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That was a damn cool trailer, although I'm not sure how I feel about it being a top down shooter. A big thing about Alien is it's scary as hell and I feel like that doesn't work quite right?

It's a strategy / tactics game, Focus already put out a third person shooter, Fireteam Elite, which nails the horde shooting loop in classic Alien environments nicely.

Sounds good to me. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

When you say strategy/tactics, I assume it's still real time? Looked like it to me in the trailer.

I have just read a preview in the latest Play magazine, it says:
"Its an isometric real-time shooter.. Levels are large and open, fallen marines stay dead. Choose the right classes and loadouts for each mission. Enemies will adapt."

No firm release date yet other than 2023

I thought if the trailer's anything to do by it looked a bit tame, a watered down version of the movie with a dull script. But then, I've been spoilt by Alien: Isolation. Nothing comes close.

 Olthannon wrote:
That was a damn cool trailer, although I'm not sure how I feel about it being a top down shooter. A big thing about Alien is it's scary as hell and I feel like that doesn't work quite right?

It can be. Have you ever played the free to play Alien Swarm (now the improved, and still free, Reactive Drop version) on Steam? It's great fun with a group of three friends. While the aliens in the game aren't the infamous xenomorphs, and have some tricks of their own, the basic idea of the game (a fire-team of four marines entering a colony that's been overrun by very nasty hive aliens) is close enough that it's pretty clear where the inspiration for the game came from. Worth taking a look at if you've never seen it before (and the tutorial can be finished solo; it's about the only thing that can, mind you).

Now having said that...

This is apparently a single-player game. The members of the marine fire-team are all going to be under your control. That almost certainly means a "pause so that you can issue orders" sort of system, which is going to reduce some of the tension. Further, it looks like combat is going to be a sort of real-time XCom thing... and some of us remember how poorly that worked in X-Com Apocalypse.

One final thing - the trailer showed a non-xenomorph humanoid with bottles filled with blue liquid sticking out of its back. So I'm guessing that they're adding some new freaky thing (an experiment gone wrong, no doubt) to the enemies list in addition to the xenomorphs. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

In short, very much a "wait and see" attitude from me.

XCOM Apocalypse was gash, but I don’t think it was entirely down to the real time combat mechanic. I played a lot of UFO Aftermath, Aftershock and Afterlight, which also used real-time combat, and they were hugely enjoyable.

I’m so friggin’ hyped for this!

Early review from MandaloreGaming:

So friggin’ hyped for this!

It's out now. Has anyone played it? I checked the Steam reviews, but there wasn't much there. Mandalore's review is pretty positive, though he mentions that it was based off of a pre-release copy.

I plan on playing it tonight. Unless the game doesn't work or I have a headache or something similarly stupid, I'll have an opinion on the game tomorrow.

Some generally favourable reviews. Does sound like awesome fun, hopefully won't take them long to get the bugs pulse-rifled out

https://www.ign.com/articles/aliens-dark-descent-review

It's fun so far, the tutorial does indeed proceed at a snail's pace, but once they stop holding your hand and let you explore at your own pace, it's a lot of fun. I really like that you can revisit locations, either with the same team, or with a fresh one, as wounds and stress will build up over time.

And yes, the voice acting is a bit too on the nose and lacking. I am also missing the iconic pulse rifle screech. Plus.. get ready for all the usual Alien clichés! "Hello marines, help me, I have a sore throat and a painful tummy, I'm sure nothing awful is going to happen to me any time soon." Maybe I've been enjoying Fireteam Elite a bit too much, which takes places several decades after the movies, so the UACM knows about xenomorphs, the danger they pose and how to best go about exterminating them.

Fireteam Elite is more or less required to take that approach, given the kind of game it is. Dark Descent, as a game that actively encourages you to avoid combat, and that's (in theory) about investigation and exploration in very dangerous places, can take the "What are these freaky creatures!?" approach instead.

It also should be noted that the emphasis on avoiding combat does mean that this isn't just Alien Swarm with an Alien skin. It's a very different game.

I got eaten by an alien during the tutorial. I suspect this isn't the game to play when you're half asleep.

Looks promising, though.

