Alien: Isolation was born from the desire to make an Alien game Creative Assembly wanted to play

By Stephany Nunneley

Alien: Isolation came from the idea that “no one had made an Alien game” The Creative Assembly wanted to play; thus, the team decided to ‘rectify the situation’.

Speaking with MCV, the game’s creative lead Alistair Hope said the problem with previously released games in the franchise, was that each one used James Cameron’s 1986 film Aliens for inspiration whereas The Creative Assembly goes back to the series’ survival-horror roots with the first entry directed by Ridley Scott.

“Games in the past have looked at Jim Cameron’s second film, which was a Vietnam-in-space sort of thing,” said Hope. “But we were massive fans of the first film. Then, with Sega having the Alien licence, we saw this as our opportunity.

“So a couple of us put together a tech demo in the space of about six weeks. It was mainly for us to work out what we are trying to do. But it became a mood piece, in which the climax was this enormous Alien coming down before the player. It was the wow moment we wanted to achieve, something truly unique. And thankfully everyone we showed it to agreed and got very excited.”

Hope said the team was determined to recreate the sense of doom looming around the player, and while many games have touched upon horror, some are “only a couple degrees of being the next Gears of War.”

“[The Alien] is using its senses to look for you and listen for you, and responds accordingly,” said Hope. “It’s different every time. One of the scariest things for us is when we build a new world and then put the Alien in it, because we don’t know what it is going to do.

“We wanted to deliver on that Ridley Scott Alien, that enormous, incredible creature that I was adamant would look down on the player and you couldn’t just sprint past – a monster that didn’t have to be a bullet sponge at the end of the barrel of your gun.

“Horror does not have to fit in some statistical, genre box. Your first night in Minecraft, when you have built yourself a rudimentary shelter, it’s really dark and then suddenly there’s someone banging on your door. That’s pretty terrifying. Minecraft is arguably the most successful survival horror game of the last generation.”

Alien: Isolation is coming to PC, PlayStation 3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox at the end of 2014.