Alien versus Predator interview

Gore and Gore Alike

BT: Great, because in the first one they were all distinct and different, weren’t they?

Tim: Yes. The first PC game we did didn’t have much focus on the narrative, it was all on the levels. With this one though the narrative has been important from the outset and we consider it like making another movie in the series. We’d like this to be considered canon in the universe and we stay true to everything that’s gone before.

In the new game, yes, the campaigns are all different and, yes, they all have their own story in their own terms – but they all overlap too. They entwine. There’s overlap events too, where key events from one game might overlap into another. Events that you can see from another perspective.

There are other things too, like significant portions of the Alien campaign take place before the events in Predator and Marine campaign. Really though, they all offer a chance to experience the story differently and to explore different environments and so on. You could be crawling around in the dark, leaping invisibly through treetops, or you could be the ground-bound Marine. They all share areas and they all have unique areas, but even the areas they share feel very different because they see it so differently.


BT: One thing that unifies them all though is the huge amount of gore in the game. Everyone else in the presentation just 'Hmmed' it away or had seen it before, but to me it was kind of shocking to see that much blood even though I’d played the previous games. Did you deliberately try to top yourselves in terms blood?

Tim: Well, we’re certainly not setting out to make a blood-and-guts gore game, but the movies themselves are violent. The licenses we’re dealing with contain violent stuff. I mean – this is an intergalactic hunter-killer Predator and the Alien is the most fearsome thing in the universe. There’s no way you can really gloss over the way they interact with their victims, especially in first-person.

It’s just a visceral business. It naturally gets a bit more shocking and detailed that we’re able to do that with consoles now. It’s part of the license and it’s important we don’t shy away from that.

BT: Was that true for the suicide feature as well? Some people would question the tastefulness of that.

Tim: It was one of our key driving forces to make characters react in believable and plausible ways that generate new gameplay. In the movies too it’s certainly established that, as a human, the last thing you want to happen to you is to undergo that awful birthing process where they burst through your chest. It just felt natural that an unarmed civilian, faced with no other option and having seen so many people around him die an awful death at the hands of the aliens, when confronted with an alien and with no chance against it…will take their own life. In many ways it’s actually less shocking than what would actually happen if you did successfully get a facehugger on him – which you can also do.


It’s just the reality of this fictional situation and part of the reality we’re trying to create. One of dread and fear and something believable.

BT: What about the multiplayer modes – can you tell us what features, modes?

Tim: Well, it’ll be 18 players for all three platforms. There’ll be a variety of modes and you can expect the usual deathmatch and team deathmatch. We have three-species and two-species modes, which we’ll be revealing more about in the coming months. There’s also the four-player co-op mode, which is called Survivor. You play as up to four Marines.

BT: Just Marines?

Tim: Yeah, we’re focusing on Marines for that one just because it feels so iconic. It’s a point defence mode against never-ending waves of AI-controlled aliens. It’s pretty tense that one, especially since you know it’s not a matter of surviving until the end, but how long you can survive for. It’s a real thrill.

BT: And what about the Praetorian and PredAliens – are they making a comeback?

Tim: We’ve unveiled the PredAlien, yeah. That’s a big thing for the game plays a big part in the story, especially for the Predator campaign where it’s something of a nemesis. Beyond that though, there’s not anything else I can say right now.

And that’s all we had time for, unfortunately. A quick thanks to Tim and everyone from the Sega booth at GamesCom 2009. If you’ve got any thoughts on the game then pop them in the forums.