Aliens: Dark Descent
Joni McConnell
Game Information
Aliens: Dark Descent (2023) is a horror video game from the world of the film franchise Alien (1979) that horrifies the player with Xenomorphs and the unescapable void of space. It is a real-time tactics video game developed by Tindalos Interactive in collaboration with 20th Century Games and published by Focus Entertainment. The action-adventure game also explores survival horror, stealth and strategy. The game was released for PlayStations 4 and 5, Windows, Xbox One and Series X/S on June 20th, 2023.
Introduction
Aliens: Dark Descent begins with an outbreak, the incomprehensible appearance of the aliens known as Xenomorphs. In the year 2198, the player commands a squad of Colonial Marines to investigate. On the orbital shipping station Pioneer Station, of the moon Lethe, the player follows Deputy Administrator Maeko Hayes. A supply shuttle called the Bentonville had arrived at the station with cargo containing Xenomorphs, which an infiltrator had released. Xenomorphs attack the station's crew, leading to a bloody massacre and the activation of the Cerberus Protocol (a quarantine). The players' task is to rescue any surviving personnel, uncover the source of the outbreak and find a way to escape.
Autoethnographic Component
Aliens: Dark Descent, follows in the footsteps of Alien, with a capable female lead who is not at all sexualised. Both women hold a leadership role and do not weep in the face of death and carnage. To have diverse leads allows the player to relate to the character, if a protagonist is similar to the player, they may feel they could survive if put in the same situation. For there could be many different people who could save the world from an alien outbreak or a zombie apocalypse. I despise that in action games it is the norm to play the role of a white male (Nae 2: 5). Some of the most popular games like The Last of Us Part One (2013), Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) and the Halo series (2001 - ) have male leads. Gamemakers often rely on ready-made conceptions of gender, to which they may not always be aware. The middle-aged man with a gruff exterior is placed at the helm but we do not know if he is likely to survive these situations. (Nae 2: 1). The filmic irony between the game-maker’s intention to show a strong female lead and the truth of the character is apparent in a character like Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series (1996 - ) but not in Aliens: Dark Descent. I mean to say that Lara Croft to some could be seen at least at the conception of the series as performative feminism. A female lead, yes but not without her design flaws, her wardrobe entirely juxtaposes her environment and her overarching purpose to discover lost artefacts.
I deplore that with little exception, mainstream games present a vision of the world that is devoid of postmodern feminism or even moral benevolent people, every far away made-up universe happens to include sexism and bigotry. Like the world of the Grand Theft Auto (1997 - ) games, where the protagonists (so far) are male and the women are prostitutes, strippers or they feel like caricatures of modern women. Specifically, I will not play a game with performative feminism or video games including anti-heroes who have no other choice than to be do-gooders. These uncaring morally grey characters are dialed in to solely their own desires. In Alien games and films, the protagonist kills for the greater good and at points for revenge. On the scale of killing for one’s morals to killing for the self, the protagonist finds themself at varying points of the spectrum throughout the story. This creates a dynamic character, often solely moral heroes can be dull and anti-heroes too garish.
The Immersion of Aliens: Dark Descent
I have played a great deal of video games but I have a difficult time playing horror games. Aliens: Dark Descent is one that can be put down easily and picked up later, to avoid the fright. There are many points in which to save. It is like Luigi’s Mansion (2001) in the Alien universe, it is not the scariest game in its genre. An imperative part of any horror game would be for the kill to be satisfying, it succeeds at this (Hafer). It seems insurmountably righteous to kill the monsters and as many as possible. The mechanics of Aliens: Dark Descent are superb and navigating the map is likely my favourite aspect of the game. The game's environments are intentionally quite dark, and a flashlight is a primary tool for navigating them. As well, it is used to highlight interactive objects like loot and data pads or to complete objectives.
The game is like a puzzle or a maze, avoiding the Xenomorphs is supremely challenging. One will inevitably run into many and some of one’s teammates may even die. I noticed that some parts of the game were insurmountably difficult, there will be overwhelming times where it feels like the Xenomorphs are everywhere, since they crawl in vents and across ceilings. The characters in the game are quite likeable, this adds to the tragedy of their possible deaths. The game has an appreciable balance of story and play, to become invested in the mission and characters helps the player to care if they live or not. It does not matter if it is a very scary game, if I could care less if the NPCs die or not, the potential for their doleful deaths keeps the player on the edge of their seat.
