On my first playthrough of Alien: Isolation, my eyes did most of the work. I spent the vast majority of the game carefully poking my head around corners, desperately trying to keep the xenomorph in my line of sight. I felt like if I could see it, I'd instinctively know the best way to slip past or distract it. This is a perfectly valid way to play the game, because there is a lean button after all. But now, a hardened Alien: Isolation veteran, I look back on my past self with pity. This poor, confused fool, relying on sight to survive. It's all about the ears, man.

Related: The Best Weapon In Alien: Isolation Is The Alien Itself

The sound design in Alien: Isolation is exceptional throughout. The oppressive, claustrophobic corridors of Sevastopol are alive with sound: creaking bulkheads, chirping computers, steam-spewing vents, Working Joe androids muttering sinisterly to themselves. You even hear the rubbery squeak of Amanda Ripley's canvas sneakers on the floor if you quickly shift position. A lot of attention has been paid to how the game sounds, which also feeds into the gameplay. At a certain point, you can play Alien: Isolation almost entirely by ear.

Alien: Isolation

Now when I play it I try my damndest not to see the xenomorph. For one, the slightest glimpse of the thing is enough to make my Fitbit send me an elevated heart rate warning—even after playing through the game multiple times and knowing it inside out. It's just so damn unpredictable. But secondly, and more importantly, I don't really need to. Thanks to that peerless sound design, I can almost always tell where the alien is and what it's doing by just carefully listening to it. Luckily for Amanda, and for me, it's a noisy fucker.

The most terrifying sound in Isolation is the menacing hiss that heralds the alien's arrival in the level, slithering out of a ceiling vent. This is your cue to stop dead in your tracks. Then it's a matter of listening out for those heavy, clumping footsteps. The xenomorph may be the perfect organism, but it's not light on its feet. I love this sound because it really gets across how massive and heavy this beast is—but also because it's a vital positioning tool. You can accurately track where the alien is relative to you, especially with a pair of good headphones.

Isolation really comes to life with headphones. The intricacies of the sound design become more apparent, and it makes sound as valuable a survival tool as any of the hastily crafted gadgets stuffed in Amanda's backpack. Most games have some kind of 3D audio simulation, playing sounds relative to the player's position to create a sense of depth and immersion. But The Creative Assembly took this concept to a whole other level in Isolation, to the point where it's actually more useful for keeping tabs on the alien than eyeballing it.

Alien: Isolation

Not all the sounds in Isolation are scary. There's one that, every time I hear it, I'm overcome with sweet relief. When the alien gets bored of trying to find you it'll sulk away into one of those ceiling vents, and this AI routine has a very specific sound attached to it: a clumsy, metallic thump as the beast drags its immense frame back into the cooling ducts. This means that, for a while at least, you're relatively safe. If you do something daft like sprinting or firing a gun it'll appear in a flash and murder you. Stay quiet, though, and it won't bother you until it re-emerges.

But this is just one way to play. The beauty of the game is that there are numerous ways to deal with the creature and other threats on Sevastopol—like using the alien itself as a weapon. Its systems-driven design makes it immensely replayable, and the simulation underpinning everything rewards creativity. Encounters play out differently every time depending on the gear you currently have equipped, or how the dynamic AI decides to behave that day. Sevastopol is an unforgiving place, but if you open your ears you might just manage to survive it.

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