The system that decides this game is noise. The creature hunts by sound and sight and cannot be killed, so walking, hiding and patience are your real weapons, and the only checkpoint you control is the manual save at a Registration Point. The second system is the terminals: keypad codes, stash rooms and locked lockers are all answered in the logs, so this guide marks every log that carries a code with a 🔑 and gathers the codes in one Codebook. First Hours is the primer; The Route is all 19 missions with every log, ID tag, Nostromo log and blueprint in pickup order; Logs & Codes is the full archive and the Codebook; Tools & Gear is the toolkit, the crafting priorities and where you land. Keep a Noisemaker crafted at all times. Every tick saves on this device as you go.
Walk, hide, save. The creature cannot be killed and comes to noise, so walk by default, crouch near vents, and get under a desk or into a locker the moment the tracker spikes. Saving is manual only, at the wall phones called Registration Points, so save every time you pass one. Read every terminal: the keypad codes live in the logs, and the 🔑 rows on The Route and the Codebook in Logs & Codes keep them one tap away.
Noise is the difficulty, and silence is the answer. Running, gunfire and dropped crafting items all carry. A Noisemaker thrown down a corridor pulls the creature (and anything else that hears) away from your path, which turns most bad rooms into a walk. Keep one crafted, keep a Medikit crafted, and save before every push.
Five settings: Novice, Easy, Medium, Hard and Nightmare (Novice and Nightmare arrived in a free patch after launch). Higher settings make the creature more perceptive and supplies thinner; they do not change the route, the logs or the codes. Pick with care at the start. Honest unknown: sources disagree on whether the hardest-difficulty achievement still unlocks on Hard now that Nightmare exists, so if you are chasing it, play Nightmare or check first.
Light. Objectives and pickups only: log titles show, their contents do not, and nothing here names who survives or what you will find. For the story reading of every log, the station graph and the help desk, use the companion guide, AISC. For all 19 missions use The Route; for the archive and the codes, Logs & Codes; for tools, weapons and crafting, Tools & Gear.
Tally your opening hours. Items marked ↔ shared also live on The Route or Tools & Gear: tick them anywhere and they stay in sync.
- The creature is not a boss. It roams on its own, through rooms and through the vents above you, and it cannot be killed. You hide from it, distract it, and later drive it off; you never beat it.
- Sound is everything. Walking is quiet, running is loud, and gunshots carry a long way. Things that hear you come to the noise, including the creature.
- The motion tracker is a tool, not a crutch. Raising it pulls your focus (the room behind it blurs) and its ping can be heard by things close to you. Glance at it, then put it away.
- Saving is manual. Registration Points (emergency phones on the wall) are the only save. A save takes a few seconds, and you are exposed while it runs. The game also autosaves at the start of each mission, and never inside one.
- Crafting runs on scrap. Pick up every component. Blueprints teach you new items and upgrade old ones, so every 📐 on The Route is worth the detour.
- Terminals are the puzzle layer. Logs explain what happened, and some carry a keypad code for a stash room, a locker or the way forward. The 🔑 rows tell you which.
- Mission select keeps your collectibles, so nothing is permanently missable. Each mission end is still a last call until you either reach the free-roam mission or replay from the menu.
Sprinting feels safe and is the fastest way to get found. Running is loud enough to pull the creature out of a vent onto you. Walk by default, crouch near vents, and run only when you know nothing is close.
Bullets do not stop it, and the noise brings it straight to you. The revolver is for people, not for the thing in the vents. Hide, distract, and wait it out.
A save takes a few seconds and you cannot hide while it runs. If the tracker is busy, back off, wait, and save once the area is quiet. A save at a bad moment can lock you into a bad position.
The Pipe Bomb is the classic waste: expensive, loud and overkill. Scrap spent on one early is a Noisemaker, a Medikit and an EMP mine you will not have. Do not craft them until your basics are always stocked.
Spoiler-safe: only what you meet in the first four missions. Later threats are covered inside their own mission card on The Route, so nothing here gives them away.
| Threat | The answer |
|---|---|
| Hostile survivors 🔗 | Keep your weapon down and your distance; some warn you off before they shoot. A Noisemaker or Flashbang moves them, and their gunfire draws the creature to them, not you. |
| The creature 🔗 | ★ Do not fight it. Walk or crouch, break line of sight, hide under desks and in lockers, and lean back to hold your breath when it sniffs close. A thrown Noisemaker buys you a corridor. |
| Working Joes 🔗 | Slow, relentless and unafraid. Walk around them. Bullets are mostly wasted; once you can craft EMP mines, one stops a Joe long enough to finish it with the Maintenance Jack. |
| Cameras and alarms | A camera beam raises the alarm, and alarms draw everything. Watch the beam, wait for it to sweep, then cross. |
Your only manual save is a Registration Point: insert your card at a wall phone and wait for the beeps. The game autosaves once at the start of each mission and never again until the next one, so a death sends you back to your last manual save. Route rows marked save have a Registration Point at or near that objective.
Mission select keeps collectibles. Anything you miss can be picked up by replaying that mission from the menu, and Mission 16 is a free roam with every tool unlocked, the natural sweep window for doors you could not open the first time. So grab what is convenient, follow the 🔑 rows for codes, and clean up the rest later.
A few achievements depend on how you play the whole run, so choose before you start: finishing the story without dying, finishing without killing any humans, and the hardest-difficulty clear. Three missions also carry their own challenge (Mission 4, Mission 5 and Mission 14); the Mission 4 melee kill is easiest early in that mission. Collectible achievements cover the ID tags and Nostromo logs and can be cleaned up with mission select.
🔦 Also using the survival companion? Its Status tab can copy your ticks across in one tap, either way.
