Aliens: Dark Descent combines horror and strategy to create a bone-chilling tactical thriller
blog.playstation.comHi, I’m Romain Clavier, Game Director at Tindalos Interactive, the studio developing Aliens: Dark Descent, a strategic real time squad-based tactical action game with rich management systems and twisted horrors. On June 20 you’ll be able to witness the Xenomorphs stalk their prey in a contemporary strategy game. But before you descend into the darkness, I want to use this blog post to shed some light on how our development team fused terror and tactics for Aliens: Dark Descent’s intense, lo-fi world.
First, let’s look at the horror elements of Aliens: Dark Descent. As the title suggests, the game is set in the Alienuniverse, more specifically tinted towards James Cameron’s action-based take on Aliens (1986) where players take on the role of a group of colonial marines trying to escape from a colony overrun by the titular aliens. From the very beginning, we worked hard to establish a tense and foreboding atmosphere; there are cryptically dim corridors, flickering fluorescent lights, and the constant threat of a Xenomorph attack, but what really changed Aliens: Dark Descent for the better was when we implemented our unique fog of war mechanic, where areas of the map are hidden to create dread and let players’ imagination run wild. This means that you must carefully plan your routes and movements at every turn, taking into account the risk of running into a Xenomorph or other unknown dangers.
Developing the Xenomorphs was one of the most rewarding challenges, as we want them to hit the same level of ruthlessness they’re famous for on film. Our goal is to have players drown in the tension from the potential of a ferocious ambush of a conniving pack of Xenomorphs. That said, we wanted to avoid having swarms of Xenomorphs in a
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