It’s Xenomorphin’ time!
Aliens is a property where you’re bound to at least adore one of the original films, the more modern approaches, or at the very least, the Xenomorph design itself. However; when it comes to video games, there are few examples of where the license was well used; easily countable on a single hand. Where Alien: Isolation had you cowering in fear as a Xenomorph stalked you aboard Sevastopol Station, Aliens: Fireteam Elite has you in the boots of a Colonial Marine, finally making good on the name, and has you and two other friends along for the action-packed ride. While the game can at times feel light on content, the overall campaign, alongside friends, can make for a thrilling good time nonetheless.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite has a much more impressive narrative than I assumed it was going to have, given how story is often overlooked in co-op shooters of this ilk. While there is a single cutscene at the game’s start, the rest of it is told through voice-over during the missions as well as the briefings between them, that and a substantial amount of lore you’ll track during each of the game’s twelve missions, and that aboard the Endeavor. Fireteam Elite takes place in the year 2202, set some 23 years after the events of the films, and while it does tinker with a few ideas from several of those over the past 40 years, it’s is the connections it makes to some of them where I may have raised an eyebrow or two.
You play as a Colonial Marine set for duty to investigate a distress call from a refinery station that is orbiting the planet LV-895, one seemingly owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It is here where you meet Dr. Timothy Hoenikker, who makes you aware of a mutagenic substance called Pathogen, which has caused an influx of new Xenomorph breeds on the surface. The remainder of the story dives into just what exactly is on the planet and how it affects not just you and your team, and those aboard the Endeavor, but the galaxy itself.
Whether they are crawling on the walls, or ducking into vents, you’ll have to contend with nearly a dozen new variants. Everything from acid-spitters to bursters, giant hulking Praetorians, to tiny little face huggers are all here and while you’ll be gunning them down faster than any Aliens movie will have you believe, the sheer variety keeps you on your toes, making you use all your guns and abilities to their fullest. And, Xenomorphs are not your own source of an antagonist as you’ll have to worry about other threats as well, those that can actually shoot back, giving you ample use of a pretty standard click-to cover system.
Each of the game’s four chapters will contend with various enemy types, the combinations of those encounters, as well new locations that in some ways feel unique from one another. While there is some overlap in some of their designs, I never felt like I was playing the same area again but just reskinned. You’ll start on the station in orbit around the planet, then descend down to LV-895 to explore some ancients ruins that Weyland and company were exploring, only to discover survivors on the surface, those that are not too keen on being rescued. The next two locations are amazing, and while one dives into one of the most controversial Aliens movies yet, it was a joy to explore and see just how far they were willing to go. The final location itself is often jaw-dropping in its aesthetic and really stands out as a great showcase of the Aliens license, a chapter I’ve likely played the most.
However; as impressive as the locations are, your purpose within them is one of the only places this game truly stumbles. Each level, unfortunately, acts the same way, using the same scenarios that prelude combat each and every time. You’ll push through each location until you need to interact with something and this will cause a noise that brings in hordes of whatever is on the menu. After that, you’ll move to the next location, and the next, and eventually into a situation where you will need to evac, creating one last hurrah of a horde. While the shooting and abilities never get old, the scenarios themselves can often lose their charm after the same gimmick to start a fight is used across every mission. Sadly, there is no variety here like needing to stealth through a passage filled with Alien egg husks, or maybe a panicked survivor who inadvertently summons them or just anything that replaced the “press X to noise” that we get here. It’s a shame, especially since the game feels suited for said variety.
Also, as you explore and push on, you’ll have to fend off ambushes of Xenomorphs that lunge out at you from around a corner, but your character will actually warn you of the ambush by actually saying “Ambush…” before they could have even realized something was there. It certainly ruins the tension and is something I hope is patched out, forcing you to proceed slowly around each corner instead, or looking up at that vent panel that popped off down that dark and eerie hallway. It’s a shame especially considering how exciting it can actually feel to miss that audio cue and have to fend off a clawing Xenomorph, performing a few button prompts as your teammates scatter to shoot them off you.
And while speaking of teammates, while Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a three-player co-op game, you can play through the game on your town, backed up by Alpha and Beta, two synthetic companions that are pretty good in a fight in some instances, but as you start to rack up the difficulty, their usefulness has a ceiling that doesn’t quite get there in the end. It’s also a shame that you cannot choose a class for them, or grant them special perks or upgrade them. Personally, while I enjoy playing with a friend of mine, we often have Beta or Alpha running and gunning with us, and it would be great to give them a bit more purpose in their role. They’ll run over and pick you up, but can often choose to leave a fight when they’ve almost raised you, which is a bit of a miss in a lot of ways.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a class-based game, currently comprised of six total classes; four at the ready with a fifth unlocked upon completion of the campaign, and a sixth class that has recently just been added in the last patch. Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about being locked out of a class if it is taken. While it’s more pragmatic to flesh out your team of three with a mixture of classes, you don’t have that “someone took my class” moment that plagues most hero shooters. Each class will have access to certain types of weapons, so if you are more inclined to use rifles rather than pistols, then you’ll likely make your choices off what weapons are available to that class rather than the varied abilities spread out amongst them.
