One of the challenges of developing a game's enemy's artificial intelligence is to make it challenging, formidable, and more importantly, unpredictable. An enemy whose strategy a gamer cannot ascertain through routine enhances the overall gameplay experience. This is one of the challenges that the developers over at The Creative Assembly have striven to meet during the development of their upcoming science-fiction horror game, Alien: Isolation.

"We wanted this unpredictable alien that can turn up at any point in the game," Lead Artist Jude Bond told Official PlayStation Magazine UK, "It’s just as much about the alien not being there as the alien being there. It could be a shadow in the corner, we don’t know, you don’t know, but you have to go and see what is in the corner."

The decision to make this aspect of the game's design such a priority was fueled by the fact that gamers themselves are not predictable, Lead Designer Gary Napper explained, "So we’ve got an alien that can act in a nice way and support that." "It’s not scripted," Ms. Bond added, "very early on we realised that a horror game with checkpoints that’s scripted just isn’t going to be scary."

Alien: Isolation is being developed by The Creative Assembly and will be published by Sega for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC on an unannounced date this holiday season.