Life can adapt itself, through natural selection and chance, towards extremophiles....But what we don't know is how it started.
It might very well need very suitable conditions before it can exist, and evolve from there...

There is the argument Mars was warmer and wetter in the beginning (more than 3 Billion years ago), but 2 things oppose this:
Mars never had a sufficient mass to retain an atmosphere like Earth's, so how could it have been dense enough so long ago?
The Sun was not as warm in the past and therefore, could not have provide more energy to the small planet Mars than it can today...