The Parameters of Terror
The purpose of horror is to create noxious moral putrefaction, which exists in Aliens: Dark Descent. The game hits on every element that makes a piece of media abundantly terrifying. The protagonist of Aliens: Dark Descent, faces a world gone mad with pure evil antagonists that are never entirely explained. A creation so sinful, no one disagrees with the killing of the beast, the player must kill to survive (Perron, Silent Hill: The Terror Engine 10). This is said to simply make for dreadful video games, the earnest protagonist and vile antagonist are on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum, Aliens: Dark Descent follows this rule. (Perron, Horror Video Games 16).
First, it was obvious that one of the largest and most critically acclaimed horror movie franchises would be turned into a number of beloved horror games. Alien to begin with, has a level of suspense that feels beyond petrifying. The thematic darkness and brutality of the Alien series led to a truly horrific game where the player must use flashlights and sneak through a suspenseful hellscape to avoid the utterly vicious enemies (see fig. 1). The form of physical trauma the aliens' victims endure could not be more terrifying to the human race. The aliens can lay eggs inside of humans that will later hatch and burst out of their chest, one can be eaten and entirely maimed or smothered. The macabre art of H.R. Giger, who created the concept art for Alien, birthed a monstrous being that grows at a highly accelerated rate, with a hard shell, no discernible eyes and acid for blood (Giger). The Xenomorphs seem to share traits with some real-life bizarre parasitic species. There is something about the aliens that almost looks mechanical or human-made, in the texture and shapes of their shells. In a video game this story is particularly frightening, since the player made the decision to go there, they are responsible for whatever may occur, especially being the commander the stakes are immeasurably high. The player has to face the creatures, they cannot escape, they are entirely isolated – no one will hear them scream, so why bother.
Whether you are trapped in a spaceship or in the middle of Antarctica, the horrific creations born in the 1970s and 80s survived due to the isolation and contagious factor (Cruz). One does not know who is carrying it and to stop it is to save the world, it is do or die – when faced with an overwhelmingly destructive species. The difficulty of killing the aliens is stunning, like trying to kill a hard-shelled spider that keeps coming back to life (see fig. 2). At the same time, the characters are rectifying mistakes they made, some of the aliens were born from their chests, the enemy is connected to them (see fig. 3). Like Victor Frankenstein, the characters in the game gave them life and are punished through death (Halberstam, 82). The game plays on not only the fear of death but of one's body and its potential destruction as well as the end of humanity for the good-natured characters (Cruz).
Conclusion
In summary, I have never been more filled with fear playing a video game than when in the thick of Aliens: Dark Descent. With the history of the Alien franchise, the player knows they are going to endure some terrifying themes but it is the slow suspense of the game that pushes it over the edge. The interactivity of the video game format breaks the scary meter to a level beyond the iconic horror films. All of the spooky elements of the game are elongated and exaggerated. The gameplay is tedious as you wait in dark corners to avoid the eyes (or lack there) of the Xenomorphs. The player searches high and low with their flashlight for what their mission requires of them, all while avoiding the aliens. From suspense to isolation, body horror, contagion, blood, fire and death, there is almost nothing about this game that is not completely unnerving. One would think since it is a team-based shooter that it would not offer such dread and gore, it may not have even been the game-makers’ intention to horrify us so. In the end, Aliens: Dark Descent remains dark, haunting and absolutely bloody.
Gameplay Clip
GameSpot Trailers, https://youtu.be/CDfnqY8F8sM?si=gqo6PqsYYogKq7MR
Works Cited
“Alien (film)” Fandom, https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Alien_(film)
Aliens: Dark Descent, FOCUS Entertainment, https://www.focus-entmt.com/en/games/aliens-dark-descent
Cruz, Ronald Allan Lopez, “Mutations and Metamorphoses: Body Horror is Biological Horror” Taylor & Francis, 2012, https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/doi/full/10.1080/01956051.2012.654521?scroll=top&needAccess=true#abstract
DePass, Tanya, “Game Devs & Others” Taylor & Francis Group, 2018, https://www-taylorfrancis-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/reader/read-online/47d10a6f-5b83-4edc-91e5-ddfa9a3f0ada/book/epub?context=ubx
Giger, H.R., Artnet, https://www.artnet.com/artists/hans-rudolf-giger/
Hafer, Leana, “Aliens: Dark Descent Review” IGN, 2023, https://www.ign.com/articles/aliens-dark-descent-review
Halberstam, J., “Classic Readings on Monster Theory” Arc Humanities Press, 2018, https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/j.ctvfxvc3p.13?seq=1
Nae, Andrei. “Immersion, narrative, and gender crisis in survival horror video games” Routledge, 2021, https://www-taylorfrancis-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca
Perron, Bernard. “Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play” Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009, https://web-p-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca
Perron, Bernard. “Silent Hill: The Terror Engine” University of Michigan Press, 2012, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv65swb6.5?seq=1
Appendix
I did not use any generative AI.