The resulting philosophy could be considered as вЂpsychopathic serendipityвЂ™: in which the alien always find itself in the right place at the right time.

This led to the developers seeking inspiration naturally from horror movies such as Ridley ScottвЂ™s Alien, but also adventure movies such as Jurassic Park. The tension had to vary but also maintain an air of unpredictability in the xenomorph itself. The resulting philosophy - вЂpsychopathic serendipityвЂ™ - was inspired not just from horror movies such as вЂ AlienвЂ™ but also adventure movies such as вЂ Jurassic ParkвЂ™.ДЄs explained by Andy Bray in his talk at the 2016 nucl.ai conference, the player canвЂ™t be scared senseless all the time, otherwise theyвЂ™ll just give up. In order to do this, it required a unique design perspective. It needs to know when it can participate in the experience and it what level it should do so. Neither of these are easy when you introduce a systemic AI into play: a collection of decision-making systems that react to what is happening in the game.

Such a feat is pretty difficult to balance, given that you need a strong story to carry the player through, but also to establish pacing such that the tension varies throughout your gameplay. The team behind Alien: Isolation built the game around a simple premise: to survive an encounter with Ridley ScottвЂ™s original alien. Alien: Isolation strives to build a challenging and versatile opponent in the titular xenomorph.

Alien isolation first human encounter