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I just finished the game for the first time, and it was beautiful, perfect down to the last bit. I dare say it's the best entry of the franchise since Isolation. Seeing the franchise gain this victory was so refreshing: Dark Descent is terrific. The gameplay, story, characters, lore—everything is fantastic.
- A tense survival horror RTS with a few too many technical bugs.
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By Leana Hafer
Updated: Jun 20, 2023 3:21 pm
Posted: Jun 19, 2023 6:00 pm
Even with all the wild genre mashups I've seen over the last several years, I don't think I could have ever predicted a survival horror RTS. And that's basically what Aliens: Dark Descent boils down to, adding stealth elements and tense resource management to its isometric, squad-based tactical action. When it's fully locked and loaded, it captures the essence of the 1986 film Aliens better than any game in ages. But slimy, fun-bursting technical issues show their creepy heads too often for Dark Descent to be a smooth ride.
It is entirely possible to go in guns blazing and probably rack up a bunch of easy kills. But every time a xenomorph spots you, it alerts the hive and starts a clock ticking that will cause them to become more numerous and aggressive, which makes the whole rest of the mission harder. The optimal way to play is usually not to get spotted at all. But...
Even a firefight with no lacerations or acid burns takes its toll. Simply encountering aliens, being hunted during a hive activation phase, or even seeing a lot of blips on the motion tracker, all cause stress. This can stack up to three randomized debuffs on your marines, as they go all, "Game over, man! Game over!" and set everyone else even more on edge, miss crucial shots, or become disobedient. So the more horror you've put them through, the less effective they're going to be in a fight.
The way this combines with the hive awareness system to create a natural progression from those first few, teasing engagements with a single drone, to feeling like all hell has broken loose and one wrong move could mean a total squad wipe, is nothing short of brilliant. It humanizes all your little soldiers while making you think really carefully about how to manage your physical and psychological resources. Sometimes it's better to signal the dropship and leave a mission with objectives still incomplete, costing precious time on the campaign map since you'll have to come back later, but saving the lives of your fighters. And it means every mission feels like a good Alien movie, complete with a slow build-up to a shrieking, gunfire-punctuated crescendo.
Aliens Versus Predator 2 (2001)
Aliens vs. Predator (2010)
Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013)
Alien: Isolation (2014)
Aliens: Fireteam Elite (2021)
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Here are all games set in the Alien universe, including games based on Ridley Scott's Alien, James Cameron's Aliens, and the rest. Log in to tag which games you own, have played, finished, or want to play.
And these environments look pretty incredible, too, capturing not just the style, but the atmosphere of James Cameron's unmistakable classic. The way the fog lights up when you shine a flashlight at it is a spine-tingling recreation of the way the film played with light and shadow. The sound design adds to this, with the unsettling squish-squish of marching through the alien-infested areas of the planet Lethe. And all along the way, a variety of mission and objective types keeps every deployment from feeling too samey. There are even some twists later on that introduce new and unexpected enemy types.
If not for the technical issues, this would be easily one of the best Aliens games ever. And it still probably is. Borrowing from some of the greatest squad-based tactics games and adding its own twists, I don't think I've played anything that really gets what was so cool about Aliens, the film, since Monolith's Aliens Versus Predator 2 way back in...
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Jun 25, 2023 · Aliens: Dark Descent is available now for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed using a retail copy provided by Focus Home Interactive.
Jun 21, 2023 · How we reviewed Aliens: Dark Descent. Much like most strategy games, Aliens: Dark Descent is most at home as a PC game so I played around 20 hours of the game’s campaign on that platform ...
- Editor in Chief, Techradar Gaming
- Jake.tucker@futurenet.com
Jun 21, 2023 · The execution isn't quite as successful, but it isn't far off, and even with those narrative shortfalls, it's still the most enjoyable and authentic Aliens game I've played. A powerful generator ...
- Rick Lane
Sep 15, 2024 · Aliens: Dark Descent is to Aliens what Alien: Isolation is to Alien. It’s just an incredible ride, with plenty of fan service and it is the best game I’ve played based on James Cameron’s Aliens since 2001’s Aliens versus Predator 2. Developer Tindalos Interactive just nails the atmosphere and world-building of Aliens. I think because of ...
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Jun 19, 2023 · Aliens: Dark Descent review Aliens: Dark Descent is an authentically atmospheric campaign borrowing from both turn-based tactics and survival horror, stymied by a seemingly deep paranoia you might mistake it for one of those strategy games for nerds. It’s not. It’s not for nerds. It’s for cool Aliens fans. You can use a controller.
