Alien has an aesthetic, and it's fear—fear of dark spaces, fear of your teammates, fear of that massive??, ultra-fast killing machine lurking in the air ducts. If this gets your blood racing, there are a ton of amazing games to try that capture some of what the Alien film franchise is all about. This list is dedicated to survival, horror, suspicion, and blasting seven shades of hell out of aliens.

Games like the Alien films

Whether it's the trapped horror of the first alien film or the balls-to-the-wall bulletfest of t??he AvP films, there are plenty of games that can scratch the itch.

Dead by Daylight

Team-based survival is the name of the game. Many of your favorite bad guys and heroes are available to play while you and your team either try to survive the onslaught or pick off the victims one by one. Dead by Daylight perfectly captures that sweaty, heavy-breathing horror of Alien films. The tension of?? never knowing where the enemy is as you and your team try your best to survive a massively more powerful foe is amazingly fun but incredibly tense.

Alien: Isolation

There are many games using the Alien IP, but this one is a standout among them. The nail-biting tension and horror of the Alien movies are perfectly replicated in this ??game in a way most others drastically failed at. Despite Alien: Isolation coming out all the way back in 2014, it still holds up today as a solid horror that really makes you feel like you're in the closed confines of a spaceship with a Xenomorph.

It is up to you, the daughter of Ripley, to survive while the Alien stalks your ship. It is incredibly fast, and it has pinpoint location i?dentification with its hearing. The AI of the alien is on point, too. This game takes stealth, cunning, and a very calm head to not ??end up as a human kebab.

Dead Space

The Dead Space games are absolute classics in the space horror genre, and I can't recommend anything better for Alien fans. The original games have been remastered to fantastic quality, bringing the timeless horrors up to date with modern hardware. All the terror of the Lovecraftian monsters has been carefully remastered to ensure that every jump??, attack, and gory dismemberment is just the way we remember them.

Psychosis threatens to overwhelm our hapless miner as he fights his way through hordes of aliens on board his spaceship. With only limited weapons and infuriatingly limited ammo, he has to fight for survival. The? aliens are many, and chances of survival are slim. However, this is up there with the best as horror games go.

DOOM 2016

This one is much less about the fear factor and more about wading through hordes of monsters with an arsenal that could take down a city. The DOOM games, especially since their reboot, have flown the flag for rhythm shooters. Every bullet, takedown, jump, and slide must be a thought-out and choreographed move if you're hoping for success in DOOM 2016. As each level clears, and you'r??e standing on the piles of demon corpses, you know that you succeeded with perfect precision and muscle memory. It's a shooter that makes you feel like a machine.

Akin to the more action-packed Alien films, this g?ame is a no-holds-barred bullet storm. The high-octane action is only matched by Mick Gordon's absolutely impeccable musical score. Pick up a copy and feel the true power of DOOMGUY.

HellDivers 2

Flame Throwers? Check. Turrets? Check. Massive hordes of bugs bent on turning you into easily digestible chunks? Check. Do they mostly come at night? Mostly. But they also come in the daytime, and some of them are robots. The enemies in Helldivers 2 are aggressive, and there are thousands of them. Thankfully, you and your squad are armed to the teeth with massive weapons and some serious aerial firepower. This game is similar to the madness of Aliens out of all of them??, and ?it's a hell of a lot of fun.

If you want the high-octane madness of Aliens, then Helldivers 2 is the one. There are moments of? tense sneaking as you and your squad try your best to go undetected to the next objectives. However, when shit hits the fan, it's time to call in the heavy guns from orbital bombardments and a massive selection of personal weapons.

Among Us

There is something on the ship, living in the ducts, killing people without being found. Among Us is a great group game to play, borrowing from the unknown killer aspects of the Alien movie franchise. The name of the game is simple: either kill the other players without them discovering you're the killer or survive and correctly kick the killer out into the vast nothingness of?? space.

This simple game has taken the idea of a sneaky, unknown? killer lurking in the shadows of a spaceship and turned it into a game of deception. The hilarity that ensues while everyone tries to deduce the killer can be brilliant, but playing as the killer is fantastically tense.

Subnautica

Being way out of your depth in a completely hostile and alien situation is the making for a fantastic horror game, and that's just what Subnautica delivers. For any fan of the horror game genre, I cannot recommend this Ocean World, stranded game more. It manages to create an incredible sense of fear, discovery, and desperation to survive, no matter the odds. There are things in the ocean that you cannot imagine, and th??ey do not like you being there.

