When it was initially released back in 2013, Aliens: Colonial Marines received universally shitty reviews, partly because its enemy AI was absolutely fucked. As it turns out, a reason for that was a single typo in a line of code.
[jwplayer sKZZk6x3]
Discovered by modder jamesdickinson963 in a thread on Resetera, a simple spelling mistake in the game’s PecanEngine.ini file meant that it was unable to properly assign locational data to the enemy aliens. In other words, they didn’t know where they were or what they were doing, resulting in some of the strange moments that became widely shared, like the cracker clip below.
The line of code responsible for making a mockery out of what was meant to be a very scary game read “PecanGame.PecanSeqAct_AttachXenoToTeather”, but should have been “PecanGame.PecanSeqAct_AttachPawnToTether”. That single rogue ‘a’ in ‘tether’ was all it took.
A mod called TemplarGFX’s Aliens: Colonial Marines Overhaul is available now and will apply the fix for you, but while it’ll improve the game, it still doesn’t address all of its glaring problems, so don’t expect a mind-blowing experience or anything.
Massively hyped before its release, Aliens: Colonial Marines scored a measly 45/100 on its Metacritic score, with an even lower 35 per cent approval rating among players. But look on the bright side, if it wasn’t trash in the beginning, we wouldn’t have some of the wonderful memes we do today.
May dog have mercy on whoever it was who wrote that line of code.
