Aliens: Colonial Marines ventures beyond Aliens with its multiplayer maps and weapons

Gearbox Software looks beyond James Cameron's Aliens for multiplayer inspiration in Aliens: Colonial Marines.

Gearbox Software's new shooter based on the Alien franchise may be an officially sanctioned direct sequel to the second film, Aliens, but it appears the game's developer has some creative latitude when it comes to exploring the greater fiction.

In a new Q&A posted to Sony's PlayStation.blog, Gearbox Software multiplayer producer Chris Brock tells fans the studio is looking at every Alien film for creative inspiration in making Aliens: Colonial Marines online component.

Brock says that Gearbox is drawing "inspiration for multiplayer maps from all the films, in addition to concept art and expanded Aliens universe content." That could mean we'll explore settings beyond the Sulaco warship and the surface of the planet LV-426. Perhaps we'll kill each other in multiplayer combat in the penal colony of Fiorina 161 from Alien 3 or aboard the Nostromo of the original Alien.

Aliens: Colonial Marines will also explore never-before-seen aspects of the franchise, Gearbox says.

"The films allude to a lot of weapons that are never shown," Brock writes. "As you might imagine, we're pretty excited to show you what those might look like.

One cinematic extension we won't see in Colonial Marines is the crossover involving the Predator.

Brock generously calls the Aliens vs. Predator series a "fun and compelling universe, but a separate one from the original Aliens universe."