15 years after the first game made horror history, Alien Isolation 2 unleashes a smarter, meaner Xenomorph

I suppose there are worse places to be than a spaceship; Earth, for example. So I'm happy to become Alien: Isolation 2 protagonist Blake during a preview of the horror game sequel at Summer Game Fest 2026. Though, it's obvious developer Creative Assembly doesn't want me easing into any cathartic sense of "escapism" with the franchise's apex predator, the Xenomorph, skulking around. Nearly 15 years after the first Alien: Isolation game made horror history, Alien: Isolation 2's unkillable, highly intelligent monster is even more adept at drooling over each crunch of your knuckles – this is a game about escaping.

So, I need to stop wanting to die. That's something I like to do in horror games – it's the closest I can get to finding out what the real thing is like – which I passively yearn for during both minor inconveniences, like running out of salt, and larger, life-altering tragedies. Horror games let you indulge in death and dying without any of the real drama. I can tell Blake has a sad fuzz around her, too, as she chooses to explore a piece of the infested Sevastopol station from Alien: Isolation, even though it's an obvious trap.

Escape from Kurosaki

But, Alien: Isolation 2 doesn't seem interested in our self-pity. I like that. All my favorite horror games, including Silent Hill 3 and Haunting Ground, challenge their female protagonists and often female fans in choosing life, even when unspoken trauma, unspeakable harm, and starving monsters forecast clouds and hellfire for the rest of time.

Blake and I could use the kick. In my case, bad news and politics often leads me to taking my sleeping pills early and hiding in a dream. Similarly, it seems like Blake made an attempt at sleeping through life before embarking on this job she's on in my preview. She attempts small talk with her new crewmates Cole and Otto – Cole is the one with the beard, he's more crabby than the other – about how she's been under cryosleep for eight months, and her mom back on Earth. The men suggest eight months is too long to be refrigerated, but, as Blake, I shrug them off. We're self-consciously apathetic.

But Otto and Cole are, too, seeming defeated by the demands of their work, and our wary camaraderie is just starting to stick together like alien tentacles when something weird happens. Our spacecraft goes down fast, and I'm now seeing Cole's hairy chin as an assurance of this guy's experience handling shit instead of ever bothering to shave. So I'm not scared yet. He's handling it.

We land onto a seemingly empty colony world – safely. There are little patches of flame here and there like freckles, but Blake seems invigorated. The woman who has been asleep is now awake – and that's a gift, even when I crawl out of my new ship alone.

Blake must be used to being alone. She's spent so long inside her mind, and I know from experience that there isn't anything lonelier than that.

Though this Alien: Isolation 2 preview is pre-alpha footage, as I duck under alien trees and scrape ragged cliffsides looking for Otto and Cole – they're OK, but a short walk away as I learn to sprint and climb in a tutorial – I'm impressed by how beautiful the horror game already looks.

The facts of the environment are maybe not beautiful: fat plops of rain, soupy mist, and increasingly angry wind, which is making every slender tree around me shiver like it's nervous. But, Creative Assembly has done a lovely job matching realism with style – it communicates that this soaked planet is something to be intimidated by, since no one ever wants to be stuck in the rain in a place they've never been before. At the same time, everything is so soft and blue, like waking up in the middle of the night. There's a romantic drama to it.

Blake clearly thinks so. You know the movie, Earth Girls Are Easy? Not this one. When the crew discovers another crashed station, she insists on forcing her way in to find survivors. Cole decides he wants nothing to do with it, but Otto is vaguely interested in the scavenging opportunity. So, Blake pops open a door that says not to open it, her hands no doubt strengthened by the stubborn curiosity I know I'd have too. I want to see what's inside the ship that's now a ring of fire. I'm ready to stop dreaming.

I guide Blake into that ship which, Otto acknowledges with a sigh, most people wouldn't bother with. The power's dead, so I need to complete the simple task of picking up a few pieces of scrap to fix it at a main controller panel.

This ends up being more difficult than I'd like. Alien: Isolation 2 uses first-person perspective, which the original 2014 game employed to make you feel like its slinky stalker enemy, the Xenomorph, really wanted to grind your bones into bread. The quiet (aside from suspicious squeaks and the occasional, baby chick beep of an abandoned computer) ship is tilted and disorienting. At times, I'm too physically nauseous from motion sickness to let myself curl into Alien: Isolation 2's tense stomach.

But, the glimpse of the Xenomorph I get during my preview sobers me up like a mosquito bite. The titular alien, an avenging angel the movies established as the ultimate mama bear, likes to penetrate your guts and have her babies pull them out. In Alien: Isolation 2, she's apparently even better than she used to be at identifying you by sight and sound – Creative Assembly tells me in an interview that even the shifting wind can carry the slow creaks of your footsteps to her.

So once she reveals herself to Blake, I think I know what to do. I crouch. I stay low, and… I'm too eager to leave the nest. I stand up unreasonably quick, and the Xenomorph dinosaur-walks over to me, shiny and Cadillac black – the unkillable creature is more machine than the soft, pillow tummies we associate with other mothers. She opens her beetle-butt head to reveal multiple rows of teeth sparkling from saliva dewdrops. And then I'm dead.

But I don't want to die anymore. I want to play more Alien: Isolation 2, and now I wonder who's hungrier to tiptoe in the shadows for the sake of proving herself – my enemy or me?

If the Xenomorph isn't scary enough, check out our best horror games ranking for more you could play with the lights out!