Tag: descent
Aliens: Dark Descent gets a brief first bit of Xenomorph-filled gameplay
The upcoming, tactical squad-based action game Aliens: Dark Descent got its first bit of gameplay shown off during the Disney & Marvel Games Showcase at D23.
First revealed back in June, Aliens: Dark Descent is a new single-player action game set to launch in 2023 from Tindalos Interactive and Focus Entertainment, but no gameplay was shown at the time. Now, although only briefly, we’ve had our first look at the squad-based shooter in action.
The trailer shows the top-down game in action, where you “take your squad of marines on missions as you infiltrate and investigate the Xenomorph outbreak. Develop your tactics, assemble your colonial marines, and take on the Xenomorph hordes.”
Aliens: Dark Descent missions can take ‘anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour’
After the initial showing of Aliens: Dark Descent, you’ve probably got a lot of questions: is the game a sequel? Is Aliens: Dark Descent multiplayer? Can you play it only in single-player? When is this new Aliens game coming out? Well, after a hands-off session in Gamescom, Germany, we can at least help you out with the answers to a few of these burning questions.
First up, Aliens: Dark Descent is single-player only. The title is a squad-based, single-player action game that lands somewhere between Diablo and XCOM – at least to my eye. Playing through an original Alien story (set sometime after Alien 3, we’re told), you will command a squad of marines in real-time combat against the Xenomorph threat. You’ll need to think about troop placement, the terror levels of your crew, and how long your traps and tools can hold up before needing repairs.
The setup is this: there’s a prelaunch screen where you’ll have an overview of your crew before every deployment, and once you’re done, you’ll be able to rifle through the various bits of detritus you’ve found to see if there’s anything particularly meaningful that you can salvage. Enter systems like item rarity, equipment slots, and such. But the actual meat of the game – the amount of time you’ll be exploring Moon Lethe with your (probably doomed) crew – that’s set at about “anywhere 20 minutes and an hour”.
An Alone in the Dark reboot is coming from the Soma and Amnesia: Dark Descent writer
At today’s THQ Nordic 2022 Digital Showcase, developer Pieces Interactive announced an Alone in the Dark reboot, due to release on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. There’s no release date yet, but in a behind-closed-doors preview event, we were told the game is currently in ‘pre-alpha’ – so don’t expect it anytime soon (though it has been in development since ‘late 2019’).
THQ Nordic’s executive producer Michael Paeck says that recent games (like the Resident Evil remakes, Silent Hill titles, and Dead Space) go for ‘terror’ more than ‘horror’, and the team wants this new title to go back to what made the original 1992 Alone in the Dark special. The team constantly referred to the dense, rich atmosphere of the first game, and how much it wants to recreate that in this new game – some 30 years after the original launched.
From a debut trailer we’ve seen so far, the game seems similar to the Resident Evil remakes Capcom has seen so much success with. It’s a complete rethink of the first game, with the SOMA and Amnesia: Dark Descent writer, Mikael Hedberg, coming in to head up the narrative on the the project.