This article was taken from the November 2014 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
In most video games, aliens are usually dispatched in their hundreds by gun-toting players. Alistair Hope, creative lead on
*[Alien:
Isolation](https://www.alienisolation.com/)*, wanted a different kind of menace: "Tapping into the original Ridley Scott 'haunted house in space', where just one alien could be a significant challenge."
Taking on the role of Amanda Ripley - daughter of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley from the original film -- players arrive on the space station Sevastopol to search for Ellen. But Amanda is not alone...
To recreate the look and feel of the 1979 film, Horsham-based studio Creative Assembly based the Sevastopol on designer Ron Cobb's low-tech, patched-up sets for Alien's space ship, the Nostromo. "We needed it to look and feel like if you turned a corner on the Nostromo, you could walk into our set," explains Hope, 40. The Xenomorph itself avoids the scripted scares of many survival horror games, and is instead directed by artificial intelligence that responds to light and noise in the game world.
Ripley can track its movements, and although you can distract the Alien with flares or repel it with fire, it can't be killed. The result is terrifying. A prototype of the game using Oculus Rift was the talk of E3, and although the finished game is currently PC and console only, the fear is just as visceral. "You see a physical reaction," says Hope. "I've seen people trying to hide behind their controller."
Alien: Isolation is out on October 7 on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
