We Got This Covered’s 12 Most Surprising Games Of 2014

10) Alien: Isolation

The very moment Alien: Isolation was announced, it became burdened with a very specific breed of expectation. Releasing a mere eighteen months after the abomination that was Colonial Marines, many believed it would be a monstrous flash in the pan — a title that wouldn’t have the capacity to step out of the shadow of its spiritual predecessor and be thereby doomed to failure.

But credit to The Creative Assembly for delivering not only one of the most surprising games of the last twelve months, but one of the best horror experiences in recent memory. While Colonial Marines honed inspiration from James Cameron’s Aliens and the balls-to-the-walls action it evoked, Alien: Isolation scales that back to where it all began: Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece. Putting players into the shoes of one Amanda Ripley, The Creative Assembly’s title is an exercise in bone-chilling atmosphere.

Having gained access to a mountain of archival material from 20th Century Fox, the developing team were able to render Sevastopol station to retro-futuristic perfection; so much so, in fact, that you’d believe you were exploring a deleted scene from Scott’s film. But what is an Alien game with the indelible Xenomorph. H.R. Giger’s serpentine, nightmare-inducing beast may have teetered towards the point of saturation of late, but Isolation reintroduces audiences to the acid-spewing goliath in style.

By making the Xenomorph procedurally-generated, The Creative Assembly have crafted a true slice of terror, as players have to constantly adjust their strategy in order to gingerly creep past the unrelenting extra-terrestrial. It’s a phenomenal and memorable experience made all the more exhilarating by the game’s stellar sound design and setting. Naysayers be damned, Alien: Isolation was exactly what the long-running franchise needed after being relegated to a generic action series.