Today is the 10th anniversary of Alien: Isolation‘s release and in a surprise announcement, developer Creative Assembly have announced that a sequel – Alien: Isolation 2 is in early development!
Developed by Creative Assembly and published by its parent company Sega, the survival horror game Alien: Isolation was released exactly 10 years ago on October 7, 2014. You play as Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda Ripley who encounters a Xenomorph on the space station Sevastopol.
The game was well-received by critics and fans alike and it sold over 2 million units. At the time, Sega and Creative Assembly said they were unhappy with the sales figures and a sequel was unlikely. Now it seems, that Alien: Isolation 2 is finally in development.
Amanda Ripley
Here’s the full message from Al Hope, who was the creative director of 2014’s Alien: Isolation and is also back for the sequel:
To our fans around the world,
It’s hard to believe that it has been 10 years since we embarked on our journey with the release of Alien: Isolation.
When we started developing Alien: Isolation, we had one guiding principle: to create a truly authentic experience that went back to the roots of the Alien franchise—a new story capturing the atmosphere and terror of the original 1979 movie masterpiece.
It’s been nothing short of incredible to witness your passion for the game over the years and see it reach so many players around the world.
On the 10th anniversary, it seems only fitting to let you know that we have heard your distress calls loud and clear.
Today, I’m delighted to confirm, on behalf of the team, that a sequel to Alien: Isolation is in early development. We look forward to sharing more details with you when we’re ready.
Once again, thank you.
Until next time,
Al Hope, Creative Director, Alien: Isolation
You can read our 2015 interview with Alien: Isolation writers Will Porter and Dion Lay who spoke to us about the story elements in the game. We will also be recording a retrospective interview podcast with several of the developers who worked on Alien: Isolation soon! Thanks to Retropocalypse for the news.
Keep your browsers locked on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest Alien: Isolation 2 news! You can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums.
For shooters or atmospheric games of the like of AI are also impressively immersive, but their VR modes have "failed" on sales. Also remember that AI VR is a mod, not even official.
Also, I'd rather not be dizzy for the majority of the game.
Going to add, that nothing breaks the immersion more than putting your controllers down to walk around and then phasing through a wall straight into space.
I hope this time is set on a colony or something and not in space again (repetition not good), and they separate one single unbeatable Giger-alien that is stalking us for the entire game (and eventually becomes final boss or something) from Cameraliens. I mean that there are more aliens. Runners might be a lot to ask, but with new tech.., here goes nothing.
I think it is time to enjoy a modern version of "alien trilogy" , but with Amanda now.
All I hope that, in case of be a Giger-alien again, please Alister be 100% faithful to the Giger's version; 2'70 meters tall; insectoid/biomechanoid sounds from the first version; humanoid legs and no childish oversized dinosaur tail from avp. And If Cameraliens are to come too, please be faithful to them as well, body/body size/sounds wise.
You're becoming hysterical
There's a lot of good firsts, I just think it's really overused. I think it's harder but more rewarding to make a good third person horror game in that regard.
Will probably feel like Dead Space.
I like the idea of 3rd person on the premise alone that'll help with motion sickness. I'm not sure how the game will feel or play in the 3rd person as the 1st person-claustrophobic feeling was an integral character in itself throughout the game.
That footage they released of how it originally looked was really cool.
I think them going with first person was the best decision, but it is obvious that's not how the game was built.
I hope isolation 2 is in first person but it would be great if they did what RE Village did and make a third person update.
I'm of two minds with this, to be honest. On one hand, the lack of sound emitting from the Alien would make things more tense, and make the environment probably more haunting. On the other hand, encountering the Alien is a death sentence, a one hit kill, and the Alien is essentially unkillable. The motion tracker doesn't even discriminate between moving objects so there would still be no way to tell if it was the Alien.
Honestly, I think without those warning signs, it would get really tedious and frustrating pretty fast.
Adding a mode where the Alien is a completely silent ambush predator would probably be the best compromise imo.
I agree
Total opposite for me. I'd hear the Alien snarling and be like "Oh, shit."
That's your taste and more power to you. And I'm not against adding a mode where it doesn't make noise. But for me the balance was right with the sound. You need to be able to plan your actions based on what's around the corner. If the player hasn't been given enough agency then it feels too much like throwing a dice. And eventho it might be a cool trick to take away all the power and planning away from the player in some instances, the whole 20 hour game can't be like that to me at least.
I wasn't interested in fundamentally changing Stompy's behavior. and I don't think it's bad that it makes "noise".
But the option of making the alien almost silent as a difficulty level would be great. it would be the ultimate horror experience.
(which you probably won't last long haha)
That doesn't mean that as a player you no longer have a chance.
You still have the flamethrower and if you spot the alien in time you can chase it away.
Not knowing what is shown on the tracker is all the more realistic and makes it a lottery game, but it would be incredibly exciting.
I remember a rather bad review of the game in 2014.
