| Aliens: Colonial Marines | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Gearbox Software[a] |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Producer(s) | Brian Burleson[1] |
| Designer(s) | John Mulkey[1] |
| Programmer(s) |
|
| Artist(s) | Brian Cozzens[1] |
| Writer(s) | Mikey Neumann[1] |
| Composer(s) | Kevin Riepl |
| Series | Alien |
| Engine | Unreal Engine 3 |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | February 12, 2013 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Aliens: Colonial Marines is a 2013 first-person shooter developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sega for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360. Based on the Alien universe and set shortly after the 1986 film Aliens, the game follows a group of Colonial Marines, a fictional military unit, as they confront the Weyland-Yutani corporation in an effort to rescue survivors from the Sulaco spaceship. It features a campaign mode that supports both single-player and cooperative gameplay, and a multiplayer mode in which players compete in different scenarios.
Colonial Marines was developed over six years and suffered from a tumultuous development cycle. As Gearbox decided to focus on projects such as Duke Nukem Forever and Borderlands 2 and outsourced a significant part of Colonial Marines to other studios. The Aliens concept artist Syd Mead was hired to design locations. Four downloadable content packs added multiplayer maps, a new cooperative mode, and a campaign mode that takes place before the campaign of the base game.
Colonial Marines sold more than one million copies in the United States and Europe, but received unfavorable reviews from critics, who criticized its technical problems, low-quality graphics, short length, and weak artificial intelligence of enemies. It is considered to be one of the worst video games ever made. The competitive multiplayer mode was highlighted as its strongest aspect. Colonial Marines drew controversy for featuring a lower graphical quality than that of the press demos. This led two players to file a lawsuit for false advertising, but it lost class-action status by 2015.
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