Alien: Isolation trailer shows highly scientific VHS-mangling visual techniques

Pity the user interface elements of Alien: Isolation, for they have been through a terrible ordeal. Pristine, unblemished versions of the game's icons were printed onto VHS tapes, scratched, shoved into an old player, and played on an old CRT telly while the cable input was twisted. The tortured images were then ported back into the game, producing imagery suitably distorted enough to fit with the low technology of the Alien films. You can watch the results of the process in the latest developer diary, which explains some of the other techniques the Creative Assembly have used to try to capture Ridley Scott's vision of a future made out of big '70s pocket calculators.

We're looking forward to Alien: Isolation. Sam and I took on the monster at GDC this year and Chris played it back in January this year . It's a survival horror game in which you play as Ripley's daughter, fleeing one (or perhaps more, later in the game, who knows?) powerful beast with some complex hunter AI.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.