Alien: Isolation
50 Achievements
1,000
40-50h
Survivor
Completed the game on the hardest difficulty setting
100
1.46%
How to unlock the Survivor achievement in Alien: Isolation - Definitive Guide
With Hard, you will have fewer ammo and item pickups (although this isn't really an issue as long as you're doing reasonable exploration and checking corpses), the enemies will detect you easier, will hunt for you more aggressively and you'll take more damage from bullets and Joes. The Alien will also be more aggressive and will stay closer to you as you navigate levels, and come Mission 17 the Alien becomes incredibly aggressive.
Unless you feel like being truly challenged, stick with Hard as the difficulty for your playthrough. But if you want to try on Nightmare, here are some of the changes from Hard:
Alien: Isolation now comes with a new "Nightmare" difficulty mode that includes a deadlier xenomorph, harder hitting androids and more aggressive human survivors. Players also have to contend with fewer resources and can no longer see their health bar, ammo count or flashlight indicator. To make matters worse, players have to use a broken motion tracker that gives them "unreliable information."
On hard, the aliens have a much easier time detecting you. And the humans are lethal with their guns. Several times a single gun shot ended me.
Making life Easier on Hard
The way this game works is when you reload or restart a save, it resets enemy AI movement. For example, if you restart the same save, the location of the alien will change for each restart as part of the random spawning. The same save put the alien behind, in front, and sometimes far away. Therefore, if you are NOT trying to get 'one shot' (not dying) achievement, here is a great method for making this MUCH easier.
When you scare away (with fire or molatov) an alien, or have android chasing you, quickly save your game even if 'hostiles are near' because if you die, you will respawn back in and the aliens or androids will reset and they will no longer be hunting you. That means, you can advance your progress by scaring/running away, save, die, and reset. This allows you to push ahead. Kill a facehugger or alert an alien, save and if you die, they reset and the alert/hunt is over (and the facehugger is still dead). The aliens are now reset and will NOT hunt you (although they are still roaming).
This helps loads.
Examples. During the final few mission where you had several switches to complete (like the 3 switch in one room to raise the forklift OR the 3 switches in the two seperate rooms), you can hit a switch, scare it away, save and die, thus resetting the alien but still having the progress.
Well done.
Note: Even though Nightmare difficulty is harder, you only need to beat the game on Hard for this trophy.
For this you need to complete the game on the hardest difficulty which is "Hard", it is unlocked from the beginning and you may as well start the game on hard the first time round since there isn't a whole lot of difference between this and the other difficulties.
The main difference are that enemies are more alert, they give and take more damage and you take less damage. Apart from that the game is the exact same, you get the same amount of supplies and materials so make use of them. The other major thing you need to know is to never run because if you do, then the Alien will hear then kill you. There are a few instances in the story where running is fine and you will know when those sections occur but apart from then just don't run. Crouch walking is your friend here and so is your motion tracker as it can elude you to where enemies are coming from.
You have a suite of items at your disposal such as noise makers and EMPs, and you can use them to your advantage but be careful as sometimes they can backfire. I personally rarely used items apart from the medkit and the EMP mine for Androids as I found most encounters can be stealthed through if you take your time and are vigilant. If you do get spotted by the Alien then you are dead except in later levels where you can use the flamethrower to scare it off but don’t overuse it since you can run out very quickly. If you do the Alien will pick up on this. Scavenge as much as you can and keep your guns and weapons for the androids if needed. When you come across humans a lot of the times you can throw a noisemaker to alert the Alien who can clear them for you but if you opt for this method be sure to hide afterwards.
In regards to hiding I wouldn't recommend hiding in closets and cupboards as it can be very dangerous when trying to get out, because it can be difficult to tell where the Alien is (I managed to go through the whole game on Hard without using one). Whenever the Alien is really close put away the motion tracker since it can hear it and when it is gone listen out for the sound of it going into a vent since when it does this is fine to just walk around for the most part (having a good headset really helps). Aside from this just make sure you always know the general area the Alien is in since sometimes you will just have to move instead of staying in the same place the whole time to avoid it. If needed you can always chuck a noisemaker in the opposite direction to distract it. Note: It isn't possible to kill the Alien as it is programmed to be invincible.
The final enemy in the game, the Androids/Working Joes can be very annoying to deal with since they are so relentless. In most cases I advise to avoid them as much as you can and if you are spotted and can't run away, you can either hide in a vent since they can't chase you in there or throw and EMP mine at them and beat them with your wrench. There will be instances where you are forced to fight them and in this case it is ok to use your weapons as the Alien won’t show up during these sections. Later on in the game you will come across Androids with hazmat suits on and as a result EMPs and stun batons don't work. In these instances using your weapons is the best option if you can't escape. Boltguns work best against these androids.
If you keep all this in mind and are not reckless you should get through hard in no time. There will inevitable be parts where you have to retry a few times but you will get them eventually, just make sure to save often so you don't have to replay large sections. One final thing to note is to be careful when saving and make sure there are no enemies around, because it takes a few seconds for each Save Station to save and you are extremely vulnerable during this time.
This trophy and any other difficulty related trophy will unlock after mission 19. Note: You can't get this trophy can't be gotten in either of the story DLCs.