Alien Isolation – in space everyone can see you sweat

Sega finally unveil their new game based on the original Alien movie and what is set to be the most graphically advanced horror game ever.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH ALIEN ISOLATION’S PRODUCER AND DESIGN LEAD

If you’re trying to make a scary video game and the journos exit your demo room comparing the size of their armpit stains then you can assume you’ve done a pretty good job. Alien Isolation is unusual for an Alien game in that it’s inspired solely by the original Ridley Scott movie and not the more action-packed sequel. Even more unusual for today’s games market it unashamedly describes itself as a survival horror, and for good reason…



Isolation is being developed by a new team at Total War creator The Creative Assembly, who’ve been working on the game the last three years. It’s not due to be released until this Christmas but although it’s also on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 it’s already one of the best-looking next gen games we’ve ever seen. Or played.


Before we got to the sweaty armpit stage though we were given a quick overview of the game’s story and a tour of Creative Assembly’s West Sussex studio. A lot about the game is still being kept secret but the basic gist of the story is that you play as Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda – who is briefly mentioned in the director’s cut of Aliens.

The game is set fifteen years after the events of Alien and begins with the recovery of the flight recorder from the Nostromo – the spaceship destroyed by Ellen Ripley in the first film. The recorder is taken to a remote spacestation called Sevastopol but what happens beyond that we don’t know, exact that an alien is loose in the station and has already started to work its way through the population.

Although no-one would categorically state that there was only one alien for the whole game, for the majority of the time that is certainly the case – something which immediately distances Isolation from the horribly disappointing Aliens: Colonial Marines. But Sega aren’t joking about this being a full-on survival horror and the implication is that you will very rarely have any kind of weapon and even then it may be best not to use it.

In the demo we played we certainly had no option but to run and hide, an instinct that kicked in almost immediately once we found ourselves in a deserted area of the station that looks remarkably like the interior of the Nostromo. Creative Assembly have spared no effort in trying to make the game look as authentic as possible, not just copying the film but ensuring everything they have to invent for the game has an authentic late ’70s sci-fi feel.

Alien Isolation – those suits look familar

Objects such as a hacking tool are created as if a real prop made out of 20th century technology and all the video footage playing on monitors is purely analogue, and purposefully dirtied up by the developers waving giant magnets over the recorder. Even the sound effects and music come from a scouring of 20th Century Fox’s archives, with some audio that’s never been heard since the original movie was made.



But while the art design is purposefully old school the technology that recreates it inside the game is absolutely cutting edge. The second we start playing the first person view helps create a feeling of complete immersion. Not only does Isolation look like Alien in terms of the details but also the cinematography, with giant fans casting eerie shadows across desks filled with believably mundane coffee mugs and executive toys.

Our demo is on the PlayStation 4, but we can see the game running on Xbox One and PC in the same room and all look fantastic. The demo is apparently from around halfway through the game, but because no-one will reveal more about the story we’re not clear whether Amanda has encountered the alien yet or not. We certainly haven’t though and so as we poke around the empty rooms we keep a nervous eye on our motion tracker, as it occasionally sparks into life due to some innocuous background movement.

We’re told that the noise the tracker makes will not be heard by the alien (Amanda’s wearing headphones, presumably) but everything else will, so as we gingerly enter a new area we suddenly become terrified of knocking into anything. And then we see it for a second… the tracker starts going into hysterics and we catch a brief glimpse of something very large disappearing up into the ceiling’s ventilation system.

An interesting fact of video game level design is that every interior room has to be created two or three times bigger than it would be in real life, so as to ensure you can easily get around without knocking into everything. But Isolation wants you to feel cramped and everything is scaled 1:1 with real life. This not only ensures an even more authentic look but also leaves you feeling ever so slightly clumsy, without having to resort to Resident Evil tank controls or any more invasive a handicap.


