Alien Isolation Survivor Mode Costs Lots Of Money

Sega announced a cat-and-mouse game mode for Alien Isolation today called Survivor. Survivor Mode will ship the Isolation and then expand over the course of several months.

In Isolation's campaign, the player must escape a space station inhabited by hostile humans and androids as well as one very dangerous Xenomorph. Survivor mode strips the game down to a one-on-one confrontation between the Xenomorph and the player. They must use a limited amount of resources to complete objectives and exit the map while avoiding the alien. The Survivor mode maps sound a little like the BioShock challenge rooms: they offer the raw gameplay of the base game without all the story.

“This is the game in its purest form; it’s you against the creature and it’s against the clock," said Alien Isolation creative lead Al Hope. "It was just fantastic watching players leave the demo with a strange mix of joy, terror and relief at simply surviving, before jumping back in and try to tackle it in a different way to beat their time!”

Survivor mode sounds like a good way to extend Isolation's replayability. Unfortunately, most of the mode's content is paid DLC coming after the game's release. When Isolation arrives on October 7th, it will have one Survivor Mode map called "Basement." The first Survivor Mode DLC pack will arrive on October 28th with three maps and a new playable character. Sega will release four other DLC packs with new maps and characters by March 2015.

All five Survivor Mode add-ons can be purchased at once with the Season Pass, priced at $30 according to GameStop. This is apparently 25% cheaper than buying each Survivor Mode pack individually.

Sega's other DLC plans for Alien Isolation include two adventures inspired by the 1979 film Alien. In these two missions, players control Ellen Ripley and other characters as they try to evade the xenomorph that took over their ship. These two DLC packs are pre-order bonuses though presumably Sega will sell them separately in time as well. Last time I checked, they like money.

Pete Haas

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.