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‘Alien: Isolation’ Developer Is Unhappy With AAA Horror
If the continuous stream of complaints from fans regarding the state of Resident Evil over the past few years hasn’t been enough to motivate Capcom to take a serious look at their flagship franchise, I doubt the steadily growing number of negative comments they’ve been receiving lately from fellow developers will do the trick. Even still, I get a kick out stuff like this.
Alistair Hope, creative director at Alien: Isolation developer Creative Assembly, had plenty to say about the steadily deteriorating state of AAA horror, and specifically Resident Evil and Dead Space, which have each had turns leading the genre’s direction. The former has seen quite a bit of criticism lately from fans, critics, and developers. Even Shinji Mikami — the guy who created the series back in 1998 — said its gradual migration away from horror inspired him to make The Evil Within.
Now we can add another disappointed developer to the list.
“I think this team really got a lot out of Dead Space 1 and Resident Evil,” Hope told Edge. “But those franchises moved in a direction that isn’t… Well, I think that fans of those originals have been marginalised and sometimes it feels like these days they’re just a couple of degrees away from being Gears Of War.” That comment’s spot-on and a little ironic, seeing as Resident Evil 4 served as inspiration for Gears of War.
“Cinematic set-pieces and loads of guns isn’t quite the ‘hiding in the cupboard’ experience I got in the old days of horror gaming,” lead designer Gary Napper added. “But that stuff has been embraced by the indie community who are producing these high fidelity games that are tense and atmospheric. It’s not often you get to do that in the triple-A space.” This is one of the many reasons why indie horror is where it’s at right now. All of the creativity, innovation, and willingness to push the envelope that we once got from established developers is almost entirely gone from the AAA space.
This is why indie horror games make up the majority of my list of 2014’s most anticipated horror games, because if you’ve had a recent urge to see unrestricted creativity then indie horror is the best source for it.
I have faith that the team at Creative Assembly is at least eager to deliver the Alien game we’ve wanted for so long.
For the full interview, head on over to Edge.
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All of us here at Bloody Disgusting are deeply saddened to learn that George A. Romero Foundation Founder and President Suzanne Desrocher-Romero has passed away.
GARF shared in a statement on socials, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Suzanne Desrocher Romero. Suzanne passed away of natural causes on June 24 at her home in Toronto after a prolonged illness.”
The statement continues, “Suzanne was the fierce leader of the George A. Romero Estate and The George A. Romero Foundation. She worked tirelessly to preserve George’s legacy. Her work at the foundation will continue to inspire and live on for generations to come. The family asks for privacy at this time.”
Desrocher-Romero founded GARF in 2018, after her late husband’s passing in 2017, and has been a fierce advocate for his legacy and the arts. It was her mission to “strengthen horror as a serious field of global study,” and she was a tremendous fighter on behalf of Romero’s works and supporting new filmmakers inspired by his legacy.
It was Desrocher-Romero who spearheaded the recovery and restoration of The Amusement Park, and, as the person in charge of the George A. Romero estate, worked closely with author Daniel Kraus on completing unfinished novels like Pay the Piper and The Living Dead. She most recently celebrated the restoration of her favorite of Romero’s zombie films, Day of the Dead, and was hard at work producing the upcoming film Twilight of the Dead.
That passionate advocacy led to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero becoming family to Bloody Disgusting as well.
2023 marked the start of an ongoing partnership between Bloody FM and GARF on The Dead, a scripted audio series spanning multiple seasons that saw Desrocher-Romero working closely with the Bloody FM team and mentoring the series’s contributing writers with GARF. To say her loss will be felt internally is an understatement.
“Anytime George Romero is mentioned is good, because what we are doing is to provide a healthy legacy. We’re uplifting his legacy, we’re supporting the archive, and we’re also supporting the Horror Study Center. So, all of these three things are what the Foundation is striving to do. As far as I’m concerned, the more we say George Romero’s name, the better it is,” Desrocher-Romero recently told BD.
It’s the perfect encapsulation of her unwavering enthusiasm for supporting Romero’s legacy and the horror genre, and just a glimpse at how much she contributed to preserving it. She is, in short, an inspiration.
We send our deepest condolences to Suzanne Desrocher-Romero’s family, friends, and GARF.
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