1. Alien: Isolation – 10 Ways To
Create The Perfect Experience
http://www.gamebasin.com/news/alien-isolation-10-ways-to-create-the-
perfect-experience
With the bitter aftertaste of Aliens: Colonial Marines still lingering on the edge of public
consciousness, fans of xenomorphs everywhere are now putting their faith in the efforts of The
Creative Assembly. Ignoring the trend of basing all titles off of James Cameron’s famous outing,
Alien: Isolation is set to return to the themes of the original film, with the characters fleeing from
a single creature they have no way of gunning down. Drawn to the derelict Sevastopol space station,
Amanda Ripley (yes, Ellen’s daughter) is tasked with hunting down the Nostramo’s black box
recorder supposedly brought there. However, as they travel deeper into its labyrinth of hostile
automatons, malfunctioning systems and broken metal, it soon becomes clear something very
inhuman lurks on‐board the vessel. Feedback and opinions of early demos have been extremely
positive, as has the apparent level of transparency on the company’s part. Keeping the fandom
constantly updated and allowing journalists to play through early sections of the game, it is clear
the developer is going the extra mile to assure buyers this will not be a repeat of Gearbox’s bait
and switch. What has been shown so far has been extremely promising, offering a great deal of
freedom, terror and threat which no Aliens game has ever truly captured. However, what’s there
is not perfect, nor has it assured that certain past errors will not be repeated. There are certain
genre mistakes and genre problems which could easily hold back this game from real greatness if
they are not truly addressed and confronted. As such, here’s ten ways Alien: Isolation could be truly
turned into the perfect xenomorph experience.
10. The Ever-Illusive Xenomorph

2. One core defining element which made Alien such an outstanding horror film was its use
of tension. Like any truly great production of its genre it used its monster sparingly, building up to
each appearance and keeping the audience guessing as the heroes tried to develop new plans.
Even the action heavy Aliens limited their presence to a few running battles rather than
risk overexposing the monsters, and was all the better for it. This can be incredibly difficult to carry
over to a video game but it is ultimately something Creative Assembly desperately need for Alien:
Isolation to be a success. While the pulsing sense of terror of a hulking monster stalking the
environment will be this game’s biggest strength, if every level features the xenomorph then it will
rapidly become less the nightmare product of H.R. Giger’s brilliance and more of a mechanical
obstacle in the eyes of player. Even the big successes which have brought the horror genre back
into the spotlight like Amnesia and Outlast suffered from this shortcoming. Their
iconic abominations were unstoppable, offering no way to beat them beyond cowering until they
skulked away, yet after several hours the impact of this wears very thin. The act of hiding from
them became so frequent that the high‐risk struggle for survival devolved into busywork to further
progress towards the end. The Creative Assembly does seem to be taking steps to avoid this
problem by adding secondary threats, with rogue androids and scavengers which can be fought off.
How effective this will truly be remains in question, as the xenomorph will still show up to fight
them and hunt Ripley, still risking overexposing the creature. Furthermore, recent horror titles
which have attempted to mix things up with limited combat (namely Daylight) were greeted with
a lukewarm reception at best, meaning this is a risky move on the developer’s part.
9. Noise And Learning From Mistakes

3. Even in a film where the first victim dies from a monster exploding out of his chest, the fates
of Lambert and Parker as they hunted for supplies stood out as an especially grisly end. Drawn by
the noise the duo were making as they were completely focused upon their task, Lambert was
caught unprepared and pinned down by the creature. A bloody slaughter soon followed. It’s a
situation countless players have found themselves in before in horror games, where the
unstoppable monster lurks on the room’s threshold and there is no way out, and it’s a situation the
developers seem to be making an integral part of their game. Along with encouraging stealth above
all else, press events have emphasised how sound will carry, as the xenomorph will actively
investigate strange disturbances. This can be anything from the quiet ping of the player’s motion
tracker, the decompression alarms of an air lock’s outer door swinging open and even the noise of
an grate being pulled away, all of which have varying chances of drawing it in. Allowing the player
to realise they have completely damned themselves is easily one of the most effective scares
thanks to video games’ unparalleled of interactivity, accomplishing something film and television
can never replicate. What exactly the alien will go out out of its way to look into however – that
differs from level to level. Early showings have revealed that the xenomorph is seemingly drawn at
random to certain disturbances. On some levels it will come running to find out just what caused
a pipe explosion, while on others the player can engage in a lengthy melee without it ever rearing
its multi‐mouthed head. This is a step towards what made the films so great, forcing the players to
continually learn and pay attention to their enemies rather than become complacent, but there is
a wealth of opportunity behind this gameplay element. Imagine for a moment that this also carried
over to the environments as well as certain enemies or even specific items. It would be a chance
to really force the player to alter their tactics every playthrough, with certain alarm systems being
inactive in some runs of a level but fully functioning in others. Perhaps the game could even
offer the chance for cobbled together items Ripley carries to fail or misfire while using them. It
would boost the game’s replay value and seriously force players to treat every environment as a
new, hostile area no matter how many times they had played the game; elements which would
help it truly capture the desperation of the original film’s predicament.
8. Player Ingenuity And Choice

