Survios announced Alien: Rogue Incursion: Evolved Edition, following the VR game’s massive success on PCVR, PlayStation VR2, and Meta Quest 3. This updated version will arrive on PlayStation 5 and PC on September 30, 2025. And, at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, AIPT had the pleasure of sitting down with Survios’ CPO, T.Q. Jefferson, and project lead/engineer, Eugene Elkin, to discuss the upcoming edition.
Alien: Rogue Incursion comes to PS5 and PC
AIPT: Congrats on the success of the game! What would you say are the biggest changes between the VR version of Alien: Rogue Incursion and the one that’s about to come out on PS5 and PC?
T. Q. Jefferson: The biggest changes are what we call the three Cs — camera, character, and control. So for example, in VR, we can we can’t tell a story the way that we would normally want to, and like, you can’t move move the camera anywhere. You can’t, cut to this or swipe to that, because you are the camera. Doing that to someone is just nauseating. So this opened up the opportunity for us to move the camera a bit and show something maybe a little more dramatically than previously, where we were able to.
Then in terms of controls, there’s a rebalancing across the board of how the combat works because the movement is incredible. The movement is incredibly deliberate in VR. The pacing is slower and the range of motion is reduced. Once we go into PC, not only are those guardrails pushed out or removed completely, but the skill of the player in this particular genre is peak. Players have mastered first person shooting, so we have to gather the balance. Are our Xenomorphs too easy or too hard? How are they attacking you? So all of these things are considerations when you are reenvisioning a game. We need to make it feel like we didn’t just break the camera and throw it into a box and that was it. We wanted to make it just as responsive, fun, and entertaining.
AIPT: What about the content-related and narrative changes? Did you include new content or change anything about the storyline in the Evolved Edition of Alien Rogue Incursion?
Eugene Elkin: The narrative beats are quite different because we do have more control of the character. We’re able to more effectively tell a story and do things that we couldn’t quite do because yeah, you’re limited with, you know, a player nausea.
There’s also new behaviors from the Xenomorphs. The way they stalked pray is a lot more effective. There was a lot of elements already of what they could do and how they’re following the player and getting to them. Now they will actually stalk you from afar and hide. They wait for their numbers to go up, and then they will readjust in different areas, and hopefully that maybe we go into this corner and make them pounce. So these features and some of this content is brand-new.
AIPT: How about the game’s audio? In VR everyone is on a headset. Now you’re doing speakers and surround sound, did you have to remix the audio?
TJ: Oh yeah, we had to do a complete remix of the audio for 5.1. Our audio team is amazing, and they did such a great job with VR. They rolled up their sleeves and got right to work and remixing all of the audio. They come from Triple A PC console, so they understand the exactitudes of audio in that space, and they just sort of brought everything that they knew to make the game sound as amazing as it could be.
The audio is so important for the Alien franchise. I’ve often said on records that it is second only to the Xenomorph itself in terms of importance for the storytelling. So being able to recreate that sense of steam and sounding like a Xenomorph is right behind you and maybe getting you to look twice or maybe fire off a shot out of just sheer tension and nerves. Not easy to do, but to feel their team just really applied themselves and did something amazing.
EE: It’s really beefy now [laughs].
AIPT: So, how do you want fans to feel while they’re playing? And how do you want to feel when it’s all over?
TJ: Fear, tension, anxiety, excitement. Those were all sort of levers that we were working to incorporate into the game. You know, I think from at a high level where we’d sit out to achieve as a project goal was, we want people coming away, believing that Survios understands this franchise. That we understand how to make a game with Xenomorphs. We want people to want to see Survios do more. That to me, is the highest goal. If we leave people wanting more, then I think we’ve done a pretty good job.
EE: Yeah, number one, of course, is having fun. And then the story. If you’re a fan of the franchise, just to get to experience it and step into it. That’s also, I think, a big advantage, something to do in a real time. When you watch a movie, you get to really appreciate it, but whether it’s VR or a traditional console game, to step into it and to play it, and because it is authentic to the universe, you get an experience that you can’t just get from passive media.
AIPT: Can we expect cut scenes in the game?
EE: We wanted to capture as much emersion as possible, because that has been our strong suit as a company for the past decade. The cut scenes have been extended and improved significantly, because you know, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, there’s severe restrictions would be hardware, how you can tell a story. There’s something that’s happening there, but it doesn’t interact with you. Here, we stick to first person because we wanted to wanted to be immersive, but with a lawful freedom, so all that content is brand-new.
Survios’ next steps for Alien
AIPT: Are there any discussions about another Alien game?
TJ: Next steps on part two is that we’re gonna start talking about part two [laughs].
Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition will be released on September 30, 2025, and available for pre-order now.
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