Everything you read on a terminal or pick up off a body, in one place. The Codebook comes first: all 14 keypad codes, the door each opens and the log it hides in. Digits stay masked until you tick the log that holds them, or tap to peek. Below it: all 151 archive logs by mission, the 10 Nostromo logs, and the 50 ID tags by act. Every row here is the same box as its row on The Route.
Tick a code once you have it; the tick is the source log's own box, so it also ticks the log on The Route.
- 0482: one source prints 0483; 0482 is the consensus and the one that opens the Transit Office.
- 2931: no log or survivor gives this code; players found it by trying codes. It opens a supply locker only.
- 8897: a maintenance code in a Mission 10 log with no door known to use it.
- ID tags: the split between Missions 10 and 14 is 5 and 3 here; one source lists 6 and 2. The total of 50 is agreed.
- Blueprints: 20 here; one source counts 21. Treat a 21st as a bonus.
| What | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 🔑 Logs with a code | ★★★ Must-do | They open stash rooms, lockers and blueprints, and a few open the way forward. Never walk past a 🔑 row. |
| 📐 Blueprints | ★★★ Must-do | New items and stronger versions of the ones you rely on. The single best use of a detour. |
| 📄 Other archive logs | ★★ Worth it | The station's story, told by the people who lived it, and the pull of the run for story fans. The companion guide reads them with you. |
| 📼 Nostromo logs | ★★ Worth it | Ten short recordings with a link to the film, mostly late in the game. Quick to grab and an achievement. |
| 🪪 ID tags | ★ Skip on run one | Completion and an achievement, nothing more. Mission select keeps them, so sweep them later. |
| Mission 16 sweeps | ★★ Worth it | Every tool is unlocked and most old doors open. The cleanest chance to catch up before the end. |
Grouped by mission, in pickup order. 🔑 marks a log that carries a code. Titles only: what they say is left to the game. For the read-along, open the companion guide, AISC.
Taken from the station's dead. Grouped by act; each row gives the printed name and number.
Your toolkit grows by mission: the Maintenance Jack, the Access Tuner and the cutting torch each open a new kind of door, and each upgrade opens doors you passed earlier. Scrap goes into Medikits, Noisemakers and EMP mines first. Weapons are for people and androids, never a plan for the creature.
No weapon makes Sevastopol safe. What keeps you alive is a Medikit for a mistake, a Noisemaker to clear a corridor, and a save you made two minutes ago. Every pick below protects that.
In the order you find them. Each row is the same box as its row on The Route.
| Item | Rating | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medikit 🔗 | ★★★ | Must-do | Health does not come back on its own. Keep one or two at all times. |
| Noisemaker 🔗 | ★★★ | Must-do | Cheap and works on everything that hears: pull a hunter or a crowd off your path. |
| EMP Mine 🔗 | ★★★ | Must-do | The clean answer to androids. Worth the components once you meet them. |
| Flashbang 🔗 | ★★ | Worth it | Blinds and stuns for an escape. Cheap and reliable when something reaches you. |
| Molotov 🔗 | ★★ | Worth it | Fire drives the hunter off and burns humans, but it costs more than it seems. |
| Smoke Bomb 🔗 | ★ | Situational | Breaks line of sight on people. Rarely the best use of scrap. |
| Pipe Bomb 🔗 | ★ | Skip early | The classic waste: expensive, loud and overkill. Do not sink scrap into these early. |
Molotovs and Pipe Bombs look like the answer to a bad room. Usually the answer is to not be in it. Build the quiet kit first (Noisemaker, Medikit, EMP) and craft fire only when you know the fight is coming.
| Weapon | Rating | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Revolver 🔗 | ★ | For hostile people in a pinch. Loud: every shot is an invitation. |
| Stun Baton 🔗 | ★★ | Quiet and rechargeable. Drops a person or stuns a standard Joe for the Jack. |
| Flamethrower 🔗 | ★★★ | The one tool that drives the creature away. Short bursts only: fuel is scarce. |
| Shotgun 🔗 | ★★ | Heavy close-range answer to androids. Shells are rare, so aim for the head. |
| Bolt Gun 🔗 | ★★ | Slow, powerful, and good at range on tough targets late in the game. |
- Maintenance Jack: braced doors and some panels. Also your melee weapon.
- Security Access Tuner (Levels 1 to 3): hacks locked doors and terminals with a quick symbol game. Each level opens doors you passed before.
- Cutting torch (Gas, Plasma, Ion): cuts through welded panels and locked hatches; each tier cuts a tougher grade.
- Gas Mask: lets you breathe through gassed rooms you had to skip.
- Keycards and codes: keycards are 💳 rows on The Route; keypad codes are in the Codebook.
Sources are not clear on whether the three torches are separate tools or one torch upgraded twice, and on exactly which tier a few late revisit doors need. Where unsure, assume the latest torch and the Level 3 tuner. Mission 16 has every tool, so it opens everything regardless.
The add-ons are standalone modes outside the campaign, so they are not tracked here. Crew Expendable and Last Survivor are short scenarios set aboard the Nostromo during the original film: ★★ worth it for fans. The Survivor Mode packs are timed challenge maps with their own objectives and leaderboards: ★ a curiosity once the story is done. None of them carry logs or codes.
Alien: Isolation has one ending. There is no branch to unlock and no collectible that changes it, so play at your own pace. What happens is left to the game.
A first run is roughly 18 to 19 hours; a full clean-up of every log, tag and blueprint is closer to 35. A comfortable finish means you saved often, kept a Noisemaker and a Medikit crafted, and opened every 🔑 door. Mission select and the Mission 16 free roam cover anything you missed, and the run-wide achievements in First Hours are the reason to go round again.