A story trailer for Aliens: Dark Descent has been released, and it reveals a hostile environment where androids scheme, marines scramble to survive, and oh yeah, rampaging Xenomorphs try to drag squad members back to their hive. All in all, just another day of life in the Alien franchise.
The official description sets the tone very well: "The nightmare begins when the Otago spacecraft crash lands on Planet Lethe after a Xenomorph escaped containment and caused the activation of the Cerberus Protocol — a planetary lockdown preventing all ships from leaving or landing on the planet. Aliens: Dark Descent’s original campaign will pit players against iconic Xenomorph creatures — from Facehuggers to Praetorians, Alien Queens and many more — as well as rogue human commandos and a brand-new threat."
We’re willing to bet the "brand-new threat" is the humanoid figure at the end of the trailer, which sports the white eyes of an android, but has been otherwise augmented with more machine parts, removing the deceptive humanity the androids have always had. It seems this character, whomever he is, is in league with the Xenomorphs, and will likely function as the game’s big bad.
Aliens: Dark Descent is a real-time strategy game where you control a small squad of marines as you fight to survive. Commands are given to the squad as a whole, with each command being taken up by the marine best suited to the task. There’s an air of real command here, where the soldiers have some level of autonomy, even while you dish out the orders from above.
The Alien franchise has been getting something of a renaissance recently where gaming is concerned. The original Aliens vs. Predator game was a true classic in every sense of the word, but more recent offerings (remember Aliens: Colonial Marines?) had been disappointing until the release of Alien: Isolation, which brought back the creeping terror of the original Alien film. Now, Aliens: Dark Descent is channeling the gung-ho attitude of Aliens, while keeping the horror and desperate survival of the original films.
Aliens: Dark Descent releases on June 20, and is available on Steam, Playstation 5, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S and X.