Aliens: Colonial Marines is a Gearbox title that has been in planning for years, and is finally releasing across consoles in early 2013. As of right now, comprehensive previews of all kinds exist all around the internet, and while we will provide you something more meaty in the future, this preview will be focused on what we could find out of the E3 Wii U information.

Colonial Marines is a survival-horror first-person shooter tasking a group of the titular marines with saving those from Hadley's Hope, the human colony featured in the second film. As the official page on Nintendo's E3 page states, the game is "a true sequel to James Cameron's Aliens," making it sound like the game is trying to "correct" how the story was followed in the film franchise while leaving canon intact. Or, it could simply be making the story line of the franchise more rich and developed.

The gameplay in the title will contain a single-player mode, but what might be the real draw is the multiplayer experience, featuring both co-op and competitive play. The co-op will be drop-in/drop-out, and will involve the player getting assistance from other marines. The competitive multiplayer will allow the player to either play as a Xenomorph (more agile with a heavy focus on quick, powerful melee), or a marine, with a more traditional gun loadout. Some weapons in the game include pulse rifles, motion trackers, and flamethrowers.

In the Colonial Marines developer interview, it was also revealed that the GamePad would be a heavy part of the experience. Some applications seen include motion tracking, scanning, using a database, using the map, and participating in wire puzzles.

"This is really cool when you're first playing the game because you're kind of focused, you're immersed in your virtual reality world and suddenly you hear [scanner noises]. It's coming from down there, and you can see a blip," said Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. "This is just scratching the surface."

Aliens: Colonial Marines comes out February 12, 2013.