Gearbox comments on Aliens: Colonial Marines development
Aliens: Colonial Marines technically became a real “thing” six years ago. An announcement about the new game was made in 2006 once 20th Century Fox, SEGA, and Gearbox came to an agreement.
However, it wasn’t until 2008 that we actually saw got a first look at Colonial Marines. So even though it may seem as though the title has been in the works for an extremely long time, developer Gearbox believes its development cycle is comparable to that of Borderlands and the original Brothers in Arms, some of the studio’s previous projects.
Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford commented on the seemingly lengthy dev cycle for Aliens: Colonial Marines today:
“At the beginning of this effort a few years ago, as the business was in place to allow for the effort, everyone was excited. 20th Century Fox and Sega immediately shared the news with a press release that announced that Gearbox would be making a game in the franchise with these goals in mind. Later, the game was revealed with details and a title, Aliens: Colonial Marines, on the cover of Game Informer magazine. At that moment, we had finished our prototypes and were eager to test our promise against fans and then set real production in motion.
“We’ve remained true to our vision. We’ve been committed to it, through and through. We’ve always prioritized the goals we had for the game over any particular launch window. The game’s development has been invigorating and natural relative to our experience making games and the objectives for it. Because the game was ‘announced’ with that original press release, it might feel, to those of you who have been waiting for the game since then, that it has been in development a long time. In fact, with the release date now set, it turns out that the total development time we have spent creating Aliens: Colonial Marines is about the same length of time as we had spent creating the original Borderlands or the original Brothers in Arms – both games that we had waited to announce until we were much farther along in the development process.
“If you have had that feeling that you’ve been waiting a long time, then today should be a good day for you! We have an official, solid launch date for the game! We’re now at a point in development when we can see the end – we know what’s left to do and can sufficiently quantify it to be very confident in the schedule for the game’s completion and commercial release!”
