Aliens: Colonial Marines adds female characters to roster

Remember that petition to get female characters into Aliens: Colonial Marines? The shocking twist isn’t that the petition worked, but that the petition wasn’t even necessary because female characters were always going to be in the game anyway.

Talking to Kotaku, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford explained that including female characters in a game is important for both visual and gameplay diversity, and that Aliens: Colonial Marines had them on the team from the get-go, and that a petition featuring almost 4000 signatures – including people involved in the original 1986 Aliens movie – had nothing whatsoever to do with it, nuh-uh.

Whatever the reason, both the co-op campaign and competitive multiplayer modes will feature female characters, so that’s nice. The co-op team lineup has been confirmed as Cpl. Christopher Winters, Pvt. Demarcus Short, Pvt. Jennifer Redding, Quintaro and Pvt. Guillermo Quintaro, and players can choose who they want to be. You’ll want to be the one with the biggest gun, obviously.

Aliens: Colonial Marines launches on 12 February 2013, just ahead of Valentine’s Day so now you and your partner can make it a totally romantic date night. Nothing says “I love you” like an independently targeting particle beam phalanx.