Last week Free League announced a partnership with Titan Books (an off shoot of Forbidden Planet if memory serves me correctly).
In the official announcement this partnership has been described as “a collaboration to publish a unified storyline set within the ALIEN Universe. For 2022 and into 2023, the editorial and writing teams will share assets and coordinate plotlines to form a cohesive narrative across three original novels and the multiple award-winning ALIEN RPG.”
In the next year Titan Books will be publishing three new Alien novels.
- Alien: Colony War by David Barnett (April 2022)
- Alien: Inferno’s Fall by Phillipa Ballantine and Clara Carija (July 2022)
- Alien: Enemy of My Enemy by Mary SanGiovanni (February 2023)
The first two can be pre-ordered on Amazon already. Which funnily enough but hardly a surprise I have pre-ordered.
If unsure which version of the books to pre-order, as there are three versions, audible, kindle and good old physical?
You first need to be aware of the following snippet of information about these novels. “ALIEN RPG lead setting writer Andrew E.C. Gaska will develop three unique RPG scenarios which will appear as bonus features in the books, one per novel.”
I seriously doubt these scenarios will be in the audible version (which I did spend a credit on to pre-order). But I’m not sure that the kindle version will have them either. The only edition I would bet money on that definitely will have them is the physical (hence why I pre-ordered it).
However Titan Books aren’t the first to do this sort of thing.
Back in 2017/8 FFG did something similar when they released four novellas set in the Android universe that had in the physical versions exclusive content for the Genesys RPG Shadow of the Beanstalk source book. Such as “a 16-page color insert detailing the treacherous Los Scorpiones gang …”
That exclusive bit was annoying as it was very challenging to get the actual physical edition, especially here in the UK. I did manage to get them all. But I don’t think the print run was very big.
This shouldn’t be an issue with the much more popular Alien franchise.
In other Free League Alien RPG news (yes they have been very busy it seems) a new cinematic adventure called Heart of Darkness has just gone on pre-order.
Heart of Darkness is “written by sci-fi novelist Andrew E.C. Gaska. It is a stand-alone adventure, but also serves as a conclusion to the Draconis Strain Saga begun in the cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods and continued in Destroyer of Worlds. The scenario is designed for 3–5 players plus the Game Mother, and is a spiraling descent into soul-crushing madness.”
What does your money get you?
Basically the following:
- The main Heart of Darkness scenario book.
- A huge double-sided map (format 864x558mm) of the Erebos plasma trawling space station.
- Seven pre-generated characters to choose from.
- Custom cards for secret messages and personal agendas.
- Player maps and handouts.
Plus when you pre-order you get early access to the PDF’s. The actual physical version will not be out until sometime in the Summer I believe.
There is a VTT bundle for this as well.
I do like that buying from Free League also gets you the PDF version. Other publishers do this as well, such as EN Publishing. It’s a nice incentive to buy direct from them. But I am a bit conflicted on this. Pre-ordering and early access I’m happy with. But for those that can wait, and want to support and buy from their FLGS, surely Free League and other publishers can come up with a way for those to get the PDF as well as part of their purchase.
Anyway I’m an impatient so and so, so come payday Heart of Darkness will be added to a virtual shopping cart.