A polished, deep, and often hectic point and click strategy game that does a great job of balancing Aliens lore and freedom to make unorthodox choices.
Aliens: Dark Descent brings so much minutiae to the strategy genre that it kind of transcends what that style of game can be. It’s part stealth game, part combat game, and part squad management game, and balances all of that on the back of a solid narrative (minus the bland opening segments, that is).
The game is set on a huge, manmade map, which is super cool in showing the level of craftsmanship that a game like this needs. By creating the levels and details and themselves, the developers are able to draw us in much more than a randomly generated map. We can see how different aspects interact, how the mood is consistent, and how we come across areas that we immediately know will require something we’ve unlocked or will remember to loop back on later as our mission objectives open up.
The game really asks us to do a lot more than just make it to the end, too. There are some deep choices involved, like choosing defense over offense, exploration over loot, or deciding if we should rescue someone or escape. There are even moments where we may have to decide if a life or death situation means sacrifice of one for the good of the group. All of that weighs on us as players, sure, but it also means that we need to manage the mental health of our squad members.
It’s a surprisingly deep mix of elements that work really well together, and some that we’ll probably expect out of the genre going forward.
For more on this great take on Aliens, watch Zach explain above how the game clicks in this review.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. Images and video courtesy Focus Entertainment.
This video originally appeared on The SideQuest LIVE on June 28, 2023.
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