The image quality is identical, with performance making the difference between the two next-gen consoles

Oct 8, 2014 06:44 GMT  ·  By

Alien: Isolation has just come out, and so far it seems that developer The Creative Assembly did a pretty good job of recreating the original horror atmosphere that the series became famous for.

The tense atmosphere from Ridley Scott's original film from 1979 was masterfully recreated, offering a stimulating experience for gamers who are looking for a thrill, and, beyond that, for an engaging and testing journey.

Instead of going the usual route of shooting up the place and pretty much everything that makes a blip on your motion detector with a wide assortment of heavy weaponry, you have to rely on stealth and patience in order to slowly make your way through the Sevastopol space station.

Although you'll only be faced with a single Xenomorph, any face-to-face time will end up with your demise, and your most powerful weapons can only scare the beast away for a short while at best.

Exploring the gritty environment while in a constant state of fear, amplified by distant screams of terror and a generally foreboding atmosphere, is exactly the kind of gameplay that fans of the Alien series were waiting for all along.

How the console versions stack up to each other

The talented individuals at Digital Foundry got their hands on the first-person horror game and, as usual, delivered a neat side-by-side comparison video, pitting the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the title against each other.

"Native resolution comes in at 1080p using what appears to be a post-process anti-aliasing solution, while the artwork and effects appear a close match, right down to the dithered shadow edges and how reflections and specular highlights are displayed."

"The main points of difference in our shots come down to the dynamic lighting which changes the way environments and characters are illuminated in real-time, along with slight variances in depth of field and motion blur at any given moment," the experts say.

The image quality is the same on both consoles, with performance being the differentiating factor. The PlayStation 4, with its beefier hardware, offers a smoother and more consistent gameplay experience, according to the analysis, with fairly stable 30 frames per second and no screen-tear.

The Xbox One version, while not stalling as much as the one running on Sony's hardware does, is more noticeably impacted by various performance issues in other departments such as screen tearing, or frame rate dips in areas when multiple light sources come into play, combined with a lot of alpha effects.

Alien: Isolation is available on PC, the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 home consoles from Sony, and the Xbox 360 and Xbox One computer entertainment systems from Microsoft.