There’s a new interview over on DSOGaming with Kevin Floyer-Lea, who is the head of programming at Rebellion and also worked on 1999’s Aliens vs Predator as well the 2010 version. The interview is about the technology behind Sniper Elite 3 but he also mentions that Rebellion are still interested in making a new Aliens vs Predator game. We last heard from Sega in 2011 that there were still things to be done in the Alien universe before they could revisit a sequel to AvP – i.e. Aliens Colonial Marines and Alien Isolation. Here’s the excerpt:
DSOG: One of your most successful games was Aliens vs Predator. Both the Jaguar and PC versions of it were stunning. Would you ever return to that franchise?
Kevin Floyer-Lea: Here at Rebellion we’ve got a particularly strong attachment to the AvP universe, so it could happen. We had a lot of fun playing with people’s minds on the original game by randomising spawn positions so what was a health pack turned out to be an Alien on your next play through. So personally I’d love to see an AvP game with fully procedurally generated levels, where you literally never know what’s around the next corner.
2010’s Aliens vs Predator was in development for years before they announced it and this interview does confirm that a new AvP game is not secretly in development, at least not with Rebellion. When Aliens vs Predator was released it did quite well sales wise and got average to positive reviews. My memory is a little hazy but I’m pretty sure Sega dropped support for it a month or so after its release. So could a new Aliens vs Predator come out for the likes of X-Box One and PS4 in the near future and could Rebellion return to the franchise? Despite some of the criticism from fans it received, we should be thankful it didn’t turn out as bad as Colonial Marines. I could definitely see a new AvP game on the cards at some point but whether Rebellion is involved or not remains to be seen. Thanks to Spoonman101 for the news.
Fair enough, good point.
I don't know about UE2.. but in AvP game where at least in my opinion utilizing shadows is a fundamental
part of character behaviour/gameplay, I think it is a major flaw when the lighting system is so inconsistent
that you can't trust what you see..
i.e. alien tries to hide in the shadows only to stand out like a sore thumb and be blown away from halfway
across the map because.. while the environment (level geometry) appears like a nice dark hiding spot, the
alien (dynamic object) may still be fully illuminated by the differently calculated model lighting...
Me too. I hope that if another game is continued, that they proceed on with that storyline/continuity/universe. Everyone else is just going on with the route of either solo Alien, Predator or Prometheus influenced ideas.. I would really like to see Rebellion continue on with the Karl Bishop Weyland storyline, and keep that continuity alive a little bit longer before leaving it alone to go stale.
The same applied for Unreal Engine 2, didn't it?
Really ? I've always though lighting as one of its major flaws.. as dynamic objects (like characters) were
illuminated separately from the environment and generally in rather inconsistent way...
AvP2 had fantastic lighting, but was let down by the art design, which for some inexplicable reason tried to employ a comic-esque style. Hence ridiculous froggy aliens, David Bowie colonists and a general sense of unreality.
But the engine rendered curved surfaces, dynamic lights, and managed long view distances and massive entity counts without excessive frame loss, so the technology itself was fairly sophisticated for the time.
That same headless fall to the knees and collapse forward animation got on my nerves for the lack of variety.
Storywise it's really captivating.
Gameplay it's great and versatile.
Weapons are a bit ridiculous at times but also maintain variety.
And above all else it can be modded which is why a community still played the game for 9 years until its servers were shutdown..
Not yet, I intend to at some point though.
Did you ever get around playing AvP2?
I remember liking the AVP temple-style one. Otherwise they weren't really anything special, but adequate. Would've been nice to have more based on the singleplayer campaign though.
Judging by the concept art, the game was scaled back quite a bit during development.
It was better when your alien/pred could do whatever he wanted. The animations for the prompt kills became so long that nobody ended up using them anyways which added to their uselessness.
Bring back the auto firing headbites/tail stab and get rid of the prompt button mashing.
Perfectly timing a charged wristblade strike in the original AvP to pop off an alien's head was awesome. Blocking an attack and pressing square to perform a finisher that leaves you totally open to attacks whilst doing it is lame. I got half my kills in multi just sitting back and waiting for somebody to engage in a button mash fest and picking them off while they did it.
It was a lame mechanic.
Still, overall I quite enjoyed it and I'd be interested in them doing another.
this guy is closer to my thought process
we should post a manifesto on rebellion's website. Even though we will all buy the game anyways and Rebellion will just knock off COD again anyways.
But I won't say its a presentation issue but more the style of play they brought in. Hackneyed weak story with button mashing prompt gameplay. Just didn't feel that it fit at all.
