The Alien: Isolation Digital Series offers a sequence of seven episodes made up of 20th Century Fox’s editing mixture of the 2014 title of the same name. While on first impressions, that may sound a little disappointing, there are reasons for those who played the game fours years ago to return and enjoy the series.
Alien: Isolation Digital Series is no simple claptrap mashup of wonky cutscenes glued together from end to end. 20th Century Fox has pitched the series to fans as offering a new angle on Amanda Ripley's story. While the footage its audience sees is entirely from the game itself (meaning you’ll still have to endure SEGA's awfully wonky lip sync), Amanda Ripley’s voice actress, Andrea Deck is returning to reprise a narrative role in the series. Unfortunately, the only place to watch the series is either on YouTube or IGN as the Internet Games Network has played host to the show. That means the pesky IGN watermark is here to stay. Who knows… perhaps it’ll end up on Netflix in a year or so.
Curiously, given the surprise nature of this series drop, neither Sega nor 20th Century Fox has given any context around why this series exists or why the effort was put in. Is it an appetiser course in an attempt to turn disillusioned gamers to their mobile devices to play the disappointing Blackout mobile sequel? Or could it be the precursor to something more?
For those who missed out on Alien: Isolation back in 2014, the game is set between the events of the first two Alien films. Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda is approached by The Company, looking for answers about the Nostromo’s disappearance. Keen for closure about her mother’s fate, Amanda joins the investigative crew and of course, as is Alien tradition, things go south pretty quickly. If anything, this Digital Series should serve as a strong reminder to survival horror fans that, if they haven’t played Alien: Isolation yet, it’s better to be four years late than to never show up at all.
Just to get you started, here's episode one!
