Alien: Rogue Incursion: Part One: Evolved Edition - Attack Of The Colons (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- Apr 29
- 6 min read
Alien: Rogue Incursion: Part One: Evolved Edition
Released: April 21st, 2026 (Switch 2 date)
Developer: Survios
Publisher: Survios
Systems: PC, PS5, Switch 2 (both reviewed), Xbox X/S
Alien: Rogue Incursion could be a direct sequel to the Gearbox disasterpiece Aliens: Colonial Marines. Not for narrative reasons, but for the fact its physically troubled Xenomorphs love to do goofy dances. Basically, I’m saying Rogue Incursion is a bit of a shitshow and the titular Aliens are done a huge disservice by how much of a joke they are.
Originally a VR game, it claims to have been extensively reworked to find a home beyond a headset but its roots are way too visible. There’s a certain way VR games look and feel, so much so that I can tell them apart from other games at a mere glance while browsing digital storefronts. They’re “wavy” for want of a better word, with a distinct focus on first-person hand movements to account for the usual parade of routine gesture controls. Also, while not an exclusive or even comprehensive marker, a lot of VR games just don’t look all that hot.
Rogue Incursion definitely isn’t hot, in fact it's barely lukewarm. An awkward, unattractive, interminably slow game that should be half as long as it is, the horrid thing is besieged by technical issues, some of which are so visually harsh I’m glad to not be wearing a VR headset whenever they occur. I’m shocked I didn’t get a migraine playing it even outside of virtual reality, and I’m almost certain I would’ve if playing through that medium.
This game also marks the first time I’ve noticed a gulf of difference between the Quality and Performance settings. While Quality is a markedly relative term in this case - it’s hardly a looker at the best of times - Performance is so fuck-ugly I was almost tempted to sacrifice an adult framerate for some actual fucking textures! In the end I went with smoother visuals in every sense of the word, especially given my fear of headaches, but I've provided a mix of screenshots for comparison.
Graphics shouldn’t look this shitty on an original Switch, but this is the Switch 2 and I'm stunned that it fails to achieve 60fps and better detailed assets when the "quality" graphics look sub-par at best. It’s baffling just how poor Rogue Incursion looks and runs - there are framerate dips even when performance is prioritized - especially when you consider how incredible Alien: Isolation looked running on last-gen Nintendo hardware. I feel okay making that comparison because this game references Isolation a lot and comes off all the worse for inviting a contrast.
It did itself no additional favors by automatically disabling HDR and locking it as if my TV wasn’t capable (which it is).
On its finest day, this is a tepid and sluglike first-person shooter more concerned with endless wire puzzles and key hunting than fighting Xenomorphs. That might be for the best, since fighting Xenomorphs is exceptionally dull and clumsy. The script's barely worth talking about save for the welcome inclusion of Seegson in its story - I really like that Seegson and its Working Joe androids have been so embraced as part of Aliens’ videogame canon. Gotta love those creepy rubber bots.
Not that we get much to enjoy with the "Working Stiffs" seen here. Their few appearances are mostly window dressing until the final furlong gives us Helen, an admittedly charming named example. Even then, the Stiffs come off more like a tease that goes on to the point of creating apathy - a running theme with this game. Sure, giving us more malfunctioning android antagonists would’ve been a retread, but they’d have at least broken up the monotony of facing one recycled Alien Warrior model again and again. What our protagonist cringily refers to as “X-Rays” offer occasional harassment, clambering in via open ducts and similar environmental orifices. Once spawned, they attempt to attack you, which may take some time if they get snagged on level geometry or their pathfinding gets confused. They're the same thing every time, and I'm almost impressed that I got sick of seeing Aliens in an Alien game.
Oh, I remembered a thing I liked - the protagonist has a chronic back injury. Having a chronic back injury myself, I appreciate the touch, even if it barely comes up and ultimately makes no difference to anything.
While we’re talking about positive stuff, the Aliens aren’t universally stupid, being capable of just enough subterfuge to at least suggest the experience they were intended to provide. When they work correctly, Xenomorphs try to outflank their target, make crafty use of their ability to jump between surfaces, and can get the drop on you if you don’t check every corner and use your motion tracker. At least, that’s what happens when conditions are ideal, which they only occasionally are.
For the most part, you’ll have a shitty revolver, a surprisingly quasi-shitty plasma rifle, and a halfway decent shotgun. Aside from retrievable sticky mines, that’s your offense for the entire game. Three guns, 95% Warriors, 5% Facehuggers, and an ocean of crummy wire puzzles.
With such little variety and a hell of a lot of emphasis on performing the same busywork tasks, Xenomorphs quickly become a nuisance, more annoying pests than legitimate threats. They deal a lot of damage if they hit, but health stims are liberally provided throughout the environment. I think Rogue Incursion’s trying to ape Isolation with its unpredictable Alien attacks, but where that was a tense horror game, this is a rubbish action game that spawns enemies even during story dialogue so you can’t hear what’s being said.
It’s remarkable how bad the shooting feels - as well as coming off as rather weak, guns are slow, inaccurate, and never quite feel in sync with the player, always just a touch unresponsive. As someone who swears by gyroscopic aiming in Switch games, I’m quite shocked at how clunky and alienating it was. I’ve never turned gyro aiming off for a Switch shooter before, but that’s the second “first” this game has given me. If nothing else, I can’t say the experience hasn’t been unique - rubbish, but certainly unique.
Why does Davis' mouth only move sometimes when he talks? There’s another curiosity. Sure, your NPC compadre is a synth, but it doesn’t come across like his broken mouth’s a purposeful design choice. In the sequences you spend with Davis the boring robot man, it’s an unavoidable distraction when his mouth just turns on and off whenever he talks. It looks so bloody stupid that I hope it’s a mistake for the developer’s sake - it would be embarrassing if it were deliberate.
The back half is where things go from bad to insufferable. An overinflated series of backtracking fetch quests, it just goes on and on and on and fucking on. By the time I walked away from the campaign I was begging for it to end. Every time it looked like it would finally draw the curtains, it came up with another excuse to send me on some miserable courier mission - and it really did become miserable.
That’s pretty much it for this game.
I’m known to produce some rather bloviated reviews, going into more detail than is necessary at times, but with Rogue Incursion I genuinely don’t think there’s much more that can be said. I could complain about NPCs repeatedly chivvying you while you try to explore, the terribly concealed load times, the inability to read lore on computers without constant Xenomorph intervention, or further highlight some poorly reworked VR gimmicks, but what’s the point?
Alien: Rogue Incursion must have been awful in VR - possibly scary at times, but the glitches and borked physics could only be more of an eyesore up close. With its original vision haphazardly wallpapered over, the game has sacrificed its one unique selling point in favor of a worse Aliens shooter than Colonial Marines. Yes, I said it. At least that piece of shit tried to have some variety and a pretense of production value. This one feels even more cynical, coming across like borderline shovelware for the headset crowd.
That they ultimately decided the rest of us should see it is a shame.
It’s got “Part One” slapped onto its title, threatening further installments, and it does feel like a threat. My advice? Cut your losses, and I say that to the developers and paying customers. Play Isolation for scares, play Dark Descent for something buggy but unique, play Fireteam Elite for straightforward (thankfully patched) shooting, but don’t bother with this thing. Following the past few years of Aliens games, for all their flaws and foibles, Rogue Incursion is just sad.
4/10
