With veretan writer and designer Chris Avellone describing the project to VG247 at a recent event. Called Aliens: Crucible, a prototype was built and pitched to SEGA before being passed on. Instead, we got Aliens: Colonial Marines.

"Everyone working on Aliens: Crucible was really excited about it," Chris tells VG247. "It was shaping up to be a really cool game. The prototype was really cool." Where the premise involved flying to a planet that was infested and overrun by Aliens. Like the film Prometheus players would have stumbled onto an ancient facility and ship.

The Mass Effect connection comes with the title being an RPG with real-time combat, dialogue choices, commanding AI party members in combat, and fully realised character-driven stories. One of the challenges in making an Aliens RPG led to Obsidian approaching dialogue and conversation in a meaningful way, where players could be interrupted at any moment by a scare or deadly Alien threat.

"The entire world was more violent and there were a lot more Aliens running around," Chris explains. "It was more a question of survival, and ‘how do we recover all the supplies, and desperately try to make a base?’ It was fun to set up."

Footage of the Alien: Crucible prototype can be seen below.