Going on a Bug Hunt With ‘Aliens: Dark Descent’ [Safe Room Podcast]

Earlier this year, we covered Aliens: Colonial Marines, which may have put the player into the boots of the galaxy’s toughest soldiers, but fundamentally misunderstood what made James Cameron’s 1986 classic Aliens timelessly terrifying. So, color me surprised when the latest attempt at bottling that magic, Aliens: Dark Descent, not only replicates the tension and terror of the film but manages to achieve this from a top-down RTS perspective.

Structurally, Aliens: Dark Descent shares some connective DNA with Firaxis Games’ XCOM reboots. You manage a squad deployed on missions, between which you manage a base and soldiers’ wellbeing. And that’s where the comparisons end. Aliens: Dark Descent’s combat playing out in real (or slow-mo) time replicates the urgency of marines duking it out with xenomorphs on Hadley’s Hope. And when the stakes are this high, as death is inevitable in Aliens: Dark Descent, it makes for nail-biting tension that I have never truly felt with a real-time strategy game. 

In this week’s episode, Neil and I unpack more of what makes Aliens: Dark Descent not only another quality Aliens adaptation but how the game adds a new facet to the RTS experience.

Then, in this week’s Horror Bytes we discuss two more bite-sized horror treats. First up is The Third Wish is a mini point n’ click adventure inspired by 90s LucasArts games. Then we boot up a 90s computer to play a cursed educational game about surviving an earthquake in Sin(e)s.

Safe Room is a weekly horror video game discussion podcast with new episodes every Monday and Thursday. For additional streaming services, Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Linktree. 

Feel free to follow the show and hosts on Twitter:

Safe Room | Neil | Jay | Horror Bytes

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