The Future of Alien/AvP Video Games

Started by PraetorianX101, Dec 30, 2020, 10:57:55 PM

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The Future of Alien/AvP Video Games (Read 4,555 times)

PraetorianX101

After replaying the games recently, it's hard to believe that it's already been 6 years since Isolation and 10 years since the last AvP game. The gaming side of the franchise has evidently been quite dry for a while now, which I find puzzling since this franchise seems to, on paper, have the recipe for amazing video games as seen with Isolation and AvP2. However, for some reason, very few game developers have been able to capitalize on this potential.

In fact, nowadays it seems that few game developers are up to the task of making an Alien game at all. Was this due to 20th Century Fox (RIP) being protective of their properties and unwilling for other developers to take a stab at it? AvP 2010, Colonial Marines, and Isolation were all released within a short timeframe of each other, and after that there's been nothing other than mobile games and Cold Iron's Alien game (that we still know almost nothing about). Even then, Cold Iron's game was described as an action-packed mmo shooter, which doesn't exactly sound promising for an Alien game. Although it's too early to pass judgement, the lack of emphasis on horror and suspense is concerning.

Even Rebellion, the godfathers of the AvP games, have seemingly been forbidden from making new games (despite AvP 2010 being a commercial success) as IIRC they do not have access to the franchise's license anymore. Can this lack of new games be attributed to the failure of Colonial Marines and Isolation's underwhelming sales? Is Alien no longer seen as profitable in the video game medium? If so, then it really is a shame as Isolation was fantastic and really showed just how good a properly done Alien game can be. Despite its flaws, I enjoyed AvP 2010 as well. I'm not particularly optimistic about Cold Iron's game, but I hope they can prove me wrong. In any case, what do think the future holds for Alien/AvP video games? Do you think we will see a resurgence in the franchise's video game scene any time soon, or will Cold Iron's game be the only one to look forward to in the near future?

Stitch

Since the last 3 games didn't light the world on fire, I'm guessing Disney are waiting until Cold Iron's game is released to see what the reception is like before agreeing to anything else.

Corporal Hicks

To be fair, there were another 2 (?) games in the works that we hadn't heard about previously that died as a result of the takeover. Disney aren't really interested in making games, but they'll license them out. So it's on publishers/developers to be interested and purchase them.

Kailem

Kailem

#3
I think licensed games in general have become a casualty of rising development costs over the years. The mid-tier has pretty much disappeared over the last generation or so because if a franchise's audience is somewhat niche (or just not "the biggest thing ever") it limits the potential returns, which is a much bigger deal today when games cost so much more to make than back in the day.

It used to be that there were loads of games made with modest budgets that sold to good but not insane sales and made a profit, and licensed games often fell under that category. But now, unless a property is popular enough to potentially bring in millions and millions of sales, publishers don't deem it worthy of the kind of budgets that a lot of the better-looking AAA games get these days. So it's often only huge properties like Star Wars that still get games somewhat regularly. Otherwise it's mostly huge AAA franchise titles like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed etc., or indies.

To be honest I feel like Alien and Predator have been luckier than most in terms of at least having a couple of games made somewhat recently with at least one more on the way. That's a lot more than many other things have had over the past decade.

[cancerblack]

In the time since Isolation, there have been several traditional games drop for the franchise, and although I'm aware you're talking about videogames, it's worth pointing out that there's been AvP by Prodos Games, the newly released Aliens boardgame from GFNine that they can't keep on the shelves because it's so popular, and the fantastic RPG by Fria Ligan that sells out entire print runs faster than they can keep up with.

Not to mention the deck building games and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Alien and AvP gaming is by no means dead, it just seems to be taking a holiday on the tabletop side of things at the minute.

PraetorianX101

Quote from: Stitch on Dec 31, 2020, 06:53:01 AM
Since the last 3 games didn't light the world on fire, I'm guessing Disney are waiting until Cold Iron's game is released to see what the reception is like before agreeing to anything else.
Yeah. Let's hope that Cold Iron's game does well so that Disney is more willing to license it out to other developers.

