Aliens: Dark Descent

I'm shocked with just how good Aliens: Dark Descent ended up being, and I could hardly put it down from the moment I loaded it up. It clearly respects the Aliens franchise, but it uses the elements in a way that is in service to the gameplay rather than as mere fan service for the player. Its gameplay is not only incredibly fresh compared to the other games of the franchise, but it's also so well executed that it stands as a high point among real-time tactical games, let alone for an Aliens game. Out of the franchise's entire history of games, there are only three games notable for how uniquely good they are; Aliens: Dark Descent is one of them.

I believe the best way to describe this game would be a survival horror isometric tactical shooter in the Alien universe. Aliens Dark Descent perfectly establishes its own rules and stays true to the Alien franchise and what made it one of the greatest modern sci-fi works: the heart-wrenching fear of the unknown and the thrill of fighting against all odds.

What we have here is one of the best Alien games – ever. Aliens: Dark Descent not only offers a tremendous atmosphere evocative of James Cameron’s blockbuster, but also a very well-crafted gameplay that exceptionally combines multiple genres.

Aliens: Dark Descent adds a hefty amount of ''Alien flavour'' to the well-established XCOM formula, making it a novel, fun, exciting and challenging experience. Even if you aren't an Alien fan, it is worth checking out if you're into team-based strategy games.

Aliens: Dark Descent is, without a doubt, one of the best games in the franchise's history. It's campy and ridiculous, intimidating and unsettling, tactical and yet still casual. It attempts to pull off a number of different (and often even opposing) themes and mechanics, and impressively rarely fails outright at any of them. The story, dialogue, and cutscene animation all work in tangent to produce a compelling narrative that stays true to the typical narrative conventions of the Alien franchise, taking what would normally be a forgettable cast and setting, and making them stand out through their reactions to situations and their contrasting personalities and approaches to dealing with the threats that face them.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a masterful blend of atmosphere, tension, and terror, coming together with dangerous combat and well-paced progression. The end result is a game that keeps you on your heels while making you feel like you’re “state of the badass art”.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a very good video game that takes the best elements of its franchise and finds great ways to build gameplay around them. Moving through dark corridors, paying constant attention to the motion tracker, and thinking about how to best use limited resources, is fun and immersive. The stress mechanic means that even winning battles can have steep costs, forcing players to think of alternate ways of achieving objectives. Aliens: Dark Descent doesn’t redefine its genre but its mechanics are strong, the narrative has interesting beats, and few other tactics-focused titles use their fictional as effectively.

Aliens: Dark Descent is one of the most immersive and exciting tactical shooters I've played, and a worthy successor to James Cameron's masterpiece.

Aliens: Dark Descent successfully adapts a real-time combat system to a genre of games that are traditionally turn-based. Tindalos Interactive has clearly put in a lot of love and care, and it shows.

Alien: Dark Descent is an absolutely brilliant experience, incredibly well-balanced, and despite being very difficult in certain areas, it doesn't ever feel unfair. Definitely worth giving a try.

Aliens: Dark Descent is an excellent real-time tactics game mixed with survival horror and arguably the best Aliens game around. Excellent tactical action in a world ever-succumbing to the Xenomorph threat, you will find resources scarce, leading to difficult decisions, ones made all the more difficult when time is also a factor. Add on an engaging enough story and an excellent atmosphere, and you have a game that I can't help but recommend to anybody and everybody.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a more than good real-time tactician, who manages to find the right balance between the proficiency in the marine weapons trade and the need to play smart and avoid confrontations when possible. In short, definitely a game that manages to respect the atmospheres that one would expect to encounter in the narrative universe popularized by Ridley Scott and James Cameron.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fun real-time strategy squad game that manages to feel tense and rewarding at the same time. It isn’t a perfect game, the loop can get a bit repetitive, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying every second of it.

A powerful generator of gnawing tension and tough tactical decisions, Aliens: Dark Descent is a script pass away from being an all-timer.

Aliens: Dark Descent is, simply put, a wonderful addition to the franchise as a whole. It feels authentic to the movies in a way that surprised me given the type of game it is and it captures that trademark tension and fear.

Quotation forthcoming.

Aliens: Dark Descent manages to absorb the player, with its main arsenal being the strong atmosphere and the high level of challenge. However, I feel that it would need a better sense of control during battles to make it a truly memorable game.

This is a game that stays true to the source material. It adds something fresh to the table that has long been desired. Danger lurks at every turn as you balance alien danger and marine mental condition. A sequel to Aliens Dark Descent is in order! I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

It might not look that way at first glance but this is the best Alien game in many years. It’s a strange mixture of ideas which perhaps shouldn’t work together as well as they do. We’d certainly welcome a sequel.

