Yes, that's right, after the multiplayer game on Jason Voorhees and the one on Predator, the next licensed multiplayer horror to be released will be a multiplayer game on Alien.
Working on this new game are Cold Iron Studios, a team centered in San Jose, founded in November 2015 by the creators of City of Heroes, Star Trek Online andNeverwinter, or ratherby veteransof Cryptic Studios.
Funding for the development of this new project was secured one year later, in December 2016, following a prototype that was developed during that period.
In January 2018, the studio was acquired by FoxNext Games, a division of 20th Century Fox, and began work on the new Alien shooter. In March 2019, Disney acquired FoxNext Games as part of the $71 billion acquisition of Fox. Then, in January 2020, Scopely, the mobile games specialist behind Star Trek: Fleet Command, acquired FoxNext Games from Disney and then also Cold Iron Studios. At the time, Scopely said Cold Iron Studios would be put up for sale so the company could find a more appropriate home for the Alien shooter.
And, in fact, a couple of days ago, on August 11, a collaboration agreement was made with Daybreak Games which has in fact acquired Cold Iron Studios and will be the publisher for the project providing marketing, tech, and operational support.
Daybreak Games is a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games known for its blockbuster hits and franchises, including the original standalone battle royale game, H1Z1®, EverQuest®, EverQuest®II, PlanetSide®2 and DC Universe™ Online. Daybreak also publishes The Lord of the Rings Online™ and Dungeons & Dragons Online® for Standing Stone Games.
Zinkievich, the co-founder of Cold Iron Studios commented on this acquisition during a press release: “We are incredibly proud and excited to be part of the Daybreak family, Daybreak and Cold Iron share the same passion and long history of delivering action-packed multiplayer games to audiences around the world. By combining our decades of experience developing and launching successful multiplayer titles worldwide, we are bound to make great games together.”
Ji Ham, CEO of DayBreak Games, added: “We are delighted to have Cold Iron Studios in the Daybreak Games family and accelerate our next generation of growth. Strategic investments in highly talented and proven teams that have exceptional leaders and extensive experience in developing great online games are an important part of our growth and strategy for Daybreak.”
And, as for the game, the co-founder of Cold Iron Studios added: "The game promises to deliver an action-packed sci-fi / shooter experience unlike any other game on the market."
The game will be developed in Unreal Engine 4, will be released on PC & Consoles and more than 40 developers are currently working on the game, a diverse group of passionate gamers with decades of experience developing and launching award-winning MMO and action titles.
If you want to know more about this new Alien game, I would like to point out that on December 29 of this year a novel will be released which will be the prequel of this game.
The novel is called Aliens: Infiltrator, and this is the summary: "The official prequel to the huge new Alien video game from Cold Iron Studios, as a Weyland-Yutani scientist arrives at Pala Station and finds the researchers there courting disaster... of the Xenomorph kind. Dr. Timothy Hoenikker arrives on Pala Station, a Weyland-Yutani facility. Lured there by the promise of alien artifacts, instead he finds a warped bureaucracy and staff of misfits testing the effects of Xenomorph bio-materials on living creatures. Unbeknownst to the personnel, however, there is an infiltrator among them whose actions could spell disaster. Also on staff is Victor Rawlings, a former Marine who gathers together other veterans to prepare for the worst. As the personnel receive a delivery of alien eggs, the experiments spin out of control, and only the former Colonial Marines can stand between the humans and certain death."
