I noticed this Tweet today:
https://twitter.com/BoardGameGeek/status/965664337271672833/photo/1
*** 10/29/20 UPDATE ***
The rules have been released online by GF9 (including the rules for the two expansions). You can download them here. I’ll have a look at them and see if anything stands out. More importantly, this should indicate that the game is finally nearing release. Cheers!
*** 10/18/20 UPDATE ***
Listen up marines! It’s been a while since I’ve had any updates but we’re finally starting to get some good information on Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. First, Shut Up & Sit Down have done a great video demo of the game:
That video makes me excited. The lack of information and the abundance of delays had made me worried that I had pre-ordered a clunker, but it looks like there’s actually a real game to be had here. I particularly like the campaign aspects (exhaustion, death, captured marines, experience cards (expansion item), etc.)
Second, and not very surprising, the release has been pushed back from October to December, 2020.
As someone who has been following this game (and it’s delays) for over two years, I really have no reason to believe that this will really be the real, final, really real, actual release date; but with demo versions being sent out and the holiday season approaching, it feels like it could actually happen this time. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
*** 6/28/20 UPDATE ***
Finally! A meaningful update from GF9 announcing the release of the core game in October. You can find the post on their Facebook page here. Needless to say, I look forward to getting to play this game and sharing my thoughts. Stay tuned.
*** 5/2/20 UPDATE ***
Gale Force Nine recently sent out the following announcement via social media. Unfortunately, it’s essentially an announcement announcing that there is currently nothing to announce regarding the expected release of Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corp. Stay Frosty.
*** 3/3/20 UPDATE ***
It’s been months since my last update. I promise I haven’t forgotten about you, Aliens fans. There’s just been nothing to report. The best I can give you are rumors that the Disney/Fox merger has caused an indefinite delay. Most of these come from convention attendees that claim GF9 staff are no longer demoing the game and are not allowed to discuss it’s status. This is unverified hearsay at best but seems to be a reasonable theory based on the timing of the merger, GF9 going from demo-mode to complete silence, and Disney’s tendency to hold their IP’s in the vice-like grip of Mickey Mouse.
Also, other Aliens projects are apparently being scrapped: Alien Video Game Cancelled Because of Disney-Fox Merger
Make of that what you will.
*** 9/5/19 UPDATE ***
Well, the latest update from Gale Force Nine (below) means more delays and a new release date of 2020. There are also promises of expanded content. After reading the whole release, there’s not much to do other than hunker down and hope it’s a quality game whenever we get our hands on it.
*** 8/12/19 UPDATE ***
Some reports are starting to come out of Gen Con from people who have played demo versions of Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps. Enjoy:
*** 8/8/19 UPDATE ***
I’ve read some unconfirmed reports that claim the recent delays are due to Disney wanting to approve any movie images being used in the game before giving the go-ahead to release it. Hopefully the upcoming news on September 2nd (see previous update) is that Disney has given their thumbs up and the game is ready to be printed. In the meantime, here’s a pretty action-packed image of a playtest game in progress at Gen Con:
*** 8/1/19 UPDATE ***
Here are the latest messages from the Gale Force Nine Facebook page. The first is a graphic promising more information on September 2nd, 2019. The second is a message claiming that they can’t share anything prior to that date. Feel free to speculate on what that means.
“Is this going to be a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?”
-PFC Hudson
*** 7/11/19 UPDATE ***
Gale Force 9 recently released a video about some upcoming products. The segment about Aliens is from approximately 29:00-34:00…
Highlights:
- “Some big announcements in about a month.” That tells me that it won’t be ready for release anytime soon.
- The miniatures are being modified. This also tells me that they won’t be ready for release anytime soon.
- Base Game comes with 5 Marines + Ellen Ripley + 16 Aliens
- 2 Supplements (Expansions?). It sounds like one supplement will include 5 more Marines and the other supplement will include an Alien Queen and Power Loader.
- Firing on an alien seems to be resolved by rolling a d10 and getting less than, or equal to, the Marine’s ‘Aim’ value. You can also fire multiple times with the ‘Aim’ value reducing by 1 for each roll.
- The game is 1-6 players with each marine being controlled by a player and the aliens being controlled by AI.
- There are 4 double-sided board sections included in the base game.
“We’re really making it and it’s coming so don’t worry.”
*** 6/13/19 UPDATE ***
Here’s a little more info from the GF9 Facebook page that mentions demonstrations of the Aliens board game at Origins as well as a picture of a game in progress. I think it’s reasonable to conclude that a playable demo at Origins is a good sign that they game may be released in the the near future. It would be great to get some more info from Origins attendees.
*** 5/30/19 UPDATE ***
This was recently posted on the Gale Force Nine Facebook page:
There’s not much to gather from this post other than the mention of a pre-production copy of Aliens. It’s a little disheartening as I would expect them to have a more finished product if they hope to make their (hopefully???) August release date but I’m not in the business so maybe it’s common for a company to go from pre-production to final copy in 60+ days. However, as this game’s release has been continually delayed, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened again.
*** 5/13/19 UPDATE ***
News on a release date has been hard to find but here’s a recent post from the Gale Force Nine Facebook page indicating that the Aliens board game will debut at Gen Con in August:
*** 4/24/19 UPDATE ***
Here is a short interview with Gale Force Nine. The Aliens discussion starts at 4:15.
