GAME · 2013 · USA
Aliens: Colonial Marines
10 archived facts 3 topics
Gearbox Software's 2013 shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines was conceived as an official sequel to James Cameron's Aliens, but a troubled, largely outsourced development and a hostile reception left it outside the canon.
10 Interesting Facts About Aliens: Colonial Marines
Interesting Facts (8)
- #001
- #002
- #003
Fifield's red mapping balls from the Engineer ship in Prometheus (2012) can often be seen flying around during a mission aboard the derelict ship from the original Alien (1979), now occupied by Weyland-Yutani. Shooting the Space Jockey's head repeatedly also triggers a holographic sequence showing a battle between 2 different ships.
- #004
- #005
Gearbox had so many fans of James Cameron's Aliens (1986) on staff that the creative team chose to build the game as a follow-up to that film. Futurist Syd Mead, who had worked on Aliens, was brought in so the new designs would stay visually consistent with the movie. Aliens: Colonial Marines was first announced as the official sequel to Aliens, but its canon status was revoked once the game met with overwhelmingly negative reviews.
- #006
Publisher SEGA and developer Gearbox Software were sued for false advertising in a class action brought by two players, who argued the game looked quite different from what early promotion had promised. The demos and screenshots shown at E3 in 2011 ran on high-end computers far more powerful than the target consoles; optimized for the older PS3 and Xbox 360, the software had to be scaled back so heavily that the finished game looked much worse than earlier versions. Gearbox was eventually dropped from the suit, since it was only the developer and had no marketing responsibility, and the case lost class-action status by 2015.
- #007
Timegate Studios, maker of the F.E.A.R expansions, built the main campaign in nine months. Darkside Studios and Gearbox Software made Aliens: Stasis Interrupted together. Nerve Software, behind the early Call of Duty multiplayer modes, handled multiplayer, and Demiurge Studios made Bug Hunt mode.
- #008
Gearbox Software set out to make a game set in the established Alien universe after creative director Brian Martell met Alien director Ridley Scott. Sega then acquired the rights from 20th Century Fox and gave Gearbox complete freedom to develop it. After Colonial Marines shipped, however, it emerged that Gearbox had scored an unexpected hit with Borderlands (2009) during development and opted to prioritize Borderlands 2 (2012). When Sega learned that Gearbox was still drawing full payment while not devoting its full attention to the game, it even halted the project temporarily. Following several lay-offs at Gearbox, production resumed with much of the development outsourced to TimeGate Studios. But because both Sega and Gearbox had to sign off on TimeGate's work and could not agree on the story or many gameplay elements, further delays followed, and frequent story changes forced entire scenes and missions to be scrapped.
Production Story (1)
- #009
The game spent almost 6 years in development from 2007, hit by setbacks, delays and staff changes before Sega and Gearbox pushed the project forward. Sega had originally planned an Alien RPG from Obsidian Entertainment alongside Colonial Marines, but financial trouble and delays forced its cancellation in 2009. When TimeGate was brought in during 2010 to help get Colonial Marines moving, it found that Gearbox had made surprisingly little progress over those 3-4 years because it had prioritized other games. Gearbox, taking the project back in 2012, was in turn unimpressed with TimeGate's work, which could not even run on a PS3. After so many years and delays, however, they could not ask Sega for another extension. Former staff have alleged that the game was rushed to completion in a final nine-month crunch to avoid possible litigation from Sega for breach of contract: "The game feels like it was made in nine months, and that's because it was."
Deeper Meaning (1)
- #010
Contains a major spoiler — show
The game resolves several mysteries from Alien³ (1992): it explains how an Alien egg came to be aboard the Sulaco, reveals that Ripley was the one facehugged at the start, and accounts for the Sulaco's fate and an alternative cause of the fire aboard that led to her EEV being jettisoned. It also changes Hicks's fate (showing that someone else ended up in his cryotube and was mistaken for him at Fiorina 161), reveals what became of Private Hudson, and controversially asserts that once a chestburster is implanted, removing it will not save the host from dying. The game was intended to be official canon, but its negative reception and unpopularity mean most fans, and seemingly even Fox Studios, disregard it as part of the franchise.
