History

The only bit of promotion I saw about the game was a trailer for the game on the VHS copy of Alien: Resurrection. The VHS version was released on June 1, 1998, and the trailer showed a lighting system, speed, and gameplay style that looked radically different from other shooters at the time (namely Doom, Doom 2, Quake, and Quake 2). The trailer hyped up the ability to play as any species, and the music and atmosphere were immediately engrossing, to me at least.

There is a lot more detail in the backstory about the history of AvP told by Jason Kingsley in his "developer diary," also located on this site, but the following consists of what I could piece together from external evidence. While it's clear that an Aliens versus Predator game was on show for the PSX at E3 in 1997, and some images of beta versions of the game surfaced, the first real footage we have of the game that is recognized as a clear instantiation of the released product comes in the form of a video taken at E3 in 1998, where Rebellion appeared to promote their game. They used the Massacre level as a demo level, played both as a single-player game and also set up via LAN for multiplay. In the single-player level, the player would start out as a marine in the section with the vent, then a door would open and the player would have to fight xenomorphs alongside civilians and turrets; if the player reached the end, a predator would appear and the player would have to kill it before the map's five minute time limit of expired. In October 1998, the predator demo was released. Shortly after, in November, the marine demo was released. Finally, in February 1999, the alien demo was released. It is not yet known to me how they were distributed, but I suspect that they were made available as free downloads via AvPNews.com. They may have also been distributed in magazines or received by special subscribers. A review copy that differed slightly from the finished product was given to reviewers in late March or early April. Following some early reviews, Aliens versus Predator was released in America on April 30, 1999, and in Europe on May 25, 1999.

Release

This game was originally released as Aliens versus Predator for the PC in 1999, developed by Rebellion Developments and published by Fox Interactive. Boasting impressive spec requirements for the time, the game wasn't ideally playable unless you had a decent setup. Rebellion had a deal with MPlayer, which would allow players to use that service to start or join servers. This cooperation lasted from 1999-2000, when MPlayer was bought out by GameSpy Arcade.

In 1999, a number of dedicated AvP sites sprang up. The most important of these were AvPNews (run by Kyle 'Pezman' Peschel, an employee at Fox), PlanetAVP (run by David Shipley), and AliensversusPredator.com. The sites were more organized than most, featuring many sections including news, screenshots, tournament info, troubleshooting, walkthroughs, weapon/class descriptions, forums, and modding info. The kinds of things we take for granted now were being discovered back then.

Most reviews gave the game an average of 8/10 or 4/5. They praised its atmosphere, sound, diversity of playstyles, horror aspects, faithfulness to the movies, and the ability to both terrify and make the player feel like a badass almost at the same time. On the negative side, some reviews criticized the multiplayer netcode and almost all reviews universally panned the game's haphazard semblance of a story. Several reviewers criticized its lack of save functionality.

It's difficult for me to piece together enough information to recreate the game's reception within the community. However, I have read through now-defunct forums and it seems like they were filled with avid fans who were just as excited about the game and its lore as we were in our youth. Many players were excited over minor things, like making marines flee in terror or lighting civilians on fire. Many postulated theories of balance and even more boasted about their skill. This game helped contribute to the early growth of clans, and by late 1999 there was already an AvP clan list on AvPNews, which seemed to grow by the week. I imagine the MPlayer lobby was filled with players and rooms, with people moving from room to room to set up games, talk smack, have clan discussions, or just chat about the game or other things.

The player base was not without its delinquents, though. An old interview shows that a controversial trainer (hacking program) was released that allowed certain cheats, like godmode, all weapons, using the jetpack/grappling hook in multiplayer servers, etc., was publicly released. This was quickly followed by a slew of trainers, much to the detriment of many players' fun.

On March 28, 2000, less than a year after its initial release, AvP received an expansion pack called Gold Edition. Players with AvP '99 already could buy this for $10 and have it install the expansion pack's new content, or players could buy the complete Gold Edition version with the base game. I grew up with Gold Edition. It included the base game as well as an expansion pack providing two new weapons, a save feature (yes, the original didn't allow you to save unless you got a later patch), new multiplayer maps, and a free strategy guide. I was never able to connect to the multiplayer, as I didn't have an MPlayer account and it probably would've cost too much for the phone line anyway. From what I hear, though, the first two years of AvP were the game's glory years. You can read an extremely in-depth history of the game's community here.

Initial Decline

In spite of being a well-reviewed game that garnered much praise, based on a noteworthy franchise and featuring aggressive, uncompromising gameplay, AvP took a turn toward decline as early as late 2000/early 2001. The game's early and ignominious downfall was caused by a number of different factors. First of all, Gold Edition's release immediately caused a rift in the community because the netcode didn't allow AvP '99 and Gold Edition players to play together. Secondly, the prevalence of hacking tools and the impossibility to ban or kick hackers made the game extremely un-fun to people who wanted to play competitively or legit. Thirdly, the buyout of MPlayer by GameSpy in 2000 disappointed and angered a lot of fans. Fourthly, the tools were released too late, coming out a whole two years after the release of AvP '99, and the fan-made versions were either too difficult to use or not effective enough. A lack of customer and fan support by Rebellion turned some players off. Lastly, news and over-hype for the sequel, hot on the heels of Gold Edition's release, made a large amount of the community turn toward the "new and improved" game.

