The upcoming movie Alien Romulus looks set to take the Alien series back to its truly terrifying roots, albeit on a much larger scale, and with lots more facehuggers too. Director Fede Alvarez, who was also responsible for the terrifying Evil Dead remake and incredibly tense home invasion thriller, Don’t Breathe, seems to be the safest pair of hands to right the ship that’s been drifting in the void for years.
Given that Alien Romulus is set during the 57-year gap in the timeline between the original, 1979 movie Alien and James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens, it stands to reason that the film’s aesthetic would more closely adhere to the lo-fi, worn technology look of the first movie. Which, given what we’ve seen of Alien Romulus in its trailers, is definitely something it does well, and that’s something it happens to have in common with Sega’s fantastic Alien Isolation game, which is set during that same time gap.
Releasing in 2014 (yes, it’s now 10 years old!) to enormous critical acclaim (though its commercial performance didn’t reach Sega’s expectations, unfortunately), Alien Isolation sees you cast in the role of Amanda Ripley, who’s been searching for her mother, Ellen Ripley. Unbeknownst to Amanda, her mother is drifting in space after escaping a xenomorph that killed the rest of her crew; the elder Ripley won’t be discovered for decades at that point, but the xenomorphs themselves are perhaps a little more widespread in the galaxy than us viewers first thought, and that’s something that Amanda discovers over the course of the game.
It’s a smart, cleverly designed survival horror game (which we’ve featured on our best PS4 horror games list), with a truly terrifying xenomorph as the main antagonist, and it’s a creature you can’t overpower; instead, you’re forced to hide from it and stay quiet as it hunts you down throughout the run down Sevastopol space station. It’s a creature that’s so deadly and relentless that it can even kill you while you’re saving your game, which takes place in a satisfyingly clunky and analogue way, with you manually using one of the station’s wall-mounted telephone terminals.
It takes a few seconds for you to enter your card and for the game’s save to register; it’s a deliberately slow process that adds tension and can leave you exposed for long enough that you’ll hear the xenomorph bearing down on you, with no hope of escape.
With Alien Isolation so effectively bringing that tension and fear back to the Alien franchise, albeit in video game form, and with such a close adherence to the retro-futuristic technology of the original film, it seems clear that Fede Alvarez is going for a similar aesthetic and ambience, and his latest glimpse at the movie shows how he’s paying tribute to what’s become a hugely influential, highly respected piece of Alien’s overall mythology.
On X, Alvarez posted, “If while watching #AlienRomulus, you see one of these (and there are many…) what do you think it means?” Accompanying this message was a photo of what is clearly a save station from Alien Isolation:
It’s not the first time that we’ve seen this appear in Alien Romulus either; check out what’s tantalisingly lurking in the background of this photo that was shared on Alien Day (that’s the 26th of April, or 4/26, which is a reference to the planet in Aliens, LV-426). Just in case you still can’t pick it out in the background, we’ve handily used a massive arrow so you can’t miss it:
With these teases and tantalising links to Alien Isolation, naturally, there’s speculation as to whether or not we might see other elements from the game appear. Could we see Working Joes, for example? How about references to Seegson, the struggling corporation that owns Sevastopol station, where the majority of the game takes place? Could we even see one or more of the game’s characters appear?
It’s all very exciting, and given that Alien Romulus is due for release in August, there’s not long to wait in order to find out. In the meantime, check out this Alien Isolation forum question we discovered on Steam, in which a user named ‘Fede’ asks for some assistance with the game’s save stations:
Is it a coincidence that Fede shares a name with the director of Alien Romulus, and shows interest in how the save stations work? Could this be the director himself, nine years ago, playing in the Alien sandbox digitally, before getting his hands on the franchise for real? It’s doubtful, of course, but it’s fun to speculate over each Alien Isolation Easter Egg and add them to the pile!
