Alien: Isolation sequel is unlikely to happen

To date, it has sold 2.11m copies but apparently that's not enough for investors to care, full story to follow...

It seems even more unlikely that we’ll be getting a sequel to Alien Isolation any time soon. Back in May 2015, we heard that Alien Isolation had shifted 2.11 million copies in North America and Europe and Sega was reportedly disappointed with the sales performance. In a new interview with GameIndustry.biz, Creative Assembly’s studio director, Tim Heaton, discussed taking on Microsoft’s new Halo Wars game and the subject of Alien Isolation 2 popped up. Heaton explained a sequel is not out of the question but again, laments the so-so sales figures and says it would be hard to make a profit out of a sequel.

“2.1 million sales? It just didn’t break out…, Am I happy about that? I’m not happy about that, right. I think it did under-index in America. I think the genre just didn’t shine with an audience that would let us break out. 2 million is fine, right – let’s be clear – but we were unsure right till the very end about whether we would hit that break out space or not. Making a AAA console game is bloody hard. We absolutely sweated blood for that game, we came through, and felt really happy at the end of it. Alien: Isolation 2 is not out of the question, because we’re so proud of it and there’s possibly more to be said. But do we really want to be spending very significant amounts of money, and getting close to break-even or just about in the black? That’s not where Sega wants to be, when we have a brilliant portfolio of other games that do great business.”

Not bad sales for a game in such a genre and with an incredibly risky core gameplay idea.

http://www.avpgalaxy.net/2015/10/04/alien-isolation-2-seems-unlikely-says-creative-assembly/

Alien: Isolation is my favourite game of the generation so far (still). I supported the devs by buying its season pass as well. I don't know about you, though.

What a pity...

I'm actually not sad about that. The first game was good, bloated, and had no business being a 20 hour game because most of the climactic moments of the 2nd half are actually quite poor, the story is trash, and the main character was abysmal. But the game works as a one off, as its own thing. A sequel probably would have had people wanting it to go more Aliens than Alien, and frankly Alien is, was, and always has been the vastly superior film.

I rather see something new, way too many sequels as it is.

Either way another article that highlights what sucks about the triple A space. 2 million in sales can't warrant a sequel for some projects and is breaking even or barely in the black. That's not sustainable.

Don't see what a sequel could have added or done better anyway, I'm ok with it just being a great standalone game rather than being a "franchise".

Sales weren't too bad. I'll still check it out on the cheap somewhere down the road. Just wasn't worth $60 for me. I actually wasn't expecting any sequel for this game.

Why isn't it sustainable? Do you mean for a developer, or for the industry as a whole?

2.11 million copies with or without digital included? Right now it is dirt cheap on Live and I'm sure someone is purchasing it. Besides, it is marked down at retail so I'm sure those numbers will bloat. We'll get a sequel. Eventually.

Industry as a whole.

It absolutely isn't sustainable, we're down to 4 major western publishers right now? 5? We had more. The Japanese space is what it is, and anyone pretending we're not going to see another big closure in the next few years is on crack. Especially with the lack of fresh ideas, you run the gambit of your market eventually getting tired of your shit no matter how much you market that thing.

The alternatives are doing smaller projects (Obsidian went that route, because they could). EA physically can't in a lot of ways, and chances are with them it'll be more franchises and specifically the safe ones.

I loved what they were -trying- to do and yes, they nailed the atmosphere. The game truly is tense, I like the premise (Amanda Ripley looking for her mom is a cool setup for a game that takes place between Alien and Aliens), the graphics and sound design were top notch, and it was even pretty cool on the Oculus even though the support wasn't really finished. However, the pacing was horrible. There were so many points where I had to replay 10 or 20 times to get through. They made the Alien "work" much like it would in real life, but that didn't translate out to very fun gameplay in practice (even for a horror game).

I'm sad that it probably won't get a sequel, though, because I would have liked to have seen them refine this formula. A game that looked and sounded like Alien Isolation but played like Amnesia would have been awesome.

-Byshop

@jg4xchamp: Isn't that just competition though? I know sales don't equal quality, but isn't it basically a case of "get good", or else move to smaller projects where they can compete? Not everyone needs to be trying to compete on the same level as say Rockstar.

That is kind of sad

On some level sure, but the other side of the equation is that in this space it costs way too much money to make a game.

And then you need to market it as well (which tends to be a very expensive thing) if you want any chance of making your money back. From Software, Obsidian, and Platinum don't need to compete with Rockstar. In theory Microsoft and Sony's studios don't need to either (but hey considering how many studios Sony and Microsoft closed last gen, I would say that's a bit of a fallacy), but EA? Who has share holders and has basically gorged themselves on assloads of money and made themselves this juggernaut that they are today.

They can't just go and do smaller projects, they need their big projects to deliver. Activision would be in the same boat. Ubisoft and Take 2 are in a similar position. Now, all of them are making money, and all of them have IP's that draw big, my question is are they in a position a major **** up or two, or worse a market that gets tired of their shtick. Because between the 4 of them, what's the freshest idea they came up with this gen so far? Throw Warner into the equation, and it's not a game, it's the nemesis system between 5 big time publishers.