The abilities that each class has can often turn the tide of most battles, so despite the weapon options between them, I ended up picking the Technician and the Demolisher as my go-to classes, with recently trying out the new shield-based Phalanx that dropped as I was writing this review. Fireteam Elite’s six classes are: Gunner, Demolisher, Technician, Doc, Recon, and Phalanx. While several of them are somewhat self-explanatory, they range in their abilities from the gunner having a buff to increasing your fire-rate and reload for the team and lobbing grenades, to the Recon class revealing nearby enemies and thus weakening them, to also providing an ammo drone that can refill your depleted stock. Of my two personal favorites in the Technician and the Demolisher, I loved the ability to carry a turret with me wherever I went with the Technician, to the bombardment of rockets with the Demolisher, lighting up the waves of Xenomorphs that were unfortunate enough to get caught in the blast.
Each class has a default setting in how their abilities work, but as you use them, you’ll start to earn perks that can really make a difference in how potent your abilities are but also how they operate. Each class has a grid that is initially arranged with blocks that will unlock at levels three, five, and seven. As you level up, you’ll open more of the grid that is available to you. Each class has the same blocks in the same places, so there isn’t a difference in how this perk system works across all six classes. As you progress, you’ll earn cores that affect your stats, such as increasing handgun damage by 15% or the reload speed and accuracy of CQW weapons by 15% as well. However; what is very interesting about this system is that other cores of other classes are universal, so with my Technician, I have a Gunner class core equipped that boosts my CQW magazine by 15%.
Finally, are modifiers, and these allow you to modify how certain abilities work. For my Technician, this allows me to change if my turret remains as a bullet-based attacker or one of pounding out blasts of flame. Now, not every modifier is like this, some simply have more stat changes for your abilities, and there are connection lines between your abilities, so you need to be able to have a turret modifier stacked next to your turret skill for it to take effect. These modifiers and cores are shaped differently, some taking up two, three, or four squares, so unlocking your whole grid gives you more room to play around in.
Each class also has a passive skill such as the Technician’s turrets providing a 10% damage soak for allies standing nearby it, to the Phalanx class’s shield increasing damage dealt by 3% for four seconds, stacking to a max of five times every time you block damage. Classes can also equip a variety of consumables such as health kits, turrets, incendiary, and electroshock rounds, mines, and various drones that are all single-use items. As you move around to each encampment within each level, you can refill your health with the supplied kits as well as consumable chests that can offer up an item or two. There are also supply chests hidden around each level that can offer up weapon skins, cosmetic items, and more.
Lastly, when it comes to content is the Challenge Card system, something that will make each run fairly unique in some ways. These range from having to play entirely in black and white, without your second weapon, or without your radar. These are challenges that require you to often given up something to get a better reward. This ranges from boosted experience earnings, more cash on your payout, or some cards that simply make the challenge easier such as boosting your damage but negate any sort of rewards for using them. You can earn cards through your daily and weekly challenges, and also through the in-game store, which also provides new guns, skins, cosmetic items, and more. that are all earned with in-game currency. Thankfully, at least from what has been made available, I don’t see any sort of microtransaction system in place to boost your store progress, which is pretty damn cool.
Aliens: Fireteam elite certainly looks and sounds the part when trying to invoke the tone and feel of Aliens. The game is damn good-looking, even if the people aspects of the title are not a home run in any capacity, especially since NPC’s don’t even have mouth animations to their dialogue. The Aliens, which are the star of the show are consistently impressive, as are many of the environments, especially those in the final two campaigns. That said, I did encounter several instances of white flashes, especially when back on board the Endeavor, so for those with issues of flashing lights, I would strongly wait until that has been patched as it can be pretty damn frequent. For the audio portion, there is really nothing here that disappoints in the slightest, from the stunning soundtrack by Austin Wintory, to the iconic sounds the series is known for, there is a lot here that impresses on every scale.
When it comes to any game-breaking bugs or issues that usually persist with online-only games, I don’t have many. I know PC users around launch had several connection problems, but on Series X, I’ve had one crash and maybe three disconnects in the 20-25 hours I’ve spent here, so it’s been pretty smooth sailing as far as getting into a match. Bugs, on the other hand, I’ve had pretty frequent and these range from not holding my gun, my arms wrapped around my body, to sliding along the ground on my back. I’ve had Aliens running up walls in ways they shouldn’t, to some pretty bad clipping when it comes to enemies lunging through walls. None of these persisted for too long as reloading often fixed some issues, while others were more humorous than annoying. Note: When playing Aliens: Fireteam Elite on my Series S, I noticed in some cases that my textures wouldn’t load the finished texture fully, making for a somewhat blurry replacement. Out of the six or seven missions, while playing on the Series S, this happened at least three or four times.
Aliens: Fireteam is far better than it kind of had any right to be. The Aliens franchise when it comes to its more action-orientated games haven’t been all that great, but the care and attention the developer has given to the series is one of respect and passion. Sure, it can feel a tad light on content if you don’t plan on revisiting each location a dozen times, and the included Horde mode itself is pretty basic with its single map, but honestly, I haven’t had many co-op games offer this level of fun in a long ass time. There is something really great about how the weapons feel and how the abilities can often be a difference-maker in a rush encounter because this game can get damn heard. If more content can come in the forms of new levels and modes, then Fireteam Elite could easily be a game I return to again and again.
Developer - Cold Iron Studios Publisher - Focus Home Entertainment. Released - August 23rd, 2021. Available On - Xbox One/Series S/X, PS4/PS5, Windows. Rated - (M) Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X and Series S. Review Access - Aliens: Fireteam Elite was purchased by the reviewer.