I’m usually an advocate against Day One Downloadable Content. Releasing extra content for a video game on release and charging for it is a little unfair to a customer who just spent $60 bucks on your product. But I understand that as the game spends months in a near-finished state, having all the bugs squashed out of it, that the art department and other developers might not have a lot to do, so putting together couple bonuses makes some sense as long as it doesn’t put a pay wall between gamers and their core experience.
In the case of “Alien: Isolation”, I honestly can’t think of a better piece of DLC they could have come up with. Two bonus missions that take you back aboard the Nostromo to play through a couple famous scenes from the first “Alien” film. In the first, “Crew Expendable,” (available to anyone who pre-orders the game) you can choose to play as Ellen Ripley, Dallas, or Parker as they try to lure the Alien into the ship’s airlock. And the second, “Last Survivor” (available to anyone who pre-orders the game from specific retail outlets – sucks, but I bet the missions will be available later for a small price, so it’s not a huge deal), has Ripley trying to activate the Nostromo’s self-destruct and escape in a shuttle.
The best part – if you didn’t already guess from this post’s title – is that most of the original “Alien” voice cast – Tom Skerrit, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, and even Sigourney Weaver – will be back to reprise their roles. Check out this short trailer:
It’s enticing, shows the developer’s love of the franchise, and is completely separate from the plot/content of the core video game. This is one piece of DLC I can actually get behind.
Alien: Isolation releases for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC on October 7 later this year.