Alien is back in the spotlight. Not only has Alien: Romulus proven to be a hit at the box office, there’s a TV series and a new game in the works. Sadly, the franchise’s gaming entries haven’t always been successful, with one exception: 2014’s Alien: Isolation. Not only is this game one of the scariest entries in the entire Alien franchise, it’s got a fair claim to being the scariest game ever made. Here’s what makes Alien: Isolation work so well.
5. Tension
Any film student will tell you that a monster is scariest before we understand it. Alien understood that. The first film is easily the scariest, and part of this is due to the fact that for most of it, we don’t get more than quick glimpses of the Xenomorph.
Of course, gaming is different – we want bang for our buck. Trying to escape a monster loses its tension when we realize how little danger we’re actually in. We need to feel endangered, so the enemy has to be dangerous.
Alien: Isolation has a slow start. In fact, it takes an hour for us to get our first glimpse of the Xenomorph. Instead, we get a mounting sense of dread as we explore the decimated Sevastopol Station. We know something has gone wrong. We know what’s hunting us, and we know it’ll turn up eventually.
When it does, it’s only a brief glimpse, but that tells you exactly how outmatched you are. It takes another hour before your first full-fledged encounter (barring easter eggs). The whole time you’re terrified, knowing it’s only a matter of time before you’re hunted.
The console versions of Alien: Isolation even bring the tension to real life through noise detection. Just as you can unwittingly attract attention with a gunshot or by hitting a pipe with your maintenance jack, playing with your mic on and noise detection enabled puts you right in Amanda’s shoes. Screaming when the alien turns up, a knock on the door, or any other noise in real life is enough to draw the attention of enemies. While you can disable this feature, keeping it on means you’re involved in the game like never before.
4. Working Joes
The Working Joes are what happens when someone treats the uncanny valley as a feature, instead of a bug. While the Xenomorphs are the main threat, these horrifying androids are a prominent thorn in your side throughout the game.
First, let’s talk about unpredictability. There are plenty of moments, especially early in the game, where you’ll come across a Working Joe going about its business peacefully. Sometimes, it’s not until it gets close enough that you see the red in its eyes to realize it’s hostile. It happens often enough that you’re caught by surprise over and over again, even though you know the danger they pose.
The Working Joes aren’t as intelligent as other androids in the Alien universe. These aren’t David or Bishop. They have rudimentary intelligence and look like they’re made of cheap plastic, and it’s this intelligence that makes them feel decidedly off. As they stalk you around the station, expect to hear vaguely appropriate platitudes as they search for whichever pre-programmed voice line works best for the situation. Eventually, these platitudes start to feel more like taunts and are always delivered in the same monotonous voice. It takes a lot to make a simple android as terrifying as one of cinema’s most iconic monsters, but Alien: Isolation makes it work.
3: Threat
The danger that Xenomorphs pose has always varied from film to film. While they’re always deadly, the franchise has been smart enough to only pit the heroes against an army of them when they’ve got the firepower to fight back. A solitary Xenomorph can wipe out a large group of people in a matter of days, and a nest of them can put up a fair fight against a squad of space marines.
Alien: Isolation follows the latter approach. For most of the game, you’ll only be facing off against a solitary Xenomorph, human survivors, and Working Joes. Apart from the Xenomorph, you can always kill your enemies – but that risks using up your limited resources, or worse.
Ripley isn’t a space marine. She has her weapons and her tools, but nothing that can seriously hurt a Xenomorph, but even fighting elsewhere isn’t always a smart option. Yes, a gun or pipe bomb can wipe out the hostile group of survivors searching for you, or distract the Xenomorph, but it’ll always keep looking for you.
Outrunning the Alien isn’t an option. If it sees you, your only hope is that you’re quick on the draw with one of the few weapons that can drive it off. If that wasn’t enough, the enemies you face don’t care if you’re doing a puzzle, locked in an animation, or even saving. There’s no grace period, no point outside of scripted cutscenes where you’re safe for even a moment. Sometimes it doesn’t even need to hunt, because it’s perfectly capable of laying an ambush in a vent.
Even the motion detector is a danger. it lets out a warning beep when the Alien is nearby, but actively using it releases more noises that it can use to track you down. When a game turns one of your most helpgul tools against you, you know you’ve got a special type of scary on your hands.
2. Sevastopol
Space stations are nothing new to horror. Even in gaming, they’ve been a setting in everything from Dead Space to Dino Crisis. Horror thrives on isolation, and the idea that help is far away.
The Sevastopol was once a thriving space station but by the time Amanda arrives, it’s near-abandoned and filled with wreckage. Your journey will see you exploring every nook and cranny of the station, and it’s never an easy path. The station is like a gigantic, three-dimensional maze, and you’ll always find yourself evaluating your path, making note of anything nearby you can use to your advantage – but your enemies can do the same thing.
This isn’t a game with clear sightlines or one where the enemy is always apparent. This is a game where you’ll need to crawl through the exact same vents the Xenomorph uses to stalk you, or where you won’t know an enemy is behind a door until you open it. It’s not an environment with death traps everywhere. OSHA-noncompliant machines are few and far between. Still, Sevastopol somehow manages to feel more hostile than plenty of other environments you’ll come across in games.
As you progress through Alien: Isolation you’ll need to revisit areas with new tools, and it never feels safer. If anything, it feels more dangerous as you explore new rooms, stalked by enemies the entire time. New paths open, others close, but the Alien’s had plenty of time to learn its way around already.
1. AI
Despite coming out in 2014, the AI in Alien: Isolation is every bit as smart, if not smarter, than modern games.
The Xenomorph’s AI is based on a complex series of behaviors that unlock as you progress through the game. How you act determines how it learns. The Alien is essentially learning your tricks, and how to counter them. This isn’t just a mindless enemy. This is an intelligent killing machine actively out for blood.
If you use flares to distract it, it’ll learn to ignore them. Utilize the same hiding spot too often, and it will search them more carefully. If you get it with the flamethrower too many times, it’ll learn the range and hang back.
Even the way the Xenomorph searches for you is intelligent. It has a general idea of where you are and a number of waypoints in any search zone it’ll hit in any order. Whereas other games will have a simple path you can learn and work around, that’s not an option here. You can sneak behind it, and it can double back. If you sneak through the air vents, you might see it coming towards you from the other end. You can hide in a locker, but eventually it’ll learn to search them.
Even when the Alien isn’t there, you never feel safe. You know it’s still hunting you, and that it’s only a matter of time before it makes itself known. In short, the AI feels actively hostile. It’s as close to actual intelligence as we’ve ever seen in a game, and its only purpose is to kill you.
Other games have smart AI. Other games have persistent predators. No game has ever made us feel so much like we’re actually being hunted as Alien Isolation has. You’re outmatched, isolated, always waiting to stumble under the wrong vent, open the wrong door, or hear the distinctive beep of the motion tracker.
For our money, Alien: Isolation is the scariest game ever made, and with the latest movie in the franchise in theatres right now, it’s the perfect time to revisit it.
Think you know Alien? Check out our quiz on the franchise, and why not check out our review of Aliens: Dark Descent?
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