Do you consider Alien Isolation canon?

[HuDaFuK]

Or alternately, find ways to get it to fit.

While I admire your determination, there is literally no reasonable way to make ACM fit canon. It's a f*cking disgrace from a continuity point of view.

[Xenomorphine]

This hasn't been true of any game ever, there's no reason to believe it'll suddenly become true with a game that literally came out a couple months ago, of all things. When it comes to legacy computer games, where there's a will there's a way.

Sure, there's limited third-party access within a given fandom, but that's a severely niche version of life extension. People in general won't seek that out or necessarily know it exists. All they'll know is it's for older systems and sitting through hours and hours of old gameplay videos archived on whatever the future version of You Tube is, won't be something most people want to do (especially with something like this, which involves lots of back-tracking across maps for obscure components and hiding in lockers until a threat has passed).

With movies and books, it's very different. They're always instantly accessible. The only way this will continue to reach the masses is if it's somehow adapted into one of those formats.

[Xenomrph]

Or alternately, find ways to get it to fit.

While I admire your determination, there is literally no reasonable way to make ACM fit canon. It's a f*cking disgrace from a continuity point of view.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, I guess.

This hasn't been true of any game ever, there's no reason to believe it'll suddenly become true with a game that literally came out a couple months ago, of all things. When it comes to legacy computer games, where there's a will there's a way.

Sure, there's limited third-party access within a given fandom, but that's a severely niche version of life extension. People in general won't seek that out or necessarily know it exists. All they'll know is it's for older systems and sitting through hours and hours of old gameplay videos archived on whatever the future version of You Tube is, won't be something most people want to do (especially with something like this, which involves lots of back-tracking across maps for obscure components and hiding in lockers until a threat has passed).

With movies and books, it's very different. They're always instantly accessible. The only way this will continue to reach the masses is if it's somehow adapted into one of those formats.

Sure, but that's still a garbage reason to disregard something from "canon" just because it's not immediately accessible to everyone everywhere. And we're not even talking concrete facts here - we're talking some arbitrary hypothetical for an unknown future date.

Is it accessible to those who want to experience it? Yes, and it always will be in one form or another if people are willing to put forth the effort, especially in a digital age where anyone can upload any video to youtube at any time.

[Xenomorphine]

I honestly can't see Fox telling a future film-maker, "You need to play/sit through this entire game, because those events definitely happened."

Either way...

Spoiler

The way it ends makes things a bit iffy, canon-wise, to say the least. Especially for reconciling Amanda's fate with what was shown in the films.

[close]

[Xenomrph]

I honestly can't see Fox telling a future film-maker, "You need to play/sit through this entire game, because those events definitely happened."

I dunno, they've been pretty adamant on it with regard to the upcoming W-Y Report and the other novels and comics. Who's to say what will happen in the future, even if it's just "go read the game's plot summary on Wikipedia, don't contradict it, thanks".

Either way...

Spoiler

The way it ends makes things a bit iffy, canon-wise, to say the least. Especially for reconciling Amanda's fate with what was shown in the films.

[close]

That's really easy to fix: "to be continued". The game makers obviously know what's shown in 'Aliens', for them to outright contradict it without some sort of explanation in mind seems unlikely.
But again, we'll have to wait and see.

[LastSurvivor92]

Or alternately, find ways to get it to fit.

While I admire your determination, there is literally no reasonable way to make ACM fit canon. It's a f*cking disgrace from a continuity point of view.

Exactly! ACM was terrible, not only as a game but from a story point of view.

What pissed me off right off the bat is the fact that they forced Corporal Hicks back into the story in such a idiotic move by the game developers. He freaking died in Alien 3! We all saw it. Just terrible. And the story itself had little or no substance.

Some of the individual aspects from the story like the atmospheric processor being blown to bits and the outstanding and remaining complexes of Hadley's Hope being intact were actually pretty cool to re-explore and was quite believable. I also liked some of the Aliens like the boilers who were radiated from the blast of the processor which was also plausible. Everything else was basically shit though.

You can't blame the game though for being in development hell for over 8 years and handed over to multiple game developers who couldn't decide on shit. Borderlands 2 was apparently more important to them than Colonial Marines. I'm surprised they didn't invest in the legacy and mythos of such a celebrated film like Aliens. Show's you how much those dumb heads really cared. Hopefully someone in the future possibly Creative Assembly can bring the justice of the film back to our consoles and give us fans a true experience dedicated to Aliens.

[Xenomorphine]

That's really easy to fix: "to be continued". The game makers obviously know what's shown in 'Aliens', for them to outright contradict it without some sort of explanation in mind seems unlikely.
But again, we'll have to wait and see.

Well, that's essentially what they've done. The recent interview confirmed they didn't have any definitive, all-agreed idea for how the story should next go. As things stand now, it doesn't fit with the official film sequel.

So, ultimately, they included Amanda, literally, just because they could - not because they thought the consequences through. A lot like Ellen Ripley's inclusion in 'Out Of the Shadows', in that respect.

Tremendously atmospheric, sure. Not sure it should automatically have canonical status, though.

[razeak]

I don't see anything that really stands out as contradictory. At least not anything that can't be covered up by WY.

I'll count it until it's officially not as in a statement by Fox or a film that contradicts it but is in line with the others.

As for A:CM ugh.  The structures standing were neat to explore, but not really plausible(I used to think it was, but as able to accept the other poster's logic).

