When Elon Musk reaches Mars and founds the capital city of New PayPal, we’ll all be packing our bags*. But in the meantime the closest you can get to a corporate Martian future is Offworld Trading Company [official site], the RTS game that eschews tanks and troops for market manipulation and corporate espionage. Today that dark vision of the red planet is getting a big expansion in the form of The Patron and the Patriot DLC, which is bringing new game modes, stories and CEO characters.



You can read about the exact additions in greater detail on the developer’s forum, but here’s the lowdown for time-strapped businessjerks.

Colony Class – Each colony now specializes in one area of the economy, altering local market conditions in a variety of ways.

Campaign Length – The campaign tournament can now last for 4, 7, or 10 games. Each length comes with its own balance tweaks and gameplay subtleties.

Wholesale Orders game mode – Not all colonies want you to build habitats and work modules for them. Now some instead want your company to supply a variety of wholesale goods.

Two new Characters – New CEOs with new gameplay perks.

Story-Driven Campaigns – Six interactive short stories about life on Mars, available to experience through playing the new characters on each different length of campaign.

New Staffing Perks & New Achievements

The post explains that the game will change depending on the campaign length you select. Shorter campaigns will give you more money to start and some staff to hit the dusty ground running, while longer games will be more difficult, starting you with less cash and putting you into direct competition with a handful of rivals. Meanwhile, the story-driven singleplayer campaigns will be driven by ongoing decisions you make. “The subplots and details of each story will mold themselves around the games that you play,” say the devs, “your level selections, opponents faced, staffing perks, and victory or defeat in your games.”

Adam did our Offworld Trading Company review back in April and found it to be a whip-smart strategy game of cash flows and power struggles. “You’re not trying to destroy your opponents, you’re trying to absorb them,” he said. “The end-game isn’t destruction, it’s a hostile takeover.”

Since then other DLC has allowed players to create and edit their own maps and lay claims to asteroids for the lofty purposes of dollah dollah bills. The base game has also been named one of our bestest best games of the year so far. So maybe you ought to listen to us. The Patron and the Patriot DLC is on Steam for £3.99/$4.99.

*and then killing ourselves