Being a game from Haemimont who previously worked on Tropico 3 through 5, Surviving Mars has it's fair share of shoutouts to pop-culture and then some, just like it's predecessor.
- Multiple research options have quotes from The Martian as their flavor text. The achievement for passing the colony approval stage with a single founder is called "The Watney Challenge", and the one for planting the first tree on Mars is called "Fear my Botany Powers!"
- The Marsgate mystery at some point popups a message with this answer: "What can change the nature of a man?"
- When you attempt to quit the game, the confirmation dialogue screen includes the message "Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you."
- The Blue Sun Corporation
itself. Reinforced by the "Building a Better Future" achievement you get for completing the BSC's faction quest.- Incidentally, the Blue Suns are also one of the three most powerful mercenary organizations in the Mass Effect universe.
- "Rene Goddenberry" ...really?
- Also, several other shout outs to Star Trek lore in the achievements:
- Where no man has gone before, for analyzing your first anomaly
- The final frontier for scanning all sectors
- The Inner Light mystery is a shout out to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode of the same name, and even shares the basic overall plot of a planet dying and the government lying to the people to keep order in check. Although in the case of the game, it's a mass hallucination experienced by everyone on the planet including rival colonies, the crisis is caused by corruption of the government instead, and instead of accepting their fate blindly, the people revolted and destroyed the government before perishing and leaving behind the message to be found.
- Also, several other shout outs to Star Trek lore in the achievements:
- It's possible to find what is implied to be the Tesla automobile famously launched by Space X into orbit - if Space Y (the Serial Numbers Filed Off in-game version) is your sponsor at the time, one option is to receive a billion dollars under the premise that you don't open the trunk, in a shout-out to an urban legend that the Tesla had a dead body inside it and the whole launch was an elaborate cover-up for a murder committed by Elon Musk.
- The achievement list offers quite a few:
- S.P.E.C.I.A.L., for getting a colonist with five traits.
- On that note, one possible response You can give about the "Flat Mars Society" (which also double as a blatant Take That!):People. People never changes.
- Furthering the reference, one of the random complications that can befall a dome is to have the chip controlling it's water recycling system fail, and the backup replacement chip was accidentally shipped to somewhere in Southern California instead of to the facility that needed it.
- What Is Real?, for building the Morpheus wonder.
- "There And Back Again" might be one to Bilbo Baggins' famous book from The Lord of the Rings.
- "Can't Stop The Signal" is most likely another one to Firefly.
- Space Invaders, for completing the Dredgers mystery.
- The Rabbit Hole, for building the Mohole Mine wonder.
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, for having a dome full of Biorobot colonists.
- Europa Universalisnote , for completing Europe's faction quest.
- Marvin the Martian for successfully having a baby be born on Mars.
- Wubba, lubba, dub, dub! for building 1000 buildings.
- Good news, everyone! for completing the colony approval stage.
- Open the Pod Bay Doors for building a Shuttle Hub.
- One of the available player emblems shows a drone, the workhorse of your colony, and is named Mr. Handy.
- Another emblem states, in big reassuring letters, "Don't Panic!"
- And the "Mars Express" emblem has a image of a rocketship drawn in a rather familiar style.
- The shuttles look suspiciously similar to the Bubble Ships from Oblivion (2013).
- A special event called "Total Recall" is basically one long love letter to the movie classic of the same name.
- One of the random events hands you a safe box from your late mentor with a list of passwords you can use to unlock it. Valid choices include TOY and PAC. Same event also has a shoutout to PAX, and JFD is probably a nod to a prolific Civilization V modder.
- The name list for Martianborn colonists includes examples like Weyland and Yutaninote , Jayne, Kaylee and Reynolds, Starkiller, Data, Picard, Kirk, Spock, Connor, Han, Obi (makes sense that Wan is defined as a surname), Artoo (Deetoo defined as a surname) and Leia, Zod, Neo, Rico, Nebula and Rocket, Who, Katniss, Hal, E.T., Rick (with Sanchez defined as a surname), Morty, Jerry, Beth and Summer, Marvin, Quaid, and Freddie (with Mercury defined as a surname).
- And to top it all off, people who have datamined the name generator source code found the names Samuel Hayden and Olivia Pierce specifically defined in the generator.
- The sheer amount of names programmed into the generator can make this a possibility. To wit, people have actually gotten Martians born with the name Homer Simpson and with the Idiot trait.
- Once your Terraforming of Mars has progressed far enough, an event may pop up about introducing sea sponges into Mars' biosphere. Apparently the things bear a disturbing resemblance to Facehugger eggs, so the scientists dub them "Nostromo". You can either run with it or choose another name like Nautilus or Bob Squareroot.
- The Spheres mystery is one to, well, Sphere.
- The Wildfire mystery is a reference to The Andromeda Strain.
- One minor story bit has an xkcd reference, if your commander is an Inventor then one possible response is "Step aside, I know regular expressions!"
- The option to dismiss the Anything For Love random event is I will do anything for love but I won't do that.
- The name of the random events are often blatant shout-outs:
- A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away....
- Darwin Awards
- The Watcher
- Twin Peeks
- Total Recall
- Hello darkness, my old friend
- Battle Royale
- Rain Man
- Smoke on the Water (with the affirmative action being Fire in the Sky)
- The Cold-Resistant Bacteria random event is just one big shout-out to Frozen (2013):
- The option to release the bacteria is Let it go! Send an RC Commander to release Elsa.
- The option to not release the bacteria is We can manage without Elsa. The cold never bothered me anyway.
- Another random event has you contacted by a mysterious bald man seen only in silhouette who greets you with "Hello, Commander..." and requests you add some cloned officers to your recruitment pool.
- As in the Civilization series, many research techs are accompanied by quotes from famous people. Most of the quotes are from real life, but there are some fictional ones as well:
- Moisture Farming: "What I really need is a drone that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators" — Unknown Martian Colonist
- Stem Reconstruction: "Live long and prosper" — Vulcan Salute
- Dream Reality: "You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
- Overcharge Amplifications: "Power! Unlimited power!" — Sheev
