Alien Isolation 2 Seems To Be Hiding A Secret About Its Main Character

[00:00] So I played 20 minutes of Alien Isolation 2 today with a story that features a new playable character,

[00:17] a setting in a place that I don't think I've ever seen in an alien story before, and an alien xenomorph that is as terrifying as I remember.

[00:30] So Amanda Ripley, who was the character in the first Alien Isolation game, she is referenced initially in Alien Isolation 2, but you don't play as her anymore, which I find really interesting

[00:42] because we're kind of left wondering what happened to her. Here she is narrating the intro, the apparent intro to Alien Isolation 2, but then we're not playing as her anymore. We're playing as a new character who's named Blake.

[00:55] She's with two other people, and they're investigating a derelict ship, which is, you know, classic alien story bait, of course. Yes.

[01:07] I understand. What I really like about the setup to this, besides the fact that Amanda may or may not be out there, I kind of feel like we'll see her later, but for now she's a fun mystery. But the mystery that I like even better than that

[01:20] is that the ship that you find your co I guess they are talk about how they don recognize it at all they don even want to enter it which as we know from the Alien movies is pretty smart to not behave too hastily

[01:33] To them, they've never seen this type of ship before. I think they are hinting to me as the player that this ship should be familiar. Frankly, it's been over a decade. It's not all that familiar to me. But I find myself pulled into that mystery of,

[01:47] who are these new people? Why are they there in the first place? because when they find the ship, this is them going off mission, essentially. You know, is this related to Amanda? How quickly will we see her again? What kind of state is she in when we find her?

[01:59] If we find her, again, I think we'll probably find her. I don't think they just brought her back for the narration at the beginning, but it's all very interesting to me. I didn't learn a ton about who Blake is yet as the main character.

[02:11] I kind of have a theory that maybe Blake dies quickly and we switch to Amanda. That's totally based on nothing. I just feel like that'd be kind of a clever intro for the game. We'll see if I get that right or not. I'm also really intrigued by the setting for this, at least in the setup.

[02:25] I don't know where it's going to go. The first game was pretty long. Some people actually thought it was over long. Where it starts is really interesting. You actually end up in the woods, as we saw in the trailer a little bit.

[02:37] I just really like that because it, other than like some weird vines that wrap around the trees, it kind of just looks like trees on earth. I'm not saying it is on earth. I quite sure it isn But it was just very weird for an Alien game to start me in the woods walking through these misty moonlit trees and immediately you don know if you safe or not in that environment

[03:01] Yeah, it was just a really different place to see an alien game set. I hope, because eventually my demo threw me into a ship that was more familiar and was built on that retro futuristic tech that we know and tie to the series so much.

[03:15] I hope we get to spend more time in the woods because, or even just, you know, any other places that feel fresh. To me, that's a good way to get us back, but also to introduce us to something new because it's been 12 years.

[03:28] They are playing off the old game, but they've got to think of new ways to get us invested in this, new ways to scare us. And I just think to get us out of these, like, pale white ships, as cool as they are,

[03:40] as much as I love them, as iconic as they've been for 50 years now, I just think it would be really clever of them to bring us to some places that not alien earth not alien any of the sequels like bring us to someplace new and right away the intro to what i played today felt new of course i shouldn't stop

[03:58] talking about alien isolation 2 without also talking about the alien the xenomorph the alien in this game is as scary as i remember and i say that very pointedly because one yes the alien was

[04:13] very scary in the first game I loved how it would go off script You could never quite predict where it was going to be next It would climb in the vents It would climb above you beneath you It would react to every little screw up you had. I love that. And all that is back. But my demo was short

[04:29] enough that I'm still waiting to see if it's going beyond that. You know, I'd like, I'm hoping to talk to the team soon. I want to find out how the alien's like AI pathing has been advanced in these 12

[04:41] years, you know, because my guess is they brought this back and tech is going to allow it to be scarier. And I definitely was creeped out to that. I died three times sneaking around to this thing.

[04:53] I didn't know my way around. And in the end, it was funny. I actually was overthinking so much that the solution that was kind of right in front of me, I was like circumventing it because I was so scared. And I figured like I just had to get everything just right or else I was going to die.

[05:08] and in fact a couple times I did die, not realizing that the solution to my problems was like plainer than I was giving it credit for. I'm sure any devs behind me watching me were probably laughing because they saw me essentially do half of the puzzle that I needed to get the heck out of there

[05:24] and then I just kept walking into my death a couple times. But yes, the alien is back. The alien is unscripted again. I'm hoping that scripting is more advanced. I can't wait to play more. And that's what I saw of Alien Isolation 2 at Summer Game Fest 2026.

[05:38] For more on this scary upcoming horror game, head to GameSpot.com.