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The first big game of next Christmas has been revealed - and it looks scary as hell.

Alien: Isolation will be a huge new game on the "next gen" Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles late this year.

It's a hardline action horror tale based on the popular Alien films. And it's out to scare gamers more than ever before at Christmas.

Games based on the Alien universe have flopped badly in recent years.

Last year's Colonial Marines was slated by critics and fans alike, with ratings as low as 2.5 out of 10.

The shoddy shoot-em-up "failed to live up to its licence" and was "instantly forgettable".

But the makers behind Isolation reckon they're now on to a winner.

They've taken the constant run-and-gun shooting element out and stripped the game back to Alien's scary 1979 beginnings.

In the new instalment there's just one deadly Alien to battle.

You play original character Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda, stuck on a ship with the creature.

It's a 9ft tall monster Xenomorph which, if you get to close, will kill you instantly without any chance of a revive.

So for most of the game it becomes a cat-and-mouse style intense game of hide-and-seek between you and it.

Bosses reckon it's going to ramp the fear factor to the max.

Lead designer Clive Lindop, of Creative Assembly, said: "Whereas on a typical shooter you would have an Artifical Intelligence that only lasts 20 seconds - come out, shoot, take cover, drop dead - this alien has to enter your world for 10, 15, 20 or even 30 minutes.

"We want him to be unpredictable, dangerous, an unknown quantity.

"We want your interaction with him to be instinctive, almost animal like.

"Because he's unpredictable, we wanted you to work on instinct."

Isolation will be up against the big name annual franchises like the next Call of Duty, Fifa football game and Assassins Creed adventure.

But makers reckon they could have a real Christmas highlight on their hands.

"We're going against the grain on 15 other years' worth of Alien games," Mr Lindop told CVG.

"Many of those previous games tended to give you a pulse rifle, a grenade, and lots of aliens that can be blown to pieces.

"In those games, the aliens were basically bullet sponges.

"The easiest thing in the world would have been for us to make an on-rails, roller-coaster horror game.

"We're taking the hard route here."

He added: "You don't need to blow something up, or kill a bad guy or defeat a giant boss to feel like you've succeeded.

"As is true in real life, if you survive something that's dangerous or adrenalin driven, there's an enormous high afterwards.

"That's exactly what we are going for."

The game is scheduled for a late 2014 release.