‘Aliens: Dark Descent’ Wants To Stress Your Marines The F*** Out

How good are you under pressure? Would you trust yourself to operate heavy machinery? To get a pizza out of the oven? To tie your own shoelaces? Most of us come apart a little when the going gets tough - and that’s one of the core gameplay mechanics in the recently announced Aliens: Dark Descent, as your squad of marines will steadily stop doing as commanded the higher their blood pressure rises and the faster the sweat flows from their pores.

Check out the latest trailer for Aliens: Dark Descent below

In Tindalos Interactive’s forthcoming real-time tactics game, published by Focus Entertainment, you’re charged with finding out what the acid-dripping heck has gone down on the Moon Lethe installation, a location that bears expected aesthetic similarities with Hadley’s Hope of Aliens fame, all gloomy abandoned corridors and sparking electrics. Set 20 years after the events of Alien 3, the game lets you control four marines, with each operative selected from a set of six (five to start with) specialisms like medics and gunners, while rookies are obviously less experienced but, dare we say so, probably more expendable. And expend recruits is something you’ll likely do, because there’s little respite for these grunts as they’re rapidly surrounded by series-staple xenomorphs, eager to introduce our marines to some overly-friendly face-hugging pals.

Focus Entertainment

There are areas of respite to be found on each map, and you’ll need them in order to pause, take on health-restoring sustenance and let your stress levels cool down - because if they don’t, the mission will unravel fast. Upon finding a room with limited access points you can seal any port that an alien might pop its head through and take five - but no defence is forever, likewise your early warning systems. Marines can place remote motion trackers, allowing the player to follow xeno movements from the other side of the map, but these can be destroyed. Sentry guns can be installed at choke points but these too can be overwhelmed. Thankfully the heat of battle can be cooled a little by slowing down time to issue instructions to your troops, although not stopped entirely, and there are moments in our hands-off Gamescom demo where we see just how vital it is to make every valuable second count, else these sci-fi nasties get within claws-and-jaws reach and remove heads from shoulders.

It’s not only the hostile aliens you’re up against in Dark Descent either - something very, very wrong has gone on here, and there are some pretty messed-up-looking humanoids around the place, which make the Working Joes of Alien: Isolation look like your best mates picking you up for a pint or three down the local. There’s also time itself, as after a set number of days the installation will be nuked from orbit - it is, after all, the only way to be sure - whatever the successes of your on-the-ground team. Speaking of which, Dark Descent runs a permadeath mechanic, so when your colleague on their first unsimulated drop gets mauled to death by a slimy beast, that’s them gone, RIP that lad, he never stood a chance. Run out of marines before you run out of time and that’s game over, man, game over. If you return to that same map, chances are he’ll still be there, forgotten and rotting. Broken doors are still shattered, and last stands haunted by those who fell there.

Focus Entertainment

Returning to previously explored areas is key to progress in Aliens: Dark Descent, as there’ll be (several) times when you’ll have too much to get through in a given location, too many objectives, and not nearly enough energy to do it all. So you evac, back to the APC and onto the dropship, up to the safety of orbit where R&R is the name of the game until the next day dawns and it’s back onto the express elevator to hell. Each mission can take up to an hour, and there’s no saving in the middle of one, so the player’s always on edge until their marines are a few vertical miles away from the horrors that have infested Moon Lethe.

The games I’m immediately reminded of, looking at Aliens: Dark Descent (rather than playing it), are XCOM and Cannon Fodder - there’s something about directing your charges around the map that reminds me of Sensible Software’s terrific top-down shooter of the 1990s, while the XCOM parallel can’t be helped as soon as you’re talking aliens and tactics. It’s not really like either though, as first impressions are quickly replaced by the more lasting takeaway of substantial depth at play here, and a clear affection for the source material. I appreciate that there’s a section of the Aliens audience that’s been keen on a really great FPS game set in the universe for a while, and this not being that might seem like a disappointment. But with an original story, plenty of authentic sights and sounds, and some interesting (and testing) mechanics based around not losing your marbles in the middle of a waking nightmare, Aliens: Dark Descent is shaping up well. It’s due out in 2023 for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S consoles.