Fallout Dev Reveals New Information On Sega's Canceled Aliens: Crucible Game

The 2000s had plenty of games set in the Aliens universe, but one project that never saw the light of day was Aliens: Crucible which Obsidian game designer Josh Sawyer was developing for Sega back in 2006.

Responding to a tweet asking video game developers about their "one that got away" projects, Sawyer revealed concept art for the game, an action-RPG that contained a "lot of cool ideas" but was ultimately shelved by Sega so that Obsidian could work on Alpha Protocol. It was only in 2009 when Sega confirmed that Aliens: Crucible had been canceled.

"There were a lot of cool ideas in the works, but you don't ship ideas," Sawyer tweeted. "The biggest lesson I learned from the experience is that if you don't have playable levels, you don't have much of a game--there are some exceptions, of course. The closest Aliens game that could be compared to Crucible according to Sawyer, is Aliens: Fireteam.

According to the developer, the Cold Iron Studios-developed game has a similar setup to what he envisioned for Crucible, and he was glad to see Fireteam Elite released. "I was happy to play Aliens: Fireteam Elite because the overall setup was similar,” Sawyer said. "Small team, third-person, with an emphasis on deployables and support actions. The similarities ended there, but it was nice to see the idea could actually be fun in practice."

While Aliens: Crucible is a fascinating story of a game that almost was, there's still plenty to look forward to if you're a fan of nightmare-fuel monsters with the most disturbing breeding method possible in fiction. Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a solid action game that has received several big updates since it launched in 2021, and on June 20, you can experience real-time tactical action against the Xenomorph hordes in Aliens: Dark Descent.