I’ve been replaying Alien: Isolation lately, and I’m really noticing the visual and sound design this time around.

I love this room in particular:

If you haven’t heard of it, Alien: Isolation is a game about, well, being scared. There’s a scary alien running around who wants to eat you. There are scary malfunctioning robots who want to beat you up. And there are scary humans who think you’re another scary human who wants to steal their stuff. A lot of the game involves you sneaking around and watching out for bad guys.

And this is a scary, scary room in which to do that.

On the right side of the video here you can see all these shadows moving about the room making it feel a bit dizzying. It’s just a little bit harder than usual to tell what’s going on and see who might be hiding behind a box or around a corner.

And what I love about this is the simplicity of it. On the right side of the video, you can see that there are oddly shaped, spinning bits of debris just outside the window, moving right to left. And they just repeat over and over. If you stare out the window they don’t really make a lot of sense when you think about them, this endless parade of identical bits of debris. But they work so well. I would never have thought to add a detail like this to add more atmosphere to a room.

But, now, I will. 🙂