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Alien: Rogue Incursion is a good game with a few fatal flaws. Decent and scary gameplay is let down by poor graphics and overcomplicated mechanics. While these issues persist, they can be looked past for those who really want to get stuck into the latest VR title from Survios.
Rating: 6/10
Pros
- Scary to the point of goosebumps
- Doesn’t outstay its welcome
- Follows the same structure Alien fans are used to
Cons
- Poor graphics
- Overcomplicated mechanics for simple tasks like reloading
- Limited weapon arsenal
Alien: Rogue Incursion at a Glance
| Category | Our Rating (Out of 10)? | Comment? |
|---|---|---|
| Graphics | 4 | Aside from the limited weapons to choose from and a few other niggles, the combat and gameplay were the perfect combo of scary and exciting. |
| Gameplay | 7 | Aside from the limited weapons to choose from and a few other niggles, the combat and gameplay were the perfect combo of scary and exciting. |
| Story | 8 | The Alien: Rogue Incursion story was simple and linear, following the structure you’d expect without overstaying its welcome. |
| Replayability | 2 | I wouldn’t replay Alien: Rogue Incursion just due to how simple the story was. |
| Overall | 6 | Alien: Rogue Incursion is a good game is marred by poor graphics, limited weapon arsenal, and frustrating mechanics. |
Familiar Ground
Alien: Rouge Incursion is the latest Alien game to hit the shelves in the form of a VR title from Survios, the studio that brought us Metro Awakening VR. In a similar fashion to its last release, Survios delivers an amazingly scary game with some decent gameplay elements and a simple story. While this is a great title to sink your teeth into if you enjoy horror titles, the Alien franchise, or are just a VR fanatic, this doesn’t mean Alien: Rogue Incursion is without its flaws.
Alien: Rogue Incursion starts you off flying through space in an aircraft as you embody Zula Hendricks, a familiar name to those who have read the Alien comics. Everything quickly goes south when you crash land. As you emerge, you must explore the Gemini Exoplanet Solutions research facility to determine what went wrong. It’s clear that the storyline is a secondary feature in Alien: Rogue Incursion, as it remains elementary throughout the entire title.
I played Alien: Rogue Incursion on my Meta Quest 3 through AirLink, meaning the game was running off of my PC on Steam. While my PC specs are quite bodacious, the graphics I was presented with were super disappointing. The game just looked unpleasant, and no amount of smoke, dark environments, or sparks from busted-up machinery was covering it up. Our full Alien: Rogue Incursion review covers everything you need to know.
Scary Visuals
Of course, I’m not expecting top-tier graphics when playing VR titles, but Alien: Rogue Incursion was particularly bad. Characters’ mouths weren’t moving in sync with their voice lines, the environment was just not up to scratch with other VR titles released recently, and sometimes I could see polygons. I was expecting a whole lot more in terms of graphics.
For those who get motion sick quite often, myself included, Alien: Rogue Incursion’s gameplay doesn’t do much to offset this. Rather than having the option to teleport to a new location to move, which many games offer, you have to use the left thumbstick to move around. Hopefully, Survios will implement this in a future update to ensure the game is still accessible to those who may struggle with motion sickness.
As you proceed in Alien: Rogue Incursion, you learn the different fundamental mechanics behind the game, how to shoot your weapon, how to use your datapad, and so on. While all of these are seemingly easy tasks, Survios always has a way of overcomplicating them, as it did in Metro Awakening VR, which can absolutely ruin the pacing of the game from time to time.
Lacking Gameplay
While it makes for a more true-to-life experience, reloading your revolver’s chamber one bullet at a time or having to remove and replace magazines from your Pulse Rifle while in a tricky situation can be more frustrating than anything else. A similar convoluted process is incurred as you try to heal yourself, access your inventory, or use your datapad to access systems.
After getting over some of these annoyances, playing through Alien: Rogue Incursion was as I expected. In true Alien fashion, you carry on perusing the planet of Purdan and you encounter Xenomorphs, and while they’re genuinely terrifying at first, I feel like I suffer a bit of exposure therapy here. You come across so many Xenomorphs, which are pretty simple to kill thanks to the abundance of ammo, that they eventually stop being so scary. That doesn’t mean hearing a hiss coming from behind you doesn’t make the hairs on your neck stand up.
You have the option of carrying on slowly and steadily to not attract more Xenomorphs towards yourself, or you can charge in head first, sprinting everywhere and popping bullets in their heads as you pass them. Given how easy it is to kill them in Normal difficulty, I opted for the second strategy.
Proceeding with the game, you realize it’s up to you to save humanity as these Xenomorphs provide an extinction-level threat. As you carry on, prompted to fix different machinery very loudly, which, of course, attracts every enemy within a 10-mile radius, you must rely on your speed and arsenal of weapons to help you out.
Pulse Rifles and Other Mediocre Weapons
Despite having three different weapons at your disposal, I feel like this array of weapons doesn’t really match your environment. While a Pulse Rifle is a sci-fi-inspired weapon that feels like it’s from the Alien universe, a standard 6-bullet revolver and shotgun don’t. I wish Survios had been slightly more creative with the weapon choices on offer here, but at the end of the day, they would have gotten the job done.
Having this limited arsenal definitely makes Alien: Rogue Incursion’s gameplay all the more scary, and the lack of melee weapons contributes to this even further. As a face-hugger grabs you, you have to very quickly figure out what the best weapon to use is and what angle you need to use it at, and personally, I just cannot deal with that level of pressure.
As you’d expect from most VR games, the Alien: Rogue Incursion story totals around eight hours, meaning it’s (mostly) short and sweet. While for some, this might be a tad disappointing, especially considering how straightforward it is, I think it’s perfect and doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Overall, Alien: Rogue Incursion is a good game with an engaging yet linear story, spine-chilling gameplay, and a need to think on your feet. It’s a shame the title is let down by poor graphics, to the point where I was almost put off of the game.
While you do encounter other annoyances, such as convoluted mechanics for tasks such as reloading, healing, or using your datapad, as well as a lack of comfort mode for those who get motion sick, these can be easy to look past for those who want to get stuck into Alien: Rogue Incursion. I hope that these issues are ironed out post-release through patches and updates from the Survios team.
The Bottom Line
The Alien: Rogue Incursion release date is December 19, 2024, for those hoping to play the virtual reality exclusive title on Steam or PSVR 2. The title will then be coming to Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S on February 13, 2025. It will set you back $39.99 for the standard edition or $49.99 for the deluxe edition, which includes exclusive in-game skins.
