Two new difficulty modes make Alien: Isolation much harder or much easier

Two new difficulty modes now available for Alien: Isolation either make your experience even more hellish or less stressful.

“We’ve seen a number of players with extremely strong dispositions demand more challenges for their Alien: Isolation encounter—another try at survival against tougher odds,” reads a post on the game’s official website. “In response to your requests, we’ve created Nightmare Mode, a new difficulty level, which should challenge players to beat the ultimate Alien: Isolation experience.

“Similarly, we have had requests from the community to have more time and breathing space with which to explore Sevastopol. Therefore, to balance the horror of Nightmare Mode, we also have Novice Mode.”

Nightmare mode piles on the difficulty by distorting the motion tracker’s signal and causing its information to be unreliable, stripping out the health bar, ammo counter, and flashlight indicators from the UI, making flamethrower fuel rarer yet burn faster, toughening androids and survivors, lowering the number of resources, removing the map system, and—the final F-U round to put you down—making the Alien more aggressive, adapt faster, and giving players no second chances with it.

Novice mode, meanwhile, makes the Alien less aggressive, adapt slower, easier to distract, and less likely to find you. There’s also more resources in Novice mode, plus less dangerous combat by making enemies easier and Ripley more resilient.

Alien: Isolation is out now on Windows PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and Xbox 360. For confirmation that this game is a notably more authentic Alien experience, check out Josh’s review.

Source: Alien: Isolation

Two new difficulty modes make Alien: Isolation much harder or much easier