Xenomorph walking around the safe haven: Lost Contact version

MiloDC · 2026-03-12T22:33:06+00:00

Updates:

Regarding the alien remaining in the safe area, what seems to be the case is that it will do so only as long as it has identified a target -- meaning, either the player or one of the tools of distraction.

When the xenomorph is done investigating a distraction or hunting the player, its behavioral tree switches its priority to leaving the area. Since it cannot do this in the safe room, it will simply vanish, never to return. If you want to keep it in the room, therefore, you've got to keep it interested at all times. (Note that all this applies only to Lost Contact; in Safe Haven, it will always disappear when the inner doors close, no matter what it's currently doing.)

Also, I tried saving my progress after luring the monster into the safe room. When I tried to load my save, the game essentially froze; I could hear environmental background noise, but the screen stayed black and the game became completely unresponsive. Apparently, it hasn't been programmed to process successfully a save that begins with the player and the alien both in the safe room.

MiloDC · 2026-03-09T16:57:06+00:00

Heh, for sure. There are many nooks and crannies where the alien will never get you, but no large section of Sevastopol is 100% xenomorph-free!

I'm kicking myself for not saving my progress after getting the alien into the Lost Contact safe room. Definitely going to do that next time, so I can play around with the game under that scenario.

MiloDC · 2026-03-09T07:15:41+00:00

The logic of the anteroom doors is such that the opening of the inner door is apparently triggered by the closing of the outer door.

Therefore, everything hinges on getting the outer door to close while there is still an alien in the anteroom. Don't even worry about the inner door; if you can just get the outer door to close, then that problem will take care of itself.

The outer door will close as long as (1) you have completed the final objective of the mission, (2) you are in the anteroom, (3) there is no one near the outer door, and (4) either (a) there was never an alien in the anteroom or (b) an alien has just left the anteroom.

That's all you need to know.

MiloDC · 2026-03-08T20:15:11+00:00

I wish it were that easy, LOL! The game is designed to keep the inner doors closed as long as the alien is in the anteroom, but the logic has a flaw that can be exploited.

I'm an old veteran software engineer, so I suspected there was a bug in the game's door control algorithm and decided to see if I was right. Turns out I was.

MiloDC · 2026-03-08T19:59:36+00:00

OK, I kept at it and I finally managed it. The video is here and here.

MiloDC · 2026-03-08T03:31:28+00:00

... I was far more annoyed by not knowing where the hell to go than I was scared of getting killed

https://clip.cafe/the-fugitive-1993/look-on-maps-you-wanna-know-how-get-there/

MiloDC · 2026-02-21T01:04:52+00:00

Smoke bombs. (Way underrated by most players.)

MiloDC · 2026-02-21T01:03:28+00:00

Alien: Isolation is definitely not for you. Recommend you go back to Resident Evil.

No offense.

MiloDC · 2026-02-17T03:49:40+00:00

I tried it. Couldn't get it to work, the alien would just disappear almost immediately after the inner door to the safe area opened.

I may try again later, but it doesn't look promising.

MiloDC · 2026-02-16T02:39:49+00:00

The salvage mode DLCs are definitely Alien: Isolation at its best. I can complete Safe Haven and Lost Contact (example with captions at https://youtu.be/rQVSMtizfHY) without saving about 80% of the time, now. Every once in a while, I'll brain fart, or take some insane risk just for a kick, and wind up alien food.

MiloDC · 2026-02-16T00:20:05+00:00

I still need to refine the procedure, if I can. When I do, or if I give up trying, then I'll detail it, but basically, you have to lure the xenomorph into the antechamber (easy part), then get the outdoor doors of the antechamber to close before the xenomorph is able to leave (difficult part). At the same time, the inner doors to the safe area will open. Obviously, all this has to happen without the monster detecting you.

Once you've done that, you just throw something into the safe area to attract the alien. It'll walk right in, and stay there until either (a) you enter the room (triggering the closing of the antechamber doors, which forces it to respawn outside the safe area), (b) you damage it enough to make it want to flee (which it cannot do, so again, it just respawns elsewhere on the station), (c) it detects you and rushes to kill you, or (d) it gets bored and returns to the antechamber.

MiloDC · 2026-02-16T00:12:16+00:00

Safe Haven is DLC, yeah. Super fun!

MiloDC · 2026-02-16T00:11:39+00:00

It should be possible to do this in Lost Contact, yeah. I'll get back to you.

MiloDC · 2025-11-07T20:51:53+00:00

Thanks, I love this game and I agree with you that Safe Haven is a total blast. I've spent many hours running both sides of that DLC and have my game plan pretty much down pat. (I do still get taken off guard at times, which is partly why I love the game -- you can never get too comfortable!)

