Can You Survive the Genre-Bending World of Alien: Rogue Incursion - Evolved Edition?

Can You Survive the Genre-Bending World of Alien: Rogue Incursion - Evolved Edition?

The latest Alien terror stands with a foot in two different genres.

The Alien franchise lends itself to a remarkable array of story formats. Consider the original quadrilogy of films. The original Alien was a pure horror movie, with a seemingly unstoppable monster picking off characters one by one. Aliens went in a completely different direction, as the Sulaco’s firing squad confronted the monsters with immense destructive force and still ended up being overwhelmed. Alien3 put a different spin on horror, focusing more on the conflicts and tensions between a group of violent prisoners who were in some ways much worse than the monster trapped in their facility with them. And Alien Resurrection adopted more of a modern blockbuster vibe, with a team of wisecracking misfits struggling to prevent the alien threat from reaching Earth.

Likewise, you can take a lot of different approaches to an Alien video game. The franchise thrives when it takes the form of a pure multiplayer cooperative shooter, as with Aliens: Fireteam Elite. But it also shines at the other end of the action spectrum—think of games like Alien: Isolation, a stealth survival experience in which you play an un-empowered protagonist trapped in a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse with a hungry, persistent xenomorph.

For Alien: Rogue Incursion, developer Survios has struck a comfortable balance between the two extremes. Rogue Incursion plays in a first-person perspective, but it doesn’t go full-guns like Fireteam Elite, nor does it lean entirely into stealth and danger like Isolation. Instead, it takes more of a horror tack in which players need to navigate complex spaces and deal with xenomorph threats as they emerge.

This is not survival horror; it’s action horror. Even though you’re not powerless in the face of the alien threat, this is also no simple bug hunt. Rogue Incursion dips into the Alien expanded universe and centers around comic book fan favorite Zula Hendricks, a rugged colonial marine who has survived multiple xenomorph encounters, and a long-time friend to Isolation protagonist Amanda Ripley. This is a deeply personal mission for Zula—a desperate, determined quest for survival against seemingly impossible odds. As a high-ranking marine officer, Zula is no stranger to deadly situations and knows how to resolve them with equally deadly force. The events of Rogue Incursion present her with a threat like none she’s ever faced before, and she must defy the odds if she hopes to make it through the adventure alive.

The full-length single-player campaign in Rogue Incursion began life as a virtual reality game, and that means no shortage of jump scares. This Evolved Edition, however, has undergone a comprehensive overhaul to play on standard consoles. This is not just a quick-and-dirty VR conversion that shifts the viewpoint a bit. Alien: Rogue Incursion - Evolved Edition lives up to its billing, and Survios has rebuilt the entire experience from top to bottom... not just to adapt to non-VR systems, but to thrive there.

You’ll still encounter plenty of those jump scares, but overall you can expect a different form of immersion than the kind you lived through in VR. Even though it’s every bit as tense and demanding as the earlier VR edition, Alien: Rogue Incursion - Evolved Edition runs on a standard screen. More importantly, the aliens themselves have evolved. Fans of the original Rogue Incursion will find themselves facing far deadlier xenomorphs this time around. Their A.I. has been beefed up to give them new capabilities like multi-surface traversal and coordinating pack hunts. To survive the world of Alien: Rogue Incursion - Evolved Edition, Zula will have to outsmart the most lethal “Perfect Organism” in the galaxy: a horde of terrifying creatures who have her in their sights, constantly stalking her, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Despite the move from VR, the entirety of the game maintains an immersive feel, with supporting tech and information (things like maps and trackers) taking a diegetic form that feels perfectly faithful to the grimy analog world of the Alien series. You have to consult data pads and handheld maps in order to orient yourself in the game’s sprawling, complex environments. Surviving the action horror of Rogue Incursion is unique in that it demands a fair bit of shooting finesse... but more importantly, it requires keen navigation skills and a bit of flair for overcoming environmental puzzles. Which makes sense. It’s Alien. Nothing about that should be easy.

You can preorder Alien: Rogue Incursion - Evolved Edition for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC in both standard and upgraded Steelbook editions at Limited Run Games through June 7.