Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition

In December last year, we reviewed the VR game Alien: Rogue Incursion, where the visuals were impressive but the exploration over time felt sluggish. Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition is an updated version of the VR game, now adapted for traditional gaming, completely without VR goggles. For some, this may initially seem counterproductive. How on earth can a game developed for VR be converted into a more traditional experience, especially since the game mechanics and design choices are based on the VR experience?

The game begins as expected when I take on the role of Zula Hendricks, a character who has previously appeared in the Dark Horse Comics series, including Alien: Defiance. She is the typical tough guy, determined and with a strong sense of duty. Zula is a retired colonial marine who, together with the synthetic character Davis, takes on the crazy task of destroying a greedy company's plans to use the Xenomorph as a weapon. Does the concept sound familiar?

After receiving a distress call from a friend at a facility belonging to the company Gemini Exoplanet Solutions, Zula and Davis set off on a rescue mission. We begin our journey at the moment Zula and Davis reach the facility on the remote planet Purdan, where they are shot down by anti-aircraft fire. The introduction feels very short and to the point, which I find a little disappointing. I would have liked an introduction with more depth and a slower tempo.

After the crash of the spaceship and a brief introduction on board, Davis and I step out onto the planet and begin to explore a seemingly deserted space station. I traverse long, dark corridors, and it doesn't take long before bloodstains and dead bodies begin to appear. It also doesn't take long before the alien threat begins to show itself, and I find myself cornered with my pulse rifle. With the adaptive trigger buttons on the DualSense controller, it feels really good to fire salvo after salvo and then watch the Xenomorphs' bodies collapse on the floor, where they quickly decay into a slimy pile of acid. However, it's a shame that there's no focus on dismemberment with limbs falling off in the same style as, for example, Dead Space. They don't react noticeably when hit by shots, regardless of the weapon or hit area, there are no visually appealing reactions, which makes the battles less intense and reduces the feeling of impact from the weapons.

At the same time, developer Survios manages to convey a really good atmosphere, faithful to the films, where the sounds and feel of the weapons, together with the environments, feel spot on. When I reload the pulse rifle, everything around the weapon becomes blurry for a brief moment. This is a relatively simple technique, but it creates a kind of immediate stress, especially when I have Xenomorphs just a few metres in front of me.

At the same time, I encounter a problem, which is that the environments, despite a solid atmosphere, look very similar throughout the game. After a while, I find it difficult to tell the corridors apart and begin to experience the space station as a single dark mess, which creates more frustration than claustrophobic discomfort. Everywhere I find computer terminals, coffee cups, binders, various tools, helmets, and other items with exactly the same design. A little variety would have been appreciated, and over time it detracts from the feeling that the game so wonderfully establishes at the beginning. You can also pick up all these objects, to absolutely no use whatsoever, which is most likely a remnant from the VR version where it makes more sense to pick things up and turn them around.

Another clear example of repetition in the environments is when I need to save. To do so, I have to go to a special type of terminal, which is often locked behind a door and a kind of cable puzzle. These terminals and their accompanying puzzles look the same every time. The puzzle itself may be appealing in VR, but here I find it downright boring and pointless, so much so that I end up completely ignoring saving because I can't be bothered to connect cables for the umpteenth time.

However, the game's strength is, rightly so, the Xenomorph, whose design is excellent. It can climb walls and ceilings and get out through ventilation ducts, as it should. Together with the game's smoke effects and use of light and shadows, the gaming experience is often visually very appealing. There is no doubt that Rogue Incursion: Evolved Edition is an atmospheric game where the visuals in this updated version, according to the developers themselves, are also slightly better than in the previous VR version.

That said, I find blurry and low-resolution textures and a lack of detail in some objects on several occasions. Whether these are temporary graphical bugs, I cannot say, but they occurred regularly during my playthrough. The version I played was sometimes buggy, with androids floating around in the air, objects that couldn't be interacted with, and ammunition meters that only showed a line, which gave the impression of a rushed product. There were also frequent situations where the music quickly shifted tempo to something that typically indicated that I was about to encounter Xenomorphs. The same music track started playing just before an attack, which ruined the feeling a few hours in, as I knew immediately that Xenomorphs were on their way, and I assume this was also some kind of bug.

