The year 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of the Alien franchise. To commemorate the occasion, FoxNext Games is releasing a (kind of) followup to the successful Alien: Isolation. However, instead of home consoles, the new game will be for mobile and is titled “Alien: Blackout.” An interesting question is that, if this game were to come to consoles, where would it go?
In an interview with DualShockers, FoxNext Games Vice President, TQ Jefferson, said the Nintendo Switch would be the platform for Blackout.
Jefferson: “I think Switch is a good one to bring up and we’ve certainly seen many games go from mobile to console or more likely console to mobile. If I had to pick a platform to put it on, I’d pick Switch.”
Interestingly, if this was a game developed for the Switch, reception would likely be more positive. As it stands, hype for Blackout is more on the negative side. To put this in perspective, D3 Go!’s announcement trailer for the game has 1,000 likes, but 31,000 dislikes. This is uncommon, and only happens to games with notably bad pre-reception. This is comparable with Nintendo’s E3 2015 trailer for Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Federation Force has 10,000 likes, but a whopping 93,000 dislikes. The reasons for this are similar: these two games do not appear as something fans wanted to see.
Alien: Blackout continues the story of Amanda Ripley, daughter of the famed Ellen Ripley. The gameplay consists of guiding the crew members to safety using the space station’s systems. Of course, players will have to be careful, because the Xenomorph is lurking. There is more than one possible ending depending on how you proceed through the seven levels. The trailer gives a Five Nights at Freddy’s angle to the gameplay, but we will all know for sure how the game controls when it launches next week.
Blackout appears as an unworthy followup to what many consider as a great Alien experience. Still, the game could surprise fans. In fact, Tony Palanco of Geek.com went hands-on with Blackout, and had nothing but good things to say about it. In the meantime, a console Alien game is on its way, although it won’t be a survival horror game. Cold Iron Studios is currently working on an MMO Alien shooter, something that will likely be far different than Blackout.
Alien: Blackout is currently available for pre-register on Google Play and IOS. It will launch on January 24th.