, you see items being brought from across the planet even though there are items available right next the consumer. I think this happens mainly with storage facilities, which makes them useless to buffer between consumers and producers. No possibility to lock consumers to producers either, which mean very little room to optimize a supply chain. Then, the decision to have the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well that was an unexpected let down from a game with a ton of potential. Pros: - Some of the cleanest UI and graphics of any game I've played. - Initial exploration is fun. - Approachable mechanics that can be understood by the end of the first game. - Being able to change game speed is cool and unique. Cons: - Storyline was quite lackluster. The game finished and it felt like I was 75% of the way through the story and when I went back to play more, the game was bugged in a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Stream's up in less than 10 mins with an Indie game called Per Aspera, it's a terraforming game on mars playing as a self-aware & not so stable artificial intelligence! It's lesser known compared to other games I play so any boosts can help a lot, thanks! Come see at - www.twitch.tv/iggymaid
neutral · AI labelView post →I made a tribute piece featuring my friends and I Guardians. I met many close friends and this game helped me through rough patches in my life. I love Destiny and it deserves better then this incomplete end. Per Aspera ad Astra to my fellow Guardians #Destiny #Destiny2art #AOTW
neutral · AI labelView post →Really interesting. Great visuals. Story starts off enjoyable (mostly just due to Troy Baker). Love the theory behind terraforming mars. The changing landscape as mars becomes slowly flooded, ice mining turns into water... pumping... it's easy to see how this could have been a great game. Sadly, both the mechanics and story fall long before the game ends. Not only is the story inane and predictable, but you hear less and less from Troy Baker as the game goes on. Repeatedly, the game only has…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Live in 10 minutes with some chill terraforming on Per Aspera! Playing as a somewhat troubled AI with identity issues trying to terraform the planet while defending ourselves from the humans who created us www.twitch.tv/iggymaid - come hang out with your maid here ♥
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm still trying to decide what I think. I loved Surviving Mars, and have like 150 hours or so in that. I really want to like this game more, and I think I do like it? It's definitely worth the price when it's on sale. I just think there are things they could have done to make it much better. Pro: it does look nice. Nothing crazy, like it's not the pretties thing I've ever seen, but it definitely looks good. Pro: a lot of the mechanics feel interesting and fleshed out. Like, your ice deposits…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A fine enough game, though it has the primary problem that it's core gameplay is just not that fun. So the game has a ton of stuff in it, but it is all built on this shaky foundation of plonk some simple structures down, plonk a worker down, and wait 5 minutes for it to slowly build out the new addition to your base. Even in the late late game, this basic formula does not change. You are still using the same factories and mines, they are still transporting resources the same way, building…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera isn't great in my opinion but certainly not bad. Its good enough that I finished the main campaign (about 20hrs). Other users said it well; this game is a visual novel that acts like a colony builder. Most of the time playing this game (for me) was on max speed watching Netflix on the side waiting for certain events to happen from story-related moments to visual updates to Mars as you terraform. My biggest gripe with the game is late game builder management. Others have said it…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →honestly super interesting. Like the gameplay, but its wayyyyy to slow. Ill have hundreds of extra resources and however the workers are programmed, it takes years to just build 5 buildings, and yes I have PLENTY of workers. almost a 1 worker for every 2 buildings. the focus ability also is just not weighted high enough. its just ungodly inefficient right now. but thats the only complaint. so if they fix that would be a great game. just a slog right now.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really really really want to like this game, but it just always grinds to a slog every time I sit down to give it another shot. I think the developers are so close to striking gold, but not quite.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Slow, slow and even more slow. The game's pace is so slow that you can literally fall asleep watching it play. After a while the water starts rising and rising destroying your buildings again and again and again. This might all be realistic but in terms of gameplay it's slow and unenjoyable. It's a pity because the main premise of the game is interesting but the game is just not fun to play.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Unoptimised Boredom Per Aspera is a management game with a story element. I found it personally very boring. I cannot comment on the combat aspect, as I did not get far enough. I identified the main gameplay loop consisting of: find resources; make components from resources; and build buildings to expand to more resources. Due to the map scale of a planet, this loop became ever more boring, since the distance required the same monotonous expansion of buildings: worker hubs, power…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The premise of the game is good but the execution is a complete failure. The AI is completely broken and nonfunctional. The workers do not behave in any intuitive or correct way and there is nothing you as a player can do to fix it. Every playthrough is the same. The worker hubs sit idle and refuse to move resources or do work. If you make a building a priority the game completely breaks and you will literally watch workers move the same resources back and forth from one building to another in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This one is close, but sadly not a recommend. The game struggles to scale into mid/late game with micromanaging taking over to building individual buildings and roads. Most of the voice actors are decent, but AMI, the main character is bad to the point of distraction. I understand what the plot of the campaign is trying to be, but doesn't really get there and if often interrupts what you're doing to hear information or make a decision. At one point, it forces you to take a 10 minute long quiz…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Recommended but with lots of caveats. Other reviews (positive and negative) highlight the same issues. Per Aspera does a lot of things right. The sense of scale and slow build of bases and terraforming features across the planet are really nice. You can zoom way out to see the entire planet, and you can zoom way in to see a single car shuffling down the road. The campaign story was a pleasant surprise. I didn't really expect this game to have alternate endings and a light plot. While I don't…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here's my latest, on the next game from Per Aspera developer Tlon Industries. They're taking on the god game. www.pcgamer.com/games/strate...
