Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a grandiose, wild spectacle. The prerequisite for this is two good buddies, because things look a little different when you’re going it alone.
For the past few days, I’ve been coming up with some really cool introductory lines for this review. Describing an intense game moment, a cool movie quote, a clever saying. But it’s all nonsense, because you’re only looking for one piece of information. Here you go – Aliens: Fireteam Elite is not another Colonial Marines! It’s not Predator: Hunting Grounds either, by the way.
It is also possible to complete the campaign on your own and without other players, but this is much less fun because the game is not really designed for this. In other words, it’s a great multiplayer shooter, but not a really entertaining single-player experience. Is the purchase price of 40 euros for Aliens: Fireteam Elite on Steam worth it?
Table of Contents
Original or extra crispy?
Instead of choosing from a handful of pre-made characters, in Aliens: Fireteam Elite we create our own Marines and choose our class before our first mission, which we can change at any time. My Firend plays as a Gunner and can throw grenades around and boost the firepower of the whole team. I go as a Destroyer and have access to missiles and extra heavy weapons. There’s also the healing Doc to choose from, the Technician class relies on automatic weapons and the Scout, unlocked at the end of the campaign, spies on enemies via drones.
Reliably finding a third comrade-in-arms is not that easy before the official release, which is why an AI colleague helps us out here, who competently plays along at least on the lower difficulty levels. At a higher level, human players are obligatory, the various class skills are crucial.
Mere moments later, we’re already mowing down huge swarms of aliens. Fireteam Elite is non-stop action, here it’s full-on like in the second film (“Aliens”, 1986). If you’re more into the slow horror of the first and third films, you’re in the wrong place. There’s blasting and blasting that the shreds fly – and that’s awesome!
My girlfriend shoots around with her Pulse Rifle, which looks and sounds exactly like it does in the film. When the xenos get too close to her bullet, it puts something with the shotgun. Meanwhile, I shoot everything away with my oversized smartgun. It not only cleans up neatly and pierces all cover – it also has automatic target acquisition.
We’re launching more weapons pretty quickly, including submachine guns, rocket launchers and our absolute favourite: It’s a flamethrower! It throws flames. With it, we quickly whizz away countless aliens and are also pleased with the really good, atmospheric lighting effects that our weapons conjure up in the environment. Burn, baby! Burn!
Flamethrower
Smartgun
Team play is mandatory
The gameplay is crisp and challenging from the first moment even on the medium difficulty level. The xenos attack in huge numbers from all directions. Most of them die after a few hits and run stubbornly towards you, but their stronger counterparts are surprisingly clever. They take cover and attack from a safe distance with acid attacks.
Meanwhile, Xenomorph drones launch surprise attacks, appear from ambush, grab a player and, in the worst case, kill him directly. They then disappear again and plan their next attack if you don’t take them out in time.
We have to communicate constantly, watch each other’s backs, share strictly rationed medipacks and prioritise dangerous targets. In our test version, there was incomprehensibly no text or audio chat. Sure, if you play with friends, you usually have Discord or something similar at the start anyway, but that’s not much help in matchmaking with random players.
Fallen players can be revived if you are fast enough. How often this works depends on the difficulty level you have chosen, as does your maximum ammunition or friendly fire. On the highest levels it becomes really hard. Game over, man. Game over!
This can be increased even further by optional, switchable challenges, if you’re really good at it and want to earn additional experience and in-game currency if you succeed. If you like it less stressful, you will not only receive significantly less damage on the easiest difficulty level, but you can also activate things like aiming aids and glowing outlines for aliens. You can’t get much more freedom in customising your challenge. That’s the way it’s got to be!
Little Story
To be clear, Fireteams Elite is a horde shooter! You’re either fighting massive waves of enemies or on your way to the next big arena, in between activating a terminal or escorting an NPC. It doesn’t get much more varied than that.
This is accompanied by a story that is pretty good for a horde shooter, but lacking for an entertaining solo experience. English-language radio messages and dialogue with German subtitles keep you informed about what is happening, what it is all about and what you are up against. Enemies like the alien “Monica” are given a background story and remain in our memory.
But at the same time there are no cool cutscenes here, conversations between missions are static and without animations or mouth movements, the relatively small development team and presumably rather low budget behind the game cannot be denied. The focus is clearly on multiplayer action and not on a stunning narrative that somehow captivates you as a single player.
You’ll have completed the campaign in around six hours and will only play it again if you want to search for missed rewards or level up new classes. In addition, at the end of the campaign you unlock a pure Horde mode, which is far too minimalistic. Here you simply beat back enemies, any varied objectives like escorts, hacking, defending checkpoints or anything that goes beyond simple survival doesn’t happen here. Maybe there will be more here in the future, but in our test we got tired of it very quickly.
No life task
There are twelve campaign missions in total. Each one takes about half an hour to complete. Upon completion, there are always rewards such as new weapons or attachments like aiming optics, magazines and other extras that improve characteristics like marksmanship, fire rate, effective range and more. In addition, there is a hidden chest with further goodies in each mission.
You also gain experience with your respective chosen class and weapon, unlocking more minor upgrades and bonuses. On top of that, you get two different in-game currencies – one for more weapons and modifications and one for cosmetic items like outfits, helmets and paint jobs.
There are no lootboxes of any kind, though cosmetic DLCs have been announced. I’m not a big fan of this, but at least real money doesn’t buy power here. Unlocks and upgrades are comparatively humane and quick. Daily and weekly challenges further accelerate progress. Aliens: Fireteam Elite feels like a game and not like a virtual job in which I have to invest hundreds of hours to achieve something. I think that’s great, but if you’re hoping for a title that entertains for many weeks, you’re probably coming up short.
Like in the movies
Not only the equipment and sound are true to the original. The environments are also great. We trudge through dark corridors, here and there there are jumpscares by aliens, often a ceiling tile simply falls down or some defective valve suddenly hisses loudly.
The spaceship in the first act of the campaign has that cool sci-fi charm of the late 70s with bulky terminals and monochrome screens. When activated, they make this wonderful, satisfying rattling sound like an old 286.
Later on, there are also times when you go through ruins and cave systems. The inevitable hive, an alien nest complete with eggs, face-huggers, praetorians and everything, provides a spectacular conclusion. However, you can tell from the somewhat low-detail 3D models, the not-quite-smooth animations and the weak story presentation that the game is not a AAA title.
The menu navigation feels a little annoying and like a console game, but the controls are freely assignable if you’re not happy with the default settings. If you like horde shooters and like to compete with friends, Aliens: Fireteam Elite is definitely worth playing on PC. If you prefer to play alone, the game is only worthwhile to a limited extent and even then only if you are really into the setting. You should rather wait for a sale, because despite all the enthusiasm, the game is priced a little too optimistically at 40 euros.