Here are some takeaways that I noticed:
- Scenario driven survival game
- First Expansion: adds +5 marines and Burke with more sections (scenarios I assume?))
- Second Expansion: adds the Alien Queen and more sections
- The Expansions should be available almost immediately after the base game is released
- No official release date 🙁
*** 2/6/19 UPDATE ***
This is a pretty nice example of the game board that was just released. I’m trying to decipher some of the cards but it’s been challenging.
*** 12/20/18 UPDATE ***
Gale Force Nine just released a 2019 teaser video. Unfortunately, there’s not much information on the Aliens board game. At the beginning of the video, you can see some game components in the background they’re not discussed at all. However, you can recognize familiar characters (Hudson, Ripley & Hicks) and cards with familiar lines (In The Pipe Five By Five, Bypass, Game Over Man & M41A Pulse Rifle).
If you watch the video at about 2:05, this is the only comment made about Aliens: “Aliens, a brand new game, will hit the market in the second quarter.” This falls in line with the estimated May release date in my previous post (see below).
I will continue to post updates as I find them and thanks for reading!
*** 11/16/18 UPDATE ***
As one of the world’s leading authorities on the upcoming Aliens board game from Gale Force Nine, I am tentatively reporting a release date of May 31, 2019. This date is purely speculative based on this Amazon listing which appears to be controlled by Gale Force Nine:
I looked for corroborating evidence on the Gale Force Nine website and social media pages but couldn’t find any announcements about a release; so take that as you will. I welcome Gale Force Nine to contact OiO and clear up any misconceptions.
*** 11/11/18 UPDATE ***
News on this game continues to be hard to come by but I found this post on the Gale Force Nine Facebook page:
Bummer, I was hoping to be playing this by Christmas. I think Hudson can best articulate my feelings:
On the bright side, I also found a couple of new pics on their Facebook page:
*** 7/24/18 UPDATE ***
Miniature Market is taking pre-orders for $35.50 here.
Other than that, new information on this game has been hard to find but I came across some images of what are most certainly character cards and what appear to be event cards:
Feel free to make assumptions based on these images… Or you can let me make assumptions for you:
- This has all of the makings of a dice-chucking extravaganza as many of the character abilities refer to re-rolling dice. That’s fine by me but will be a negative for some. I think it’s safe to assume that the characters’ stats listed above are probably the number of dice they’ll be rolling when attempting various actions.
- Around the edges of the character cards are areas designated for WEAPONS and EQUIPMENT. No surprises there, really. I expect to see various weapons from the Aliens movie as well as equipment like body armor, motion trackers, etc.
- I assume that the event cards ‘THEY’RE IN THE CEILING’ and ‘THEY ARE COMING’ are used to control the aliens’ actions.
- It appears that ‘tunnels’ can open up virtually anywhere and start spawning aliens which is quite deadly and thematic.
- ‘THEY’RE IN THE CEILING’ indicates that ‘blips’ and ‘aliens’ are two different things. I would guess that ‘blips’ are simply ‘aliens’ that are not within the characters’ LOF but maybe there’s more to it than that.
- I’m trying to wrap my head around how RANK will be used in the game. I assume it refers to chain of command but I can’t think of how it will translate to gameplay.
That’s all I’ve got at the moment. Feel free to add your comments or theories below.
*** 6/19/18 UPDATE ***
I’ve found a few new pictures of the minis. They look good and it’s cool to see the Pulse Rifle, Smart Gun, Flamethrower, etc. Hopefully the game is just as cool!
*** 4/12/18 UPDATE ***
There still isn’t much info about this game but John-Paul from Gale Force 9 discusses it briefly here at about 30:45.
If you don’t want to watch the video, here are some important notes:
- There will be 16 Xenomorphs in the base game (with 8 different sculpts)
- There will be 5 Marines AND Ripley in the base game
- There is an expansion planned (+5 Marines, Newt, Bishop, Burke)
- The game will be scenario based
- The content of the game can’t be shown until the end of June
I’ll try to keep updating this page as new information is discovered. Now back to my initial preview…
*** ORIGINAL POST ***
As my loyal readers know, I’m a huge fan of the Alien franchise so this is pretty exciting news. At the moment, there isn’t much information available about the game other than it’s a co-op miniatures game, it’s scheduled for release in September of this year, and it’s being released by Gale Force Nine.
That doesn’t provide me with much incite. I would’ve preferred a ‘one vs many’ game because I always prefer direct conflict to co-op games, but I’ll make an exception for Aliens. I’ve also never played a game from Gale Force Nine so I have no experience with the quality of their work.
That being said, I’ll probably buy it no matter what as the Alien universe is sorely lacking when it comes to board games. To my knowledge, there only some dated 80’s games, a deck-building game, and an AVP collectible miniatures game.
None of those are what I want from an Alien game. Based on the limited news so far, what I’d like to see is a dice-chucking, campaign-style, dungeon-crawl with lots of missions and modern board game mechanics… and of course face-huggers, chest-bursters, Alien queens, acid blood, overwhelmed marines, turret guns, motion trackers, and plenty of opportunities to yell my favorite Aliens quotes:
“They’re coming out of the goddamn walls!”
“Why don’t you put her in charge!”
“They mostly come out at night… mostly.”
“Game over man, game over!”
What would you like to see from Aliens the Board Game?
Until Next Time,
Rogue Hippo