Alien Isolation: A multiplayer experience, arguing ensues, horror & cliffhangers, blander than a salad story, a possible sequel incoming?

 It all started with my partner's Twitch stream. You see, while I am an avid horror fan I have always felt far too cowardly to actually play horror games. I am fine watching someone else play, but there was always something about getting in the players seat that made me feel deeply terrified.

However, my partner's viewers wanted to watch us play Alien Isolation together. I was down to play it because it was an opportunity to spend time with my partner, and the idea of playing a game together was exciting! I was also lured under the guise we would play 50/50 (Spoiler alert: I ended up playing more and finishing the game)

At first we set up with me on the mouse and him on the keyboard. We thought this would bring an element of unpredictability and extra difficulty. There were a few moments where it was very fun to play this way, but more often than not it was very intensely stressful. A few times we would be hiding in the closet, so close to the save point or right before completing a mission goal, then my partner would accidentally jump out of the locker right in front of the Alien... You can imagine how this might start some arguments.

When the game progressed, slowly building upon mechanics and adding new ones, this play style became harder and harder to co-ordinate. With the mixture of keyboard buttons and the mouse, we began to struggle under the pressure. 

Eventually we ended up taking turns playing because the game became so difficult to play this way. 

 As a horror fan I have watched the Alien franchise, and one of my earliest memories was watching the ending to the 1979 Alien movie. I remember hiding behind an itchy blue living room chair as Ripley tried to outsmart the Alien. While I loathed watching it back then, I came to appreciate the artistic direction of the movie when I revisited it as I got older.

When playing Alien Isolation for the first time I was completely taken aback by how incredible the visuals are. In fact, my partner often complained that when I was on mouse duty I spent too much time looking at walls and floors. I couldn't help it, the environment was so full of detail and life, ironically.

Playing the game, I was amazed by how many sound effects and concepts from the original movie were implemented into the game. In particular, the save feature stood out to me a lot, the sound effects and the idea of it was taken completely from the movie. The way the developers fitted this idea however was very creative and immersive.

There were a few times when the controls felt jarring to use, and a little awkward to learn. I personally had problems remembering how to equip, use, and craft items. The crafting feature had me puzzled sometimes I will admit. 

 Mechanics

Overall, I was very pleased with the game and satisfied with gameplay. I was so fascinated by the mechanics of the Alien itself I did some research on it:

 The AI of the Alien has been crafted in such a way to adequately inform the creature on when it should participate in the game and to what degree. The game measures the level of tension the player might feel and ensures that it doesn't go overboard. This is called the 'Menace Gauge'. This is intended to balance out the tension and moments of peace so that the player can actually progress through the game and have moments of rest.

There is a Micro and Macro AI that is always running in the game. The Macro AI manages the experience of the game by knowing where the player and Alien is at all times, and which objectives are currently being pursued. The Macro AI as I mentioned before, is in charge of the Menace Gauge. This gauge is measured by a few things such as the creatures proximity to the player, time spent near the player, and time visible on the motion tracker (within 1.5m), among a few other criteria. 

The Alien itself has a Micro AI that reacts to player actions, and commands from the Macro AI. So, while the Alien itself doesn't know where you are 24/7, the Macro AI will tell it to go look in certain areas of interest. However, the Alien cannot cheat and actually has to figure things out on its own. 

While the Alien has a Micro AI, it also has a Job system. It won't be going out and serving you at your local supermarket or anything like that though. This 'Job System' is a little different and actually takes inspiration from BioShock Infinite. This system helps dictate the Alien AI by telling it what tasks it should execute, which locations it should go to for said tasks, and the priority of each task. This system allows the Alien to switch between an active and passive role in the game.

For the artificial intelligence of the Alien itself, it is driven by a behaviour tree of over 100 hidden tree nodes. Certain behaviours will unlock for the Alien as you progress through the game. This way, the Alien isn't boring and predictable, Or so they say; Personally, after finding out all of this information the game became less scary and easier to predict.

It might be important to note here that behaviours leading to a players death are not remembered by the Alien when you restart your save. This is to prevent the Alien from gaining an unfair advantage.

But wait, there's more! You might wonder how does the Alien go from stalking you, to actually figuring out where you are? Well there are a few mechanics that influence this. Sound is one of the main ways the Alien hunts. A variety of things like gun shots, footsteps, and even the motion tracker can reveal your location.

