New shooter was developed using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 technology to continue big screen adventure.
“Since we already had all of these polished and intuitive content creation tools provided by Unreal, we were able to put some focus into modifying the renderer into something that can generate real time lighting and shadows,” said Cozzens. “Real time shadows was paramount to creating a scary and suspenseful environment so this was a big priority for us. Having to start from scratch was not an option, and luckily Unreal enabled us to integrate this feature in a relatively realistic time frame.”
While Gearbox worked with Mead to recreate the famous Sulaco ship, the game developer was able to get assets from the film productions to bring settings from the films into the game world.
Cozzens said Unreal tools like Kismet and Matinee allowed his team to script out cinematic sequences with relative ease, allowing them to be true to the films with cinematic moments of their own. The material system also played a huge role in making materials like making the “infestation slimy and disgusting.”
“Fox was great to work with,” said Burleson. “We got to see so much amazing reference, it would make and true Aliens fanboy pass out in glee. A lot of unreleased photographs, video and props were revealed to us that made making ACM as authentic as possible, a reality. At one point we actually got the actual Alien Queen from the film for a press event, which we geeked out about and took extensive photo reference from.”
In the game, the USS Sephora responds to a distress call sent by Corporal Dwayne Hicks from LV-426. When they arrive, they are surprised to find the USS Sulaco seemingly abandoned in orbit, since it was presumed destroyed over Fury-161. Marines are dispatched to investigate and pretty quickly all hell breaks loose.
