Alien: Romulus Pays Tribute To A Beloved Alien Video Game

Are we about to get the year's best (unofficial) video game adaptation? All the pressure is on "Alien: Romulus" director Fede Álvarez to deliver on his promise to bring the classic sci-fi/horror franchise back to its terrifying roots, and the early reactions would seem to confirm that he's managed to accomplish exactly that. In fact, it appears that this legacy sequel goes so far as to pay homage to everything that's come before, from Ridley Scott's original "Alien" to every subsequent film as well. But in a pleasant surprise, this apparently extends even to the expanded material for the series — namely, "Alien: Isolation."

Rejoice, gamers. By the looks of it, all those countless hours you spent hiding (and, in my case, dying) while playing the classic survival game released back in 2014 is about to pay off in a big way. The game follows Amanda (voiced by Andrea Deck), the daughter of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley, as she investigates reports that the flight recorder from the doomed mining vessel Nostromo has been recovered. Seeking closure over her mother's (presumed) death under mysterious circumstances, Amanda ends up traveling to a distant space station that she quickly realizes has fallen into chaos. Wouldn't you know it, but a Xenomorph has gotten loose on board and nobody is safe.

Those paying attention to the marketing for "Alien: Romulus" likely found some neat parallels between the premise of the game and the upcoming movie, which features a new cast of soon-to-be victims poking around a deserted space station that's hiding some gnarly secrets of its own. In a recent interview, Álvarez confirmed that his experience playing the game helped convince him to make the movie ... and he made sure to sneak in some really fun Easter eggs, too.

I hereby apologize for triggering anyone's latent PTSD over "Alien: Isolation," aka the game that nearly drove me up the wall from the stress and anxiety of (mostly) being unable to fight back against the Xenomorph haunting our every step beyond the use of that motion tracker and the occasional Molotov cocktail, but it can't be helped! The game's wide-ranging influences extend far beyond traumatizing an entire generation of players, however. In a new interview with the Inside Total Film podcast, director Fede Álvarez revealed how much it motivated him to step foot into the "Alien" sandbox himself:

"'Alien: Isolation' was kind of what made me see that 'Alien' could truly be terrifying and done well [today]. I played a few years after it came out. 'Don't Breathe' was coming out. Or was I waiting for 'Don't Breathe' to come out, and I was playing the game. That's why, at the time, I was like, 'F**k, if I could do anything, I would love to do 'Alien' and scare the audience again with that creature and those environments.' I was playing, and realizing how terrifying 'Alien' could be if you take it back to that tone."

Judging by how much "Isolation" owes to the aesthetics of the original 1979 movie, it's easy to imagine the survival game playing a large role in Álvarez's approach to "Romulus." 

Fede Álvarez hasn't been shy about giving fans all sorts of teases on social media about what to expect from his latest major production, even going so far as to drop a few noticeable references to "Alien: Isolation." On April 26 of last year (known as "Alien Day," because of the numeric parallel with LV 426, the planetoid where the crew discovered the derelict Engineer ship and its facehugger in the original movie), the director dropped this post on Twitter. Eagle-eyed fans might've noticed that emergency phone off in the background to the right, which should be very familiar to anyone who's played "Isolation" and had to scramble to one of those checkpoints ... only to wait another three agonizing seconds in order to save their progress.

Later in his interview, Álvarez pointed out that this recurring element in "Alien: Romulus" is meant to further drive up the tension and stakes for those who've played the game. As he explained:

"The movie is set up in a way [that] every time something bad is about to happen, you will see a phone. In the game, every time you knew there's a phone you'd go, 'F**k, I'm about to go into some bad set piece.' It's the same thing here. You'll see they're planted strategically throughout the film. When you see the phone, it's like: brace for impact."

The filmmaker had previously taken to Twitter (not even Xenomorphs would call it "X") to direct viewers' attention towards this sly little reference. In July of 2024, he posted a close-up of the emergency phone and all but told us to be on the lookout. Keep that in mind when "Alien: Romulus" hatches into theaters this Friday, August 16, 2024.