The recent revelation of the mobile game Alien: Blackout (pictured below) seems to have upset some of the fans of the Alien franchise. Aside from the games platform, which while being the video games industries widest reaching market, is widely scorned by players due to excessive use of pay-to-win microtransactions, one of the main reasons for the negative fan reaction to Alien: Blackout is that it uses components and assets taken from the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation, while not being an actual sequel to said game. This has created the somewhat misguided hype that a sequel to Alien: Isolation was in development. To clarify the situation TQ Jefferson, VP of External Development at FoxNext reached out to Variety, promising fans more stories based around Alien: Isolation and Alien: Blackout protagonist Amanda Ripley, while stating that Alien: Isolation 2 is not in development.
Although there is another video game set within the Alien franchise being developed by Cold Iron Studios, a division of FoxNext Games, it will be an FPS (First Person Shooter) with a heavy focus on its online functionality; AKA an online shooter, and as such will not be a sequel to Alien: Isolation. While this untitled online shooter may yet prove to be a good game, it sadly will not feed the Alien fanbase's desire for a non-mobile sequel to Alien: Isolation, which leaves us with the inevitable question of when fans can expect to see Alien Isolation 2.
Sadly the answer is a blunt and cold NEVER. Although fondly remembered for its fear-inducing confrontations with the Xenomorph and the games amazing level of detail seen in the game's assets which looked as though they were lifted from the set of the first two Alien movies, commercially Alien: Isolation was not as successful as hoped, reportedly selling only 2.1 million copies in the US and Europe by March 2015. Critically the game fared little better, with many reviewers criticizing the lack of confrontations with the Xenomorph, the game's overuse of backtracking and the characterization of the games cast. Additionally, it was revealed in 2017 that most of the team that worked on Alien: Isolation had since left developer Creative Assembly for pastures new, meaning that even if Creative Assembly could re-acquire the license allowing them to develop a new Alien video game, it is highly unlikely they would be unable to recapture what little of Alien: Isolation the fans liked. This means that, while it was reported recently that Creative Assembly was working on a first-person tactical shooter based on a new intellectual property (other than their Total War series), the likelihood of it being an Alien game are thin, and the chances of it being Alien: Isolation 2 is even thinner.
The sad fact is that Alien: Isolation 2 will never happen, at least not directly and not in the near future. However, it is possible that another developer could create a spiritual successor to Alien: Isolation as we here at Scified have highlighted previously with the proposals for Aliens: The Fall of Hadley's Hope and Alien: Hope for the Future. Some (likely FoxNext) could argue that Alien: Blackout is that title if it was not for the divide between mobile gaming and console/PC gaming.
Another possibility would be for a spiritual successor to Alien: Isolation to use a new property, similar to how Rareware developed the amazing Nintendo 64 title Perfect Dark, which was vastly superior to its more fondly remembered predecessor, Goldeneye 64. As for the continuation of Amanda Ripley's story (outside of Alien: Blackout), so far this only exists in the 2018 comic book Aliens: Resistance by Dark Horse Comics.
Sadly the fate of Alien: Isolation is one that is being echoed throughout the video gaming industry. Although Epic Games is enjoying great success with Fortnite, most of the developers that fortified the companies position over the years with Unreal Tournament and Gears of War have since left Epic Games, with some such as Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Ferguson starting their own companies. For other, once prolific video games developers such as Maxis, Lucasarts, Westwood, and Visceral Games, they have been dissolved and scattered by bigger companies (such as EA), with the teams responsible for the development of some of our fondly remembered games forever lost. However, there is a small glimmer of hope courtesy of the recently released Darksiders III, which although developed by new developer Gunfire Games, the development team is composed of most of the same team once employed by Vigil Games (who developed Darksiders I & Darksiders II).
Could the team once responsible for Alien: Isolation reform and build upon what players and the Alien fanbase loved about Alien: Isolation? Only time will tell.
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