It's very clear that Alien: Rogue Incursion has its origins as a VR game. There are lots of objects that can be picked up, to absolutely no use. I can understand that this, in a sense, creates interactivity in VR, but here it just becomes unnecessary. The disappointment became a reality when I picked up a hammer that I couldn't use for anything other than throwing it away. This brought to mind the first Crysis, where you could pick up all kinds of different objects without any useful function. Furthermore, I repeatedly encounter the same type of puzzles where cables must be connected or terminals must be interacted with, which is certainly more suitable for VR. When I'm not connecting cables and shooting Xenomorphs, I'm looking for hard drives to place or terminals to activate. It quickly becomes very monotonous, and I begin to realise that the game doesn't have much more to offer.

The game largely consists of walking around corridors and rooms, figuring out how to open doors or cabinets, solving various puzzles, and searching for access cards or objects that open the way forward in the space station. In the midst of all this, there are a lot of action sequences where I shoot Xenomorphs. I have no problem exploring a space station at a slower pace, on the contrary, but the exploration itself must also be varied and there need to be sub-goals that make it interesting to continue. When I'm looking for an access card or a hard drive to insert into a terminal for the third time, I actually start to get tired of it. In addition, I would have liked to see more variety in the enemies, action sequences, and the intensity they contribute. After five hours, the action sequence becomes nothing more than a frustrating interruption where I just want to move on, instead of being the rollercoaster of adrenaline that it should be.

I also brought along a motion tracker, in classic style. This nifty little device played a crucial role in Alien: Isolation, but in Rogue Incursion, I had no use for it whatsoever during my playthrough. The reason, as mentioned earlier, was that music tracks regularly appeared, each time warning me of the Xenomorph's presence, which, combined with their predictable movement patterns, made me fully prepared for what awaited me.

You also have access to a torch and a map tool that is used to navigate to the next destination. The map tool was used regularly during the playthrough to find the right way, and without it, I would probably have got stuck much more often than I did. It was the environment and the difficulty of distinguishing one corridor from another. In a way, it can be considered a genius move to create such disorientation in the player that they are forced to use the map tool to find their way. At the same time, one might wonder how often it's reasonable to resort to the tool in order to progress in the story. Without the tool, it's not always obvious what I should do to move forward. At one point, I got stuck for about twenty minutes simply because I couldn't find a hard drive that I needed to insert into a terminal. The area where the hard drive was supposed to be was clearly indicated, but I searched every nook and cranny. In the end, I found it by chance. It was difficult to distinguish the hard drive from other items that could be picked up. On another occasion, I tried to traverse a garage where I saw my chance on a ledge that even a six-year-old could have crossed. Right then and there, I realised that the game lacks the ability to jump. You read that right, in Rogue Incursion, Zula Hendricks cannot jump. This is yet another typical example of how this was previously a VR game.

In terms of the game's arsenal, we are not offered much variety. We have a revolver, the classic pulse rifle, a shotgun, and grenades. Minimal weapon variety is not a huge problem in itself, but I must admit that it would have been better to have more iconic weapons from the films. I also mentioned earlier that I was happy to skip saving to avoid the tedious puzzles that the game forced on me. This turned out to be a less than wise decision, as the auto-save function was conspicuous by its absence, to the extent that I sometimes had to replay longer segments. Even though I quickly learned the Xenomorph's movement patterns and knew when it was time for action thanks to the soundtrack, I still died occasionally. Luckily, each action sequence didn't deliver a large number of Xenomorphs. After a couple of hours of playing, I could almost guess when a battle would end based solely on the number of Xenomorphs I had killed.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the production value here, and at times it offers an atmospheric and visually appealing experience, but unfortunately, the gaming experience itself suffers over time, partly due to a lack of detail that detracts from the overall impression. Solving the same kind of puzzles, using the same type of terminals over and over again, or knowing in advance when the action sequence is about to start becomes repetitive and rather boring. At its best, I am reminded of how fascinating the Alien universe is, and at its worst, I am reminded that I need to find another hard drive or access card or connect cables in a pattern to open another door. The version I played felt rushed in a way, with recurring bugs and low-resolution textures, and that's a shame because I really love the atmosphere and design that has been delivered.