Alien: Isolation 2 will be released in 2027, ready to remind you why xenomorphs are pure nightmare fuel. At the Lucca Comics and Games Festival IGN sat down with the game’s creative director, Al Hope, who explained the core vision behind the science fiction sequel and why the team was sticking with the survival horror genre.
“We feel like there’s still so much to mine or tap into in the universe of that first movie,” he said. “We feel like in Alien: Isolation 2, I think the promise is about transporting you back to that time and place, that window of the timeline where just one alien can be absolutely terrifying and an incredible challenge, an incredible experience.”
The original Alien: Isolation, released in 2014, had engineer Amanda (daughter of Ellen) Ripley as its star, as she searched for clues relating to her mother’s disappearance on the space station Sevastopol. We’ve already heard Andrea Deck, Ripley’s voice actor, during a press demo for the sequel, but Hope was keen to underline the fact that Alien Isolation 2 is very focused on its new protagonist.
“We’re really proud of Amanda, but to be clear, you’re playing as a new character in Isolation 2… She works for the company; she hasn’t encountered the creature before. And so yeah, I guess we’re super excited about Blake.”
We know a little about Blake already. She’s a manager at Weyland-Yutani and has just arrived on planet LV-921 in search of the lab that was jettisoned from Sevastopol Station by Amanda Ripley, complete with a xenomorph hanging around inside.
You can read the full interview with Creative Director Al Hope and Project Art Director Ana Sopikova here, where we also talk xenomorph design, seeing the first game’s save stations appear in Alien: Romulus, and whether or not the games are now part of the official Alien canon.
Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.