Hands-On With Alien: Isolation 2 – Survival Horror’s Greatest Stalker Is Back for More

12 years is a long wait to play the sequel to one of your favourite games of all time. During that decade-plus stretch, I’ve re-played the original Alien: Isolation multiple times, analysed its incredible level design, and even addressed that review score in my own glowing appraisal of gaming’s unique, unrivalled nightmare. So you can imagine that, as I picked up the controller in a dark room at developer Creative Assembly’s headquarters, my mind was awash with excitement spiked with anxiety. Would my first taste of the long-awaited, once thought impossible Alien: Isolation 2 be everything I’d hoped for?

Much like a truncated version of Alien: Romulus, the half-hour demo of Isolation’s sequel is gorgeous, faithful, frightening, and also deeply familiar. Perhaps a little too familiar. That sense of deja vu is partly down to the fact that most of this demo, taken from the game’s opening, unfolds within the Project KG348 laboratory – the very same module ejected from Sevastopol Station during the events of the first game. We’ve quite literally been here before.

But not like this, we haven’t. Before I crack the seal on the lab, let's rewind to the demo’s very first moments. I’m sitting in a Weyland-Yutani truck with a cabin so detailed, so beautifully lit, that I’m momentarily taken aback by how good this sequel looks (a generational leap in graphics tech will do that). As conversation with the superbly animated crew begins, I’m unsurprised to discover my voice is feminine, but my crewmates call me by the name “Blake”. Amanda Ripley may still be out there, and this story – set just a few months after the events aboard the Sevastopol – will surely deal with her legacy, in person or otherwise. But director Al Hope confirms to me that it’s Blake, not Ripley, who we’ll play throughout the campaign.

Blake is part of Weyland-Yutani’s army of managers, and she has arrived on planet LV-921 in search of that aforementioned lab. A lab, should you need reminding, that was jettisoned because it had a xenomorph trapped inside it. But before Blake comes face-to-face with the universe’s perfect organism, she must first face something new and perhaps even scarier: the outdoors.

The major difference between this sequel and its predecessor is lifted directly from the movies - as in Aliens, Isolation 2 takes place on terra firma rather than in space. You’ll be moving back and forth between the confines of Kurosaki Station and the exposed landscapes of LV-921’s distressed, eerie surface. During our interview, Hope promises an interesting dynamic between interior and exterior spaces, each exerting their own method of pressure. However, in the safety of this heavily scripted opening, I’m unable to experience any of that. I slowly inch through long-dead woodland, following burning embers and broken trees towards a huge metal structure that has clearly punched through the atmosphere and half-buried itself into the planet’s surface. With a lack of lockers and vents to hide in, I imagine this journey would feel terrifying if the alien were loose among the branches. But without such a threat, the sequence feels much like the fairly relaxed planetside flashbacks of the original game, just without the weight of a space suit slowing me down.

This brief escape from the xenomorph is the perfect demonstration that there really is nothing else like Alien: Isolation. The Seegson-design access lever recessed into the hull of the crashed structure makes it immediately clear we’re not re-hashing the Nostromo crew’s egg inspection mission. This thing is reassuringly familiar. Reassuringly human. And, as the hatch opens and I descend the ladder, it’s like I’m walking through my own memories of 2014. While the results of Creative Assembly’s recreation of the Hazard Lab’s curving, red-panelled corridor isn’t quite as dramatic as, say, Metal Gear Solid Delta’s updated clone of Groznyj Grad, it nonetheless provokes a similar reaction; I’m momentarily impressed by the graphical upgrade, but then gripped by instincts that have lain dormant for a decade, as if waiting on stand-by for this very return.

Before the horrors begin, the objectives ease me back into Isolation’s fundamentals. The power is out, locking down every door and hatchway, so I poke around the immediate area in search of scrap components with which I can fix the breaker box. While this is nothing new, I appreciate the small additional details the sequel brings; as I hold down a button to repair the circuits, Blake’s hands slot a PCB into place and then flip the switches with a satisfying clunk. In the next room, I find one of Isolation’s iconic save stations, which now requires you to hold down the interact button for the agonising duration of the save process – it’s a tiny detail, but one that makes you feel all the more physically connected to the world.

Pushing deeper into the lab, I’m met with my first jump scare – the lurching grasp and eerie orange eyes of the Working Joe androids remain just as creepy to this day. But it’s in the lab’s central chamber where the real magic show begins. The xenomorph drops from above with an almighty thud. It’s not quite the dramatic, tail-snaking entrance from the original, but as it towers above my hiding spot, it’s clear that this electric game of cat and mouse is once again afoot.

Unfortunately, while Creative Assembly promises a selection of new tools and tactics to help you wrangle sci-fi’s most terrifying predator, I’m equipped with absolutely nothing but my wits for this escape. That means I can’t tell you about how Alien: Isolation 2 is shaping up to be meaningfully different to its predecessor. Combined with the demo’s setting being literally a location from the first game, if it weren’t for the graphical upgrade, anyone could reasonably mistake this sequence as being from the original Alien: Isolation. I’ll admit that, after such a long wait, I was hoping Creative Assembly would have chosen something a little bolder for its first showing – something that would silence my lingering fears that any sequel would be stuck doing more of the same.

And yet. And yet. Even this brief panicked escape from that dome-headed bastard proves the perfect demonstration that there really is nothing else like Alien: Isolation. My escape route is blocked by a sudden eruption of searing-hot flames, so I sprint for the under-floor vent that I know leads to the exterior corridor. And as I push forward, I hear that sound. The clatter of metal. The rattlesnake-like hiss. For a split second I look backwards, casting the beam of my flashlight along the vent’s steel walls. And I see it. A curved, skeletal shadow. The tunnel suddenly feels like a prison rather than a pathway.

A number of projects have riffed on Alien: Isolation’s very particular approach. Amnesia: The Bunker is perhaps the most similar example, but you can also see the shape of the xenomorph in the recent A Quiet Place game and the modern generation of Resident Evil stalkers. But while all are accomplished in their own right, none of these games offer the same particular adrenaline-spiking thrills as Alien: Isolation. Its multi-layered level design and unparalleled approach to enemy AI create a genuinely singular experience. And while Isolation 2’s demo is perhaps the most simple, streamlined example of that experience – stripped of all player agency-granting gadgets and tightly controlled for its duration – it’s as good a reminder as any that it is the definitive simulation of sci-fi’s most terrifying scenario. To do it all over again, even with minimal adjustments to the formula, is something worth trying.

It’s unsurprising that this short demo was able to so successfully capture the spirit of the original – Alien: Isolation 2 is, after all, helmed by the same director, built by many of the same people, and its prologue specifically designed as a bridge between the two projects. And so it’s convinced me that it’s at least in the right hands. But I’m now more eager than ever to see how this against-the-odds sequel will build upon its predecessor.

It’s time, Creative Assembly. Open the doors. Let me outside. Unleash the beast. I’m ready.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.