Despite our first sighting the alien doesn’t reappear and as we hack a computer (using a simple pattern-matching mini-game) it seems our attempts to get to an exit airlock might be plain sailing. And then it comes back. A quick first person cut scene plays out as the alien drops onto the desk in front of us and Amanda quickly ducks down to avoid its gaze. It doesn’t see her, but suddenly we’re trapped in a very small set of rooms with a prowling xenomorph and no means of defence.

As the developers later explain nothing about the alien’s movement is pre-scripted and instead it acts dynamically according to what’s going on in the environment. It will react to light, noise, and movement and so every time you encounter it, even after restarting the same checkpoint, its actions will be different.

Our goal is still simple though: get to the airlock. And so we duck down and try and work our way around the room to get to it. The motion tracker gives a good indication of where the alien is, but not in relation to obstacles and with no clue as to what direction it’s looking. So when we risk a quick sprint to hide behind a piece of machinery it immediately spots us from halfway across the map and runs us down in an instant.

Isolation isn’t just old school survival horror in terms of your lack of weapons and the level of tension, but also the difficulty. Although we quickly realise that it’s not so much that the game is hard but that we are not being patient enough. Taking our time we plan to skirt around the sides of the room, but this is easier to do in theory than practise as sirens are blaring and lights flashing – with many of the shadows and sounds purposefully designed to be very similar to those created by the alien itself.


We tell ourselves that the rhythmic creaking sound is not the alien’s footsteps but we become spooked nonetheless and duck into an open locker to hide. This turns out to be a good idea though as the alien is much closer than we thought and suddenly its face is up against the slats of the locker, looking in. On-screen prompts tell us to lean back and hold our breath and we realise we’re doing so in both the real world and the virtual.

It finally moves on though and we take advantage of the fact that it’s now moving in the opposite direction, away from the airlock. Frustratingly though the lock needs to cycle for several minutes and as we duck down again to wait we fumble with the lean controls and are spotted. Although leaning often makes you essentially invisible in other games here the alien can see you, or at least notice the movement, and as we’re speared through the chest we frantically think up another plan of non-attack.

Alien Isolation – micro changes in air density

Now a little more familiar with the level layout we creep around and behind some railings that put us out of sight of the central computer room. This works well, but forgetting to check the motion tracker we don’t realise the alien is coming the other way and suddenly we have nowhere to hide. Realising running is pointless we hunker down behind a railing panel which shields us from the alien’s view as it approaches but leaves us completely exposed should it simply turn its head to the left.

We don’t need any button prompts to tell us to hold our breath this time and the thing pass right next to us. In a moment of pure nightmare fuel it’s barely an inch away and we get to see just how well detailed and animated the monster is. For that instant H.R. Giger’s vision of horrifying beauty has never seemed better realised and with the creature now once again heading away from where we want to go we cycle the airlock, make sure we’re hiding properly this time, and then finally escape.

If we hadn’t died and knew exactly where we were going the whole demo probably wouldn’t have been more than 10 minutes long but the tension is such that it feels like we’ve been playing for hours. We come away hugely impressed by the visuals, the attention to detail, and the stealth mechanics but on reflection we realise we still don’t really know what the rest of the game is like.

As Creative Assembly insist to us in our interview the game is full of variety, but we’ve only played one short section that we imagine might end up being equivalent to the predator sequences from the Batman games. That’s only speculation though and although the interview hints at crafting (we find a few cans of gasoline as we creep around the sides of the room) and storytelling elements we don’t get to see any of that in person.

We are told though that the game is a strictly single-player experience, despite what recent leaks have suggested about multiplayer and a four-player co-op mode. But whatever other secrets the game holds we’re already sold and hopeful that Isolation will not only be the Alien game we’ve always wanted but the big budget survival horror game that will finally make the genre mainstream again.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH ALIEN ISOLATION’S PRODUCER AND DESIGN LEAD

Formats: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC

Publisher: Sega

Developer: The Creative Assembly

Release Date: Late 2014

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