…and we didn’t, for good reason. We know how to behave! If this umpteenth variant of the license seems promising and wants to respect until the end of the catches of the original material, we will have to wait to see more to be fully convinced. Aside from the trailer that was already seen during Summer Game Fest, it’s a dozen minutes of fully recorded in-game presentation that we were presented with. I will be very clear, you will leave feathers there!
Real-time strategy game in isometric view, playable in solo or multiplayer mode, Aliens: Dark Descent takes root twenty years later in the chronology of the saga foreigner 3. Or around the same time as the last ones Alien: Fireteam Elite and nearly two hundred and fifty years ago Alien: Resurrection, the fourth film of the license directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Scenario question, some elements have been leaked (despite my visibly troubling questions that have gone unanswered) but in short we are in one extraterrestrial pure juice. The love that some members of the development team have for the license is not alien and obvious. Good point.
I’m not going to lie to you about your chances of survival, but… you have my sympathy.
A merry band of colonial marines find themselves on an alien-infested planet. The gang members must undertake multiple incursions into enemy territory to restore their base and ship. The goal ? Pull yourself together of course. By being discreet or eliminating as many Xenomorphs as possible and losing as few humans as possible in the maneuver while it lasts. Along the way they will face an entirely new threat in the lore of the License. Is it lost in advance? Yes of course.
Each attack mobilizes a squad of four marines that you select from your base. For each one, you have to consider their moral state, fatigue, trauma and decide whether or not they will participate in the next mission. His gear, his weapon preferences will be there and it’s up to you to assign what inspires you according to his profile or your playstyle. In short, classic.
Many options in terms of additional equipment will also be included. You only have access to a few of these options on a mission, so you’ll need to carefully choose which ones are useful to you. Yes, our dear Colonial Marines have strong shoulders, but they have limitations. From grooming kits to ammo, from an autonomous defense turret to explosives, the choices are yours depending on your resources or the expected engagement after the briefing.
And what do we do when a beetle attacks us and we spit in its face?
Once the various members of your squad are selected and preparations are complete aboard the ship that will act as your hub, we embark on the mission of our choice. This was also made clear to us during the presentation Most of these forays will be quite lengthy. Count at least a good hour. Progress on fairly large maps is slow and you’ll never fully leave your eye movement sensor. The smallest fight with the xenomorphs will attract others who will hunt you down in the battle zone. Keep moving and keep your eyes open.
Fear is not limited to your perception as a player, it affects you Your soldiers who have a strain gauge. If you let it get too high, you lose combat effectiveness, aim less, waste ammo… you get the idea. Aside from an emergency drug fix, you’re allowed to freeze your progress to bring down this famous meter. If you’re not pressed for time, take position, secure access, deploy your device and let your team breathe for two seconds. Keeping your squad’s combat potential (I love that word) at a high level can only help you, because if one of its members were badly injured and therefore not operational, your mission could quickly turn into a nightmare. It remains to define what will be your priority. The mission or your men?
Exfiltrating, returning to your base and entrusting your wounded to the medics will save them to the detriment of your original objective. And here one of the most important mechanics of the title is revealed! Everything there is persistent. Your men may die, and permanently, but the levels you cross will also haunt your passage. Open doors, structural damage caused by combat, corpses…everything stays in place and as is until your next heist. And this in all accessible areas of the game, be it motivated by a goal abandoned due to lack of equipment along the way, or in the face of too much danger, Your retirement will never force you to start over
Maybe you didn’t catch the game well on TV, but we just wiped our asses man!
Technically difficult to assess before of course having a final version in hand. The atmosphere is properly served by appropriate graphics, but nothing more. That’s not necessarily what we’re looking for in this type of title, but avoid zooming in. If during the presentation I noticed the usual positioning errors within a squad partly managed by an AI, the whole thing remains convincing. Most of the game will require you to evolve in the dark, and only your torches will pierce the darkness of the location. The rendering is effective and blends perfectly with the movies.
When this demo session was played with a keyboard/mouse combo, the onsite team assured us that optimizing gameplay on the controller remains a high priority in order to properly bring the title to consoles. Yet, in the state, it is complicated to perceive this famous stress that our soldiers feel. Since I couldn’t play it, I wasn’t the least bit scared while the enemy is really scary. In the near future, for me, this is the black point of this title, which eminently respects the license but ultimately could miss its target. A game to watch for fans of the genre where the horror must be uncovered or risk not ticking all the boxes.