All Articles: Alien: Isolation

Several developers from Creative Assembly are currently on stage at the EGX Rezzed expo to give the gathered crowd a look at Alien: Isolation. In addition to showcasing their latest game, the developer has revealed that Alien: Isolation will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on October 7.

Alien: Isolation will be published by Sega and will star Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Sigourney Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley. Unlike most games based on the Alien saga, Alien: Isolation will skip the shooting and attempt to recreate the absolute terror of the original 1979 film. As such, the game will only include a single Xenomorph, which Creative Assembly wants to ensure is “scary.”

Creative Assembly has confirmed they will announce the official release date for Alien: Isolation this weekend, during Eurogamer’s EGX Rezzed convention. The developers plan to bring 60 demo stations for the game to the Birmingham, UK show, so if you’re in the neighborhood, and you’re confident you won’t wet yourself, you might want to check it out.

Developers from Creative Assembly will also host two separate panels on the game’s development on Saturday, March 29. Creative Lead Al Hope will lead a discussion on “Fear and Horror in Games” at 1:00 PM (Greenwich Time). At 3:00 PM, several other members of the development will host an Alien: Isolation-specific panel that will reveal more details about the game’s creation. A (hopefully) spirited Q&A session will follow.

Alien: Isolation is in development for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. It should be out by the end of the year and we’ll know exactly when by Monday morning.

In a new developer diary, Al Hope, the Creative Director at Creative Assembly, details his team’s goal for your extraterrestrial adversary in Alien: Isolation: “We wanted to make the Alien scary again.” Hope will attempt to make good on his promise by creating a Xenomorph that is unpredictable and very scary. Gary Napper, one of the game’s designers, laid it all out for us:

“Depending on how cautious players are, we’ve seen encounters in Alien: Isolation last over 30 minutes in some cases. And this just can’t be done with scripted behavior. As soon as the player can predict a pattern in the Alien, it stops being scary. It doesn’t follow any prescribed path or set of behaviors that are telling it to do specific things. It’s just reacting to the player’s presence and the choices that the player makes.”

We’ve heard these kinds of promises before in relation to a game based on the Alien films. But the atmosphere and mood that Hope, Napper, and the rest of the Creative Assembly team have packed into this video’s few minutes is incredible. They deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Alien: Isolation will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One towards the end of the year.

Well that didn’t take long. Sega has officially announced Alien: Isolation, just a few hours after Microsoft prematurely added a product listing for the game to Xbox.com.

Developed by Creative Assembly, Alien: Isolation wants to put the Alien back into games based the Alien film series and is ditching the Colonial Marines versus Xenomorphs style that has been used in most of the games based on the franchise. Eschewing the action-focused shooter model, the game is being developed as a survival horror where Amanda Ripley, the daughter of series star Ellen Ripley, attempts to escape from a single Xenomorph. Creative Assembly also plans to position the game as “lo-fi sci-fi” and they’re heavily leaning on the 1970s view of the future featured in the first movie.

Al Hope, the Creative Lead, said that the decision to base Alien: Isolation on Alien was made because, “[N]o one had created the game we wanted to play, which is one that captures the spirit of the original movie.”

Alien: Isolation will be available in late 2014 for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Creative Assembly has also uploaded a behind-the-scenes video where the developers discus the “Origins” of Alien: Isolation. You can find it after the break. (more…)

Kotaku outed Creative Assembly’s Alien project, Alien: Isolation, a few months ago. Today, a product listing on Xbox.com has confirmed the game’s title as well as the starring role for Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, and the presence of only a single Xenomorph:

Discover the true meaning of fear in Alien: Isolation, a survival horror set in an atmosphere of constant dread and mortal danger. Fifteen years after the events of Alien, Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda enters a desperate battle for survival, on a mission to unravel the truth behind her mother’s disappearance. As Amanda, you will navigate through an increasingly volatile world as you find yourself confronted on all sides by a panicked, desperate population and an unpredictable, ruthless Alien. Underpowered and underprepared, you must scavenge resources, improvise solutions and use your wits, not just to succeed in your mission, but to simply stay alive.

As you can see, Xbox.com has also provided an early glimpse at the game’s box art. Alien: Isolation is in development for the “current-generation consoles” (obviously including the Xbox 360), “next-generation consoles,” and the PC. Hopefully, Sega will make an official announcement soon, but after the Aliens: Colonial Marines debacle, I understand why they’re being secretive about Creative Assembly’s Alien game.

When 20th Century Fox filed a trademark application for “Alien: Isolation” yesterday, we all assumed it belonged to Creative Assembly’s long-gestating Alien project. Now, a report on Kotaku has possibly revealed a few details about the game.

Citing an anonymous source within Sega, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier is reportinfg that Alien: Isolation is definitely in development at Creative Assembly for current-generation and next-generation consoles (and presumably, the PC). According to Schreier’s source, the game is an atmospheric first person shooter (a first for the studio) similar to BioShock and Dishonored. It will focus on “stealth and horror elements” and… it will star Ripley’s previously unseen daughter, Amanda.

Owing to the title, a single Xenomorph will stalk Amanda Ripley for the majority of the game. Before the climactic showdown, she’ll do battle with “clones and soldiers” using melee weapons. When she’s overwhelmed, Amanda can use vents and lockers to hide. No wonder Ripley was drawn to Newt in Aliens.

If this report is true, it will be the first time that Amanda Ripley will appear in the expanded universe of the Alien films. Her picture was briefly seen during the Director’s Cut/Special Edition of Aliens, when Weyland-Yutani executives informed Ripley that Amanda died while she was in hypersleep.

Creative Assembly has been hard at work on their mystery Alien project for more than two years now. But it looks like the game may have finally found a title as 20th Century Fox has applied for a trademark for “Alien: Isolation.”

Per the US Patent and Trademark Office, the application doesn’t just apply to video games, but also “downloadable ring tones, graphics, computer desktop wallpaper, computer screen saver software, mousepads, decorative magnets, eye glasses, and multimedia content.” Eye glasses? Really? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this trademark application refers to an in-development video game.

Hopefully we’ll have more information to share about Alien: Isolation, including an official announcement from Sega and/or Creative Assembly, soon.