Ending (spoilers)

[ThatZenoGuy]

So...What exactly was that ending about? Marine dude has psychic powers the whole time and used them to stall a giant alien for a few seconds?

What even was the giant alien? It had no legs, so was it a giant chestburster or just a weird silly alien?

And what is Cassandra? she's supposed to bridge the gap between the xenos and humans but she looks pretty normal and has no powers or anything.

A bit of a letdown...

[SpookyPancakes]

Originally posted by Fannidan13:

I pretty much laughed it off as a bait and switch ending. The whole time we were playing a Warhammer 40k game. Psykers, Tyranids, and heretics galore while trying to escape exterminatus.

This makes far, far, too much sense that I love it.

[Flinz]

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

So...What exactly was that ending about? Marine dude has psychic powers the whole time and used them to stall a giant alien for a few seconds?

What even was the giant alien? It had no legs, so was it a giant chestburster or just a weird silly alien?

And what is Cassandra? she's supposed to bridge the gap between the xenos and humans but she looks pretty normal and has no powers or anything.

A bit of a letdown...

All depends which story branches they want to use. Powers are related to somekind psychic connection with aliens. Xenos are hiveminded so they communicate with somekind unseen waves. Apparently some people are also able to sense this. Usually source is from queens. This is also why some people willing to become hosts. They are kinda manipulated by queens. It is not really directly but well something, well you know how fiction works.

More to that soon. Giant xeno is something that came out from those other aliens you see in the city. Aliens do seem to get traits from what they hosting. Since there aliens are big so are xenos. Seems that those large aliens are not bipedal creatues so they do not have legs so neither does xeno. There is no telling if this xeno variant is more related to these hivewaves or not but possibly implicated. Harper (marine) also has somekind connection here and for some odd reason was able to give pause to that alien and then die. Not really explained.

Cassandra then? Absolutely no idea. Could be that Marlow and these cultist are just morons to believe somehting or then there is something that have not been told to us yet. Large xeno became agressive after she was released.

Not sure if that really explains anything but this is how I so far understood it.

[Enish Froon]

Having just finished this (albeit on console), here's my take:

1. The giant boss alien at the end? It was likely thousands of years old, and the product of a hybrid with those other alien corpses that were being used as decoration in the level. The size is the give-away, as the adult Xenomorph physiology is largely dependent on the host it gestated in.

This seems kind of nuts to me given the lifespan implied, but I guess there are a host of unknowns to remedy that (xenomorph lifespan in general / the lifespan of those larger non-xeno aliens I'm arguing its related to, etc).

2. Cassandra had powers, at least an empathic connection with the xenos. It's uncertain whether she could exhibit the same degree of control her dad evidenced, but you know as much as I do about all of this.

I assume this sort of thing is expanded upon in the comics, but for me it felt very much out of left field (psychic powers in the aliens universe), as the closest the cinematic world came was clone Ripley's connection with the queen in Resurrection (but here it was due to a direct genetic link).

3. Somebody above said Marlow was driven by corporate interest, but this wasn't the case (as detailed by Pyrce when you briefly meet her in person). Marlow was a true believer in.. something. It was never made clear.

[happyscrub]

Originally posted by Flinz:

All depends which story branches they want to use. Powers are related to somekind psychic connection with aliens. Xenos are hiveminded so they communicate with somekind unseen waves. Apparently some people are also able to sense this. Usually source is from queens. This is also why some people willing to become hosts. They are kinda manipulated by queens. It is not really directly but well something, well you know how fiction works.

This is stupid because aliens are clearly communicating vocally when in Aliens, the queen tells the drones to back away from Ripley so she don't roast the eggs, and in Aliens 4 (I forget the name) when 2 of the aliens agree to kill the 3rd to escape the cell using it's acid while the third clearly detested the whole idea

[Stone]

I liked the game as a whole, the ending has some clear and already mentioned holes. Like I had 17 days to Cerberus, but it happens immediately on game end. Psychics aren't bad in the story, only unevenly depicted. Feeling aliens presence felt thematic along with the fact that cultists seemed more than brainwashed, kinda like how the 40K Tyranids spread their physic terror in the subconscious. What was Marlow really doing? It didn't seem to work? He was dead as well, maybe he was insane, hoping to become reborn and made insane Synths. I was happy there wasn't a twist in the endscene (aka chestburster) with Cassandra or a facehugger skittering along the floor.

Nice that they built on the first two movies primarily. The rest of the movies are so so and don't even get me started on the Prometheus and Covenant which is more like a fan projects in my eyes.