What they find upon arrival is the same deadly creature the original crew found in Aliens as a massive Xenomorph infestation have overrun the ship and the craft itself is back in orbit over LV-426 and not planet Fury-161 as intended. Dwayne Hicks at the end of the Aliens movie. The game's story takes place approximately 17 weeks after the events of Aliens after the disappearance of the USS Sulaco and it is crew, when a search and rescue team is sent out to Acheron (LV-426) to investigate and learn the whereabouts of Ellen Ripley, Carter Burke and the rest of the crew in response to a distress call sent out by Cpl.

Gearbox Software hailed Aliens: Colonial Marines as the true spiritual sequel to James Cameron's sci-fi film Aliens prior to the games release and claimed that it would tie up some of the plot-holes and loose ends of Alien 3, improving the overall integrity of the lore. Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software was given pretty free reins with the story and even got to add in his own tidbits to the Alien universe such as the Crusher, an enormous Xenomorph with a bulletproof head crest named after the way it kills its opponents. With the assistance of 20th Century Fox, Gearbox Software's intentions was to create the true spiritual successor to Aliens that fans of the film have been waiting for and were invited to speak with Ridley Scott (the director of the original Alien movie) and view his script and plans for Alien prequel Prometheus while the film was still undergoing development. The games story occurs approximately 17 weeks after the the events of the second film in the Alien movie franchise (Aliens) and was announced as being official canon to the Alien franchise and universe at PAX East 2012. Although players take upon the role of humans in the story mode the competitive online multiplayer modes allow players to take upon control of both the human marines and as various members of the Xenomorph species.

The game features an original story by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle of Battlestar Galactica fame which is playable as either a single-player campaign, a two-player split screen co-op or with up to four players online.

A Wii U version was also in the works but was eventually cancelled on April 5th, 2013.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a sci-fi horror-themed first-person shooter and was developed by Gearbox Software LLC and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Window's PCs on February 12th, 2013.

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