The isolation and desperation of Alien films are part of what makes them so important to the genre. Being all alone in space, fighting against something unknown and infinitely more deadly, makes for a film that has us all on the edge of our seats. Subnautica c?aptures this essence as you try to survive on a hostile alien water world after your spacecraft crashes into it.

Metro: Exodus

In post-apocalypse Russia, things are pretty much the same as they ever were. It's nuclear-winter cold, everyone ?has a cobbled-together AK-47, and the entire population lives in the metro tunnels, hiding from the terrible monsters that roam ??free. Metro is the perfect mixture of terrifying, trapped horror, and brutal gunplay. It is all tied togeth??er with a rich and satisfying story of survival and comradeship.

Metro: Exodus tells an amazing story of life after the bombs have fallen in Moscow, struggling to survive. Pockets of humanity exist, dotted around the various statio??ns and tunnels running under the city. However, humanity is barely human, and violence, theft, and mistrust are everywhere. Despite this, the survivors are united against a common foe. The mutants that threaten everyone are out there, and they are monstrous.

Outer Wilds

For a much more pleasant and unstressful game on the list, try out the Outer Wilds. This beautiful and truly uniqu??e experience will take you out into space on a journey of exploration and discovery. As you make your way from planet to planet, a story will unfold in a way not many other games have ever managed to do. This game is a beautiful journey from a planet and out into space and beyond.

There is a need to survive, which, in a way, likens the game to Alien. However, apart from the?? limit to time the game has, there isn't too much?? stress or horror. Stories unfold around your journey, inviting more exploration. Take a load off and enjoy this one.

Lethal Company

The Corporation doesn't care if you survive; they just care if you get the job done or not. This mantra seems to be a common theme in futuristic space films and games, and it's undoubtedly true in Lethal Company. Like Alien, the company doesn't care so much for human life and is much more concerned with profits ins??tead in this game. It's up to you and your team to try to collect as many valuable items as possible without alerting the various monsters and aliens in the game. If you die??, it's just going to end up being deducted from your paycheck.

Being in an unlit corridor, trying to collect together scraps, and avoiding the monsters in the walls is what makes this game like the Alien movie franchise. It's a hilarious game of suspense and essential communication. The various mons?ters hiding within the l?evels are varied, and each is as lethal as the next.

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August 16 marked the return of the Alien saga to the big screen after a seven-year absence. Director Fede Álvarez's Alien: Romulus sprung into theaters everywhere and has since made waves in both ways good and bad. While it has drawn critique for its perceived over-reliance on franchise hallmarks and callbacks, others have showered the film with praise. Numerous critics and moviegoers alike were intrigued by the story, satisfied with the frights and overall content to call it a solid entry in the Alien canon.

Despite plenty of people out there believing it to be one of the film's greatest weaknesses, countless Alien die-hards were happy to see so many references and allusions to previous installments. After all, Romulus is an indirect sequel to director Ridley Scott'??s 1979 classic, Alien, which started it all. In fact, the USCSS Nostromo, where Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and her companions are ambushed by the Xenomorph in said film, is a principal location in Romulus. At the same time, Alien isn't the only project in the series that informed Álvarez's ?terrifying feature.

According to the director himself, the horror video game favorite Alien: Isolation played a pivotal role in the crafting of Romulus in more ways than one.

Isolation kickstarted Álvarez's interest in making an Alien movie

Released on October 7, 2014, and set 15 years after the events of Alien, Alien: Isolation follows the daughter of Ellen Ripley, Amanda (Andrea Deck), who is trying to pinpoint her mother's whereabouts following her disappearance. She doesn't get very far, however, before she encounters Xenomorphs, facehuggers, and more dangers. All in all, Isolation is an excellent survival horror title that has grown especially adored by Alien fans and gamers who are up for a spooky challenge. Evidently, Fede Álvarez is quite a fan as well, hence why he put so much of it into the DNA of Alien: Romulus.

Álvarez revealed as much during a conversation on the Inside Total Film podcast (via Games Radar), where he explained that the entire foundation of his film was created thanks to Isolation. �?em>Alien: Isolation was kind of what made me see that Alien could truly be terrifying and done well [today],�?he explained, noting that he first picked Isolation up around the time his 2016 film Don't Breathe was coming together. As he played, he began yearning to tell an Alien story at the movies. Thankfully for him, it didn't take long for such an opportunity to arise. Once it did, he not only made it a priority to capture the tense, chilling tone of Isolation, reigniting the horror that made Alien such a hit 45 years ago, but to honor the game in?? the form of a fun yet meaningful Easter egg.

