Does 'Alien' have potential in games?

In the vacuum of the games industry, no one can here your pleads for a sequel! 

It doesn't get much more classic than Ridley Scott's 'Alien' franchise, the first of which presents a stunningly grounded sci-fi arthouse monster story that elevates itself far beyond its station by merit of the sheer quality of presentation. James Cameron's 'Aliens' would present itself as something of a aspirant to that coveted role, however, itself presenting a much more action heavy, and thriller-adjacent, sequel rife with swarming monsters, explosive machine gun fire and endless quippy and quotable movie moments. For years fans of each have argued back and forth about which is better, an argument I have no horse in personally, because the only question I have to ask with this franchise is thus: which iteration of the franchise has more of a future in the gaming space, and why does it seem like it's only the action-heavy Aliens sequel? Does 'Alien' not also have it's credit and purpose?

Firstly, let's establish the difference. Alien presents a simply iconic and distinct look of the industrial space-age future, one that feels so tactile and believable compared to the technical utopian visual of Star Trek that it's impression is stamped forever on Sci-Fi iconography. Alien stars a highly intelligent yet utterly inhuman monster, one that seems to hunt down and victimise the crew throughout the entire movie tearing them apart as if for fun; hardly ever does it feel like the crew of the Nostromo have anything resembling a chance to survive for be merit of their brawn, and even their sharpest wits seem a mere pittance to the unknowable intellect of the 'perfect organism'. Aliens, on the otherhand, is more visually generic with it's look at space-age colonies, and due to budget constraints their 'xenomorphs' are considerably less impressive and artistically shot. Their monsters are mindless and charging, like stumbling ants with nothing but murder in the brain who charge into death by turret fire with little more intelligence than a computer drone. The movies have their considerable variations of vision.

Yet if we look at the amount of games that have birthed from the original Alien vision, only two really come to mind off the top of my head. One is Dead Space, and Dead Space 2 by extension, which both borrow heavily from the basic premise of Alien as well as the visual motif of 'industry in space', bringing rough and dirty utility to space-faring innovation. Their monsters aren't quiet as imposing and overbearing, as merit of it being it video game through which players are usually expect to go through hundreds of enemies in their campaign to survive, but the 'Necromorphs' certainly carry the 'fear factor' for what they've capable of doing; growing out of the bodies of the deceased on shock body horror glory. 'Alien Isolation', on the otherhand, is direct adaptation of the source material that does everything in it's power to faithfully recreate the world, feel and emotions of Alien to a game playing public. From visuals, to themes, to even the presentation of the Alien as this unkillable, overbearing menace that seems to toy with you as it hunts with an advanced AI that never seems totally stumped by your efforts to sneak around it. Both are gaming classics in their own right, both have very few companions to share that space of their respective subgenre with.

Aliens, on the otherhand, possibly by merit of it's premise, has many more entries under it's wing. You have Aliens Colonial Marines, a legendarily shoddy first person shooter that may or may not have been the operate factor in the smuggling of assigned investment money towards the betterment of Borderlands 2. (Allegedly.) You have Aliens Versus Predator: a severely underrated three-person narrative following various sides of an extra-terrestrial conflict that allows you to play as everyone with a stake in the battle, with a simply sublime multiplayer mode welded ontop for good measure. Aliens Infestation, a side-scrolling DS game. 'Aliens: Fireteam Elite', multiplayer Xenomorph hunting. 'Aliens Trilogy', a doom-like loosely based on the films. Aliens Versus Predator (the originals). And the upcoming 'Aliens: Dark Descent', which sounds like the Alien-Amnesia crossover that no one could have ever foreseen.

