Okay, Aliens: Colonial Marines was a bad video game. I think most of us can agree on that point. With that said, I think it’s only fair that — no matter how awesome it looks in the above reveal — we keep a healthy layer of cynicism about Alien: Isolation. The right things are being said, the right things appear to be being shown, but with Aliens: Colonial Marines so fresh in our collective memories, it’s difficult to completely abandon reason and ‘get hype’.
But I’m already enjoying the direction here. Less silly first person shooting, more suspense, more drama. Even before Aliens: Colonial Marines was released I worried about Gearbox’s ability to create a real sense of horror in a game that was clearly about player empowerment and shooting things a lot, but Alien: Isolation seems to be a bit smarter with that balance. Less shooty-shooty, more exploring, more tension. That’s super positive.
It also looks really great.
I still have some concerns. The issue for me is the language being used to sell the idea of this game — this is the Aliens game we’ve always wanted to play, we want it to be authentic, etc. The same words were being used in the lead up to Aliens: Colonial Marines so it’s extremely difficult for those words to have any real meaning.
And it’s being developed by a studio with a rich history in RTS games — a completely different genre. Don’t get me wrong, The Creative Assembly has a history of making good RTS games, but they do feel like a strange choice to work on a first person survival horror based on a popular movie license. If I was being really cynical I would say that SEGA is trying its level best to leverage a license it paid money for and is throwing it at random walls in the hope that it sticks.
But I won’t be that cynical. The game looks good so far. I think I can get cautiously optimistic about this. I just need to see more. The developer diary, also posted above, seems very convincing.
I WANT TO BELIEVE.
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