The first film, Alien, ends with Ripley ejecting the alien out the airlock and putting herself into Cryosleep for the 57-year journey home. It's during that time that this inter-sequel is set. The Weyland company have found the remains of Ripley's ship with an extra-terrestrial presence, and are looking to exploit it for evil gains. This confused me, as in the second canonical film, Aliens, the company don't seem to know they've found an alien and start terraforming the planet (which was unbelievable even in that film).
In Romulus, a bunch of space-miners with nothing to lose, sneak on board an abandoned company ship for what ought to be a straight-forward mission to steal a few cryo-pods of their own. Obviously, lots goes wrong.
There are a few familiar tropes from the Alien franchise. There is a deep mistrust of androids, though sometimes they can surprise you and are helpful. I've also learned that as soon as someone gets infected by an alien, or even spends a short while near aliens, you should be extremely suspicious when they have cold-like systems. Waste no time investigating, but shoot and flamethrow them and boot them out the airlock.
