Alien: Isolation is Survival Horror Based on 1979 Alien

Last Updated: January 7, 2014

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In 1979, director Ridley Scott gave the world Alien, a science-fiction horror film that has been highly praised and has had a large impact on both science fiction and horror. It launched a franchise and inspired video games, but most of these subsequent installments and adaptations deviated from the original film’s atmospheric approach to horror.

Alien: Isolation, The Creative Assembly’s upcoming video game for the PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360, intends to achieve the same tone as the original Alien. It will be a first-person survival horror game starring Amanda Ripley, the daughter of the film’s protagonist Ellen Ripley. Set 15 years after the events of the movie, Isolation will include combat, but Gary Napper, the lead game designer, clarified that it is by no means a shooter:

At no point are we giving you these huge plasma rifles and M56 smart guns. It’s all about that survival horror scrounging, and one of our taglines, like a core pillar of the game has always been ‘improvise to survive,’ so the stuff you find in the environment is the stuff you want. I think despite there being other threats on the station, you’re always worried about what the Alien is doing and where the Alien is. So, a lot of the collecting and everything you do, you’re just like, ‘I’m gonna save this for the Alien!’

The game is set on a trading space station the size of a city, and players will be able to use things in the environment to distract the Alien or otherwise escape from it. Much like in the original movie, the Alien is not something you want to face head-to-head.

Isolation will not include a multiplayer mode, being focused on a personal survival horror experience. The early build is already playable, and they are working on polishing it up for a planned release in the second half of 2014. The survival horror genre has seen a lack of big-name releases in recent years, but Alien: Isolation looks like it could be just the thing to revive interest.