The best Alien-licensed game not made by Creative Assembly. [Issue#387, p.114]

Aliens Dark Descent is a tough game, as well as belonging to the real-time strategy genre. Don't expect a walk through the chill forest, the game will demand quite a lot from you and punishes mistakes harshly, so you will have to have a thousand eyes to enjoy it. Its performance on PC is somewhat uneven (playing on high and with some options such as post-processing in ultra), and fails to fully stabilize its framerate rate especially when turning the camera and focus on different points of the map in a High Spec PCs. For the rest it is a remarkable game that if you are a fan of the Alien universe, it will surely win you over. For that it deserves a final note of 80/100.

Aliens: Dark Descent marries its inspirations with reverence for its source material to create arguably the best Aliens game of all time.

Aliens: Dark Descent is an excellent addition to the Aliens canon. The Darkest Dungeon-style stress mechanics end up fitting the setting like a glove, and the RTS combat and disposable marines definitely suit the tone and style of Aliens perfectly. Although the reliance on infrequent autosaves can often prove frustrating, the game is overall easy to recommend for fans of strategy games, survival horror games, or Aliens fans hungry for something which strongly evokes James Cameron’s 1986 classic while adding its own new elements.

Overall, Aliens: Dark Descent is an original game worthy of any strategy fan’s time that also lovingly expands upon one of Sci-Fi’s most important franchises.

Soaked in dark sci-fi environments and human personalities, Dark Descent nails the hallmarks of an Alien title and executes much of its squad-based gameplay. Despite some downsides and squad control during precise moments, plenty of its elements kept me jacked in to see its conclusion. It was a thrilling ride with ups and downs, but I left fulfilled and appreciated its experimental twists.

The degree to which the game encourages you to find key strategies to manage everything from stress to resources is impressive, even startling.

The undercooked strategy layer notwithstanding, nothing quite compares the Aliens: Dark Descent. With its open, persistent maps and tactics that oscillate nicely between quietly menacing exploration and gun-blazing battles, this one has a pull of its own that's hard to resist. It lacks polish, no question, but this game has heart, brains, and a takes great delight in making your heart go faster. An imperfect favorite of mine this year, and at just 40 bucks, fans of the series are going to have a blast with this one.

Even if some features may deserve a better treatment, Aliens Dark Descent deliver us an enjoyable real time strategy trip in Alien's world.

It’s safe to say that we’re very impressed with Aliens: Dark Descent. Developer Tindalos Interactive is clearly a fan of the franchise, and it’s plain to see that much love has been poured into this title. Aside from its engaging gameplay, the story had us gripped right from the get-go, helped along by excellent voice acting. The only disappointment for some might be that there are no multiplayer offerings, but it is priced accordingly. If you’re an Alien fan after some single-player thrills, this is well worth picking up – even if you don’t usually get on with real-time strategy games.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a great strategy game with a lot of replayability and is set in the perfect horror franchise, even if long-time fans of the genre may have some minor complaints.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fantastic Aliens game. It absolutely nails the feel of the films and brings exactly the kind of tense and thrilling strategy combat you would want. The iconic motion tracker and creature design fit perfectly with the genre and there is even an interesting narrative that introduces some new perspectives to the series. While game over can come far too swiftly at times, there is always something to draw you back in.

Aliens: Dark Descent doesn’t overly complicate itself with deep simulation strategy combat. Instead, it finds the perfect balance of action, horror, and strategy to be accessible to all fans of this series. The narrative is the biggest highlight, fueled by clashing personalities, double-crossing, and a high-stakes conclusion. The player is made to feel like they are commanding these tropes, and that is found throughout each mission and choice made during dialogue. If you’ve been eager to immerse yourself in the world of Aliens, look no further.

With Aliens: Dark Descent Tindalos Interactive merges one of the coolest sci-fi-horror licenses of the last decades with a cleverly designed realtime tactics foundation. Combined with permadeath mechanics, challenging enemies and a persistent world that allows you to retreat if things get too dangerous, players will experience high levels of tension. Despite a remaining technical problems, deficits in the number of alien types you encounter and a sometimes too predictable plot, Dark Descent still snatches our insider’s tipp award for June 2023.

Aliens: Dark Descent brilliantly translates the 1986 movie into a fun strategy game with good combat, an interesting story, and rewarding squad management, marred by some minor stealth and tech issues.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a notable tactical action game similar to XCOM, respectful of the Alien universe, and which knows how to innovate in certain aspects. It is a love letter to the fans, which can also convince lovers of the genre, although with somewhat unfair difficulty peaks and with graphics and mechanics that need to be improved.

