Crafted items won’t last long in Alien: Isolation

Who’s afraid of the big bad Xenomorph? I am, holy double-mouth kiss of death, I am! As far as movie monsters go, the Xenomorph is best used when it follows the Stormtrooper rule. Namely, the fewer there are, the more exponentially dangerous they become. And when you’re facing just one of them in Alien: Isolation, you’re going to need to craft for your life.

Speaking to OPM, lead designer Gary Napper explained how players would need to constantly MacGyver new ways to stay alive. “We have a crafting system in the game. You find things in the environment and you can craft devices and things to use to defend yourself,”  Napper said.

If you can imagine being stuck in this massive space station, what you would scavenge and find to defend yourself is our direction, and what we’ve tried to create with a lot of the abilities. Finding something you can use, it might work as a once off, and you’re like ‘yes’ and the next time it might not work as well.

Slowly you suddenly realise that this thing is learning from you and adapting to how you play.

Of course, video game logic dictates that even the burnt out husk of a circus clown when combined with used chewing gum and duct tape can result in a flamethrower, but Napper says that Isolation will take a far more grounded approach when crafting up weapons:

It’s about scavenging and finding things you can imagine to be in that environment, small fire arms and stuff like that you can craft basic rudimentary devices from. We’re not giving you plasma rifles, launchers and electric guns and stuff like that. It needs to stay within that chunky realm of believability.

Alien: Isolation is shaping up nicely so far as a proper space-terror game. And by the time it rolls around, I’ll hopefully have enough skill in constructing a spare pair of clean pants from toilet paper and community newspapers.

Last Updated: February 6, 2014