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We finally have a few more details as to why the Aliens RPG, aka Aliens: Crucible from Obsidian got cancelled. Creative game director for Obsidian Josh Sawyer spoke candidly to IGN this week and mentioned the internal problems they had with the game.

The Aliens RPG was first announced at the end of 2006 and a few months after Aliens vs. Predator was announced in early 2009, Sega mysteriously cancelled the RPG. The only official statement we had was from Obsidian SEO Feargus Urquhart who said in 2010 they were very close to finishing the game. Contrary to that interview, Josh Sawyer tells a very different story.

Early on in development, Obsidian had trouble getting the message across to the public that the Aliens franchise and RPGs were a good match and outside of the Mass Effect series, sci-fi RPGs were never a big thing. Obsidian wrote a pitch of the game to Sega and the original title was Aliens: Ohlmeyer (sp?). (The title Aliens: Crucible was found on some released concept art). Originally, Josh Sawyer came on board as the lead designer and creative directors didn’t exist at the time at Obsidian.

Sawyer eventually came aboard as the creative director at the tail end of development due to major internal problems between the various teams at Obsidian. For example, if the design team wanted something, but the animators thought it wasn’t worth while, there was nobody there to make the important decisions.

Sawyer goes on to say that despite what Feargus said earlier, the Aliens RPG was far from finished – there were major problems with area development and animation and ultimately, the levels were not being made at a fast enough pace. Sega eventually lost patience and pulled the plug on the game. Many people at Obsidian lost their jobs and the company was on the brink of financial collapse due to yet another game getting cancelled.

You may remember the Aliens RPG gameplay footage that was leaked a few years ago. According to Sawyer, that was not the last milestone they did – it was one or two milestones behind what they had finished and the game looked a lot better than it did in those videos. Unfortunately, it was all too little too late and Sawyer said that it didn’t come as a surprise when Sega cancelled it.

Old gameplay footage from the game.

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Now that Dead Space is dead, and RE2 is making survival horror popular again- it's really the best timing for a slew of new Alien games.

Such a shame looks like it had a great amount of potential. I'm probably one of the very few that loves aliens cm

Quote from: The Old One on Jun 30, 2018, 06:10:37 PM
Now that Dead Space is dead...

EA, make us whole again.

I wish this one got finished it looks cool!

The gameplay videos looked great. Really sad it got canceled.

If the gaming world had a good Aliens rpg in the same style as Far Cry or Mass Effect...I would lose my job due.to late nights on the Xbox. Wishful thinking for this game to exist...or perhaps a Fornite: Save the World...with Aliens and Colonial Marines and all that universe would entail. Wish I was a rich man. I would finance it myself. (And screw the profit margin)

This could be so amazing. It would be ruined for me if there were "types" of aliens though. Lookin' at you ACM

Anyone Remember Alien Trilogy? :D, such a good game, i wish they'd make an RPG of that with what was canceled :/

I'm still not too sure of how well it would have worked but I'd have been eager to see the finished result. Shame we don't really get any documentaries about video games - I think Crucible and Colonial Marines would be as interesting as the Alien 3 behinds the scene drama!

I reached out to Josh to ask about the title he said but so far no reply.

The guarantee would have been Chris Avellone.

I love the Alien 3 drama it was like Bold and Beautiful.

Quote from: The Old One on Jul 02, 2018, 11:39:59 AM
The guarantee would have been Chris Avellone.

There was a pretty chunky interview with him back in 13 that I don't really remember that well.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-27-obsidian-base-building-in-aliens-crucible-canned-games-and-publishers-now-open-to-kickstarter-sized-projects

Unfortunate, but it happens a lot in the game industry. :(

Quote from: Guts on Jul 02, 2018, 06:57:18 AM
Anyone Remember Alien Trilogy?

Still got the theme on my mp3 player. Tons of fun on the ol' ps1.

I still listen to the soundtrack regularly. My first real Alien gaming experience. I really wished they'd have re-released that on the various arcades ages ago.

I really wish this would start back up or something.

Yeah me too. I totally want to play the hell out of this game. 😡

More than gameplay, Chris Avellone has written some of the best stories in videogaming, so that's where we really missed out.

Quote from: Huggs on Jul 02, 2018, 11:30:06 PM
Still got the theme on my mp3 player. Tons of fun on the ol' ps1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPzRI555Uwo&list=PL05367013048EF504

(for those that don't)

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And then I found this:

Great tracks but I prefer the Alien 3 NES music.

I suck at RPGs and I kinda hate playing them but I would have picked this up in a heartbeat. It would have brought some much needed variety to the Aliens universe and Aliens video games beyond the usual FPS. Thankfully Isolation helped add variety to Alien games but the cancellation of this title still stings.

Yesterday Josh Sawyer was our guest for a talk 'bout game development, there was a short part 'bout Alien as well. Whatever, i guess there will be an upload of the talk, will post a link here if that's the case. Went out for a couple of drinks as well and i didn't ask a single question 'bout Alien ... I'm an idiot :D

What do you host?

I'm part of a small society in Austria to connect and support local game developers/students/hobbyists, sometimes we host talks/events at our university involving folks from the industry.

Ah, cool! Looking forward to seeing whatever you guys upload.

Completely forgot to upload it...late, but here we go. Just a short bit 'bout design, starts at 23:47 for 5min
https://youtu.be/6r6JSHlq7WU?t=1427

... will be our guest once again in September, lets see if i come up with an Aliens question this time :D

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1647633983457628160