Interviews// Aliens vs Predator: Rebellion's David Brickley

SPOnG: We haven't talked about the single player mode yet, and this is the first time you've actually showed it off. You made an Aliens vs Predator game on the PC ten years ago, which was infamous for giving players a scary experience. Did you go down the 'scary' path this time, or is it more action-oriented – and was it challenging to adapt to the changing goalposts of what is deemed scary? How did you approach the single-player in that sense?

David Brickley: Well, part of our intention to make each of the three species distinct was to create different single-player experiences, and offering a choice to that degree as to how the player wants to approach the game. I remember at the studio we wanted to give the Marine's single-player story more of a Horror angle, rather than squad-based action.

In terms of whether it will still be scary, I think... there's something about seeing the Aliens and the way they move, and that would still make you jump a bit. We could have put the '99 game out there and got loads of 'eek' noises out of people who remember playing it back then, but for us it was about translating what it felt like back then to now.

So we've tried to achieve that in the behaviours that we've given the AI – an example being that they will react differently to different situations, and they won't just take a line from A to B to reach you. It's not about the most efficient route, it's about the most suitable route for them. They'll stay in the dark, they'll stick to the hive, run along the ceiling then drop down behind you. If you see one Alien slowly crawling towards you, that means he could be setting you up for an attack from behind.

And once you realise the intelligence of these enemies, you'll be... I don't know if 'scared' is the right word, but you'll certainly be very apprehensive. I'm not somebody who gets scared easily, but I find great pleasure out of horror, and things that are set up to catch you out. There will be others who play this that will be genuinely scared though, and I wish I was easily scared enough to be one of those people!


SPOnG: How does that approach compare or apply to the other species, particularly in multiplayer? With the 1999 original being a PC game, have there been challenges in adapting for the console market?

David Brickley: With the Marine, we've ultimately tried to create this real sense of isolation and vulnerability, and that's translated well into the multiplayer mode as well. Infestation mode is all about that – you start as a Marine, and all of a sudden you realise; 'Shit, I'm dead! Oh, now I'm an Alien!' The next time you play it, you think; 'Hang on, we Marines all have to stick together', and you end up all huddled in a corner because that's key to your survival as a species.

That feeling comes directly from the single player, and we've tried to do the same for the other species in alternative ways. When become the Alien or the Predator, you are kind of buying into a different experience. As a Predator, it's about proving yourself as an honourable warrior that can take on overwhelming odds, and as the Alien you're just a killing machine, driven by instinct. Each level for the Alien is build just for the pleasure of killing things, and making that as enjoyable as possible.

And ever since 1999, console games have set a standard as to how they convey narrative and how compelling a storyline should be, and we've kept pace with that by offering a storyline. The original AvP didn't have one. We invested a lot in the cinematics and everything else to make the single-player something a console consumer will feel is on a par with anything else they might have played. But beyond that, once you get into the multi-player this game really comes into its own.


SPOnG: The changes over the years remind me of the evolution of 'horror' in general, really, where ten years ago a film or game would be about shocking the audience with things jumping out at you. These days I'd say the art of horror is more psychological, and that's the feeling I'm getting from today's Aliens vs Predator game too. Was that something you guys intended with this, to play on that sense of the unknown?

David Brickley: I do, yeah, and I think that's one of the things that we're really proud of. Literally, when you're a Marine, you're kind of forcing yourself to do something for a mission that, instinctively, you don't want to. You'll have to go hunting in the dark for Aliens, for example, and you can hear vague noises in your periphery – there's a dark, high ceiling that your torch won't quite reach, and when you turn the light on it's right there and it's after you. So you're inching towards the dark and then all of a sudden, you're on the back foot.

That's without even mentioning the motion tracker, which is just a godsend in terms of psychological horror. You're fucking somebody up from the word 'go' with rising and falling pitch tones – you don't even have to show anything and you're already making somebody nervous. That was a blessing for us to have that there.

So yeah, that is pure psych-horror – there's nothing happening and you're still shit-scared because there's a little red dot on the screen and you're hearing this pinging noise. But again, designing the AI so that the enemy doesn't take a direct path to you adds to that as well. With Aliens scrambling around and messing up your tracker to toy with you before it attacks.

It lets players imagining more than what they can actually see, and that was a big part of the original game, but with modern technology we can enhance that so much by having flares that cast incredible shadows of the Aliens onto the walls. So yeah, I mean it's not the John Carpenter era anymore, it's all about getting inside people's heads a bit more.