Alien: Isolation

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 93%Very Positive · 93%2014

The verdict

A landmark stealth-horror game built around a relentless, adaptive Xenomorph and a superb retro-Alien atmosphere. Skip it if you dislike hiding, slow pacing or long padded campaigns.

Great for

Alien fans and patient survival-horror players who enjoy slow tension, hiding and being hunted

Main risk

The hide-and-wait loop and long, repetitive second half can turn tension into tedium

What players love

Intense, terrifying atmosphere and tension

Mentioned in ~1 in 2 positive reviews

“The only game I've played where the stress was so much that it made my chest hurt.”
Steam review · 41.6 h played ↗

“Alien Isolation is the most suffocating and terrifying game I've ever played.”
Steam review · 19.9 h played ↗

“It scares you with an oppressive atmosphere of hopelessness and a brilliantly designed Alien AI.”
Steam review · translated · 58.2 h played ↗

Adaptive, unpredictable Xenomorph AI

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“It learns from your behaviors, if you hide in lockers too much it'll start checking them.”
Steam review · 92.4 h played ↗

“It doesn't follow scripts — it learns. Hide once and it remembers. Sit under a table and it will look.”
Steam review · translated · 55.3 h played ↗

“You hide in lockers or under tables often? Guess where he'll check next time you encounter him.”
Steam review · 17 h played ↗

Faithful to the 1979 film's retro-futuristic look

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“Captures the "lo-fi" sci-fi aesthetic of the original 1979 film”
Steam review · 38.9 h played ↗

“Extremely faithful to the 1979 og film.”
Steam review · 28.4 h played ↗

Graphics still hold up

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“Not only do the 2014 graphics hold up perfectly for 2026, the game runs extremely well too.”
Steam review · 18.1 h played ↗

“Visuals still look stunning 12 years later.”
Steam review · 28.3 h played ↗

Superb sound design

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“the sound design DOES NOT. Wearing surround sound headphones while playing this game genuinely is one of the worst decisions I've ever made”
Steam review · 28.8 h played ↗

“The lack of constant background music forces you to listen to every scrape in the walls”
Steam review · 18.8 h played ↗

What players complain about

Too long, repetitive and padded

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“An unbelievably drawn-out game.”
Steam review · translated · 22.6 h played ↗

“The game has only one puzzle - go to the other side of the station, play a mini game to open the door, pull the switch, get back, don't get killed by Alien in the process... Now repeat 50 more times...”
Steam review · 13.8 h played ↗

“it feels like a walk and waiting similation and it is boring”
Steam review · 12.1 h played ↗

Loses its fear factor and feels like a hiding sim

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“Once you work out that the alien is indestructible, all fear is lost immediately.”
Steam review · 24.1 h played ↗

“Hide and wait walking sim where running is discourage, hiding is punished and distractions get countered.”
Steam review · 7.8 h played ↗

Alien is glued to you and feels cheap or unfair

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews

“The macro AI flat out cheats. It knows exactly where you are at all times.”
Steam review · 10 h played ↗

“I spent 55 of the last 60 minutes hiding in lockers.”
Steam review · 6.2 h played ↗

“This cheater always knows where you are and deliberately wanders near you.”
Steam review · translated · 6.5 h played ↗

Bugs, save corruption and soft-locks

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“The constant load save failures are too much”
Steam review · 13.6 h played ↗

“Ran into a game breaking bug early on in the game where a vent that is supposed to be open to progress to the next area isn't open”
Steam review · 2.8 h played ↗

Unforgiving save system and lost progress

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“Almost complete lack of autosave and rarity of save opportunities in the first half of the game”
Steam review · 17 h played ↗

“Even an amateur game dev knows you don't put limited save spots on the OTHER SIDE of unskippable dialog cinematics”
Steam review · 31.4 h played ↗

Broken on high refresh rate monitors

Mentioned in ~1 in 25 negative reviews

“I locked my display at 60 fps, verified it in NVIDIA control Panel, made sure VSYNC was on in the game. STILL DOESN'T WORK.”
Steam review · 14.3 h played ↗

“This affects those with 144+ Hz monitors; the game only works on 60 Hz monitors.”
Steam review · translated · 64.8 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Verified

Minimum

OSWindows 7 (32bit)

Processor3.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E8500

Memory4 GB RAM

Graphics1GB (AMD Radeon HD 5550 or Nvidia GeForce GT 430)

Storage35 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows 7 (64bit)

ProcessorAMD: Phenom II X4 955 - 4 Core, 3.2 GHz or Intel: Core 2 Quad Q9650 - 4 Core, 3.0 GHz

Memory8 GB RAM

Graphics2GB (AMD GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series or Nvidia GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX660)

Storage35 GB available space

OSWindows 7 (32bit)

Processor3.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E8500

Memory4 GB RAM

Graphics1GB (AMD Radeon HD 5550 or Nvidia GeForce GT 430)

Storage35 GB available space

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