It seems even more unlikely that we’ll be getting a sequel to Alien Isolation any time soon. Back in May 2015, we heard that Alien Isolation had shifted 2.11 million copies in North America and Europe and Sega was reportedly disappointed with the sales performance. In a new interview with GameIndustry.biz, Creative Assembly’s studio director, Tim Heaton, discussed taking on Microsoft’s new Halo Wars game and the subject of Alien Isolation 2 popped up. Heaton explained a sequel is not out of the question but again, laments the so-so sales figures and says it would be hard to make a profit out of a sequel.
“2.1 million sales? It just didn’t break out…, Am I happy about that? I’m not happy about that, right. I think it did under-index in America. I think the genre just didn’t shine with an audience that would let us break out. 2 million is fine, right – let’s be clear – but we were unsure right till the very end about whether we would hit that break out space or not. Making a AAA console game is bloody hard. We absolutely sweated blood for that game, we came through, and felt really happy at the end of it. Alien: Isolation 2 is not out of the question, because we’re so proud of it and there’s possibly more to be said. But do we really want to be spending very significant amounts of money, and getting close to break-even or just about in the black? That’s not where Sega wants to be, when we have a brilliant portfolio of other games that do great business.”
Amanda Ripley
Well, it’s a damn shame if I say so myself. Alien Isolation had a positive reception from critics and an amazing reception from fans. I consider it to be the best game that has ever come out of these franchises and it still sold more than Aliens Colonial Marines and around the same, if not more, than Aliens vs Predator. The fundamental problem with Alien/AvP is they’re not the type of games that are going to sell millions of copies à la Call of Duty. Alien is very much a niche genre and is generally for fans of the movies. But alas it will be a long time before we see any new Alien games.
Thanks to ikarop for the news.
Nice to always have a little bit of hope. I'll keep my fingers crossed it happens.
I knew I was forgetting something, I was intending to post this up for you guys a couple days back before putting it up on GAvP.
Don't hold out on hope just yet:
http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/sega-is-not-ruling-out-alien-isolation-2-yet/
My goodness, I am so sorry with my delayed response CITY HUNTER. I believe the game you are referring to is Outlast which was a successful approach to the neo-survival-horror genre.
A lot of publishers jump on movie licenses and such and I would be very surprised if projections for sales on an A:I2 that coincides with or follows a major theatrical release wouldn't surpass what the sales were for the original just based on that theatrical release alone. I just didn't expand enough in my post. On the cost side, if they use the same engine and a lot of the same material a lot of the costs is already covered and it probably would cost substantially less than A:I to produce. As you said, whether that projection would still put them in the red or not is the real question and I agree 100%.
That's not really the matter, I think. For me, AI is a great game and it could clearly become a classic in its category. But its genre is a bit of a niche genre. Comparisons are a bit risquy in this domain and the studios must take that into account, including when they consider the sales (you must compare what is in the same category). Of course, the company can decide to invest on games with more appeal for a much greater audience, but it will lose the gamers and players that like games that are different and match their specific expectations.
With a successor to AI, there could be clever ways to broaden (a least a bit) the audience, I think, without losing the original appeal.
Another thing I would like to address; for those of you who are throwing around the Call of Duty references, it's rather unfair to dismiss an entire company as being greedy when they aren't impressed with what is evidently a low amount.
A figure which is at 2 million sitting next to one that is 175 million is definitely disheartening, including at the rate certain titles sell in this decade (Some titles will break 1 million within the first day).
Apologies. I should have noted the spoilers. It's difficult to get into how the next game should have continued without getting into the specifics of the ending.
***SPOILERS***
Do we know who picked her up or if she was even picked up? Do we know who the survived on the Torrens? Was the Alien even sucked out with her or did she just escape it's grip by ejecting herself? None of these questions are answered. It's all just assumed. And I don't mind endings that leave somethings up the viewers imagination, a good example being Ripley at the end of Alien. Ripley defeats the Alien, fills the audience in to what may or may not happen, goes to sleep and (depending on whether or not you know of the sequels) leaves it up the view to make up what happen next.
Alien Isolation just leaves way too much open with a climax that never sees any resolution, good or bad. That's just poor storytelling. Amanda finding out what happened to her mother, really only plays as a B plot, and is used as a reason for getting her there. As soon as the Alien shows up, she could give two flying f**ks about finding more info about her mother, which to their credit is reasonable. By the end of the game the player wants to know, how is Amanda going to get out of this? The answer is apparently a big "shrug".
Also when I say resolution and spanning the gap between this game and ALIENS, I don't mean explaining every detail of her life after A:I or even having her rescued and one of her rescuers being McClaren (oof that would be a bad ending). What I mean is showing how the character has been affected by this ordeal after the crisis has subsided and how the character moves on from that point. Instead Amanda is left hanging waiting for some other story element to happen.
