Aliens is finally getting a new singleplayer 'action horror' game

Aliens: Fireteam was a decent third-person cooperative shooter, and Aliens: Dark Descent looks like a promising top-down cooperative shooter, but both share a critical problem: neither resemble Alien Isolation, one of the tensest, most terrifying horror games ever made. With the announcement of a new singleplayer Aliens game today, there's renewed hope (at least, by me) that we'll get something a little closer in spirit to that 2014 masterpiece.

Simply titled Aliens, this new singleplayer game (I repeat "singleplayer" for deliberate emphasis) will be developed by Survios, which has a history developing VR games, namely The Walking Dead Onslaught and Sprint Vector. According to Survios, the Unreal Engine 5 affair will be an "intense single-player, action horror game set in the iconic Alien universe". The story will be set between the Alien and Aliens films, "where a battle hardened veteran has a vendetta against the Xenomorphs".

Given the "action" in "action horror", it's safe to assume this battle-hardened veteran will be armed well, because no one retaliates against Xenomorphs with their mere fists. So we probably shouldn't expect something too close to Alien Isolation, but maybe something closer to Resident Evil, or Dead Space, or the forthcoming Callisto Protocol.

More info on the game will come during San Diego Comic-Con on July 21, but it's confirmed for consoles, PC, and VR, suggesting it'll be playable in both VR and on a regular ol' screen.

As for that other forthcoming Aliens game, Aliens: Dark Descent, that's still scheduled to arrive some time in 2023. It's a top-down, twin-stick shooter cooperative game, which… you do you, 20th Century Games, but it's time to make a scary Aliens game again.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.