Continuing, Álvarez explained that emergency phones, which act as checkpoints in Isolation to save your game, are prevalent throughout Romulus. As it turns out, though, he didn't merely want to toss them in as a fun nod to the almost decade-old game. “The movie is set up in a way [that] every time something bad is about to happen, you will see a phone,�?he said, warning those that haven't seen Romulus that they should "brace for impact" every time a phone appears on screen, just as they would while using one in the game. In Isolation, they take time to use, leaving A?manda vulnera?ble to Xenomorph attacks as the save completes.

Isolation took inspiration from Alien

For the most part, much like Alien: Romulus, Alien: Isolation does try to blaze its own trail. It takes the established lore of the Alien series and builds on it while simultaneously honoring what came before. Interestingly, the folks behind the game did the inverse of what Fede Álvarez did by looking to an existing movie to create a video game. Speaking to PC Gamer in January 2015, a few months after the game was released, Isolation creative lead Alistair Hope revealed that he and the team pulled heavily from the original Alien movie, emulating what made? it and contin?ues to make it such a pop culture sensation.

�?em>Alien is unmistakably Fox’s property, but from the moment we pitched the original concept to them, they’ve been completely behind us. I think because we were trying to stay true in spirit to the original, they felt like it was in safe hands," Hope told the publication, touching on the relationship between Isolation's development house, Creative Assembly, and the now-Walt Disney Company-owned 20th Century Fox. This positive collaboration led Fox to share key assets, from costumes to props to miscellaneous production material, with Creative Assembly to make Isolation as true to the trend-setti??ng science fiction feature as possible.

Romulus is effectively a movie inspired by movies and a video game, which is also inspired by a movie. Perhaps the chain will continue, and we'll someday get a new Alien game with elements at?tributed to Álvarez's eme??rgency phone-laden creation.

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I would honestly go so far as to say that Alien: Isolation is one of the greatest horror games in recent memory. This terrifying love letter to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece has shown that it's still possible to do a successful adaptation of the iconic Alien universe.

Ten years on, and people are still getting the shit scared out of them. In fact, according to SteamDB (as reported by PCGamesN), many have flocked to Isolation recently. ??Over the last 24 hours, 1,839 players have been creeping around the Sevastopol station, hiding in lo?ckers. While it doesn't sound like a lot, that's an increase of 328.7% when compared to July.

Given that Alien: Romulus released to cinemas a few days ago, it's not hard to see what's caused this spike in popularity for Isolation. Indeed, it kind of makes me ??want to go back and play the game. Again.

Not an isolated incident

The film seems to be doing pretty well, which is positive, seeing as the last installment, 2017's Covenant, didn't exactly set the world on fire. Before that, we got Prometheus, a prequel to the original 1979 film, which was received pretty favorably, but still had plenty of criticisms. At the time of writing, Romulus has an IMDb score of 7.5, so it's doing alright so far.

To add onto that, Alien: Isolation's spike in Steam playerbase may also be down to the fact that the game is currently 80% off on PC, with generous discounts on PS5 and Xbox as well. The promotion is ongoing for the next few hours on Steam and the next few days for console if you haven'??t checked out the game yet. No doubt these slashed prices are to coincide with the launch of the? new film.

It's no surprise to see Alien: Isolation included in a list of the best sci-fi horror games of all time, up there with the likes of Dead Space and System Shock 2. It's a terrifying ordeal having to outwit the intelligent Xenormorph that stalks the halls with pretty advanced? AI. I remember the first time I finished playing it. Steam clocked me in at around 28 hours in total. I'm pretty sure at least 23 of those hours were me cowering in lockers.

It is a shame Creative Assembly hasn't given us Isolation 2 �?especially as the first game is nearly a decade old at this point �?but we can at least look forward to Alien: Rogue Incursion. Well, if you have a VR headset, that is.

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It has been 45 years since director Ridley Scott's Alien first blew moviegoers away, and its cultural impact doesn't seem to ha?ve diminished in the slightest. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is still an icon, the Xenomorphs are still terrifying, and the franchise it has launched is still going strong.

Having taken a few years off after some disappointing and confusing entries, the Alien franchise has finally returned with director Fede Álvarez's Alien: Romulus, a film that certainly has its ups and downs and has even generated some division among Alien enthusiasts since debuting on August 16.

For the most part, Romulus brings the Alien series back to basics. It introduces a new crew of space colo?nist characters, led by Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), who take it upon themselves to scavenge the wreckage of a nearby abandoned ship, the USCSS Nostromo. Little do they realize once they board the ship that it's not entirely empty. Before they know it, they're set upon by alien hordes, forced to fight for their lives and do everything in their power to escape before it's too late.

