Alien Rogue Incursion – Evolved Edition Review: A Solid but Uneven Return to Xenomorph Horror

It’s been far too long since we’ve had a proper single-player first-person Alien adventure on console, so when Alien: Rogue Incursion’s Evolved Edition landed on Xbox Series X, I was eager to see whether a VR-born game could survive the translation to a flat screen. In many respects, it succeeds, but it’s not quite the masterpiece some hoped for.

You play as Zula Hendricks, joined by her synthetic companion Davis 01, investigating a facility overrun by xenomorphs. The story is dark and deliberate; through environmental logs, audio cues, and terse cutscenes you gradually uncover what’s gone wrong. The final act delivers a visceral punch, and the game ends on a brutal cliffhanger that leaves you hungry for Part 2.

One of the biggest challenges is adapting a game designed around VR’s physical interactions to a controller. In practice, Survios converts many of those VR tasks (turning knobs, welding, grabbing, etc.) to button holds or trigger presses. For the most part, this works. But sometimes the simplicity is felt: I often found myself yearning for the more tactile VR experience, expecting to reach out and twist a lever with my own hand. I might have to check out the VR versions on Meta Quest or Steam, just for full immersion. That said, the control scheme is serviceable overall and rarely blocks progression.

Combat is the area that most defines the shift. This feels more Aliens than Alien. You wield three core weapons (revolver, shotgun, “pulse rifle” — though missing its grenade launcher) and must manage scarce ammo and occasional stealth. Enemies can be cunning: in this version the xenomorph AI is pretty reactive, stalking you from vents, reacting to noise, and coordinating attacks. Some of the most memorable moments are when the alien literally drops from above while you scramble to bring your gun up. Occasionally though, aliens get stuck on geometry or spawn in predictable patterns, which undermines the tension.

Puzzles and exploration form a substantial backbone. You will rewire fuse boxes, hack terminals, chase keycards, and backtrack through prior sections to unlock doors or fulfill new missions you couldn’t before. In the early half this feels engaging, but by the time you hit the latter half, the backtracking becomes tiring. I often said to myself, “I’ve been here, take me somewhere new.” That sense of fatigue dulls the sharper edges of the experience.

Graphically, the game looks decent though a bit dated. Indoors it’s clean enough; in harsher lighting or with motion it can turn soft or muddied. But where it shines is in audio. The rumble of vents, the hiss of aliens, the ping of the motion tracker, those are all classically Alien. Spatial audio amplifies the dread. On Xbox Series X performance is solid: frame rate holds firm, and I encountered no frame drops. Occasional bugs remain, literal and figurative, but nothing catastrophic.

One frustration is the save system. You must find special “panic rooms” to save. As the game progresses, dying sometimes sends you back quite far. In tense corridors this can feel punishing. Too many times I died moments before a safe room and resented having to re-run long stretches.

Despite its flaws, Rogue Incursion delivers enough fan-service and strong moments to make it worth a look for Alien fans. The ambiance is authentic, the story compelling, and those jump moments still land. But the repetition, occasional jank, and shift toward action limit its ambition. I suspect VR fans might prefer the original, and console fans will divide over how much they forgive the adaptation.

If this is only Part One, I hope Part Two leans harder into horror, trims back the filler, and polishes the rough edges. For now, Alien: Rogue Incursion – Evolved Edition is a solid, if imperfect, step back into the Alien universe on console.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Alien: Rogue Incursion – Evolved Edition is now available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.