FoxNext Developing Alien Multiplayer Virtual Reality Game

[newbeing]

If it's GearVr I wonder if they'd ever be able to port it over to just the phones for personal play. It would have to cut back on features of course, but would be nice to have a portable VR experience.

[Corporal Hicks]

Another recounting of the event -

This weekend I had a chance to scope out the Alien Descent VR experience that opened last month at the Outlets at Orange, in Southern California. For those of you who haven't heard about it, the Alien social channels started advertising this a bit before 4/26. It's $22 per person, and as of now, requires advance booking. Holy wow, in the words of my wife - this was on par with our first time experiences of Star Tours.

As a breakdown for the event (with minor spoilers); upon entering the venue, which has been done up to look like the inside of the Sulaco or some other Colonial Marines installation, we were lead down the hall to the briefing screen - there, we were instructed to watch a several minute video which was quite well done. In the video, a Colonial Marine Officer instructs the crew on the mission ahead, which is essentially to get to the bug infested planet, kill what we can, and get to the extraction point. At this point we were also familiarized with some of the gear, the Oculus headset (based on Samsung Gear VR?) and the pulse rifle. The headset naturally featured a focus, whereas the gun offered two modes of fire; the pulse round as well as a secondary mode of fire (the grenade shell).

Upon finishing the instructional video, we entered the hypersleep ready room - two standing positions nested in the wall, with the Oculus gear at our sides and in front of us. Therein, the attendant 'Officers' helped us gear up with sensors for our legs and arms, as well as outfit the headset, as we familiarzed ourselves with the docking position of the rifles.

As soon as the headsets were on, we could see we were in a VR version of the same location, sans attendants, but with some accoutrements to the hypersleep pods which weren't there in real life. We were instructed to stay secure in the pods for the duration of the travel to the planet; as we held on to the handles, the VR pod glass came down and we could see the glass frost over.

I would like to point out that as this experience was purportedly running off of the Samsung Gear VR rigs, as such, I wasn't expecting the highest fidelity graphics. I was not let down though, and the real stunner here was the full free roam locomotion and environmental effects that soon followed.

As our hypersleep ended, the pods opened, and my wife and I were given free range to explore as we saw fit, within the limited area available to us. I would say that from the pods to the elevators in our distance was about 30 feet or so? The VR catwalks were not tight, and we were definitely feeling a sense that we were in some offworld terraformer. Down in the distance below we could see the other team of two also doing their own exploring. Soon as we got near the elevator target, facehuggers started leaping out from the nearby pods and then, well, shit got real. Upon entering the elevator, the experience continued through several other environments which basically saw us fending off waves of Xenos and Facehuggers as we made our way to the next areas.

I'm not gonna do a play-by-play of all the action which lasted about 20 minutes, but let me just say that this was one hell of an experience. There is a lot more that they could do with this, and although there may not be a ton of replay value it is absolutely worth the price of admission. I would like to point out that my wife is not a gamer, and is not big on VR tech. That said, in her own words, she was completely sold. She loves the Alien franchise and was completely immersed. My god, her screams alone could be used for the marketing of this thing. Here's hoping this makes its money back and then some so that more of these VR pop-ups can be implemented around the world.

Can't wait to go back.

https://imgur.com/a/BXcoehP

https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/8hrgei/i_survived_alien_descent_the_vr_experience/?st=jgxg7i06&sh=2ce92739

[newbeing]

I wonder if this is roughly what the game looks like graphically.

[OpenMaw]

I hope they weren't that lazy. That's the 2010 AVP alien.

[Corporal Hicks]

[Corporal Hicks]

Following an incredibly successful limited engagement at the Outlets at Orange, ALIEN: DESCENT has just completed its first run in the Los Angeles area.

We're very sorry to those of you who missed it, or were planning a return visit.
However, fueled by the amazing response we received, our team is pushing forward with the development of multiple new immersive VR experiences and expanded venues in the near future. Thank you for your continued interest and excitement... We're looking forward to entertaining you again very soon!

http://www.aliendescent.com/

Hopefully internationally!

[RidgeTop]

Hey all,

I just finished up a retrospective article going through my experiences with this in 2018 and 2019, hope you enjoy!

https://www.avpgalaxy.net/website/articles/express-elevator-to-hell-alien-descent-attraction-retrospective/

[Voodoo Magic]

Once the headset was on, I could see a virtual duplicate of the small room we were in. Looking down at my body, I appeared to be clad in grey marine armor. Looking to my right, I could see SizzyBubbles as yet another grey marine

I reached out to grab the handrail in VR, and I could feel that metal rail on my hand right where it should be.

That is just too cool. Man I'd love to experience something like that one day!

Awesome read RidgeTop!

[j0nesy]

i wish i had a chance to give it a shot when it was around, like voodoo says, hopefully something similar will be released one day

great article and images, ridgetop!

[426Buddy]

Nice! I would have loved this

[Corporal Hicks]

Great read, RidgeTop! Sounded like a blast! Just disappointed it was too far out of the way for me.  I do like the sounds of the cryopods for immersion, but it sounds a little more Halo ODST than Alien. I've got a VR place fairly local, and they do untethered VR, but it's all proprietary games so I doubt I'll get to see Alien in there, but the experience itself was great. I just keep holding onto hope they'll travel with this.

[Kailem]

That sounds really cool! It reminds me of the Alien War attraction in the London Trocadero that I always wanted to go to but never did, and then it was flooded before I ever got the chance.

That's really cool how they incorporated the actual environments you were walking around in with the virtual ones, and added wind and temperature effects too. Even just from the one time I played the icy cold cave level of God of War 2 with a fan blowing in my face I know how much more immersive that can sort of thing can make a game, so I can only imagine how real that must have made it feel!

It's a shame these sort of things only ever seem to pop up temporarily and then are gone for good. Not that I'd ever have been able to visit something as far away as this one was, but it'd be nice if we got a proper, permanent Aliens ride or attraction somewhere in the world.

Come on Disney, LV-426 Kingdom when?!

[SpaceKase]

That sounds really cool! It reminds me of the Alien War attraction in the London Trocadero that I always wanted to go to but never did, and then it was flooded before I ever got the chance.

That's really cool how they incorporated the actual environments you were walking around in with the virtual ones, and added wind and temperature effects too. Even just from the one time I played the icy cold cave level of God of War 2 with a fan blowing in my face I know how much more immersive that can sort of thing can make a game, so I can only imagine how real that must have made it feel!

It's a shame these sort of things only ever seem to pop up temporarily and then are gone for good. Not that I'd ever have been able to visit something as far away as this one was, but it'd be nice if we got a proper, permanent Aliens ride or attraction somewhere in the world.

Come on Disney, LV-426 Kingdom when?!

Same! Soooo agree! But throw a Star Tours -esque dropship sequence in, right in the middle.