Doom

Doom, released in 1993, is one of the most influential video games ever made, and its setting places it firmly in the tradition of Mars-based science fiction. The game unfolds on and around Mars and its moons, where a military-industrial facility has become the site of a catastrophic incursion of hostile forces, which the player must fight through alone.

The Martian setting serves the game's atmosphere of isolation and dread. Placing the action on a remote facility on Mars and its moons reinforces the sense of being cut off from any help, far from Earth in a hostile environment — a mood that draws on the genuine remoteness and danger of the real planet, even as the game itself is pure action fantasy rather than a realistic depiction.

Doom's cultural impact was enormous, helping to define the first-person shooter genre and influencing decades of game design. Its use of Mars as a backdrop for horror and survival contributed to a broader pop-cultural association between the Red Planet and stories of isolation and menace — an association stretching back to The War of the Worlds. It remains a landmark example of Mars serving as the setting for interactive science fiction.