Aliens: Dark Descent - real-time squad-based tactical action

[Fedora Master]

haha shit I just fought the cultists and those fuckers took more ammo than the xenos before. Your marines are honestly kinda shit at aiming. Had to switch to pistols for most of the deployment and only got out with 2 guys downed.

 

[Zewp]

Yeah, cultists are real bullet sponges. My marines are all about level 6-8 and they mow down xenos like they're nothing, but still struggle with cultists.

I'm thinking of restarting though. The game has a doom timer that starts after mission 4. I'll probably keep the difficulty as-is and just lengthen the doom timer to take some of the pressure off. I'm on Infection level 5, cycle marines in and out of the medbay and therapy after every mission and have only 8 days left. I barely get into fights with xenos before I hit Medium aggression and it spawns a swarm and special xeno straight after. Based on how difficult things are getting, I just don't see any way I'm going to finish in time. No need to delay the inevitable. If you get unlucky you can get fucked really hard by random events when advancing to the next day. A lot of them will make you lose a day, or worse, cause other issues like exhausting all of your marines at once.

For later missions I can strongly recommend popping down portable motion detectors all over the map. Activating them and drawing all the xenos to them can be an absolute lifesaver if you need to beat a hasty retreat or need to buy yourself some time to heal or restock. Definitely don't underestimate their usefulness.

 

[Luka-boy]

I play with the other save system, can't remember the name though.

No One Can Hear Them Scream?

 

[Tyranicon]

Since I had some freetime I got this and wow, I'm actually surprised to be having fun.

Moving your squad is way more fluid than I expected after seeing the trailer, and all the gameplay systems work together fairly well. My few complaints are centered around the cutscenes (especially any involving facial animations, because gah they're ugly), the resting mechanic which just seems like a waste of time (and dissonant since apparently the ARC is invincible and for some reason you can't rest in that), and the kind of silly mission objectives.

Also sentry guns are OP in early game just as god intended.

 

[ArchAngel]

Yeah, the intention is definitely for the player to consider whether they really need that ammo crate on this run. It just becomes a bit of a problem when you can't even roughly estimate how many drops a level will take. I've had levels where I went back for side quests, thinking I'll mop them up in one go and then it took multiple drops. I don't really know how to improve the system without making it trivially easy, to be honest. Later levels spawn infinite amounts of enemies during certain story segments and it's impossible not to burn through ammo, even when you have a lot of it. I guess you could switch your marines to sidearms, but that's pretty much suicide when you're being rushed by multiple xenos.

Interesting conundrum. Thankfully I haven't run out of ammo caches completely yet, but on the level I'm currently on (I suspect it's the last one) I can see that becoming a possibility if it drags on any longer. I think I have probably less than 6 ammo caches left on that level. Will be interesting to see how I overcome that if I only have the ammo I brought into the level with me.

Use special attacks more, they use command points and do not waste ammo. Also detection thingies that you can activate to pull aliens so you can pass unmolested are great

 

[Alienman]

Since I had some freetime I got this and wow, I'm actually surprised to be having fun.

Moving your squad is way more fluid than I expected after seeing the trailer, and all the gameplay systems work together fairly well. My few complaints are centered around the cutscenes (especially any involving facial animations, because gah they're ugly), the resting mechanic which just seems like a waste of time (and dissonant since apparently the ARC is invincible and for some reason you can't rest in that), and the kind of silly mission objectives.

Also sentry guns are OP in early game just as god intended.

Resting is mega important if you play with the "ironman" save mechanic, since that is the only way to save.

 

[Zewp]

Use special attacks more, they use command points and do not waste ammo. Also detection thingies that you can activate to pull aliens so you can pass unmolested are great

Yeah, later on having at least one recon with the stealth kill skill is critical.

Excellent game so far. I honestly didn't think we'd ever get something like this from the Aliens franchise.

 

[Cyberarmy]

You guys are really selling me the game!

