Thoughts on Alien Isolation?

So I finally got around to playing this after all the hype, but I'm still not sure what to think of it. On the one hand the atmosphere, art style and sound design are absolutely incredible, but the actual gameplay feels a bit trial and error-ish? It's literally impossible to avoid getting seen by the alien sometimes, but other times it just doesn't even appear and you can breeze through a section. Anyone have similar thoughts?

I wasn’t into it. You just sneak around doing hardly anything. I quit it pretty early on. Got tired of exploring and not finding anything.

Haven’t tried it yet myself but have seen a fair amount of it played via Twitch and it looks very cool. I really enjoyed the movies and the game really seems to capture that atmosphere quite well. It’s currently on Game Pass so I’d like to give it a go fairly soon.

I love it, my favourite horror game. Just don't read too much about it before trying because like with so many games much of the criticism is just people repeating some hot take YouTubers had at the time.

My only advice it to not try to beat the game in few play sessions. I think it's much more enjoyable if you limit yourself to 2h max.

@moistcarrot: Alien Isolation came out like October 2014. The game is 7 years old, you have to be their to really appreciate why that game was hella hype, I remember most PC gamers with their GTX 980Ti were really enjoying that game on high settings and it was mostly hype on PC. Playing the game in today's standards is still a great game assuming its on PC cause you're gonna need KB/M to avoid that asshole Xenomorph since its a FPS game.

But enough about that, I enjoy that game when it came out and this was back when I had a GTX 970. It's really great! Even greater if you love the Alien movies...but not that god awful Covenant. Though the story feels padded out a bit, and it does have a teleporting Xenomorph (the logical way they do it, is have vents everywhere, but IT teleports to you when you make level progress) and the sound, visual design is super amazing. They really went crazy with the little details. Very immersive and spooooky but you gotta be a huge fan of the Alien franchise like me. Just talking about the game now really makes me want to replay it on Steam cause I haven't replay it since 2017.

If you kinda like Isolation, you should check out SOMA if you can. Both games are pretty good but the twists and turns of SOMA just keep you playing so there's that.

Yeah the entire game seems like just hiding and solving easy puzzles so far, I think you gotta really like the alien movies to really appreciate it.

I'm playing on the SeX, it seems ok on a controller but yeah I can imagine it's a lot better on the mouse as you gotta hide insanely quickly when the alien magically teleports behind you.

Covenant was so so bad, ever character was a complete moron and there's so many plotholes. I'm not sure if Ridley Scott is trying to intentially sabotage the alien franchise or he's just completely lost his touch.

Oh I've played Soma, it's one of my favourite games of all time actually. I mean it's pretty much a walking simulator but the setting and plot was so immersive that it didn't really matter too much for me.

I think the PC version at super high resolutions would be good. But one of the problems on the PC version I found was that the anti-aliasing doesn't work properly no matter the settings. Sounds like a code error or something.

The Xbox One version had an interesting connect feature where it listens in to the noise you make.

Talking about that feature, I once got fired from managing Chelsea FC on Fifa 14 because I wasn't reading the in-game emails warning me and apparently it was listening to me curse. Ended up having to manage Nottingham Forest FC. XD

it's a cat and mouse, stealth centric survival horror, so you need to really enjoy stealth and sneaking (fortunately the stealth mechanics are really well done), and be ok with always being under powered to get the most out of it.

the alien ai is excellent, the way they've programmed it to feel organic, natural and unpredictable is really clever and very effective. it's totally unscripted so there are times when you don't see much of the alien but other times when it can feel like it's always near by, too close for you to feel safe moving, but that pushes you to be bold and take chances which creates some real heart in the mouth moments.

overall it probably outstays its welcome by a few hours but the rest is great. one of the few games that has at times genuinely scared the shit out of me.

if it did it should come with a health warning. anyone with an existing heart condition should keep well away lol

Really liked it, mostly thanks to its atmosphere. Felt slow in the end, but I enjoyed my playthrough.

Sneaking games are difficult for me when I'm stoned. Puzzle games too. Couldn't get into it.

Atomphere was easily the best part of the game for me. Not a fan of the hide and seek gameplay I wish they made a sequel that was more action focused.

