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Alien: Isolation was a standout survival horror title when it was released, as well as a champion example of how to get the most out of an established IP. Despite admiring the game’s authentically analogue approach to the game’s tools and look, I pulled the rip cord at the first synthetic I met, forming the genesis of a rather complicated relationship with a game I know I’d love if I only had the nerve to persevere.
As you can imagine, this made me hands-on with the game’s long-awaited sequel a rather nervy affair, made that much worse by the news that our jump scares were being recorded—which is a marketing move you only attempt if you’ve got the stuff.
It really wasn’t until the back end of the brief twenty-minute hands-on that the shit hit the fan, but the parts of the prologue that establish the setting, which is kept separate from its predecessor for obvious reasons, set quite a mood. I’m not saying I was racing to get inside, but from the moment I separated myself from the survey team’s rover and ventured out into the worsening storm, I was completely on edge.
Hats off to the environmental artists who probably relished the chance to craft an exterior, given the expectation that the sequel will be another cat-and-mouse game through dimly lit corridors. The colony planet the game takes place on is certainly remote, with only crude paths forming in both the woods and mesa, but the scary violence with which nature ripped into it was quite a sight.
After happening upon a Weyland-Yutani outpost and escaping the storm, that violence gives way to a dreadful calm, and a tension that could be cut with a knife. It’s all in the anticipation, and although it refrains from unshackling cinema’s greatest apex killer, it wastes no time in dealing its first jump scare, a synthetic torso clawing at me from the floor—as if to throw my trauma back in my dumb face.
From here, it became about combing through the space looking for components to restore power to the module, which was an otherwise rabbit warren, complete with a vent system to creep through. Knowing what was coming, I tried to map the vent network, but it was to no avail once confronted with the Xenomorph. Making quite the entrance, Ridley Scott’s iconic alien arrives right in the nick of time to make a simple terminal scan a pant-shitting experience.
It’s worth remembering this is early doors. There’s no defense, I’m not fumbling through my pockets for the right tool to use here, I’m on my own, and, quite frankly, I’m a bit scared. In keeping with the first Alien: Isolation, the Xenomorph can’t be killed; it is the apex predator, and this confined outpost, which feels even smaller now, is its jungle. Like with gaming’s other unstoppable stalkers, like Mr. X in Resident Evil or Dead Space’s Ubermorph, I’m operating on a knife’s edge at this point.
Oblivious to my presence, for now, it exits the room. Feeling brave, I follow and try to make sense of its unpredictable roaming pattern. It isn’t long before it catches me for the first time, giving a scary close-up of the alien’s exceptional render. For such an early build of the game, I was taken aback by how good everything looks. The one issue I did have with the presentation, which was likely exacerbated by sitting practically on top of the TV, was that it felt like the field of view was pushed right up, giving an impression of it being zoomed in, which was obviously a bit disorienting.
Another attempt to escape the vessel had me unwittingly follow the Xenomorph up a dog-legged set of stairs, only for it to turn right back around. This one got a yelp out of me. The hands-on has proven, if nothing else, that the cat and mouse game that was an essential core pillar of Alien: Isolation remains firmly intact, with ample places to cower and clever routes, with the level design providing more than enough cover to be able to stand half a chance against the threat.
My next death had me so shaken and jacked up on adrenaline that I involuntarily quit out of the demo. As disappointed as I was with myself, I was safe from the horrors at least. As a make good, I pledge to return to the Sebastopol, go face-to-face with those horrible little synthetics, and build a Liam Neeson-esque set of skills to be able to come back for this sequel with a little more resolve than I showed here.
