The Art of Alien: Isolation

I was hoping so much to find this artbook and now i’m really glad to have one despite living in Brazil and having difficulty to access those things. Happy that the store had this volume in such a good condition!

The art book itself is very nice over all, with over 100 pages of storyboards, background information about anything and everything in the game, and just the pictures and models themselves are very nice to look at. Only slight inconvenience is that the cover for the book is very flimsy and needs to be taped to the book itself. The cover being flimsy caused me to tear a bit of the corner when I was opening my package. But overall a very nice art book

This is the perfect book to accompany the game. If you don’t have the game yet or are just a fan of the series, it’s still a nice companion piece.

For starters, this is a huge coffee table book. It’s thick and beautifully bound, and has a nice slipcase.

It details some of the hard work Creative Assembly have put in to ensure Alien: Isolation was nothing short of a genuine Alien experience.

The book is broken down into chapters, each detailing different aspects of the game, from character design, to environmental models, to storyboards and beyond. It is lavishly illustrated and the pictures all have equally descriptive accompanying text.

Be aware that the later half of the book will contain spoilers towards the game’s plot, so if you want to keep it a surprise, try to avoid it. (Hint: Starts around the Xenomorph chapter.)

I pre-ordered this back in March and I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but like the game itself this book blew me away. I could physically see CA’s attention to detail in the short gameplay clips they shared with the gaming world, and in their screenshots, but the art book allowed for an elevated sense of appreciation and respect.

From a studio whose best-known works are real-time strategy games like Total War. Alien: Isolation is an innovative, standout title that will be spoken of for years to come, and this book gives a lot of insight to how the team molded it to be that way.

This art book focuses on hand drawn artwork, story boards and a quite a few 3D renders of characters, objects (guns, posters, terminals, ect) and most of all: the ship. It’s basically like any other video game art book. What’s nice is that it includes a few references photos from the first movie for comparison.
However, this book skimps out on the enemies, giving the titular Xenomorph 14 pages, and the Working Joes a single spread. If you’re specifically wanting something that has some of H.R. Giger’s artwork in it, this book only has a single shrunken down reference.

Overall, this art book is enjoyable if you want to see the work put into the atmosphere and environment of this game.

Good book, I’m tend to buy also if “art of” book and this one didn’t disappoint. I’m not sure what to add beyond what others have said, worth the money.

If you played this game, and every Alien fan should, you know how closely the game came to capturing the atmosphere of the first film. This book is further evidence of how much the development team cared about hitting that bullseye.

What I found especially fascinating is how respectfully the game’s creators approached their inspiration, even going so far as to behave like filmmakers of the 70’s, with hand drawn concept art, storyboards, costuming and set design. There are some CG renders in here, which I find the least interesting, but generally you are treated to good old fashioned creativity, it’s almost like the design bible for the first Alien film that never actually existed. It’s amazing and it makes me want to play the game again, maybe on hard this time.