Of course Gearbox made Aliens: Colonial Marines, Sega insists

Gearbox did not hand over the development of Aliens: Colonial Marines’ single player mode to TimeGate, Sega has insisted.

The claims arrived yesterday amidst the twitter and forum storm that followed the lifting of the review embargo for the game – that itself revealed what can best be described as a mess of a release, averaging a shocking 44 per cent on Metacritic.

Digital fingers soon started pointing at developer Gearbox, with the belief rapidly spreading that the studio palmed off development of the game’s single player mode to Section 8 developer TimeGate.

Absolutely not,” is the response from Sega of America’s senior producer Matthew Powers, as reported by DSOGaming. The game has been developed by Gearbox Software. Other studios [like Timegate] helped Gearbox on the production of single and multiplayer.”

The genesis of the rumour stems from claims made by someone who is believed to be a former Gearbox developer back in May of last year.

Describing the title’s six year development cycle as a total train wreck”, CVG reports that the anonymous source claimed: "Hate to say it, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high for Colonial Marines. I used to work at Gearbox, and the development of that game has been a total train wreck, going on what, six years now?

"Gearbox isn’t even making the game, except for the multiplayer. Primary development was outsourced to TimeGate Studios, which has a less than stellar past. I hope it proves me wrong, as I still have a lot of friends still working at Gearbox, but I am expecting it to be average at best."

Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has previously claimed that Gearbox’s in-house team is responsible for around 80 per cent of the final game.