You can blame Mickey Mouse for cancelling Cliff Bleszinki’s awesome pitch for a new Alien game

With an entire armed chapter of gung-ho space soldiers in the form of the Colonial Marines, you’d think that the Alien franchise would be chomping at the bit to produce a new first-person shooter starring Weyland-Yutani’s infamous soldiers as they gunned down the most nightmarish penis and vagina monsters that space had to offer. And you’d be right! Some of those games were indeed memorable, even if the Marines were sharing the spotlight in the Rebellion Aliens Vs. Predator games.

It’s also a good thing that they never ever starred in a game that was more bitterly disappointing than your Tindr profile compared to reality, right?

I legitimately still cannot believe that that happened. Anyway, even with a stinker of a game and a film prequel where Michael Fassbender literally talks to himself about fingering his flute (WINK WINK), Alien is still a franchise which deserves to be explored. At its best, you get brilliant games such as Aliens Isolation, proof that there is still magic to be milked from those Facehuggers. Good luck getting that image out of your head.

Cliff Bleszinski’s now pining for the Fjords studio Boss Key Productions had a neat idea for a first-person shooter set in the Alien universe, but that plan got derailed when the House of Mouse rolled into town and bought 20th Century FOX. “Funfact: Before BKP shut down we were in talks to do a new game in the Aliens franchise with Fox,” Bleszinski tweeted.

Then Disney bought them and that got lost in the shuffle, darnit. Ripley would be alive and be your “Cortana/Anya.” You’d play as grown Newt. On Earth. Weyland-Yutani are weaponizing the aliens in a Black Mesa style facility and, of course, all hell breaks loose. Your robotic pal i.e. Bishop? A new one named “Casey” after her doll in Aliens.

Bleszinksi also mentioned that Alien was one of two exceptions for working on an IP that he didn’t own, the other being Transformers. It’s a pity, because one could only imagine how satisfying it would have been to see Bleszinski’s stylish stamp on what I’d presume was a tense run ‘n gun experience where you’d have to juggle cunning with intense firefights as you fought off the acid-blooded monsters running amok. Bleszinski is pretty much done with game development these days, while the Alien franchise waits for its new masters to do something with it.

Last Updated: February 11, 2020