4. For all its importance in every cinematic instalment of the franchise, one area which the video
games have never truly adapted successfully is the sheer degree of ingenuity the heroes needed in
order to flee with their lives. With so many based around the colonial marines, the
criminally overlooked 1894 Alien video game was the only release to fully embrace the desperation
of having no way to fight back and instead requiring tactical thinking. Now Alien: Isolation now has
an opportunity to not only deliver a modern take on its strengths but take things a step further.
Early information has already confirmed you’ll be scavenging resources to build necessities,
helping Ripley survive the nightmarish environment within the station. These range from makeshift
weapons to help deal with some of the lesser foes which now stalk about the Sevastopol, killing
everything in their path, to noisemakers and equipment which might draw the xenomorph’s
attention to elsewhere in the environment. It’s a big step up from before, where the closest many
Aliens games got to this sort of personal innovation was setting up sentry guns in certain areas.
However, this ability to construct equipment and choices in approach could be taken several steps
further in how they complete their mission. There are a wealth of ideas behind this concept alone,
each having the potential for a wide variety of choices and some real freedom to plan out an
approach. Imagine for a moment if specific items could be used to create booby traps, with corpses
or piles of junk set up to set off certain devices. There could be things that attract one type
of enemy only to explode, maiming them or drawing the xenomorph down upon their location as
a distraction. What has been shown so far is excellent, but it could easily be pushed that bit further
to create something truly outstanding and a real game‐changer for the whole genre.
7. Signs Of Life Long Gone

5. What truly made the environments of Dead Space and Bioshock so memorable were the small
reminders of normality; fragments found here and there that proved that that the Ishimura and
Rapture had once been home to countless people. While both were now habitats prowled by
monsters, splattered with blood and ruined beyond almost all recognition, surprisingly human
remnants could be found amongst the bloodshed. These were elements which were so out of place
among the carnage that they only enhanced the horror of the situation, from an untouched
children’s playroom to a happy audio diary lying amid wreckage. After all, there’s few things more
scary than arriving in a place where, only a few days before, life had been going on same as it
always had. We have already seen small signs of this in the promotional material for Alien: Isolation,
with the above table and living area presenting a few familiar items; things which are recognisable
even today and wouldn’t be out of place on a family kitchen table. Others could be abandoned
tools left by a technician working on an open access panel, a personal poster taped up above a
bunk or even a half finished meal left somewhere to rot; all minor details left here and there to
make the place seem as if it was once a true hub of activity. It would desperately help make the
place far more alive and be a subtle way of drawing links back to the original film without
replicating whole scenes or areas.
6. Jump-Scares

6. When it comes to horror, jump scares tend a bad reputation. Often associated with bad slasher
films and seen as a cheap way to get the audience to jump in fright, visual media is now praised
for completely avoiding them. However, this is not entirely fair and Alien: Isolation would be
extremely lacking without these to help break up the tension of sneaking about the ruined space
station. More or less all successful horror games have used these to some degree, with
enemies dropping in on the player unawares or emerging directly before them at the most
unexpected times. Its effectiveness and how well it would compliment the atmosphere would
ultimately come down to its execution in combination with the building tension. To paraphrase
Hitchcock, show an audience four men sitting at a table talking about baseball for five minutes and
then a bomb goes off. You have several minutes of boredom followed by a few seconds of shock.
Show the audience the bomb under the table and the conversation now contains suspense. The
audience will be drawn in, waiting for the moment everything kicks off, hoping the characters will
see it and survive. The same thing goes here; from the cover and the name, the player knows that
there is a xenomorph on the station, constantly close by and constantly hunting people down. The
player will be nervous now, edging along and watching, waiting for when it might show up and ruin
their day. It would deliver much needed pay‐off to the constant tension, and it’s a tactic many other
games have used successfully. Outlast had Chris Walker providing these moments in spades along
with a number of other characters, each twisting the knife further as the player descended deeper
into the bowls of the asylum. Dead Space was similarly brimming with these from the very
beginning, often foreshadowing the appearance of new monstrous necromorphs or making the
player realise that every last corpse truly was a potential threat. Even Aliens: Colonial Marines, as
rightfully panned as it was, began by attempting to build up a single xenomorph’s presence with
blips on the motion tracker, and the creature stalking around the player until it finally jumps on
them. To reach its full potential, Alien: Isolation needs a few well delivered shock moments to truly
give some pay‐off to its constantly building tension.
5. Space Station Of The Damned

