Aliens: Dark Descent Puts You on an Express Elevator to Xenomorph Hell, Going Down

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"I really should have explored more of the map." That was what I was thinking as waves of xenomorphs hurled themselves at my squad. They’d taken cover behind a large map terminal and, with the help of the three turrets I’d placed at the edges of the room, had mowed down the first few waves. My ammo counters were running low, but we were holding. Then the xenomorphs came out of the air ducts behind me. Game over, man.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Aliens: Dark Descent when I sat down to play it at Focus Interactive’s booth at PAX East. Alien has a dodgy track record no matter the medium, and aside from 2003’s Aliens vs Predator: Extinction, the franchise has tended to focus more on action than tactics or strategy. I shouldn’t have worried. Dark Descent is attempting something new, but what it’s going for fits the franchise perfectly.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a real-time, squad-based tactical action game. Instead of controlling a single Colonial Marine, you’ll find yourself commanding a whole squad. If you’ve seen Aliens, imagine that you’re Lt. Gorman, sitting in the APC and issuing orders, then watching your squad carry them out. You’ll control the whole squad at once, with commands automatically carried out by the marine best equipped to execute it at the time based on their equipment, attributes, or positioning.

The demo I played dropped my squad of four in a facility reminiscent of the industrial Weyland-Yutani vibe that marked Hadley’s Hope in Aliens. Tindalos Interactive has taken great care in capturing Aliens’ aesthetic. Everything, from the sound of the pulse rifles and smartguns, to the look of the computers populating the rooms, to the way the xenomorphs moved and their acidic blood sprayed when my team took them