Upcoming mobile game Alien: Blackout gained unlikely inspiration from a scene in Alien: Covenant. 2019 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Alien franchise and to mark the occasion Fox will be unveiling a number of tie-ins throughout the year. Alien social media accounts recently teased that the universe would be expanding in 2019, hinting that Alien: Isolation’s Amanda Ripley - daughter of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley - would play a key role. This led many to believe a sequel to Alien: Isolation was in development, only for Fox to announce the mobile-only title.

Alien: Blackout finds Amanda on another crumbling space station being stalked by a relentless Xenomorph. Amanda has to use the station's surveillance system to guide other survivors to safety and to make crucial repairs while keeping an eye out for the alien. While there was initial disappointment that Alien: Blackout was a mobile-only title, early previews suggest the game will be an intense survival horror title.

Related: Fox Confirms No New Alien Movie Is In The Works

Alien: Blackout will lead the charge for Fox’s 40th anniversary plans, and in a new interview with IGN, Senior Producer Josh Austin revealed that the game’s core mechanic was inspired by a scene from Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant involving Michel Fassbender's android character David. Austin said, "You know that part with David closing all the doors to funnel the alien through? I thought: this would be an extremely fun mechanic."

Alien Blackout

The scene Austin mentions comes from the final act of Alien: Covenant, where an alien sneaks around a spaceship and David remotely closes doors to force it into a trap laid by the survivors. Alien: Covenant is hardly a fan favorite entry in the franchise, so it’s interesting to see it used as a key inspiration behind Alien: Blackout. Covenant was supposed to be quickly followed by a third prequel called Alien: Awakening, but star Katherine Waterston recently revealed she hasn’t heard anything about the planned sequel in some time. The movie was set to feature David continuing his twisted experiments on a new planet, with the Engineers coming after him to seek revenge.

While further 40th anniversary projects have yet to be revealed, Fox recently confirmed that there are no plans for a new movie or Alien: Isolation 2. For the time being, Alien: Blackout is the closest to an Alien: Isolation sequel fans are likely to get. It also appears Fox is positioning Amanda Ripley to be a major player in the series moving forward, as she’ll also appear in a comic series called Aliens: Resistance, as well as a belated novelization of Alien: Isolation due later this year.

Source: IGN