Aliens Dark Descent is a fresh RTS-adventure that stays true to the Aliens roots, whilst building upon its foundations. The squad based tactical action feels fresh, and gets intense pretty quickly when out in the field. Traversing the multi-run stages is engaging, but multiple technical flaws do hinder the game from reaching its full potential.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a challenging and extremely satisfying tactical shooter whose music and visual side will make every Alien fan feel right at home. It’s a shame, however, that the gameplay is marred by bugs and chaotically placed save points, which sometimes make missions mercilessly time-consuming and ruthlessly difficult.

Without a shadow of a doubt Tindalos Interactive has managed to pack an interesting horror-tinged adventure. What is most intriguing is the set of action, tactics and stealth proposed by the experience, which manages to competently return the atmospheres and tension of the Alien films. Basically, if you are a fan of xenomorphs you could give the game a chance but RTS fans will have to deal with a not very developed strategic dimension, a sometimes lame soldier AI and a series of bugs that in our test have caused some setbacks that are hard to ignore.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a nasty and ruthless strategy game, just like the Xenomorphs.

A top-down, real-time strategy that successfully implemented the tension unique to the well-known franchise. Except for the overall clunkiness, the game's combat system with tough resource management provide both immersive gameplay and a bit of horror.

The real-time tactical game from the Alien universe is both great fun and challenging... and frustrating. Like in the movie Aliens, which you will remember almost at every step.

Aliens: Dark Descent nails the tone and tension of the movie franchise. Its genre-fluid mechanics are clever, too, and provide some unexpected challenges and opportunities. A very slow, creaky start and some consistent technical issues hold it back from the top spot, but Aliens: Dark Descent is still appealing for fans of the films and tactical action games in general.

If all of its technical issues can be fixed, Aliens: Dark Descent will prove to be something special. It treats the franchise with respect and care — and when working properly — it nails the tension the series is famous for. Unfortunately, a full, completed release simply should not have this many technical issues, nor cause so much frustration that has nothing to do with the aliens themselves.

In Aliens: Dark Descent's best moments, it's a rich real-time tactics game that represents the Alien mythos from a refreshing gameplay perspective, revelling in stressing the player out with difficult choice and consequence gameplay. If the game managed to consistently ride this line, it would be in with a shout of dethroning Alien: Isolation as the best adaption in this medium yet. However, cracks begin to reveal themselves in a few key places that can drag down the gameplay, and sometimes outright contradict Dark Descent's goal of seemingly challenging the player to accept their actions and the results that come about from them. It's not enough to negate the best Aliens: Dark Descent has to offer, but it is enough to lament how it just missed the mark.

The latest entry in the Alien series tries a new formula by combining an isometric camera and strategy elements, and even though the gameplay part of the game is entertaining and engaging, the repetitive missions, flat story, and technical issues prevent it from reaching its full potential.

For the most part, Aliens: Dark Descent is a really pleasant surprise. It combines real-time tactics, solid mission design and a good amount of suspense with some interesting mechanics that fit really well with the movie. If you are a die-hard fan of James Camerons Aliens (1986), you will find a lot to love here. The story however is mostly uninspired, it has its share of bugs and some encounters can lead to some serious frustration, especially with the limited save system, which might be off-putting for newcomers. But even with all these drawbacks, there is no denying that Dark Descent is still one of the best Aliens games ever made. Just keep your expectations in check.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a great try at a tactical RPG in the movie franchise. If the game is really inspired by XCOM in its core DNA, it manages to be something different thanks to its real-time gameplay and its infiltration based action. You will have to be clever and patient to beat this game which is a love letter to Alien.

Aliens: Dark Descent does a decent job of creating an interesting mashup of tactical action and strategy that suitably translates the tension and aesthetics of the popular movie franchise. Needing to stealth around the xenomorphs is a nerve-wracking experience, and the firefights against the aliens can be intense when they work. However, the plot and dialogue are lackluster, the enemies aren't as terrifying as they could be, and the flow between stealth and boss fights is abrupt. There's just one too many ideas in Aliens: Dark Descent, but it's still nonetheless a worthwhile adventure.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fantastic addition to the iconic Alien franchise's vast and often disappointing collection of video games. The story is seamlessly integrated into the universe, and you'll come face-to-face with the iconic Xenomorphs that have instilled fear in fans for decades. While the game may have flaws, such as limited squad commands, a lack of grandiose music, and poor sound design, it is still one of the best Aliens video games that immerse fans in the beloved universe while providing thrilling action that they'll remember for a long time.

