New Release: Alien Breed 3D HD

Development house Team17 has become a prolific, popular company best known for its Worms series, which has appeared on nearly every platform since the 16-bit era. But in 1991, they were a new group that formed from the European demo scene. Their first major release was a top-down shooter called Alien Breed, which was released exclusively on the Commodore Amiga. The game drew inspiration from games like Gauntlet for its mechanics, and from the Alien franchise for its graphics and atmosphere. Alien Breed was popular and well-rated. It spawned three direct 2D sequels: Alien Breed: Special Edition ’92, Alien Breed II, and Alien Breed: Tower Assault.

By 1996, the PC gaming world was enamored with Doom. Unfortunately, because of the Amiga chipset’s architecture, games like Doom were not nearly as easy to make, and the ones that were required machines faster and more powerful than the stock models Commodore offered. Nevertheless, Team17 soldiered on and created a 3D engine for the next installment of the Alien Breed series, aptly titled Alien Breed 3D. Unfortunately, the team that had been tasked with this new title had little to no connection with the legacy titles in the series. As a result, the newest game had little to do, mechanically or visually, with the original 2D entries.

Unfortunately, the game itself suffered from a lackluster presentation. On a postage-stamp-sized screen on lower-end Amigas, and even on high-end machines, the game couldn’t run full-screen. The gameplay screen ran at a very low resolution, producing blocky textures and enemies that were hard to discern before you were attacked and killed.

Despite these deficiencies, Alien Breed 3D’s engine had some significant advantages over the Doom engine at the time. The engine supported more vertical variety, allowing areas to exist directly below floors. It also allowed for structures like ramps, stairwells, and raised platforms. It supported transparent water and flooded rooms, allowing players to explore submerged areas. It also supported dynamic textures, allowing lighting conditions to change.

Reviewers at the time recognized the title’s technical achievements and were very generous with their scores, with review scores above 90%. The game proved successful enough to warrant a 3D sequel, titled The Killing Grounds. While the original chased Doom, the sequel targeted the newly released Quake. While the engine was much more advanced, it again required significant power to run effectively. This would prove to be the last entry in the Alien Breed series on the Amiga.

In 1997, Team17 released the full source code for The Killing Grounds and the original Alien Breed 3D on an Amiga Format magazine cover CD. They called it their final gift to the Amiga community, as Commodore and the Amiga declined, forcing them to focus on other platforms. This was a boon for Amiga enthusiasts, as it allowed them to develop improved versions of the games for the Amiga and ultimately port them to other platforms.

Fast forward a couple of days, and developers Retro Foundry announced Alien Breed 3D HD, running in a browser on Windows, macOS, and Linux, as the series celebrates its 35th anniversary. The source code is available in their GitHub repository.

This project shows what the engine is capable of, using modern hardware to increase resolution, texture quality, and speed. The game looks gorgeous and runs smoothly. Retro Foundry ported the mouse-look code from The Killing Grounds, giving the game a feel that is much closer to Quake than Doom.

Everything is here: all the enemies, weapons, and levels. The fact that this is running in a browser is kind of crazy. What’s even crazier is that this full game comes to us for the low, low price of absolutely free.

There’s no reason not to try the game. It’s a peek at the evolution of one of the defining game series on the Commodore Amiga, and an amazing bit of preservation work.

Play Alient Breed 3D HD – https://retro-foundry.github.io/abhd/
Source – https://github.com/retro-foundry/Alien-Breed-HD

Screenshots:

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