Terraforming Mars PC beta lets you try the digital edition’s tutorial for free

You can now give the PC version of Jacob Fryxelius’ award-winning Red Planet strategy sim Terraforming Mars a go for yourself.

The digital edition of the 2016 As d’Or winner – and current number four on BoardGameGeek’s all-time rankings – is headed to Steam later this year, but its developers have launched a free beta for the game that also serves as a kind of demo.

The beta includes Terraforming Mars’ tutorial, which consists of a full playthrough of the board game – half of which is made up of an on-rails teaching section, before setting players loose to finish the match however they like.

Bear in mind, though, that the developers warn that one of the issues in the current beta build is that the tutorial is extremely tough to beat – though not impossible. Other bugs on the fix list for after the beta ends include misaligned arrows in the user interface and the potential to draw duplicate cards.

It hasn’t been confirmed when the beta will run until, but it can be had for free by signing up on Asmodee’s website, going to the beta test page and joining the Terraforming Mars beta to receive a Steam key.

One catch: at the time of writing, it appears that only a limited number of Steam keys for the beta have been issued, so you’ll need to wait until more are released to jump in and play.

Despite plenty of calls from players for more details on when or if extra keys will be issued, Asmodee Digital has remained quiet on the demand – hopefully more people will get the chance to try it for themselves soon.