The Tragedy of Aliens: Colonial Marines

gamers [Music] after announcing its acquisition of the licensing rights for 20th century fox's aliens franchise sega teased two projects based on the property a role-playing game and a first-person shooter within a few short years sega unceremoniously cancelled the rpg which had been held by fallout new vegas developer obsidian entertainment many would later contend the fps from borderland studio gearbox software should have suffered a similar fate instead it arguably endured far worse and not at all for the better gearboxes aliens colonial marines was intended as a showcase of what's possible when a licensed brand and a skilled group of developers meet in perfect harmony fox and sega additionally envision colonial marines as a stepping stone to narrow the divide between gaming and film the shooter's canonical narrative exemplified this intention tenfold gearbox's efforts failed spectacularly though culminating in a mess of broken promises that long tarnished its reputation according to a host of accusations leveled against gearbox mishandled resources professional dishonesty and a lack of passion beset the game's lengthy and tumultuous development cycle while studio representatives have denied these claims the word of former staff members paints an entirely different picture one that suggests colonial marines was never in a position to fulfill its promise of faithfully expanding upon the beloved sci-fi universe this is the tragedy of aliens colonial [Music] marines gearbox software spent its early days predominantly serving as a support studio famously developing expansion packs for half-life the developers first original game 2005's brothers-in-arms road to hill 30 proved a remarkable success inspiring the texas-based team to use the cachet and resources garnered from it to pursue another new ip and a licensed project as luck would have it co-founder brian martell secured a meeting with alien director ridley scott resulting in scots dusting off hand-drawn storyboards that depicted never-before-seen details about the iconic series according to gearbox co-founder and ceo randy pitchford martel returned to the group armed with this information and a desire to explore the hidden facets of the property in a video game a collaboration with sega which entered a licensing agreement with franchise rights holder foxx gave gearbox permission to do just that upon detailing its deal with fox in december 2006 sega revealed that a first person shooter due out in 2009 and an rpg were both in the works a decision all involved would come to regret pitchford himself as well as sources supposedly familiar with colonial marines creation later said the publisher teased the title too far in advance given that production had yet to begin in earnest in a 2012 interview with gama sutra pitchford divulged gearbox began building prototypes for the shooter in 2007. those builds then informed the official announcement in game informer's march 2008 issue which unveiled a canonical plot that would fill in the blanks surrounding james cameron's aliens and david fincher's alien 3. gearbox had in the palm of its hands the ultimate dream project passion fueled the crew of developers all of whom were committed to authentically recapturing the franchise's atmosphere early on at least that attention to detail presented itself in the hiring of renowned concept artist sid mead the very artist responsible for the uss sulaco's design in aliens meat told the hollywood reporter he was brought in to artistically explore the sulaco's interior as gearbox wanted to recreate the ship's mechanical mood artists within the studio also went to obsessive lengths to maintain authenticity by carefully studying the grainy film stock used by james cameron apparently this represented an effort to approximate alien sublime lighting style and other fine details most associated with the brand's visual aesthetic original audio files were additionally put to use while fox provided the team with set props photos and access to its film archives thus no stone went unturned in gearbox's attempt to develop a worthy bridge between the narratives of aliens and alien three what went wrong then 2008 saw gearbox lay off more than a dozen employees around the release of brothers in arms hells highway pitchford issued a statement in the midst of this news and colonial marines-related cancellation rumors explaining that the company had undergone tactical changes while the ceo debunked the cancellation reports an ex-developer told destructoid under the condition of anonymity that sega temporarily pulled the plug in 2008. allegedly the publisher learned of gearbox shifting staff away from colonial marines and reassigning them to borderlands the former staffer claimed these resources were being reallocated even though sega continued to send milestone payments to exclusively fund colonial marines if the destructoid source is to be believed the reduction of gearbox's workforce was a direct result of sega briefly withdrawing support evidently this would not constitute the last time borderlands affected gearbox's