FoxNext Games, the video game division that 20th Century Fox formed last year, has recently acquired Bay Area developer Cold Iron Studios, who will be working on a new game based on the Alien franchise. This newly announced title will be released on PC and consoles.
The project is still in very early development, but familiar shooting mechanics and the promise of an ability to “explore areas of the universe that fans haven’t gotten to experience” have been revealed by the developer. This will be the first full release by Cold Iron Studios, though they have worked on various successful titles in the past, including Doom, Borderlands, BioShock Infinite, and Metroid Prime 3.
Aaron Loeb, president of FoxNext Games, has stated that he intends this title to initiate a movement that bridges the gap between Fox’s film production and game development, in an effort to “make games as important a part of Fox’s business as movies and television.” FoxNext Games saw a lot of potential for this when choosing to work with Cold Iron Studios, who have a history of building games with long play-sessions for large userbases. These kinds of games allow for deep exploration and attention to detail pertinent to fleshing out franchises in the way FoxNext intends to delve into.
The franchise has a lot of success to live up to given the critical acclaim of the last game in the franchise, Alien: Isolation. Though, considering FoxNext’s fascination with VR, this new Alien rendition is likely to bring forth an entirely fresh experience. There is currently no set release date for this new project, but updates can be expected on the Cold Iron Studios twitter.