The last game based on the Aliens franchise was a special kind of awful. So it’s good news that Creative Assembly is doing something entirely different.
In short, it’s an idea that hasn’t really been done before with the franchise: Survival horror. There’s not lots of Xenomorphs. There’s one. And since you don’t have a big ol’ arsenal to take him out, you’re going to have to rely on your instincts, as this clip shows:
If you were wondering, the gameplay clips you see are from the PlayStation 4 build of the game, and the lighting is appropriately moody and scary. Probably the most attention-getting aspect of this particular bug hunt is the fact that the Alien in question is completely unscripted. What he decides to do is up to the clues you give him regarding, you know, eating you. That’s a good thing not least because way too many survival horror games are ruined by spoilers that are obvious from the map.
On the other hand, it does raise the question of how long this game is going to be; as awesome as going brain-to-brain with the universe’s greatest predator sounds, it also raises a few questions about what variety you might find in the game.
Creative Assembly has been working on this for three years: We’ll be seeing the fruits of their labor sometime this year. Until then, let’s all try to forget Colonial Marines is from the same publisher, sound good?