On 12th February 2014, an event hosted by Develop, called An Audience with …. Alien Isolation was held. The event, which was held in Soho, gave fans the opportunity to get the low down on the latest Alien game heading to PC and consoles.
Developers, Creative Assembly, showcased the project they had been working so hard on and discussed how they intended to bring the popular sci-fi franchise to life.
The audience were treated to a behind the scenes look at development and were also allowed a Q&A session, about anything related to the game.
Here is the lowdown on what what was revealed:
THE VISION
What was made clear was that Creative Assembly want to make a game based on the atmosphere and visual style of the original film, directed by Ridley Scott, in 1979.
20th Century Fox, who produced the original film, have bought into Creative Assembly’s vision and have provided Them with three terabytes of behind the scenes photos, videos and assets of the movie to help Creative Assembly authentically recreate the atmosphere of the original.They also included notes on props and work-in-progress set design to help give an insight to how the sets were constructed.“It was a proper gold mine. We saw angles of things we’d never seen before,” said lead UI artist John McKellan.
Lead UI Artist, Jon McKellan talks Alien™ film inspirations in the game.
One of the ways they have managed to capture the era’s filming imagery was to record some in-game videos in VHS and Betamax. So rather than try to spend time, money and resources on modern digital techniques, that would still look too modern, they opted to dig out some old video recorders and even some old Betamax machines to give that truly retro feel. After all what can look more like an old video, than an old video? The team created the initial animations – company logos, for example – on computers. Some of the video-style artifacts like wobbly lines were added during this initial stage, but all animations were then converted to movie files that could be put onto VHS. Then, they filmed those sequences playing on an old curvy portable TV, messing around with the tracking settings as they did so and experimenting with different types of distortion.
“It was a lot of fun being in a dark room doing this stuff,” said lead UI artist John McKellan. “We looked back at the footage and thought ‘wow, that looks awful – we’ve nailed it’.” In fact, the entire user interface has been inspired by worn out VHS footage, with menus and maps flickering while players view them.
The HUD is very minimalistic to try to fabricate that authentic feel and immerse the player in the world, Creative Assembly were keen to reduce the clutter on the screen. Your usual HUD often displays health or a radar. Here they have opted to use tangible items, such as the motion tracker, to display the Alien’s location and keep the amount of game information that is permanently on screen to a minimum.
All elements are displayed in a way that keeps them ‘in world’, and even tie in with that retro distorted video aesthetic the team explained. For example, the health bar appears similar to the battery indicator from a video camera.“Tools are lo-fi, not only in aesthetic terms, but in game play too. The motion tracker isn’t an advanced HUD element with magic capabilities, it’s a clunky box that feels broken and has to be aimed. It’s an active UI element rather than passive – the player has to use the tool” said Jon McKellan, lead UI artist.
Creative Assembly has put a lot of work into recreating the original film’s setting and feel, right down to the late 70’s vision of what the future would look like. Unlike many other Sci Fi games, there will be a shortage of weapons available. You will not be able to just pick up a laser gun, a rocket launcher or light saber. Alien: Isolation will offer a lo-fi vision of the future with clunky machinery, such as that motion tracker. As Clive Lindop says, “technology will not save you”, colourfully describing the Alien universe as “more at the council estate end” of sci-fi. “While high sci-fi gives you a handsome Han Solo or phasers in Star Trek, the motion tracker doesn’t give you an edge. Technology will not save you. There is no magic weapon that has ‘I Win’ written on it that will save you.”
Determined to stay true to the look and feel of the original Alien film, as well as other notable ‘70’s sci-fi flicks’, the Creative Assembly team chose to use techniques used by the Hollywood studios 40 years ago. Concept art was designed in the style of two of the most influential artists, Ron Cobb and French artist Moebius, these were key to the look of the first movie.
Inspiration from original Ron Cobb concepts.
Life size sets from Alien were recreated using blueprints provided by 20th Century Fox. Once this was completed, the team dissected different aspects of each set – such as furniture, panels, doors, – and used them to make a style guide, that they would replicate when creating levels for Alien: Isolation. Creative Assembly also utilised the old Hollywood technique of ‘kit bashing’: this comprises of breaking up pieces of everyday objects such as radios, toasters and so on, bodging them together and giving them a new paint job to make them look like a futuristic tool. True to the team’s ethos they limited themselves to only using objects that were made before 1979, for that extra level of authenticity.
THE ALIEN
Just like in the original film you may not see the alien as much as you think. Lead game designer Gary Napper pointed out that in the original film, the alien is only on-screen for roughly three minutes of its 117-minute run-time. “There’s a reason you only see the alien for three minutes in the film. It’s not because it was a guy in a rubber suit, it’s because it was really scary,” said Napper. I agree sometimes just thinking your foe is present, when it may not be, is psychologically terrifying.
The alien will be using an in depth AI system. Every encounter should be different. “Something we learned very early on is we couldn’t make an enemy that was scripted,” said lead gameplay designer Gary Napper. “We needed something that would be different every time you played it. You’re going to die a lot, which means restarting a lot, and if the alien was scripted, you’d see the same behaviour. That makes the alien become predicatable, and a lot less scary.” The Xenomorph needs to adjusts its tactics based on the situation. Each meeting will end one of two ways: either the player will die, or the alien will retreat. If it’s the beast opts to back off, the player will have learned from that encounter but so will the Alien. If the player defends themselves in a similar way to a previous encounter, this will alter how the alien reacts as he will know what to expect and change its strategy accordingly, so trying the same tactic to fend off the Alien won’t always work. It may even try to use your tactics against you by setting a trap against you later in the game.
