Aliens: Dark Descent Reviews
Aliens: Dark Descent does a great job of mashing up tactical action and the tension and fear of its source material. Not without its pain points however such as the lip syncing during cutscenes, controller buttons not being recognized usually when in the heat of battle, and some other bugs and glitches. I commend these developers for taking so many different things and successfully putting them together to deliver a wonderful tactical strategy game, some more time gestating and this one would have been ready to really burst forth and do some real damage.
Aliens: Dark Descent is a tense real-time strategy shooter that will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you prefer not to be stressed out playing video games, it is certainly not for you. On the other hand, if you have the patience and mental fortitude to withstand relentless Xenomorphs, it is a clever take on the RTS genre that can be tough to put down.
Another fine addition to the Alien franchise's video game legacy. Technical troubles and a stiff learning curve can act as a deterrent, but the more time you spend in Aliens Dark Descent's company, the more impressive it becomes.
Aliens: Dark Descent is easily one of the best video game adaptations of the legendary franchise to which it belongs, somehow managing to be an excellent tactical strategy game and genuinely terrifying at the same time. Tense, engaging, and extremely faithful, it stumbles only in technical execution, and even then, not enough to spoil the experience.
Aliens: Dark Descent nails the tone and tension of the movie franchise. Its genre-fluid mechanics are clever, too, and provide some unexpected challenges and opportunities. A very slow, creaky start and some consistent technical issues hold it back from the top spot, but Aliens: Dark Descent is still appealing for fans of the films and tactical action games in general.
Aliens: Dark Descent is an excellent real-time tactics game mixed with survival horror and arguably the best Aliens game around. Excellent tactical action in a world ever-succumbing to the Xenomorph threat, you will find resources scarce, leading to difficult decisions, ones made all the more difficult when time is also a factor. Add on an engaging enough story and an excellent atmosphere, and you have a game that I can't help but recommend to anybody and everybody.
Aliens: Dark Descent does a great job at recreating the pseudo-horror atmosphere that has made the movies such a cult classic. Your marines are hardened and capable, but they are against a threat that is out of the ordinary; for this reason, avoiding unnecessary encounters is more often than not a good idea. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to control each individual soldier, however.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It only helps that Dark Descent so ably captures the look and tone of the Alien films. While the characters here aren’t as immediately memorable as the motley crew of marines from Aliens, the voice actors humanize them with impressive details, thus sealing our investment in their fates. The environments are appropriately menacing, with clever fog effects that make each excursion into the “hived” areas an intense experience. And the familiar tick, tick, tick of the iconic motion tracker adds to the stress of every mission. It really wouldn’t be an Aliens game without it.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Tindalos Interactive has managed to package an interesting adventure with horror hues.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Aliens: Dark Descent is one of the best games in the franchise that have come out in recent years, with an interesting story that fits very well within its universe, in addition to being a horror game, it is possible to transmit a heavy and burdensome atmosphere with which they have to deal from the characters we send to the missions, as well as the player himself, because a false step can be the end of the peloton and making us restart from the nearest control point, which do not usually abound too much. For all this, I think it is at the height of Alien: Isolation and can be put in any top of best titles developed with these fierce aliens.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Aliens: Dark Descent feels a lot like some of the recent Alien films, where there are plenty of good ideas but the execution is lacking. A real-time strategy game starring helpless, fragile marines sounds fun, but the slow and clunky controls makes it much harder to engage with the systems present in combat. The atmosphere and story are strong enough that if the game was even a bit more fun to play, it would be worth checking out for fans of Aliens, but as it stands Aliens: Dark Descent is a frustrating experience.
Aliens: Dark Descent is a great try at a tactical RPG in the movie franchise. If the game is really inspired by XCOM in its core DNA, it manages to be something different thanks to its real-time gameplay and its infiltration based action. You will have to be clever and patient to beat this game which is a love letter to Alien.
Review in French | Read full review
If you’re a fan of the Aliens universe and want a closer approximation of what being boots on the ground during an outbreak would be, this is probably your best option on the market. There’s something for everyone, whether you are doing this for the strategy aspect or just to enjoy an Aliens story from a fresh perspective.
Despite being a solid real-time strategy game oozing with ambiance, 'Aliens: Dark Descent' joins the ranks of 2023's buggy releases.
What we have here is one of the best Alien games – ever. Aliens: Dark Descent not only offers a tremendous atmosphere evocative of James Cameron’s blockbuster, but also a very well-crafted gameplay that exceptionally combines multiple genres.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Although Aliens: Dark Descent has the makings of an enjoyable RTS title, its frequently frustrating gameplay mechanics and pointless genre-mashing missions make it a tough sell for anyone besides the most diehard of wannabe Colonial Marines.
Aliens: Dark Descent is one of the most unique takes on not only the strategy genre, but the survival horror genre as well. Despite a middling story and a terrible tutorial, it's one of the most interesting and rewarding games out there.
Aliens: Dark Descent is a fantastic, robust extension of the Aliens franchise that puts players in the middle of hardcore xenomoroph action.
In Alien: Dark Descent, unfair mechanics, overly difficult challenges and numerous bugs have ruined what could have been a decent game.
Review in Chinese | Read full review