#Alien dark descent full#

It was a short demo and there's still a lot I don't understand, but I felt a little lost in the control scheme and mechanics, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that this is the only game of its kind. You can split them up and position them individually to take advantage of cover and sight lines, so I often found myself just stacking them up in a corner and hoping for the best. They each have their own weapons and specialities, but when setting up your defenses the game automatically chooses who is best suited for each task. I also had a hard time seeing my squad as individuals rather than a single unit. It's hard to gauge how many resources you need to commit to a fight, but if you don't sufficiently protect yourself it pretty much ends instantly. At best you can slow down time while you choose which item to use and where to use it, but the xenomorphs move so fast that even in slow motion they're extremely dangerous. I struggled to get through the big alien wave set pieces, in part because I was still learning all of the tools, but also because there's no way to stop the action and form a plan. Still, this feels like something new, though I'm not convinced it's something good.

The developers tell me their biggest influence is X-COM, and it's easy to see that.

#Alien dark descent full#

There are chapters in StarCraft where you need to maneuver Raynor and a small platoon through a hostile planet, but Dark Descent is like one of those missions blown up into a full game. I assumed there must be a gap in my knowledge, that Dark Descent must come from some lineage of squad-based RTS games I'm just not familiar with. Related: Persona 3 Is A Slow Burn I'm Glad I Finished It's technically an RTS, but calling it one doesn't feel right. You aren't developing a city and going to war with the xenomorphs, but there is deep strategy in the way you command each unit in battle. There’s no base building, no army construction, and no resource management other than health packs and stabilizers to calm your squad down when their stress levels get too high. It doesn't use any of the conventional mechanics we think of from games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, or Total War.

But Dark Descent has almost nothing in common with the RTS genre.