I can get why people might like this ending. It does have some poetic meaning behind it. The idea that, much like her mother, Amanda has encountered this thing and is never going to be safe from it or that sometimes all you can do is escape from a crisis. However I feel like that could have been extrapolated to a longer ending. The ending we got felt like they were either trying to be too clever or they just ran out of time and were praying that they'd get a sequel.
It's definitely setup for more. But I found it only slightly more a cliffhanger than Alien because she was in a spacesuit (more limited than an EEV) and we saw her imminent rescue. I can't say I felt any significant story threads were left hanging though. What are you referring to?
That would have happened regardless. Unless they went from the end to her on her deathbed saying "boy, I'm glad nothing else ever happened after Sevestapol".
She received her resolution. She found out what happened to her mother (the whole point of the game) and she survived the Alien. Granted we don't know who picks her up - but she achieved those very 2 things the game's narrative was built around. The cliffhanger ending nearly parallels Alien IMHO.
It was the equivalent of Marty McFly getting trapped in the 50's at the end of Back to the Future II. Alien Isolation just didn't bother to have a big TO BE CONTINUED.
It's also just a very poor ending. Not that everything needed to be tied up in a little bow by the end of the game, but some resolution for that character would have been nice.
Spoiler
But I agree - if we can't have another game, I'd like to see her story finished in some other form. I actually really got into Amanda as a character.
Now Isolation wasn't perfect I didn't like the last part of the game that shifted from Horror to action but it's the best thing the franchises has made in over 20 years excluding the recent Alien books for last year.
I really wish the game didn't end on a cliffhanger even more now.
- It's still a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger doesn't necessarily involve death.
You're certainly not alone there, man. Opening up the franchise and charting new territory are exactly what's needed in a sequel. If Blomkamp's film is just Rip n' Hicks blasting aliens and then blasting some newer, bigger, BADDER alien, then I'll be sorely disappointed. Save that type of thing for the fan films.
As far as a proposed Alien Isolation 2 might go, please, for the love of god, don't throw the 'McLaren' character in there. Is it too much to ask that Amanda simply eventually survived her ordeal, met a nice chap, and married him??
Actually, if Alien Isolation 2 is done, it would not be very interesting to have Amanda as the main character or as a character. Amanda's interesting story is complete : she has discovered what happened to her mother and has confronted the same monster (amongst other things).
As an Alien-enthusiastic, I'd be glad if Alien Isolation had successors and I speak of games. Since they're going to do another Alien movie, I'm curious to see how it turns out (and hoping it will be at least good). But frankly, I'm much more interested with movies that would deepen the Alien universe (maybe Alien : Paradise Lost can get things back on track on this matter, despite the failings of Prometheus), give a sense of wonder and horror but with other things that the good old xeno, than by movies that would feel like unsubtle variations of the preexisting movies and of the same creature.
It's different with videogames since it's another experience. Of course, I'd still expect originality from an "Alien Isolation 2" kind of game, but not of the same kind than the originality I expect from the future movies. But I assume that my position is not really shared by many "fans" here. I'm quite cautious about the "Alien 5" project about these matters and concerning other franchises, Star Wars for example, I've a similar opinion : to sum it up, the problem is that what the fans want can often be the reverse of what the new movie would need to be really original or even better.
This is exactly why I didn't want a cliffhanger ending!
Such a travesty since the game now has an install base!
Damnit Sega. You saving up your money so you can force another turd out of the Sonic franchise?
Well, what are the odds of Creative Assembly re-making Colonial Marines? hehe
Looking forward, I expect that the new Alien films will generate some sort of video game. I mean Prometheus certainly couldn't inspire a video game. What would it be? An engineer throwing ampules of black goo at you? Or maybe you're chased by the snake thing in the pyramid? Perhaps the deacon is after you? (well that could almost be cool)
Anyway, one could hope that the new films will create something more video game friendly. If we do end up going to the homeworld, who knows what sorts of oddities will be discovered there? It could be good.... or it might not..
As far as Tim Heaton goes, no idea who he is. I enjoyed listening to Al Hope, Gary Napper and Clive Lindop on the games release and their enthusiasm for the game and how they approached it. I have a lot of respect for the Creative Assembly crew - they've captured the aesthetic and universe perfectly as far as I'm concerned.
And that's why this news is such a disappointment. I didn't really think much of Heaton's comments - especially with more movies on the horizon.
It's not that simple. Take Dying Light for example : the game is really great between the moment when you're a low-level player exposed to high-level zombies, and the moment when you're just high-level enough to confront the high-level zombies, which makes for a good fight. Once you reach the highest levels of skills and competences, the game can become really dull, because there is no real challenge. It can be fun to be able to destroy a horde of 100 zombies in a row without serious difficulty, but the interest gets lower and lower, and actually you remember that you can have more fun doing the same thing with Serious Sam. For me at least, the best memories I have of Dying Light is when I was hunted down in the night by creatures that posed a serious and even sometimes impossible challenge.
