Rebellion has spent years refining its particular brand of action, from the long-range precision of Sniper Elite to the more open-ended experimentation of Atomfall, but Alien Deathstorm looks set to take the studio in a considerably more frantic direction. A sci-fi shooter about an isolated engineer, hostile aliens and a planet being torn apart by a catastrophic storm sounds deliberately straightforward, yet our brief Gamescom hands-on suggested that there is more going on beneath its barrage of gunfire and alien ambushes. With fast-paced combat, a surprisingly hands-off approach to objectives and some impressive environmental spectacle, Alien Deathstorm made for an explosive first encounter.
What we know
Alien Deathstorm is a science-fiction first-person action horror shooter from Rebellion, currently scheduled to launch in 2027. Players take on the role of an Engineer returning to, or arriving at, a remote off-world colony that has fallen silent. What begins as an attempt to investigate the situation quickly turns into a struggle for survival, with the colony devastated by a catastrophic mega-storm while an aggressive alien species has overrun what remains.
The storm is more than just a backdrop to the action. Rebellion is positioning the extreme weather as one of the game’s defining elements, with the destruction it causes transforming the environment and creating hazards of its own. Powerful winds can affect movement, while the Engineer’s protective equipment can also come under pressure when conditions become particularly severe. The alien threat is no less dangerous indoors, however, where the game’s creatures can stalk players through darker and more enclosed environments.
Rather than simply pointing players from one objective to the next, Alien Deathstorm appears to give them considerable freedom in how they approach missions. Objectives are presented through the Engineer’s digital assistant, Squire, and players are expected to investigate problems, examine their surroundings and work out potential solutions for themselves. The game’s levels are designed as more open environments rather than a fully open world, allowing for a degree of player agency while maintaining a focused campaign structure.
Combat combines conventional firearms with equipment better suited to an Engineer trying to survive an increasingly hostile environment. The pistol, SMG and shotgun are among the weapons revealed so far, with blueprints allowing players to upgrade and modify their equipment through components that can be found and produced during the campaign. The Engineer’s hammer also serves both practical and combat purposes, while additional tools such as scanners, grenades, flares and health items provide further options when things get out of hand. Rebellion has also revealed several alien types, with enemies designed to attack in different ways and react dynamically to the player’s actions rather than always appearing in exactly the same places.
Alien Deathstorm is currently confirmed for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a 2027 release window. The campaign will also support two-player cooperative play, while the Xbox version will launch into Game Pass on day one.
What we saw
Our preview was based on an early PC build that we got to play during Gamescom, with roughly 20 minutes of hands-on time available to us. That included one unfortunate death and a restart, but the session still gave us a decent look at a complete mission structure, several objectives and the game’s approach to combat, exploration and environmental design. We also got to experience the storm and the alien threat first-hand, as well as the game’s visuals and overall presentation, and can share our gameplay footage from the session alongside this preview.
What we thought
First impressions were positive, largely because Alien Deathstorm feels like a game that knows exactly what it wants to be. Fast-flowing sci-fi shooters have not exactly been plentiful in recent years, and Rebellion’s take on the formula is refreshingly direct. The setup may sound familiar – a lone character trapped on a devastated colony with hostile creatures closing in – but the combination of explosive action and an Engineer-focused approach to objectives gives the game a little more personality than simply turning everything into another shooting gallery. Rebellion is clearly drawing on decades of science-fiction horror imagery, but the early build still felt distinct enough to stand on its own.
The most immediate difference compared to Rebellion’s better-known Sniper Elite games is the pace. There is very little of the deliberate, long-range approach associated with that series when aliens are rushing towards you from multiple directions, and combat instead has a frantic, almost old-school energy to it. The controls felt responsive during our session and shooting was immediately satisfying, making it easy to switch between keeping enemies at a distance with automatic fire and dealing with closer threats more aggressively. The action can become overwhelming quickly, though, and that sense of pressure seems to be very much part of the design. We only had a limited amount of time with the game, but it was enough to suggest that Rebellion is deliberately leaning harder into explosive fun here than the more methodical gameplay the studio is often associated with.
What we found particularly interesting was that the game does not appear to pair all of that fast action with constant guidance. During our mission there were multiple problems to solve, and finding the next step required paying attention to the environment and objectives rather than simply following an uninterrupted chain of markers. That approach has the potential to make missions feel more involving, especially when different routes and solutions become possible, although it could also prove to be a balancing act when the player is simultaneously dealing with a storm, alien attacks and limited visibility. In our short session, it occasionally took a moment to get our bearings (especially in darker indoor areas), but we generally liked being expected to work things out rather than having every answer immediately presented to us.
Visually, Alien Deathstorm surprises. Rebellion’s games have always had their own technical strengths, but it was nice to see the studio tackling something that looks noticeably different from its more familiar historical settings. The violent weather, damaged colony infrastructure and darker interiors created a convincing contrast between large-scale destruction and claustrophobic encounters, and the PC build we played already looked impressive. Audio also contributed strongly to the atmosphere, with the storm and combat creating plenty of noise and tension as enemies approached. There is still plenty that we have not seen, and 20 minutes is far too little time to judge how successfully the campaign will sustain its ideas, but Alien Deathstorm already feels like a promising change of pace for Rebellion. If the final game can successfully balance its freeform problem-solving with the relentless pace of its combat, then this could be a very welcome addition to a sci-fi shooter genre that has not exactly been overflowing with games like this lately.