Aliens: Dark Descent – this time it’s strategy (pic: Focus Interactive)

Strategy game Aliens: Dark Descent now has a proper release date on consoles and PC, as it tries to make up for the lack of XCOM 3.

Few movie franchises have had as much influence on the video game world as Alien and yet there’s never really been a definitive adaptation, despite games like Aliens Versus Predator and Alien Isolation getting close.

So much time has passed it’s almost a surprise Aliens is still getting official tie-ins, but Aliens: Dark Descent is definitely not what you’d usually expect: a real-time strategy game that also takes considerable influence from XCOM.

A new, but frustratingly brief, trailer has revealed how the game works, as well as some very impressive graphics and a release date of June 20 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Although it looks like XCOM in screenshots the game is real-time, not turn-based, although it seems you can pause the action at any time to issue orders.

There is permadeath, so that when your soldiers are dead they can’t be revived, but other things are very different to XCOM, such as moving your whole squad as one team, instead of individually.

Developer Tindalos Interactive doesn’t have much experience – Warhammer 40,000 game Battlefleet Gothic: Armada is their most notable previous title – but what’s shown here is looking good.

The trailer is an IGN exclusive, which may mean a longer, non-exclusive trailer will be released in the next few days.

As much as fans, including us, hope for news on XCOM 3, that’s looking further away than ever at the moment.

Recently, XCOM 2 director Jake Solomon and studio head Steve Martin both left developer Firaxis, so they’re definitely not going to be working on a new sequel, if it ever happens.

By coincidence, Solomon revealed this week that he intends to found a new studio but that he probably won’t make a new turn-based game, after putting his all into not just XCOM but the sorely underrated Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

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Strategy game Aliens: Dark Descent now has a proper release date on consoles and PC, as it tries to make up for the lack of XCOM 3.