Aliens: Dark Descent
In Aliens: Dark Descent, command a squad of hardened Colonial Marines to stop a terrifying Xenomorph outbreak on Planet Lethe. Lead your soldiers in real-time combat against iconic Xenomorphs, rogue operatives from the insatiable Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and a host of horrifying creatures new to the Alien franchise.
You are the commander. They are your weapon.
Infiltrate large open levels and annihilate enemies with your squad, dispatching orders strategically and intuitively at the touch of a button. Tread carefully, as your foes will adapt their tactics to your actions while hunting you down because death is permanent. Forge unique paths for survival, uncovering shortcuts, creating safe zones, and setting up motion trackers in a persistent world where your actions impact levels forever.
Customize your squad with a selection of different classes. Level up and specialize your soldiers with unique abilities and an arsenal of weapons, armor, and perks, for high stakes missions in treacherous territory. Develop your base to research new tech and improve your squad even further.
Manage your resources wisely and take calculated risks to outsmart the deadliest creature mankind has ever faced. Can you and your squad stop the outbreak before it’s too late?
• Face off in a gripping original Alien story against iconic Xenomorph creatures ranging from Facehuggers to Praetorians, Alien Queens and many more, including rogue human commandos and a brand-new threat unique to this Alien storyline
• Lead strategically and change squad tactics from mission to mission, carefully managing your soldiers’ health, resources, and sanity, to avoid permanent team losses and mental breakdowns
• Forge unique paths for survival in a persistent world, uncovering shortcuts, creating safe zones and setting up motion trackers to stay one step ahead of these creatures
• Assemble and level up squads composed of 5 starting Marines classes, with dozens of specializations, unique abilities and weapons.
Steam User 326
Aliens: Dark Descent is a unique and refreshing game that continues to surprise me. For those who do not wish to read the whole review, it is a stealth-RTS hybrid game that is a very unique experience. The story is written by a team that clearly loves the lore and universe of the Alien series, and the gameplay is solid, with unique mechanics and many different strategies you can try and improve as you level up. The game is, however, still hindered by its many, numerous bugs. I had to redeploy several times through my two runs. I am hoping those bugs get squashed in the future with patches.
First, the good. As a long-time Alien fan who has played many of the previous Alien games on console, I bought this game immediately to support the developers. The RTS portions of the game are very well done, with level design standing out. You can stealth through the missions as much or as little as you want. Doing a more run-and-gun run through a mission is better for levelling up, while a more stealthy run can prevent more wounds and, thus, recovery time for your team. The weapons and equipment are true to lore, as is the overarching story. I truly enjoyed every minute of my two runs. To 100% this game took me two runs at just over 70 hours. This did include several redeploys due to bugs, but more on those later. What Tindalos has here is a very special and unique game, and I hope they continue to develop it. There is enough variety to do several more runs through the game if I want, and I am still discovering new tactics. I am truly impressed by this title.
Tindalos Interactive and I have had a love/hate relationship. I also love Battlefleet Gothic 1/2 from their studio, but like this game, both came out with numerous game-breaking bugs. I am writing this review as of the August 1st patch, so it is much better than before from the streamers I saw playing it, but even so, I have some complaints. I had one crash to desktop throughout all 70 hours of playing; I could not replicate what happened, so I am not docking points for that. However, in the Atmosphere Processing Plant and Pharos Spire mission, there are two datapads I can see but not pick up. I had to redeploy to get them, essentially restarting the mission again. That was very frustrating. In the Tantalus Mission, the elevator would not work the first time I tried it, and again I had to redeploy. During the second run-through, it worked. Again, I lost all my progress and had to restart the mission. Being priced as it is, I expect the game to be more polished, but I must praise Tindalos for being active in forums and working on the Steam patches still. I see the Steam depots changing on work days, so it is good to know the game is being supported.
My biggest wish for this game is for the custodian team of marines to keep squashing bugs and make the game even more polished than it is now. Also, some DLC would be helpful for game longevity. I want a campaign viewing it from the Wei-Yu perspective. That would have missions in the dig under the mine, about the defectors during the desperate fight against the Aliens and other missions that tie into the main game story.
