I’m of the firm belief that you can never have enough video games based on the humble ol’ Xenomorph. While it’s true that the batting average for such adaptations has been all over the place, with the seminal Alien: Isolation comfortably sitting at the qualitive apex, the risible Alien: Colonial Marines being at the opposite end of that spectrum and titles like Aliens: Dark Descent and Aliens: Fireteam Elite awkwardly falling in-between, I’m still thankful that attempts were made in each instance, not least because I’m something of a rabid Alien fan.
Ultimately then, that’s somewhat how I feel about Alien: Rogue Incursion Part One Evolved Edition – a back ported, first-person survival horror PSVR 2 effort that certainly doesn’t lack much in the atmosphere stakes but which stumbles on account of plodding movement, poor design and almost sacrilegiously dumb Xenomorph adversaries. That said, I am happy that exists and it certainly has its moments, I just wish more was done to unshackle itself from its VR heritage.
Alien: Rogue Incursion Part One Evolved Edition PS5 Review
Alien: Rogue Incursion plunges players into the well-worn boots of rogue Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks, who together with her synthetic companion Davis01, find themselves drawn to a distress signal on the planet Purdan, only to discover – you guessed it – a facility absolutely overrun with Xenomorphs. Much like James Cameron’s superb Aliens before it, Alien: Rogue Incursion is paced similarly, as Zula spends a good amount of time acclimating to her environment before catching sight (or rather the sound) of her first Xenomorph, thanks to that dread device of creeping horror that is the Weyland-Yutani motion tracker.
From there, as you might expect, it’s off to the blood-splattered races and as such Alien: Rogue Incursion wastes little time in engulfing players in its gameplay loop which largely remains the same from beginning to end. This gameplay loop essentially has you scavenging around the various lockers, cupboards and containers for precious ammo and health supplies as you hack into various computer terminals and blast your way through the facility in a bid to discover a source of the distress signal which lured our hero, Zula, there in the first place.
From the off, the first thing you’ll notice is that player movement is a bit plodding – which makes sense because it comes from a VR title where the sort of hectic movement you’d normally get in a traditional FPS would be vomit-inducing for many. However, though that might be true, in practice it makes getting around the facility and surrounding area something of a chore, especially as the ‘run’ command feels more like a sprightly jog than anything else, despite consuming Zula’s decidedly finite stamina bar super quickly into the bargain.
In a way, this slow movement also does the overall atmosphere of Alien: Rogue Incursion an odd favour. Because you can only move at a fairly laborious trudge through the environment, it not only becomes impossible to outrun your seemingly terrifying enemies, but by artificially stretching out the time it takes to get from one point to another in the game world, the feeling of danger is much more palpable than it otherwise might be.
Truth be told, developer Survios has done a commendable job of evoking both the mood and fear from the movies that serve as the inspiration for Alien: Rogue Incursion. With dark, missed filled corridors with their stunted ceilings and wide walkways that are lined with all manner of pipes, grates and cabling, it’s clear that Survios has spent a lot of time modelling the environments of Alien: Rogue Incursion to be closely approximate to those glimpsed in James Cameron’s Aliens flick and from an immersion standpoint, it certainly pays off.
Earlier in this review, I referred to the Xenomorphs as ‘seemingly terrifying enemies’ and the reason for that is the AI which governs their behaviour is uninspired and predictable in the extreme – everything the Xenomorph arguably shouldn’t be. Not only are these foes often spotted first long before they get close (arguably representing another sin in Alien lore), but they almost always attack in exactly the same way; they’ll clamber the ceiling or the walls and jump down right in front of you just about every time to be blown apart.
The surprising dumbness of the Xenomorphs also manifested itself in another slightly amusing, though ultimately frustrating way during my time with it. One time I became imprisoned in a room because in that particular area the doors lock if Xenomorphs are detected and then unlock as soon as the coast is clear. The problem is, the room I was locked into was a spot on the map that the xenomorphs couldn’t get into so I had to reload my save simply because their path finding was a bit crappy.
Beyond the Xenomorphs themselves, the way that you encounter them is also sadly somewhat predictable. With a dramatic swell in the music heralding their imminent arrival, all you need to do is back into a corner that gives you a perspective toward the possible angles they’ll attack from and just wait for them to come. Annoyingly, this is a gameplay mechanic that is almost distressingly overused too, as you’ll spend a whole lot of time taking an item from place to another, only to find yourself constantly under attack – never mind the fact that the slow traversal makes things even worse in this regard (as does the fact that you’ll frequently drop whatever it is you’re carrying to use your two-handed weapons, such as the pulse rifle and shotgun, for example).
As if that scenario wasn’t bad enough, face huggers are, somehow, even worse still. Not only are these iconic creepy crawlies wildly difficult to hit (like in the movies I guess) but if they land on your face they can take up to half your health while you’re trying to QTE them off by pressing the L2 and R2 buttons like a mad person. What puts the odious cherry on this particular turd cake however, is that the leaping range of these things is pretty long and they never, ever miss. Frustrating? Oh yes.
Further Reading – Upcoming PS5 Games 2025 – The Best PS5 Games Coming Soon
Oh and speaking of QTEs, when you’re in the middle of them you can still be attacked and killed! Maddeningly, this can happen quite often too as there are sections where you are required to use items in particular ways that would probably have been much quicker in VR and yet here, it’s super, super slow and leaves you open to a good chewing for absolutely no real reason at all. As such, this also makes it clear that Alien: Rogue Incursion also invariably fares better as VR game, rather than the sort of flatter experience we have here.
And there’s one more thing that absolutely rankled me – the map – it’s terrible. When you’re given an objective to track down on the same floor as you, the map lights up like a Christmas Tree in showing you the direction to go. If however, the objective is on a different floor to you, the map almost ghosts out the objective marker entirely which when combined with the like of a way pointing system in the UI proper, makes tracking down objectives and points of interest a greater pain in the behind then they need to be.
Now I know that I’ve splurged out a whole lot of negativity in these preceding paragraphs, but I also have to say that there were still elements of its overall design which made me find Alien: Rogue Incursion to be a compelling prospect. Not only did I find the plot rather enjoyable, not least because of some relatively surprising Blade Runner style ruminations on what it means to be human from the perspective of the synthetics, but the plot has a surprising connection to another part of Alien lore which really surprised me. Hopefully the eventual second part will shed more light on this particularly fascinating aspect of the plot.
Further afield, though the combat is let down by the dunderheaded AI, all of the weapons feel and sound great (the trademark ringing sound that pulse rifle makes when it discharges rounds still sounds great all these decades later) and there is also a legitimate joy to be had in getting progressively more capable security cards to unlock areas you previously couldn’t access. Finally, it also doesn’t hurt that Aliens: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition actually looks pretty darn great too, with a super smooth 60 frames per second framerate, some of the best Alien models ever seen in a video game and swathes of gorgeous lighting and shadow work that really make the game world to come horrifying life in a way that any game based on Alien arguably should.
Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition then is deeply flawed and arguably struggles to trace a satisfying gameplay loop over the lines of its source material. However, it gets enough right with the atmosphere and general presentation that it ends up being one of the best 6/10 games I’ve played in a good while. Though that might be damning with faint praise and certainly far from a perfect organism, I still feel Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition is worth checking out for Aliens fans all the same.
https://youtu.be/614-sqcj1CM
Alien: Rogue Incursion Part One Evolved Edition is out now on PS5.
Review code kindly provided by PR.