Aliens: Fireteam Elite Review (PC) – The best action-based Aliens game ever

It’s been a while since we saw a game that visited Ridley Scott’s Alien universe, which I always felt was ripe for some amazing gaming experiences. Sure, we ended up with Aliens: Colonial Marines, which was a terrible experience, followed by Alien: Isolation, which, to me, was the best Alien universe game ever made.

Then came Aliens: Fireteam Elite from Cold Iron Studios, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. More so because this was being marketed as a shooter, and we all remember the last game that tried that. I still can’t get that nasty taste out of my mouth. However, this game turned out to be a surprise, and one that I couldn’t put down.

Game Name: Aliens: Fireteam Elite
Platform(s): PC (reviewed), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Publisher(s): Focus Home Interactive
Developer(s): Cold Iron Studios
Release Date: August 24, 2021
Price: $39.99 (Standard) / $69.99 (Deluxe)

While the game’s name does say Aliens, this is nothing like the movie we’ve all watched. You did watch it, right? Taking place 23 years after the film, Aliens: Fireteam Elite features an original story and new characters that aren’t pulled directly from the movies, giving Cold Iron Studios complete control to do whatever they wanted. As far as the story goes, you’re part of a Colonial Marines team sent down to respond to a distress call. From there, things get really crazy, but since this is a non-spoiler review, you’ll have to play the game to find out more.

Let’s Get Personal

One of the things I really loved about this game is that there’s a ton of customization. When you first start the game, you create your own character, complete with different sexes, hairstyles, and skin tones. It’s not the best character creator I’ve seen in a video game, but it’s not bad either. Once you start playing, you’ll also be given the option to customize your weapons with different modifications, skin colors, and decals. There are also lots of perks that you can equip to modify your character further. It’s a nice way to allow players to stand out while playing, and it gives a solid amount of personalization. Plus, it helps when players are modifying their characters to help their fireteam get through the game.

There are four classes to pick from at the start: Gunner, Demolisher (my favorite), Technician, and Doc. Each class brings something specific to the table due to their special abilities, which benefit both themselves and the team.

There’s even fifth class that becomes unlocked once you’ve beaten the game. While I tried all the classes, I fell in love with the Demolisher, mainly because of the heavy Smartgun at first, which was fantastic for clearing rooms. Later on, I upgraded to the flamethrower, which is my favorite weapon in any video game. Once I had that weapon, I used it as much as I could. That’s not saying the other classes aren’t good, but c’mon, it’s a flamethrower.

Nuke It From Orbit

The gameplay loop in Aliens: Fireteam Elite is pretty simple. You pick a mission and try to survive hordes of enemies while picking up resources and other goodies along the way. If you complete the mission, you’ll be given a ranking based on how well you did. From there, you can either continue to the next mission or head back to the USS Endeavor, which serves as the game’s hub. You can interact with NPCs on the ship, learn more story details, purchase new weapons and perks, modify your loadout, and personalize your character.

It’s worth noting that the more you use a specific weapon, the more XP it gains. The higher its rank becomes, the more it affects your overall ranking. So if you happen to use a rifle more often, it will rank up faster than your other weapons.

There are five difficulty levels: Casual, Standard, Intense, Extreme, and Insane. The last two are locked until you beat the game, and for good reason. Even on Casual, you can get wrecked by the number of enemies swarming you. The AI goes nuts at times, and the higher the difficulty, the worse it gets. Sure, it makes for a great time until Xenomorphs surround you, your buddies are down, and you’re almost out of health.

There are also Challenge Cards, which add specific objectives that reward you with valuable loot if you complete them. Some examples include not getting downed during a mission, having reduced health, or limiting ammo capacity. These unlock as you progress through the game, or you can purchase random packs.

Gameplay-wise, the game feels a lot like Gears of War. You have a main weapon, a heavy weapon, and a sidearm that never runs out of ammo. You can take cover behind walls and dodge out of danger when needed. If you’re downed, your teammates have a short amount of time to revive you before it’s game over.

Missions are a blast. You either squad up with random players or friends, and if you don’t have anyone to play with, you’ll be assigned two bots: Alpha and Beta. From there, you’re given some story setup, and then the shooting starts. Seriously, the number of Xenomorphs and other creatures trying to kill you easily reaches into the hundreds. There’s never a dull moment once a mission begins. The better you perform, the more XP you earn, the higher your level climbs, and the more upgrades you unlock for your character.

