Corporate Lockdown is a DLC expansion for the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation. As with the majority of Isolation's DLC packs, it expands the game's Survivor mode, introducing new maps and a new playable character, as well as a new Gauntlet mode. Set during the events of the main game, it allows players to assume the role of Seegson executive Ransome as he attempts to escape from Sevastopol Station.
The pack introduces three new Survivor maps, "Severance", "Scorched Earth" and "Loose Ends", taking players from the Corporate Penthouses in the Solomons Habitation Tower, through the San Cristobal Medical Facility and on to Seegson Communications. Despite Ransome being the suggested playable character, players can choose from a selection of characters (including Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley, Axel and Hughes), each of whom start with different weapons and equipment.
Corporate Lockdown was the third piece of DLC for the game, released on October 28, 2014.
Plot[]
Severance[]
Following Weyland-Yutani's betrayal, Ransome came to a conclusion that Sevastopol Station had plunged into utter disaster and decided that he was going to escape the station, but not before erasing all data that the company would want to obtain.
Ransome left his luxury penthouse and hastened through Solomons Habitation Tower to try to impede the company as much as possible; he disabled the camera systems, sealed the window shutters of the outside of the station and deleted all server records. All whilst under the duress of the Alien and numerous Facehuggers that had made their way into the area.
Scorched Earth[]
After surviving the Xenomorph encounter in Habitation, Ransome moved onto his next goal in the San Cristobal Medical Facility; remove all trace of his involvement. Whilst the Xenomorph stalks him in the facility, he steals numerous copies of Dr. Lingard's research files and also deletes a message that Lingard had sent to Marshal Waits regarding Ransome (a list of all the times he blackmailed or threatened someone). An explosion later engulfs an area of the facility, with the executive taking his leave in an elevator to Comms. Ransome also manages to save a civilian from a burning room during this experience.
Loose Ends[]
The elevator crashes into comms, with Ransome having to climb out of it. Once investigating around the Working Joe stricken area, he closes a message recorded by Nina Taylor to Sevastopol and takes an audio log recorded by Ellen Ripley in hopes of using it as a bargaining chip to get on-board the Torrens. Whilst experiencing a close encounter with the Drone, Ransome managed to override elevator security control and escape.
His fate afterwards is unknown.
Gameplay[]
Gauntlet mode[]
The new Gauntlet mode introduced in Corporate Lockdown challenges players to complete all three of the DLC's Survivor maps back-to-back without dying. Unlike when playing the levels normally, any weapons, ammunition and equipment collected by the player will carry over into the next map, but if the player is killed at any point they must start again from the first level ("Severance"). Upon completion, the player is given a total time and score for all three levels combined, ranked on a separate Gauntlet mode leaderboard.
Gauntlet mode is also available in the subsequent DLCs Trauma and The Trigger.
Trivia[]
- A destroyed android can be found in Ransome's penthouse at the start of "Severance". This is a nod to an archive log found in the main campaign in which Ransome angrily complains about a Working Joe attacking him in his apartment.
- Lingard can be seen from a distance in "Scorched Earth" — she can be seen through a window in lab B, accessing a terminal in the room below, before a sudden explosion in Ransome's area occurs. Following the blast, Lingard runs off to another area in the medical facility. The later DLC Trauma allows players to control Lingard in this sequence, revealing that it was she who accidentally triggered the explosion, while trying to activate the facility's emergency hazard cleanse procedure.
- It is possible to bypass the weapons detector in "Loose Ends" by crawling through the floor vent that passes beneath it. Doing so will prevent the device's alarm from sounding, which in turn means the Alien will not appear to investigate the noise, making the final part of the level considerably easier.
- The audio log recorded by Ripley that Ransome recovers can also be found in Last Survivor. Taylor's audio message, meanwhile, is the same as archive log 034 in the game's main campaign, albeit slightly reworded.
Gallery[]