As for Hicks, well we didn't really see him die. I agree it was poorly executed, but there is a very small window that allows it to work strictly from the "we didn't see his face, the guy in the cryo had his face impaled" perspective.

All in all it was poorly done.

Alien 3, as much as I disliked the Hicks and Newt deaths(just their execution, not that they happened) was a great end to Ripley's story. She gave it all to stop the alien threat.

This hasn't been true of any game ever, there's no reason to believe it'll suddenly become true with a game that literally came out a couple months ago, of all things. When it comes to legacy computer games, where there's a will there's a way.

Sure, there's limited third-party access within a given fandom, but that's a severely niche version of life extension. People in general won't seek that out or necessarily know it exists. All they'll know is it's for older systems and sitting through hours and hours of old gameplay videos archived on whatever the future version of You Tube is, won't be something most people want to do (especially with something like this, which involves lots of back-tracking across maps for obscure components and hiding in lockers until a threat has passed).

With movies and books, it's very different. They're always instantly accessible. The only way this will continue to reach the masses is if it's somehow adapted into one of those formats.

Actually, in the core gamer market, extensive knowledge and experience of legacy titles is very common. People do seek that stuff out. Look at the let's play videos of older games on youtube and the millions of hits they get.

[Xenomorphine]

I don't see anything that really stands out as contradictory. At least not anything that can't be covered up by WY.

I honestly can't think of a single reason they'd want to do that and not be cued to go and investigate things they hadn't bothered to for decades. That's the problem here. If they have reason to launch a cover-up, then they have reason to go prowling around LV-426, too.

If the writers can come up with something plausible for a potential sequel, great. But until they do, we're stuck with what we have.

[HuDaFuK]

I honestly can't think of a single reason they'd want to do that and not be cued to go and investigate things they hadn't bothered to for decades. That's the problem here. If they have reason to launch a cover-up, then they have reason to go prowling around LV-426, too.

Maybe the individuals responsible for the Nostromo got found out by the company, and the company execs hushed it up as they didn't wish to damage W-Y as a whole.

Would make a nice change from the EVIL COMPANY MUST KILL EVERYONE trope.

[Xenomrph]

That's really easy to fix: "to be continued". The game makers obviously know what's shown in 'Aliens', for them to outright contradict it without some sort of explanation in mind seems unlikely.
But again, we'll have to wait and see.

Well, that's essentially what they've done. The recent interview confirmed they didn't have any definitive, all-agreed idea for how the story should next go. As things stand now, it doesn't fit with the official film sequel.

So, ultimately, they included Amanda, literally, just because they could - not because they thought the consequences through. A lot like Ellen Ripley's inclusion in 'Out Of the Shadows', in that respect.

Tremendously atmospheric, sure. Not sure it should automatically have canonical status, though.

Ellen Ripley's inclusion in Out of the Shadows was literally mandated by FOX. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with Isolation's inclusion of Amanda as well.

As for the story being unresolved, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Xenomorphine]

I thought some of the early interview stuff had CA effectively say Amanda was their idea. Can anyone confirm this?

For what it's worth and what little we hear of her dialogue/thoughts, I do like the way she was portrayed. I like the way the game was presented, too. I like a lot about it. It's very well done. There are just certain aspects which make me err on the side of not feeling right to declare this as 'definitive'. Not just because of Amanda contradicting what Burke said, but how gameplay mechanics definitely contradict the established subject material (an Alien should have had no difficulty locating exactly where someone is in a room, for instance, no matter how atmospheric and scary it feels as a game-playing experience - Amanda should have died very early on, if this were a film).

[HuDaFuK]

an Alien should have had no difficulty locating exactly where someone is in a room, for instance, no matter how atmospheric and scary it feels as a game-playing experience - Amanda should have died very early on, if this were a film

Golic.

[newbeing]

an Alien should have had no difficulty locating exactly where someone is in a room, for instance, no matter how atmospheric and scary it feels as a game-playing experience - Amanda should have died very early on, if this were a film

Golic.

And Ripley. Alien basically looked right at her as she approached the Narcissus.
It also never seemed to directly pursue the crew unless they almost stumbled into it's relative area. If it was as powerful as we believe, seemed like nothing could have stopped it from jumping into the room where the Nostromo crew were planning and slaughtered them all.

It all comes down to the mechanics of storytelling/gameplay.

As for A:I being canon, at this point I feel like at this point who cares? The fact that FOX now wants to come in and establish what is and isn't canonical feels a bit like closing the barn doors after the horses got out. After AvP, Prometheus, and A:CM the canon is just a confusing mess of forced connections, that they seem unwilling to officially to disconnect. Unless they've recently come out and said otherwise, it seems like almost anything is on the table.

Personally I think Alien: Isolation is the closest thing to official Canon. Yeah Amanda feels somewhat shoehorned in, but her ambitions makes sense and nothing else added or explored is direct offense to the first three Alien films. This game also has not only the original cast, but the main protagonist herself coming back to add more to the overall story. That to me is the canonical seal of approval.

[Xenomorphine]

Golic, if it's the scene I'm thinking of, was seen. The creature had a fresh kill in its hands, though. The Alien even hisses threateningly in his direction, implying a 'piss-off-I'm-busy-with-this-corpse' message.

Ripley, again, I always got the impression it did see her. It just chose not to attack. Just like on the escape shuttle (the reasons for which remain a mystery, to this day). That's different to the game, where the thing is actively hunting to take you as the latest victim.