Oh, and there’s no pausing while playing. I found that out the hard way.

The controls are great. There’s really not much more to say. I played with both a keyboard and mouse as well as a gamepad, and both worked well. If I had to choose, though, I’d stick with keyboard and mouse simply because I’m more comfortable with that setup. The only thing missing is a quick-turn option. With enemies attacking from every direction, being able to spin around instantly would have helped instead of manually turning and wasting valuable time.

How’s the Multiplayer?

A game like Aliens: Fireteam Elite lives and dies by multiplayer. You can’t truly start a game solo, and if you can’t find anyone to play with, the game fills your squad with bots. That’s fine, but there were definitely times I just wanted to jump in and kill aliens completely alone. The bots are competent enough, but getting a session started during the review period was rough. I couldn’t find anyone outside of The Outerhaven staff to play with, so most of my sessions ended up with bots. Thankfully, that should improve once the game officially launches.

Still, when you do squad up with capable human players, this game becomes an absolute blast. Fighting your way through missions, mowing down aliens, and surviving overwhelming swarms captures the atmosphere of Aliens perfectly.

However, the game launched without cross-play support, and I genuinely don’t understand that decision. Being able to play with people across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC would have made this game even better. I really hope Cold Iron Studios revisits that in the future.

Is This Game Faithful to the Movies?

I’m a huge Alien and Aliens film buff, so going into this game, I was worried we’d end up with another Aliens: Colonial Marines. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. This game is incredibly faithful to the films, while still allowing Cold Iron Studios to take a few creative liberties by introducing new Xenomorphs that fit perfectly into the universe.

Not only are the Xenomorphs faithful, but so are the locations and the overall atmosphere. Visually, it feels like Cold Iron Studios ripped assets straight out of the movies. The weapons, ship designs, character outfits, and environments all look authentic. Sound-wise, it’s all there too. From the weapon effects and Xenomorph screeches to the cold robotic voices of the Working Joes, it nails the atmosphere.

As for the new Xenomorph variants introduced in the game, they fit surprisingly well. I never felt like they clashed with the established lore, and honestly, they made the experience even more exciting. It’s obvious the developers did their homework while making Aliens: Fireteam Elite. If you’re worried the game wouldn’t respect the source material, you can stop worrying. It’s all here.

Game Over, Man?

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a relatively short game. With a decent team, or even competent bots, you can finish the campaign in just a few hours. Thankfully, Cold Iron Studios clearly thought about replayability. While you’ll probably focus on one main class at first like I did, you can always return and level the others to unlock their perks and goodies.

There’s also a Horde Mode that unlocks after finishing the campaign. This mode throws endless waves of enemies at you, and it’s an absolute blast with other players.

Of course, that’s only the beginning. Cold Iron Studios also released a roadmap outlining four seasons of post-launch DLC spread across an entire year. They haven’t revealed everything yet, but I’m definitely excited to see what’s coming next.

How’s The PC Performance

My time with Aliens: Fireteam Elite was spent entirely on the PC version, and performance was flawless. My setup included an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, an NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and the game installed on an NVMe M.2 SSD. Load times were quick, and frame rates stayed high even while running the game at maximum settings in 4K.

As for options, you can tweak just about everything. Sadly, NVIDIA DLSS wasn’t available at launch, though I’m hopeful that gets added later. On top of that, there are several accessibility options available, and I’m always happy to see developers include those.

There was one minor issue I encountered that wasn’t related to gameplay. I had trouble changing the resolution and display mode settings. No matter how many times I adjusted them, the changes wouldn’t stick, so I ended up having to change the resolution directly through Windows. I don’t know if this was specific to my setup or not, but I did report it to Cold Iron Studios.

Verdict

I’m honestly impressed with both the attention to detail and how faithful Aliens: Fireteam Elite is to the movies. Fans of the franchise are going to feel right at home here. There were several moments where I completely geeked out over what I was seeing and hearing. There’s honestly so much more I wish I could talk about, but since this is a spoiler-free review, you’ll just have to trust me from one Aliens fan to another.

This is easily the second-best game in the Alien universe and the best action-focused game the franchise has ever received. If you’re even remotely interested in the series, you owe it to yourself to give this one a shot.

If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: Aliens: Fireteam Elite was provided to us for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.

Affiliate Link Disclosure: One or more of the links above contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, we may receive a commission should you click through and purchase the item.