neutral · AI labelView post →I enjoy this game quite a lot. There's a mode where a rival faction sometimes attacks you, but I prefer peaceful sandbox mode where you build and manage facilities to transform the planet. It's extremely satisfying to turn the planet from rusty brown to green, and it's a pretty low-key game since you can do better or worse but not really lose (with the combat off, anyway). A campaign can be a fairly long project, though, taking several days to play, and when your colony gets large the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →11.1 hours, 0/55 achievements, because I've been min/maxxing what for other players is the first 10 minutes for 3 hours, then fell asleep. 10/10 at least the beginning, it's all I've seen.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Starts great, but really falls off towards the ending into basically "set speed to 16x and go do something else." Performance really suffers as the game progresses; I suspect a memory leak. The builder AI does not do what you would expect and there is no way to force them to build where you need them to build. It works on some kind of opaque queue system that doesn't really work and isn't predictable. I couldn't finish the game because I ended up in a gamebreaking stalemate, where…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very beautiful simulation of terraforming Mars. Probably the most "realistic" one on the market at the moment. It looks satisfying to watch water levels rise and flora spread. Surely not for players that prefer fast gameplay, because the terraforming process ist slow. But for me that is a part of the beauty, since the process can be seen into small details. (I still mostly play on 16x) Dear devs, please add a function to jump to and/or cycle through mines, that have empied their deposit or…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →if you wanted to play per aspera in coop don't bother there are literally no reason to play it in coop why ? 1 person is more than enough to do everything in this game and player 1 will already be afk half of the game why ? bc the coop is only in sandbox mod no story, by doing so you miss like 70% of the game want to start on different spot of mars? only player 1 will have resources spawn near them so you can't play separately the game can also decide to corrupt the file in multiplayer…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game. I love the concept. A giant optimization game where you manage factory placement and resource distribution, and mars colonization is such a fun topic. 100% my cup of tea, but the game fails in a significant way. There are periods where, no matter how thorough I am, I can't find anything to do. I just have to sit there at 16x speed waiting. I've set up a bunch of factories to be built, have population moving in, and projects and research progressing. So now, I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Entertaining mechanics and a cool concept around AI and terraforming. But it lacks depth and eventually feels grindy and bloated. Starts strong, but loses steam.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera is a beautiful, if tedious game that is definitely in my list of top "terraforming" games. As expected from such a genre, especially when it touches upon something like Mars, a topic already well explored, it's going to be a slog of scraping by at the beginning, and then being overwhelmed by various tasks towards the lategame. However, the journey of getting there is a lot of fun, and quite beautiful. Comparing Per Aspera to other terraforming games is not really fair, to the other…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →a logistics game with disgusting logistics, it is impossible to describe how terrible the logistics are, do not buy in any case.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This was one of those hidden gems sitting in my library collecting dust for a while. Purchased on a sale and never installed... Man was I missing out! This game has amazing detail and a great campaign filled with lore and story lines with choices that can lead to very different outcomes. I went in with a bit of factory / city building experience and was pleasantly surprised at the mechanics this game employed as it is unlike any other I have played. Learning as I went both from a game play…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Like the game, Hate that the rizzed up Elon
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is one of those games that I kinda want to give it a thumbs down but don't quite feel it deserves it. There are tons of small little issues and annoyances. Things that many other similar games do better. Plenty of the game is fighting against the controls and UI. Like you can have multiple power grids independent of one another but the UI doesn't reflect that well. The entire combat and "military" aspect of the game could be completely removed and the game would be better for it. It's…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting game. Way too hard, even on the easiest difficulty. If you enable mods, it disables achievements. There is no way around this. So you can either struggle with an overtuned self-flaggetion fest to get achievements or play a fair and reasonable game, with mods, but no achievements.