Alien: Blackout for Android — Everything you need to know

After months of speculation, Alien: Blackout has been officially announced — and wouldn't you know it's being developed exclusively for mobile. Developed by D3 Go in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox, Alien: Blackout is a spiritual successor to 2014's Alien: Isolation and will be available as a premium title for Android, iOS, and will also appear in the Amazon app store.

The game reprises the role of Amanda Ripley, daughter of Sigourney Weaver's character from the iconic Ridley Scott films, as she attempts to remotely guide her crew members aboard a Weyland-Yutani space station to safety while a deadly Xenomorph stalks them.

We don't yet know when it will be released, how much it will initially cost, or whether there will be any form of loot boxes or micro-transactions included in the game, but we are able to glean some information based on the trailer and screenshots. So far, it seems like we can expect a pretty nerve-wracking experience that tries to imitate some of the more intense moments from the film franchise complete with suspenseful build-ups to jump scares.

It also seems somewhat apparent, based on the gameplay description, that Alien: Blackout will be liberally borrowing from the successful gameplay formula of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. In FNAF, you play the role of the night watchman at a creepy children's restaurant and you are tasked with keeping tabs on the animatronic creatures that have a habit of coming to life at night to commit murder. Your only tools are a suite of security cameras and control of the security doors keeping you safe — but everything is running on battery power and you have just enough power to get through the night if you're brave and resourceful.

Alien: Blackout is the first officially licensed mobile game based on the Alien film franchise.

In Alien: Blackout, you play as Ripley as she tries to keep her crew members safe while guiding them through the space station from the security monitoring room using cameras and other defense mechanisms, but power is limited and the Xenomorph is always lurking. The core structure of the game sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? If you're both a fan if the FNAF franchise and the Alien, this game may well be the game of your dreams.

The Alien franchise has always been a bit of a mixed bag, with both the feature films and video game adaptations featuring more than a couple duds along the way. Of course, we won't know for sure whether Alien: Blackout will live up to the lofty expectations from fans of Alien: Isolation until we've had a chance to check it out for ourselves.

Pre-registration is open on the Google Play Store so be sure to check it out if you're eager to be among the first to play this new game.

See at Google Play

Marc Lagace

Marc Lagace was an Apps and Games Editor at Android Central between 2016 and 2020. You can reach out to him on Twitter [@spacelagace.