Alien: Isolation 2 does the scariest thing possible

Alien: Isolation is one of the greatest survival horror games of all time. While it somewhat overstayed its welcome towards the end, I'm trying to come up with a licensed experience that channels its source material so effectively that it can feel like an interactive sequel to an iconic masterpiece. Creative Assembly is now deep into making their own sequel and it's something that I and millions of others didn't expect to see.

But how do you follow up on an experience that has already mastered the art of being chased by alien creatures in claustrophobic environments like abandoned space stations or vessels that were never designed for such hostile creatures? It turns out that you're not only trying to go bigger, but you're also expanding and starting to draw on other aspects of the source material. A lot of this is conjecture, but the short teaser released for Isolation 2 has me convinced that the sequel is already well on its way to becoming an absolute hit.

Save Stations are back in Alien: Isolation 2

To celebrate this year's Alien Day, Creative Assembly released a short 25-second trailer for Alien: Isolation 2, featuring nothing more than a sliding door flashing from locked red to unlocked green, all before revealing the rain-soaked horrors of the outside world.

It quickly reminded me of the abandoned human colony in Aliens, or maybe even the prison planet seen in Alien 3. Either way, this once peaceful and likely Weyland Yutani colony is now in ruins thanks to experiments gone out of control and prowling xenomorphs waiting to feast on any organic life form they come across.

The teaser has already amassed over 100,000 likes on Twitter alone without mentioning the name of the game it is promoting. Isolation 2 is obviously highly anticipated.

The monster in Alien: Isolation walking through the corridor of the station.

In the teaser itself, the horrendous creature is nowhere to be seen, unless it effectively hides among piles of soaked debris. Either way, I love how visceral this single shot is in showcasing exactly what Isolation 2 will be about. Instead of trapping us in a massive space station for the entire game, the sequel dares us to go outside.

While that might seem like a less daunting prospect in a horror game, it also means we'll have nowhere to run. A xenomorph can sprint across the landscape with the speed of a cheetah and the aggression of a silverback gorilla, guaranteeing that most human beings will be eaten in seconds. He no longer has to deal with the limitations of the spaceship and can stretch his limbs as he sees fit. Mommy's hungry and you're on the menu.

However, after opening the door, a rescue station sits in the distance. In the first isolation, you saved your game in real-time, hoping you had long enough to consolidate progress before a Xenomorph stabbed you in the back or ate your skull for lunch. It only lasted a few precious seconds, but the possibility of death was always there.

A player using an emergency phone that is hung on a wall to save in Alien: Isolation.

It's a genius mechanic in a genre where storage spaces have often been designed as short-lived salvation points. These are usually places that are equipped with invisible barriers that no enemy can break, no matter how hard they try. Isolation rips away that protection and does something as simple as saving your game to a moment of unrelenting tension.

But the location of the save station in this trailer makes me wonder. It sits directly under a glowing beam of light and almost calls out to the player, promising that once you make a death sprint towards it, you'll be safe. But what if that's not the case anymore?

The outside world changes everything

Close-up of the Xenomorph in Alien Isolation approaching the player in a tense cutscene.

Going all out in a video game shouldn't be a groundbreaking move, but Alien: Isolation 2's move means it will have to fundamentally change the way its specific version of survival horror is expressed as a result. The original game was all about going through a series of cramped environments and hiding in lockers or under tables whenever you heard something bad. You waited for the Xenomorph to finish their routine hunts before heading for your target.

It was a masterful game of cat and mouse, at times split into levels filled with androids and human enemies, which luckily you could dispatch with a variety of different weapons. But the Xenomorph remained untouchable.

I can't wait to see what kind of person you play as in Isolation 2 and whether their abilities are better suited to hiding in oversized ventilation shafts or making a foolish stand against an alien threat before running away in fear. However, I want to see more of how this series develops the claustrophobic take on survival horror into the outdoors.

Will they just be horrible but short excursions outside of this colony where you complete objectives and move between different locations or something more substantial? I want the very thought of going outside to fill me with dread, while knowing that staying inside is also a quick recipe for my own demise. Wherever I go, I will suffer.