Players will be motivated to go back to previously seen locations

Jul 17, 2014 00:35 GMT  ·  By

The space station in Alien: Isolation can be explored in a Metroidvania style quite freely, according to developer Creative Assembly, which has just emphasized that the environment won't be a linear one where players are forced to constantly move forward.

Alien: Isolation was confirmed to the world earlier this year as a bold new experience that follows more closely the original 1979 movie in terms of tone, as it's a first-person survival title that stars Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Ellen Ripley.

She must explore a space station and escape the deadly Xenomorph hiding inside it, and quite a few fans are cautiously optimistic about the whole thing.

Now, Creative Assembly's Gary Napper makes it clear to GamesTM that the mission structure has been designed in such a way as to motivate players to keep exploring the space station and to go back to sections already seen.

"The mission structure is something we built around the idea of the station being a real place. There are too many games where it’s a linear experience and, for example, you walk through a door, it closes behind you and you can’t go back through it. Why is that?"

Because the alien can also go around the ship, this means that players must also keep exploring or backtracking depending on the situation in a sort of Metroidvania style, reminiscent of retro titles like Metroid or Castlevania.

"As you progress through the station and unlock more areas you can always go back to the areas you’ve been through. A big part of that was making sure that when you go back there’s still things going on, so it didn’t feel like 'I’ve done this area, I’ll be fine' – the alien can actually be anywhere… It’s very much a Metroidvania style of unlocking things."

What's more, the iconic motion sensor will be reminiscent of the old one from the movie, meaning it won't show players exactly where the alien is. The deadly creature will appear just in a 2D space and can't be pinpointed.

"It’s those kinds of things that give you a lot of gameplay – you’re tracking the alien or a human or whatever, they could be on the floor below you, they could be in the ducts above you, they could be behind the wall – you’re never totally sure where these things are," Napper adds.

Alien: Isolation is set to debut this fall for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One platforms.