dedication to aliens the cel-shaded shooter hit stores in 2009 to unexpected sales success gearbox consequently fast-tracked borderlands 2 and reportedly de-emphasized aliens several sources with knowledge of colonial marines development spoke to kotaku post-launch revealing that gearbox outsourced much of the project to section 8 developer timegate in late 2010. after receiving pre-existing materials timegate employees were shocked to discover gearbox had made little progress one source alleged four years worth of work obviously hadn't been done another three sources seemed to corroborate as much claiming gearbox focused the bulk of its efforts between 2007 and 2010 on duke nukem forever and borderlands making matters worse a separate insider disclosed that what timegate obtained from gearbox was a hodgepodge of assets including the borderlands shader and a litany of other assets that bore no relevance to aliens at all interestingly reports are conflicting with regards to how timegate managed gearbox's previous work one kataku source insisted the new team started from scratch another described a process whereby timegate iterated on the little that was already in place regardless all agreed that by the end of 2010 timegate served as the shooter's primary developer even though both sega and gearbox refuted such a claim during an interview with gama sutra the year before launch pitchford mentioned three studios that served in support roles the crew behind shoot many robots demiurge studios worked on the prototype and was in charge of the cancelled wii u port he said time gate and nerve assisted too but maintained that 80 percent of the production took place in-house at gearbox days ahead of release in 2013 however pitchford told ign that subtracting pre-production from the equation made timegate's total contribution equivalent to gearboxes confusion about who did what mounted days later when sega american producer matthew j powers declared colonial marines had been developed by gearbox software and that other teams merely helped on single-player and multiplayer still the general consensus for media outlets and insiders suggested timegate did indeed lead the charge it evidently proved quite the herculean task too anonymous sources disclosed details concerning bouts of hardship that arose in 2011 specifically in relation to the game's script during the tv writers strike in 2007 and 2008 battle star galactica scribes bradley thompson and david weddle outlined the story and characters for colonial marines navigating that framework gearbox writer mikey newman penned the final script yet evidence of these efforts did not exist as of 2011. three separate sources claimed narrative designers between the two studios regularly shuffled through rewrites resulting in the development team too often having to excise levels because of story changes the absence of clear direction forced timegate to resort to guesswork at certain stages an aggravating process further exacerbated by gearboxes and sega's incompatible visions according to kataku one source cited sega's proposal of a call of duty style experience with more human enemies and fewer aliens as a key point of contention gearbox and timegate executives dismissed the idea placing the studios at odds with their publisher in terms of design choices that there were too many cooks in the kitchen led to gameplay-related woes as well hardly anything could be agreed upon giving rise to inconsistent and delayed feedback which prompted additional release date delays with the exception of then uncorroborated rumors such dysfunction wasn't apparent to public onlookers in fact on the heels of the first gameplay reveal audiences grew especially enamored by what aliens colonial marines had to offer little did they know that very same showcase would not too long thereafter be the subject of much controversy [Music] during a behind closed doors presentation at e3 2011 journalists got a look at the first gameplay demo for colonial marines pitchford narrated the presentation reportedly describing it as real live gameplay though a work in progress tag did adorn a corner of the screen the press and attendance were beyond impressed a feeling the public experience several months later once the footage surfaced online gearbox's 11-minute walkthrough masterfully captured the franchise's dreadful atmosphere with fog-laden interiors dynamic lighting and extraordinary details the demos exploration of hadley's hope revealed carefully placed illusions to previous events while also showcasing what pitchford referred to as the sophisticated ai of alien enemies as critics and players eventually learned none of the pre-release footage shown at trade shows was at all indicative of the final product the e3 demo's mystifying fog didn't feature in the shipped build nor did the dynamic lighting and broken enemy ai turned typically frightful xenomorphs into woefully incompetent foes similar cutbacks were evident when comparing the stunning e3 2012 demo to post-launch footage as a result many accused gearbox of misleading consumers but people familiar with timegate's