Rebellion Happy With “Success” of Aliens vs. Predator, Considering a Sequel

Aliens vs. Predator, or AvP, was released last week this month to a mixed bunch of reactions. Some loved it, others didn’t. The highest review score I’ve seen was from Official PlayStation magazine , and that was a 9. The lowest review score I’ve seen is Giantbomb at 2/5 (or 4 out of 10). And there were obviously several others in between [1].

Despite this, the game has gone on to become the fastest selling game of 2010 (so far) [2], taking the number one position in the UK charts in one week after its release.

Rebellion has declared the game a critical success, is happy with most of the reviews, and is even considering making a sequel to the game [3]. The CEO, Jason Kingsley, even went on to trash the negative reviews as just badly written rubbish.

"We wanted Aliens vs. Predator to be a critical success as well as a commercial success, which we think we have achieved. The reviews have been mostly good. We’ve had three totally shit reviews by some Americans, which is a bit odd. Some of them were inexcusably bad. If you discount those poor reviews AvP is averaging high for us."

"We’re also in discussions with Sega about ongoing support for AvP, and also about a sequel to the game. I won’t say what stage those negotiations are in, but we would love to revisit the franchise. Fox are excited about what we’re doing, and we feel we’ve added value to the franchise."

“We would love to work with Sega again, there were a lot of things we couldn’t fit into the original. We are trying to do all the right things to make the franchise a success now and in the future.”

Some are correct in saying that the game wasn’t a critical success, because that would mean everybody loved it. A commercial success, yes, seeing as it has sold pretty well to reach number 1 in the UK. A critical success would be something like Mass Effect 2 or BioShock 2, also released this year, which to my knowledge have both only received good reviews from websites and magazines. And those said games were also commercial successes too.

I still have to play AvP, but rest assured, I will likely still get it sometime soon. Everyone knows that reviews don’t matter nowadays anyway.

By the way, Rebellion has updated the situation on Rebellion’s Derby studio, formerly known as Core Design, the people behind the original Tomb Raider games, saying that it’s on the verge of shutting down [3].

Jason Kingsley:

"It's quite likely that the Derby studio won't be kept intact in the way it did, but that individual consultancy period is not over yet.We would obviously like someone to, but no one has done so as yet."

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Sources: [1] VG247 - [2] Games Industry Biz - [3] Develop

Rebellion Happy With “Success” of Aliens vs. Predator, Considering a Sequel