Encounters in Alien: Isolation can last ‘well over’ 30 minutes

Encounters with the dreaded xenomorph in Alien: Isolation can last "well over" thirty minutes at times, developer Creative Assembly has revealed.

"Depending on how cautious players are, we've seen encounters in Alien: Isolation last well over thirty minutes in some cases," said designer Gary Napper in a new dev diary focused on "Creating the Alien." Though the primary focus of the video was on creating an alien in which you "never feel safe" from, I found it particularly interesting that encounters can actually last this long.

"And this just can't be done with scripted behavior," added Napper. "As soon as the player can predict a pattern in the alien it stops being scary. It doesn't' follow any prescribed path or set of behaviors that are telling it to do specific things. It's just reacting to the player's presence and the choices that the player makes."

"The alien really is hunting," designer Clive Lindop chimed in. "He's using active senses and moment to moment decision making to hunt you down and kill you."

Check out the full behind-the-scenes dev diary here.