Alien: Rogue Incursion feels like a breath of fresh air in the current VR gaming landscape, where games either try to be too innovative and end up falling short or lack a cohesive experience from start to finish. Alien: Rogue Incursion, however, feels like a proper VR game built with a single goal in mind: to provide an experience equivalent to a first-person Alien game fully controllable in VR. It is an interactive VR game where every aspect of actions like reloading, solving puzzles, or interacting with the environment feels immersive and carefully crafted.
Survios has developed a solid portfolio of VR games, and after the massive success of Alien Isolation, fans had high hopes that a new game in the franchise could capitalize on that success. Alien Isolation was a standalone experience focused on surviving the Xenomorph rather than fighting it. Alien: Rogue Incursion takes the opposite approach. While exploration is important, action takes center stage for the majority of the game. Players can use impressive weapons to fight numerous Xenomorphs that appear at a rather alarming rate. The game encourages players to move quickly to the next checkpoint rather than spending time exploring.
First up is the presentation. I played the game on a standard PS5 with PSVR 2, and getting into actual gameplay was rather smooth. I also appreciated how the developers have included accessibility options, such as subtitles, which are not commonly seen in VR games. Booting into the intro, one thing immediately stood out to me: the game looked pretty good, but it wasn’t exactly visually appealing. I understand that a standard PS5 might be getting old at this point, but the blurry visuals, especially in the distance, were honestly disappointing. The PSVR 2 supports eye tracking, so I reckon the game only renders the objects/textures that are in front of us. It honestly doesn’t look as good as the screenshots we have seen online, but it is not necessarily a bad-looking game either.
The controls are smooth and easy to grasp. The opening prologue is a lengthy tutorial that essentially explains each piece of the control. If you have played VR games in the past, you will easily manage to figure out most of the controls. I liked how the developers gave us a datapad and even a motion tracker straight from the films that we could hold in our hands. The datapad is used to check on objectives, read the log files that are located around levels, and inspect our inventory. It is also essentially an ink ribbon with infinite use from the Resident Evil franchise, as it can be used to save data by finding these terminals in levels. There is no auto-save, which I feel is a little unfair, especially since it puts you back at the last checkpoint where you saved data. Still, it does add to the intensity of exploring a world where Xenomorphs can be a threat.
The game does a decent job of building its lore and provides some easter eggs and throwbacks to the movies that we all love. I’m not exactly sure if this is officially canon to the Alien universe, but nonetheless, the story of the game is set between the time of Alien and Aliens. The main character is named Zula Hendricks, who turns out to be a character taken from the Alien comics, which I haven’t read so far. The central location in the game is a facility overrun with Xenomorphs. While the story provides a fascinating background on the history of this facility and its inhabitants, the narrative of this game just doesn’t hold a candle to Alien Isolation. This is obviously just my opinion, but the game being just Part One feels like a major setback since we are left wanting more by the end.
The gameplay is excellent though. I really enjoyed the PSVR 2 controller features like haptic feedback as well as the eye tracking of PSVR 2. The guns have recoil, and reloading them feels realistic, although it can get repetitive over time. I also didn’t really enjoy how the tone is widely different between the first half of the game and the second half. We are treated to mostly action-packed exploration in the first half and then are left to backtrack through many locations in the second half. It can get a little tiresome coupled with the lack of auto-saves, but the lore is interesting to read and, being an Alien fanatic, I enjoyed every moment of it.
The bottom line is that Alien: Rogue Incursion is a genuinely great VR game. If you are an Alien fan, this is a no-brainer to pick up. The only major issue is that it is just part one of the story, and the ending has a cliffhanger that will likely disappoint a lot of fans. The game raises many interesting questions and provides a fresh perspective on the Alien lore, but most of these are left unanswered by the end, leaving us hanging. I would have enjoyed a more coherent and conclusive narrative with this level of VR gameplay, but it looks like we might have to wait a while until the story concludes.
Alien: Rogue Incursion Game Information
- Price: $39.99
- Publisher: Survios
- Developer: Survios
- Platform: PS5 (Reviewed)
- Disclaimer: A review code was given by the publisher
