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How terrifying is Alien: Isolation? - EGX 2014
Since the thread were this was posted people kept talking about the commentator rather than the game, I thought it would be better if we can talk about the video here. So people don't go off topic, I'm just going to say: no, I don't get money for doing this.
I'm gonna post interesting details from the video:
-They wanted to deconstruct the movie: what kind of material things were made of, how the lightining was done, styles of objects, so they could make new, original things, while still feel as if it were from Alien. They got things like concept art from Ron Cobb, nad pictures taken from behind the scenes of objects to do this. On the former, they started to adopt this same style of concept art to their own, to try and think as the staff of the original movie did:
Ron Cobb's Art
Creative Assembly's Art
- Showed a short gameplay of the DLC Nostromo edition, filled with smoke and in a claustrophobic vent. To do this, they had to recreate the entire original ship, they got never before shots, and even blueprints for the ship. They tried to recreate even smoke and lightining conditions. To recreate the crew they used pictures taken from different angles of the actors at the set, which were originally used to maintain consistency of make-up between takes.
- Nostromo and Sevastopol (Alien Isolation's new location, which is a space station) comparison:
They wanted to give more than just claustrophobic spaces, they wanted more, larger spaces for exploration and to relief the claustrophobia, but there being larger spaces meant easier ways for enemies to attack the player.
- Little things were recreated from the Nostromo, allowing the player to be invested in the universe and story, also putting in simple details like photographs that gave the sensation to the player that this was previously inhabited by people.
- Sound, visuals and gameplay have to come together to make a truly immersive gaming experience.
- In the terms of sound, they consider it to be a very emotional and subconscious medium, that can add fear of the unknown, when leading and misleading the player.
- Although the story is linear, the core values of the game are non linear. Which made it problematic to the sound design team to make the sound and music adapt to these dynamic situations.
- To create the score, they licenced the themes of Jerry Goldsmith, using the thematic material of the songs to make a soundtrack that was 120+ minutes long (quite long for a game), by expanding themes and motifs.
- This is the first recording session they did. They even hired people who played in the original orchestra for the film.
- However, due to the dynamic situations of the player, enemies and the alien (the awareness of each other, the distance between them, amount of sound made), they couldn't have a static score, so they created a "Context Driven Sound Engine". Example of the dynamic score. This not only applies to the soundtrack, but also to environmental sounds, so the game will change the mix of the sounds to make a bigger emphasis for the player, such as the alien footsteps, all without making it obvious, but enough to make the player feel anxious.
- To maintain authenticity, Fox sent them digitalized sound effects. Can you recognize this one?
- Gameplay of start of the game. They say it doesn't have spoilers, but I don't want to watch it, so do it at your own risk.
Q&A done:
- The VR demo they've been doing is a prototype, they need to "go back to the studio and see where they're taking it next".
- Previous Alien(s) games focused on the James Cameron experience, marines and killing, but none were what CA wanted, which was survival and minute to minute choices to not die.
- Question: "For me, the last game, Colonial Marines was a huge letdown, what kind of pressure did you feel?"
Answer: We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, we don't need anyone else's pressure *chuckles*, because this game came from us, this is the kind of game we want to make, we have very high standards. We put ourselves very demanding goals, and I think that was the most important goal for us. We started this game 4 years ago, before Colonial Marines came out, and we were just super focused on our goals the whole time. And we did hear the comments on it when it came out, people wanting a scarier Alien game, where one alien is super terrifying, so there was an audience out there for the experience we were making. That was good to know.
- They had 3TB of pictures, sounds and videos early on in development.
Also:
Thanks, Fool!
Since the thread were this was posted people kept talking about the commentator rather than the game, I thought it would be better if we can talk about the video here. So people don't go off topic, I'm just going to say: no, I don't get money for doing this.
I'm gonna post interesting details from the video:
-They wanted to deconstruct the movie: what kind of material things were made of, how the lightining was done, styles of objects, so they could make new, original things, while still feel as if it were from Alien. They got things like concept art from Ron Cobb, nad pictures taken from behind the scenes of objects to do this. On the former, they started to adopt this same style of concept art to their own, to try and think as the staff of the original movie did:
Ron Cobb's Art
Creative Assembly's Art
- Showed a short gameplay of the DLC Nostromo edition, filled with smoke and in a claustrophobic vent. To do this, they had to recreate the entire original ship, they got never before shots, and even blueprints for the ship. They tried to recreate even smoke and lightining conditions. To recreate the crew they used pictures taken from different angles of the actors at the set, which were originally used to maintain consistency of make-up between takes.
- Nostromo and Sevastopol (Alien Isolation's new location, which is a space station) comparison:
They wanted to give more than just claustrophobic spaces, they wanted more, larger spaces for exploration and to relief the claustrophobia, but there being larger spaces meant easier ways for enemies to attack the player.
- Little things were recreated from the Nostromo, allowing the player to be invested in the universe and story, also putting in simple details like photographs that gave the sensation to the player that this was previously inhabited by people.
- Sound, visuals and gameplay have to come together to make a truly immersive gaming experience.
- In the terms of sound, they consider it to be a very emotional and subconscious medium, that can add fear of the unknown, when leading and misleading the player.
- Although the story is linear, the core values of the game are non linear. Which made it problematic to the sound design team to make the sound and music adapt to these dynamic situations.
- To create the score, they licenced the themes of Jerry Goldsmith, using the thematic material of the songs to make a soundtrack that was 120+ minutes long (quite long for a game), by expanding themes and motifs.
- This is the first recording session they did. They even hired people who played in the original orchestra for the film.
- However, due to the dynamic situations of the player, enemies and the alien (the awareness of each other, the distance between them, amount of sound made), they couldn't have a static score, so they created a "Context Driven Sound Engine". Example of the dynamic score. This not only applies to the soundtrack, but also to environmental sounds, so the game will change the mix of the sounds to make a bigger emphasis for the player, such as the alien footsteps, all without making it obvious, but enough to make the player feel anxious.
- To maintain authenticity, Fox sent them digitalized sound effects. Can you recognize this one?
- Gameplay of start of the game. They say it doesn't have spoilers, but I don't want to watch it, so do it at your own risk.
Q&A done:
- The VR demo they've been doing is a prototype, they need to "go back to the studio and see where they're taking it next".
- Previous Alien(s) games focused on the James Cameron experience, marines and killing, but none were what CA wanted, which was survival and minute to minute choices to not die.
- Question: "For me, the last game, Colonial Marines was a huge letdown, what kind of pressure did you feel?"
Answer: We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, we don't need anyone else's pressure *chuckles*, because this game came from us, this is the kind of game we want to make, we have very high standards. We put ourselves very demanding goals, and I think that was the most important goal for us. We started this game 4 years ago, before Colonial Marines came out, and we were just super focused on our goals the whole time. And we did hear the comments on it when it came out, people wanting a scarier Alien game, where one alien is super terrifying, so there was an audience out there for the experience we were making. That was good to know.
- They had 3TB of pictures, sounds and videos early on in development.
Also:
I was watching speedrunners and other pros trying to play the Alien Isolation challenge mode at EGX, and even though they've given it many tries, the AI is still unpredictable so it's glorious to see them die on best laid plans:
Alien: Isolation - Let's Play LIVE - EGX 2014
The QA at Creative Assembly mentions at 33:30 that the alien gets used to your distractions so if you use the flare again it will look for the source from where it was thrown i.e. YOU
Thanks, Fool!
