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After 40 years, Aliens is still shaping the way video games are made
The Guardian's games column marks 40 years since James Cameron's Aliens hit cinemas, arguing the film remains hugely influential on how modern action video games are designed. Where Ridley Scott's original Alien was a claustrophobic slasher with a tiny cast, Cameron's sequel turned it into a militarised space war movie, establishing templates for weapons, villainous corporations and pacing that games have borrowed from ever since.
The piece traces Aliens' fingerprints through the colonial marines archetype, echoed in Doom, Halo, Gears of War, Killzone and Marathon, and through Cameron's expansion of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation as a model for evil video game mega-corps. It also credits the film with popularising scaled weapon progression and a rhythm of tense exploration followed by explosive combat. Despite this influence, direct game adaptations have struggled: Aliens: Colonial Marines was a notorious flop that triggered a false-advertising lawsuit, while Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Aliens: Infestation had more mixed but modest success; the writer singles out 1986's Aliens: The Computer Game as an early, underrated favourite.
In short
- Aliens turns 40; its design still shapes today's action games.
- Colonial marines, weapon progression and villainous corporations trace back to it.
- Direct game adaptations have mostly disappointed, bar cult favourites.
Explained simply
James Cameron's Aliens (1986) was a sequel to Ridley Scott's original Alien, but took a significantly different approach to the franchise. Where the first film was a claustrophobic horror thriller with a small cast, Cameron created a large-scale military science-fiction action film featuring heavily armed soldiers, combat against aliens, and a corporation willing to sacrifice lives for profit.
Video game designers have extensively borrowed from Aliens' template over subsequent decades. The film established design patterns that persist across many games: squadrons of militarised marines (seen in Halo, Gears of War and Doom), sinister mega-corporations prioritising profit over safety, weapon progression systems, and a rhythm that alternates between tense exploration and explosive combat.
Despite Aliens' influence on game design, direct video game adaptations of the franchise have been inconsistent. Some, such as Aliens: Colonial Marines, became notorious failures; others achieved modest success but failed to achieve the lasting cultural impact of the film itself.
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