Alien versus Predator interview

Fear of the Dark

GamesCom 2009 was a hectic time for us and you’ve no doubt heard and read plenty of our whining about out sore feet, tired eyes and lack of clean socks.

One of the many highlights of the event though was our visit to Sega’s booth at GamesCom 2009. Several visits in fact, as we returned numerous times to look at games such as Alpha Protocol and Bayonetta, though the first game there to catch our eye was definitely Rebellion’s Alien versus Predator.

AvP impressed us a lot with its gorgeous graphics and streamlined gameplay, so much so in fact that when we spied a chance to corner Rebellion’s Tim Jones for a few minutes we took it without hesitation.

We leapt on him like something black, slimy, acidic and with a burning desire to find out about the new suicide feature and whether Rebellion will be working on a new Judge Dredd game…


Bit-tech: OK – let’s start at the top. Can you just tell us who you are, what your role is and just generally why we should listen to you?

Tim Jones: Ok, well, my name is Tim Jones and I’m the Head of Art and Design for Rebellion and I’m also the Project Lead on Alien versus Predator. I’ve been at Rebellion for more years than I’d care to remember right now, but I joined the company to work on the original PC version of Alien versus Predator that came out in 1999.

BT: What did you work on for the original game?

Tim: I joined as an artist, but by the end of the project I was pretty much the lead artist and designer and by the time AvP: Gold Edition came around I was pretty much Project Lead. I rapidly found myself taking on all the leadership stuff and it was a great thrill. I’ve been heavily involved in pretty much every Rebellion game too; Rogue Trooper, Sniper Elite and so on.

It’s really great to be here ten years after the original game that I first worked on and to try and take all of this to a new audience.


BT: You mentioned some of your other games, like Sniper Elite (which we’re big fans of, by the way), were you very anxious to get back to AvP or were those games part of an attempt to distance yourselves?

Tim: No, absolutely the former. We’ve been doing a lot of stuff in the mean time, but for me personally AvP has been a bit of an obsession of mine and I think that’s true for a lot of the people I work with. Especially my bosses, who’ve been working on reacquiring the rights to work on AvP for many years.

It’s been a long-road coming, but it’s been a thrill getting there and, in the mean time, we love all our games and all other things geeky. Especially with 2000AD being part of our studio, which means we’ve got lots of cool stuff going on.

BT: What kind of cool stuff? Because one of my colleagues is a big fan and would severely beat me if I didn’t at least ask you about new Judge Dredd games…

Tim: Well, there is the announcement that went out recently about a new Judge Dredd film in the works. There’s not a lot I can say about that right now, but the film is in development and…I really can’t say anything about what we might be doing game-wise at the moment. But…watch this space.