Has it really been almost twelve years since the first Alien: Isolation? Players were eager to take a risk on Creative Assembly, a studio that was known almost exclusively for the Total War franchise for the better part of a decade before the project’s announcement. Shifting into first-person survival horror couldn’t have been more of a shift from the English studio’s prior works, but it was something the franchise desperately needed, and the Metacritic scores were unanimously positive while admitting it wasn’t quite a perfect experience.
Our playable slice of Alien: Isolation 2, just unveiled at Summer Game Fest 2026, centers on the aftermath of how the first game ended: the Sevastopol space station being destroyed and, with it, the Alien menace. One piece of that space station, the KG348 labs, found its way being jettisoned onto a nearby planet. That’s where our playable slice began, with newcomer Blake as the protagonist and a very small search party crew alongside her.
After a brief segment of walking outside through some desolate woods on the planet LV-921 and setting the mood, I stumbled upon the wreckage and, after a minute or two of trying the obvious option of trying to get through the main airlock, I found a service hatch to the side and climbed a ladder to get up and inside the laboratory while the remainder of my crew stayed outside. As is typical with Weyland-Yutani tech, the power was blown, and I would have to get it up and running to track down any survivors. From here, I could scrounge around for datalogs or raw materials to craft a circuit board to restore access to the main door, keeping me from venturing further onboard.
It’s here that I’m presented with the first of presumably dozens of jump scares throughout the full experience, with one of the iconic working androids coming alive just to spook the player before the titular xenomorph makes its grand appearance. I was surprised to have the threat arrive so unceremoniously and abruptly, but in the interest of time, I get why I couldn’t get to spend the full thirty minutes just breezing through the isolated environment.
With no real ways to defend myself, save for any knowledge about how to play through the first Alien: Isolation game, this quick session of cat-and-mouse was largely spent skulking behind control desks and occasionally peeking out to make sure the xenomorph wasn’t ready to pounce on me from a few feet away. The sound design felt improved from the original, with the directional audio helping discern where the xenomorph was and, even roughly, how far away based on its deliberate footsteps, while the creaks and groans of the station would hide my own haggard breathing.
My hands-on with Alien: Isolation 2 was a series of trial-and-error attempts to find that perfect way out, as getting spotted even for a brief moment by the xenomorph almost instantly led to my demise with no defensive options to escape. Some of these deaths were intentional, as I tried to see just how responsive the xenomorph was to noise, while others were of my own choosing by lingering too long in one area before trying to escape. When I did finally try to make a break for it, I opted to go for the same ladder that brought me inside this little box of hell. When I was nearly out and could see the outside light once again, I was snatched behind by the xenomorph and presumably made an afternoon snack while the demo ended with a splash of the Alien: Isolation 2 title card. After speaking with a couple of other folks who were in the same hands-on session, each had their own attempts to try and escape, so there might be a few different ways to approach even this tiny section of the introduction.
Thirty minutes wasn’t nearly long enough to get a proper feel for the new changes to the hunter-and-hunted formula of Alien: Isolation 2, but I came away from my session feeling confident that Creative Assembly definitely understood what made the original game so memorable (and I didn’t even have to crawl inside any lockers to figure that out). A release date wasn’t in the cards yet during our preview, so stay tuned for any future updates to come for Alien: Isolation 2.
About the author: Kai joined the gaming team of Wccftech in 2016 and has since penned over a hundred reviews and interview pieces, covering a bit of everything from one-man indie gems to AAA masterpieces and whatever lies in between. Over the recent months, Kai has expanded into preview and interview coverage of not only the gaming side of the industry but also tech and consumer electronics.
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