Quote from: Kailem on Dec 31, 2020, 06:30:47 PM
To be honest I feel like Alien and Predator have been luckier than most in terms of at least having a couple of games made somewhat recently with at least one more on the way. That's a lot more than many other things have had over the past decade.
That's true. We've been quite fortunate to get as many games as we have. It's just that replaying the games has reignited my desire for more games set in this universe. FPS, Survival Horror, or even Strategy games, like AvP: Extinction (which I really loved)... there's so much potential, so I guess I'm just a little disappointed that there isn't more being done with the franchise videogame-wise that is of the same level of quality as Isolation.

Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Dec 31, 2020, 10:15:09 AM
To be fair, there were another 2 (?) games in the works that we hadn't heard about previously that died as a result of the takeover. Disney aren't really interested in making games, but they'll license them out. So it's on publishers/developers to be interested and purchase them.
Interesting. It's nice to know that there's still been attempts at making new videogames. So if Disney are willing to license it out, I wonder if Rebellion would be interested in making a new AvP game. :o

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Dec 31, 2020, 06:49:23 PM
In the time since Isolation, there have been several traditional games drop for the franchise, and although I'm aware you're talking about videogames, it's worth pointing out that there's been AvP by Prodos Games, the newly released Aliens boardgame from GFNine that they can't keep on the shelves because it's so popular, and the fantastic RPG by Fria Ligan that sells out entire print runs faster than they can keep up with.

Not to mention the deck building games and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Alien and AvP gaming is by no means dead, it just seems to be taking a holiday on the tabletop side of things at the minute.
It's reassuring to hear that even after all this time there's still so much interest in the franchise. Perhaps the future prospects aren't as bleak as I thought. :)

Kailem

Quote from: PraetorianX101 on Dec 31, 2020, 07:42:58 PM
Quote from: Kailem on Dec 31, 2020, 06:30:47 PM
To be honest I feel like Alien and Predator have been luckier than most in terms of at least having a couple of games made somewhat recently with at least one more on the way. That's a lot more than many other things have had over the past decade.
That's true. We've been quite fortunate to get as many games as we have. It's just that replaying the games has reignited my desire for more games set in this universe. FPS, Survival Horror, or even Strategy games, like AvP: Extinction (which I really loved)... there's so much potential, so I guess I'm just a little disappointed that there isn't more being done with the franchise videogame-wise that is of the same level of quality as Isolation.

Oh yeah, for sure I'd love another AVP to be announced sooner rather than later as well. I still feel like the concept hasn't been done to its full potential in the multiplayer front. As much as AVP2's was fun back in the day, it was still basically just an arena shooter with Aliens and Predators. I'd like something more slow-paced and tension-focused, like Rainbow Six Siege or Counter-Strike where the match plays out over a number of rounds with each player only having one life per round, so it makes things naturally "scarier."

Obviously something with another great single-player campaign would be awesome too, but either way I'd be very happy if we ever did get another one, whatever form it might take.

PraetorianX101

Quote from: Kailem on Dec 31, 2020, 08:10:42 PM
Quote from: PraetorianX101 on Dec 31, 2020, 07:42:58 PM
Quote from: Kailem on Dec 31, 2020, 06:30:47 PM
To be honest I feel like Alien and Predator have been luckier than most in terms of at least having a couple of games made somewhat recently with at least one more on the way. That's a lot more than many other things have had over the past decade.
That's true. We've been quite fortunate to get as many games as we have. It's just that replaying the games has reignited my desire for more games set in this universe. FPS, Survival Horror, or even Strategy games, like AvP: Extinction (which I really loved)... there's so much potential, so I guess I'm just a little disappointed that there isn't more being done with the franchise videogame-wise that is of the same level of quality as Isolation.

Oh yeah, for sure I'd love another AVP to be announced sooner rather than later as well. I still feel like the concept hasn't been done to its full potential in the multiplayer front. As much as AVP2's was fun back in the day, it was still basically just an arena shooter with Aliens and Predators. I'd like something more slow-paced and tension-focused, like Rainbow Six Siege or Counter-Strike where the match plays out over a number of rounds with each player only having one life per round, so it makes things naturally "scarier."

Obviously something with another great single-player campaign would be awesome too, but either way I'd be very happy if we ever did get another one, whatever form it might take.
That sounds great. I'd love to see an AvP game that offered an experience like that. The closest thing I can think of that emulates what you described is AvP2's Survivor mode and AvP 2010's Infestation mode, which were my favorite game modes to play. As for single-player, I really enjoyed AvP 2010's marine campaign since Rebellion did a good job imo with establishing a tense and suspenseful atmosphere with their excellent use of lighting and great sound design. Plus, the Alien's AI was surprisingly good too as they would often try to sneak up on the player and avoid gunfire. Anyway, the prospect of Rebellion, or whoever decides to take up the task of making another game, continuing to improve on this formula is something that I'm very eager to see. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long for a new game to release.