involvement told kotaku there were no dubious intentions timegate allegedly created the demo with gearbox aiding in the animation department numerous insiders claim the gameplay demo was built in real time and as is customary with e3 reveals ran on a high-end pc whose specs proved impossible to replicate on consoles yet another developer said higher-ups urged the team to ignore performance concerns and simply focus on producing an awesome vertical slice such a decision inevitably complicated matters as development progressed ps3s and xbox 360's memory restrictions left timegate with no choice but to scale down the texture shader and particle fidelity still this failed to explain why the title's performance on pc hardly managed to fare any better even on the highest settings in a 2015 ign interview pitchford insisted much of the drama was blown out of proportion in some cases he argued the changes had purpose for example a level designer switched out the swinging halogen tube lights from the demo with a klaxon whether or not the drastic drop in quality represented false advertising culminated in a class-action lawsuit that eventually lost its class status and saw gearbox removed from the suit in 2015. however insiders stressed that what the public gushed over in gameplay demos was a far cry from what gearbox found when receiving the project back from timegate in 2012. months ahead of colonial marine's arrival an ex-gearbox staffer commented on a forum post advising fans to lower their expectations the former developer called the production a train wreck noting that timegate with its less than stellar past had spearheaded primary development another developer shared similar sentiments with kotaku alleging timegate's work wasn't very good supposedly the team could even get the title to run on ps3 thus upon its return to aliens after finishing borderlands 2 gearbox changed everything reports claim timegate employees had to play the final product to see how much of their endeavor landed on the cutting room floor a source familiar with later builds listed lighting textures and shaders as a few examples of the gearbox alterations the same insider further divulged the studio either altered design elements or overhauled them entirely despite its myriad flaws gearbox rushed colonial marines out the door not wanting to ask sega for yet another extension the crew attempted to rectify the shortcomings in rampant glitches by releasing a series of patches several of which improved the overall experience but oddly enough it was a modder who fixed the broken ai after identifying a typo in a code wherein the word tether had the letter a mistakenly added in yet none of it mattered arguably it doesn't matter now most have made up their minds about aliens colonial marines having been scarred by the initially inferior experience and not much can turn the tide in this regard especially since gearbox moved on long ago so too did sega and aliens as a whole fans of the groundbreaking series were better served in creative assemblies alien isolation a survival horror title whose quality content arrived just a year after colonial marines crashed and burned needless to say the crash and burn is exactly how gearboxes track into the ruins of hadley's hope will be remembered for years to come thank you for watching we'd like to take this time to thank by name the generous patrons who have pledged to our hall of fame rewards here alex moretti caleb shishkivich maktoum saeed al-maktoum and those currently subscribed to our producer rewards here daria zone emu movies.com fernando lopez ojeda milkshake ryan patrick wallace schizo lingvo if you enjoy our content please consider subscribing to our channel and backing us on patreon you

Channel: GVMERS

Views: 355,692

Rating: 4.9430261 out of 5

Keywords: Aliens, Alien, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, Sega, TimeGate Studios, Fail, 4K, Gameplay, Aliens Colonial Marines 2, Documentary, History

Id: mLSttGAFBY4

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SaintVeloth420]

Wasn't this the game where the Alien behaviour could literally be improved by an INI fix?

Almost seems sabotaged intentionally.

[u/Daedolis]

I remember there being an overhaul that fixed some issues: https://www.moddb.com/mods/templargfxs-acm-overhaul

But still doesn't make it everything it should have been of course.

[u/traceitalian]

To call it a tragedy misrepresents the fact that this film was a deliberate and craven insult to people who bought the game.

I know that sounds like dramatic hyperbole but Pitchford is a scumbag, time and time again he's shown he has no regard for the consumer. Colonial Marines was an utter sham, a barely playable prototype that had no business being released.

[u/mrbrick]

Biggest let down if my gaming life. I bought this game for $2.50 and I still felt i paid too much for it.

Wish someone would make a decent aliens game already. Isolation was great but now we need to Alien/Aliens follow up.

That CA team should take it on. Next gen Aliens from them would be great. I want to see my reflection in a slime covered alien head