Where do you go after 30 officially licensed ‘Alien’ video games? Back to the beginning of course and ‘Alien: Isolation’ looks to do exactly just that by taking its design cues straight out of the original ‘Alien’ film.
Isolation isn’t a FPS it’s a FPSH (first person survival horror) with just one super nasty badass Alien. If you remember, these things were (allegedly) made to be the best killers in the universe and in the original Alien movie just one, managed to kill every one of the entire Nostromo crew save Ellen Ripley (Sigorny Weaver) who managed to escape, but only just barely. Unlike previous ‘Alien’ video game releases, there are no waves upon waves of Aliens. Stealth and strategy will be your ticket to survival here, not raw firepower.
Hitting the nerve of primal fear is the key to good horror and this title definitely looks set to increase sales of adult diapers when it gets released later this year. Set in 2137, 15 years after the events of ‘Alien’ and 42 years before the events of ‘Aliens’. The game follows Amanda who is investigating the disappearance of her mother….Ellen Ripley. Amanda was transferred to the space station “Sevastopol”, to find the flight recorder of the Nostromo. However as fate would have it, there is an Alien already there that has wiped out the entire population. The Alien AI is programmed with a complex set of behavioural designs that progressively unlock as it encounters the player, essentially “learning” and adjusting its hunting strategy accordingly. The design of the space station has a kind of 70’s future retro vibe straight out of the original ‘Alien’ film. The lighting is dark, the audio ominous, creating a tense atmosphere with a feeling of imminent danger. There is debris everywhere. The station looks recently lived in but deserted. Where are all the bodies? What lurks behind the shadows? Are you ready to face death because death is coming…..for you… .
Developer ‘Creative Assembly’ recently released a Developer Diary video “Behind the Terror” for ‘Alien: Isolation’. The video discusses the design elements of the game, such as the non-scripted gameplay, and how not knowing the location of the Alien can be more terrifying than knowing. Check out the video below:
