The slowness of the growth and the beauty of the end result, and the intervening moments, make Green Planet a wonderful game to unwind and relax. But the challenge means you’ll also be engaged. It would have been easy to add a few new projects to the research track and call it a day, but the terraforming is so integrated into the existing game, you’ll constantly find yourself marveling at the design. But the real selling point are the wonderfully applied graphics. It’s a testament to what a different the look of a game can make, and how it can enhance the gameplay.

Surviving Mars is a management game that's really simple to pick up but hard to put down, and Green Planet continues improving on the tested formula.

Green Planet is an awesome addition to Surviving Mars, but it puts a spotlight on some vanilla features that could use some love.

Green Planet provides an end game and sense of conclusion to Surviving Mars, offering up enough challenge and new content to keep those already interested on the hook and perhaps even provoke some fence sitters to reach into their pockets and pay up for a ticket to a potential future.

Green Planet is a decent expansion adding quite a bit to the endgame, without enhancing the main elements, though.

Surviving Mars, it turned out, was little more than a plucky little rover, diligently raking the regolith to make a place for the main rocket to touch down. Now, however, the eagle has landed, and it’s a bloody lovely bird.

In the end, Green Planet and Project Laika are interesting DLCs. Taken together, they add several gameplay and cosmetic features, and the former significantly alter playstyles if you decide to go for the terraforming. While Project Laika is cute and fits the game’s overall “feel good” vibe, I do feel Surviving Mars is consistently stripping away its identity with each of its main DLCs. Regardless, if you enjoy or the game or want to try turning a barren planet into a giant planet-wide forest, give Green Planet a shot.