 

[ArchAngel]

Use special attacks more, they use command points and do not waste ammo. Also detection thingies that you can activate to pull aliens so you can pass unmolested are great

Yeah, later on having at least one recon with the stealth kill skill is critical.

Excellent game so far. I honestly didn't think we'd ever get something like this from the Aliens franchise.

It seems like a surprise hit in this genre.

 

[Tyranicon]

Use special attacks more, they use command points and do not waste ammo. Also detection thingies that you can activate to pull aliens so you can pass unmolested are great

Yeah, later on having at least one recon with the stealth kill skill is critical.

Excellent game so far. I honestly didn't think we'd ever get something like this from the Aliens franchise.

It seems like a surprise hit in this genre.

Well known IP + good game = $$$$ probably.

 

[Morgoth]

First Hotfix released:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1150440

We're pleased to release this first small patch to answer to your (by far!) most requested change.

Patch Notes :

• Drastically reduced the occurence of the squad leader's acknowledgement after an order
• The "Double Time" line will not play anymore after a walk order (but for your pleasure can still be triggered by a run order)
• Fixed some crashes

We wanted to provide this first improvement quickly and
we're still monitoring closely all your feedback and are already working on the next patch
to address the most common issues as soon as possible.

Now get back to work Marines!

Glad to see the cringey barking was culled.

 

[Zewp]

Can confirm that it's a lot better than it was before. They still bark a bit often for my tastes, but it doesn't drive me insane anymore.

I decided to restart too, as I was about to lose my last campaign because I wasted too many days. I thought I was nearing the end of the game when the timer popped, but it turned out to actually be not even halfway done at that point. I'm trying to complete missions in one go this time around and I almost succeeded on the second mission, but there were just too many objectives. And once you hit medium aggression level, shit escalates fast and starts going wrong even faster.

 

[ciox]

Great, since they're screwing around with sound, they should make it so doors stop doing that little farting sound and instead do this:

 

[KIss My Ass]

Looks interesting. I like the nu XCOMs alot. Is this like those games?

 

[KIss My Ass]

I went ahead and ordered it. Arrives on tuesday. Wont fuck wit it until I'm tired of Diablo 4 but I like what I see.

 

[Morgoth]

I went ahead and ordered it. Arrives on tuesday. Wont fuck wit it until I'm tired of Diablo 4 but I like what I see.

Drop that Blizzard degeneracy now Marine and get moooveen'!

 

[barker_s]

Okay, first off, this game is not a looker. Or rather, the characters aren't. The environments are perfectly fine, moody, detailed, and clearly inspired by the source material. The characters though? They look as if they were extracted directly from nuXCOM and then got hit with a brick in the face.
That said, it's probably due to the fact they might have had a low budget for this game. And that's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept because, with a bigger budget, the publisher would probably force the devs to take fewer risks and cater to the larger audience. And guys, the game mechanics is where it's at for this game. The way you constantly have to balance your marines' stress, growing hive awareness, dwindling resources, and overall planet infestation. Holy shit, this game seems to have been actually designed, instead of just made.
I'm still on the first mission, just finished my second drop. It's refreshing how the game doesn't hold your hand (except for the obvious tutorial bits) and allows you to make your own decisions: where to land, the order in which you approach the objectives, and finally when to leave the map to fight another day. Oh, and it doesn't fuck around. The freedom you receive is a double-edged sword, as you can easily, royally fuck up.

