Alien Isolation 2 Fails To Scare In First Hands-On Experience

Alien Isolation 2 is the long-awaited sequel to Creative Assembly’s masterfully made first-person horror game.

Prior to playing it at this year’s Summer Game Fest, I went in with my expectations high, which is probably why I came out the side disappointed, but still hopeful.

I really hate to say it, but Alien Isolation 2 did nothing for me. The demo starts strong with a brisk walk through a dead forest, the horizon illuminated by fire from an unidentified flying object that’s crashed onto the planet’s surface.

After climbing inside and interacting with a nearby terminal, you come face-to-face with a familiar foe, the Xenomorph.

Now I don’t know whether bro was just having an off-day when I played, but this wasn’t the Xenomorph I’d come to know and fear in my playthrough of the first game.

Sure, the mannerisms were all there. It patrolled the halls of the ship on-foot peering and veering and snarling before eventually crawling into a nearby vent or floor panel.

Now, sure, the first five minutes of this interaction were genuinely unsettling. All of my previous experience flew out of the airlock, though I imagined it wouldn’t do me much good anyway. This was Alien Isolation 2, so surely the Xenomorph has learned a few new tricks, right? Wrong.

SEGA

Again, I don’t know whether it was just disoriented from the crash, but its behaviour was pretty easy to follow, and I swear it locked eyes with me a couple of times but decided not to attack. In the previous game, the Xenomorph will do this on purpose as a fake-out. Slinking away before doubling back at pace to gobble your guts. This time, however, it slinked away and never returned.

At the time of writing, Alien Isolation 2 doesn’t have a release date, so for now, I’m giving the game the benefit of the doubt. For all I know, the Xenomorph’s AI was on the fritz or perhaps the early-build let itself down on this occasion.

It wasn’t all bad. What the game lacked in terror, it made up for in atmosphere. The look and feel of the game doesn’t just feel like an extension of the first game but authentically Alien. Fans of the franchise will still get a kick out of the presentation.

Unfortunately, my hands-on experience with Alien Isolation 2 didn’t leave me with much of an impression, but I’m still optimistic that this will be a worthy sequel.

The Xenomorph’s AI in the first game was so ahead of its time that you’d almost expect the sequel to feel like it’s dragging its feet a bit.

With a probable release window of 2027, there’s more than enough time for Creative Assembly to cook, and I’m hoping that time is used to push the Xenomorph to its full, horrific potential.

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