Aliens: Colonial Marines

Lore & Background

Aliens: Colonial Marines was conceived by Gearbox Software after an encounter between the company's creative director, Bryan Martell, and the director of the original Alien film, Ridley Scott. The game was developed over six years and suffered from a tumultuous development cycle, as Gearbox decided to focus on projects such as Duke Nukem Forever and Borderlands 2 and outsourced a significant part of the work to other studios. Aliens concept artist Syd Mead was hired to design locations. Four downloadable content packs added multiplayer maps, a new cooperative mode, and a campaign mode that takes place before the campaign of the base game.

The campaign mode supports both single-player and cooperative gameplay for up to four players across 11 missions. Players fight Xenomorphs and hostile human mercenaries using weapons such as pistols, shotguns, pulse rifles, flamethrowers, and smartguns. The competitive multiplayer mode features two teams of up to five players in scenarios including Team Deathmatch, Extermination, Escape, and Survivor. Alien players use a third-person perspective and can climb walls and attack with claws or acid.

The plot takes place 17 weeks after the events of Aliens, following Corporal Christopher Winter and other Marines as they investigate the USS Sulaco and discover a Xenomorph infestation and Weyland-Yutani involvement. The story involves the rescue of Corporal Dwayne Hicks and a confrontation with android Michael Weyland.

Reader's Guide

Aliens: Colonial Marines sold more than one million copies in the United States and Europe but received unfavorable reviews from critics, who criticized its technical problems, low-quality graphics, short length, and weak artificial intelligence of enemies. It is considered to be one of the worst video games of the 2010s. The competitive multiplayer mode was highlighted as its strongest aspect. The game drew controversy as it featured lower graphical quality than that of the press demos, leading two players to file a lawsuit for false advertising, which lost class-action status by 2015. Despite its commercial performance, the game's legacy is defined by its development troubles and the disconnect between its marketing and final product, making it a cautionary tale in the industry.

A Long and Turbulent Production

The road to releasing Aliens: Colonial Marines stretched across a full six years, a period marked by what can only be described as a chaotic production environment. Gearbox Software, the studio behind the project, found itself juggling multiple high-profile titles simultaneously, including Duke Nukem Forever and Borderlands 2. As a result, a substantial portion of the Colonial Marines work was handed off to external development studios, diluting the creative cohesion that the team might otherwise have maintained. The project did benefit from one notable creative hire: Syd Mead, the legendary concept artist known for his work on science fiction properties, was brought in to design the game's locations. The finished product launched in 2013 for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 under Sega's publishing banner, drawing its narrative from the Alien franchise owned by 20th Century Fox. Post-launch, Gearbox and Sega released four downloadable content packs that expanded the game with additional multiplayer maps, a fresh cooperative mode, and a prequel campaign set before the events of the base game.

Combat Systems and Multiplayer Design

At its core, the game is a first-person shooter built around the tension of the Alien horror universe. The campaign spans eleven missions in which one to four players push from checkpoint to checkpoint, battling either fast, acid-spitting Xenomorphs or slower, gun-wielding human mercenaries. The arsenal available to Colonial Marines is broad, covering pistols, shotguns, grenades, pulse rifles, flamethrowers, automated sentry turrets, and smartguns that lock onto targets on their own. Utility tools like welding torches for sealing off doorways and motion trackers for locating hidden threats add tactical depth. The health system uses a segmented bar that regenerates automatically once a segment is partially lost, while armor pieces provide a non-regenerating secondary buffer. In cooperative play, a downed teammate must be revived within a limited window or they are locked out until the next checkpoint. The competitive multiplayer pits two teams of up to five against each other across four distinct scenarios—Team Deathmatch, Extermination, Escape, and Survivor—with the twist that the Alien team plays from a third-person view, forgoes firearms entirely, and instead relies on wall-climbing, ceiling-running, claw strikes, and acid projection.

Narrative and Story Structure

The story picks up seventeen weeks after the events of James Cameron's 1986 film Aliens. The USS Sephora dispatches a full battalion of Colonial Marines to investigate the USS Sulaco, which has drifted into orbit around the moon LV-426. What they find inside is a massive Xenomorph infestation, and the initial boarding results in several Marines being killed. Corporal Christopher Winter, Private Peter O'Neal, and Private Bella Clarison uncover the true threat: hostile mercenaries operating under the Weyland-Yutani corporation have seized command of the Sulaco and are actively breeding Xenomorphs aboard the vessel for experimental purposes. The confrontation escalates until both the Sephora and the Sulaco are destroyed, forcing the surviving Marines—alongside Captain Cruz, the android Bishop, and pilot Lieutenant Lisa Reid—to escape in a dropship and take refuge in the crumbling ruins of the Hadley's Hope colony complex. Complicating matters, Clarison has been attacked by a facehugger and requires urgent medical attention. Captain Cruz then orders Winter to travel to a nearby Weyland-Yutani research facility, situated close to a derelict Xenomorph spacecraft, to recover a manifest that identifies an unknown prisoner held on the Sulaco.

Reception, Sales, and Legal Fallout

Despite moving more than one million copies across the United States and Europe, Aliens: Colonial Marines became a lightning rod for negative critical attention. Reviewers consistently pointed to persistent technical instability, graphics that fell well below contemporary standards, a campaign that felt too brief, and enemy artificial intelligence that rarely posed a meaningful challenge. In the broader landscape of the decade, the title is frequently cited as one of the worst video games of the 2010s. The one area that earned genuine praise was the competitive multiplayer mode, which many players found to be the game's most engaging and polished component. The launch also ignited a significant controversy: the graphical quality players experienced in the final product was noticeably lower than what had been shown in press demos. This discrepancy prompted two players to file a false-advertising lawsuit against the developers and publisher. The case ultimately lost its class-action standing by 2015, but the episode became a frequently cited example in discussions about marketing expectations versus delivered product quality in the video game industry.