I like the indie space and middle market we have on the PC as much as the next guy, but in this medium, you sort of need all 3 pillars, and that Triple A space needs some retooling.

That's okay.

They would likely ruin it somehow.

The game was amazing, my personal game of the year last year. I don't mind that it probably wont get a sequel, I just want the A.I tech to be used in more games. Also, get those sound guys working on more games, best sound I've heard from a video game.

Kind of expected though. Sega only had rights to make three "Alien" games and which were used on (AvP, Colonial Marines, and Isolation). To make more, they would need an extension.

I loved Isolation from start to finish (although it got way to easy after you learned the Alien's pathing method and you had methods to combat it). Would love to see another but yeah.

Maybe if they launched it as medium budget game? But why spend a lot of money on getting the Alien rights extension when you spend less on the actual game.

The game as a whole is not very good. The first few hours are great, but it quickly loses its appeal after that.

Don't forget the fact that these publishers and developers are sinking more and more money to each new project.. Getting to the point that these games are becoming too big to fail for the company.. These devs need to be taking some pointers from Blizzard, a company that not only has put time into big block buster games but has shown that even small games (like Hearthstone, which was developed by a group of small people), can be a massive success.. This has become a plague in many industries in which these professional CEO's and executives with absolutely no real experience in the industry, are hired in, and they treat it like a regular retail service in going for the bottom line.. It is why we saw these massive flood of mobile games come out of no where due to the success of Clash of Clans and Candy Crush, these jackasses saw money signs and jumped on it.

They should make a predator stealth game.

2 million seems like quite a lot considering the type of game it is and the lack of money put into promoting it.

Not everything needs a sequel.

Part of the problem is the push for realism, games need to do their own thing and not mimic movies, and not try and get every skin pore just right. Not that there's anything wrong with a realistic looking game (RE4 clearly went that route, the cube just didn't have the power to bankrupt them).

The next Zelda isn't going to cost as much to make as the witcher 3 because of its style.

But these publishers won't take a step back and think, they're going to continue to run the industry into the ground.

That's a shame. The atmosphere on the first one is easily one of the best seen in any videogame.

Doubt the formula would work a second time.

They'd probably have way more success pulling an Aliens type sequel than another single-Alien game.

Pretty much this although I would have liked a Wii U version where the motion detector was the gamepad but I thought the game was done very well.

Could they make the 2nd game with half the cost if they make the game 50% shorter? Just wonder cuz they stretched out the last part of the first game to the extreme fot its own good...

CA is pretty much solely working on some shitty Halo spin off now.

Thanks Phil.

I thought I remember Sega licensed so that so many games would be made under the arrangement, one was Alien vs Predator 3/2010, Aliens: Infestation on DS, Aliens: Colonial Marines, I think what became Alien: Isolation was one of those titles set aside as the Alien RPG being developed by Obsidian which got ditched before work began on Alien: Isolation. To make a game like that Sega would have to license the games again. They might not get a chance to just license one game but might require Sega pay a bulk of money up front for several, and honestly I'm not sure they want to do that after the disaster that everything else was. The Gearbox title was a tremendous waste of money, and Sega blew its chance to assert any legal challenge when they released it on the market as a mess. Not to forget, if anybody should make a sequel, it should be Creative Assembly, and they're up to their neck in multiple Total War games for the next few years. Yeah, it's likely not to happen, sadly.

Anyhow, just played through it again for the first time in many months and it's a great game. Which just makes thinking about this even sadder.

But hey, I guess this also means that the license is up for grabs for anybody willing to pay. Who might that be? Who do you think has the resources and the talents to do something great with this franchise? Or, who might you not want to license it but might have the means and the will to do so?

@ShadowDeathX: Well, actually there was a fourth game, Aliens Infestation - a Metroidvania-type game on Nintendo DS in 2011. I happened to finish it and it was really decent.

There was also Aliens: Crucible, an RPG from Obsidian that got scrapped in favor of continuing Colonial Marines, and the remains of the code were reworked into Alpha Protocol.

If anyone's interested I can show you 10 or so minutes of Crucible footage.

Dont think it needs a sequel. Just like the movies theres such a thing as too much of good thing.

That said, I bought the game when it was on sale on GWG last week and so far its like a tranquilizer for me. Within 15 minutes of playing it puts me to sleep. Probably because I've only tried to play it after a long day at work and my shower before bed, but man its better than Ambien for me so far lol.

@lamprey263: I hope that neither Capcom nor Konami nor Activision will grab it. Even EA would be a better candidate at this point.

Shame. Isolation was a great game and I was hoping for a sequel. Seems like big budget horror genre is indeed on death bed.

CA is pretty big studio, they can work on multiple projects at once. Right now they are working on three AAA announced projects; TW: Warhammer, Historic TW and Halo Wars 2. They can work on Isolation 2 as well. The problem is funding from publisher.

Obviously the game didn't perform as well as they expected despite being on 5 platforms. Horror genre was already on death bed, especially on Consoles and rest of the mid-tier teams were focusing exclusively on PC and making digital only games to reduce cost of the development.

