Review of Aliens: Dark Descent on PC | Long Live the Alien Games!
Aliens: Dark Descent is one of those games that’s so inventive and fitting into the Alien IP that its release seems almost inevitable. An action RTS in which players control Colonial Marines on an Alien planet infested with xenomorphs, Dark Descent tasks players with creating crack squads of their own Hickses, Vasquezes, and Hudsons for each deployment to fight back the alien threat – your soldiers may either become stronger against such odds, or you might end up turning Burke. At its finest Aliens: Dark Descent can become completely and absolutely captivating while at other times it may lead you using profanities for every word spoken during playback! At its finest Aliens: Dark Descent can become completely captivating but there may also be frustrations which will require using harsh language at some moments!
Dark Descent feels more authentic to James Cameron’s sci-fi action masterpiece Alien 2 than most Alien-related games have in the past, from its disquieting soundscape and unsettling motion tracker pinging, iconic voice lines, or its persistent sense that your back is constantly against a wall. Isolation might have been perfect; Dark Descent will send chills down your spine!
Dark Descent can be difficult to categorise due to the range of games it draws inspiration from, yet still feels uniquely original. Its stress management system recalls Darkest Dungeon while movement and combat feels similar to Mimimi Games’ extremely underrated Desperados/Shadow Tactics outputs. Furthermore, you have some elements from XCOM base management here such as healing wounded soldiers in medical bays as well as unlocking research to combat alien threats – plus customisation options to your Marines that you choose as you see fit!
Dark Descent’s greatest strength lies in its customisation and role-playing capabilities; Tindalos Studios should feel particularly proud to have created such an engaging game. At first glance, your Marines might seem simple in appearance and build. Yet as you gradually upgrade them all to max level status, it can become easy to become immersed in this simplistic game and become too invested in its pixels with bad attitudes. My Marine team and I immersed ourselves into role playing to an intense degree, nearly becoming destitute after one of our gunners (Spider from Webb family fame) suffered leg trauma only to heal up and receive prostheses before going back out into combat. But nothing topped being upset over seeing Santa die on my final mission… not even because he promised new socks this Christmas…
Dark Descent draws you deep into its captivating push/pull nature thanks to the stress and trauma system, producing an intoxicating experience with every level you complete – you won’t know whether to continue progressing with your squad even knowing they may need therapy after, or to withdraw them and send in less experienced soldiers instead. Each choice you make in game presents you with challenges — walking into unfamiliar rooms may feel like taking on another arduous mission!
Dark Descent falls short of being classified as an horror game, yet there are certain moments that will cause your heart to beat faster than usual. Once their aggression levels reach critical, xenos unleash an onslaught that throws scores of them towards you, necessitating meticulous planning so as not to create more stress for the squad and lead to traumatisation. These negative status effects can wreak havoc with your soldier’s accuracy (among other things) and worsen as stress builds; ultimately causing his squad to fire almost blindly like in the movie’s initial encounter. There are so many layers to every encounter here, that even with its handy slow-down mechanic, one may become overwhelmed with indecision, making assigning commands impossible at times.
So that this subgenre feels less cumbersome, players control all their Marines at once rather than micromanaging each individual soldier individually. If a task requires specific Marines for its completion, the AI will select those most suited. This approach removes much of the hassle, enabling you to focus on what really matters (like not dying) more directly; however, its lack of fine control does become cumbersome at times. Lacking control to move snipers independently into position to take out unexpected enemies makes the experience unnecessarily fiddly, with AI soldiers choosing the incorrect soldier in crucial moments such as searching containers or opening doors. While overall this system offers beginners plenty of strategic training tools, those seeking finer control could benefit from more granular control features being made available as an optional add-on feature.
Dark Descent’s main issue lies with its scope not matching up with its budget, while its aesthetic, soundtrack and general vibe all meet expectations perfectly – though sometimes animations seem rigid or plain compared to cinematic flair. Tindalos seems inspired by more cinematic AAA games as it wrests control away from you three separate times and puts Maeko, its main protagonist who basically runs things, into her shoes. Unfortunately, these were by far the weakest moments of a game – two sections featuring unconvincing stealth gameplay, followed by an abrupt conclusion wherein most characters you have encountered during campaign were absent and this sequence proved particularly frustrating – they also proved one of the more buggiest parts for me personally!
Dark Descent may not be one of the worst releases this year, but its technical issues caused me to frequently have to reload saves due to soldiers becoming stuck or refusing to cooperate. Furthermore, visual issues with its user interface included showing incorrect numbers regularly displayed as wrong and warning of missing elements quite frequently as well as regular hitching transitions that made playing very frustrating at times. While not the worst released in 2023 yet, I do hope Tindalos goes on a bug hunt and fix things up as quickly as possible!
Dark Descent offers everything one could ask of an Aliens RTS game or, indeed, any Aliens game in general. While staying true to its source material in some ways while expanding upon it in others, Dark Descent takes plenty of inspiration from similar RPG experiences like BioWare RPG to provide one of my most fulfilling role-playing experiences ever! Get playing today.
