Interprotean Xenomorph

One of the key issue will be to situate the new storylines, both in space and time.

From a storytelling standpoint, Alien did not make xenomorphs the target of the Nostromo’s crew. The goal of the Nostromo’s crew was to satisfy, reluctantly, a call for help, a distress signal. While attempting to do that, the crew would stumble upon xenomorphs and Hell would open wide.

This kind of scenario follows an extremely common pattern, where protagonists are tasked with a mission that tears them apart or unites them in the face of an implacable force. Said protagonists go about accomplishing their mundane endeavor and something goes wrong. Eventually, tension develops, then despair. A climactic conclusion usually involves the complete destruction of the antagonist.

Aliens, on the other hand, played with a different subconscious paranoia. Aliens used the following themes: The Evil Corporation, Greed, Overconfidence in Military Force, Distrust of the Unknown, Instinct Above Duty.
Yet, the official Search and Rescue mission goes wrong and Hell once again opens wide.

What strikes me is that both Alien and Aliens were as much about human interrelations than human vs. xenomorph survival.

In both movies, xenomorphs would bring out the best and the worse in human protagonists, as if these great qualities and flaws were waiting to be unleashed.

I digress.

I would not base any future Alien-derived game on any material beside Alien and Aliens.

I would preserve the same narrative pattern, where a mundane series of tasks leads to a dramatic and extraordinary confrontation with xenormorphs.

I would exploit all past paranoias and also leverage paranoias of our time. (Annihilation by Consumerism, Dehumanization, Self-destructive Isolation, The Enemy Within, Outsourcing)

I would connect any new storyline to Alien and Aliens, in some ways, but without obligation.

I would focus on what happened between the time the Terraforming Colony discovered the egg chamber and the time when LV-426 was destroyed. To take the action away from LV-426, to create a parallel storyline, with separate characters, in a different environment.

The storyline of any new Alien-inspired game should probably avoid paraphrasing the movies.

Movie-to-game adaptions have often led to terrible games, as much as game-to-movie adaptions have led to terrible movies. (I am still trying to forget AVP: Alien vs. Predator, but the memory of a predator running hand-in-hand with a human female still haunts me.)

So, I think Gearbox and Obsidian should look for intersecting or parallel storylines. Clearly, those new games should take place in the Alien universe, but the franchise timeline has many gaps to leverage.

Example:

The action could start on LV-426.

The terraforming colony just discovered The Derelict and the egg chamber. They load up a few eggs for study.
Now, this is a terraforming colony, not a science facility. So, while the local Science Officer attempts to learn more about the eggs, a few samples are shipped to the main Wayland-Yutani-controlled science complex in the Zeta II Reticuli system.
The rest of the game tells the story of what happens within the Wayland-Yutani-controlled science complex, located on an unrecorded planetoid.