On it's surface the reason why should be pretty obvious. When it comes to designing games, we're all more comfortable designing products where the main way of interacting with the world is to shoot big guns extensively, then we are with the types of games that exploit psychological horror in their attempt to unnerve us. A lot of expertise and specialised passion needs to go together to make a game like 'Alien Isolation' work, and nearly as much passion needs be spread about the audience for them to like and get aboard with what it wants to create. But a game about marines shooting aliens? Well, that has some of that all important, investor pleasing, universal appeal; doesn't it? There's FPS lovers and makers popping around this industry like flies ever since the 2000's boom of shooters, might as well capitalise on that by making Aliens themed shooters, no?

To be fair to them, I at least think that some of these shooters are inventive; and almost none have been bottom-of-the-barrel trash. Colonial Marines at least attempted to be a worthwhile shooter with broken squad based mechanics, unimportant new Alien variants and a proposed canon narrative that poked giant holes in some of the most hated plot elements of the Alien canon. Fireteam wanted to bring a cooperative shooter angle to the formula, albeit in a manner I found exceedingly generic. And Alien Dark Descent purposes to throw in some light 'XCOM' style tactical precision with group squad orders and permadeath and all that goodness. Still, I can't help but wonder what would happen if the less trigger happy elements of the Aliens franchise had their day.

The Resident Evil franchise has proved that horror can have it's loud and quiet entries, sometimes one after the other, without the world totally folding in on itself from the sheer paradoxical nature of it all. Alien Isolation has remained the franchise's sole venture into exploring it's traditional roots and it is one of the highest regarded horror games of it's generation. So why have we never gotten anything even close to a sequel? Or heck, any other interpretation of the Alien formula that respects the majesty and integrity of the original design? Or at the very least make a Five Nights at Freddy's reskin, I mean come on! I know that Alien has potential in gaming, I've practically seen it- but I cannot prove that it has a future... which to me is the sorer spot.

Oh there's a new Alien game!

 I wonder how good it's going to be...

You know, after seeing the trailer for Prey and finding out that the Predator franchise was trying something a little bit new to it's approach and set-up, I got to thinking about Alien and how underutilised it was in the gaming world. Not to say that there have never been Alien games before, of course there have and some of them have been great; but in the great renaissance of horror we're on the cusp of, wouldn't it make sense for one of the most stylistically and artistically influential movies of all time to sit up and get a truly knock out adaption? And then Alien Dark Decent is thrown at me, oh god I'm so happy! I remember playing the old Alien Vs Predator game back in the day and being absolutely in love with the three-way campaign and all the different ways to be scared stiff by the things in the dark. And then there was Alien Isolation! Innovative and incredible right the way through, a true successor to the first movie that film could never deliver. And now we've got a new Alien title that shamelessly rips off the subtitle of one of the most famous horror games of all time? (The first Amnesia, come on guys...) The mind boggles at the possibilities! I mean, I didn't actually watch the Summer Games show with all the reveals but I bet I'm just going to love this...

Why. It's not even a question I know why. Because it's easy. Because to actually sit down and study the masterful control of atmosphere, of pacing, of terror that Alien Isolation created and to try and live up to that is too much work. Just do another game with big stupid marines and their big stupid pulse guns because we haven't had enough of that yet! >Cough< Alien Colonial Marines, Alien Fireteam, Aliens vs Predator >Cough<. I'm so bored of mindless shoot-a-thons against what are supposed to be the most intelligent and deadly species in the galaxy. Even in the movie, the Xenomorphs of Aliens never lived up the example of the 'ultimate lifeform' built up in Alien. They just sort of swarmed over each other and died like stupid worker ant drones. If it wasn't for the Alien Queen at the end I honestly think that film would have left feeling a lot more hollow than people would have expected. And for some inescapable reason, that movie is the sole influence of all Alien game media. It's so tiring.