The game critic said that a big negative point would be the alien's unpredictable behavior.
He literally said: "What use is an opponent I can't assess?"
(It wasn't IGN by the way but it was just as stupid)
Many users reacted angrily and told him that this is exactly the plus point of the game and that it stands out from most games of this type.
I'm not a programmer and don't really know much about this technology, but I could imagine that something like this would be possible today.
it would be a new level.
CA were pretty uncompromising back then, let them be again.
again,
It should only be a selectable option for the truly crazy among us.
How is that frustrating? Because the game isn't telling you what's around the corner? "Here's the big alien noise, now follow the routine." Not knowing whether it's a Joe or the Alien around the corner sounds much more f**king suspenseful than being force fed a sound cue.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/47/9c/db/479cdba12805a5a5403b2fd2df91b27c.gif
And if the Alien doesn't make any sound, how can you know if the object on the motion tracker is the Alien or a human/Joe waiting around the corner. It would be too frustrating.
Otherwise you're just wandering around a silent station and then you suddenly get killed. That's not fun, that's just frustrating.
At the end of the day, it's a game. It needs to have some game mechanics.
I'd be down for an option to have a silent alien; that's a good idea! Then all the babies and IGN reviewers can still have their noisy alien because they're bad at games (lol).
I mean, i probably can't really expect that, because it would probably cause even more complaints from the majority of gamers.
But maybe this time it would be an option if instead of just increasing the level of difficulty, you had the option to adjust a few things for the alien itself.
such as the fact that it acts almost silently and occasionally lies in wait for the player.
that would be a dream.
Instead of nightmare mode you could choose full xeno mobility and the alien would also crawl along the walls and ceilings.
On the other hand, CA's uncompromising attitude was truly exemplary and brilliant. play it or leave it. The alien is what it is, it's no walk in the park to compete against the xenomorph.
I would piss my pants if the androids suddenly started crawling after you in the air ducts.
An option to also be able to play the game as the alien would be just great.
I think we all have thousands of ideas and wishes.
In the end I'm just happy when this game comes out.
Though I disagree with this premise, I agree if you replace the word black goo with the engineers
That is one element that even Prometheus defenders admit nobody liked
Surprised he could type all that out with Elon Musk's dick in his hands
Yeah I think the lack of prequel connections and black goo is why Alien: Romulus has been so successful. Would have been flop city if they included that stuff!!
That review of his sure was an arse burster. Glad the game is coming back despite that ridiculous "review" of his.
Else, in what concerns the criticism here about the idea that the good old xeno is not tired at all: well, in my case, I think that there is not much one can do in terms of original and surprizing content with this creature in the context of an ambitious original movie. However it is different in the context of an interactive videogame.
I have questions for the connaisseurs about what could be achieved with new technologies in gaming in order to develop the experience from the first opus.
I guess one thing that would augment even more the nightmare would be to have a less stiff Alien in its "hunting" mode. Surely it adds difficulties to an already complex system, I suppose. Imagine the efficacity of the movements of the alien in the scripted scenes and videos, but in normal gameplay (for example, the alien walking on the ceiling to spice things up)...
I am a true admirator of the magnificent work the team of the first opus made for the atmosphere, the setting, the ambiance. The soundtrack was magnificent too. The story was generally very coherent with the rest.
Come on, this doesn't make sense from every possible angle, no confirmation from anyone from the studio needed. Romulus has been out less than a couple months. Bigger game projects like Isolation are pretty much never announced in a mere weeks. Isolation was announced 4 years into development.
Anyway I don't laugh at the lack of understanding how game development works but the idea that Romulus/Alvarez is the reason why new Alien stuff gets made. The success of Romulus gives the confidence that people still have interest in the franchise sure but it's not like Alien franchise would have died without it.
Can you blame them? It took 10 years to get an announcement for the sequel, it was announced after the success Romulus and it was only confirmed that it had nothing to do with it after the fact.
So, get off your high horse and just let them do their thing instead of being so condescending, when even people on this site thought the same thing.
The game has probably been in development for a year in the least.
This almost makes me want to get twitter just to ask him if his head is up his arse for the warmth
Isolation looks OUTSTANDING and still holds up on the 360 version where I played it. One of the few games that looks like it's from the gen after.
There's currently two systems of official canon we know of:
- The Gaska Classification, by the eponymous freelance franchise consultant. It dates back to 2016 and is likely outdated already.
- The current mandate at Fox seems to be "Every new Alien product must respect Alien and AlienS absolutely, every other movie and story can be contradicted if necessary".
Oh God yes! One of my peeves was how loud the Alien was. And I hated the excuse of "but it's for gameplay," which was utter BS.
My body is ready.
Unreal engine 5 can be insanely detailed, but somehow looks strangely lifeless. Even the much lauded Silent Hill 2 remake has that dry look.
I loved what they achieved with CATHODE.
That makes it even more surprising that we are getting a sequel.
https://x.com/TheCartelDel/status/1843534919601164733