Machiko Naguchi

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Dec 31, 2020, 06:49:23 PM
In the time since Isolation, there have been several traditional games drop for the franchise, and although I'm aware you're talking about videogames, it's worth pointing out that there's been AvP by Prodos Games, the newly released Aliens boardgame from GFNine that they can't keep on the shelves because it's so popular, and the fantastic RPG by Fria Ligan that sells out entire print runs faster than they can keep up with.

Not to mention the deck building games and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Alien and AvP gaming is by no means dead, it just seems to be taking a holiday on the tabletop side of things at the minute.

The recent Bug Hunt dice/tile game is also very well done I thought and provides another different type of game experience.

piff

piff

#9
this decade doesn't look good for any kind of corporate backed Alien games, do they even have anything on the agenda?

they wont even develop anything in VR and I think they are just being lazy

lost dragon

Mixed feelings as having literally grown up with Aliens, then AVP games, it's always been a case of highs and lows.


The highs:

Just going to list formats i played them on.

Aliens Electric Dreams C64

Alien 3 MD and SNES

AVP Capcom Arcade

Aliens Konami Arcade

AVP Jaguar

Alien Resurrection Playstation

AVP Rebellion on PC

AVP II Monolith PC.


The lows:

Aliens USA Activision C64

AVP SNES

AVP GB


Aliens:Comic Book Adventure PC

Aliens C. M 360


AVP PSP

Then an awful lot of middle ground titles.


Alien Isolation PS3+PS4

Alien Trilogy Playstation

Alien 3 GB

Alien 3 The Gun Sega Arcade

AVP Extinction Xbox

AVP:Primal Hunt Exp. PC

AVP Playstation 3


I don't think Rebellion are the team to do another AVP title, based on their last effort.


There's ahem, an awful lot of talk on social media from Jane Whittaker about doing a crowd funded AVP  Spiritual Successor, Project Xenomorph, but talk is currently all it is.


How many Aliens/AVP titles line the cutting room floor as is on countless platforms, some never going beyond concept documents (Beyond Software's AVP II for Jaguar, Atari's Jaguar CD AVP wish list)



I've also seen attempts to remake Jaguar AVP in ZDoom show promise, but get abandoned.


I'm honestly not holding out hope for the kind of flagship Aliens games i once knew.



BlueMarsalis79

If you think Alien Isolation's middling, I can understand why, but good shout with Alien Resurrection.

razeak

razeak

#12
I can't understand lol.

Also, Aliens: Infestation is a high on the DS.

BlueMarsalis79

Yeah more like:

Highs:
Alien Isolation
AVP Monolith
AVP Rebellion
Aliens Infestation


Mids:
AVP 2010
Alien Resurrection
Predator Concrete Jungle
AVP Extinction

Lows:
AVP Primal Hunt
Aliens Colonial Marines

lost dragon

My issue with Alien Isolation stems from the amount of hype magazines like Edge and Gamestm built for it's A. I at the time.

It simply created an unrealistic sense of expectation for myself.

One of my biggest issues with Alien Trilogy (Probe), AVP 2010 (Rebellion) and even Monolith with PC AVP II, was i didn't feel the nature of the Xenomorph species was respected well enough for my personal tastes.


Alien Isolation was apparently going to feature revolutionary, unpredictable Creature A. I, what I found was very similar A. I routines to The Evil Within (and later Outlast), which again for myself, ruined the sense of immersion.


Once you learnt you could simply run to checkpoint in certain areas, knew it's patrol routines, trigger points, the feeling of truly being hunted just wasn't there.


Like i say, I bought it on both Playstation 3 and 4,completed it on both, so unlike The Evil Within and Outlast, it's had some serious investment by myself, I abandoned these early on.


I think it's like a modern day The Thing experience for myself, if anyone can remember that from Xbox and Playstation 2.


The Trust gameplay mechanic was heavily hyped, but in reality heavily flawed when you played the game.


Hardware limitations, poor implementation?


I'm not sure, but it just soured the overall experience somewhat.

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