The latest instalment in the iconic Alien franchise, Alien: Romulus, hit cinemas on August 12th and quickly became a major talking point among horror enthusiasts. The film has been widely praised as a stellar addition to the series, earning an impressive 80% from critics and 85% from fans on Rotten Tomatoes. This marks the best-reviewed Alien movie since the original and 1986’s Aliens.
Personally, I found the movie to be a fantastic blend of character development and plot, with the smaller, more intimate scale of the film reminiscent of the original Alien. The last 30 minutes in particular were especially gripping, packed with intense moments and capped off by a fantastically sickening twist that left me in awe.
Unsurprisingly, the hype surrounding the newest installment extended beyond the cinema, reigniting interest in the franchise’s acclaimed survival horror game, Alien: Isolation. According to Steam Charts, the player count for Alien: Isolation saw a staggering 345% increase in the days following Romulus’ debut.
On August 12th, the same day the movie was released, the game peaked at 402 active players on Steam. However, just over a week later, on August 20th, this number skyrocketed to 1,790 concurrent players, marking a significant surge in both interest and engagement with the game. Of course, the game is also available on consoles, meaning that the actual number of players returning to the game is undoubtedly higher.
This resurgence is particularly impressive for a game that has now been out for over a decade (hard to believe it’s been that long!). Alien: Isolation is a brilliantly terrifying survival horror game set 15 years after the events of the original Alien movie. Developed by Creative Assembly, the game follows Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, as she navigates a decommissioned trading station whilst being hunted down by a Xenomorph. Isolation is a beloved title among horror fans, frequently appearing on lists of the scariest horror games of all time, and for good reason.
Just like in the movies, Isolation’s Xenomorph is an incredibly powerful and intelligent adversary, especially in the early stages of the game, where it feels nearly unstoppable. It isn’t just a mindless beast—it’s a cunning predator that adapts to your actions and feels like it’s actually hunting you down. You can’t simply confront it head-on like you might with enemies in other horror games like Resident Evil.
Instead, you’re constantly on the run, hiding in the shadows, and hoping it doesn’t catch you (at least until you find the flamethrower). This sense of powerlessness, where you’re unable to fight back against the monster, is what makes games like Outlast and Amnesia so terrifying, and Alien: Isolation masterfully taps into that same primal fear, keeping players on edge from start to finish.
This isn’t the first time that a movie or TV show has impacted the player counts of related video games. For example, Fallout saw a huge 7500% increase in sales following the debut of the TV series on Prime, and even the disastrous Borderlands movie correlated with large spikes in player counts for the games.
