Developed by Creative Assembly and published by SEGA, Alien Isolation 2 is poised to make the world terrified of the Xenomorph hands-on once again. Its predecessor raised the survival horror bar with masterful AI that always hunted you and a dedication to retrofuturistic design, as seen in the original Alien movie. After playing the opening moments, the sequel is not only just as scary. It heightens the tension with stronger atmosphere and lighting.
The beginning of Alien Isolation 2 really sets the stage for how important the planet surface will be to the game. You’re not only a new protagonist from the first game, but the events of Alien Isolation will be coming back in some form or fashion. Not being part of Weyland-Yutani space operations, but rather someone there to salvage the wreckage, reshapes your familiarity with some of the new tools.
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Moreso, these moments make Alien Isolation 2 already tense by just walking around a torrential downpour on your way to a fresh crash site. The lighting and particle effects especially enhance the uneasiness. You know a Xenomorph will show up eventually. But you just don’t know when exactly it will be ever-present, ready to get you when you put your guard down for a split second.
Lighting and limited visibility craft unrelenting tension in Alien Isolation 2.
However, the updated lighting and particle effects give the planet surface a bigger sense of mystery, even a fog-of-war feel. You don’t know what’s over the hill. When you get over it, you still can barely make out what you’re looking down upon.
Similarly, one of the first lighting tools you get is a flare. The flare not only makes noise, but the light it emits can add an even worse sense of danger in darker environments. You being in the light makes the dark corners darker. Paired with pouring rain and dense forests and other environments, you may be seeing shadows that are nothing while the Xenomorph sneaks around you in the confusion.
This carries over to the more familiar spaceship setting in Alien Isolation 2. Everything starts all fine and dandy, save for walking around a dark, recently crashed ship full of sparking wires, water leakage from the incoming flood, spreading fires, and blinking buttons. They all play with your sense of uncertainty. Because once you do meet the Xenomorph, you will need to play on your toes.
The Xenomorph AI is meaner than ever, and every noise made is used against you in gameplay.
In a previous preview of the same portion of the game, the refinement of the controls was touched on, including how the controls made the enemy AI meaner and left you more open to mistakes. To add to that, all the sounds of a crashed spaceship that surround you in these moments make every creak or pop even scarier. All these sounds mask the Xenomorph’s movement or can confuse you.
Similarly, you need to be certain that when you crawl into a vent, it’s empty and the Xenomorph isn’t near you. Because an open hatch is a prime calling card for the monster to come get a fresh, tasty snack in the vents.
All the uneasiness and tense feeling from these first minutes led to a well-earned jump scare that should have been expected. You climb the ladder out of the ship to safety. But right before you reach the top, the Xenomorph grabs you and pulls you right back into the thick of it all. Safe to say that in the setting of playing this in an open room surrounded by numerous people, just having headphones on and being ultra-focused on the game to survive led to a massive scream that may have come from someone you’re reading an article from right now.
If you thought Alien Isolation was scary, its sequel is primed to make you hold its beer.
Every technical improvement for Alien Isolation 2 has led to an even more impressive, terrifying experience. You will die. You must improve to survive. You cannot kill the Xenomorph, only dissuade and/or upset it. And the lighting, sound improvements, and changes in scenery have created a heart-attack-inducing experience.
Plus, Alien Isolation 2 has already achieved what many others this generation are still struggling to do. Master all the new ways gaming can be improved upon to make for a beautifully horrific experience that may demand you turn the lights on and take a break just to calm you down.
Alien Isolation 2 is coming soon to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