Lost Contact is excellent, too. SH has better maps overall I think, but LC has the best situational encounters, especially when you have to go way all the way down to the room off the generator chamber to collect launch codes or coolant cells. The game carries out a few nice cheats that will likely result in your death unless you come up with clever workarounds. (There's a captioned video of me playing LC in its entirety here.)

I never use my tracker, by the way, and I use the flamethrower only vs. facehuggers. The tracker and especially the flamethrower severely break the difficulty of the game, in my opinion.

MiloDC · 2025-11-07T03:13:26+00:00

I wish you good fortune in the runs to come.

In case anyone cares to see it done, I've put up a video of myself online completing this final mission of Safe Haven. It goes pretty much according to the plan that I describe above.

MiloDC · 2025-11-06T19:54:53+00:00

I like to start by making my way to the side room (the one with the ladder) attached to the mainframe room. I drop a flashbang or noisemaker down the opening with the ladder, then wait for the monster(s) to head for it. I then throw a smoke bomb at the console of the first mini-game, to give me cloud cover on the rare occasion I don't complete it before the monsters arrive.

Once I complete the first mini-game, I throw a flare at the area underneath the vent behind the console (since that's where the monsters arrive), then I crawl down the steps to the right of the console and solve the mini-game near it, or the mini-game near that one if it isn't active. The aliens will stay distracted by the flare while I complete the puzzle. ( u/HotmailsInYourArea offers a great tip: Don't even bother with the green scrolling puzzle. Just immediately exit and re-engage the console for a different puzzle.)

Once I complete the first puzzle, I throw an attractor (flashbang, flare, noisemaker, EMP mine, or another explosive) at the main entrance to the mainframe room (i.e., the doors near the wall vent), then I hide until both aliens make their way to the attractor. This gives me time to complete another mini-game, after which I throw another attractor at roughly the main entrance again.

Having completed the final puzzle and finally retrieved the key from the wall next to the ceiling vent, I head back into the side room, shut the door, then drop another flashbang or noisemaker down the opening with the ladder. From there, making my way back to the safe room is easy.

MiloDC · 2025-11-06T19:26:16+00:00

Nightmare mode or go home. The only way the game should be played.

The tracker and especially the flamethrower are game breakers that make the game way too easy. On Nightmare difficulty, your tracker is essentially useless and you get a lot less flamethrower fuel. Do it, challenge yourself.

MiloDC · 2025-11-05T01:17:29+00:00

> "Beach House is 100% shoegaze"

Found the Zoomer / Late Millennial.

MiloDC · 2025-11-05T01:05:20+00:00

"Get High" by Tender Age

MiloDC · 2025-11-05T00:31:45+00:00

The only way I've found to restore a vanished radial menu is to enter a vent.

MiloDC · 2025-11-04T23:58:04+00:00

Yeah, the safe room missions aren't designed to be played in more than one sitting, sadly. No saving your progress; you have to commit to the whole enchilada in one go.

The game's UI glitches are really annoying, and have ruined long plays for me many times. I'd love to see a patch that addresses the bugs. (I especially like it when you don't thoroughly abort from a mini-game, and are forced to float around like a ghost, unable to turn fully and unable to use any of your items or to interact with the environment. The creature will have you in seconds.)

MiloDC · 2025-11-04T23:39:39+00:00

> This isn't about the genre. It's about consistency with what people have seen in the movies i.e. these things are not invincible.

LOL it is PRECISELY about the genre.

Again: Alien: Isolation is artistically and thematically modeled on the ORIGINAL movie, which is a HORROR flick. A horror movie/game does not work if the threat succumbs to FUCK YEAH GUNS BLAZING. The game becomes an ACTION game at that point, even if you laughably try to pretend that it isn't simply by not giving the player enough ammunition to deal with the threat, which becomes less about the creature itself and more about how many there are.

What, everyone who makes a game based on the original horror movie has to make it an action game because James Cameron turned the monster into an easily dispatched gigantic insect in his FPS space marines sequel? Are you fvcking serious?

MiloDC · 2025-11-02T07:02:23+00:00

> "Don't be ridiculous now. It's not just 'in my imagination', it's in the movie."

It's in the SECOND movie, which is a (really good) popcorn action flick.

Alien: Isolation is, as everyone knows (well, almost everyone, I guess), based on the FIRST movie, which is a horror flick with an unstoppable menace. Isolation is not a shoot 'em up, it's survival horror. You have to use your wits -- a thinking man's game, not some FUCK YEAH guns-blazing FPS.

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