Amazon is currently selling Alien: Fate of the Nostromo for $22.49 in the US, a 25% markdown from its MSRP. This cooperative survival board game is part of Ravensburger’s series of movie adaptations, and like a surprising amount of that catalog, it’s really very good.
Alien: Fate of the Nostromo is a fast-playing cooperative board game based very closely on Ridley Scott’s original 1979 blockbuster. Each player takes on the role of a different member of the Nostromo’s crew, and depending on which characters are present you’ll face a different scenario as you attempt to fight back against the perfect organism within the winding confines of the ship.
It’s one of the best board games set in the Aliens franchise. Part of that is in the attention to detail in the graphic design, which absolutely captures the aesthetics of the original movie, from the lovely playing map of the Nostramo, to the character boards that look like they were designed by Weyland-Yutani itself. The small number of miniatures in the box are good quality, and help with that feeling of being situated in the ship.
It’s a fairly light game which you can play in an hour. Like classic co-op games Pandemic and Forbidden Island, each player has a unique power, and you’ll need to make the most of them to stop yourselves getting cornered and dismembered. We say ‘dismembered’, but no-one is out until you all are, as confrontations with the Alien reduce the whole crew’s morale rather than killing off characters. It’s an abstraction that ensures players don’t have to sit out of the game for half an hour because they were given a toothy kiss.
You can check out our Alien: Fate of the Nostromo review from back in 2021 if you want to know more about how we found it. There aren’t other official Aliens games that really hit this theme quite as well. Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deckbuilding Game has the theme, but being a deck-builder it doesn’t communicate a very coherent story; Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is really a narrative heavy tactical wargame; and we won’t talk about the ill-fated Alien games by Prodos…
There are many, many board games inspired by Alien. Nemesis is an absolute belter, dripping with theme and interesting rules – but it is extremely expensive, and has a nightmare of a rulebook which can easily sabotage your game. Escape From The Aliens in Outer Space is a brilliant adversarial hidden movement game, provided you can stand the stress.
Love the Aliens films? Read all the comics? Got a strong opinion about Covenant? We’d love to chat about it in the official Wargamer Discord community!
Speaking of strong opinions about Alien movies, check out Mollie Russell’s article about how she a) despises Alien Romulus and b) thinks it would make a fantastic setup for a tabletop roleplaying game.
Source: Wargamer