On the in setting knowledge of xenomorphs, to be honest I find that a little... jarring? I can see why they'd want to go that way, but in real world terms it's kind of hard to put that particular cat back in the bag. Kind of hard to get any suspense out of the main character's progression if you know exactly how things are going to play out, not the least because they're pulling out all the cliches.

 Geifer wrote:
I got eaten by an alien during the tutorial. I suspect this isn't the game to play when you're half asleep.

Looks promising, though.

On the in setting knowledge of xenomorphs, to be honest I find that a little... jarring? I can see why they'd want to go that way, but in real world terms it's kind of hard to put that particular cat back in the bag. Kind of hard to get any suspense out of the main character's progression if you know exactly how things are going to play out, not the least because they're pulling out all the cliches.

Yes, I've started it. Played a little through the first "real" map (which still has a lot of tutorial elements). Yes, there's stuff that the player knows that the characters don't. But at the same time, they bring the characters up to speed on most of it pretty quickly. The first part of the Dead Hills settlement (minor spoilers)

I got eaten by an alien during the tutorial.

During the sneaking tutorial? I got caught three times, iirc - and on at least the first occasion there was literally nothing that I could have done about it. The most annoying part of that is that when you die there, it sends you back to just before the previous cut-scene instead of immediately restarting the sneaking sequence. At least the cut-scene is skippable.


My thoughts so far - it's different trying to avoid getting into a fight when you're playing like this. Stress seems to build up *very* quickly even from the most incidental encounters (which usually draw the aliens to you, causing you to get into more battles, driving up stress even more...). There are four stress states, each rated 0-100, and when you hit 100, you jumpt to the next highest state. It's possible to get your stress down to 0 at the current state, but my understanding is that you can't drop down to a lower state while in mission. States correspond to how mentally screwed up your marines are long-term. On the other hand, higher states also translate to improved performance in combat, so... And it's possible that the stress percentage increases more slowly at higher states. Unfortunately, I pulled out just as my stress state increased the first time (which was a mistake, imo - that was the *worst* time to leave), so I'm not sure how things might change.

Again, the whole "sneaking around instead of getting into fights" thing is very different. It makes sense, but it's definitely not what I expected when I first heard about this game.

Yeah, during the sneaking tutorial. I only tried it once because it was a good time to call it for the night. We'll see how many attempts I need when I resume playing.

So far, so good, managed to clear out the first map's objectives. As my current squad has to rest up for a while (and two of them are in the brig for brawling hehe), I decided to send in four fresh pair of boots to search out the last of the supplies, maybe the odd PDT and whatever else they might come across, which did pay off as I found an upgrade hidden away somewhere, score!

I also decided to avoid combat as much as possible, only to engage if no other option presented itself, or you know, lure them towards the APC. Have to say, the cat and mouse you play with blips on the tracker has an amazing feel to it, especially when said blip is on the other side of a door you're aiming at and you're not sure if they decide to wander past, or have a mosey into your part of the building. The AI has a nice, random patrol pattern to it that doesn't home in on you when they're unaware, letting you do your job quite well for the most part if you maintain situational awareness and keep quiet. Also, squad getting a little too stressed out? Weld that door shut and have a rest, beats popping pills all the time like I did during my first sweep of the sector.

That said, the game is unforgiving. I've had my first time wiped once already and that was on easy. Yeah, I am a tourist, bite me. 😏 Also, the game does not mess around with chargers haha! I decided to face down a horde in a corridor, set up a kill zone and having them funnel in towards me. Which went well for me until the charger the game had spawned was thrown into my general direction, which was undeterred by my grenades and flamethrower, goring and stomping one of my marines so thoroughly I could only recover his dog tags.

Loving it.

I was doing good with the stress until the final area, keeping my stress levels in the white.

My marines were still all nervous wrecks (red stress levels) by the time I finished up.

Have got the game, now wondering if Elden Ring should go back on the shelf (again) for a bit to play this, or to finish that game/get to death number 1000.

Reading the comments above and the reviews the game sounds so cool and makes you wonder why no-one tried to do it before. I'm glad they went for the more mature/realistic (?!) approach with the sneaking and stress, rather than marines chomping on cigars and shooting 2 machine guns from the hip, it's much more respectful of the material.

