Performance Analysis: Alien: Isolation

[Administrator]

Right now we're still working on delivering a full-face off of Alien: Isolation - including coverage of the PC game - but an initial hands-on with the first few hours of the game on PS4 and Xbox One turns out to be quite revealing. Graphical quality is generally excellent on both console platforms as we explore the terrorised Sevastopol space station, but it's clear that performance is the clear differentiating factor.
The first few hours in Alien: Isolation are slow-burning, featuring little interaction with the titular xenomorph, but the game works beautifully in generating a foreboding atmosphere, with an escalating sense of horror as things quickly start to fall apart. The use of ambient sound, dynamic lighting and layers of post-processing including depth of field, motion blur, chromatic aberration and film grain, all help to replicate the gritty aesthetic of the first Alien movie, generating an air of uneasiness when exploring new locations.
This heady combination also provides some great scares, too: the rumble of falling objects in the distance, screams of people suffering a horrifying death, and the brief flashes of shadows cast by emergency lighting are distinctly unnerving when the threat of the Alien is never far away.
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