A Retro Futuristic Alien Hunt From Behind a Desk
Xenopurge is a tense sci fi roguelike that channels the spirit of Aliens without the official license or flashy visuals. Instead of cinematic 3D graphics, you sit behind a chunky retro monitor in a grim capitalist future, watching simple icons and dots fight for their lives.
You are not a space marine on the ground. You are the faceless operator in some hidden control room, issuing orders through an intentionally clunky interface. Your clone marines are rendered as letters and numbers. The alien xenos are tiny red dots. The environment is little more than lines on a screen. Yet despite this stripped back look, the game manages to be incredibly tense and atmospheric.
Runs are short and brutal. You guide squads of disposable clones into alien infested sectors, clearing hives, grabbing loot and intel, and trying to reach extraction before the xeno threat ramps up into an unstoppable tide. Greed is punished. Stay too long to snatch one more crate or data sample and your squad will probably die screaming.
The magic of Xenopurge is how much suspense and drama it squeezes out of this minimal presentation. Watching a single red dot suddenly accelerate towards one of your marines, then seeing their health bars chip away as you listen to garbled comms and dying screams, is far more evocative than it has any right to be.
Indirect Control, Logic Upgrades, and Constant Stress
You never directly control your marines in the usual WASD and mouse sense. Instead, each squad member runs on a basic combat and behavior logic that you can upgrade and tweak as you progress. These simple rules define how they react during fights.
For example, you might build a classic tank and ranged damage dealer combo:
- One clone charges into melee, soaking hits and locking enemies down.
- Another hangs back, using superior accuracy to shred xenos from a distance.
As you gather loot and complete nodes on the sector map, you unlock new gear and logic upgrades that deepen this system. Slapping a powerclaw on your tank not only boosts their strength but also gives nearby allies a ranged accuracy bonus. Swapping a basic Charge behavior for Run and Gun turns them from a simple meat shield into a mobile damage dealer who fires while closing the gap.
These synergies give you a lot of tactical depth without ever letting you relax. Your clones will fight on their own, but if you just leave them to it, they will almost certainly die. The orders system is where you come in.
Your role is to queue and prioritize commands: telling them when to loot supplies, plant mines and turrets, split up or regroup, mainline combat stims, or beeline straight for the objective and extraction. You are constantly deciding when to push, when to grab more resources, and when to cut your losses and get out.
The control scheme is deliberately old school. There is no mouse. Everything runs through keyboard inputs and hotkeys. Something as simple as telling a specific soldier to pick up intel can mean quickly tapping a little chain like 2 to choose Collect, 1 to pick Hicks, then 1 again to confirm the only visible intel. On paper it sounds simple. In practice, when one clone is hacking a hive, another is being chased by three xenos, and a third is covering a corridor, remembering the exact key sequence under pressure becomes part of the challenge.
This is intentional. The clunkiness makes you feel like a stressed operator working with janky corporate tech, not a slick omnipotent commander. When you finally build up the muscle memory and start firing off orders instinctively, it feels fantastic.
Roguelike Sectors, Quick Runs, and Lonely Coffee Breaks
Xenopurge borrows the node based sector progression that fans of FTL will recognize. Each run takes you through a network of encounters and opportunities where you choose your path based on risk, reward, and what your squad needs.
Typical nodes offer:
- Combat missions in alien infested rooms and corridors
- Upgrade chances for better gear or new behavior logic
- Options to invest in stats like speed and effectiveness
Speed is especially important. Your clones start painfully slow, which raises the tension whenever the xeno waves ramp up. Picking routes that let you buff their movement can mean the difference between a clean extraction and a squad wipe when the aliens start pouring in.
Runs are built to be intense but digestible. Clearing a whole sector can take around an hour or less, with individual missions measured in minutes. This makes the game perfect for short, stressful sessions where you lose a squad, take a deep breath, and jump back in wiser and slightly better equipped.
The roguelike structure is challenging but not cruel. Losing a single clone is not the end. You can buy replacements with some of your hard earned resources. You only fail a full run if the entire squad is wiped in one mission. Even then, there is meta progression; simply playing and completing missions with specific equipment unlocks new toys, logic options, and ways to customize your troops.
Between missions you are reminded that you are not a heroic marine but a lonely worker sending others to die. You can step away from your operator monitor in first person segments, wander the room, grab a coffee, check emails, and even play with the lighting. It reinforces the mood of a retro futuristic corporate dungeon where life is cheap and the work never truly stops.
Xenopurge succeeds by stripping away visual excess and putting all the tension on your decisions, your ability to juggle priorities, and your tolerance for risk. Every extra room you search is a gamble. Every delay on the way to extraction gives the xenos more time to flood in. So you watch the little icons move, tap out frantic commands, and hope that this time your squad makes it back in one piece.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/xenopurge-turns-aliens-into-a-stressful-desk-job-and-somehow-manages-to-capture-the-movie-perfectly/
