Aliens: Dark Descent

released on Jun 20, 2023

Drop into the gripping journey of Aliens: Dark Descent, a squad-based, single-player action game in the iconic Alien franchise. Lead your soldiers in real-time to stop a new and terrifying kind of Xenomorph outbreak on Planet Lethe.


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This game truly is great from a design AND execution perspective. The downside is that it's a very dense set of game systems (with a lot of great tutorials) and is also quite hard. Add to that the expectation of Aliens games being mediocre at best and a genre that doesn't get a lot of love and it's clear why this has flown under the radar.

Make no mistake though. This game is everything you've ever wanted if you're a fan of both Aliens and tactical strategy games.

Really want to know what these guys do next because it's so clear that they have a LOT of passion for doing things right.

I feel like Aliens: Dark Descent lacks the tactical thinking that would make it engaging and has so many mechanics that distract from what could've been a more interesting game had the developers focused more on gameplay.

It can be tense but comes with seriously annoying things. The game has a death clock in it, good grief. This is not like the OG Xcom where a campaign was randomized and could completed in a reasonable time frame or Majora's Mask where a major mechanic of the game is resetting progress, it's 30 hours. It feels like it totally disrespects the player's time. Ultimately, I quit because I felt I had better games to play.

Aliens Dark Des-cent deez nuts lmaooo

Aliens Dark Descent is overall a really good game.

I haven't really played another game like this before. Turn based squad shooters are all too common in this age of gaming, but Dark Descent switches it up by putting us in real time combat. It's one of the few games I've played that can usher in a true sense of panic when you realize that you may lose a soldier, or even a whole squad because of one bad move.

The soldier classes offer a fair bit of variety, while not making you feel like you're missing out if you lack a class on a deployment. The game offers you upgrades for each class through rank ups, but they are the same class upgrades for every character of that class. This is not a game where you can branch out your builds and have some variety, which is okay. If we're all being honest we would just pick the meta anyway and roll with that.

Lastly, the story is just okay. It's good enough to keep you interested through your time playing the game, but it's not something that's going to bring you back to the game just to experience it again. To keep it spoiler free I won't delve in too much, but the human involvement in the antagonistic side is interesting. I saw a lot of people dogging on that part of it, and i don't think it warrants that. The game has to have more depth than just fighting aliens. The alien exclusive conflict is good for a 2 hour movie, not a video game that stretches 20 hours plus.

Again, overall it's a good game and I encourage people to play it. It's a refreshing experience in modern gaming. It's not triple A, but that's more and more becoming a plus, not a negative.

Electrifying. I was constantly astonished with how many smart decisions the game made in adapting Aliens, and how demanding the real-squad piloting can be.

It's a game that is deliberately, proudly punishing and yet I was happy to roll with its punches because they all made for a good story. I don't regret leaving Latimer behind, the squad would have never made it out alive otherwise!