Following a hands-off demo of Tindalos Interactive’s upcoming Aliens: Dark Descent at GamesCom 2022, video game outlets are now starting to share their impressions. IGN uploaded a new video talking about their time with the demo. While the video doesn’t go into many new specifics, they do talk about how Dark Descent will also feature tower-defence like moments where your squad is required to hold-up in a location, welding doors shut and setting up turrets.
The video also talks about how you can recruit civilians such as engineers to improve your home base. IGN also compared the video to XCOM and Rogue, re-iterating that the world of Aliens: Dark Descent is a persistent world where you can revisit locations, and they will be in the same state you left them in with doors welding shut.
VG247 also shared a written impressions’ article that went into far more detail than IGN. Once again, VG247 made the comparison to XCOM, but said it went fair beyond being XCOM reskinned in Aliens.
The connection to the Firaxis strategy reboot is undeniable, obviously. A glance at the structure of the game, where you return to a hub base to manage soldiers with light RPG progression elements, or the pre-mission launch screen, makes it especially clear. It looks very similar. But, dig beyond that, particularly into the flow of combat and exploration in the strategy scenarios – and suddenly you see how Dark Descent is putting a distinctly different twist on the idea of a squad-based tactics game where you fend off powerful extraterrestrial creatures.
Most different is movement, which is both real-time and free-form, meaning you don’t have time to think about decision-making in the same way and movement takes place in full 3D as opposed to on a grid. This ramps up the pressure as your marines push through cramped corridors, making use of motion trackers (this is the Alien universe, after all) to keep track of where aliens are stalking. You can get jumped at any time, and there’s no turns or pausing to save you.
Keeping track of the map is important, because you’re not just on temporary ‘battle box’ maps that exist only for firefights. You’re exploring a wider area, a base that you’ll gradually uncover. It’s almost a bit like how a planet might work in a Metroid game, even though it’s a completely different sort of game – and you’ll even be able to uncover shortcuts across the planet to that end. Perspective-wise, the map, real-time movement and camera perspective almost makes it look like a spacebound Diablo, at least for a moment.
VG247 also elaborated on the combat, stating that while it wasn’t turned based, there was still an ability to slow time down enough to allow you to issue orders to your squad. Talking on the combat system they said:
There’s a lot of tactics to manage, too. You’ve got a squad of four that can be any of six different classes, each with abilities, weapons, and skills to consider. The two key stats to manage are health and stress – the former familiar and the latter a representation of the sanity of your marines. The more stressed they are, the worse their performance will be – topping out in outright panic, where a Marine is rendered practically useless.
Combat is real time, but you can slow things to a crawl, allowing orders to be issued. This also has the bonus of looking extremely cool. If you set up an ambush in a doorway, watching a hail of bullets slow-mo slam into a Xenomorph is extremely satisfying.
Footage from Aliens: Dark Descent’s announcement trailer was also included in a montage for the Disney & Marvel Games Showcase taking place on the 6th of September, so we’re hoping to see more about the game at D23 Expo. Be sure to head on over to our Aliens: Dark Descent page to check out what we know about the game so far!
Thanks to Xenomorphing for the link! Make sure to keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest intel on Aliens: Dark Descent! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums!
@[cancerblack]
Just in time for Looby birthday.
https://store.focus-entmt.com/us/product/814037/aliens-dark-descent
Pre-order incentive:
Sounds good to me!
I hope friendly fire and acid blood spray/splash damage is a real thing in this game, forcing the player to be as cautious and calculated as possible, or things will go south faster like an express elevator to hell. Stress, fear and exhaustion should also have a big impact on the marines, just as the leadership of each squad's NCO.
