In a sense, the interactive entertainment based on the Alien universe have translated that universe quite well: some of them were solid and workmanlike, and some of them were complete train-wrecks – an almost-perfect parallel to the film series. Some of the Alien games were mindless, idiotic action-fests with little in the way of subtlety or pathos, chock full of static characters, awful dialogue, and poor visuals but still bewilderingly maintaining a basic, lowest-common denominator sense of appeal – yes, James Cameron, that was a shot across your bow.
Some of them have been mediocre – good ideas, acceptably executed, but ultimately flawed products – David Fincher’s Aliens 3 & the Aliens versus Predator series.
None of them have measured up to the taut, brilliant, innovative masterpiece of tension and terror that was Ridley Scott’s Alien. None of them have even managed to be genuinely frightening. And while it’s a bit early to judge Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation, it certainly isn’t too early to say that the storied developer behind the Total War series is taking it in precisely the correct direction.
From the ‘Low-Fi Sci-Fi’ tech to the faithfully rendered environments, Alien: Isolation drips with the kind of authenticity that we have come to expect from the Creative Assembly team. The trailer also does an excellent job of communicating the central game-play tenets: Run, Hide, Survive. The previous entries into the franchise have taken what is clearly one of the most iconic and terrifying movie monsters and made it into cookie cutter cannon fodder. Alien: Isolation treats the titular Alien with the respect it deserves.
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Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation releases 10.7.2014 on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, XBOX ONE, and XBOX 360.