Overall, this game gets a 7, I would rate it at an 8-8.5, but the fact that I had to redeploy several times to get the 100% datapad achievement is unacceptable. I hope this gets fixed in the future. A must-buy for any RTS or Alien fan once bugs get fixed.
Steam User 839
Half my squad wiped on the first mission while I desperately limped back to the redeployment point. I haven't had this much fun since XCOM.
Steam User 270
There will be no spoilers in this review, so read safely.
GENRE
In order not to walk away disappointed, you must clearly understand what this game's genre is.
Aliens: Dark Descent is not a shoot-everything-that-moves action game, like Aliens vs Predator or Aliens Fireteam Elite, and it's not a let-me-spend-an-hour-planning-one-turn tactical game like XCOM.
Dark Descent is a stealth tactical action game with some base management between missions. If you heard of Partisans 1941, Dark Descent has very similar gameplay, with the main differences being that you largely can't control individual soldiers.
IMPRESSIONS
As an Aliens fan, I enjoyed the hell out of this game. My first playthrough on normal difficulty took around 33 hours.
To me it felt like the developers of this game sat down for a month and repeatedly watched Aliens (1986) frame by frame, meticulously analyzing it in order to convert the movie into enjoyable gameplay mechanics, and by Giger, they succeeded.
And unlike Fireteam Elite, none of the Prometheus and Covenant pathogen nonsense made it into this game, for which I'm very grateful.
Though to be clear, the game doesn't follow the plot of the movie, it has its own self-contained story, set in the same universe.
PRODUCTION QUALITY
I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of cinematics between missions that you don't often see nowadays, even in AAA games.
Unit animations are nothing to write home about, but most of the time you're zoomed out far enough not to get bothered by them.
Voice acting is not amazing, but it gets the job done.
COMBAT
As you move through the missions, you are generally trying to stay undetected. If you are detected, you will have to fight some enemies, but usually you will be trying to escape and hide until enemies stop looking for you.
At any point in time, you can bring up tactical pause and aim your abilities, but some enemies are very agile, so you have to predict where they will be by the time the ability activates.
Abilities require line of sight to wherever you're aiming them, but most of the mission space is usually pretty claustrophobic and full of line of sight breakers, and since you can't control individual soldiers, getting the right soldier into the right position to fire an ability can feel like an exercise in cat herding.
Being unable to aim most of the abilities at specific enemies, and being unable to just tell a soldier to use a specific ability at a specific area/enemy, and have that soldier automatically move into line of sight, make the gameplay feel very constrained and awkward.
Most of the abilities are useful for holding off chokepoints, and while there is a decent amount of that during the campaign, most of the time you're just moving around between areas trying to stay hidden, and most of the abilities don't really help with that.
Getting rushed at close range can particularly make you feel naked, as there's not much you can do once enemies make it to your soldiers.
Overall, combat in DD gets the job done, and at times recreates the tense moments of the movie very well, but still could use a lot of improvement.
STEALTH
The stealth mechanics in this game are clear and transparent, but herding your squad of cats around the map can feel pretty tedious, especially when you're trying to move through an enemy lair undetected.
Overall, having to stay undetected as you move around feels more as a nuisance, and not something you do just for the thrill of it, like in Deus Ex. You do it to survive, and while it can bring that tension and atmosphere, it can also start feeling boring and tedious.
That said, being able to just say f**k it and come in with the guns blazing, if you want to, does make the whole thing easier to endure, though it will be your soldiers paying the price for your impatience.
STORY AND ATMOSPHERE
Trying to avoid spoilers, but just in case: The story starts strong and down to earth, but later takes a weird turn, and at some point makes the protagonists fall down a pit of moral ambiguity and hypocrisy, that personally left me disappointed. It doesn't help that the motivation of the main villain is never properly explained. The atmosphere stays tense the entire time, though somewhat suffers due to those weird plot twists, especially closer to the end.
SOLDIER CUSTOMIZATION
Having your soldiers get additional gear as you level them up feels amazing, but soldier customization itself is a bit barebones, as there's not many options to choose from, and most of the faces are ugly. And apparently whoever is responsible forgot that blonde hair color exists :D
Overall, you can customize your soldiers enough to be somewhat distinct from each other, but forget about recreating your favorite characters from real life or other media in anything other than the name.