In Alien Isolation the frustration itself was kind of new for me, a new experience, and I felt conversely more gratification when I had managed to outsmart a bit the alien. But so to say, I was more frustrated by the fact that many lockers looked exactly the same, than by my numerous deaths at the hands of the xeno.
See, that's where we disagree. The Alien could die within its own campaign, just like Amanda could die (the story ultimately requires her to survive, but she can die if you don't succeed).
It's not an AVP title, no, but the AVP games demonstrated a multi-species campaign template is perfectly viable.
It wouldn't even have to be the same story. It could be the same situation as a 'what if'. I remember the 'Force Unleashed' games had alternative playable endings, which is the same thing.
Agreed, but I think a similar formula could have been tried. If they had wanted to give us the Alien, they could have.
Hell, what was wrong with playing out what happened on the station before Amanda got there, except from the creature's perspective? You'd have faced an armed population and it would be like creating Hadley's Hope's aftermath in space.
I don't see why Amanda's story would have suffered, though. The same campaign we basically have could still be there. The same basic cut-scenes of importance. They could have just replaced the 'filler' stuff with the Aliens' perspective.
Give them the money and I'm sure they'll be happy to do that.
Not unless that positive reception translates into dollar signs.
Creating an engine is only a part of it. All the rest still takes a lot of money and time (both of which they'd rather put into other projects already being done).
No reason it couldn't have been.
Which is the reason it was only ever going to have limited appeal. Gamers generally like feeling empowered, not hunted down and victimised, precisely because it's an experience. Especially when it could be a very frustrating, repeatedly dying experience, which can sometimes unintentionally feel like a chore.
The product did what it could by relying upon that mechanic, but when it's a big budget production, it needs big budget sales.
Well, that's exactly what many were assuming would happen. If there had been such a thing, it could have sold in a far bigger way.
On the other hand who says that creative assembly has to be the once to make the sequel. There are a lot of good developers from other studios out there in videogame land, who could give us some amazing alien inspired experiences.
Someone could alreday be working on something but offcourse they cant tell us about it, just like creative assembly couldn´t tell us for a long time
Indeed.
About the "filler" thing (concerning the episode in the main game where you're mostly confronted by androids), I think it's a bit harsh to say even though I admit it has flaws.
I may have written that on another topic some time ago : I think the experience would be even greater with more depth (of characters, for example), more choices and more freedom (RPG elements) and another kinds of difficulty (in the interaction with the world). You could have a main campaign thread but also other missions, some of which could pose a greater challenge (with or without the alien's involvement). Add more "hybridity" to such a game and it would gain longevity and more appeal, I think.
It's more important imho than the possibility to play the alien. I think too that it is something that is in the genre of AvP. But the alien is the trickiest and the most difficult character in that context. I've yet to see a game that would offer a playable alien that would be realistic, glorious and still conveniently fun to play. Maybe it's impossible (at least for the second category; I mean by that that the alien perforce loses its aura when you play it). Anyways, the main problem of a more action-oriented Alien or AvP game would be to inspire itself with the experience of Alien Isolation, I guess.
Fantastic game for sure and my second favorite game from the entire AvP franchise, nothing will ever top Aliens versus Predator 2 (2001) though.
Top 3 AvP games ever for me:
1. Aliens versus Predator 2 (2001)
2. Alien: Isolation (2014)
3. Aliens versus Predator (1999)
It's a real shame that sales figures would effect the sequel like this - especially since on face-value it had seemed as if the game had done really well. It was received incredibly well by fans and critics and won tons of awards. 2 million sounds like a lot. But it's just the reality we live in. Sega hasn't done particularly well with the franchise so far. A rushed AvP to make up for A:CM and fill in the space for Crucible. A:CM was a trainwreck and completely paned by everyone involved...and against all odds Isolation comes out and is one of, if not the, best Alien gaming experience but apparently doesn't do well enough.
Absolutely gutted.
Completely agree. I think they dropped the ball with the DLC. It was just ripe for some mini-campaigns. I didn't mind one or two Survivor based things but the strength was in its story experience.
Indeed. This game wasn't about being the Alien. It was about being hunted by the f**ker! It might have been nice as DLC but it would have been development time away.
The game itself sold as well as you could reasonably expect a series-starter to manage. Yeah, there have been Aliens games before, but it's been 14 years since the last well-reviewed one, and that wasn't ported to any consoles. A:I wasn't just effectively starting fresh, it was starting with a poisoned chalice, as Colonial Marines was famously terrible and AvP3 had a middling reception. 2.1m+ sales was good, under the circumstances, and could have been improved on with a decent sequel, after all the goodwill this game's generated.
No seriously...