It is certainly odd that, after years without a new Aliens game, at least three have come along at once. Aliens vs. Predator, Aliens: Colonial Marines and the Aliens DS game are all on the cards, and while speaking with AvP developer Rebellion, I asked project lead Tim Jones if it was weird working on one Aliens game while knowing that Gearbox was working on another.
“As a life-long Aliens fan, I think it’s terrific that Sega is publishing more than one Aliens game in the near future,” he explained. “I’m naturally very excited to see what the talented guys at Gearbox deliver.”
I also asked why there was this seemingly random push for more Aliens games. After all, the last AvP movie was released in 2007. It seems odd that in 2010, we have two games planned.
“We’ve been keen to revisit the franchise for many years but it was only around the time of the AvP: Requiem movie that everything finally fell into place for it to actually happen. Aliens has always been a very well-loved franchise but it was largely the success of the two AvP movies that kick-started the resurgence of interest in the gaming possibilities for a mainstream audience.”
And how difficult is it to create a licensed game that’s both original and faithful to the source material?
“We’ve been such obsessive fans of the franchises for so long that we seem to have a natural instinct for what we can add to the universe, while remaining faithful to, and consistent with, what has gone before. Naturally, when we create new concepts, we throw around all sorts of crazy ideas before settling on what seems right but Fox and Sega have been very supportive of all the ideas we’ve proposed. No doubt there’ll be one or two things that will provoke ‘healthy debate’ among the fans when they experience them.”
We have a little bit more Aliens vs. Predator coverage still to come, so if you’re hyped for interstellar wars between vagina-mouthed serial killers and phallus-headed bestial rapists, then stay tuned to Destructoid!