BUGS
I've encountered a handful of bugs during my campaign and one crash. I can't say they ruined my experience, but I'm pretty tolerable to that kind of thing.
REPLAYABILITY
To be honest, while enjoying this game very much, I don't really see myself starting another playthrough any time soon, especially on the higher difficulty.
Combat and stealth mechanics are a bit rough around the edges, and due to this the gameplay just isn't enjoyable enough to want to come back to it.
Also, I don't do well under pressure, and everything in this game is about pressure. You're not solving tactical or stealth puzzles, you're trying to survive, and any mistake can spiral out of control and cost your soldiers their lives. Just reloading a save when something very bad happens is how I played this game, but it's hard to pace yourself to still feel challenged.
Another issue that's bad for replayability is there's just one way to play this game, and there's not enough variety in soldier or equipment progression to experiment with different approaches.
CLOSING
Despite all my gripes with this game, it's still amazing, and a very faithful recreation of the atmosphere and the universe of the Aliens movie, so as long as you're a fan, and are not completely averse to this game's genre, I wholeheartedly recommend you give it a shot.
Steam User 261
"It's like a top-down Alien: Isolation, with Marines"
Currently 6.2 hours into the game. I usually don't write reviews, but this game was interesting enough for me to write one.
It's not perfect. The environments and sounds are on point and great, but the marines and people are less detailed than I expected. Also, the squad leader screaming "DOUBLE TIME" or "MOVE IT YOU SLUGS" when I'm having them quietly walk around an area is OBNOXIOUS. But that's a minor gripe.
The game is actually a hardcore stealth game. I'm not yet at the point where I'm allowed to research and equip my troopers yet; but I can already see the game loop:
Basically, your squad of 4 (currently) marines drop into a persistent map, with an APC that provides fire support. You sneak around the area as one "unit", similar to games like Ground Control, and complete objectives. During the exploration, you're finding Datapads, ammo, and resources; as well as corpses to loot. You can deploy various tools like portable motion trackers and sentry turrets, weld and unweld doors, and activate certain areas support features (like the colony's security cameras).
Now, since the world is persistent, anything you place will be still there when you come back to the mission area. That's a good and bad thing. Portable Motion Trackers can help illuminate where the Xenos are, but can also be destroyed by them if they spot one; or, you can use one of those Trackers as a way to lure Xenos away from an area or to an ambush spot. However, and more importantly, anything you loot and take with you will NOT respawn in the area. Meaning if you completely loot out an armory or area storage, that's it. Use your resources wisely. I believe later on in the game they force a time limit to complete the game, so the game wants you constantly on the move and stressed.
Speaking of Stress, that's a major mechanic in this game; as well as the unique "death dial" (as I call it). You are constantly, CONSTANTLY, on a time limit in this game. The game plays in real time, as well; so you'll have to make decisions on the fly, such as when to engage Xenos and when to throw in the towel and call it quits:
Stress: Each time your forces engage with Xenos or are in the "hunted" mode on the "death dial", they gain stress. Get enough of it and your marine/marines will get various debuffs, based on their Traits; shaking hands, clumsy, insubordinate, panicked. The more stress, the more debuffs, the worse your marines fight. You can mediate it by using some of your heath tokens to take pills or weld a room closed to provide a rest zone for the squad, by using your engineering tokens.
So based on that, you want to keep your stress low for your squad, right?
Hence why this game is actually a stealth game more than an action game. It's better to never engage in fighting with the Xenos; not just because of stress, but the now covered "death dial".
Death Dial (how I call it): When you land, the Xenos are usually asleep or very idle. They don't really perceive a threat and don't really patrol. This is called Undetected mode. When your forces engage with the Xenos (for example, killing one), the hive wakes up and goes into Hunt mode. During this time, Xenos will step out of their spawn holes, littered around the map, and investigate the area where the last Xeno was killed. During this time, your squad will be gaining stress as a constant rate while the Hunt is active. It's your option to engage the Xenos or to hide from them, as you wait for the Hunt to dial down until it goes back to Undetected.