I mean I know why the other Alien movies aren't worth a damn. Because they're bad. Who wants to play an adaptation of Resurrection where you go around kicking jello Xenomorphs out of airlocks? (Yes, I know there really was an adaptation of that movie. I actually played through it back when I was a kid.) But why is the apex so untouchable? Why is the closet we've gotten to a proper true-to-form Alien game 'Isolation' and the Dead Space games? It can't be out of respect for it's accomplishments, because god knows game developers don't have an ounce of respect for themselves, each other or their customers. (Else 'Diablo Immortal' would have never been allowed to happen.) I can only assume it's laziness overriding that otherwise unbearable call to be hubristic. I bet it disturbs the very core of companies like EA whenever they can't think of a way to actively taint and ruin an Alien adaption so they have to look elsewhere.

It's a twin stick shooter. I don't know how I can sugar coat that, so I hope you were bracing for some cold water. Okay, I guess I can't say outright whether or not it controls with a twin stick system, but its a top down hoard shooter with point and shoot, if that game doesn't have a twin stick control scheme it's replacement is probably a detriment. Not that I have anything wrong with that style of game but damn it, why is this worth a fully developed decent quality CGI tee-up animation just for the wet fart of a twin stick game. It's not even multiplayer, it's a single player game. (Although maybe that's for the best, 'multiplayer' is codeword for 'excuse to sell microtransactions' these days.) To live in a world where we have more shooter based Alien games than we do horror based ones... where did this version of the timeline go so wrong?

Okay let's look at all the positives here... I'm drawing a blank. I'm sorry but even whilst trying to take the game for it's own merits and not punishing it for being a game that its not, I find it hard to wipe the bad taste from the mouth I was left with after that trailer. Was 80% gritty cinematic off-set by colourful explosive shooter gameplay? That is deceitful, I'm sorry! You're describing a Nectarine to me but feeding me an apple, sure the outside is pretty much the same but the inner substance it totally distinct from one another! There's no way that's down to complete ignorance, is it? They knew they had a bargain bin of a game here and so wanted to limit the amount of shown gameplay as much as humanly possible so that their cutscene can do all the marketing heavy lifting, didn't they? Am I close to the mark? I feel like I am.

If the developers don't have the faith in their game to present it honestly how I am I supposed to approach it with anything other than rank suspicion? It might seem a little unfair, but it's been invited from score after score of Alien games that just hasn't been what people want. Okay that's not entirely fair, some people have been waiting for a great squad-based Alien shooter game for a while now, even if they're not me I can't deny their existence. But 'Extraction' is more a disposable party game with too much of a budget, and this looks even more low grade, although it at least has a more sensible scope to match the concept. Why not just give us an all gameplay action trailer so as to not accidentally lure in people who might otherwise be excited and end up hating themselves? Why is the art of advertising games still so mysterious to the modern game developer even with an audience who will literally dictate exactly what it is that they want?

Damn it, I'm supposed to find a positive! Okay so this game is apparently having some development done by Focus Entertainment, the creators of Plague Tale, which is a strong backbone to build off of, no doubt. That game had great atmosphere and tension; I just wish that literally any of those design lessons made it into the development process of this game, but I digress. It's apparently a single player squad based game, which could hold some interesting elements to it depending on what angle they take the gameplay. Although I can but speculate on that angle because Focus preferred to waste all of their budget on an entirely unrepresentative animated trailer that told us nothing about the gameplay. It's isometric and I tend to like isometric games. That's kind of a vapid point but I'm grasping at straws by this point. Nah I can't do it. I'm more excited for Fable 4 than I am for this game, and this blog was mostly made out of pure spite.

So am I salty? You bet I am! It's been years and no one wants to step up and make a new Alien game which highlights the strengths of the franchise in question. It would be like if we had spent the last 5 years receiving nothing but Deus Ex racing games out of Eidos Montreal, it would be content, sure, but at some point you'd have to stop and ask if we're ever going to pause this silliness and get ourselves properly back on track. This is another stone off the beaten path and at this point I can't even make out the main road anymore, and who can say if there's any operational company left actually interested in a proper Isolation sequel or successor. So consider this my appeal to the powers that be to let Alien be itself again- oh, and for the love of god don't steal the 'Dark Descent' subtitle without living up to it's horror routes, what are you guys, taunting me?