There’s a metaphysical thought experiment I like called The Ship of Theseus, which I’m not going to explain to you because a.) I’m sure you already know it and b.) It’s casual Friday, not played-out philosophy Friday. That is next week. Anyway, this concept seems to have a legacy in Per Aspera, a story-stuffed strategy offering from Tlön Industries and Raw Fury, about terraforming the planet Mars as an artificial consciousness. In the trailer below, you can hear a fuzzy speech-giver talk about consciousness-bots succeeding where mankind have failed. Turn your soon-to-be-obsolescent jelly orbs toward the teaser:



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So at this point I’m like, ah, Ship of Theseus. First you replace the bones. Then the nerves, the skin, the organs. You’ve got to catch the consciousness in there at some point, surely? Then once you’ve nailed how to replicate consciousness, who needs all these useless bones and organs and bits of skin? Not me, that’s for sure.

In your mission to make Mars a liveable environment for the fragile fleshsacks that created you, you’ll need to explore genuine terraforming techniques and challenges, using studies and theories from real scientists and engineers. As well as a involved story that the devs seem intent on highlighting as a core concern, they’ll also be a sandbox mode. Along with Watch Dogs: Legion and Ghostwire: Tokyo, Per Aspera seems to be keeping up the E3 2019 trend of ‘games that look to ask more convincingly cyberpunk questions than the actual game called Cyberpunk.” It’s due for release sometime in 2020. You can wishlist it on Steam here.

See our E3 2019 tag for more news, previews, opinions, and increasingly surreal liveblogs.