New Alien Isolation dev diary explores how the alien was created

alien-isolation-bannerAs a card carrying Alien fan, and with the scars left by Aliens: Colonial Marines slowly healing, I hereby declare it safe to get excited about Alien Isolation.  A new dev diary has been released, and by the looks of it, Isolation is shaping up to be everything that the steaming pile from Gearbox wasn’t.  Read on to see it for yourself.

Announced a little over two months ago, Alien Isolation took most fans by surprise.  Most of us were still recovering from the Colonial Marines debacle, and the thought of another Alien game anytime soon seemed highly unlikely.  Then came word that Creative Assembly, best known for the Total War series, was three years into development on a new Alien game that looked like a dream come true.  Set 15 years after the events of the original Alien film, Isolation places you in the role Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley’s daughter.  She’s been sent by the nefarious Weyland Yutani corporation to a derelict outpost with hope of recovering data from the Nostromo, her mother’s doomed ship.  Shockingly, Amanda discovers that there is a Xenomorph loose in the outpost, and she is being hunted by it.

This new dev diary delves into how the developers of Alien Isolation created their game’s central villain, and how they’re trying to make the Xenomorph scary again.  One of their primary goals was making it unpredictable.  As soon as a player is able to predict a pattern in a videogame adversary, they are no longer frightening.  So instead of relying on scripted behaviors, the Xenomorph of Alien Isolation is a reactionary hunter, constantly changing its strategy to counteract any action taken by the player.  Hopefully, the effect will be a feeling that nowhere is safe, and that an attack can come at anytime, from anywhere.  Check out the full dev diary below.

I gotta say, I’m starting to get really excited for this game.  Let’s hope it is as good as it looks.  At the very least, maybe it will finally erase those imbecilic, completely unscary Xenomorphs of Colonial Marines from our memories.  There’s no solid release date for Isolation yet, but Sega is planning to have it out later this year for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.


About the Author: (@Joe_of_the_Dead) Lead Editor, Writer

Joe was born in a time of war. A console war. Two electronic titans were locked in a heated battle for the living rooms of America. Which titans, you ask? Well, the Fairchild Channel F and the Atari 2600 of course. You see, Joe is old. So many of his favorite games tend to be on the older side as well. But that hasn’t stopped him from developing unhealthy obsessions with such modern franchises as Halo and Mass Effect. Just don’t tell him how long it’s been since the original Metroid was released. His aging heart can’t take the shock.

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