Also, make each and every Xenomorph a dangerous match, making the kill count for each mission low - I'm talking 7 to 10 adult xenos killed per mission at the very most, not counting facehugggers, eggs, chestbursters or incapacitated/severely wounded xenos. Like, pistol bullets should ricochet 9 times out of 10 against adult xenos, shotguns should only be lethal to adult xenos up close, flamethrowers should only ward off and disorient adult xenos but should be an effective lethal option against eggs/chesbursters/facehuggers, whereas pulse rifles/smartguns should be the most effective way to kill or incapacitate xenos in general, with the downside of pulse weapons resulting in the most far-reaching range and radius when it comes to acid blood spraying and splashing over nearbyish marines. Using grenades or explosives too close to a friendly marine, who's still outside of the blast radius, should still shell-shock, stun or knock over the marine temporarily. Sentry guns, proxy mines, PUPs etc. should be the mainstay of any successful mission.
If you want a incapacitated or severely wounded marine to survive, you will have to escort them to an APC, dropship or an extraction zone. The saved marine still won't be able to be used again until the next mission. Field medics should only be able to heal light wounds (light acid wounds, light shrapnel wounds, friendly fire pistol bullets or stray buckshot, light burn wounds), administer drugs that lower stress and trauma.
And NO powerloader fights, please!
I remember in XCOM you could get kinda fond of your soldiers if they managed to make it through several missions in one piece, and it sucked to then have them die later on in the game. It was a cool way of making you actually care about what happened to them without any of them having any sort of real character or personality.
Judging by the trailer it seems like it won't be a shooting gallery cannon fodder Aliens type of game. I hope it's a really hard game where you lose tons of marines along the way, as opposed to Aliens: Fireteam Elite
Hopefully Alien Day, if not then perhaps we'll have something for E3 in June!
Me after logging in to check for more Dark Descent news.
https://twitter.com/RichardMasaArt/status/1534967097167597572
I love the job role "Giger's art style advisor"
https://twitter.com/RichardMasaArt/status/1535293555538808832
Have they said SOMA is an inspiration or something? I adore that game so I love when people bring it up lol
Gameplay starts at around 9:40
Along with some screenshots that I got:
https://i.postimg.cc/8CmrGs9M/Capture4.png
https://i.postimg.cc/PfRTCTkD/Capture2.png
https://i.postimg.cc/PrvhZ9tR/Capture3.png
GearsAliens: TacticsI just hope we can name and edit the looks of our squads.
Also it being SP only; I hope they will have mod support cause yeah, just kinda goes well with games like this with new units, weapons, mechanics, enemies, ect.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5637f9fbe4b0baa6d85a1011/1506301140303-PQIL7KZW627GFXCT3ROJ/Hero.png?format=1500w
Sounds kinda comfy, honestly. If they're literally stopping to squat and eat, it'd be cool if they popped off at jokes and each other and forced some canned laughter to try and keep up their morale.
Rad. That was something I was hoping Colonial Marines would have more of, but it ended up being largely limited to specific story segments and one of the multiplayer modes. I wished it had worked more like Killing Floor, where you can weld almost any door shut to make choke points and dynamically effect map flow- at least until the zeds overwhelm your door and bust it down.
Spoiler
I'm very interested in seeing what the new enemies are. Xeno cultists? Bug-Men like the A:CM comic? Black Goo mutants?
Spoiler
Oh snap. Well, I guess it is the only way to be sure. I imagine that's a way to prevent the player from cheesing the game's stress mechanics and resting marines too often.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/be9a7606e8c142bfd3a0eebc4c8d8c2a/tumblr_nwsoseF1zk1r8l821o1_500.gif
Same, very curious about what part SOMA will play.
No idea at this point, I'm afraid.
I'm finding myself more and more excited for this one. Everything I'm hearing about it has me intrigued.
I also really like the XCOM comparisons about returning to your base/crashed ship between missions and building it up. As fun as the actual missions in XCOM were, I also really enjoyed the base building aspects too, so that could be a lot of fun.
Hope we get to do what you could do in that game and build ourselves an Alien containment facility and bring some xenos back to study too!
f**k yes.
Oh spooky! I love this idea! And it is a neat incorporation of both approaches to the motion tracker we have seen in prior Alien media.
Sounds stressful, in a good way.
Are the six classes, Gunner, Demolisher, Technician, Doc, Recon and Phalanx?
those were clips form dark descent though, and theres no trailer for the vr game as far as im aware