Aliens: Colonial Marines is a true sequel to Aliens

For Aliens fans disappointed by Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection , a direct sequel to James Cameron’s artillery-heavy 1986 classic is in the works. In game form.

New first-person shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines is due for release in Spring 2012, and has been created by Gearbox Software as a direct follow-up to Aliens .

“We’ve called this a true sequel to Aliens before,” says Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford.

“The correct way to view it is, Alien 3 may be a truer sequel to Alien in that it is all about tension, whereas this is a game about a badass squad kicking ass and also dealing with the fact that the aliens are going to kick their ass back.”

Gearbox have called in the big guns for the game, having hired Battlestar Galactica writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle to flesh out its storyline.

They’ve not completely ignored Alien 3 , though, instead tailoring their playable sequel as able to fit into the franchise’s existing canon.

“We had to commit ourselves to Alien 3 being part of the canon and I’m glad we did,” says Pitchford. “I know we all loved Aliens so much; we wanted that experience to be the next film.

“I have to be thankful that it wasn’t because that’s fundamentally why our opportunity exists today - if that itch had been scratched already we wouldn’t even be here. It’s because the itch was never scratched that we not only get to scratch it now, but we do it in a videogame.

“There are some contradictions between Aliens and Alien 3 and we’ve actually taken those contradictions as an opportunity and challenged ourselves to solve them.”

For all the latest info and images from Aliens: Colonial Marines check out issue 60 of Official PlayStation Magazine UK , on sale now.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.