Posted this over to the Leading Edge Games fans group related to the original ALIENS RPG from the early 1990's:
The full core rulebook for Free League's new ALIEN RPG dropped Nov 5th.
First thing after the title page is the setting map...
Yes, it includes the setting map locations from Leading Edge ALIENS.
A quick survey turns up a number of familiar places:
Tartarus Sector
New Eden Sector
Hyperdyne Sector
Borodino Sector
Micor Sector
Crestus Prime Cluster
Those locations have been reworked into the new map, rather than the
old map dropped directly in then expanded.
Things seem to be in the generally the same relative locations but
not fully ... Micor and Hyperdyne sectors seem out of place while the
rest relate pretty much the same.
The main change is that the ALIEN map has coreward to the right...
so if you turn the ALIENS map 90 degrees clockwise, its roughly the
same orientation as the new map with Crestus Prime Cluster and Borodino
roughly matching the new map.
So... it seems the Crestus Prime systems have become the home of the US
Colonial Marines hehehe.
CSC Sector has become the Independent Core System Colonies...
and moved to New Eden Sector.
And their locations are named as Volcus, Ventix, Grendel, and the
colonies of Alexandria, Exeter, and St. John.
So some of the backstory events and much more of the map than just
Volcus have been incorporated.
The Harvesters on Tartarus also appear as an alien species... with an
illustration like a giant tardigrade/lamprey thing.
Dustball, Keystone, Cryosphere, Deadfall also appear scattered around
the map.
So, basically, you could merge the original ALIENS RPG with the new
ALIEN RPG and expand both.
The new RPG adds:
* more options than just marines or mercs
* more map and polities to fight over it than just corporate wars
* more roleplay rules around consumables, stress, panic, etc.
The original RPG would bring
* More detail on the reused components
* Much more Marines-related rules
* Moar combat rules for simulationists.
Overall I am glad I got the new one, but don't see it as a full
replacement for the original.
Instead I think they would work very well together to blend abstraction
with simulation and heavy marine focus with a wider universe view and
possibilities.