Interviews// Rebellion: Aliens vs Predator

SPOnG: I found it interesting that in the Infestation mode you've got all these Marines that are technically against each other but they end up sticking together to fight Aliens. Like a strength in numbers scenario as you said, and the additional modes really run with that banding with friends thing.

Eric Miller: Ah, but they're not really your friends, that's the interesting bit. They're just people who have helped you survive. A means to an end. But yeah, we have tried to play on that psychological sense of teamwork. There are really three ways to win Infestation. You can be the last Marine standing, you can be the first Alien or you can be an infected Alien that got the most kills. There's really a fourth one too, but it's not quite a win – if all the Marines are still alive once the game time runs out you split the scores.

As the Marine numbers dwindle, you have a choice. Do you leave your fellow Marines to the mercy of the Aliens, run off and try to be the last man standing? Do you stick together and win points? In the demo you played, we turned friendly fire off but we left impulses in, so you can shotgun a guy in the back and push them off a ledge to waiting Alien hordes below. Maybe that's what you want to do. Maybe it's not. Maybe you do it accidentally [laughs].

David Brickley: The last Marine alive also gets a Smart Gun to himself if he's quick enough to grab it. But any Alien will know that they can't let that last guy get the Smart Gun. That makes for one hell of a last stand.

SPOnG: Is the storyline for this game based on an already-existing Aliens or AvP film, based on any upcoming project or does it have its own plot entirely? And what sort of references did you use to recreate the world, was it based on the films, did you take a little bit from comics or other material?

David Brickley: I think in a way, we're certainly glad not to be tied to the release of anything else.


SPOnG: Not even the 'hit' Aliens vs Predator film?

David Brickley: [Laughs] We kinda missed the boat on that one really [laughs]. But yeah, the fact that this is its own storyline and separate from other mediums shows that AvP means so much more to people, or something different to those unfamiliar with the original game.

This is Rebellion making a sequel to the PC original, and two thirds of the original dev team behind it. That's the inspiration behind the desire to make another game. The absurdity of it all is that the original AvP game added to the lore in its own way. The AvP movie featured the Predator looking in a mode which allowed it to see Aliens, which came from that game.

The fact that a film studio is looking to us for lore and design has made the whole thing come full circle in a way so one medium benefits from the other. So I guess we can damn well choose from whatever we like to add to the game [laughs]! The Pyramid map for example is based off of the Pyramid in the AvP movie, but why the hell not? It's quite a nice thing to chuck in there. And nobody forced us to do it, we just thought it would be cool.

But the original AvP game was mostly inspired by the comic books that were around at the time, which were far more ahead in lore and storyline than the movies at that point. It's an understandable reaction to fear that a game is in any way associated with a series of movies, and sometimes for justifiable reasons. But it's not based off of a particular film; we've put our own stamp on it, although of course we're very happy and proud to be working on a franchise with such a great pedigree to it.