''Alien Swarm'' is a multiplayer

top-down shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

video game developed by

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...

. It is a

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...

of a

mod Mod, MOD or mods may refer to: Places * Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band * M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...

for '' Unreal Tournament 2004'', and it was developed by the original team, who were hired by Valve during the course of the development process.

Gameplay

''Alien Swarm'' is a

, where four players can join a single

co-operative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

game, the aim of which is to progress through

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

-themed levels while eliminating waves of aliens. Players can choose from 40 different pieces of equipment, ranging from weapons like assault rifles to grenade launchers and offhand items like mines and healing beacons. The game includes persistent statistics, unlockable equipment, and achievements. The game is class-based, with players choosing from the roles of Officer, Special Weapons, Medic, and Tech. Each class has two selectable characters, differentiated by their abilities. Before the mission, players can change their character's loadouts and offhand items. After each mission, experience points are gained. While leveling up, the players will unlock new weapons and items to use. The mission involves the team advancing in the same general direction, often with multiple objectives to accomplish. As they advance through the level, they will find certain key points blocking the progress, which are cleared through a variety of methods, from welding to shooting to hacking. Meanwhile, many aliens (known as Swarm) will attack the players from all sides. Swarm can spawn unpredictably, and will often attack the players with mobs of enemies, as described by their name. There are many different types of Swarm, with different behaviors and attack patterns. Players can fight Swarm using many tools, including weapons, explosives, or using environmental hazards (e.g. explosive barrels).

Plot

In the game's only official campaign, ''Jacob's Rest'', a swarm of invasive

aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...

have taken over a colonized planet in December 2052. Marines deployed by the ''Bloodhound'' dropship arrive to search for survivors and, if need be, to destroy the colony to prevent the aliens from spreading. The task force kills a large number of not only "normal" Swarm aliens, but alien eggs, large tumor-like growths, parasites and other creatures. They soon find out that the colonists have all been killed by the alien infestation. The marines then guide a

thermonuclear bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

(originally meant for excavation purposes) through the complex and activate its timer. They return to the drop ship before the bomb detonates.

Development

''Alien Swarm'' was originally a

for '' Unreal Tournament 2004''. The mod was Mod of the Year for ''GameSpy'' in 2004, and was a runner-up for ''

Computer Games Magazine ''Computer Games Magazine'' was a monthly computer and console gaming print magazine, founded in October 1988 as the United Kingdom publication ''Games International''. During its history, it was known variously as ''Strategy Plus'' (October 1 ...

''s 2004 "Best Mod" award, losing to '' Red Orchestra: Combined Arms''. A Source engine sequel to the original ''Unreal Tournament 2004'' mod was announced in 2005, under the title of ''Alien Swarm: Infested''. However, by late 2007, the development blog had stopped updating, leaving its status uncertain. In July 2010 with the announcement of ''Alien Swarm'', it was revealed that Valve had hired the team behind ''Alien Swarm'', who had finished the mod between working on other Valve products such as '' Left 4 Dead'' and '' Portal 2''. An ''Alien Swarm''

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...

(SDK) including buildable

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

was released alongside the game. It is free to all users of Steam, rather than only to owners of existing Source games (as is the case with the 'mainline'

Source SDK Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the release of '' Counter-Strike: Source'' and ''Half-Life 2''. Updates to Source were released in incremental versions, with the engine being succ ...

). This allows total conversion mods, which do not rely on content from other Valve games, to be free to all as well - a significant business decision that echoes the strategy of the

Unreal Development Kit Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal (1998 video game), Unreal''. Initially developed for Personal computer, PC first-person shooters, i ...

. The SDK and

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source ...

allows arbitrary usage and sharing but only for non-commercial purposes.

Reception

''Alien Swarm'' received "generally favorable reviews" according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. In 2023, '' Rock Paper Shotgun'' placed it among the list of the best free PC games.

References

External links