Even with all of the wild style mashups I’ve seen during the last a number of years, I do not assume I may have ever predicted a survival horror RTS. And that is mainly what Aliens: Darkish Descent boils right down to, including stealth components and tense useful resource administration to its isometric, squad-based tactical motion. When it is absolutely locked and loaded, it captures the essence of the 1986 movie Aliens higher than any sport in ages. However slimy, fun-bursting technical points present their creepy heads too usually for Darkish Descent to be a clean experience.
Mixing up a little bit of XCOM, a little bit of Darkest Dungeon, and a little bit of Shadow Ways: Blades of the Shogun, I am unable to deny that Darkish Descent is a really distinctive sport with a lot of fascinating concepts. Whereas loads of video games with the Aliens license have mistakenly centered on simply letting you go to city with a pulse rifle, this one hones in on the paranoia and hazard of the franchise completely, making even run-of-the-mill drones and runners scary once more.
It’s fully potential to go in weapons blazing and doubtless rack up a bunch of simple kills. However each time a xenomorph spots you, it alerts the hive and begins a clock ticking that can trigger them to grow to be extra quite a few and aggressive, which makes the entire remainder of the mission tougher. The optimum solution to play is normally to not get noticed in any respect. However the penalties for waking up our shiny-headed mates are rather more dire for those who’re already at a excessive stage of hive consciousness, with extra highly effective boss aliens and better numbers of drones being summoned. This led to some actually heart-pounding preventing retreats by way of cramped corridors, or hiding in provide rooms simply hoping the patrolling xeno would not determine to test in right here.
Psychological Breakdown
Even a firefight with no lacerations or acid burns takes its toll. Merely encountering aliens, being hunted throughout a hive activation section, and even seeing lots of blips on the movement tracker, all trigger stress. This may stack as much as three randomized debuffs in your marines, as they go all, “Recreation over, man! Recreation over!” and set everybody else much more on edge, miss essential photographs, or grow to be disobedient. So the extra horror you have put them by way of, the much less efficient they’ll be in a combat.
The best way this combines with the hive consciousness system to create a pure development from these first few, teasing engagements with a single drone, to feeling like all hell has damaged free and one flawed transfer may imply a complete squad wipe, is nothing in need of sensible. It humanizes all of your little troopers whereas making you assume actually rigorously about methods to handle your bodily and psychological sources. Generally it is higher to sign the dropship and go away a mission with aims nonetheless incomplete, costing treasured time on the marketing campaign map since you may have to return again later, however saving the lives of your fighters. And it means each mission seems like Alien film, full with a gradual build-up to a shrieking, gunfire-punctuated crescendo.
It is attributable to all these unbelievable design concepts that I really feel so conflicted with regards to the technical form Darkish Descent is in. It is definitely ok that I may ignore small, quirky bugs like poorly-synced dialogue in cutscenes. However typically I must replay a complete mission as a result of core mechanics did not work the best way they have been alleged to, even after a big, admittedly useful patch got here throughout the assessment course of. A secure room I might sealed off utilizing treasured engineering sources would not truly enable my marines to relaxation and cut back their stress, dropping me an enormous quantity of momentum. In a single case, the stress meter appeared to get caught on its highest setting when there weren’t even any aliens round, inflicting my complete squad to fully lose their minds and pressure me to extract.
These points are only a bit too frequent and a bit too game-breaking for me to look the opposite means. Most could be laboriously labored round by restarting a mission, however that might be over an hour of progress misplaced. All the 12-mission marketing campaign ran me about 30 hours, however I wish to say at the least a handful of these hours have been replaying missions that bugged out, or having to retreat attributable to a bug and are available again to the identical location with a contemporary squad.
The problems are only a bit too frequent and a bit too game-breaking.
The marketing campaign layer, fortunately, would not have practically as a lot scuff. From aboard the crashed USCM vessel USS Otago, you may handle analysis, medical amenities, coaching, gear, and even a remedy clinic for treating long-term psychological harms, Darkest Dungeon-style. The UI is all pretty clear and well-organized, although not with out its quirks. I am undecided why I am unable to improve a marine’s gear from the identical web page the place I assign them new abilities, for example.
Development can really feel a bit stingy, particularly given that every day that passes, the planetary infestation turns into extra extreme and the variety of patrolling xenos on every map will increase. A stage 10 marine solely feels marginally extra helpful general than a rookie, particularly with regards to the Bravery stat that governs how rapidly they achieve stress. However with a variety of lessons, from the long-lasting smart-gunner to the sergeant who helps hold everybody from going AWOL, there’s lots of good specialization and synergy to find.
We get a compelling story to go together with it, too, and it is not only a retread of any of the earlier Alien movies. Fascinating, morally-conflicted characters with compelling motivations prepared the ground. The voice performing could be a bit inconsistent, particularly since there aren’t sufficient distinctive marine voices to successfully differentiate your complete roster. I additionally discovered that it actually breaks the temper when my squad chief would consistently yell stuff like “DOUBLE TIME!” after we have been sneaking round and attempting to be quiet. However the lead characters ship some genuinely memorable performances in essentially the most dramatic scenes.
And these environments look fairly unbelievable, too, capturing not simply the type, however the ambiance of James Cameron’s unmistakable traditional. The best way the fog lights up whenever you shine a flashlight at it’s a spine-tingling recreation of the best way the movie performed with gentle and shadow. The sound design provides to this, with the unsettling squish-squish of marching by way of the alien-infested areas of the planet Lethe. And all alongside the best way, a wide range of mission and goal sorts retains each deployment from feeling too samey. There are even some twists afterward that introduce new and surprising enemy sorts.
If not for the technical points, this is able to be simply among the finest Aliens video games ever. And it nonetheless most likely is. Borrowing from among the biggest squad-based ways video games and including its personal twists, I do not assume I’ve performed something that actually will get what was so cool about Aliens, the movie, since Monolith’s Aliens Versus Predator 2 means again in 2001. And lots of have tried! It is the type of sport that makes me want I may look the opposite means and reward it even increased, however on stability, I simply can’t. With a number of weeks within the med bay for a bit of additional technical polish, it may shine up properly into one thing superb. As-is, it is nonetheless an intriguing, impressed, imaginative survival RTS that I can enthusiastically suggest, however solely with some caveats.