We’re excited to say that Alien: Rogue Incursion is ready for your PS VR2 – we’ve gone gold and are putting the finishing touches on the game, which is releasing on December 19. To celebrate, we have a brand-new trailer that delves deeper into Zula’s story on LV-354, also known as Purdan.
How did we go about making this trailer? Trailers are tricky things. You need to quickly break through the noise of everyday life, grab the audience’s attention, and get them excited to see more. It seems logical that you’d show the most fantastic, and exciting content. But that approach doesn’t entirely work – fans often complain that trailers give away too much detail about the film or game.
Trailers need to curate the key components that fans expect, showcasing critical features in a compelling way and teasing elements that will blow players away, all while telling a self-contained story that begins and ends in roughly two minutes or less. VR games need to both establish the world that you’ll be immersed in and to communicate how you will operate in that environment. We have 2 minutes to make you feel that sense of presence and wonder.
Trailers often focus on a particular theme or feature of the game that the team wants to showcase. So far, for Alien: Rogue Incursion, we’ve released trailers for our Hero Reveal, Enemies, Weapons & Gear, etc. Fans of the Alien franchise are also hugely invested in the story, so this trailer introduces the audience to the larger narrative, providing the set-up of why Zula Hendricks is on LV-354, Purdan. What happened to Zula’s friend and former squad mate there? What deadly experiments have the researchers at this facility been messing with?
Here is a breakdown of how we approached this trailer and told the “story of the story.”
One of our early creative decisions was that whatever happened on Purdan had already happened. Zula is stepping into the aftermath of some event that has left Castor’s Cradle – the research facility – infested with horrifying Xenomorphs. Picking up the story after the facility has been compromised allows us to jump right into the suspense and action.
The trailer follows a classic three-act structure, where each act has a particular focus. Act One of the trailer’s focuses was “Mystery.” Zula and Davis One head to Purdan to meet with Zula’s former squad mate, Ben Carver. While approaching Castor’s Cradle, they notice their communications are jammed. Suddenly, they are fired upon by missiles and crash land at the facility. Act One of the trailer presents Zula -and the audience – with many questions that need answering.
Act Two of our story trailer focuses on revealing those events and showcasing the “Dawning Horror.” We see inside the facility and hear the voices of the people who work there. We weave in classic Alien themes like corporate corruption, personal greed, and professional hubris, all of which create a perfect storm of conditions for a Xenomorph outbreak. Hearing this dialog over the imagery of destruction, smoke, fire, and blood, we know the facility has already fallen.
Now for the Big Finish! Our third act is The Enemy Revealed, where we see what Zula is up against. More truths are revealed about the facility—including that Gemini Exoplanet Solutions was experimenting with Xenomorphs—and, most importantly, the Xenomorphs have already taken over. Zula has seen a lot in her storied career, but she—and the player —will discover that the Xenomorphs at Castor’s Cradle are tougher, faster, and more unpredictable than what she has encountered. They are, in a word, evolved.
We’ve established by this point that danger is truly everywhere, and now we want to show players that you have the means to fight back. Armed with your weapons (M41 Prototype Pulse Rifle, Shotgun, Revolver, and Tacticals), Gear (Motion Tracker, Plasma Torch, Health Stims, Tablet), and Davis 01 at your side, you get to take the fight to them – experiencing the world of Alien like you never have before. You will finally get to feel what it’s like to step into the world of the films -Aliens in particular- and immerse yourself in an experience so visceral and real that it will change your perceptions forever.
Alien: Rogue Incursion launches December 19 on PS VR2. And that’s a promise, as the game has already GONE GOLD! See you all at launch!