When Sega announced that they had the rights to the Aliens franchise, gamers rejoiced. Shooter fans were getting not one, but two games - and even the humble RPG was getting a look-in, with the revelation that Obsidian Entertainment were hard at work on a role-playing adventure set in the film universe.

...unfortunately, any hopes for the game have today been dashed after a period of uncertainty and speculation, with both Obsidian and Sega making separate statements that the project has been unceremoniously dropped.

Firstly, the developers commented on their official forums:

Rumors have circled around a bit regarding the fate of the Aliens role playing game that Obsidian and SEGA had been working on. Unfortunately, it is true that we are no longer working on the game, and we wanted to finally announce that officially to everyone who has been following its development. We’re going to keep this forum up for another week for archival purposes and to allow you guys to finish up any open threads, and then we will shut it down since it is no longer a product that is in development.

Then, when questioned, publishers Sega piped up with an official statement:

At this point, SEGA has no plans to move forward with the Aliens RPG. The Aliens franchise offers us so much content to choose from that we feel it important to take a step back and carefully consider the type of game we want to release. We plan to continue working with the Aliens franchise and ask fans to be patient and stay tuned for more information about what SEGA has coming out for the Aliens series of games, starting with the upcoming Alien vs. Predator game. We are very excited about and focused on Alien vs. Predator, which promises gamers a fantastic single player game and an equally compelling multiplayer experience. We are confident that it provides all the excitement and fun that the Aliens and Predator fans are looking for!

While this is a sad day for gamers, it's not really a surprising one. Obsidian are currently hard at work on Alpha Protocol (which they'd like you to check out, please), which would be taking up a bunch of their time... and then there's that little New Vegas project - you know, the one that's set in the Fallout universe?


Aliens vs. Predator + Aliens: Colonial Marines
While you're outta luck in the RPG stakes, if you can't live without a new dose of Aliens, rest assured that both Aliens vs. Predator and Aliens: Colonial Marines are safe and sound, and both shaping up to be kinda awesome.