However, during this time, you have another dial called "Aggression" slowly increasing. Every time the Xenos go on a Hunt, the Aggression dial slowly spins up from Easy -> Medium -> Hard; only stopping when the Hunt ends and the status goes to Undetected. It never dials back; basically setting a doomsday clock on every mission (and the main reason the game starts allowing for tactical retreats). Each time the dial goes to a new level, you get an Invasion. The game basically warns you that you have 30 seconds to prepare, wherever you are, for a Xeno rush. Suddenly 10s of Xenos will swarm your position in an attempt to kill/kidnap your marines. Surviving that onslaught allows you to continue in the new dial setting. Also, each time the dials go up, that dictates the levels Xenomorphs; on Medium, more Xenos start patrolling and move faster, and during each Hunt, you're going to get 2-3 Xenos now investigating (or more, depending on difficulty) at a time. On Hard, Invasions happen on the dial now, with special larger Xenos now in the invasion waves. By this point, if you're not succeeding in the mission, it's better to ex-filtrate and try it again later.
So, the game actively punishes you for engaging the Xenos; which makes sense, but it really does make you think if it's even worth engaging any Xenos at all. Limited ammo and resources, stress, and each firefight making the level harder? I'd stick to sneaking around.
HINT: One exception is the APC, however. This thing will be your BEST friend throughout the game. It allows your squad to travel around the map in style, protecting your squad and automatically engaging any Xenos while travelling or where it's parked. At least in the first level, I'd use the APC as "cover" and a "shield" during Invasion/Hunts; as well as a way to engage Xenos, as it's guns DO NOT TRIGGER DETECTION/HUNTS. This means this vehicle is a Xeno killing machine and your best way to attempt to engage Xenos. I usually keep the APC in my "engagement zone" and retreat to it when there's a Hunt/Invasion happening and let the gun on it kill everything, while my Marines take cover and stay quiet.
This strategy won't work everywhere, but on maps with large terrain and open spaces, use your APC to your fullest capabilities. And plant as many motion trackers on the map as possible to get a full view of the entire map and track Xeno patrol paths.
So, that being said, haven't seen many bugs, but controlling a whole squad at once is... awkward(?), but you get used to it and it becomes fine. No manual saving either, entire game is checkpoint/autosave based, with the difficulty setting how frequently they happen. It's also hard, Xenos pretty much 3 shot (depending on difficulty) your Marines if they get close enough, as well as randomly spilling acid on them via their death throws, so it's best to keep your distance from all Xenos at all times.
If you got this far, and this sounds appealing, then you're going to enjoy this game.
But if you're going into this like Aliens: Colonial Marines? You're gonna have a bad time.
Steam User 385
The first hour is full of some REALLY rough dialog and can be very off-putting, BUT if you make it past the prologue and into the core gameplay loop of running missions and upgrading your marines/base it is much more rewarding.
Prologue 4/10
Actual Game 8/10
Steam User 595
This is to Aliens what Isolation is to Alien
Steam User 120
I think this is a good game, that isn't for me. I'm giving it a thumbs up, even though I would have passed on it had I done more research before playing. Here are the things I don't like, that would have pushed me away from this.
* Essentially this is a stealth game, because you really don't want to be detected. The aliens alert level increases the more you get detected, which eventually brings even more aliens to each level and makes it harder to not get detected. You can reset this meter by returning to your base. But this takes time (see below for why that is an issue). I found this game play tedious. You have quite a few tools to help you with this, but I just didn't find it that enjoyable. Enemies constantly spawn so there isn't a way to "clear" an area. If you like survival horror type games, then this might be right up your alley.
* At a certain point (around the middle of the game), the game keeps a clock and you need to finish it before that clock ends. You can disable this when you start a new game, if you know what to look for. However, this really makes resetting that alertness level (mentioned above) costly.
* Difficulty settings cannot be changed after you start a game (including the time limit).
* Some cutscenes cannot be skipped and some can. This makes replaying a bit tedious as there are quite a few that cannot be skipped.
* While you can skip the prologue after you've completed it, you cannot disable tutorials. There are a lot of tutorials in the first main mission. This also makes replaying tedious.
* On level up, you pick from three random traits to add to your marine. I'm not a fan of this type of level up mechanic, as it means I'm relying on RNG to build my perfect marine.
Now, I did enjoy the combat sections and the feeling that the game generates. You always feel like you are on the verge of being killed and are scraping for every piece of help (materials, medkits, etc) you can to get through each mission. That is why I'd recommend the game if the above issues don't bother you.