My first drop was long, about 1 hour and 40 minutes long. There was one last colonist marked on my map. I was still learning the ropes and didn't know yet how much of an impact hive awareness has on the game. Decided to save this guy before leaving. I sent my squad into the building, avoiding patrolling xenos. They entered the huge chamber covered with resin. The colonist was hanging, cocooned, in the corner. This was my first encounter with the eggs. The facehuggers popped, marines shot them, and stirred up hell. I was already low on supplies and in unfavourable terrain. As the fight ensued, I had a Gorman moment as I ordered my marines to set up a sentry gun, only to be constantly interrupted by attacking bugs. One of my soldiers was dragged screaming back into the hive, the other was knocked out unconscious. Of the two remaining soldiers, only one was in a fighting condition, as the other was torn up and limping badly. Just as we barely fought off the wave, the hive awareness level increased and we got the info that the onslaught is coming. The healthy marine picked up the unconscious one and carried him to the APC just as the bugs started swarming our positions. The limping dude wasn't so lucky, poor dude didn't even manage to leave the building. This was on medium difficulty, I can't imagine how screwed I would be on harder ones.

All in all, I think this will sit in my top 3 of the best Alien-themed games (next to Isolation and AvP 2).

 

[Zewp]

Looks interesting. I like the nu XCOMs alot. Is this like those games?

It's a lot less "open" than nu XCom, if that makes sense. It has a set amount of story missions that you do in a certain order with various objectives and you can extract at any time and go back with a fresh squad. In that sense it's a very focused experience. Not a bad thing, though. It can also be brutally difficult. Even on Medium it's quite a challenge compared to most games released over the last decade and a half. A lot of people are not going to be able to finish this game.

I'd like to see them implement some kind of "freeform" endless mode, though I'll probably replay this game a few more times on higher difficulties.

My first drop was long, about 1 hour and 40 minutes long. There was one last colonist marked on my map. I was still learning the ropes and didn't know yet how much of an impact hive awareness has on the game. Decided to save this guy before leaving. I sent my squad into the building, avoiding patrolling xenos. They entered the huge chamber covered with resin. The colonist was hanging, cocooned, in the corner. This was my first encounter with the eggs. The facehuggers popped, marines shot them, and stirred up hell. I was already low on supplies and in unfavourable terrain. As the fight ensued, I had a Gorman moment as I ordered my marines to set up a sentry gun, only to be constantly interrupted by attacking bugs. One of my soldiers was dragged screaming back into the hive, the other was knocked out unconscious. Of the two remaining soldiers, only one was in a fighting condition, as the other was torn up and limping badly. Just as we barely fought off the wave, the hive awareness level increased and we got the info that the onslaught is coming. The healthy marine picked up the unconscious one and carried him to the APC just as the bugs started swarming our positions. The limping dude wasn't so lucky, poor dude didn't even manage to leave the building. This was on medium difficulty, I can't imagine how screwed I would be on harder ones.

When shit hits the fan is where the game really shines. Always when you think "yeah, I can do that in this deployment" and then accidentally overextend yourself. I'm not the biggest fan of the fact that a full squad wipe means you have to reload a save, but I guess there's balance reasons for that. Lose two squads in a single playthrough and I don't see any way how you'd be able to recover from that, unlike in games like XCom.

Getting a great Aliens game was not something I expected in 2023, especially with how this game seemingly came out of nowhere. It feels like it has no right to be as good as it is. It is imo to Aliens, what Alien: Isolation was to Alien.

 

[Alienman]

Had a guy lose a leg during a fight against a queen. Had to carry his sorry ass back to the extraction vehicle, while being chased by all kinds of critters. After a few days in the medbay he got a new robotic leg. Pretty damn cool.

Funny how they forced him to stand on one leg for the debriefing though

 

[ArchAngel]

Looks interesting. I like the nu XCOMs alot. Is this like those games?

It's a lot less "open" than nu XCom, if that makes sense. It has a set amount of story missions that you do in a certain order with various objectives and you can extract at any time and go back with a fresh squad. In that sense it's a very focused experience. Not a bad thing, though. It can also be brutally difficult. Even on Medium it's quite a challenge compared to most games released over the last decade and a half. A lot of people are not going to be able to finish this game.

I'd like to see them implement some kind of "freeform" endless mode, though I'll probably replay this game a few more times on higher difficulties.

