Alien: Rogue Incursion is an immersive treat for fans of the franchise

As if crash-landing isn’t bad enough, imagine doing so on a planet inhabited by xenomorphs. That’s basically the premise of Alien: Rogue Incursion, the latest game based based on the popular franchise developed and published by Survios. Made for VR, it’s perhaps the most immersive Alien game yet, and so it’s safe to say that fans will definitely want to check it out — providing they have the required hardware, of course.

Ex-Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks is the star here, though she’s aided by Davis 01, a synth who provides plenty of useful guidance. Having crash-landed on the uncharted planet of Purdan, it doesn’t take long for things to turn even more awry for the pair, with the xenomorphs making their presence known within minutes of Zula leaving the comparable safety of her downed ship.

An action-horror game, Alien: Rogue Incursion is tense from the get-go, with you never able to fully relax due to the alien threat. While Purdan may be uncharted, its number of research facilities makes it clear that humans have been there at some point. Now it’s down to you to work out what happened and find a way to escape. But it’s not going to be easy; you’ll have to keep your wits about you, and make effective use of all the weapons and tools at your disposal to give you the upper hand.

What’s great is that Alien: Rogue Incursion makes everything so intuitive. Many tools, such as your iconic scanner that allows you to detect alien life forms closing in on you, and your pulse rifle, can be easily retrieved by just moving an arm over your shoulder and grabbing. Meanwhile, a smartwatch-like device on your arm allows you to view your current health, and if you need to heal you can quickly grab a health stim from the back of your arm, press a trigger to extend its needle, and then jab yourself with it.

Various other tools, including a tablet which you can use to view various data as well as place into various docks for a variety of purposes, can be easily accessed via a gear menu that’s just one button press away. Throw in a pistol that’s handy to switch to when you’re in the middle of a firefight and don’t have time to reload, and more, and you have all you need to succeed and make you feel like you’re part of a living, breathing world.

There’s plenty of other interactivity to sell the fact that you’re actually there, too. You’ll need to climb up ladders with the appropriate arm movements, pull levers to open certain doors, use both hands to pull covers of circuit boxes before you have at them with your tools; basically, if you can see it, you can probably grab it or interact with it.

But of course, as much fun as it it is playing with things, this is an Alien game, and so you’re always under threat. As you go around trying to complete your objectives, you’re never quite sure when a xenomorph might appear, or from where. Of course, your scanner comes in handy, but you can’t always be using it, so you need to rely on your own intuition and senses at times. When one or more xenomorphs do appear, the heat is on as you retrieve your pulse rifle, grab onto it with both hands for greater accuracy, and then hope to god that you can shoot them down before they have a chance to lash out at you.

It truly is terrifying when you’re under attack from a xenomorph, and what makes matters worse is the fact that you know if you die, you’re taken back to the last panic room that you saved at, and there can be quite a distance between them. Some may find this a little frustrating, in fact, but there are multiple difficulty levels available so you can always drop a down a little if you find yourself dying too frequently for your liking.

Other than that, though, there’s very little about Alien: Rogue Incursion that is likely to frustrate or disappoint players. Having to manually reload your weapons, maybe? But then that’s an issue in most VR games. Limited enemy variety? While you’ll only be fighting xenomorphs here, their unpredictability always keeps you on your toes, so it’s not all that much of an issue at all. So, if you’re Alien fan, and have the required VR hardware, consider this a bit of a Christmas treat.

Alien: Rogue Incursion is available on PC VR and PS VR2. It launches on Meta Quest 3 early next year.