Alien Isolation 10th anniversary: a decade of horrifyingly high stakes hide-and-seek

Has there ever been a genre shift as seismic as the move from Ridley Scott’s Alien to James Cameron’s Aliens? The leap from a claustrophobic ‘haunted house in space’ sci-fi horror to a 1980s gung-ho action film is whiplash-inducing.

It may be no surprise that it is the latter that has long inspired video game developers. The idea of humans vs aliens arguably first gained prominence in video games with Taito’s groundbreaking Space Invaders, but it’s a trope that has endured for over four decades — a reliable thread woven through Galaxian, Gears of War, Halo, Alien Breed, and countless others. 

Konami’s 1990 arcade adaptation of Aliens is an extremely fun shooter but presents us with the first problem in adapting the material – the lack of variety in alien enemy. Konami answers this by inventing a horde of completely new xenormorphs for Ripley to take on, from snake-like aliens to flying monsters, and even zombies. Needless to say, this is a riotous run and gun but hardly the most authentic to the source material. Electric Dreams Software’s 1986 ZX Spectrum adaptation of Cameron’s film is a completely different exercise, one that prioritises strategy and atmosphere over the instant gratification of mowing down waves of facehuggers with a pulse rifle. It’s arguably the stripped back lineage of that game that runs through the acidic blood of 2014’s Alien: Isolation, a title which looks to Scott’s 1979 original for inspiration. A tense, claustrophobic nightmare dripping with authentic atmosphere, Creative Assembly’s game launched to somewhat mixed reviews, but has since gone on to develop a fierce reputation and firm legacy. Ten years later, Alien: Isolation is still a masterclass in tight horror design.

Fifteen years after Ellen Ripley narrowly escaped from the deadly Xenomorph that slaughtered her crew onboard the Nostromo, her daughter Amanda discovers that the flight recorder of the ill-fated ship has been taken aboard the vast space station, Sevastopol. Eager to discover the fate of her missing, presumed dead mother, Amanda joins the retrieval team heading to the massive vessel. Upon arrival it is clear something has gone terribly wrong. Inhabitants fight each other to death for scraps in the dimly-lit, rubbish-strewn hallways. The ‘Working Joe’ androids that man the station have turned hostile (a rolled-up magazine shoved down the throat of a corpse is an ill-omen of things to come and a delightfully macabre callback to Ash, the psychotic synthetic from the original film). But the worst threat can be found scuttling around the air-vents, waiting to drag any unsuspecting unfortunate away to a gruesome death.

Any entry in the alien franchise lives or dies on its atmosphere, and Alien: Isolation is no slouch in this department. Upon starting the game, the 20th Century Fox logo appears distorted, as if it’s being viewed on a third-generation VHS. In-game, the love for the source material is meticulously woven through every tiny detail of the art design. This is clearly a vision of sci-fi as birthed in 1979. Crew logs flicker on green-hued curved monitor screens. Logos and posters show a late-70s approach to design and aesthetic. The white padded walls, smooth lines and brown upholstered chairs in the personal quarters of the ship look as if they are ripped straight from the Ridley Scott original by way of Beverly’s house in Abigail’s Party. All this is lit by an astonishing lighting system that adds a believable layer of physicality and density to the doomed space station, as blinding lights strobe from triggered alarm systems and the red eyes of the murderous androids glow ominously from smoky corridors. Even a decade later, Alien: Isolation amazes in its accurate recreation of the evocative world of Ridley Scott’s film. This ambience is further enhanced by an intelligent score created from sound cues and recreations of Jerry Goldmith’s original intense soundscape.

The development team was given access to terrabytes full of original design data from the 1979 film, and the thousands of images of concept art, set photos, and costume designs, allowed them to recreate the world of Alien to a level of authenticity that has never been recreated (even, arguably, in the film sequels). Creative director Alistair Hope stated in a 2015 PC Gamer interview, “You can think you know it inside out, but it’s not until you actually investigate closely that you get a full understanding of it.”. Alien: Isolation fully submerges the player in the claustrophobic nightmare of the 1979 film. There’s no James Cameron-influenced slick gunplay here, the game is a sweaty and desperate scramble for survival in an oppressive retro-tech environment. There is a physicality and heaviness to movement that’s felt in every moment of the game, whether that’s crafting makeshift pipebombs or heaving open massive steel doors. Even the saving mechanic in the game has physical heft, as players must insert a card into specific points and wait for three lights to flash.

In the titular alien, Creative Assembly have crafted one of the most terrifying antagonists ever to menace the video game medium. The perfect organism as designed by H.R. Giger. It’s hard to understate just how much physical presence the creature has, which renders every encounter genuinely terrifying. Its footsteps can be felt in the player’s bones; it stomps with a heaviness. You’re left with the genuine sensation of being locked in a building with a wild animal. Listening to it thumping around in the air-vents, seemingly omnipresent, adds a layer of continuous paranoia as the player is forced to constantly gauge whether it’s safe to proceed. The sounds of the alien in conjunction with the pinging of the iconic motion-detector create a hellish aural landscape. If you hear it scream, you best run. 

This Xenomorph isn’t the canon fodder of previous Alien games, it’s near unstoppable and terrifyingly intelligent. Not only is it relentless in its hunt of Amanda across the crumbling Sevastopol, it also learns from her actions. It may initially be scared away by a quick blast from a flamethrower, but do it too much and it’ll learn that it can still get the kill by rushing through the flames. Hide in lockers too often and it’ll start to rip open the doors in search of its prey. Use a flare as a distraction repeatedly and it’ll soon ignore the pink glow and instead concentrate on the origin of the throw. The unpredictably of the creature is still a crowning achievement of enemy artificial intelligence in gaming. It feels like a thinking, living, beast that needs to be outsmarted.

Rising above the mixed reviews on launch, ten years have matured Alien: Isolation into a certified classic of the survival horror genre and a high benchmark of film-to-game adaptations. It showed that a big budget Alien game doesn’t need to look solely to James Cameron’s action film for inspiration, and that there is an audience for a slower pace and claustrophobic sci-fi horror. Isolation was a unique beast, perhaps slightly too ahead of its time.