There's a new Alien game in the works

Games based on the Aliens series have generally been either a) terrible or b) excellent, with little room for the merely okay. Alien: Isolation was an incredible stealth horror game, but it was unlikely to have satisfied anyone who prefers to shoot things, with that camp also thoroughly disappointed by Gearbox's dire Aliens: Colonial Marines. But for those who like to shoot, there is hope: a new Aliens shooter is in development.

It's coming via FoxNext Games, which is a relatively new games branch of Fox. The studio in charge of development is Cold Iron Studios, which was established in 2015 and has since employed talent responsible for working on games like Doom, Borderlands, BioShock Infinite and more.

While it's still anyone's guess what kind of form this "shooter" will arrive in, it's very likely to have a strong online component. Or at least, FoxNext Games' Aaron Loeb gives that impression in an interview at GI.biz.

"Cold Iron adds a whole dimension of game development and play to our arsenal: long play-session MMOs targeted to PC and console gamers," he said.
"The kinds of games Cold Iron develops will enable us to deeply explore the worlds of our franchises, starting with the Alien universe."

Whatever the case, now that the Murdoch-owned FoxNext has Alien in its licensing camp, it's pretty unlikely that we'll ever see Creative Assembly deliver an Isolation sequel.

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.