I have heard it is very tough, and 'easy' is equivalent to normal in most games.

Easy is already quite unforgiving so far.

There's always room for going in guns glazing, just look at the excellent Fireteam Elite if that's more your thing while staying close to the background material, minus the characters doing movie quotes all the time.

We may yet see a shift into more aggressive gameplay here as well, once I've unlocked the gunner class and the smart gun, that is. It'll be interesting to see how much of an impact that one will make on future ops. I do have a recon with silenced sniper rifle, yet to try it, as she's still in the brig for throwing fists with her squad sergeant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
1.11GB patch dropped just now, I'll copy-paste the patch notes when they pop up, but one thing players have noticed is that the marines stop verbally acknowledging every time you give them a move order hehe, the line where sarge calls them "slugs" was getting old.

We're pleased to release this first small patch to answer to your (by far!) most requested change.

Patch Notes :
Drastically reduced the occurence of the squad leader's acknowledgement after an order
The "Double Time" line will not play anymore after a walk order (but for your pleasure can still be triggered by a run order)
Fixed some crashes

We wanted to provide this first improvement quickly and we're still monitoring closely all your feedback and are already working on the next patch to address the most common issues as soon as possible.

Now get back to work Marines!

I read the IGN review. Design influences from X-com and Darkest Dungeon certainly sound promising. The reviewer wanted to love the game, but felt it had too many bugs to fully endorse it at launch. Hopefully a few patches in the future will take care of those issues.

That said, has anyone here who's played the game had problems with the kind of bugs you can't shoot? If so, maybe mention what platform you're playing on.

And for those who've played, is this the sort of game where adding Predators in a sequel would add to the game, or completely ruin it and how dare I even suggest it?

I haven't noticed any bugs.

Predators wouldn't fit. The game is about sneaking around to avoid drawing hordes of aliens to your position, and arranging the battlefield in your favor when you're forced to fight. A Predator is a single, super tough boss, who generally knows where you are and chooses when to strike. The playstyle involved in fighting a Predator is completely different than it is in playing against the Xenomorphs.

Definitely agree about the Predator, I'm not sure how it would fit mechanics-wise, unless it was just used as a narrative device?

Just started playing last night and it's good fun. My deputy administrator got introduced to the secondary jaws of the Alien about 4 times in the training mission which made me laugh, but I guess it does its job of teaching you how dangerous the aliens are.

Love the reverential tone to the source material - the music, the slow/static space shots, even the way the title appears with eerie music playing in the background. You can already tell it is going to be more Isolation than Colonial Marines.

 Pacific wrote:


Reading the comments above and the reviews the game sounds so cool and makes you wonder why no-one tried to do it before.

Phantom Doctrine is also an XCom-style game with a lot of sneaking around. The setting on that is Cold War "stale beer and cigarettes" espionage instead of sci-fi horror. Unfortunately, while XCom 2 claims to do that, it fakes it (the enemies will be directed to your position after a few turns on a stealth map, even if they don't know that you're there until they get a line of sight for the first time).


I'm enjoying not hearing constant move acknowledgements post-patch (especially the "Double-Time!" one when just walking), though I had to laugh when one of my marines started whistling at one point. Not exactly what he should be doing when the team is supposed to be sneaking around. On the other hand, they didn't get rid of the sergeant constantly telling you to hurry it up when you're waiting for a patrolling blip to wander away from the path you want to take.

Phantom Doctrine has a great AI in place that keeps things tense. Sneakily taking out guards doesn't mean you're in the clear, after a while dispatch would be wary of the radio silence and send out patrols to check in on the guards.

Haven't had any whistling marines yet, but yeah, plenty of loudly griping about hurrying up while waiting for a blip to move on.

I believe the latest patch is meant to cut down both the amount of dialogue upon giving orders and also comments when the marines are stood around and you don't move them for a few moments. So I don't think you are the only guys to have commented on it.

Watching a review on 'Worth a Buy' and it looked pretty funny, basically the most annoying version of Sonic tapping his foot if you haven't moved him for a moment, while the rest of the dialogue butchers the quotes from the second film.