Enjoyed it until it decided to overstay its welcome just to boost its runtime. A good game could've been great had it had an editor/director/exec willing to say "No."

If have a VR headset it's one of the best titles to play on it.

Though unofficial and not perfect, largely works with minimal fuss.

Great first 5 hours. The rest of the game is just a repeat of the first 25% of the game with the impact reducing with every objective conclusion.

Got pretty repetitive and drawn out but I thoroughly enjoyed the game especially since I got it for dirt cheap.

Great game.

Gameplay get's repetitive but honestly that happens with most games. The problem is Alien: Isolation's formula is pretty simple and doesn't benefit from being particularly exciting as most other games, so it's easy to get bored with it.

But the atmosphere? As close to perfect as a game can get. And the game is quality; the gameplay is great, the AI is decent, the visuals are excellent, I mean everything about it is quality and great. It's just a victim of it's own design in some respects.

Yeah, and I feel at odds with this because if it was action-focused it'd just be another shooter, but maybe not?

I think an Alien immersive sim would be pretty cool. Just make System Shock 2 except the corporation is Weyland-Yutani and the theme is Aliens.

I really enjoyed it, but I thought it overstayed it's welcome. It needed to end a few hours earlier imo.

one of the best survivor horror games of all time for me

I really enjoyed it. I see it mentioned and I do remember antialiasing just didn't work at all, even forcing it through Nvidia control panel did nothing. I recall the only way to get rid of the jaggies was with DSR.

Played it again after it got a 60fps boost on Xbox Series X and I still enjoy it quite a bit. Played it a ton over last few years. I am also a big Alien(s) franchise fan and I think they did an excellent job recreating the look of the world. I am even impressed considering this game stepped outside the studios comfort zone since Creative Assembly typically made strategy games.

Anyhow, I would at least recommend playing through to the end if you can, reassess what you think then.

Yeah, pretty decent game. I agree with what other posters have said about how impressive the atmosphere is and I also found that perhaps I was enjoying it slightly less towards the end for some reason.

It was awesome back in the day, although it was heavily scripted. Breaking that script could definitely suspend belief quite a bit. For instance, if you kill the first bad dudes you encounter, they drop a gun that you get later, but since you don't have it unlocked, you can't just pick it up. You see the gun lying there, but the game just says no.

I'm sure it aged okay for how old it is, but it was definitely best to experience it back then.

There was one mission I found extremely frustrating- I remember having to throw two switches in a room with a robot or two, and then make my way through hallways while the alien was after me. Walking under certain ceiling tiles triggered an instant death. And near the end of the hallway were npc's that would shoot at me and also trigger the alien. Probably took 10-15 tries.

But the rest was a pretty good experience. The game changes drastically once you get the flamethrower and can actually fend off the aliens. Whether that's better or worse for the gameplay I'm not sure.

After replaying the game yesterday, it still looks amazing as if I was back in 2014. Haven't replay it since 2017, I gotta say Alien Isolation needs a remastered with raytracing and if there's game that needs (not really) a remaster with raytracing add, it be Alien Isolation. I heard VR mode is very intense much similar to RE7.

I forgot about Anti-Aliasing had problems but I think there's a mod for it but never bother with it however as I think the atmosphere alone makes it up for it.

@davillain-: I don't think adding AA at driver level options helped either. Not one for mods much myself.

It's a game that sounded great on paper, but ended being kind of a long slog on the first playthrough. A game where you're running and hiding from something should be... fun? At least the game wasn't just another Alien-licensed shooter though.

@davillain-: I imagine a re-release would be an obstacle over licensing, at time Sega had a number of games they could make over a specific period, doesn't seem to hinder sales or availability but I imagine there might be current considerations they'd have to dance around, like there was a recent Aliens game released so wondering if that would have any exclusionary considerations on licensing over a given period. Plus Sega would likely need to pay for more licensing, fund development of a remaster, not to mention I would imagine Creative Assembly would need to be on board. But I totally agree, would love to see this remastered.

Shame that the developers seem to have played with VR option in the beginning but never released it other than leaving the files behind. It's definitely the type of game perfect for that.