Alien: Rogue Incursion Part One Evolved Edition Review – Predictably Scary

Carefully making my way through the hallways of Castor’s Cradle, I could not help but be reminded of every other horror title I’ve played in recent times. Alien: Rogue Incursion does not reinvent the wheel when it comes to the action-horror genre’s trappings, but does enough with what it has to make it an entertaining take on a franchise that’s become quite iconic over the years.

Exploring a Xeonomorph-infested facility as Zula Hendricks was quite thrilling, although the lack of variety in weapons and enemy types was something I just couldn’t ignore. It made the game too front-loaded for my liking, although the story was interesting enough to make me see things through to the end of the adventure.

Set between the first and second films of the Alien franchise, Rogue Incursion has you guiding Zula through a GES facility called Castor’s Cradle. She’s there because of a friend and former colleague, who sends out a distress call to her and her android buddy Davis. Things don’t go according to plan, and the duo is soon left stranded on Purdan, the planet on which the facility is located.

The Xenomorphs soon make themselves known to you, and things get quite interesting from there. I won’t spoil the moments that make this game memorable, but know that Zula’s on a clock and decides to blow the facility sky high in order to remove the Xenomorphs from the equation. Grim stuff, I know, but I don’t see how I would have done things any differently.

Actually exploring the facility is entertaining at first, but quickly becomes repetitive. Puzzles come in the form of fuse boxes that you need to rewire in order to gain access to new areas, while a few other doors require you to weld them open from the other side. It’s quite immersive thanks to the impressive visual design and intricate levels, but I soon knew the facility’s layout like the back of my hand.

“There was always something to discover around every corner, be it precious ammo and healing items, bits of lore to further flesh out the GES’s shady dealings at the facility, or messages that brought out the human side of its employees”

That was a good thing as there was a fair bit of backtracking involved, with more paths becoming available as a result. There was always something to discover around every corner, be it precious ammo and healing items, bits of lore to further flesh out the GES’s shady dealings at the facility, or messages that brought out the human side of its employees as they went about their business, keeping Castor’s Cradle running as smoothly as possible.

The manner in which the story was fleshed out by these discoveries is among the highlights of the game. Nothing is presented to you on a platter, and you get more out of your time in Castor’s Cradle based on how diligent you are towards finding out more of what made it a desolate nest for the Xenomorphs.

However, I must give credit to how developer and publisher Survios has managed to make the entire exercise feel hair-raisingly scary. The Xenomorphs are vicious and hunt Zula with unerring precision, often coming at her in droves. While dealing with them with either your revolver, shotgun, or pulse rifle is certainly easy, it doesn’t take away from the fact that all my favorite moments in the game included having one of them in the mix.

“Nothing is presented to you on a platter, and you get more out of your time in Castor’s Cradle based on how diligent you are towards finding out more of what made it a desolate nest for the Xenomorphs”

One of my favorite story moments was one in which I had to make my way carefully through a full-fledged Xenomorph colony carrying a severed robot head, with only my shotgun to protect me and very limited ammo to use with it. I was forced to think carefully and strategically, using the environment to fend off a horde that came at me with all the feral menace it could muster. When Rogue Incursion manages to bring its disparate elements together, it blazes like a thousand suns! A pity, then, that these moments were so few and far between.

While I played through the game on the Story difficulty to save me some time, the challenge on higher difficulties is there for those of you who want it. Sadly, with only Xenomorphs and Facehuggers thrown into the mix, Rogue Incursion’s combat suffers from the same repetition that its exploration loop brings to the table.

With that being said, an area where the game truly shines is its audio design. Zula and Davis’s voice actors establish a comfortable rapport between the two characters right from the very beginning of this story. And when you first step off the ship, the silence that greets you weighs heavily on your shoulders, creating an atmosphere that’s oppressive and suffocating.

The score shifts as suddenly as the Xenomorphs appear, and does a very good job of conveying the fear and terror that having to face down such monstrosities would bring to even the most seasoned Marine. Zula is charming enough to be likable, while Davis brings a sort of measured gravitas to his role as her helper and companion through the harrowing experience they must endure.

” When you first step off the ship, the silence that greets you weighs heavily on your shoulders, creating an atmosphere that’s oppressive and suffocating”

Rogue Incursion is also quite immersive and well-paced, the tension never letting up at any point during its relatively short runtime. As the first chapter of a two-part adventure, I wonder if Survios would have been wiser to just release both games together as a standalone title. The ending of this pilot title felt quite abrupt and came off as rather anticlimactic in hindsight.

All in all, the lack of weapon and enemy variety and a bit of repetitive patterns throughout the gameplay loop hold Rogue Incursion back from true greatness. I began to expect the Xenomorphs every time I was picking up an important item or settling down to begin rewiring the fuse box to an important door. That kind of predictability has no place in a horror title, no matter how excellent and imposing the enemies are. I’d even go as far as to say that I wish there were a jump scare of two at some point as I explored Castor’s Cradle.

While all my problems with the game thus far can largely be ignored if you’re keen to dive into an Alien game, a few glitches and bugs were far more egregious and likely to have you rage-quitting more than you’d like. For instance, I found my directional controls completely disabled after I disengaged from a fuse box more than once, forcing me to either reload the game or try awkwardly dodge sliding to a nearby save point to set things straight again. Here’s to hoping that it gets fixed with a day-one patch!

“Rogue Incursion is also quite immersive and well-paced, the tension never letting up at any point during its relatively short runtime”

Another annoyance was when a character tells you there’s something important nearby, and there’s no indication as to where that might be. While I’m all for encouraging organic discovery, those important items are tucked away so obscurely that it certainly felt like they were hidden in a manner intended to make finding them a chore. That might just be me, though.

Alien: Rogue Incursion is an entertaining take on a popular franchise, but it simply does not do enough to make it stand out on its own. Its excellent visual and audio design work well with its story to give you the impression of an experience that’s only going to get better after its opening act plays out. Sadly, it doesn’t and stays more or less the same for the entirety of its runtime.

While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, there are only so many fuse boxes you can rewire and similarly designed enemies you can take down before fatigue sets in and you simply rush through the story just to see how it ends, thanks to how interesting it is. Fans of the Alien franchise might find enough to like about this one to warrant a second playthrough, but for the rest of us, this is a one-time title at best.

I’d recommend waiting for a sale if you’re thinking of trying this one out, unless the thought of being hunted by one of the action-horror genre’s most iconic monstrosities sounds appealing to you. In that case, this one’s a great option for a slow weekend evening.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.