Game Developers Need To Get Over Aliens
thegamer.comI love Aliens. It's one of the best action films ever made. A masterpiece of the genre. James Cameron killed it. But I'm sick of Aliens video games. At Summer Games Fest 2022, Focus Home Interactive revealed Aliens: Dark Descent, which developer Tindalos Interactive describes as being "inspired by our favourite CRPG games and packaged in nerve-racking, real-time action." After a lengthy cinematic we see roughly five seconds of gameplay, revealing it to be a squad-based tactical shooter.
I'm not dumping on Dark Descent itself. I haven't played it. It might be great. The mention of CRPGs has me intrigued, and I'll definitely be checking it out whenever it launches. But I sincerely wish developers, publishers, and whoever else comes up with these projects would expand their horizons. There's a whole world out there beyond that movie. I don't know if anyone's ever told the industry this, but you're actually allowed to make Alien games based on films other than Aliens.
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Look, I get it: it's a movie that features hordes of aliens, an arsenal of neat sci-fi weaponry, and wisecracking marines. A video game slots into that format perfectly. You don't have to change a thing. But my problem with it is that it's been done. So many times—and not just in Aliens games, but in countless other sci-fi shooters. I know stepping into the combat boots of a veteran Colonial Marine and mowing down xenos with a pulse rifle is a powerful, enduring fantasy. But it's time to move on.
In 2014, Total War creator Creative Assembly was brave enough to buck the trend. It developed Alien: Isolation, a slow-burning horror game that finally did justice to HR Giger's creature. No longer was
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