Since the late 70s, black, H.R. Giger designed aliens, have stalked movie screens, TV sets and nightmares. In the years that followed, they also crawled into the realm of video games, and sometimes did so in highly publicized (or controversial) ways. Now, they’re back on consoles in a traditional port of a formerly VR only title called Alien: Rogue Incursion – Part One: Evolved Edition.
Originally released onto PlayStation VR 2 and PC in late 2024, Alien: Rogue Incursion – Part One was written by Alien novel author, Alex White. It released to decent reviews, and now we are here with one of our own. We’ve been able to do this because the game is now being released in a non-virtual reality state, for Xbox Series and PlayStation 5.
How does it fare without a VR headset, the immersion that comes with that, and related controllers? Relatively well, but not great.
Alien: Rogue Incursion is set during Amanda Ripley’s era of the storyline, but it follows new character Zulu Hendricks. Having left the military in AWOL fashion, she and her synthetic partner find themselves travelling towards the planet Purdan and its Castor’s Cradle settlement. Things don’t go as planned though, because they are unexpectedly shot down and land outside of a snow covered settlement that has seen better days. Everyone has seemingly died, and their bodies act as evidence of something violent having happened. You can surely see where this is going. We’ve been here before. This story isn’t very unique, or memorable.
Being that this is a virtual reality game turned ‘traditional,’ it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s first-person. It takes the form of a first-person shooter and horror mashup, complete with puzzles and lots of backtracking. The idea is that you must traverse through, learn and survive what’s inside of this compound, which is made up of different buildings and sections, including the garage, the medical wing, the administrative section and more. It can be easy to get lost despite a half-decent map. This is added to by the fact that there’s a bug that affects one of the late game objectives, and sends you the wrong way.
Upon starting this first of two planned parts, I was tasked with setting the brightness, choosing the difficulty and deciding whether or not to use aim assist. I went without the latter, because I was using an Xbox controller, and played on normal. Not long afterwards, I was isolated on a strange planet and dealing with occasional attacks from Xenomorphs, who would slither out of vents, climb on ceilings or (often) run right at me. They would occasionally flank me, or try to. I always knew when they were coming though, due to musical cues. I occasionally used the movement detector to see where they were coming from, but it wasn’t always helpful. I rarely used the dodge button, though, and maybe should have.
At first, Zulu and I only had an assault rifle with explosive ammo, and a revolver. Later on, I found proximity grenades, a torch to open welded doors and a powerful shotgun. There were only the three traditional weapons, though, and sometimes ammo was a little scarce. I always did my best to thoroughly explore every inch of every room, in order to find all bullets, clips, shells and health syringes. Zulu can carry three of those at a time.
Obviously, getting scratched or hit by a Xenomorph hurts, as does getting clamped onto by a face hugger — the only other type of enemy. However, it’s also possible to be damaged by the acid that comes out of them when they’re downed. Not only does it burn through the floor, but it also hurts Zulu a bit.
Given its roots, it’s important to temper one’s expectations when going into Alien: Rogue Incursion – Part One: Evolved Edition. Because it was developed for virtual reality headsets, it’s a bit more basic than your average console or PC first-person shooter. The gunplay is rather standard, as are the controls, which occasionally make you press the left and/or right triggers to do things like climb, insert hard drives, or perform other actions. It’s a way of bridging the gap between VR design and controls, and traditional controllers.
There’s a lot of going through vents, using computer terminals (to read messages, close vents, unlock doors, check hard drives and more), and the like. You’ll also revisit previously explored areas after upgrading your keycard, in order to get into previously locked areas.
On top of this, saving is handled by going up to specific computer terminals and logging in. As such, checkpoints are limited, and it’s not hard to lose too much time or progress by dying. This frustrated me at times.
What also frustrated me was a bug that I encountered a lot. At first, it seemed like the odd input wouldn’t register. Then, when I started doing the game’s circuit puzzles (to unlock doors, including save rooms), I found that I would sometimes be unable to move properly after leaving the terminal. By that, I mean that I couldn’t rotate the camera, and could only walk in a straight line. This led to deaths, lost progress and the like.
This glitch never went away during the 8 or so hours I spent with Alien: Rogue Incursion – Part One: Evolved Edition. However, I eventually discovered a way to counteract it, instead of letting aliens kill me or reloading a previous save from the save log. I discovered that, if I opened the weapon wheel and changed weapons, I could move properly again. It was still annoying, though.
This needs to be addressed.
The game’s other problem is repetition. Sure, most titles are repetitive in some ways, but it starts to negatively affect this experience. The same is true of the occasionally confusing setting, mediocre map and the focus on backtracking. It feels like things drag on unnecessarily, and that the game keeps extending its length by sending you back into the complex for basic fetch quests.
Presentation-wise, this is a decent but unspectacular experience. It looks, plays and performs fine, albeit with a tiny and almost negligible amount of slowdown. However, it won’t wow you. Things do look a bit dated, and this extends to all facets of the game, including character models, enemies and environments. Don’t get me wrong though: it’s a pretty good-looking game, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not an attention grabber.
The audio is good, and the voice acting is above average. Developer Survios did a good job of getting the Aliens atmosphere right, and there’s a good amount of tension that comes from hearing the musical cues that let you know enemies are coming, but not knowing where they will pop out of. Things can get pretty tense, and occasionally chaotic.
At the end of the day, Alien: Rogue Incursion – Part One: Evolved Edition is a solid game that does a good job of staying true to its subject matter. However, it doesn’t think or step outside of the box much, and plays things a bit too safe. It’s enjoyable, but somewhat basic and repetitive, and its roots as a VR exclusive are likely a factor.
This review is based on the Xbox Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.