The new Alien game that was announced back in January has a name– Alien: Blackout. While this is merely a trademark filing and not an announcement, it offers hints at the plan for the upcoming game in the popular horror franchise.
It has been described as a shooter and one that might possibly support VR. Anybody who had a chance to play through the last Xenomorph offering, Alien: Isolation, knows that this could be extremely effective in creating the tension needed for a game of this type. There’s nothing fun about blasting through swarms of what are supposed to be the most efficient/dangerous biological weapons in the known universe, and Isolation understood that. The fun was in trying to outwit and outmaneuver what was supposed to be an intelligent being, as opposed to having them leap at you so you can shoot them in the face with your shotgun. There was a real sense of being trapped.
The title they trademarked suggests they may be taking a similar approach to the upcoming one. The title Blackout leads one to believe it will occur on a space station that isn’t functioning, or maybe it involves an inordinately long eclipse that the Aliens can use to their hunting advantage– either through the sheer amount of darkness itself or through a change in environment when it occurs. Or possibly even an invasion of Earth?
So far it looks like it may be announced at the upcoming The Game Awards on Dec. 6th, 2018, if one is to believe the tweets of Geoff Keighley. It doesn’t say what it is, or even if it has to do with Alien, but the font and look of the screen screams (pun intended) Weyland-Yutani, the fictional corporation involved in the Alien franchise. Add to that the tagline “Worlds Will Change” and it sounds like we may have another horror-oriented Alien title on the way. Whatever the case may be, it is being developed by Cold Iron Studios, which is owned by FoxNext, the video game division of Fox, and it will be their first title.
Alien: Blackout will be released for PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox-One.
