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Some of the first hands-ons with Survios’ upcoming Alien: Rogue Incursion have emerged, revealing a promising look at one of the biggest entries in VR this year.

In case you haven’t been following along, Alien: Rogue Incursion is coming to all major VR headsets this December, letting you take on the role of Zula Hendricks, a resilient former Colonial Marine with a complicated past on a dangerous mission to rescue friend and former squad mate.

Tackling the ship’s Xenomorph infestation, you fight alongside your synthetic companion Davis 01, tasking you to fight your way to the heart of the Gemini Exoplanet Solutions research facility and confront the secrets waiting within. There, we’re promised “deadly horrors” which could spell the end for humankind.

Now, a few outlets have published the first hands-on reports with Rogue Incursion.

In Leanne Butkovic’s preview for IGN, she said it “certainly had classic moments of Alien horror.” There’s no “but” there either. Butkovic goes on to praise the Rogue Incursion’s immersive environment, smart narrative beats, and intuitive weapons and tools.

It’s doesn’t appear to go too hard on wave shooter mechanics either, as Butkovic says the game “wasn’t endlessly frenetic.”

“If anything, it deliberately moves slowly in parts to spatially acclimate, to give people like me who can’t help but touch things that are laying around, a chance to explore and discover the story of this Alien property for myself,” Butkovic said.

Rogue Incursion also doesn’t appear to be the sort of experience that throws a ton of classic ancillary ‘gamer engagement’ mechanics at you. Butkovic calls it a “cinematic experience that isn’t obsessed with leveling up or unlocking map areas.”

Notably, we also learned the Xenomorphs’ pack-style hunting behavior was based on the “clever girl” Velociraptors in Jurassic Park, making for what seems like a more active game of cat and mouse, where roles are constantly switched given the mission at hand.

UploadVR’s Ian Hamilton also went hands-on with Rogue Incursion, which promises to offer an eight-hour story.

You can find video of Hamilton’s gameplay below, which includes a short interview with Survios Chief Product Officer TQ Jefferson and Writer Alex White, who talk about how Rogue Incursion fits into the franchise’s lineage, and how Xenomorphs work in this “thriller-paced” shooter.

So, while it’s clearly not Alien: Isolation (2014) replicated for the modern age of VR games, which was more about hiding from a near-invisible Xenomorph, gameplay suggests it’s definitely capable of offering up thrills.

White says Rogue Incursion was designed to “hype up the action, hype up sense of empowerment of being a soldier,” which is said to constantly “flip that power dynamic” between you and the Xenomorphs ahead.

Alien: Rogue Incursion comes out December 19th, 2024, launching simultaneously on PSVR 2, PC VR, and Quest 3 and Quest 3S (exclusively). You can pre-order now on Steam, the PlayStation Store and Horizon Store.