7. The environments of the first two Aliens films have long stood out as classic locations of the genre,
evoking a near perfect mixture of horror and science fiction with their aesthetics. Many aspects
are evocative of classic horror conventions from the deep shadows to maintain a semi‐gothic look
to the almost completely empty corridors, with reviewer Chuck Sonnenberg infamously describing
the Nostromo’s outwards appearance as looking like “a Star Destroyer knocked up Dracula’s castle.”
It’s important that Sevastopol – which already outwardly resembles the Starfreighter’s basic design
– maintains the sort of industrial pragmatism of the original films’ locations. Yet at the same it also
needs to evoke this horror element as much as possible and distance itself from being merely a
copy of Ron Cobb’s work. One easy way the developers could do this without relying too heavily
upon the visual imagery of Alien would be taking a look into the works of the game’s writer Dan
Abnett. Best known for his work in Marvel Comics and Black Library, many of Abnett’s books feature
industrial locations or seemingly normal places which have a truly horrifying unearthly quality to
them. The mutant slums in Malleus stood out as with their unearthly quality and constant rain,
heavy industrial equipment and despite their human behaviour, the sheer description of the
physical disfigurements of the population. The Gaunt’s Ghosts series offers a wealth of such
environments which prove his skill too; the warzone of Vervunhive kept Chaotic influence to a
minimum yet delivered some creepily unsettling details before the fighting had even started.
Hinzerhaus meanwhile was riddled with moments where the character suffers hallucinations,
communications echoes and the lights within pulsing as if the building were breathing. Allowing
Abnett to have a greater say in the overall look of the game, or taking inspirations from his works,
could be the key to giving the game a real edge upon release – offering some points which could
ultimately make it stand out as something truly memorable.
4. The Awaiting Threat Of Weyland-Yutani

8. Beyond chest‐bursting and acidic blood, one plot element of the Aliens’ franchise which will
appear almost no matter what the story is about is the malevolent obsessions of Weyland‐Yutani.
Along with the first three films, the Aliens vs. Predator video games, and the trilogy of novels by
Steve Perry all focus on efforts by the company (or other rogue human organisations) to use as bio‐
weapons and betray the heroes. Despite being used to the point of predictability, it has developed
to become a core staple of the franchise and a reminder of the dark nature of the Aliens universe,
and it has a chance to shine through here. Early information has already confirmed the identity of
a figure known as Samuels. Approaching Amanda Ripley he confirms that he works for “the
company” and attempts to recruit her with promises of “shutting the book” on her mother’s fate;
primarily by retrieving the Nostramo’s black box, which has ended up on Sevastopol. Combined
with an early promotional shot of the character and the fact Ripley is now working as an employee
of Weyland‐Yutani, and the story is ripe for a possible betrayal. With Samuels possibly operating
out of his own initiative or on orders, the constant threat of him backstabbing the player would be
another element they would need to be thinking about. Depending upon his role he could prove
to be a major threat similar to that of Big Boss in the original Metal Gear. Even as Samuels seems
to be talking you through a level or how to survive, he could be providing unreliable or outright
false information to draw the xenomorph into a trap at the cost of Amanda’s life. Even if Samuels
himself proves to be reliable, there is still the possibility for the company to arrive or maintain
some presence upon the station, concerned with capturing the xenomorph and silencing survivors.
It would help to provide a dynamic gameplay shift in the Alien: Isolation’s last few hours
and perhaps even change the role of the alien, with the player having to draw it into groups of
hired mercenaries blocking their escape.
3. Total Isolation

