The Creative Assembly has been forced to make a number of changes in order to realize the vision for Alien: Isolation. After successful pitches to both Sega and 20th Century Fox, the developer turned to recruitment, ensuring it added new members to its team that were capable of crafting the exact game it pitched, what Creative Lead Al Hope calls: "The Alien game that we always wanted to play." A game completely different from that other Alien game, which his team at The Creative Assembly had no involvement with making, yet keeps coming up, just the same

Its pitch demo for Isolation was built in four weeks and featured two identical medical bays: one with its environment and objects in pristine condition and the other obliterated by an unknown menace. The juxtaposition led to immediate questions: "What happened? What did this?" Soon, an answer invaded the screen as a large xenomorph falls into frame, ending the demo. Sega was immediately interested, Hope says, as was Fox. Adding new talent to execute on the project was necessary. For the better part of a decade, The Creative Assembly has focused its attention on the RTS genre. Once its pitch was green lit, Creative Assembly brought in talent that contributed to a host massive franchises, including Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed. Its team assembled and its concept approved, the developer began its work over three and a half years ago on Alien: Isolation - a survival horror game based on a beloved movie from the late 1970s.

"This is exactly the game we want to make," Hope says.