PC Steam review code provided by Focus Entertainment
Dark corridors, flashing lights partially revealing scenes of death and gore, and a prickling on the back of your neck as the motion sensor lights up. Where there is one Xenomorph, there is always more. Aliens: Dark Descent takes players to the planet of Lethe, just as mysterious creatures begin to attack and overwhelm the various human locations. Developed by Tindalos Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment, this game is a fresh take on the tactical strategy genre, featuring squad-based real-time missions and a base and troop management backdrop. Facing these nightmares can take its toll, so players must watch out for their soldier’s stress levels in a mission and manage their traumas and wounds when they return to base. Careful work is required to have any chance of survival for the Marines and whoever else may remain on the planet.
Story
Aliens: Dark Descent begins on the orbital station above planet Lethe, with Deputy Administrator Maeko Hayes worrying about a troubling development in the lower decks. As anyone who has seen any of the Aliens franchise will know, the trouble is only just starting. After Xenomorphs and their face-hugging spawn begin attacking the station, Hayes escapes and is thrust into a new leadership position on the grounded USS Ortego, a United States Colonial Marines ship and the only hope for the now-infested planet. After being introduced to Sergeant Harper, a marine who is in charge due to the loss of their commanders, they set to work trying to figure out what is happening and how they can escape or warn other systems. So begins the true Dark Descent, which weaves a dark tale of obsession, corporate greed, and an alien menace never seen before. While I don’t know if the story of the game is “canon” to the Aliens universe at large, it definitely encapsulates the fear and hope from the series.
While not an award-winning story by any means, I still found myself attached to the characters and enjoyed how it weaved the action of the missions into the overall plot. Each mission matters, and it definitely begins to feel ragged and difficult as time goes on. This matches the story’s plot, and though I have not fully finished the story I have enjoyed some unexpected twists and horrifying revelations that have come from it. However, even when things appear to be truly dark and impossible, there is always hope.
Gameplay
The gameplay of this game is an interesting mix of tactical RPG, base management, and real-time strategy. For each deployment, players will choose members of their squad, outfit their weapons and gear, and then drop them into specific points on large maps that can sometimes take multiple deployments to finish. The pre-planning is important, as certain classes or traits synergize well and allow a much higher survival chance as well as being able to accomplish tasks. A squad without a Sergeant will have fewer points to spend on abilities, forgetting a medic means it will take longer to heal, and if you don’t have a Tecker or someone with the Smart-Ass trait you won’t be able to hack encrypted doors. All of these means that promoting your troops between missions, training them well, and knowing how to set up squads can greatly increase your chances of success, especially once everything goes horribly wrong (I write from experience here).
Once in the location, the squad is controlled as a single unit. Right-clicking will result in the team leader moving to the location with the squad while holding left-click will have the nearest marine point their flashlight in that direction. You can also order the squad to do certain actions, and specific members of the squad will be selected for each task based on their traits. Be careful with the actions you do, as most things have permanence in Aliens: Dark Descent. Leave a motion tracker or seal a door, and it will still be there when you land. It also means that a decision you made last deployment can haunt you. I once cleared a room of ammo the first time I went through a mission, then left the mission with almost 12 ammo. Two deployments later, after fighting off a horde of enemies and losing a man, I was down to 0 ammo and the room had nothing for me. Conserving supplies while still being able to accomplish your missions is a tough balance, and Dark Descent can be truly brutal when you make a mistake.
This brutality is felt through various parts of the combat and gameplay. Each deployment begins with your squad undetected by the hive. Utilizing the squads’ motion trackers as well as any you have deployed, the squad can duck into rooms or behind certain covers when the ominous beeping dot comes closer. They will also need to watch out for Xenomorphs in air vents as they can ambush your squad. However, inevitably, something will go wrong. A single Xeno will walk through the wrong door, the squad will stumble across eggs and have to open fire, or a mission task will alert everything nearby. Then the hunt begins or the squad is detected.
When a hunt starts, the hive will send drones and expendable units to find your squad. If they are able to bog down your squad long enough, the aggressiveness of the hive will level up and a horde will attack. At that point, all you can do is find a kill zone, set up as many auto turrets as you can, and get ready. Manage to survive, and the aggressiveness level will be higher and the hive more likely to send stronger enemies to your team. Once you reach High aggressiveness, it is probably best to leave as only certain death will follow. Throughout this, your squad will be gaining stress, with each level of stress giving random debuffs. These debuffs quickly stack up, and your squad can go from a stone-cold team of killers to a blubbering bunch of ammo wasters if you aren’t careful. You can remove stress levels by either using meds (of which you have a limited supply unless you find more around) or by sealing all doors to a room and resting. Resting is incredibly helpful in keeping the squad from dying from stress-related problems, and can also give certain buffs based on the traits of the squad.
This sort of gradual ramp-up can lead to intense moments when something goes wrong and a high level of tension when undetected and trying to creep around as aliens stalk the hallways nearby. I remember holding off a horde during a mission objective, and then as time came to start leaving I got attacked by another horde. Low on ammo, with most of the marines stressed, we set up the turrets and mines, tossed a flare to give an accuracy buff, and waited. A screech rang out, and the motion trackers I had set further back along our path lit up with movers. I watched as they raced directly toward my men, and counted at least 20. More screeches, and soon the sound of doors opening reached us as they closed in. Once they crossed the threshold into the room, all of the guns opened up.
