Alien RPG - Officially Announced

Sega and Obsidian's freshly-uncovered (untitled) Alien RPG has been officially announced:

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON (December 11, 2006) SEGA of America Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced that Obsidian Entertainment will create a role-playing game based on the Alien film franchise with license from Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising. This title will be developed for the next-generation systems and the PC.
Obsidian Entertainment draws upon their wealth of design knowledge creating successful games such as the best-selling Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords and the award-winning Neverwinter Nights 2 to bring the Alien franchise to role-playing gamers for the first time. The role playing game will build upon the distinctive look and feel of the original films while utilizing next-generation technology to create an entirely different and unique Alien experience.
"With Obsidian Entertainment's development pedigree, they were our first choice to bring the Alien franchise to the RPG universe," said Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America, Inc. "They are the only developer for us that could effectively combine the Alien mythology with compelling RPG gameplay to create the ultimate Alien experience."
"We are thrilled to be working with the great production and publishing teams at SEGA to deliver the ultimate in-depth Alien experience to gamers worldwide," said Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. "Building an epic RPG with a license as heralded as the Alien franchise is truly a great honor."
Since its 1979 debut, Alien and its three sequels have grossed more than $557 million worldwide, garnering numerous awards, including two Academy Awards. In 2002, Alien was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. For more information, please visit www.sega.com/aliens or the SEGA FTP site at http://segapr.segaamerica.com/

More information.

I am wondering if they will add some Fear, Anxiety and Insanity to the NPCs.

They achieved quite an advancement in the Influence system with Sith Lords yet sadly backed off with NWN2.
We can no longer influence the NPCs yet our toon's alingment constantly changes depending on choices.

IMHO the best sci-fi horror classic ever. Should be interesting.

my thoughts exactly, though i preffered aliens which i saw first. as a kid it had a profound effect on my tastes not to mention nightmares.

An exciting development for the Alien franchise. Although I'm wondering how combat will be handled. Traditional RPG combat doesn't seem in keeping with the nature of the aliens. Unless they only have 10HPs or somesuch, and make up for it with numbers.
Perhaps it'll be an RPG with a distinct focus on conversation, inter-character tension and puzzles, rather than combat. Or maybe it'll be in the mold of System Shock/Bloodlines. The time is ripe for groundless speculation and imagination!

xSamhainx
"IMHO the best sci-fi horror classic ever. Should be interesting."
Me too.
It was quite amazing combination of horror, shock and sexual tension at the time and even today, very well acted so many great character actors.
Think it was 1979, less than 2 years after the first Star Wars giving a new meaning and fear to space.

Hey at least it isn't a sequel to a Bioware game! It will be interesting to see what Obsidian can do with the Alien franchise. Hopefully it will be a full fleshed out scifi rpg. Some story driven and tactical combat would be nice.

It's been too long since I've played a good sci-fi RPG, and Obsidian is the perfect choice considering their connection (quite a few of them are old Black Isle developers) to Fallout 1-2 and Planescape: Torment. The Alien universe is not my favourite sci-fi setting exactly, at least not for games, as it tends to be located in very narrow passages, caves and spaceships with civilization often very far away, making it better for action games than RPGs. Still, it will be interesting to see how this turns out, and it should also be interesting to see if they use the whole Predator integration thing from Alien VS Predator, or stick with purely Alien stuff.

Please no Alien vs Predator. I still have nightmares about how horrible that movie was. As good as the Alien movies were, Alien vs Predator was an insult.

Great, i like horror RPG's like Bloodlines for example.

A very … strange idea for an RPG setting. I believe more info is need as to be determined if we will see a good RPG or a moronic inclined FPS with RPG elements or let god forbid, Diablo in an Alien setting. But there maybe hope, and it will probably sell good in any case, so I just added it to my list of things to wait and see.

I always wondered why there are countless action-games that are heavily based on the whole Alien-story but not a single RPG. In my opinion this is a very good decision. I'm extremly tired of the whole Elf-Dwarf-Dragon stuff lately… nothing against fantasy settings, but it's getting extremly boring. Sifi-RPGs seem to be the exception (as well as Pulp, Super-Hero, you name it).

I dont care much for the Aliens franchise although the first movie was allright, but it's good that we wont be seeing any elves or dwarves in this one. There are too few SF rpgs. Maybe it's going to be Bloodlines in space.
In space, no one can see you bleed.

Alien a Sci Fi version of the B Movie classic The Thing with the amazing stylings of HC Gyger. I remember being 8 years old and fascinated by the movie poster. R rated films you just never saw back then but everyone around me talked about it. What a great tagline! In space, no one can hear you scream. Take that George Lucas!

It was ripped off a number of times both in style and in story so when they actually did a sequel everyone was shocked that they didn't go for the obvious Ripley giving birth to an Alien. Aliens was very well done. It had that guy from Terminator and you can just feel the oil on Paul Reiser.

I didn't watch all of Aliens 3 ( I still want to I think ) but I tried watching Aliens 4. There was a reason I kept falling asleep during 4. Sigourney Weaver was terrific in it but unfortunately, it seems like these were the same people who made City of the Lost Children and they just had trouble with an English film. Half the actors didn't even speak! Winona Ryder fell into that same cliche. No one was surprised at all by her. I didn't waste my time with the video game ripoff.

So, I'm curious. Do think the two companies will get HC Gyger involved in the art direction or License Sigourney Weaver's likeness?

I can't see much more than an action RPG though, with a number of now familiar Alien cliches.

Bring back Hicks!

Hey anyone else like Near Dark by Kathryn Bigelow featuring Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein a classic B Vampire moive they did after Aliens 2?

It was one of the references when in the dialogue with Copper on the Beach about being transfused with Unicorn Blood to become human again, in Bloodlines.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093605/

Lucky Day
If you still haven't seen 3 yet might consider reading some about the differences in the Director cut and the orginal, since there is signifcant differences and references, iir.

It is true our PC will be running around in her underware?

hmmm…maybe we can play an alien party also?

Well, as noted, if they can make an rpg out of Alien it will truly be a masterpiece of development.

Unless it might be some sort of squad-based, tactical game? It could work.

There were some interesting characters and primal themes(betrayal, paranoia, sex, the cult of science superseding ethics and morality, etc)in the movie.

Have to wait and see.