Gearbox denies Aliens has been canned

By Tom Bramwell Published 24 November, 2008

Despite reports of problems and layoffs.

Gearbox Software has denied that Aliens: Colonial Marines has been cancelled following reports of trouble at the developer on Friday.

Shacknews and Kotaku, citing multiple sources, both originally reported that the SEGA-published shooter had been ditched late in development and that 15-26 employees had been let go.

However, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford said "Aliens isn't canned" in a comment post on Shacknews, and told both sites that he couldn't wait for "the right moment we can more fully unveil our efforts there".

Pitchford didn't address the issue of layoffs directly, but he acknowledged that the company had been "adjusting our internal strategy to move from being about Opportunity, Ambition and Growth to a strategy that is oriented towards Quality, Focus and Performance" in a statement.

He said there had been "a number of recent tactical decisions" that were "natural manoeuvring that all studios should only consider after they finish a big effort", and that "we are, in fact, currently hiring".

Gearbox recently shipped Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, which struggled to emulate the critical success of its predecessors Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood. The developer is also working on the promising openworld ARPG Borderlands for 2K and other unannounced projects.

SEGA was unavailable to comment on the status of Aliens: Colonial Marines at the time of writing.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • professor_mamet #1 3 years ago

    I'm REALLY hoping that there is no truth in this rumor.

  • Ninja_Tino #2 3 years ago

    "I got me some of that Actarian poontang."
    "Yeah, but what you got was male."
    "It don't matter when it's Actarian, man."
    Or something like that. What a film.

  • Canyarion #3 3 years ago

    I say we take off and nuke the game from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

    Anything that L4D modders will come up with, will be better than this game.

  • booner #4 3 years ago

    Please release this game, I will buy it.

  • drumbaby #5 3 years ago

    This game seems to be jinxed. I remember A:CM on PS2 going the same way...

  • rudedudejude #6 3 years ago

    Really Ed? I hadn't heard this! Bloody Excellent if there are!!

  • Bleh #7 3 years ago

    Hope this isn't true but some how I got this stupid feeling.

  • Gearskin #8 3 years ago

    Find 'em! Fix 'em! Flank 'em! Fire 'em!

  • TheDifficult3rdAlbum #9 3 years ago

    Game over, man. Game over!

  • Triggerhappytel #10 3 years ago

    Like the professor, I really hope there's no truth to this. I've been waiting for this game for about, say, eight years now. I've already been hurt when the 2001 EA effort got quietly cancelled :'(

  • sneetch #11 3 years ago

    Hmmm... anyone know what kind of game this is planned to be? I mean even a fairly simple reskinning of Brothers in Company on Hells Road or whatever it was called with aliens replacing the Germans and Colonial Marines replacing the US could be pretty awesome. Positioning fire-teams to make sure they're set up to provide cover while moving to objectives on poorly-lit distant planets or starships. Could be good, tactical and trouser dirtying: once you start to lose marines you'd rapidly find yourself in deep crap.

    Hopefully they won't just do a by-the-books Doom clone.

  • the_mtfr #12 3 years ago

    I absolutely love the first 2 AvP games so that's exactly why I wish this rumour is true. The screenshots released a few months ago looked total garbage, maybe worse than Space Siege, and I don't think gameplay would have redeemed that game. It looks like that smart-ass Randy Pitchford's idea of "growth" was exaggerated, since they had more than 3 internal projects running, so from the presumed 4 internal dev teams, odds are one of them IS low quality. Too bad though.

    Oh and from what I could find on the webs it seems that the AvP 3 by Rebellion is a hoax. Although I wish it wasn't. Although if it wasn't I would be really pissed since the hoax stated it's X360-only, and I'm a PC gamer :p

    Well my hope remains with that Alien RPG made by Obsidian if I'm not mistaking...

  • zuljin #13 3 years ago

    @MrED209
    Really? Ahh to play an AvP sandbox game, I'd pay the full £40 for that...

  • curtlikesmeat #14 3 years ago

    I would buy this if it was utter shite, if it can just get 1% of the atmosphere from Aliens. Please do not can it - DO NOT WANT.

    Incidently, why can't he just say they let a load of people go? What's with all the management speak?

  • ExplodingClown #15 3 years ago

    Y'know, maybe if they'd taken account of the general feeling that WW2 FPS are now about as welcome as a shower of piss, having been comprehensively done to death, they could have put worthwhile resources into Aliens.

    First AvP made me shit myself. Second one was a little too cartoony looking, suffered from lazy writing (a main character called 'Frosty' doesn't remind me of Corporal Hicks, it makes me think of a happy jolly snowman); rubbish stealth coding; and some terrible editing that rendered the plot incoherent - only when I dug into the sound files did I find a short (excised) speech that explained what the hell was going on. But Monolith seem to be specially bad for that - Condemned and F.E.A.R. are both fun and nerve-jangling rides, but neither really hangs together when you go back and think through the story after you finish the game. Oh well.

    Don't even MENTION 'Primal Hunt', eccch.