Frictional Games' Dev On Alien: Isolation: "Game Suffers From Two Major Horror Design Issues"

SEGA and IGN have recently released a video showing the reactions of IGN’s journalists while playing the game. Naturally, this video went viral and Frictional Games’ Thomas Grip felt the need to mention a couple of things about this upcoming horror title. After all, Frictional Games was behind the amazing Amnesia game – and is currently working on SOMA – so who better than Thomas to comment on that recent footage?

[nidhogg]

frankly, when I was watching the game "scaring the sh*t" out of IGN guys, I really thought they were just acting just to please the watchers of the video. Alien Isolation did not really scare me when I was watching it on YT. We'll see if we can play the game itself. It wasn't really that promising to be frank. Just another game were someone or something is gonna chase you when they see you.

[ShugaCane]

Yes, like Amnesia our Outlast, and those games are scary as hell. Isolation looks promising, and just because I want to forget about Colonial Marines, I will be supporting that game.

[avengers1978]

Outlast is by far one of the scariest games I ever played. When that big guy is stalking you, the atmosphere, and the mangled bodies all make it amazing

[Neonridr]

@avengers1978 - or when that crazy doctor is chasing you around. That part had me going for a while.

[RyanShutup]

Agree... most terrifying game I've ever played to date as well.

[randomass171]

Did you ever consider the game would scare you more when you actually played it? It's a pretty different experience when you watch someone else do it for you. :/

[nidhogg]

Yes I considered that. That's why I said, "we'll see if we can play the game itself".

[nidhogg]

Just to please all the people who disagreed with me. No, I wasn't saying the game is not gonna be a success. My comment was just an opinion on what the game looked like when played by the folks in IGN and their "scared" reactions. That said, I have also finished Amnesia 1 and 2 and Outlast which, by the way, were a bunch of top notch horror games. This game, however, will raise my expectation: It is fully budgeted, held by a well known developer, and is from a franchise loved by many. I hope that this game will live up to our expectations.

[Azfargh]

Strange... Amnesia wasn´t scary for me.

[Revolver_X_]

Outlast doesnt look scary on YT either. It has to be experienced. Not saying AI is or isnt, but YT videos are nothing to go by.

[Mankey]

True, true.

Sometimes trailers are deceiving.

Everyone thought Arkham Asylum was going to be terrible, and look how that turned out.

[randomass171]

People thought Arkham Asylum was going to be terrible? Well, that's news to me. o.o

[NarooN]

Yeah, best to experience it for yourself before writing it off. It's like saying Silent Hill isn't creepy while you're playing it in the daylight with all the lights on in your room with the volume low (without headphones, lol.)

[AnotherProGamer]

He forgot another reason: you see the same monster for the whole game, recently I played Cry of Fear and I didn't get scared of the same monsters after a couple of hours but then they introduce a new monster and I get scared again

[randomass171]

That's pretty different. Isolation has a single alien, sure. But this alien is basically stalking you throughout the game and its appearances are supposed to be randomly generated. And it's a creature that sci-fi fans are familiar with, which can further add to the tension.

[gameDevWannaBe]

Love scary games in the dark! We Need a horror rpg the size of witcher 3 lol

off topic: Big bang theory re runs come on 2morrow yes!!!

[Ripsta7th]

I also thought they were acting . it just didn't look real at al

[mike32UK]

It didn't once cross my mind that they were acting. People are so cynical

[randomass171]

I have to agree. I thought their reactions were pretty genuine. If they were acting, it was pretty dang convincing.

[BIB]

I'm looking forward to this project. Hopefully it can't be much worse the Aliens: Colonial Marines was. They'd have to be aiming extremely low to surpass that type of sub par quality.

[ironfist92]

Too bad he wasn't this concerned when he handed the reigns of Amnesia over to another developer.

I still have faith in Alien: Isolation.

[DrJones]

We'll see.

[Hipflask]

Game is going to be awesome.

[Azfargh]

He is absolutely right.

Even Amnesia was never scary for me, the tension is builded by anxiety, imagination and pessimism. The less the creature appears, more tension is builded... sfx and shy appearances are greatly effective.

[linkenski]

Until Frictional fix their awful protagonist in SOMA they haven't got a thing on Isolation to be quite frank. I have my doubts as well because Isolation looks railroaded as heck, but SOMA also has apparent design flaws from what I've seen thus far.

[RevXM]

Not too sure on the gory death thing, I think the death animation with the tail coming through you from behind is brilliant and the ones from trailers before looked terrifying as well.

Seeing the alien up close and DYING all the time might ruin the tension, hopefully they can make the balance just right with this huge predator hunting you down.
In the movies the alien was a stealthy killer and the game would benefit a lot from the fact that the alien might just vanish the next second and reappear either suddenly and brutaly or sneaking up on you once you come out from a hiding place or just at random.

I think that the dev is well aware and they have talked about and touched on these subjects in interviews and dev dairies. so the game is shaping up great I think.

Also Ive been thinking... wouldn't it be interesting if the alien would be capable of luring the player out making us think it doesnt know where we are or tricking us to think it is giving up, but in reality it was a lure or a trap.

What if the alien could draw our attention elsewhere to sneak up on us?
I imagine it would be awesome.

I have hopes for the game, they have some nitpick work and polish to do as far as I can tell but it really seems quite solid at from what Ive seen on the internet.