Lore wise, it is speculated the Alien sees from electrical impulses, almost like a shark. In the game, there is a cone of vision that the Alien uses, as well as short range sensors in the back of its head. This is a measure to ensure players can't cheese the AI by staying behind it.

 It is interesting to learn about things like the cone of vision, because there were many times during game play I accidentally sneaked right in front of the Alien, and often it would just ignore me! This made for some very funny moments where my partner would yell "He's going to get you!" and I would calmly just sit still and wait for the Alien to move. The AI is not perfect and has some really funky moments sometimes. There were moments when the Alien would go into a vent, just to come out a second later, repeating this many times.

It is a unique and difficult task to create a horror game, as the players power has to be significantly reduced to create fear, but not too much that is unplayable. Usually in games, developers aim to give players a sense of power and agency, but horror plays with the idea of taking that away.

Adding on the difficulty of the one-hit-kill ability the Alien has, and being unable to save at the players every whim, creates for a very scary experience. Especially if you aren't familiar with this type of game design.

After playing Alien Isolation I learned a few things about my partner and I. For context, he doesn't enjoy horror in any sense while I like it a lot.

I sometimes found myself getting frustrated watching him play because I just wanted to grab the controls from him and do it myself. He tends to hide in lockers for far too long and usually when he decides to leave them he will end up just going back in for fear that he heard 'something'. He relied heavily on lockers and had a distrust of hiding behind boxes and clustered objects.

Although he was a very cautious player, he was also very logical with puzzles and such, he was way better at them than I was. In fact, I would say I was pretty dumb when playing, but I was able to move around a lot more and quicker than him.

 There was a moment when I had to get a keycard to move an obstruction, but to get the keycard you required a code from the computer nearby. In my infinite wisdom of course, I SKIM read the computer (like I do in real life, how do I never learn...) and decided "There is no code here!". For about 20 minutes (not kidding) I was sneaking around this goddamn room thinking I had missed the code earlier before entering the room. I then went backwards through the map until I thought "You know what, I had to have missed something on that computer" and low and behold I did.

That wasn't the only time I did something stupid like that! Near the end of the game there was a console that required powering up from a switch somewhere else. For at least 15 minutes I was sneaking around looking for something on a wall when the clue was on the ground next to the console all along: A cable. There was a cable running from the console through a vent, and all I had to do was follow it. It was really quite simple and yet I didn't notice it. I really do blame myself for these situations!

It is interesting seeing  how both of us played the game very differently, we both had different ways of doing  things. In the end my partner just wanted to watch me play, and I just wanted to finally get some progression going!

 A lot of the 'story' felt very bland to be honest. I didn't care for really any of the allied characters, at all. Perhaps if there is a sequel this can be improved upon to not only strengthen supporting characters but our main character. Adding more dialogue, or interaction with friendlies could help. However, this does need to be balanced with moments of isolation, because you can't call it Alien "Isolation" if you have good company with you at all times!

 That said, I also found the ending was lackluster for me and ended on a somewhat annoying 'cliffhanger', allowing room for a possible sequel. The reason why cliffhangers in video games annoy me is because their development process is veryyyy different to that of a TV show or movie. Time is not on your side developing a videogame, and a cliffhanger is all about creating excitement and an eagerness to find out what happens next in a timely fashion. Otherwise, people will probably just forget and move on.

 A great example of using this effectively would be Telltale's "The Walking Dead' series. Excitement and speculation was always drummed up in a great way to keep people engaged between chapters and development. Their short production cycle really emulated that of a TV series and it was done in a satisfying way.

 Alien Isolation came out in 2014... Do you think anyone even remembers the cliffhanger to this? I don't think anyone is particularly on the edge of their seat waiting to find out what happens. No one is rioting for a sequel either. I'm sure people would love it, but I think the story and characters were so underdeveloped no one really cares to find out what happens next. I find myself feeling really indifferent about it and I played the game for the first time really recently! I can't help but feel if the ending had a little more to it and ended more memorably maybe people would care more about a sequel?

While it has been reported in 2021 that Disney is considering a sequel to this game, it is still in the conceptual stages and has a story being drafted. This by no means it is confirmed but is possible, although it would probably be done by a different studio and depending on that...could go either way.