Surviving Mars is a city-building survival game that takes place on Mars and is modeled after real Martian data. The player chooses a sponsoring nation, each conferring slightly different benefits and a unique building and vehicle, and then lands on Mars with robotic drones and rovers. These rovers and drones prepare the colony for humans on the red planet by setting up power and water infrastructure, domes, resource depots, oxygen generators, and landing pads. The player's goal is to create a thriving colony on Mars with occasional rockets from Earth, which have limited cargo or passenger space, forcing the player to balance paying to import resources from Earth and producing resources on the planet. For example, the first human colonists will bring limited food with them on their rocket, so farms are crucial to a thriving colony on Mars.
The player can bring electronics, machine parts, food, concrete, metal, prefab (pre-fabricated) buildings, rovers and drones from Earth, or research technologies to manufacture them on Mars. After successfully creating and managing for basic resources on Mars, players can have the option to progress by building domes suitable for human life and advanced resources production. Players must balance expanding the colony by managing oxygen, food, water, electricity and replacement parts while progressing through unlocking technologies by researches. Through the 5 fields of research (Physics, Engineering, Social, Biotechnology, Robotics), players can unlock technologies that will eventually lead them to different wonders. The game also has storylines called mysteries, which add various events to the colony, including plagues, war, rival corporations, AI revolt, alien contact, and others. Rare metals can be exported back to Earth for funds. Landing sites also have various natural disasters like dust storms, meteor storms, cold waves, and dust devils to increase difficulty.