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The story and the logistics mechanics weren't really doing it for me by the time I reached the mark where I stopped playing; while the AI angle is cool from a narrative point of the view the storyline just... felt off and shallow. And the less I talk about the logistics of Per Aspera the better as it was infuriating to a certain extent which may be bad on my side for not understanding it, or it's something else entirely. Just my experience, man.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I only played for about 2 hours then had to refund it. I liked the game play, mechanics and everything I had experienced so far. The reason I refunded was because there is a massive memory leak in the game that makes it eat up all of my gpu/system ram and swap file under linux, Nobara distro. If they fix that bug then I will absolutely pick the game back up.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is really unique and early game is pretty good...but man, does it have some GLARING issues. at $30? ehhh probably not, but when on sale? absolutely. I'll keep it short, the game suffers from a sub-par UI. in late game you're really going to struggle to find specific builds among your web of cities. and god forbid if you use the "Landers" function it introduces you to in the start of the game, You'll think your resources are just fine and find out your main base is starving because it…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A much easier time than Surviving Mars. Much simpler mechanics and no old people to worry about. There's also a... frankly somewhat half-baked RTS combat thing in it, but it's mostly non-offensive. If you don't like the Tik-Tok lady AI voice, this will probably grate on you. It's noticeably pro-AI and pro-Elon Musk, but not so much that you can't ignore them. It's a good enough time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to like this game so badly. There has been a lot of care taken with the aesthetics and general atmosphere, and I love the concept. However, the core gameplay loop is shallow and gets so repetitive. I found the story mildly intriguing but got bored of the game before finishing it. I cannot recommend it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First off, the UI and sound design are impeccable. The vibes and music, the sounds and visual feedback given by the game are a reward for continued play. On multiple occasions I'd wind up not checking my phone or the clock for 3 hours and wind up playing into the wee hours. My main prior terraforming game experience was with Surviving Mars, which is a much simpler game that only later added via DLC several elements inherent to the base of Per Aspera. I got the main Per Aspera bundle so didn't…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →while the gameloop is interesting, the china being the shadowy enemy in the first mission is so played out, just invent a country.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This looks like it may be a phone game ported over to PC. I've seen worse, but it has a kind of shallow vibe to it that leads me to the aforesaid conclusion. Overall, kinda fun, but as you get more into it and have more and more components arriving at their destinations, the constant chirping gets crazy annoying.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have finished this game twice! It's a lovely resource management game, super chill, great zooming/scrolling, and just no rush. Is it super complex? nope But is it fun? absolutely ! Easy pick up whenever this is in the sale
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wish I could rate this higher - I love terraforming games! But after coming back to it for another playthrough with the DLC, I realized why I quit immediately after the story ended. After the first couple of hours, it's just an enormous slog. Even on the "normal" difficulty it's just gruelingly boring, constantly waiting for things to happen. There's no real challenge or strategy to it either; the highest difficulty doesn't make it more engaging, it just makes it more boring as things take…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Per Aspera has some wonderful storylines that draw you in. Options on how you apply certain prospects towards ultimate terraforming. The graphics aren't the best, but they are not horrible. Game play flows well, sandbox mode is nice for testing options and replay. The workshop where you can try out mods is a great touch as this game lends itself towards player-made mods well, but they disable steam awards. There is some area for growth to be seen, but it's a fine little game with a niche…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Extremely slow for anything to happen.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →great relaxing game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unlike other space builders it maintains my interest. It is not too hectic, but not too boring, simple to learn and easy to play, and completely bugfree so far. I wish it would show 3D images but I'm also concerned that it may make it too costly and more complicated, so enjoy it the way it is.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Awesome city builder game that allows you to really build wide. I hope the devs make more like this as I would love to terraform more planets or moons. The story was amazing as well, really unique to city building games. (I don't know of many other city builder games with a storyline like this one).
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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