Further, the author of this paper explains the divisiveness of Alien Isolation by dividing the general responses into 2 camps.
“Based on their approach to gameplay, players commenting on the Alien can be roughly divided into two camps, which I will call experientialists and simulationists [9]. The former see the game primarily as an experience, while the latter see it as a simulated system. Experientialists are primarily interested in how the Alien “feels,” their point of reference often being the 1979 film. In their view, a monster should remain sublime; and too much theorizing ruins the game and breaks the suspension of disbelief. An experientialist commenter suggested that humans are not supposed to understand the Alien, because it is a creature with its own “alien logic” and “quirks” [R]. In Kirsi Kallio and her colleagues’ typology of gamer mentalities, experientialists would fall somewhere between the “entertaining” and “immersing” profiles (Kallio, Mäyrä, & Kaipainen, 2011). They consider games just one of their possible entertainment options, connect and compare them to film, and immerse themselves in the game world rather than optimize their play strategies.
Simulationists, on the other hand, observe and scrutinize the game’s mechanics, mostly in order to get better at the game. To do so, they expect the mechanics to be consistent and transparent. In the abovementioned typology, they would correspond to the “having fun” profile of players for whom “speed, progress, flow, skillfulness, and other such characteristics of a game are more important than the story or… characters” (Kallio et al., 2011, p. 344). As such, they are more likely to conceive of the Alien as a simulated zoological entity.”
***Ultimately, I think they made the right call bc for many players (including myself) the game resonates with the “feel” of the original movie. Other Alien games before it were never that scary bc they maintained predictability.
