Alien: Isolation - 10 Ways To Create The Perfect Experience

2. Knowing When Horror Outstays Its Welcome

For all the praise they were rightfully given, a key problem many gamers found with the likes of Amnesia and Outlast was that they were too long for their own good. While delivering excellent stories, scares and terrifying environments, the common problem was that the scares never fully developed. After several hours, hiding in a closet and sneaking around an enemy became less frightening and far more of a chore. Both games started with great concepts and delivered them in fantastic ways, but they never changed nor escalated enough for the fear factor to remain fresh in the player's mind. If Creative Assembly wishes to avoid this fate for Alien: Isolation, it needs to really find a way to shift the game's dynamic at a point or keep the player from becoming complacent, allowing them to adapt as the rules around them shift. The supreme example where this worked for the best was Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Despite starting off as a mystery title where the player has no means to truly fight back against the locals of Innsmouth, merely fleeing and hiding from them, after the first three hours or so the player is given the opportunity to start returning fire at the locals. While otherworldly foes still emerged which could not be beaten via conventional means, it helped to build up a sense of the true threat around the player and offered great satisfaction when they could turn the tables. Alien: Isolation has already taken the first steps towards this with the limited amount of weapons and secondary enemies present in the game. However, the developers need to carefully consider how they are used. If added into the mix too early, running from/picking off such foes will still drag on, but if added too late it risks drawing out the sections of hiding and fleeing from the xenomorph. If they are too easily killed, numerous or supplies are too plentiful, it will completely destroy the tense atmosphere built up beforehand.