The Alien franchise turns 35 this year. The first movie of the series, simply called Alien, was released on May 25th, 1979, and scared the daylights out of its audience. It has created a whole new genre, it was copied by several other movies (none of them as scary as this one), and it was adapted to countless video games. The latest in the series is Alien: Isolation – a game that has the same scaring potential as the original movie.
The action of the game takes place after the events in the first movie, and before the second one. Its protagonist is Amanda Ripley (fans are already nodding) – yes, it’s Ellen Ripley’s daughter, briefly mentioned in the first two movies of the franchise. She is sent to Sevastopol, a rundown space station with whispers of a lurking terror on board. Amanda is in search of the flight recorder of her mother’s ship, the Nostromo, that has disappeared 15 years ago. Amanda travels to the station only to find out that it has been boarded by an unexpected visitor, fear incarnate, the perfect killer: an alien xenomorph…
Alien:Isolation is a survival horror game, where the player has no way of fighting the threat (no weapons). The player must hide, avoid meeting the dangerous alien killer, and search for ways to advance through the abandoned space station. It’s a game full of tension, which is increased by the masterful use of lighting and sound by the game’s creators, The Creative Assembly (known for games like the Total War). The player can truly feel hunted throughout the game, even if the alien itself seldom appears. The story is quite linear, but it has some surprises and side tracks in store for the unsuspecting player, and the game saving system makes it even more frustrating (players can save the game at certain points only, manually. There is no autosave in the game).
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All things considered, Alien: Isolation is a game that has a scare potential comparable to the original movie. None of the previous games in the franchise put so much accent on the atmosphere of the first movie, most of them being based on the more action-rich sequel, Aliens. The game offers players an unparalleled survival horror experience, and an easy 15 to 20 hours of playtime.