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Alien: Isolation 2 dev doesn't want you "on the verge of having a heart attack" playing the sequel, so "turn the music down" if you have to

August 31 - Syndicated News | 0 Comments

[img]{LINK REMOVED}[/img] {LINK REMOVED}Alien: Isolation 2 art director Ana Sopikova has one very simple piece of advice for anyone who might struggle to overcome their fear while playing what's sure to be a terrifying sequel: just crank down the music.

GamesRadar+ sat down with Sopikova during {LINK REMOVED}Gamescom 2026, and we asked about Creative Assembly's approach to balancing tension so that players feel appropriately oppressed but not consistently panicked to the point of risking a cardiovascular event. Basically, how scary is too scary? As a horror geek with the unfortunate affliction of being a total wuss, this is important information.

"My advice for all the people who are too scared is just honestly to turn the music down," Sopikova says. "Many people don't realize how much music plays in building that tension. And actually the alien might not even be there, but it's just a dark corridor, and this very low-key scary music is playing, and instantly you're paralyzed, and you just can't move anywhere."

Sopikova says things like music, lighting, and of course gameplay all go into crafting a tense atmosphere that can be dialed up and down as needed to strike a balance somewhere between boring and "on the verge of having a heart attack."

"We don't want players to constantly be on the peak of horror, on the verge of having a heart attack, because then they just get used to it, and it's not scary anymore," says Sopikova. "Obviously, it's a narrative game. There is a story to follow. So you see, we take in all the elements, both visual and audio, how everything comes together, animation, and gameplay, and we're just trying to build that experience with all the different moving parts to really support the peaks and valleys."

Alien: Isolation, along with Resident Evil 7, is one of very few games that I can admit were a little too scary for me at times. As much as I applaud Creative Assembly and Capcom for having the chops to make a seasoned horror veteran as stressed out as I was playing those games, I remember having genuinely unpleasant reactions to certain scenes, to the point where I had to take breaks to catch my breath.

I think Capcom's decision to break up the tension with Grace and Leon chapters in Resident Evil Requiem was brilliant, and I hope Creative Assembly has something in mind for the perpetually anxious in Alien: Isolation 2.

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August 31 - Syndicated News | 1 Comments

[img]{LINK REMOVED}[/img] The Saber Interactive C-suite still has generative AI on the brain after CEO Matt Karch quipped earlier this month that he wished he had replaced a fired Rideshare "Stimulator" writer with AI – and {LINK REMOVED}then apologized. That whole situation was embarrassing, but there's more to be had as Saber chief creative officer Tim Willits describes the developer's ongoing AI experiments.

"We're going to try to figure out if it works or if it doesn't work," Willits {LINK REMOVED}tells Eurogamer. The executive designates driving sim Rideshare "Stimulator" – whose {LINK REMOVED}new AI disclosure on Steam says contains AI-generated music, voices, localization, plus AI-generated passenger missions – as a practice run. Willits admits, "We don't as an industry really know how it fits, and consumers don't really know what they want or they don't want, so it's kind of like a disruptive technology that society has seen for a long time."

Currently, "We don't actually use it on our projects except for our experiment with Rideshare," says Willits. "We don't have an official policy; we don't use it outright across all our projects." Saber is otherwise working on a {LINK REMOVED}new Stuntman: Hollywood game, {LINK REMOVED}Jurassic Park: Survival, and {LINK REMOVED}an untitled John Wick game for PS5, but I'm most looking forward to {LINK REMOVED}Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival. Saber's executives will have to try really hard to dissuade me from enjoying that game, out October 8. '80s-inspired gore beckons me, unlike AI's siren song – which sounds like the garbage disposal.

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(Image credit: Saber Interactive) But Willits seems to think naysayers like me will soon splash around with AI like babies having tubby time after games like Rideshare figure out its secrets. Willits tells Eurogamer, "Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but somebody will make the Half-Life 2 of AI."

"I'm making a silly example, but someone will make something that will change people's minds," the CCO continues. "When Steam first came out, people were like, 'I'm not going to put some silly program on my machine!' Now if Steam went away, the end of the world would happen. I think, give the industry a few years and we'll figure it out."

Unfortunately for Willits, much of the industry has seemed to have already figured it out. GamesRadar+'s poll {LINK REMOVED}of over 30 major developers revealed generative AI is a wholly unpopular technology, and a corporate IP lawyer even {LINK REMOVED}told GamesRadar+ she recommends all studios avoid it since "it's not worth the legal liability that it brings to you."

From a consumer's perspective, I also think there's a huge difference between an industry-changing service like Steam and generative AI . For one thing, the former provides an actual service. Steam is its own, unique storefront with its own utility, while I'd always prefer a human being to generate a game's concept art or clever writing than AI, which ultimately can only either chew or spit.

Still, Willits is optimistic. He says about Rideshare "Stimulator," "It's important for teams to make small games to keep the lights on – that's what this is. So if you're going to take a bet, if you're going to experiment, you better do it on something small. You don't want to risk it on something big, because there's risk there, but somebody will."

So if someone slid up to Saber and pitched that Half-Life 2 of AI Willits was talking about, the developer would be interested. The CCO says, "If one of our teams came up to us with an idea they thought could change everything, of course we'd try it." But I'm seriously doubting that there are many people who would want to make it.

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