Turns out you can 1v1 a Xenomorph fairly easily.
The Alien franchise has had a strange relationship with video games. For every tense nightmare like Alien: Isolation, there is usually something lurking nearby with an array of guns and a desire to turn the Xenomorph into target practice rather than a real enemy. Alien: Rogue Incursion sits somewhere between those two. It is creepy, atmospheric, and occasionally frightening, but it is also very much a game about pointing a gun at the horror that is a crawling, charging Xenomorph and hoping there is enough ammo left in the magazine.
This game has you play as Colonial Marine Zula Hendricks, who crash-lands on the remote mining planet Purdan after responding to a distress call from an old squad mate. Alongside her AI companion, Zula soon finds herself creeping through a facility that has clearly had a very, very bad day at the Weyland-Yutani office. There are many dead bodies, countless audio logs to uncover, emails to read, locked doors to open, and, because this is Alien, a deeply unpleasant number of Xenomorphs around every other corner.
The setup works well enough, but Zula herself never quite rises above the role she has been given. She is the protagonist because somebody needs to hold the gun, open the doors, and react to the nightmare unfolding around her. You could probably rename her anything else, make her look like anyone else, hand her the same pulse rifle, and most of the story would play out in the same way.
Thankfully, the world around her does a lot more heavy lifting. Visually, Rogue Incursion makes an incredibly strong impression on Switch 2. The facility has that familiar Alien mix of cold industrial corridors, chunky sci-fi machinery, flickering lights, and enough eeriness to make every corner feel sus. The sound design is even better. With your headphones on, the creaks, hisses, distant thuds, and sudden bursts of movement do a lot to keep you on edge. On top of this, the handy motion tracker does an excellent job and builds suspense, letting you know something, or many somethings, is coming… but from where? It’s not subtle, but then again, neither is a Xenomorph dropping out of a vent and lunging itself at you!
Naturally, when playing an Alien game, it’s hard not to think of Alien: Isolation. It’s important to note that Rogue Incursion is not trying to be that game. This is not a pure stealth horror experience built around helplessness. This is more action mixed with some suspense. If you ever played Isolation and thought, “I absolutely love this, but I would like to leave this locker and just spray bullets at the big murder-lizard-thing’s face,” then this will likely be your speed.
The trade-off here is that the Xenomorph loses some of its mystique when it becomes something you can consistently gun down, and quite easily at that. One Alien is still unsettling, especially when it appears out of nowhere, but if you have some ammo and can keep your aim steady, it is rarely much of a problem. The tension comes later, when the game starts layering those threats together. One Xenomorph is a small scare. Two is a bigger scare. Three or four, or sometimes more, becomes a full-on panic event. That’s where Rogue Incursion is at its best: when you are backing down a corridor, burning through ammo, praying you do not need to reload, and suddenly wondering if you’ve checked every ceiling panel and air vent properly before taking a breath.
The combat itself is functional, but nothing to write home about. There is an option to use gyro controls, which is fun, but for me that novelty rarely sticks. Overall, it has a “spray and pray” quality to it, which is not necessarily out of place given the chaos of the situation, but it also means encounters can feel a bit scrappy rather than skill-based. There is satisfaction in surviving a messy fight, but less satisfaction in the actual act of shooting. The game wants you to feel powerful compared to the vulnerability you feel in Isolation, but it doesn’t always make that power feel especially precise.
Between Xenomorph encounters, which can happen at any time, you explore the facility, read logs, collect supplies, solve small environmental puzzles, and unlock new areas. The puzzles are mostly light-touch affairs, usually involving connecting wires, powering doors, finding access keys, or opening optional side rooms with extra ammo and med kits. Nothing here is going to trouble anyone, but it gives the exploration a nice rhythm. More importantly, reading the logs actually matters. When the game gives you a rare moment of Xenomorph-free silence, it is worth slowing down, digging through emails, and paying attention to what the environment is telling you. The clues make progression smoother, the story more engaging, and they help the facility feel like more than just a series of dimly lit corridors.
This is the first part of a two-part story, and it does end on a cliffhanger. That kind of thing can feel like a warning sign, but Rogue Incursion does feel substantial. I personally spent around eight hours exploring as much as I could, and while the ending is very much a “to be continued,” I never felt like I had been handed half a game.
The biggest issue, weirdly enough, happens before you even get to play. The load times when booting up a save file are shockingly long. On Switch 2, where one of the most immediate quality-of-life improvements has been faster loading across the board, this really stands out. It doesn’t help that the loading screens themselves are plain, silent, and lifeless. Once you are actually in the game, things are mostly smooth sailing, but those initial waits are rough enough to mention because they break the mood before the game has even had a chance to rebuild it. Performance was otherwise solid in my time with it.
Alien: Rogue Incursion is a good Alien game. It understands the look and sound of the franchise, it has moments of genuine dread, and it offers a fun alternative for players who want less hiding in lockers and more unloading into the nightmare. But long load times, simple puzzles, scrappy combat, and a fairly bland lead stop it from becoming something truly special.
If you’re an Alien fan, I reckon there is enough here to justify the trip to Purdan. Just don’t go in expecting the nerve-shredding helplessness of Isolation. This is Alien “horror” with a pulse rifle in hand, and while that makes the big bad less terrifying, it also makes fighting back a messy kind of fun.