Alien: Isolation developer calls out Resident Evil and Dead Space for not being horror anymore

We come to it at last, the great developer verbal smackdown of our time. It seems that Creative Assembly, the development studio behind the upcoming Alien: Isolation, are quite confident that they’re bringing back AAA Survival Horror. In a recent interview with Edge, some of the team working on the game commented on other titles that influenced Alien: Isolation, and the current state of the survival horror genre. Creative director Alistair Hope had this to say:

“I think this team really got a lot out of Dead Space 1 and Resident Evil”

Lead Designer Gary Nappar agreed, and lamented the current conditions of AAA horror.

“But those franchises moved in a direction that isn’t… Well, I think that fans of those originals have been marginalised and sometimes it feels like these days they’re just a couple of degrees away from being Gears Of War. Cinematic set-pieces and loads of guns isn’t quite the ‘hiding in the cupboard’ experience I got in the old days of horror gaming. But that stuff has been embraced by the indie community who are producing these high fidelity games that are tense and atmospheric. It’s not often you get to do that in the triple-A space.”

It’s not that often you see a AAA developer call out their peers quite like this. Though it is refreshing to see that Creative Assembly are recognising that there’s a lot of desire for a true Survival Horror game come out of the AAA space again.

While these comments bolster my confidence in the game, I still can’t help but worry about all the rumors that Alien: Isolation features segments where you are fighting human enemies like a traditional first person shooter. One of the developers even mentioned that the space station the game takes place in is “in a state of anarchy”. Let’s just hope that the only shots fired with regards to the game are the comments from the Edge interview.

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