Aliens: Dark Descent Gamescom Preview - “Oh God! It's Moving Right Towards You!”

thegamer.com:

Do the words “XCOM but real-time, not turn-based” fill you with both confusion and dread? They do for me. I don’t understand why you’d remove the turns from a genre that’s entirely built around them, and after seeing Aliens: Dark Descent’s solution at Gamescom, I still don’t understand the decision.

I enjoyed RTS games a lot as a kid and love tactical squad shooters. I’m partial to tower defense games too. I also love fried eggs, chocolate, and tomato soup, but I wouldn’t mix them all together and call it lunch. Dark Descent takes elements from these three genres, and far from creating the perfect organism, looks to have made a chaotic mess.

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Dark Descent is based on James Cameron’s Aliens, not Ridley Scott’s original Alien. Expect less horror and more action. You control a squad of marines sent to complete objectives in a large, off-world base overrun with Xenomorphs. Your play area is large, and changes you make to it - like welding doors shut and opening new areas - persist between missions, creating a neat continuity that makes every decision count.

You’ll explore the deployment zone during 30-60 minute missions, where you have to manage your squad’s stress, health, and inventories. Turns out, going up against a swarm of aliens with acidic blood is pretty stressful, and to prevent your soldiers from descending into hysteria, you’ll have to take a time out and create safe zones for them every now and again. It’s an interesting mechanic that will be your only opportunity to catch a breath during the game’s real-time action.

I write real-time action, but take that with a heavy pinch of salt. At any moment you can hit a button to slow time to a