Aliens FPS not cancelled

Following rumours that SEGA had cut the funding on the Gearbox developed FPS, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford has issued a statement to Kotaku clarifying the studio’s current position – Aliens has not been canned.

“In 2005, after having a lot of success with games from Half-Life: Opposing Force to Halo on the PC to our original Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30, we embarked upon a strategy where opportunity in the industry and the ambition of key talent here was driving a lot of growth for us. The strategy has been amazingly transformative for us. We’ve been growing *very* fast – more than doubling in size between 2007 and 2008 and outpacing general industry growth in staff and revenue by an order of magnitude. This growth has catapulted us to become one of the most powerful independent studios in the world,” explained Pitchford.

He added: “Over the last six weeks, we’ve been adjusting our internal strategy to move from being about Opportunity, Ambition and Growth to a strategy that is oriented towards Quality, Focus and Performance. A number of recent tactical decisions here are a reflection of this new commitment and strategy. The timing of these tactical decisions relates more to natural maneuvering that all studios should only consider after they finish a big effort than anything else.”

Pitchford concluded: “While our commitment to focus and quality may slow the speed of our growth in numbers, we are, in fact, currently hiring. We have exciting, exciting things going on that offer tremendous opportunity for us and our interest is for the best talent in the world to join us and be a part of it. Borderlands is shaping up to be astonishingly fresh and I am very excited to reveal more about that soon, Aliens: Colonial Marines is very exciting and I look forward to the right moment we can more fully unveil our efforts there and we have other incredible unannounced projects in development and a lot of opportunity for the future – a future I am increasingly excited about.”

Good news for Aliens and Gearbox fans then. Aliens: Colonial Marines had been scheduled for a late 2008 release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, but has slipped to an unconfirmed date in 2009.