It’s been 35 years since director Ridley Scott introduced the horror of Alien to pop culture. Now Sega (SGAMY) and developer Creative Assembly have crafted an interactive sequel that introduces Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda Ripley. Alien: Isolation is set 15 years after the events of the first film and 42 years before the movie sequel Aliens. The game puts players in control of Amanda Ripley on the desolate space station Sevastopol to find the flight recorder of the Nostromo as she seeks to discover what happened to her mother. There’s also an alien on the loose, and players don’t have access to the arsenal of weapons that James Cameron introduced with the Aliens movie sequel. In fact, this game is clearly a first-person horror experience, rather than a first-person shooter.
“The alien is such a unique creature that it has its own mystery around it,” said Alistair Hope, creative lead on the game at Creative Assembly. “It doesn’t behave in a way that we can really understand. When you watch the first film today, you still get an emotional reaction from it—even though it’s a guy in a rubber suit, and we’re really immune to all this high-end CG. It’s such a beautifully crafted film and it’s so imaginative. I think it really stands the test of time.”
Sega enlisted developer Creative Assembly, best known for creating strategy games like Rome: Total War, to create the game. Alien: Isolation has garnered critical acclaim since winning dozens of awards at E3, which is good news for Sega and its deal with 20th Century Fox (FOXA). The game publisher partnered with Gearbox Software on Aliens: Colonial Marines last year, which was critical and commercial failure, that led to a lawsuit from gamers who believed they were misled through marketing of the title. There are also fans of the franchise who weren’t happy with Scott’s prequel film, Prometheus.
“We’ve been working on this game for over three years, and one of the objectives that was really clear from the start was to focus on making a great Alien game,” said Hope. “This game came about because no one had made the game we wanted to play. I think what we saw with Prometheus and with Colonial Marines through the comments that were going around was that a lot of people really wanted an Alien survival horror game with an alien that is dangerous and deadly. That was the frustrating thing for us because we were making that game, but we weren’t allowed to talk about it at that point. This is the Alien game that fans have always wanted to play.”
Having played the game, Alien: Isolation is one of the scariest games to come around in years. The player isn’t armed for much of the game, which creates a cat-and-mouse scenario in which the gamer is constantly looking for the next place to hide. The beeping of the tracking device keeps your heart rate up throughout the experience. Thanks to advanced artificial intelligence, the alien never behaves the same way twice, which makes memorizing patterns impossible.
Hope said one of the things that was unexpected was that after 10 different people play the game, they come out and they start talking about the experience as if it was a multiplayer game because they’ve all done different things. “It’s interesting how everyone’s reacted slightly differently to the threat that’s against them,” he said.
Adding to players’ stress levels, there are also evil androids and paranoid humans to contend with aboard the space station. For those who want to be fully immersed in this experience, an Oculus Rift demo brings virtual reality horror to life in an even scarier experience.
In addition to the original sequel story, Creative Assembly has brought Sigourney Weaver and the cast of the original film aboard to recreate a key sequence aboard the Nostromo ship. The bonus content, called “Crew Expendable,” allows players to choose Ellen Ripley, Dallas or Parker as they coordinate with Lambert and Ash to lure the alien into the ship’s airlock.
“What I think is so exciting about creating a game for people is you are able to put the spectator in this world,” said Weaver. “The idea of putting you in the movie as it were is interesting. They’re not film directors, but they know what we all want, which is to be immersed in this world. It’s not a really pleasant world for humans to be in, and it certainly becomes a lot more unpleasant when the alien is in your midst.”
“Alien is an original,” said Yaphet Kotto, who played Parker in the film. “It’s like Frankenstein, Dracula or Wolfman, nothing’s been seen like it before or after.”
“In games you do it from different perspectives, so maybe I get to be a badass and survive, who knows?” said Veronica Cartwright, who played Lambert in Alien.
Creative Assembly was able to tap into the Fox archives to recreate the futuristic, sterile look and feel of the original film. Everything from the motion trackers to the fuzzy VHS-style video messages helps bring gamers into this world. The game especially shines on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gamers thanks to the advanced processing power.
Like the original film, it’s often scarier when the alien isn’t in the room with you because of the anticipation and the sustained level of terror. That’s not something that’s easy to achieve in any form of entertainment. That’s one of the reasons that Alien: Isolation stands out not only as an excellent movie licensed game – something that’s a rarity in itself – but also as a horrifying thrill ride that will keep your heart beating as quickly as the motion tracker.
“It’s what you don’t see that rings your imagination,” said Kotto. “Your imagination is much more terrifying.”
