Alien Isolation is the final game in the Alien franchise published by Sega. It was developed by Creative Assembly and released in 2014. The game was developed specifically to invoke the feeling of the first Alien movie with less focus on action and more on survival horror.
Plot[]
The year is 2137, it has been 15 years since the events of the original Alien film. Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, is working in the sector she last saw her mother before her mysterious disappearance. A representative of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Christopher Samuels, approaches and reveals they have found a flight recorder of her mother's ship, offering her a place on the retrieval team in order for Amanda to learn of her mother's fate. Ripley agrees and she, Samuels and Weyland-Yutani Corporation lawyer, Nina Taylor, travel to Sevastopol Station where the black box is being held.
Upon arriving at Sevastopol, Ripley and her team discover the station has been damaged and communications are down, leaving them unable to dock. In order to investigate, Ripley, Samuels and Taylor attempt to space walk to the station, but their line is severed by debris and Ripley ends up separated from both Samuels and Taylor. Proceeding on her own, she makes it onto Sevastopol, only to almost immedietly be greeted by a man pointing a gun at her head, Axel Fielding. After Ripley calms him down and strikes a deal with him, he reveals that the inhabitants of Sevastopol have devolved into seperate scavenger groups and are killing anyone not part of their group on sight, hence his nervous disposition around her. After an altercation with another group and being saved by Ripley, Axel begins to trust her more.
As the two delve deeper into Sevastopol, Axel reveals there's not only these individual gangs shooting at one another but also a deadly killer on the loose. Not a human, but a monster who is stalking and killing the inhabitants. Ripley remains skeptical, until she notices a substance on Axel's sleeve. As he's investigating it, he is impaled from behind by a Xenomorph, as Ripley watches in horror and forcibly dragging his body through a ventillation vent, killing him.
After Amanda escapes the creature she discovers the flight recorder but the data is corrupted. In an attempt to fix this she makes her way to the communications center and attempts to re-establish communication with Samuels. However the Working Joes, rudimentary androids that help maintainance around the Sevastopol, are seemingly against re-establishing communications with Ripley witnessing the brutal murder of someone who attempts to do before her...between the gangs, the out of control Working Joes and the Xenomorph, Ripley is surrounded by enemies in the station...
Gameplay[]
The game is played in first person as Amanda Ripley, exploring the station and completing tasks and challenges to progress, and Ripley has a few ways to keep hidden and approach such as hiding behind objects, sneaking into vents, hiding under tables or inside lockers to avoid detection.
Working Joe androids and scavengers can be dealt with via either stealth, distraction or elimination, but the Xenomorph that stalks Ripley through the station cannot be eliminated in combat and must be avoided via stealth tactics.
The Xenomorph works off of two seperate AIs, one of which will learn from the player's behaviour in order to stalk them more efficiently. If a player constantly hides in lockers for example, the Xenomorph will begin to search lockers more often in order to find and eliminate them. Likewise spending too much time in any one area will cause the Xenomorph to spawn. If spotted, the Xenomorph will almost always perform an instant death kill attack, so stealth is enforced. However due to the intelligent AI that learns player behaviour, tactics that work early on in the game for a player may become inefficient later on.
Reception[]
The game was well recieved, especially compared to the previous Sega Alien entry; Aliens: Colonial Marines, receiving critical and fan praise alike, and winning several awards:
- Game of the Year Award from PC Gamers 2014 Game of the Year Awards.
- Best Horror Game Award from GamesRadar's Game of the Year 2014 Awards
- Best Horror Game Award from Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Bestest Best Games of 2014
- The Best Game Award from New Statesman's The Games of the Year 2014
- Console Game of the Year Award from Kotaku Australia Awards 2014
- Overall Game of the Year Award from Kotaku Australia Awards 2014
- Biggest Surprise of the Year Award from Kotaku Australia Awards 2014
- Audio Achievement Award from the 11th British Academy Games Awards
- Best Audio Award from the 15th Game Developers Choice Awards
- Game Engineering Award from the 14th National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers awards
- Lighting/Texturing Award from the 14th National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers awards
- Sound Effects Award from the 14th National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers awards
- Use of Sound, Franchise Award from the 14th National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers awards
Trivia[]
- Axel Fielding, the man Amanda Ripley first meets on Sevastopol Station, takes his name as a reference to Streets of Rage characters Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding.
- Most the original actors for Alien returned to reprise their roles. Ian Holm (Ash) and John Hurt (Kane) were absent due to scheduling conflicts, but Holm gave his approval for his likeness to be used and for another actor to perform his voice, allowing Ash to appear in the game.
- Whilst critical reception was high for Alien Isolation, the length the game spent in production and overall cost compared to the financial performance of the game was considered weak and disappointing by Sega.[1]
- Rumours of the team at Creative Assembly working on a sequel to Alien Isolation ended up being false, with the eventual reveal being the later cancelled live service game, Hyenas.