Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation is one of the best horror games ever made, but there is one major issue: its length. At almost 20 hours long for the main campaign alone, there’s a lot more game than many players expected.
Amanda Ripley’s journey through the Sevastopol, which was originally designed to be for an original Ripley-like character, feels like it’s wrapping up when it pulls its big twist. While that big twist may make you feel like you’re in for another hour or so of gameplay, you’re hit with seven or so.
In an interview on an upcoming episode of the FRVR Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more, Alien Isolation writer Dion Lay admits that the game is too long. While it seemed like the right direction at the time, the writer says that it should have been shrunk down.
“The Alien really evolved as we were making it,” Lay explains. “By the time it was perfect, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, everything takes a lot longer!’”
Alien Isolation writer Dion Lay on the game’s length
“I think it would have been hard at the time to do that [cut it down] at the time,” Lay explains. “Now, in a perfect world, yeah, I’d kind of shrink it down a bit, get down its core.”
One of the reasons why Alien Isolation’s story is so long is because of how the gameplay evolved over time. In the final version of the game, the terrifying Xenomorph learns as you play, finding new ways to hunt you. In the final version, this means that the opening third of the game is significantly longer than it was during the writing process which, in turn, makes the game drag as it approaches its finale.
“The Alien really evolved as we were making it,” Lay explains. “By the time it was perfect, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, everything takes a lot longer!’ So, it would be really nice to pair it down to its core, make it a lot shorter.”
“At the time, it didn’t seem that long,” Lay continued. “And then you suddenly go, ‘Oh my God.’ So, yeah, I’d definitely shorten it, you know. But, yeah, at the time, there was some stuff where we were like: ‘Yeah, we can’t take that out now, that would kind of upend everything.’”
Lay says the length of Alien Isolation is a “fair criticism” for fans who feel it drags on too much in its latter third, although that criticism isn’t the same for everyone. Even so, that final third has some fantastic sequences, and Lay definitely wouldn’t remove all of it for the sake of a rapid pace.
“I really like the actual ending, like the last level,” they continue. “I love when the ship is blowing up with explosions and running through that… it’s a long game!”