One of my earliest memories as a games journalist is playing the original Alien: Isolation for one of my first gigs at E3 2014. I’d never been to an industry event before and my nerves were already shot, so by the time I sat down at my demo to play Creative Assembly’s terrifying hide-and-seek horror game, my tolerance for jump scares was at an all-time low. You bet your ass I booked it out of that demo before I could finish it when the titular alien started chasing me around Sevastopol Station.
As a result, when I played Alien: Isolation 2, the long-awaited sequel, at Summer Game Fest, it was more than just another assignment. I had to prove to myself that I’m not a card-carrying member of Weenie Hut Jr. 12 years after my first encounter with the deadly xenomorph, I managed to get through an Alien: Isolation demo, and I didn’t even cry that much.
That’s not to say that what I played of Alien: Isolation 2 was any less scary than its predecessor. I am merely older, wiser, and with steelier resolve thanks to the decade of trauma that was my 20s. Creative Assembly’s continuation of Isolation’s helpless horror is just as bloodcurling, but the most interesting aspect to me is how the events of the first game lead directly into the sequel.
Alien Isolation ended with the destruction of the aforementioned Sevastopol space station, which was overrun by xenomorphs and home to many a facehugger horror. However, a piece of the station has managed to survive the destruction, landing on a planet occupied by a group of humans too curious and caring for their own good. As they search for survivors, they instead find one of the aliens, and it’s just as deadly and frightening as it was over a decade ago.
The fact that one of the same aliens that mercilessly hunted players in the original Isolation returns in the sequel feels like a pretty succinct symbol for what Isolation 2 does well. It brings back the same claustrophobic game of hide-and-seek coupled with a constant state of powerlessness, and it refuses to let its monster fall into predictable patterns so you can try to memorize which corners it will turn and which rooms it will wander through. What I played of Alien: Isolation 2 indicated that it’s a relentless horror game that refuses to let you get comfortable as you crouch behind anything that might, for even a second, obscure you from the creature’s line of sight. It’s a constant game of trial and error in which the odds are stacked against you because you can’t kill this monster, but it only has to catch the slightest whiff of you to bite your head off.
If you’ve been longing to return to Alien: Isolation’s brand of unforgiving cat and mouse, I’m pretty sure the sequel will give you what you’ve been looking for when it comes to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.