My first drop was long, about 1 hour and 40 minutes long. There was one last colonist marked on my map. I was still learning the ropes and didn't know yet how much of an impact hive awareness has on the game. Decided to save this guy before leaving. I sent my squad into the building, avoiding patrolling xenos. They entered the huge chamber covered with resin. The colonist was hanging, cocooned, in the corner. This was my first encounter with the eggs. The facehuggers popped, marines shot them, and stirred up hell. I was already low on supplies and in unfavourable terrain. As the fight ensued, I had a Gorman moment as I ordered my marines to set up a sentry gun, only to be constantly interrupted by attacking bugs. One of my soldiers was dragged screaming back into the hive, the other was knocked out unconscious. Of the two remaining soldiers, only one was in a fighting condition, as the other was torn up and limping badly. Just as we barely fought off the wave, the hive awareness level increased and we got the info that the onslaught is coming. The healthy marine picked up the unconscious one and carried him to the APC just as the bugs started swarming our positions. The limping dude wasn't so lucky, poor dude didn't even manage to leave the building. This was on medium difficulty, I can't imagine how screwed I would be on harder ones.

When shit hits the fan is where the game really shines. Always when you think "yeah, I can do that in this deployment" and then accidentally overextend yourself. I'm not the biggest fan of the fact that a full squad wipe means you have to reload a save, but I guess there's balance reasons for that. Lose two squads in a single playthrough and I don't see any way how you'd be able to recover from that, unlike in games like XCom.

Getting a great Aliens game was not something I expected in 2023, especially with how this game seemingly came out of nowhere. It feels like it has no right to be as good as it is. It is imo to Aliens, what Alien: Isolation was to Alien.

I also do not like that game forces you to load a save when you lose all 4 dudes but you can lose 3 and go back with one guy. At that point it is not a big difference and forcing you to load kills real ironman runs and I do not want to restart the whole game because only 4 guys died.

 

[ArchAngel]

Haha I love devs of this game:

No Time for Picnics! Hotfix and Major Patch Incoming!
Alright, listen up, you slugs!

This is general Spears aka Romain Clavier, your Creative Director from Tindalos Interactive HQ, reporting in!

First off, you should all be damn proud of yourselves. You've stormed the Steam platform and made our Aliens: Dark Descent one hell of a launch. You guys are some real tough hombres, and that 89% user score is a testament to your support. A big, hearty OORAH to you all!

We've received your sitreps and intel, and are prepping for a major counteroffensive.
First up, we've got a hotfix coming in hot. We're looking to airlift this in tomorrow on the PC frontlines, if those creatures wont cut the power again of course. We'll be silencing those 'Barks' you all love so much, and we're bringing in the big guns for the major crashes some of you have been reporting. Hang tight, marines we're gonna hunt those bugs!

But that ain't all, we've got a full-scale offensive planned. The first major patch is getting locked, loaded, and should be ready to ship out by next week at the earliest. We've got everything in this baby: optimizations, balancing, fix the whole shebang. We're going to be improving the hell out of your combat experience.

Finally, listen up. If you're having a good time on the ground, we need you to signal command. Give us a thumbs up and a review right here on Steam. It helps us know what we're doing right, and it helps your fellow marines find us. Do it for the Corps!

Stay frosty and keep those pulse rifles loaded. We're just getting started here. The Corps ain't paying us by the hour.

Remember, we're in this together... Oh! And stop this damn simulation training program! Get on the real field, set the game on nightmare, no permissive save granted, we wanna see your true value marines.

Dismissed, marines.

General Spears aka Romain Clavier
Creative Director, Tindalos Interactive

 

[Darth Roxor]

So this is actually gud?

 

[KIss My Ass]

Well up until yesterday I didn't give a single fuck about this game. After browsing through this thread my penis instantly went from flaccid to Power Loader.

 

[Fedora Master]

This game is far too complicated and difficult for you. Go back to Diablo.

 

[Luka-boy]

I'm starting to get Mechanicus vibes from this game. Not quite great, but solid with really good atmosphere and some interesting mechanics.