Aliens Online

Development

Aliens Online was originally released with only one game type - "Eradication." Players simply fought until the marines exhausted their supply of respawns (called "billets"), or every Alien on the map was wiped out (To recreate the sense of a proper infestation of Aliens, there were over a hundred computer-controlled drones wandering around each level. Alien players would jump to a new body when killed, while Marines could whittle down the Aliens' "lives" by killing the relatively-defenseless computer drones).

Later patches introduced more game types. A "capture the flag" mode required Marines to fight down to the Alien hive, remove a set number of eggs, and drag them back to the drop zone. A variant on this required Marines to lug explosive barrels from their drop zone to different areas on the map. A third mode disabled Marine respawns, and required them to reach an evac point inside the level before being wiped out by the Aliens.

Engine

Aliens Online used a modified version of Mythic Entertainment's engine for Rolemaster: Magestorm.

Facehugger

Original plans were for a new Alien player to begin as a lowly facehugger - killed by a single shot, and sporting only an embarrassingly weak tail whip as an attack. After a few kills, they would move up to the standard Drone, and then on to the Queen. This was never implemented, presumably because killing a player with a facehugger was so notoriously difficult that it would have driven off new players.

Instead, Drone became the default starting point on a player's evolution. However, facehuggers were still selectable as a playable character (with its own set of respawns aside from the main Alien pool). Veteran players would sometimes use them as a joke. Actually killing someone with the huggie was considered a badge of honor (or for the unlucky Marine, a badge of shame).

Shutdown

Online gameplay for Aliens Online was shut down on May 29, 2000.

Awards

• Interactive Achievement Awards (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences)
  • 1998 – Online Game of the Year – Nominated

Information also contributed by BurningStickMan