We’ve been waiting ages and ages for an Alien game that truly lives up to the iconic film series, and Aliens: Colonial Marines was a definitely not the droid we were looking for. Could Alien: Isolation be the love letter we’ve all been hoping for? SEGA seems to think so, and they’re doing a good job so far at making me a believer.
As Lee Bradley of xboxachievements.com explains in his hands-on preview, Alien: Isolation will put players in the shoes of Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, as she heads off for the remote trading station of Sevastopol to learn of her mother’s fate. Of course her mother’s xenomorph buddies are waiting for Amanda with a knife and fork, but the difference between the Alien and Aliens films is quite apparent; Alien was more a hellish tale of survival, while Aliens armed a bunch of space marines so things could explode a lot.
SEGA seems to want to keep that original Ridley Scott Alien feel, arming Amanda with a scanner and not much else. According to Lee, the atmosphere was so intense that he could only apply full pressure to his analog stick once during his demo, as doing so would mean he was confident in his surroundings. Based on his detailed tell-all, I’d say he definitely wasn’t.
He goes on to state “We had one hour to play the demo. I died once, largely thanks to the fact that I was tip-toeing around like a scaredy wimp, making it out of the airlock in just over 30 mins. Others didn’t fare so well, stepping out of the demo room an hour later, visibly shaken. One colleague was sweating buckets, slightly traumatised.”
SEGA has just released their Alien: Isolation trailer, and I can say it looks terrifying.. in a good way. Environments look fantastic and the lighting effects turn the spook factor up to 11, but I hope they’re not banking on a bunch of jump scares. Alien was full of tension and suspense, even when nothing was jumping out at the screen. Sometimes that’s a hard thing to do in video games, but based on the feedback so far, I’m thinking they’re doing just fine.
Alien: Isolation is scheduled for release later this year for both Xbox 360 and the Xbox One.
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Oh wow, thanks for this. This video got me really excited about the franchise. Glad to see they are going back to the Alien roots.
You’re welcome! I’m stoked to see a survival horror-esque game in the Alien universe over yet another run-and-gun based around Aliens.
And thankfully Gearbox is staying far away from this!