Every time a new licensed horror game gets announced, a sizable chunk of the horror community emits a collective groan when it’s revealed that upcoming the title will be an asymmetrical multiplayer experience. While I actually enjoy the virtual hide-and-seek thrills of titles like Dead by Daylight and Gun Interactive’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I can still understand the frustration. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that even our asymmetrical multiplayer frights came bundled with fully-fledged single player modes.
In fact, one can even argue that the licensed asymmetrical horror experience itself was invented by a franchise that was just as well known for its campaign as its legendary multiplayer mode. Naturally, I’m referring to the Aliens vs. Predator games, a series that has been mostly forgotten despite its tremendous influence on gaming as a whole. And with Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus showing plenty of love for the franchise’s long history of terrific video games, today I’d like to look back on a criminally underappreciated part of Alien history: the Xenomorph campaign in 2010’s lovable hot mess, Aliens vs. Predator.
Based on series of licensed comics published by Dark Horse in 1989, AvP would take the world by storm with an insanely successful expansion into toys, books and video games (with the film series only happening decades later). And while the initial beat ‘em up games were fun enough, it’s generally accepted that the crossover franchise only came into its own when Rebellion Developments released their phenomenal First-Person-Shooter, 1994’s Alien vs Predator.
Inspired by controversial adaptations like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the Atari 2600, Rebellion realized that playing as the monster could be even more fun than simply running away from them, which is why they made sure that players would be able to take control of humans, Predators and the Xenomorphs in their groundbreaking titles. This decision led to some of the most profitable licensed games in history, with Aliens vs Predator 2 and its expansions often being cited as one of the best FPS games of all time. Unfortunately, there would be a long hiatus after the sequel titles once Twentieth Century Fox finally decided that it was worth focusing on a theatrical version of the crossover.
This is why it would take a decade for Rebellion’s AvP to finally make a comeback, though the much-anticipated sequel would then be turned into a full-on reboot in order to better conform with the movies’ newly established lore. Unfortunately, executives split between this project and the ill-fated Colonial Marines (as well as some rumored studio interference) made development of the 2010 title a complicated process, which is why it came as no surprise that the finished title was so negatively received when compared to its groundbreaking predecessors.
While critics at the time were correct in lambasting the game’s short campaign length and plethora of technical issues, it’s much easier to look back on the game today as a flawed yet commendable throwback to a bygone era of gaming – especially since the idea of a commercial release containing three completely different playstyles (four if you count the multiplayer) would likely seem ludicrous to modern consumers.
Despite middling reviews, even the harshest critics from the time had to admit that the regrettably brief thrills of the Alien campaign made up some of the most unique and entertaining segments of the game. And now that you can purchase AvP online for next to nothing, I’d argue that the title is worth buying simply to play this gory third of the experience. For starters, this portion of the campaign borrows most of what made the previous Xenomorph modes so much fun, allowing players to zoom across floors, walls and ceilings with little regard for gravity as “Number 6” stalks its prey from the shadows – armed only with teeth, claws and a razor-sharp tail.
And while it’s true that the 2010 game removed some features from the original games in order to focus on visual fidelity (like playing as a Face-Hugger and having alternate vision modes), Rebellion mostly made up for this by placing the lead Xeno in a series of unique story-driven situations paying homage to the films rather than making every level a variation of the same old colonial marine buffet. You even receive telepathic commands from the Queen as you play, which gives the story missions some much-needed context.
Personally, I love the idea of a mistreated Xenomorph escaping from Weyland-Yutani and wreaking havoc among his captors, with the initial break-out reminding me a lot of the fugitive Xenos from Alien Resurrection. It’s also really cool how the story accompanies you from Chest-Burster to Praetorian to Queen as this monstrous underdog embarks on an epic quest to keep its kind going, even slaying a Predator along the way. And since these are standalone campaigns, you don’t even have to play through the terrible Colonial Marines story in order to understand what’s going on.
By having you systematically destroy lights and turrets while hunting down your foes in the dark as you search for a brainy snack, the Alien campaign actually reminds me of that common internet meme where fans point out how Predators act more like hunters while Aliens are the true predators (though both creatures are technically aliens).
Obviously, the experience here isn’t perfect, with the Alien’s extreme agility even causing motion-sickness in certain players (Number 6 is clearly tapping into the Speed-Force as it crawls through ventilation shafts like a bat out of hell), and that’s not even mentioning the janky animations that often lock you into an action while you’re still getting shot at. However, in the grand scheme of things, I’d argue that most of these shortcomings can be overlooked simply because the game around them is so much fun – especially for Alien fans. Hell, I can even forgive the repetitive execution animations since eating your enemies’ heads remains an inexhaustible source of thrills.
Honestly, my biggest gripe with the experience is how short it is, as I’d pay for a AAA Alien game based solely on this third of the AvP experience. A hypothetical successor could even expand on the idea of helping your fellow Face-Huggers out as they search for suitable hosts, with those future chest-bursters then serving as your replacements if you die.
I’ve heard it said that putting players in the shoes of a living embodiment of cosmic horror completely misses the point of the Alien films, and while I agree that this approach wouldn’t make for a particularly scary experience, I think the power fantasy might just make you appreciate the brutality behind these monsters that much more when you encounter them from the victims’ perspective. It’s just a shame that the Xenos end up being treated like canon fodder throughout the rest of AvP (which has honestly been an issue ever since James Cameron showed us how cool it looked when Aliens got shot up with pulse rifles).
Regardless, now that an Aliens vs Predator revival has become a very real possibility (with Fede Alvarez even suggesting that he team up with Prey director Dan Trachtenberg in order to develop the project), why not bring back the long-time tradition of tie-in video games with a next-gen Aliens vs Predator game? After all, I can’t be the only one wanting to dive back into the biomechanical shoes of our favorite phallic space monster.
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