Acidic blood and parts of Xenomorphs flew around, and I have a member of the squad fire a grenade into the open door, taking out another few and slowing the rest as they came into the room. However, it wasn’t enough. One of the guns shut off, out of ammo, and a few made it through. The close combat was intense, with acidic blood damaging my marines as I used the ability menu to slow time and fire shotguns at the closest aliens. By the end of the fight, one woman was dead and we had another marine down, with his highlighted aura showing his leg on the other side of the room. The remaining two soldiers cleared the sentry turrets, grabbed the downed man and the dead woman’s dog tags, and headed to the exit. I was still sweating when they got into the APC and left, and that was only one deployment in my almost 30 hours of Aliens: Dark Descent. That guy who lost his leg had it replaced by a cybernetic one and became one of my highest-level medics.
Audio and Visuals
The Aliens universe is dark, both in tone and in lighting. Scary Xenomorph aliens clearly don’t love bright sunshiny days and open fields. Most of Dark Descent takes place in ships and buildings, with almost claustrophobic hallways full of darkness cut only by the swath of your squads’ flashlights. On some maps, you have to turn the power on to have any form of light besides the flashlights, and it definitely contributes to a spookier mood. I only say this to follow up by saying that the graphical quality is great! I was running at over 60fps with maxed-out settings, and seeing the way the light played across the different environments was always very cool and atmospheric. With bad graphics, this would be a goofy game. With the quality they have, it becomes scary. Though it felt like the cutscenes were a lower quality, they still match the aesthetic of the gameplay graphics and I never felt pulled out by low quality or graphics glitches.
Audio also shines, though not as literally. The sounds of your marines’ footsteps, the hum of machinery, and the distant noises of Xenomorphs moving around are well done, and I was surprised a few times by how good the directional audio was when I was getting jumped by Alien horrors. The gunshots are crisp and directly contrast the drawn-out screeches of attacking aliens, and any of the abilities add to the mix with their own cacophony of sound. With that being said, I had a few audio glitches with certain noises being repeated unnecessarily to the point of being annoying, but all these were fixed by loading a checkpoint or leaving the mission. Beyond that, the voice acting was actually great in missions, with individual marines sometimes chirping out their own lines in combat or in response to the story cutscenes.
Replayability
Ah, hello again my old friend. The question here is how replayable can a story-driven tactical game be? The answer will depend on your preferences. If you enjoy the combat and general gameplay loop, I believe you could easily replay this game just to try to 100% it or at least try to make the perfect marine crew. If you are here for the story, it will probably be one and done. However, as a side option, if you enjoy the gameplay and are a fan of Aliens I think this game could easily be replayed multiple times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone managed to put 100-150 hours into it. Will I? No, but the interesting lore objects and fun gameplay combined with the management aspects for a whole new Aliens story will definitely lead others to do so. Overall, I would say most gamers can get through one campaign and start a new one with no problem (30-45 hours), but it definitely has enough depth for another full playthrough. Beyond that, it has yet to be announced if there will be expansions or DLC to extend the replayability.
What It Could Have Done Better
The game is functionally fantastic. It feels so unique and fresh in a world of similar games and reskinned genres, and I have had such a blast playing Dark Descent. Of course, it wouldn’t be a new game without bugs. Hopefully, these get ironed out with a post-release update, but some of them truly turned around my game experience and made a fun and engaging game just lame. One of the biggest and most annoying bugs is tied to one of the coolest mechanics. With the game selecting the best squad member for each task, you only have to manage the overall location and goals of the squad without micromanaging, but when it breaks it means you can’t fix it.
Multiple times I had someone downed that was assigned tasks, which typically led to either loading my last checkpoint or just trying to leave the mission if I was unable to proceed. When you pick up the character, they will still be assigned tasks. This means when you tell your team to tear down turrets after an attack, it will sometimes task it to the downed member, and you can’t select anyone else. This occurs regardless of the task, and it was so bad once I literally reset an hour-long mission because it kept tasking my downed soldier with opening a door when I had another squad member that could do it.
This sort of lock could be avoided by allowing manual override on selecting who would do each task, though I understand why they made the choice they did. However, when it breaks it breaks bad. Once this bug and a few minor ones are taken care of, such as characters becoming weapon locked to pistols or stuck doing animations, this will be an incredibly unique gaming experience.
Verdict
I only watched two of the Alien movies, and never really played many of the other games. With that being said, Aliens: Dark Descent was such an interesting and compelling look into the universe that I had to go back and rewatch the classic Alien with Sigourney Weaver. Beyond the story, the gameplay is engaging, unique, and enticing. I was at multiple points beaten down and barely escaped, which only led me to push harder and try new tactics to win. The blend of tight tension when undetected to the sharp pangs of fear and excitement when the hive is attacking has been a blast. Leveling up my marines and mourning my losses kept me connected to them, and even when things were looking bleak and I almost felt that time had run out, I still managed to get back into the darkness and push back the horrors that threatened to end us.
For $39.99, this game should be a no-brainer for any gamer that has ever been interested in strategy games. I would call this one of the sleeper hits of 2023, and in a great year for gaming, this has been one of my highlights. I’m sure you will have a great time like me, and for this game being almost half the cost of other games today I would argue it is a steal!
Aliens: Dark Descent is available now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. Check out the gameplay trailer below and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
