After a scant bit of murmurs over the last few months, Alien: Isolation got its official reveal yesterday with a few screenshots, overview, and an announcement trailer, all of which people couldn't give two squats about, but we'll get to that in a moment. At the moment, the game seems to be passing on both the Mac and Nintendo's Wii U, and just like the console never got Sega's previous Alien game, that might not be such a bad thing.
Responding to a fan's question, a tweet from the game's official Twitter account stated, "Right now, we don't have plans to put the game on Wii U." Another tweet confirmed the game "will be available for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC" in late 2014. But that might not be so bad, because there's a general lack of enthusiasm for this title, and it's not hard to see why.
Isolation is attempting to explore new territory by having players take on the role of Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda, a character only briefly mentioned in the original Alien trilogy. Since Ellen Ripley's disappearance, Amanda gets word from Weyland Yutani that the company may have found her mother, so Amanda goes out looking.
The game looks like a throwback to first movie - cramped quarters, dim lighting, everything to encourage anxiety and an overall tense feeling, with one lone xenomorph stalking Amanda. Obviously, the whole thing screams survival horror. There's been no mention of any sort of combat, but given the trailer and overview, it looks more like a "run like hell" if you're in trouble. Add all these factors, coupled with the first-person perspective, and it's hard not to draw comparisons not unlike some of the indie horror gems of late, like Slender: The Arrival sort or Outlast.
Given its namesake, Colonial Marines couldn't achieve that same feeling of impending doom that's worked so well for those recent horror games It's hard to feel terrified when you have a flamethrower, pulse rifle, and all manner of weapons perfect for a bug hunt. It was also one of the most widely panned games of 2013, so it's easy to see why Sega is taking Isolation in a completely different direction.
While that all seems promising, there's seemingly a complete lack of interest in Isolation, and it's all due thanks to the abortion that was Gearbox's (and several other developers') Aliens: Colonial Marines. Best known for the Total War series, Creative Assembly is the team behind this upcoming addition to the xenomorph saga, and the team has quite the job ahead of itself for pulling the Aliens brand out of the muck.
Aliens is one of sci-fi's most cherished brands for its ability to bring horror, action, and sci-fi together in one hell of a film trilogy, while at the same time introducing audiences to one of cinema's first badass female characters. Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of Ellen Ripley even went so far as to get her an Oscar nomination, an incredibly rare feat in the sci-fi and/or action genre.
But Colonial Marines has left such a bad taste in gamers' mouths, not just for its terrible and broken gameplay, but also interfering with the original trilogy's storyline. It's seemingly caused a complete lack of interest in Isolation. The game's official forum is a ghost town, and even Isolation's announcement trailer is a victim of Colonial Marines failure. Gearbox and Sega faced a lawsuit claiming that Marines used false advertising because of its trailers. As a result, Isolation's trailer opens with the message, "The trailer footage shown uses the in-game engine, and represents a work in progress."
Aliens is a big property, and there's no way that Sega is going to let it go. But since Sega is the chef responsible for the shit sandwich that was Colonial Marines, good luck getting anyone to ever trust in the chef again, especially with Isolation coming far too quickly to be a palette cleanser.
