For a long time Alien Isolation was going to be third person. In fact, our first glimpse at the game were of that third person perspective. The game then turned to the first person perspective during development which was something we discussed during our visit to Creative Assembly last year. They revealed to us that their original pitch was first person.
Thanks to Destructoid, footage of both the early 3rd person perspective and the original pitch have finally surfaced online.
“One of the great joys of attending GDC is going to panels conducted by developers talking about your favorite games. Not only will you learn new and exciting details about the development, but you might even see something that you would not expect.
During a postmortem panel for Alien: Isolation, creative lead Alistair Hope talked about the title’s former life as a third-person survival horror game. As they were developing it, they talked about the trends the genre stuck to, thanks in part to Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, Clock Tower, andSilent Hill 2. They initially sought to emulate that perspective and style, but after experimentation, eventually decided to return to Isolation’s original vision as a first-person title.”
The 3rd person footage looks to be set in the Engineering section of Sevastapol (the level looks very reminiscent of the first Survivor map). It’s really interesting to see these old videos but I think it’s quite safe to say that Creative Assembly took the better route with returning to first person. Thanks to RidgeTop and Stringer2355 for the news.
The alien shiny head also looks nice, love it.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fo.aolcdn.com%2Fhss%2Fstorage%2Fmidas%2F75596b65acdc84f8b276172a437495a8%2F200902595%2FAlien.jpg&hash=b9c5b6cca8cefce31be65b6809215edf9192427b
Yea I'm so glad they went with 1st person over 3rd person.
But they decided to go and ditch that. I thought they didn't go through with it and just left it concept. Applying that to third person makes a lot more sense, but that translates, rather unwell in first person. It also looks like she was carrying the cut "SMG", maybe? There's whole load of cut material for this game.
Very cool to see this footage! I was hoping we would eventually. I'm so glad they went with first person though. It made it much more visceral IMHO.
i can tell why they went with fps but yeah beating the game on nightmare and unlocking this option would be a nice idea. but i dunno how would she use the motion tracker in tps
It was a good option to shift it into first person. Interesting looking at the Alien from 3rd person however.
They should make it like GTA V... gibe you the option to switch.
This. Also love the way alien attacks at the end.
That's interesting but I'm glad they changed to first person. It looked like it would play a bit awkwardly in third person.
I will say, however, I like the sound design better here. No foot stomps and just a heartbeat sound effect and the hisses of the Alien. It sounded terrific.