9. Despite its title, one thing early information about Alien: Isolation has made clear is that you are
not alone. Even ignoring the invincible exoskeletal monster wondering about the space station, E3
demos have shown that human scavengers, rogue androids and a small number of other human
characters are all on‐board the installation, with some willing to speak to the player. While just
about all of them are still a threat, it’s difficult to maintain a sense of real isolation when the player
is constantly surrounded by other people, hostile or not. Very few games have managed to escape
the failing of making the player feel too familiar with the environment, or build a chilling sense of
isolation while at the same time offering plenty of enemies. System Shock 2 is a rare example of
this being successfully pulled off, primarily thanks to its sheer number of foes lacking even the
slightest resemblance to humans and many being vastly more powerful than the player. By
comparison Bioshock’s splicers only managed to stand out in a few controlled moments and audio
diaries, often being far too human to truly terrify anyone. With enemies often lacking any vocal
distortion or spouting lines, they seemed more like mildly deranged individuals than true monsters.
The Creative Assembly will need to be very inventive in order to maintain a constant sense of
isolation and loneliness while at the same time offering a wide variety of enemies. Methods to
prevent players from feeling too at home within the crumbling station thus far have been random
behavioral patterns and shifting environments, meaning you won’t run into the exact same kind of
enemy twice. While this will leave players second guessing how to approach certain foes or levels,
the question is if it will be enough to truly make the player feel scared and alone.
2. Knowing When Horror Outstays Its Welcome

10. For all the praise they were rightfully given, a key problem many gamers found with the likes
of Amnesia and Outlast was that they were too long for their own good. While delivering excellent
stories, scares and terrifying environments, the common problem was that the scares never fully
developed. After several hours, hiding in a closet and sneaking around an enemy became less
frightening and far more of a chore. Both games started with great concepts and delivered them
in fantastic ways, but they never changed nor escalated enough for the fear factor to remain fresh
in the player’s mind. If Creative Assembly wishes to avoid this fate for Alien: Isolation, it needs to
really find a way to shift the game’s dynamic at a point or keep the player from becoming
complacent, allowing them to adapt as the rules around them shift. The supreme example where
this worked for the best was Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Despite starting off as a
mystery title where the player has no means to truly fight back against the locals of Innsmouth,
merely fleeing and hiding from them, after the first three hours or so the player is given the
opportunity to start returning fire at the locals. While otherworldly foes still emerged which could
not be beaten via conventional means, it helped to build up a sense of the true threat around the
player and offered great satisfaction when they could turn the tables. Alien: Isolation has already
taken the first steps towards this with the limited amount of weapons and secondary enemies
present in the game. However, the developers need to carefully consider how they are used. If
added into the mix too early, running from/picking off such foes will still drag on, but if added too
late it risks drawing out the sections of hiding and fleeing from the xenomorph. If they are too
easily killed, numerous or supplies are too plentiful, it will completely destroy the tense
atmosphere built up beforehand.
1. Be Loyal To The Source
Material, Never Reliant Upon Nostalgia

11. Of all the critical mistakes made by Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gearbox’s sheer reliance upon
nostalgia was the crowning turd in the water pipe. Even if the game did have fully up‐to‐date
graphics, the xenomorph mechanics promised, sound quality which did not consist of drawn‐out
film clips and all the bugs removed, the story and attitude towards the source material would still
have ruined the experience. Adding little to nothing to the mythos, the entire campaign proved to
be little more than an excuse to throw Easter eggs at the player and hope it would all work out for
the best. It was almost entirely set in Hadley’s Hope (despite it being destroyed), Hicks was brought
back from the dead, a power loader was arbitrarily thrown in to fight a large alien, the plot
redirected itself so it could have the Derelict as a level and the Queen was defeated by being
ejected from the ship. Whole mechanics such as the motion tracker offered nothing to the
experience, and were added purely because they had been in the films. To put it bluntly, the entire
campaign was little more than a theme park ride going from one tribute to the next. It was
reminding players of how good those films were, but added nothing of substance to back them up
or enjoy the game itself. A few potential warning lights have been thrown up that The Creative
Assembly might be going the same way. Even ignoring the bonus content on the Nostromo Edition
– offering players the opportunity to play out parts of the original film – many aspects seem to be
being recycled or added purely as fan‐service. These are small but quite visible elements thus far,
with the protagonist being Ripley’s daughter, the drinking bird toy from the beginning of Alien
cropping up in early promotional material, the android’s kill by strangulation and the space station’s
uncanny resemblance to the Nostromo. While nothing quite so blatant as Gearbox shoving Bishop’s
severed legs into the first few minutes, it’s still enough to raise an eyebrow at. The trick will be to
offer just enough there to please fans with minor nods and tribute elements, but never going so
far as to have Ripley destroy the Sevastopol by overloading its reactor. It can be a surprisingly fine
line to go down, but it’s one which The Creative Assembly needs to fully understand to truly make
this an instalment worthy of the franchise.
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