Alien Assault is a freeware squad-based tactical game for the PC released in 2009 by indie developer Teardown. With its top-down and turn-based style, it was heavily inspired by Games Workshop’s (then long out-of-print) boardgame Space Hulk… in fact, the original release was actually themed as a Warhammer 40,000 game until GW sent a C&D and forced Teardown to re-brand the game as an original IP, without any 40k references.
Of course, this didn’t stop fans producing 40k mods that changed things back.
While Alien Assault is a great game, its lasting legacy (like most PC games that stand the test of time) was that it was moddable. While some things are sadly hardcoded (such as weapons), it is fairly easy to create new missions and squads (the “team” a player uses, that can gain experience and upgrades during campaign play), as well as re-theming the whole game from the graphics to the sound effects. Indeed, one of the best ways IMO to play Alien Assault is with the Aliens (the James Cameron movie) mod that converts the entire game to that theme (I will try to post it here as soon as I can find my backup copy).
Teardown initially intended to update the game to make it even more moddable, but eventually decided that working on Alien Assault 2 was preferable. A lot of work was done but the sequel has yet to appear, however, and although the developers are still active on Facebook, Teardown’s entire website, along with their forum where most mods were posted, was shut down in 2016, with the company citing lack of funds to keep it running. Thankfully, the original game at least was hosted at Strategy Informer (now Gamewatcher), so the download itself is not lost.
Because I plan to post my own mods for it here, I am providing a link to the final official release of the game below.
I also plan to host some of my favorite mods for this game (by other talented people, not just my own) here too. If any of the modders who made these object, I will take them down, but I’d hate to see other people’s hard work just disappear into the mists of time.
For now, though, enjoy playing the superb Alien Assault!
Banjo's Mods & Retro Gaming 