The whole time I played it with the exception of elements of the Pred it felt like just a cheap b horror movie knockoff of an actual Alien or Predator campaign. There was no horror, no atmosphere, it just felt weak.
I didn't think it looked bad, and didn't mind the future tech by the Marines, and thought that the 2010 game actually portrayed the "warrior cult" of the Marine Corps the best of any game/movie/book in the franchise. But that's all I'm giving it.
Rubbish. It played well and looked/ran well.
AVP 2010 was doomed to mediocrity right from the initial development decisions. I remember all these press interviews with Rebellion's development team leading up to the release of the game, and they kept repeating the same thing over and over...
"We're working really hard to 'balance' the game."
"We want to get the 'balance' just right."
"We have teams of people playing night and day to nail down the proper 'balance' between the species."
And right there I knew the game would be "average" at best. And it was.
Let's be honest. What does "balancing" mean? It means nerfing. It means taking everything that the fans love about these creatures and watering it down to the point where NOBODY is happy.
Monolith had it right. LET THE PLAYERS DECIDE WHAT IS "BALANCED".
If you think the Predator's smart disc is too overpowered, fine. Host your own match and turn those off. If someone doesn't agree with that, they can play with a different host. If they could do it on the PC back in 2000, there's absolutely no reason why they can't do it on both PC and consoles today. The moment a developer starts thinking that it's going to force this "one size fits all" determination of what is "balanced" on the community by nerfing everything, the game is destined for bargain bin obscurity.
Of course, the developer inevitably comes back with the "Well, we don't want to divide up the player community" line. Well, guess what? You know what REALLY divides up the player community? Making a boring, watered-down game. After less than 90 days, there weren't enough people playing online to even get a decent match started. If you take the time to cater the game to what the PLAYERS (read: "paying customers") want, there will be plenty of players hosting plenty of matches.
So please...Rebellion or whoever might make another AVP game in the future: please stop ruining these characters. Give us ALL the genuine weapons and all the skins from the films and give players the tools to decide what to do with them in multiplayer.
Oh, and for god's sake...somebody show the ALIEN some damn respect. Enough with the snarling dogs on all-fours thing. That's not an ALIEN. I don't know if Creative Assembly's "Isolation" game will be any good this fall, but their Alien looks a hell of a lot better than anything seen in AVP 2010.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Elder Scrolls games have eye-poppingly productive modding communities and a very successful set of DLCs/expansions. Same goes for Dawn of War, Total War, CS:GO and Civilization.
Does help when the developers' content is deep and asset-rich, on a scale that modders rarely attempt - more Dragonborn than Horse Armour, for example.
I'd love to see what you could've done with AVP'10 had Rebellion released the SDK.
Nope. It looked nice but lacked finishing, it played horrible (well, as a PC-shooter anyway, haven't played on console for a good reason) and it ran decent but not impressive.
I hope the next AvP game will be made by someone who hold modding in a "slightly" higher regard..
I wouldn't be opposed to Rebellion doing another one but they need to learn from AvP2010 - what worked and what didn't work.
Rebellion has a poor track record, has proven to have little learned from their 1999 version so we end up with games that look and sound the part but play wonky.
I'd rather see Raven try. Their own title Singularity is underrated but a true piece of love and work, their Jedi Knight was great when it comes to staying true to the source-franchise. But seeing Raven hasn't been working on big titles on their own as of late...
Monolith's try was superior in terms of storytelling and overall feel, though they made a sure miss when they opted for staying a bit too close to their art-style.
But AvP done better is always interesting IMO, just hope they do better than AvP'10.
Once you got used to it I found AvP2010 to be fluid and leaping from surface to surface was great. I'd like to see the modern style kept for the marines. I loved flicking the tracker up. And the upgrade system. AvP2010 had no real upgrade system and the skins just weren't enough IMHO.
It would be a cheap way to up the tension knowing you need to swap between weapon and tracker but the motion tracker itself brings tension anyways.
That was one of the things I loved about Colonial Marines. The Motion Tracker being a seperate thing, and ADS with the pulse rifle(But hope that it wont be god damn 3 burst -_-)
So many here still have this stubborn attitude towards the FPS for AVP, they'e done it how many times now? And have gotten the pacing worth a spit.
So RIGHT ON! And Make it using Resident Evil 6's engine. Damn straight.
-Each species needs their own stories. Maybe at some points have them connect, but not as much like in AvP'10.
-No grabbing attacks. This annoying as hell.
-Add Classes like in (AvP2) Each class is great in a different area of combat and movement.
-Facehugger mode! THIS IS NEEDED FOR A FULL ALIEN EXPERIENCE.
-Keep Co-op out of this(Unless a decision for a movie event that replicates itself from a film.