Red Dust: Stranded — Your Room Becomes the Mars Habitat

Red Dust: Stranded puts you on Mars with a habitat to keep alive. In mixed reality the room you are standing in is the habitat. Systems fail, you repair them by hand, you plan what you have, and you step outside onto Mars terrain in VR.

It is coming soon on aeternusvita.io. Visit Red Dust: Stranded to get notified when it is ready. This guide explains what it is, how it works and who it tends to suit, using only the official brief and store copy.

What Red Dust: Stranded is

The pitch is simple: your room becomes a Mars habitat. Repair it, ration supplies, and step outside. The subtitle is a Mars habitat in your room.

Red Dust: Stranded puts you on Mars, in a VR headset. In mixed reality the room you are standing in is the habitat. Systems fail. You find the fault and repair it with hand tools. Those repairs are the puzzles you work by hand.

You plan oxygen, water, food and power. A Martian day cycle — a sol — moves that clock. When you leave the habitat, the headset shows Mars terrain in VR. You walk missions there, grow food, and build a rover to range further. Supplies are short. An alien signal grows through the days, and the threat comes with it. The days run towards a rescue window, and the story can end in more than one way.

The project is made by aeternusvita.io. It is listed as coming soon. No release date, price, ratings or reviews have been set. The factory category is games. Builds exist for Meta Quest, Android XR and the web, with a signed Quest APK and a signed Android XR AAB ready, but nothing has been submitted to a store.

Your room is the habitat

The central idea is that your physical room is the habitat. In mixed reality the space around you holds the panels and systems. When you go outside, the headset replaces your surroundings with open Mars terrain in VR.

Inside, the job is upkeep. Panels fail and you work on them where they sit in the room. You move to the panel, open it and deal with what is behind it. You are not looking at a habitat on a screen. You are standing in it.

That switch — room as interior, VR as exterior — keeps both readable. One is close and hands-on, the other is open and about distance.

Diagnose and repair with hand tools

The core loop inside the habitat is failure, diagnosis and repair. Systems fail. You locate the fault and repair it with hand tools. Those repairs are the puzzles.

You find what has stopped working first, then you use hand tools to fix it. The work is done by hand in the headset, not through menus. The brief does not list specific tools or a fixed count of puzzle types, so this guide does not add them.

If you like practical puzzles where you spot what is wrong and work it through step by step, this stretch is for you. If you prefer constant movement, these sections will ask you to pause, look closely and finish the job before you move on.

Oxygen, water, food and power — and the sol

Four resources shape your decisions: oxygen, water, food and power. You plan them. They are not background figures. They set what you can do next.

Time moves on a Martian day cycle. Each sol advances what you have and what you need. A repair that restores power changes what you can keep running. Water and oxygen shape how long you can stay outside. Food takes time to grow and needs power and space.

Supplies are short by design. The copy repeats that point. You make choices with what is left and you carry those choices into the next sol. The brief does not publish exact consumption rates or a difficulty curve, so this guide does not invent them. The point is that planning matters across days, not only in the moment.

Stepping outside: walks, growing food and the rover

Leaving the habitat swaps your room for Mars terrain in VR. The store copy lists three things you do out there: walk missions, grow food, and build a rover.

Growing food helps when rations are tight. You cultivate and you use what you grow to support more sols. The rover lets you cover more ground on the surface. Both link back to the plan inside. You keep the habitat running so you can afford to go out, and you go out so you can keep the habitat running.

The brief does not detail a fixed number of missions or the rover build steps, and there is no crop list on disk. This guide stays with what is written: surface walks, food you grow and a rover that extends your range.

A signal, a threat and more than one ending

As sols pass, an alien signal grows and the threat comes with it. The days run towards a rescue window. The story can end in more than one way.

That is the shape given in the store copy. You spend the time on the habitat, the rations and the signal. How you handle each affects where the days lead. The brief lists multiple endings as a feature but does not describe specific branches, so this guide does not add them.

The brief places the tone as survival engineering in the spirit of The Martian with original story and characters, plus an alien threat. The focus is keeping systems alive with limited supplies while something unknown builds, not arenas or score chasing.

How a sol tends to run

A sol might go like this. You start in the habitat and a system shows a fault. You find the panel in your room, diagnose the fault and work the hands-on puzzle to completion.

You then check resources. Oxygen, water, food and power need a plan that fits the sol ahead. If power is low, you choose what stays on. If water is tight, a walk may need to wait.

Outside, the headset shows Mars terrain. You walk a mission, tend food, and make progress towards the rover. Supplies stay short throughout, so each choice trims what is left for the next sol. The signal advances in the background as the rescue window draws closer.

The brief does not promise a session length, a sol count or a save system, so this guide does not state one. The structure is habitat repair to resource plan to surface missions to story advance, on a sol clock.

Who it suits

Red Dust: Stranded suits players who like hands-on puzzles and steady planning. If you enjoy finding a fault, working it with tools and keeping a small base running against a clock, the loop is built for that. The mixed reality hook helps, because you move to the panel and work where it sits.

It also suits players who like a slow-building survival story. You manage four resources across sols, grow food, build a rover and follow a signal towards a rescue window with more than one ending. If you want a narrative that turns on maintenance and rationing, this fits.

It will be less suited if you want constant action. Habitat stretches ask you to stop and repair, and resource planning asks you to hold back. The brief notes planned comfort options — seated play, vignette, snap turn and guardian margins — but does not claim a comfort rating or an age rating.

Coming soon — how to keep track

Red Dust: Stranded is coming soon on aeternusvita.io. Builds exist for Meta Quest, Android XR and the web, with a signed Quest APK and a signed Android XR AAB ready, but nothing has been submitted to a store and no release date, price, ratings or reviews exist. That is the honest status today.

If a Mars habitat in your room appeals to you, open the product page and get notified there. Visit Red Dust: Stranded and use the notification option when it is offered. The product page is where availability will be shown first. When the studio is ready to share more, that page will be updated.

Red Dust: Stranded is made by aeternusvita.io. Open the failing panel and make the first repair.