Is it the most lore-heavy or game-changing installment in the Alien saga? Not quite, but there's still plenty to enjoy and plenty to study up on before seeing it. If you want to get the most out of Alien: Romulus, these are?? the films in the franchise you should check out first.

Prometheus comes first

Compared to most other Alien movies, 2012's Alien: Prometheus is quite ambitious. It's not so much a straight-up science fiction horror movie as much as it i??s a massive, epic lore dump explaining where the Xenomorphs came from, how and by who they were created, and what their earliest interactions with humanity were like. While there are plenty of moviegoers and critics out there who find the film to be a bit of a drag, the film isn't a total swing-and-miss.

Prometheus does an excellent job providing an origin story for the Xenomorphs in all of their biomechanical horror and offers some truly compelling performances. Most notable is Michael Fassbender as the android David. Additionally, Prometheus is a visual spectacle with grand yet spine-chilling settings, excellent camera work, and breathtaking costumes. To top it all off, the plot, while a bit messy at times, is fascinating and sure to Intrigue those new to the Alien series.

At the end of the day, Prometheus doesn't have many deep-cut connections to Romulus as it is set a while before it in the year 2093, but it does lay the groundwork for both it and the other Alien films.

Alien: Covenant is worth checking out, but not overly-essential

Moving ahead roughly 11 years after the events of Prometheus, we get 2017's Alien: Covenant. While still maintaining some of the grandeur of its predecessor, Covenant leans more into the hallmarks of the Alien saga.

A group of colonists land on a remote planet that seems to be nothing short of perfect. Of course, having seen Prometheus, we, as audience members, know that the presence of Fassbender's David is not a good sign. In short order, the colonists have to defend themselves from far more Xenomorph-looking Xenomorphs than those presen?t in the 2012 film.

Even though in tone and style, Covenant angles into what made the Alien films so beloved and recognizable. It very much maintains the narrative thread of the somewhat tonally distant Prometheus while revealing more about the evolution of the Xenomorphs. This may be fascinating for some, especially those who found Prometheus engaging, but to others, this could make Covenant entirely skippable.

Much like Prometheus, Covenant isn't too closely tied to Romulus outside of its larger lore connections. So, if you're into the lore of the franchise, it's definitely worth checking out before Romulus. If not, you could watch it? for entertainment valu??e, but it's not quite essential.

Alien is a must before Romulus

With Prometheus and Covenant behind us, we now move on to what is either the best or the second-best film in the entire Alien saga, depending on your personal taste.

1979's Alien started it all, with the crew of the USCSS Nostromo being picked off one by one by a mysterious a?nd frightening alien entity. In the e??nd, Ripley is the one brave enough to stand toe-to-toe with the Xenomorph, defeating it once and for all...or so she thought.

As has been said for decades, Alien is a masterclass in horror, science fiction, and the intersection of the two, but those aren't the only reasons why you should check it out before giving Romulus a try. It's quite literally a prequel to the new film, set 20 years before Romulus in the year 2122.

As you've likely pieced together already, the USCSS Nostromo Rain and her companions investigation in Romulus is the exact wreckage left behind by Ripley, her fellow crew members, and the Xenomorph in Alien. It doesn't get much more direct than that, but in all honesty, even if they weren't connected, no Alien series rewatch o??f any kind is complete without this film.

What about the Alien vs. Predator duology?

On paper, a crossover between the Xenomorph of the Alien franchise and the Yautja from the Predator franchise should be a match made movie heaven. In truth, these legendary silver screen creatures' two meetings on the big scr?een have left much to be desired.

Sure, seeing them come to blows in Alien vs. Predator and its sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, is a fun novelty, but as far as full movies go, they miss the mark in multiple ways. The human ??characters are forgettable, the plots are unins?pired, and for the most part, they don't do much to push either franchise forward.

The only reason the AVP duology is even being discussed here is because they supposedly take place in the year 2004, nearly a full century before Prometheus. Thus, one might imagine that they're needed to understand all of the films that have been mentioned on this list. In reality, the existence of Prometheus effectively erases them from the Alien franchise canon. If you want to watch them anyway for one reason or another, feel free, but just because they're set before Romulus does not mean that watching or not watching them will impact your under?standing of the new movie.

With that, your pre-Romulus viewing guide is complete. Once you've watched it, you'll be in a good sp?ot to give? Romulus a go. The feature is now playing exclusively in theaters.

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Alien: Romulus is finally out, and you know it's a true Alien sequel because??? it immediately weirded out fans and moviegoers alike.

Even though it's currently sitting at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, many are criticizing the movie for its supposed blatant lack of originality. This is the first Alien movie to come out since Disney's acquisition of FOX, so the accusation that Romulus is the Force Awakens of the series seems fitting.