While Gold Edition added many things, its separate release had an unfortunate effect on the community. The netcodes of the two games are incompatible, meaning that people playing original AvP '99 wouldn't be able to play on Gold Edition servers, and vice versa. This is both because of netcode improvements as well as the new weapons, maps, and custom map support given to Gold Edition. However, what started as a possible incentive for players to upgrade to Gold Edition may have backfired and instead drew players away from the updated release. I've heard of people firsthand who staunchly only played AvP '99 and never got Gold Edition, as they were vehemently opposed to it. So with some players upgrading and others staying with the original, a rift in the community formed.

Moreover, trainers for both versions infected the game like a plague. One source in early 2001 says that by that point, "Mplayer is cheater central, Marines havings discs bounce off them and stuff like that. Gamespy was Ok, but that name is now burned at the stake here." I have retrieved and been linked to trainers for both versions of the game, including at least one trainer in 1999, and I heard first-hand that MPlayer's client itself was somewhat easily hacked (e.g., making yourself invisible in the chat). Mad_Max_RW in 2001 also admitted to having used hacks and cheats, though only for experimentation. I have no reason to disbelieve this claim that hackers were all over the game.

On top of that, MPlayer was bought out by GameSpy Arcade in 2000. Playing on MPlayer was no longer possible because of this, and players had to move over to the new client, GSA. There was notable backlash to this. Players didn't like the fact that they had to move to a new client or community with which they weren't familiar. Many old forum threads speak about GSA as though it were a horrible program, and even some GSA skins were made to mock the client.

Another hindrance was the lack of consumer support, notably communication with fans and allowing mod support. Rebellion did not release the official tools until 2001, long after the heyday of the game and when players had already started investing hope in AvP2. Even after the tools were released, they were not always intuitive, and surviving threads tell me that some of the tools (e.g., Geomtools) difficult to get working. The unofficial level editor Leadworks was unreliable and not ideal for making maps. On top of that, forum boards played host to animosity and petty arguments, both in the competitive and the modding communities.

Some board members gladly took up the task of contributing to the PREditor, a collection of unofficial tools. This is sometimes also referred to as Cocoon-ED. I'm not 100% sure who ran this, but I believe that the group was led by Pezman (Kyle Peschel) and Eldritch (Christoffer Lundberg). Rebellion delayed the release of the official tools for some time, as they didn't see there being any point into putting in effort into making them user-friendly. Instead, they tasked Eldritch and his team with writing the detailed BIBLE (which is essentially a huge fan-made tutorial) based solely on what they could figure out from what Rebellion provided them. The team refused to release the tools in any form other than theirs. Since they had to figure out everything and write it themselves, the release of the tools was extremely late. By this time, fans such as the very capable Christopher and Henry Leinen, known as the Leinen Bros, had already made unofficial tools for people who didn't have the patience to wait for Eldritch's team to release the tools. The official tools finally saw an initial release on May 21, 2001, however, it was quickly removed because it had come to light that the code to Bink and Smacker .dll's were included, which was a breach of contract. This version was quickly pulled and replaced two days later with an edited version of the source code that we know today. Nevertheless, by the end of May, it was already too late. Many of those who had an interest in modding had given up on AvP as being moddable and were excited for a more user-friendly game.

The Great Exodus (aka The Release of AvP2)

By 2001, the official AvP sites were already well-established and had a large fanbase. Internet sites were much more commonplace and more established than in 1999. You can compare some of the very old sites (such as the 1999 iteration of AvPNews) with those in 2001, which had much more content, were well-organized, and had a large following. Additionally, internet interviews were rather uncommon with official developers, who had only started to really use the medium to seriously promote their product. Rebellion had very few official interviews for fans; even by the beginning of 2001, AvPNews still had zero interviews with Fox. By 2001, players were both fed up with the above issues and had enough of their own internal squabbles that the prospect of a new game and community had become very appealing to them. In April, people were given a glimpse of AvP2 through an interview with Fox official Dave Stalker, who was working on AvP2. There was also a significant amount of art and early releases of material to drive up hype for the game. It was advertised as a graphically advanced, story-driven game as well as an arcade shooter, the best of both worlds. The fact that there were already outlets to promote material of a beloved and praised franchise feeding off the success of an earlier game, at a time when it would have been difficult for a relatively young and not-yet well-known developer to make a name for itself no less, undoubtedly made a colossal contribution to its success.

