14 DAY TRIAL // Siliconera reports that Gearbox Software, the developer behind last year's smash hit Borderlands, has trademarked the name Z-Day for use with video games and, surprisingly enough, action-adventure movies. There has been no official reveal from the Texas-based studio, but it is known that it is working on three unannounced titles along with Aliens: Colonial Marines.
One other of these top secret games that Gearbox is working on is a spin-off of the Duke Nukem series. Duke Begins, as it is apparently entitled, was accidentally discovered by Shacknews when its journalists examined the court filings of the lawsuit between Take Two Interactive and 3D Realms. The project had not been marked canceled in the document, so it seems reasonable to assume that it is one of Gearbox Software's secret titles.
The aforementioned Aliens: Colonial Marines is a squad-based first-person shooter that will be published by SEGA on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the PC and the Nintendo DS. The player will control one of four Colonial Marines, with the ability to switch between them at any time and to give the others orders using context-sensitive cues. An interesting twist added by Gearbox is the total absence of the heads-up display, forcing gamers to be very aware of their surroundings.
The story takes place after the third Alien movies and sees a Colonial Marine search-and-rescue team being sent to find Ellen Ripley, the main character of the Alien universe, on the USS Sulaco. The writers involved in this project are Bradley Thompson and David Weddle of Battlestar Galactica fame. A multiplayer component has been mentioned by Gearbox, allowing players to engage in cooperative or competitive play online or on the same screen. Unfortunately, no release date has been announced yet.