Fans of the franchise heading out to see Alien: Romulus this weekend and Creative Assembly's truly terrifying PS4 punt, Alien: Isolation, will have a subtle advantage over their non-game playing kin in a cool nod from director Fede Álvarez. If you want to go into the film without meta-spoilers (we haven't seen it), read no further!
As players of Alien: Isolation well know, the game uses sci-fi telephones as save points, allowing them to try again after they have inevitably been torn apart by the particularly relentless xenomorph hunting them across the Sevastopol space station. Players are taught that if you see a save point, generally, that means something traumatic is about to take place.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Álvarez said Isolation fans would know when to cover their eyes, as the director has placed telephones throughout the film as a nod to the terrifying game: "The movie is set up in a way [that] every time something bad is about to happen, you will see a phone. In the game, every time you knew there was a phone, you'd go, 'Fuck, I'm about to go into some bad set-piece.' It's the same thing here. You'll see they're planted strategically throughout the film. When you see the phone, it's like, brace for impact."