A large part of the new film feels old, like a wacky collage of small higher-budgeted remakes of the best moments in the entire series, but I think that one moment specifically is actually a ripoff of an Alien-unrelated property.

Spoilers for the final act of Alien: Romulus below:

Bloodborne: In space (?)

If you're a fan of the Alien series, you might reach the final act, look at the movie's new main baddie, and gasp, "I've been fooled into watching Alien Resurrection again?!" I wouldn't blame you, as the creature �?and its origin story �?seems to mimic that fi??????????????????????????lm's "Newborn," a Xenomorph that somehow features more human DNA than those that come out of a human being's chest.

They both even die in a similar way, as the acid that runs through th??eir veins ends up proving their undoing.

Still, gamers might spot the parallels between this new type of Xenomorph and the Orphan Of Kos from the masterful Bloodborne The Old Hunters DLC.

Now, I sadly cannot yet provide you with an image of the final monster from Alien: Romulus, I can ask you to picture a much taller and skinnier version of the Engineers from Prometheus:

They l??ook very similar �?down to those haunting black eyes �?but they're even more similar on a thematic level. This new lifeform, even though it's born out of a human womb, remains a Xenomorph. Orphan of Kos isn't born out of a human being but looks ??like one.

The world of Bloodborne is in constant need of cyclical cleansing because humans keep messing with and consuming something called "old blood." That's alien blood that will make its consumers feel great but ultimately turn them into monsters. If many monsters in Bloodborne resemble humans, that's because they were humans at some point. Orphan of Kos, however, is an old one that was born ??out of a hideous fish-like old one that didn't look human at all, but Orphan of Kos itself has a human-like figure.

Orphan, just like the final beast from Alien: Romulus, could only have come to be because someone messed with the wrong chemical. That' makes sense's another parallel, as where Bloodborne features the aforementioned "old blood," the Alien series features the "black goo", a mysterious pathogen introduced in Prometheus that ?will "improve" any living thing's DNA to the point of turning it into a monstrous killing machine.

I'm not going to say that director Fede Alvarez sneakily copied both the looks and the themes of his biggest addition to the franchise, but we all know he's a big video game fan, so...

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While fans of James Cameron's classic library of films may not be too fond of the 4K restorations, Cameron himself doesn't seem to think the criticism hold??s ??much weight. In fact, the director recently had a few choice words for folks vocal about their problems with the 4K versions of his work.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, James Camer??on addressed the universally poor reception that the 4K restorations of his work are getting, and he?? isn't happy about it.

”When people start reviewing your grain structure, they need to move out of mom’s basement and meet somebody. Right? I’m serious," Cameron told the Hollywood Reported. "I mean, are you fucking kidding me? I’ve got a great team that does the transfers. I do all the color and density work. I look at every shot, every frame, and then the final transfer is done by a guy who has been with me [for years]. All the Avatar films are done that way. Everything is done that way. Get a life, people, seriously.�?/p>

If you're lucky enough to be unaware of the issue referenced, Cameron is talking about the recently released 4K restorations of films such as Aliens and True Lies - the only 4K versions currently available. They, well, they just don't look good. Even though Cameron doesn't mention it in the interview, most people seem to be complaining about the unabashed usage of, you guessed it, AI.

Though Cameron once made a name for himself for creating impressively realistic practical effects, we've lived long enough to see AI undo some of his most impressive work and make his best films look like bad CGI. The effects are rough, but the characters look even worse. Faces like they were rendered in good ol' Unreal Engine 3, and everyone's hair looks like the underwater CGI hair from Aquaman.

I coul?d conjure a few examples of?? real Arnold Schwarzenegger looking like the worst CGI version of Arnie, but the best is to perhaps see the video below, which does a great visual breakdown of the problem:

Restoration can be a great thing because it helps with preservation efforts and allows younger audiences to experience classics they would otherwise have limited access to. Sadly, I doubt a first viewing of Aliens will be the mind-blowing event it should be for anyon??e experiencing it in its current format.

Cameron also very briefly touched upon the subject of Alien: Romulus but mainly clarified that he had little input on the film.

"I saw a rough cut six months ago, so I’m sure it’s changed a lot," C?ameron said. "And I viewed it once. I gave some notes to [director Fede Álvarez]. He and I aren’t ?close pals. I mean, I wish him the best with it, but I think it’s been overstated that I had some big creative input to that film. I think Ridley [Scott] did because Ridley was an actual producer on the film. So I’m just putting it in perspective."

We don't learn m?uch about it from J?ames' input, leaving us wondering until it comes out on August 16.

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