One of the best Aliens games ever made and a clever and innovative real-time strategy all of its own, that needs just a bit more polish and a lot less bugs.

If you’re looking for a different take on an Alien video game or even just a solid squad-based tactics game, then Dark Descent is worth playing. Taking your squad on missions and slowly exploring the environments is great fun, especially when the game leans into its strengths and gives you a hostile maze of Xenomorphs to navigate. However, most things surrounding that gameplay fall flat, and you’ll want to simply rush through them to get back on the field.

Aliens Dark Descent is a good real time strategy game set in the Alien universe and equipped with some winning ideas that are hard to overlook, such as the feature of permanent death. It's not gonna become the next XCOM, but it's a pretty enjoyable RTS nonetheless.

Aliens: Dark Descent is first and foremost a good idea, and there's undoubtedly talent behind it, although this is a clear example of how a potential sequel that can optimise, raise production values and perhaps approach each mission more critically to ensure crucial variety would be ideal.

Aliens: Dark Descent is a fresh and fun take on the series, with great tactical action supplemented with unique concepts like stress management. The writing and characters sadly don't amount to anything memorable, and boss battles can feel incredibly jarring to the pacing and tension.

If not for the technical issues, this would be easily one of the best Aliens games ever. And it still probably is. Borrowing from some of the greatest squad-based tactics games and adding its own twists, I don't think I've played anything that really gets what was so cool about Aliens, the film, since Monolith's Aliens Versus Predator 2 way back in 2001. And many have tried! It's the sort of game that makes me wish I could look the other way and praise it even higher, but on balance, I just can't. With a few weeks in the med bay for a bit of extra technical polish, it could shine up nicely into something amazing. As-is, it's still an intriguing, inspired, imaginative survival RTS that I can enthusiastically recommend, but only with some caveats.

Aliens: Dark Descent is an atmospheric RTS, but it irritates me because of raw gameplay elements, half-baked stealth mechanics and identical mazes.

Aliens: Dark Descent takes place in a setting that could have been a fantastic place to unveil some gripping sci-fi drama or lore, but instead it's basically just a point-and-click sequence. Even without tripping at the finish line, Aliens: Dark Descent has enough issues that prevent it from excelling. There's fun to be had here, with some great mechanical choices and tactical possibilities that keep the excitement high. It's not the weakest in the history of Alien games, but it's too close to the middle to be memorable.

It's disappointing that Aliens: Dark Descent gets so much right about its setting, only to falter in each of the more critical areas that are meant to hold your attention. Its detail-oriented focus in presenting a richly authentics and atmospheric setting will be welcomed by anyone familiar with the franchise. Smaller mechanics that put emphasis on the terror that Xenomorphs exude add a suitable layer of tension to both exploration and combat, making each more distinct than their initial make-up would suggest. But it's a squad that rarely feels like a personable unit of people that you desperately want to keep alive, fighting for a cause in a narrative that is so easy to tune out well before the halfway point. There's a lot of good in this attempt to make Aliens something fresh and interesting again, and that might be enough to encourage you to see it through. But there's also just enough to potentially derail you entirely.

In Alien: Dark Descent, unfair mechanics, overly difficult challenges and numerous bugs have ruined what could have been a decent game.

Savage tactical strategy and effective use of the license make this a must-play for fans of Xenomorphs or think-’em-ups. Some jagged edges and jank mar things a bit, but it’s the most terrifying strategy game you’ll ever play.

Aliens: Dark Descent is an occasionally wayward but on the whole, inspired movie adaptation, and a suspenseful real-time tactics game.

Despite being a solid real-time strategy game oozing with ambiance, 'Aliens: Dark Descent' joins the ranks of 2023's buggy releases.

Thanks to all the backstory the Alien franchise has given it, this RTS features a lot of potential. Although it is extremely demanding when playing on a PC, the visual and audio quality is decent. Its main problem is the camera controls because they are a little odd as well as difficult to use. At first, the game is pretty boring, but after that, it can be enjoyable.

My time with Aliens: Dark Descent was so fun at the start. When I realized I was having more problems with technical bugs than alien bugs, I started feeling iffy, and then the soft-lock was the sour cherry on top. I wouldn’t put this quite in the same vein as the infamous Aliens: Colonial Marines because there are still a lot of great ideas and mechanics here. But it’s disheartening to see something so fun ruined by glitches. My recommendation is to read how others feel and wait for updates. I don’t know whether my issues will be common or isolated, but I sincerely hope it’s the latter. If it’s the former — oof, game over, man.