Alien: Isolation is the new Alien game coming to us courtesy of The Creative Assembly, also known as the folks who give us the Total War games for PC. It has been promised to us that this will ‘be the Alien game we have always wanted.’ Which sounds good until you realize that the exact same promise was made to us before the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines. And look how that turned out.
Anyway, Alien Isolation does look interesting. New information that has come out about the game at GDC tells us that the game is going to strive to enhance the feeling of helplessness more than anything else, meaning the developers are stressing the survival part over the horror part, which sounds like a good approach to me. The game will be based on authentic sets from the original movie that the developers have procured, and will attempt to recreate the visual tone of the film by using faded colors, and having a grainy filter. Honestly, that last part really sounds cool to me (I really appreciated a similar effect that Bioware achieved in the original Mass Effect, for the exact same reasons as well).
The game will also heavily rely on audio cues to communicate with the player, so it is important that you pay attention. The AI will be sensory driven and, perhaps most coolly, will use the real time lighting in game to make decisions, which sounds dynamic and great.
So far, the game sounds good. So far. Let’s wait to see how it turns out, although I am now officially optimistic.
