Alex White is an author and previously wrote the Alien novels Alien: The Cold Forge in 2018 and Alien: Into Charybdis in 2021. Both novels were well-received by fans of the Alien franchise. Alex was also the writer of Survios’ Alien: Rogue Incursion video game that was initially released to virtual reality platforms in 2024 before a non-VR version made its way to PC and consoles in 2025.
Alex joined us on Episode 232 of the AvPGalaxy Podcast to talk about Alien: Rogue Incursion. The discussion covers the creative friction between game development realities and narrative ambition. We also explore the real-world inspirations behind the game’s corporate horror and address the community debates regarding the game’s treatment of Xenomorph infection mechanics, the portrayal of Zula Hendricks, and the backstory behind the “Standard Android Separation Protocol.” You can watch the interview below and read on for a transcription. Please note that the accompanying transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Introduction & The VR Experience
Alex White
Aaron Percival: We’ve just made landfall on a planet heading to rescue somebody who has been on this show a few times before in the past. Somebody, Adam, and I will continually big up on any time their work, or just Alien in general, comes up. Alex White, thank you for joining us again.
You can guarantee that whenever somebody shouts up on Reddit, or Facebook, or on the forums, looking for some book recommendations, trying to get into the Alien universe, there are two titles and one name that always crops up on there. So you are very lauded within the fandom.
Alex White: That means a lot. I was just telling somebody the other day, I’m so glad that I didn’t know how much The Cold Forge was going to matter to people while I was writing it. Because I wasn’t precious at all. I was just like, “Let’s go.”
Aaron Percival: Did that sort of affect you when you were working on Into Charybdis and Alien: Rogue Incursion? Did you think about that reputation?
Alex White: I had to make myself stop. I had to really be like, “No, no, no. Make sure that you’re not just writing for fans. Write what’s correct, don’t write what’s expected.” And that’s a hard thing to do. I do not think it’s a good idea to try and unite all the fandoms, for example.
Aaron Percival: So, Alex was the writer, or is it a narrative designer [on Alien: Rogue Incursion]?
Alex White: I was the writer in this particular case. The narrative design stuff that I did was a lot of very high-level developmental notes to the team over the course of two years. And then the writing part was the actual lines of dialogue that you hear, the monologues, that kind of stuff, as well as a whole bunch of the emails.
The actual narrative design, pacing, how it all kind of comes together in terms of when you cross this threshold, is when you hear this line and all that other stuff, as well as probably the other good portion of the emails was Zoe Quinn.
I have been playing the non-VR version and I actually find it’s a little easier to enjoy. Because there’s only so long that I can sit there with a VR headset on and it makes me sweat.
Aaron Percival: So, when I first tried VR, it used to give me headaches. And I’m talking Rift 1. When I was playing this, and I was playing it on the Quest headset, I had to do it in hour, two-hour stints because at a certain point, I’m overheating in the face. I have a little fan on the floor that points up at me and when I’m playing the headset, it is on full blast, just trying to keep me there. It’s interesting to know you feel that way.
Alex White: And I mean, I enjoy the physicality of it. I really do. And there are some things that I think are missing from the flatscreen version that I really liked about the VR version.
One, I really enjoy the reloading aspect of it. I really enjoy taking off the tracker and putting it facing me when I’m sitting at a station so that I know when an Alien is coming up on me. Because I want to read how my stuff looks in the game. I read every email. I want to see how the story sort of plays out according to the location.
Once again, I sort of handed Zoe fifty-something emails and they were like, “Okay, well this is the one that goes here, and this is the one that goes here, and this is how I want this to go.” Those kinds of differences are there.
And of course, you can do the boxer dodge on an Alien swipe in VR and you can’t do that in the game. But they have a dodge. I actually really like that, by the way, because most game characters do like a box jump when you hit the space bar. Zula Hendricks does a lateral jump, which is actually more like what a person does.
Aaron Percival: I really enjoy Alien: Rogue Incursion. The physicality of it. It does the job. It pulls you into the universe. I’m so glad they did the Evolved Edition, I really am.
Because the one complaint I got sick of seeing, and it is selfish and kind of unfair of me to say, but I was sick of seeing, “I don’t have a VR headset.” And I’m there on the other side being like, “I’ve been waiting for this for however long it’s been since I first tried Alien: Isolation in VR.” I want something from the ground up, Alien VR, because this is the license for it.
I was a little selfish in that I’m sick of seeing people complain about this, but I am so glad that they actually did sort that accessibility issue out. Because VR isn’t cheap. So I think it was a good move on their part to cover both bases. But for me, I prefer the VR version.
Alex White: Well, and when we’re talking about accessibility, I mean you do have to get your legs in first-person VR. Luckily, I had already gotten all my nausea out of the way with Death Horizon: Reloaded. I had always wanted to play a gun, stealth, and base exploration game. And so Alien: Rogue Incursion was really exciting to me to play in VR.
But when you’re moving around and you’re just using the thumbsticks, it can be a little hard on people the first time. It’s harder than teleporting, which is the typical mode of traversal in VR. It’s much, much harder than teleporting.
Adam Zeller: I actually asked the Survios guys about the teleporting and they said that was way more of a thing before, but fewer and fewer games are doing that because it was pretty divisive. And I guess teleporting was to mitigate some earlier motion sickness, so a lot of that has been kind of resolved since then, I guess?
Alex White: Well, they do a few tricks to help you with that by reducing your field of view, for example, when you’re moving. So when you run, for example, the screen closes in around you. And that’s designed to reduce the dissonance between your inner ear and what you’re seeing.
It’s the same thing that causes car sickness, right? Where if you are reading a book in a car and your inner ear is like, “We’re moving,” and your brain’s like, “No, we’re not,” then that dissonance creates motion sickness. However, people can get over it with training. Which is I think another reason why more and more games are getting away from it is that people are willing to cross that gap.
Aaron Percival: I’m used to it, yeah. I used to read on the bus all the time, but I had to look down so I could not see out the window from my peripheral vision, because that’s what used to get me.