The Alien’s AI is armed not to focus solely on the player. If it hears a noise or sees an object move it will understand that things don’t just happen on their own and will look to investigate the cause of the abnormally.“The Alien perceives secondary sources,” said lead designer Clive Lindop. “When you fire an air lock, the Alien will think that’s unusual. If it sees a locker open but not you, it will still wonder why the door opened. That doesn’t just happen on its own.”
Obviously they didn’t want the alien to appear like a man in a rubber suit: the beast needs to be believable and its movement needed to be realistic for each encounter. Between 70 and 80 sets of animation were made for various sequences the Xenomorph might be in such as crawling, hiding, running, attacking, stalking its prey. Crucially, the head layer of the Alien has separate sets of animation, something that was very important to the Alien: Isolation team.“The fact that the head turns and looks at you was a massive thing for us,” says Napper. “We wanted players to understand the alien’s intentions by the way it’s moving or by its expression – but of course the alien doesn’t really have a expression. So physical movement was very important to communicating the alien’s behaviour.”
AUDIO
The team has focused on the Alien’s sounds itself rather than music to tell the player what its intentions are. As Lindop says, a lot of the audio cues from the original film are now well known, and they must ensure the game’s music doesn’t ruin the tension and immersion.“You have to have a lot of very carefully planned dynamic audio layers. If you pump it out too much, you’re saying to the player ‘hello, he’s over there!’ So we had to be really careful with that,” said Lindop. If you pay close attention to the sounds coming from the Alien’s you will learn a lot. As the Xenomorph will express its feelings to the player through the noises it makes. In the event of planned attack an hysterical scream will emitted, while a totally different sound can be heard if it’s looking for you or seen something else of interest.
Creative Assembly were given access to the original soundtrack, by 20th Century Fox. The team re-recorded several of the original cues with a full orchestra, including some of the musicians that worked on the first film’s soundtrack.“The trouble is the soundtrack is so well known that people will know exactly what each cue means,” explained Lindop. “So we created new score elements that sit within this score system. We had to layer it carefully – if your survival is based on what you hear, hearing the strings section at Shepperton is really not that helpful.” Do not be fooled as the music is based on what the player sees, not what the Xenomorph is doing. “We didn’t want players to use the music as an alien detector,” Napper said.
THE GAME
A new engine had to be created from scratch so the new technology, enabling both the atmospheric styling and Xenomorph’s behavioural design could be used. The level designers were also able to efficiently make new environments out of a bank of modular assets – doors, chairs, tables, panels and so on – based on the ‘70s style guide.“Building a new engine is a really scary thing to do but it allowed us to build the technology around what we wanted to do,” McKellan explained. “The lighting behaves the way we want it to, for example.”
Creative Assembly has built its own version of the famous motion tracker device. The tracker, just the same as in the film, will still only show the Alien’s proximity, and not its actual location, so the Alien could be in the ventilation ducts, hiding or under the floor. If the Alien stops moving, the player will not be able to see it on the display. Whilst the device is being used, you are likely to lose focus on the surroundings. The team said it wanted to make sure the device functioned in a believable way. to create an immersive feel vital to the survival horror genre.
Alien: Isolation, players will encounter computers and other devices that they can hack to access information or trigger in-game actions. It’s a common gameplay mechanic these days, but the developers faced a slight problem.“Hacking wasn’t a thing in the ‘70s, there was nothing to hack,” McKellan said. “So we had to come up with something different”.Taking inspiration from the VHS-style presentation of the game, the team focused on the idea of signal tracking. Players will tune into a computer’s signal, selecting icons on their gadget’s screen, which retains that retro flicker and distortion. This way Creative Assembly are able to introduce something gamers are used to without it feeling out of place in the Alien world. “If your survival is based on what you hear, hearing the strings section at Shepperton is really not that helpful”. Clive Lindop, lead designer.
Creative Assembly didn’t go into too many details, but there were references in the presentation to a system that would allow crafting of your own weapons and defensive tools, out of objects they find around Sevastopol Station. Players will also have ‘abilities’ that can be used to either evade or scare off the alien. Here once again the Alien’s AI will kick in. The alien will be able to learn what players can do with each item, enabling a counter attack to be performed if the same tool has been used in a previous encounter. The objects are never in the same place. So just because you find a hand piece of equipment, it doesn’t mean it will be in the same place for anybody else. This will create a truly unique experience for anybody playing the game.
The environments needed to be large enough for the Xenomorph to stalk through and attack from any angle, while also giving players a possible means of escape. So, level designers opted to create environments with no closed off areas, no linear corridors, nowhere for players to be inescapably trapped. The result is a lot of open areas, with multiple entry and exit points to every room. This also creates alternative routes for both the player and the Alien to use. There are also lockers to hide in. “Sometimes it’s best to hide,” recommended McKellan.
To reduce the chances of players becoming frustrated with losing their progress Alien: Isolation is built on a checkpoint system to save the player’s progress. This will also ensure the player isn’t thrown straight into the Alien’s path upon reload; the game will also cleverly check the whereabouts of the player and Alien and decide a suitable time to save. Frequency of saves will be different with the length between checkpoints being longer.“We’ve tried to make sure it’s quite forgiving,” said Napper.
“And yes there will be blood, acid blood” Napper teased at the end of the presentation, that the Alien’s iconic acid blood would would be back, and be a part of the game’s mechanics. Not much detail on the matter was discussed, but said there would be more information revealed on how the Alien’s special blood will play in the game during the coming months.
Despite its lack of screen time and perhaps true characteristics of being slow and attacking characters when they aren’t looking (Unlike in its sequels), the viewers’ takeaway was still often of an imposing, aggressive, intelligent, unpredictable and ruthless monster. It’s building up to that perception through the game’s world that Creative Assembly is looking to recreate.
More photos and content are available from the Alien Isolation Facebook page.
Alien: Isolation is due for release on Xbox One and Xbox 360 in late 2014.
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