In Martian Gothic, the player is able to assume the role of three characters sent from Earth to a Martian base called Vita-01. The base was the first human settlement on Mars. The team have been sent to examine why it has been silent for ten months. The last broadcast from the base simply stated: “Stay alone, stay alive.” Upon arrival the player finds that all the residents are apparently dead and must gradually uncover the secrets and nature the last undertaking by Vita-01's crew; the discovery of ancient Martian "Pandora's Box" which, when opened, started a chain of chaotic events that led to the base's downfall, and death of almost all of its inhabitants. However, during the player's progress of uncovering the truth, searching for any possible survivors, and solving Vita 1's many mounting problems, the player finds that the dead crew have become re-animated as non-dead and begin attacking the player. When the player enters the base each character states that the decontamination process felt wrong. The three characters must not meet due to a threatening alien presence that would cause them to mutate into a “trimorph” if they did. The Vita-01 base was constructed in 2009 by the Allenby Corporation, implied to be Earth's most powerful megacorporation, to research potential alien life from microfossils on Mars, after discovering in 1996 that a Martian meteorite found in 1984 contains ancient bacteria which had crashed in Antarctica in 11,000 BC. Vita 1 is situated very close to Olympus Mons which can be partially visited by the player upon access to the underground "Necropolis" zone, the human-excavated ruins of an old Martian city of Vita-01.