Aliens: Colonial Marines' Escape multiplayer mode will make you flee for your life

The multiplayer portion of Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines seeks to offer a good time for both the Marines, who should learn to avoid dank, dimly lit facilities, and the Aliens, who very much enjoy hunting down and eviscerating those Marines.

The multiplayer portion of Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines seeks to offer a good time for both the Marines, who should learn to avoid dank, dimly lit facilities, and the Aliens, who very much enjoy hunting down and eviscerating those Marines. Today, publisher Sega announced a new mode called Escape. Just like it sounds, Escape challenges Marine players to an extraction point sprint as the Xenomorphs chomp at their heels with their acid-drooling mouth-in-mouth jaw things.

Sound familiar? Back in 2001, Monolith's Aliens vs. Predator 2 featured a multiplayer mode named "Evacuation" which featured the same cat-and-mouse gameplay for both Marine and Xenomorph teams. Colonial Marines' Escape echoes the same concept (sans Predator), with expected chokepoints, heroic last-stands, flailing alien appendages, and menacing motion-tracker ping noises.

The 4 vs. 4 mode also includes a few controllable Xenomorph variants with different properties. The Soldier touts durability and close-combat brutality, the Lurker ambushes with leaping pins and agile strikes, and the Spitter spews caustic goo as a stealthy marksman. The Marines, of course, pack the expected arsenal of heavy ordinance. Expect turrets, flamethrowers, heavy cannons, and a finger planted firmly on the sprint button.

Aliens: Colonial Marines releases February 12, 2013. Read our most recent previewfor more on its horror-soaked space violence.