Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life partners with European Space Agency

ESA to lend expertise and insight for an accurate simulation experience

Mission Control Centre: Bristol, UK – 23 August 2023: Developer Auroch Digital and publisher Secret Mode are pleased to announce that the European Space Agency (ESA) is teaming up with Auroch Digital on the development of Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life.

This partnership follows on from the pair’s successful collaboration on the first Mars Horizon, where ESA staff provided valuable insight into the planning and operation of missions to Mars, and ESA itself was a playable agency within the game. Players can once again take the reins of ESA within Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life, and ESA's expertise will be used to ensure that all projections into the future involving mankind’s search for extra-terrestrial life are based on likely scientific scenarios and achievable technological progress.

"It is hard to fully encapsulate the value that working with the European Space Agency brings to us as game developers; there is the expert knowledge, there is the breadth of experience, but also just the general all-round excitement of space exploration that radiates from ESA staff we interact with," said Dr Tomas Rawlings, Studio Director at Auroch Digital. "We're doing our best to capture all this to offer players an authentic representation of our species' ongoing journey to understand our solar system and beyond."

"Science and exploration are at the heart of everything that ESA does," said Emmett Fletcher, Head of Branding and Partnerships. "To be able to work again with Auroch Digital on its newest development is a fabulous way to share the ambition, wonder, and excitement of ESA’s missions; past, present, and future."

Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life is scheduled to launch in 2024. Fans are invited to sign up for the newsletter to be among the first to hear about upcoming alpha tests.

About Auroch Digital

Auroch Digital is part of the Sumo PLC Group. It is a small game development studio based in Bristol, UK and founded in 2010. The studio works on original titles, partnerships, and work-for-hire projects, specialising in strategy and digital tabletop games, working with the likes of Games Workshop and Ndemic Creations. Auroch also has an interest in making games that relate to and deal with real-world issues.

Auroch Digital's titles include the authentic beer brewing simulator Brewmaster, action-strategy hybrid Dark Future: Blood Red States, the console versions of fishy theme park management game Megaquarium and cute robot city builder The Colonists, and Mars Horizon which was made in collaboration with the European Space Agency. The studio is currently working on several titles, both original IPs and ports.

Auroch Digital continues to grow and is recognised as a leading studio within the gamedev community for its talent in connecting the real with the digital. It is also recognised for its craft in porting games from one platform to another, be that physical tabletop to digital, or between PC and console.

For more information visit: http://www.aurochdigital.com

About Secret Mode

Greetings from The Bunker! Secret Mode is the publishing wing of the award-winning Sumo Group Ltd. Our goal is to publish internally developed projects from any of our 17 game development studios across the UK, US, Europe, and India, as well as third party independent game developers. We believe that games are for everyone, and that creativity has no limits. We believe quality and fun are everything.

About Sumo Group Ltd

Sumo Group's businesses provide acclaimed development, design and publishing services to the video games and entertainment industries from studios in the UK, Europe, India and Canada.

Sumo Digital Ltd., Sumo Digital, is the Group's primary business, it is one of the UK's largest independent developers of AAA-rated video games providing turnkey and co-development solutions to a global blue-chip client base from studios in Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leamington Spa and Warrington, plus Pune and Bangalore in India. BAFTA award-winning The Chinese Room in Brighton, Red Kite Games in Leeds, Lab42 in Leamington Spa, PixelAnt Games in Wroclaw, Poland and Czech Republic and Timbre Games based in Vancouver, Canada also fall under the Sumo Digital umbrella along with the award-winning design studio Atomhawk, who have bases in the UK and Canada.

Secret Mode is a video games publisher, focused on delivering fresh and new gaming experiences to players and building expansive and fulfilling communities around those games. It publishes titles developed within Sumo Group and also by independent developers.

Auroch Digital is a Bristol-based videogame developer and publisher with a focus on original IP creation.