After the reported poor performance of Gearbox Software’s Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, and the subsequent redundancies seen at the company, it was feared that future Gearbox games were in jeopardy.

Chief amongst the Gearbox games gamers were clamouring to get was Aliens: Colonial Marines, a first-person shooter set in the Alien universe. After the rough times at Gearbox, it was rumoured that SEGA, publishers of the game, were to cut the project due to lowered confidence in the title and Gearbox.

Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford immediately came out to say that the project was not cancelled, but confidence was not especially high as he tried to spin the bad news of the staff redundancies into a positive message of growth for the company.

SEGA have come to the rescue, however, now revealing in their release schedule that Aliens: Colonial Marines is in fact still on course for a quarter one 2009 release, falling somewhere between April and June, which is in line with SEGA’s first quarter.

The rest of SEGA’s release schedule (full of release ‘windows’) follows below:

• Football Manager Live PC - 23rd Jan 2009

February 2009

• House of the Dead: Overkill Horror (Wii)
• House of the Dead: Overkill: Collectors Edition (Wii)
• SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (PS3)
• SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (X360)

March 2009

• Empire: Total War (PC)
• Empire: Total War: Special Forces Edition (PC)
• Bleach: Dark Souls (DS)
• Stormrise (PS3)
• Stormrise (X360)
• Sonic and the Black Knight (Wii)
• Madworld (Wii)

Spring 2009

• Phantasy Star Portable (PSP)
• The Conduit (Wii)

Q1 2009

• Alpha Protocol (PS3 )
• Alpha Protocol (X360)
• Alpha Protocol (PC )
• Aliens: Colonial Marines (PS3)
• Aliens: Colonial Marines (X360)
• Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC)

2009

• Bayonetta (PS3)
• Bayonetta (X360)