Terrifying Alien RPG Goes Up For Pre-Order This Weekend
May 23, 2019 by brennon
Free League Publishing has announced that the new Alien RPG will go up for pre-order this weekend, on May 25th. You'll be able to grab yourself the Core Rulebook as well as a range of extras including dice, a GM Screen, star maps and more.
This book forms the core of your experience in the world of Alien and features over 30o pages of mythology, original artwork and mechanics which help you either play out open-world campaigns of your own or cinematic adventures which run alongside those of the movies.
You can see some of the additional extras mentioned above too, a real treat for someone who is in love with Alien.
I can see a lot of people picking up the additional extras for this game, just to make sure that their players are entirely absorbed within the world as they fight for survival against the terrifying aliens in the shadows.
Pre-Order PDF
If you pre-order the main rulebook from Free League Publishing they are offering a special promotion where you'll get a free 168-page Cinematic Starter Kit PDF which means you can start playing the game right now.
The cinematic mode in the game is one which closely mirrors the films in that your survival is not at all assured. In many cases you are going to die, it's just a matter of when and how.
This also means you'll be able to give some feedback to the creators on the mechanics so they can improve the main game ahead of release.
I think this all sounds rather awesome indeed and I can't wait to see what people make of the game. I am looking forward to seeing some actual plays of this on Twitch so we can delve into the horror with players!
Will you be getting your mitts on this?
"I am looking forward to seeing some actual plays of this on Twitch so we can delve into the horror with players!"
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Like so many things… Alien started well.
Alien was a great terror movie. Full of suspense…
Aliens was good as a skirmish movie…
Less said about the sequels the better… ditto to the prequels.
As a game setting I’m not sure it works. The cinematic mode might be fun for a one shot, but given that we know what the bad guys are… there is no terror… Cthulhu works because there are so many creatures out there that you don’t know what you’re up against until the finale.
I like it as a concept, but not a game I’d run.
I agree on everything here. Nothing more to add
I think that the thrill is going to be in how you role-play these situations. It will be really interesting to see players getting stuck into acting ‘horror’.
Horror is hard in RPGs, I agree, but I think that in this case, it’s more about the puzzle of survival and the desperation that follows.
Beyond that though, the political machinations of Weyland, not knowing if the crew your working with have alternative motives etc…now that is going to be cool. I love the idea of not knowing just who to trust.
Secret agendas only work with some people… the possibility of betrayal is interesting, but I don’t think it would suit my group.
Horror done well can be brilliant… but with the wrong players in becomes akin the Scream movies… a parody of the genre…. which can be fun, but if everyone is playing Hicks it’s “Game over man… game over!”
Aye, it’s only going to suit the right group – which I think is fair. I can see this going down really well on Twitch and such as I stated above for actual plays of the game.
Nuke it from orbit is the traditional response to these situations
it’s the only way to be sure
Conspiracies are fun.
Cthulhu also worked because you were unraveling a mystery. The monsters were fairly similar, but you were rarely directly facing monsters. The Aliens universe seems flexible enough that you could do many things with it, with the true horror being the corporations and governments, rather than the aliens themselves. Much like the movies, the difficult part may be how the content is used, not the content itself. If the players all want to be Ripley clones with exoskeletons, that’s not going to work well with your remote outpost which expected a maintenance crew…!
True on all count’s if you can think of the others as stand alone films their watchable the Alien Isolation game’s good haven’t finished it the Bas#%!$ keeps catching me.
I kind of think that Alien 3 had its merits as it tries to go back to the original theme (no fighters, limited resources) … it’s not great, but not the worst of the sequels. The boardgame Nemesis already covers what the RPG could do as far as direct confrontations with the aliens themselves are concerned. There is potential for an interesting stories within the setting, because the way the movies have portrayed the corporation, its complete lack of morals and its influence. The book could tell us if weyland yutani is the exception or the rule within the setting.… Read more »
I still have the old Leading edge games adventure game for Aliens. Played a little campaign twenty years ago using it and didn’t have one alien in it. We just did colonial marines on various missions dealing with colonists or corporations and left the aliens out. But because the players never knew if they would turn up everyone had a local of fear that it could all go dark very quickly.
did the same. they always thought it was an alien…just a bunch of crooks.
I think it can work well. The films turned the alien into pretty much just space dinosaurs, but the roots are much more surreal. You don’t have to use the alien as is, you can throw out the conventional movie lore. Have crazy subspecies, mutations, experiments the sky is the limit. I think if you lay down the theme and premise of the campaign where the alien is a symptom of it and not the point of it then you can really get into the horror aspect. But just get creative, don’t like the idea of the alien queen and… Read more »
A good few years ago a buddy ran his own Alien game using the World of Darkness rules. It works. The terror comes from knowing how fragile you are. Even knowing what a xenomorph is as a gamer, knowing whats coming and just how bad it will be is a very different but also fun kind of RPGing experience. Every shot, decision and roll will count in this game.
Aliens is my favorite movie! I will probably being buying this. I think it really only works as one off scenarios. The Xenomorphs are just too tough to kill. “just one of those things managed to wipe out my entire crew in less than 24 hours!” I think the only way to do it as a campaign is have a crew play through a few missions to build up the characters until you end with the climax of a TPK with Xenomorphs. Another way to play it as a campaign I see is playing though an event with a Xenomorph… Read more »
‘Nuke em from orbit, only way to be sure’.
to paraphase Torros.
Did try roleplaying Aliens with players who has not seen the film or knew much about it not long after it was released.
Most of players were vets or Ex territorials. Ended up with them dug in on that hill with APC in middle and the drop ship flying aircover waiting for the night attack. Ended up more like Starship Troopers the cartoon series!
I think this would suit a younger group of players – teenage/twenty-somethings – where the horror genre can still be scary/exciting. Myself and my group are too old 😀 now, to immerse ourselves psychologically and emotionally in a horror survival RPG like this – needs fresh young minds for that! Also needs a great GM to set the scenes and build the tension, not always an easy feat with the randomness of PC’s 🙂 All in all I think it could be a very fun game with the right group, so nice to see it out there. For my group… Read more »
I wonder how they will treat the Alien in this game. It might be some kind of enviromental hazard, which would devalue it in my eyes, but how deal with it else ?
If we take the Alien out of the equasion there isn´t much much left.
As a big fan of Free League I am super curious what this RPG will end up like.