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Even though it's a first-person single player story driven game, upcoming stalk-em-up Alien Isolation won't be an entirely linear experience. You'll be able to retrace your steps and explore areas of the game's doomed space station, finding new secrets.

"It's a bit like a Metroidvania game where you have a linear story you go through but you can also go back and explore areas you've been to," lead designer Gary Napper told YouTube's Angry Joe Show. "You can go back to areas and find new things, explore and open up new areas. There's a lot to do in the world."

So-called "Metroidvania" games take their inspiration from early console hits Metroid and Castlevania, both of which encouraged players to go back to previously explored areas of map and use newly acquired abilities to find new things there.

Napper also suggests that the game will take 15 hours to complete, but admits that the use of a single free-roaming and artificially intelligent alien means that accurately predicting each player's experience is tough. "The difficult thing is nailing a time because people can play for absolutely ages without even seeing the alien because they're being really careful and really stealthy, they've done nothing to call him down or there have been no explosions that he has come to investigate," he explains. "Those people can get through it fairly quickly."

Alien Isolation is out on October 7th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. It's been confirmed that the PC version will be compatible with the Oculus Rift VR headset, for maximum terror.