Isolation was a lengthy AAA game and a true horror game that we don't see anymore. It's sad that it didn't sell well. Even if someone didn't like it, it can't be worse than the next COD that is going to make billions of dollars.

Kind of hard to gauge, because http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/13/october-2014-npd-the-evil-within-sets-records-ps4-xbox-one-still-selling-strong/

The Evil Within seems to have done decent (although across 5 platforms, similar to Isolation) and both games had mixed reviews (Evil Within more so), and one was a new ip the other was a brand that has more or less been tarnished. Plus I would argue when you're going with the smarter Alien flick and not Aliens, you're sort of setting yourself up to not sell as strong.

Will that space ever sell 10 million? **** NO, but it doesn't need to. Horror flicks don't do Avengers money, and they don't need to be good. Evil Within isn't particularly great, but it does show there is a market here. The goal needs to be a tighter budget, and really probably more of what Frictional is doing. And I look it that as a positive, the more expensive games got, the more actioney the horror games got. Alien Isolation has combat sequences in that second half, it's longer than 10 hours, when it shouldn't be, because they had to validate that 60 dollar price tag to people.

In contrast? Soma can be 8 hours, and people can go...eh its 30 bucks...and they don't need to sell to 2 million people to break even. Not only do we get less actiony horror games, but we get horror games that get back to being creative about their scares. More about pacing, tone, atmosphere, more stylized production over "look at how detailed this tree is". We'll probably never get a thing like Codemned again, but the break even point for Isolation actually has some positive things to take away from it.

It all comes down to budget. Who knows how much they spent on Evil Within and how much they spent on Isolation but it's pretty clear that they spent a lot, and it wasn't worth it because (as I said in my second comment) big budget horror is not going to do well in this age.

The successful horror games these days are made by mid-tier devs and most of them focus on PC and digital only release to reduce cost of development and it works.

That's why I don't think that we'll see bigger horror games anymore. The best thing that we are going to get are Action oriented games with big monsters. But then again, different genres have their rise and fall, may be in the future there will be demand for horror games, just like how Space Sims are pretty big these days.

Doesn't have to be an AI sequel, just make another Alien or Predator game with that engine and I'll still be happy. Anything but a Halo spin off.

So wait, wait, wait... I need to take this all in:

An industry that keeps on repeating how horror games sell like crap, thinks 2.11m for a Horror game is too low ?

Still to play much of it. I brought a PS4 but FF14 is still taking up my time.

That's too bad I love the game, I'm surprised even those sales are not considered great, I thought breaking 1mil for a horror game is considered a feat

It is, but I believe Warren Specter brought this up a year or two ago, but 2 million is likely the break even point for triple A games.

@jg4xchamp: Ah ok I see so it's because of the AAA thing.....well last year was fantastic for horror games for me I enjoyed Evil Within too and will give it another go soon via the DLC. Just finished Murdered Soul Suspect this weekend actually and quite liked it, felt it was underrated a bit. Playing Slender Man now so my horror fix is OK for the time being

Aliens is a licensed product though, Sega would have to get the license from 20th Century Fox, and they didn't just get one license with the last negotiation, but several. Now, to Sega, this is a cursed license in ways. They wasted a ton of money publishing Aliens vs Predator, tens of millions into Colonial Marines (I've heard up to $60 million) which Gearbox embezzled , they probably could have sued but they decided to release it anyways and that nullified any accountability for Gearbox, maybe the best game under the license to release before Isolation was Aliens: Infestation on the DS which was pretty good 2D Metroidvania but wasn't much of a hit commercially, out of the four games they made with the licenses they acquired Alien: Isolation was the only one to do that well both critically and commercially.

In consideration of needing to license the game, and to find a competent developer, Sega probably feels it isn't worth their time. They're also shifting publishing focus from consoles to PCs. Plus they wouldn't even fund a sequel to Bayonetta and it sold the same (though they were open to licensing it to any interested party, that was Platinum and Nintendo). If another publisher wants to come along and fund a sequel I say let them. Too bad Creative Assembly has its hands tied with Halo Wars 2 and multiple Total War releases. Maybe they could collaborate with someone like say Frictional Games, the makers of the much celebrated Amnesia games that just finished and work with a big publisher (EA/Ubisoft/Activision/etc) to help Frictional both get this game out and expand their studios and let someone obviously worthy of carrying the torch to do so.

Not sad about this. That game should have been 9 hours, not 20+. Bloated bullshit. I really enjoy horror games and I try to savor every release, but this was not a great one. Also, 2.1 million units is a very solid number, shame the production was too costly.

The game was just not that good. The suspense of the first Alien movie did not translate well to a game. You're hiding in closets and under tables for 20 hours. After a while it goes from being really scary to totally boring.

Meh, the first game was not good, and I didn't see anything great enough to warrant improvements for a sequel.

We don't need 20 hour overly padded horror games. Especially ones that play it safe with cliche modern game design.

Yeah if we forget Total War Warhammer, Total War Arena, that other F2P Total War game and Atilla DLC they are still working on...

yeah if we forget all of that than they are pretty much soleley working on one game yeah.

Just like Nintendo is only working on one game if you exclude all the other games.