In October 2001, AvP2 was released to critical acclaim, boasting PS2-level graphics, cutscenes, dedicated servers, new weapons, story-driven campaigns, and more gameplay modes. It is no understatement to say that the majority of the AvP1 fanbase immediately flocked to the game. Many AvP1 players bought the game and made AvP2 their permanent abode. In addition, many AvP1 clans left their original game and became established as either AvP2 clans or clans that played both games. In December 2001, only two months after the game came out, the official AvP2 modding tools were released. Since the tools were readily available so soon after the game's release, skins and maps were created like no tomorrow. The mod content of AvP2 completely dwarfs the content of AvP1 because the latter's tools were unofficial, created by fans for fans, until the unstable tools were finally released too late.

Death

A no longer surviving AvPNews thread states that by 2003, AvP1 was already pronounced dead by fans. The fanbase was small and it was rare to get an 8-person deathmatch. The only promising mod, called Cancer Black by the AMP Team (standing for AvP Modding Project, led by Eldritch), was never finished. It was released in an unfinished state in 2004. By 2005, there was already talk of an AvP1 player revival, spoken of in a way that confirms that even the established players didn't stay with the game. The revival, of course, never materialized. In 2006-2007, a collaboration between two individuals, Melanikus and Pyth (aka Astro_muppet) saw the creation of the MelPyth mod. This mod changed aspects of the source code to allow new variables, such as new weapons, into the game. It had an early release in a complete state (M4). A later version of the mod, M5, was never finished. Melanikus kindly provided me the file and allowed me to publish it. I have heard of players using this mod but have never seen anyone use it.

Windows XP was the last operating system to correctly display AvP at its original graphics setting. DirectX 6 is just too old to display properly. Windows Vista was released in 2007, making AvP1 essentially impossible to play for those who upgraded to that operating system. By 2009, the far superior Windows 7 was released, and again, those who upgraded couldn't play. By 2007 there was only a handful of people at any time in the AvP GSA lobby. By 2008, the lobby was habitually empty and the game was clearly dead. By 2009, the only remaining players would play it with their friends on rare occasion.

Revival

In 2008, a programmer called sirlemonhead tested his coding skills by updating Gold Edition's source code to operate on DirectX9 so the game could display correctly on Windows 7. This mod was called AvPx and was used by many curious players familiar with the game who wanted to try it again. Rebellion caught wind of this update and injected sirlemonhead's fixes into their version of Gold Edition to create a whole new updated version called Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000. The game's re-release was timed to coincide with Rebellion's completely new modern shooter, Aliens vs. Predator (colloquially called AvP2010). sirlemonhead, the creator of the updated code, never received credit or compensation. He has yet to be acknowledged by Rebellion.

AvP Classic 2000 was released on the Steam platform in 2010. Multiplayer support was added shortly after. Being, for all intents and purposes, the only practically reliable version that players can play the game, AvP Classic 2000's release naturally spurred a bit of a revival. Some players who had forgotten or lost the game came back for a while to explore the game or relive old memories. Some Steam groups organized matches, weekly matches, or even tournaments.

In October of 2014, there was significant hype surrounding the survival horror game Alien: Isolation by Creative Assembly. The game was a critical success. This was timed well with Good Old Games's (GoG's) server testing. In the same month as A:I's release, free keys for AvP Classic 2000 on GoG were given away for players who provided their email address for a period of 48 hours. The purpose of this was to test GoG's multiplayer servers. The first day most people got their keys activated, hundreds of players started or joined servers on the game. The game had a decent population throughout November and was dwindling in December. In early 2015, Rebellion created "Crossplay" servers that allow players on Steam and GoG to play together, but from January 2015 continuing to now, the multiplayer base of the game on GoG has been essentially zero. From 2014 through 2016, I had been working on a number of AvP-related projects, including writing guides, compiling skin, sound, and map collections, and making numerous videos on the game. In late 2015, I had the fortunate encounter with an old player of the game named UberFoX, with whom I worked in developing a small but substantial gameplay mod for AvP Classic 2000 called uMod, which allowed certain changes that people wanted to see. Though it too was unfinished, a final version was released in a semi-complete state.

Despite many efforts to continue interest in the game, the natural trend in activity is downward. The average number of players at any time is between 1-10. Only a few joiners can be expected at the game's prime playing time. Tournaments don't get going off the ground. In its 17-year lifespan, AvP Classic 2000 is now established on Steam as a niche product and curious oddity.

The downward trend will no doubt continue until the game finally fades into true obscurity, but I will still support the game. I feel that the game didn't receive its just rewards and didn't gain recognition as the amazing shooter it really was. It didn't get an opportunity to realize its full potential because of a number of stupid blunders from Fox and Rebellion, the young gaming community's natural inclination toward chaos, and the interest in AvP2, which was not nearly as original as its predecessor and didn't have to work nearly as hard to attract players. It became abundantly clear to me that only the effort of individuals could hope to preserve the game and help pass down knowledge of the past with players of the future. It has always been the work of only a handful of individuals that make significant contributions to AvP, which give people a reason to come back to play this game.

See also: My History with AvP