One of the core elements that makes Alien: Isolation so incredibly frightening is the first-person perspective. More than most first-person games, Isolation really captures the feeling of being a person in its dank, dirty world.
That feeling may not have been there had Creative Assembly gone with their original prototype though, which was in fact a third-person perspective game.
Revealed at a GDC presentation, Creative Assembly were originally aiming for the kind of style as seen in the most popular survival horrors: Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Dead Space. You can see some footage from the prototype in this off-screen footage captured by Destructoid, which sees Amanda creeping through the Sevastopol using a snap-to cover system.
“The difference between first and third [person] was extraordinary. The third person felt like an Alien game, which is cool. But the first person felt like Alien,” said creative director Alistair Hope, as reported by GameInformer. Apparently having the player look at Amanda using a motion tracker felt odd; Hope wanted players to do it themselves.
Thanks, VG247.