Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 Review

Perhaps no movie was primed to be a video game more than Aliens. A bunch of marines with guns up against hordes of monstrous beasties? That’s a video game, baby. That was true for the first Aliens: Fireteam Elite, a game I enjoyed but didn’t stick with for too long because its three-person squads meant someone from my regular co-op group always had to sit out, but its sequel keeps that same appeal while freshening the concept up with an additional player and a new class. Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 isn’t going to make you leave a co-op shooter you already love at the altar, but it is a good time with friends. I don’t know how long my group will stick with it now that we’ve rolled credits, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the 30 hours it took to do so, even if it’s never as great as the film that inspired it.

Fireteam Elite 2 is a sequel, but you don’t have to be familiar with the original to understand what’s up here: the USS Endeavor received a transmission from a very sick-looking woman named Dr. Pearce based on LV-558, a Weyland-Yutani mining colony overrun by Xenomorphs. The marines sent in an elite squad called Fireteam Banshee to contain the situation. They’ve all gone missing. Your Marine has been transferred to the Endeavor to bring them home and figure out what the hell is going on.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite does enough right to be plenty worthwhile for a trio of co-op shooter fans who’d rather battle hordes of xenomorphs than the usual zombies. Between the excellent weapons, classes, and enemy types and some wonderful nostalgic hat-tips toward what came before, it's a must-play if you hold any fondness for this series. The caveats, of course, are having to put up with repetitive scenarios and some excruciatingly drawn-out missions. Aliens: Fireteam Elite may not be a triumphant win, but it's far from a game over, man. - Kyle Campbell, August 23, 2021

Score: 7

Read the full Aliens: Fireteam Elite review.

[/url] The first game wasn’t huge on story, and it doesn’t bog down Fireteam Elite 2 either. Between missions, you’ll hang out on the Endeavor and chat with your squad. There’s Shipp, the Endeavor’s CO, previously of Fireteam Elite; Ko, your tough-as-nails, no-nonsense squad leader who also returns from the original; Piper, a very earnest and enthusiastic analyst who is new to boots-on-the-ground work and a little nervous as a result; Esther, the ship’s android, who was also in the first game; Raptor, your dropship pilot with terrible (and I do mean terrible) jokes; and Wrench, your mechanic/weapons specialist/shopkeeper who dispenses rad bird facts. I love Wrench.

Truth is, I enjoy the crew, even if you only really interact with them from the waist up in very “look at their face while they talk to you” scenes. My only qualm is that, because they’re mostly just voices in your ear on missions, there’s not much room for camaraderie – and when there is, everyone’s… too nice? One of the best parts of Aliens is that the characters don’t always get along, and while I think it’s great that Ko roasts Raptor (and you), I wish these characters razzed each other a bit more. It adds flavor, you know? You can only make fun of Raptor’s jokes so many times.

I want to be clear here: I don’t think Fireteam Elite 2 is badly written, but it is very light in tone for an Aliens game, everyone likes each other a lot, and the other characters rarely leave the ship, never directly fight alongside you, and you’ll never appear in cutscenes with them. It’s one of those “you’re allegedly the most important person here, but you could be replaced with a superpowered ham sandwich and things would probably be fine” kind of co-op games. That didn’t bother me too much (though the voice acting can occasionally be a bit… stilted?) since it’s not a game you’re playing for the plot, much of which is solidly constructed but also fairly predictable. Someone in the Alien universe always wants to play God. It never works out, of course, but they always figure it might for them. You hate to see it, but you expect to see it.

Fireteam Elite 2 isn't badly written, but it is very light in tone for an Aliens game. If there is one piece of storytelling Fireteam Elite 2 nails, it’s the mid-combat dialogue, which often directly quotes the film, especially Hudson and Vasquez. It does sometimes get repetitive (there are slightly fewer lines here than I’d like), but it never gets old hearing your Marine say ‘Sharp sticks, mother****er” after gunning down an acid-blooded H.R. Geiger nightmare.

Really, though, all that is just an excuse to get out there and shoot something. Like its predecessor, Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 is a class-based, co-op-focused shooter. (You can play it solo, but you’ll be teamed up with The Alphabet Boys: CPU-controlled androids named Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.) You’ve got six classes to choose from, many of which have their own Aliens analogue. Duelist is Hicks, complete with a shotgun for close encounters; the smartgun-toting Marauder is Vasquez; Medic is Dietrich (there’s a deep cut for you); and so on. They’re all fun, and I enjoyed fooling around with them all before ultimately settling on Machinist for the long haul. A turret is just too good to pass up, and my buddy was already playing Marauder. The things we do for co-op games. Thank God one of us was willing to play Medic.

The most intriguing is the all-new Specialist, which allows you to combine the features of multiple classes. Say, for instance, you want the special abilities of the Machinist (their turret and floating bodyguard drone) but also like the Marauder’s excellent smartgun. Well, you could max out the smartgun, which will allow you to equip it to any class, or you could just… play the Specialist. It’s rad. That’s not to say there’s no benefit to sticking with the traditional classes; they have modifiers and special abilities that you’ll only get by leveling that class, so getting the best stuff probably means rolling with one of the basic classes for a while. But if you want to mix and match abilities, guns, and everything else, Specialist is your guy (or gal).

The missions themselves are pretty standard fare for the genre, but they are fun. Drop into a Weyland-Yutani nightmare, hunt for intel/break stuff/complete other objectives, kill some monstrosities, hold out for a bit, and then get out. It’s a fun loop, especially with friends, and is set apart from other games like it by how many different kinds of Xenomorphs there are.

Runners go down quickly, so they’re probably not worth spending anything fancy or consumable on (like grenades or mines or special ammo) – but they come in big groups and they’re fast little buggers, so you can get overwhelmed fast. Spitters like to sit back and shoot acid from afar. Then you have the big dudes: the Warriors who will pick you up and try to get you with their second mouth; the hit-and-run Drones (think the Alien from the original Alien) who leap from the shadows and retreat from fire; large red Xenos called Prowlers that pounce on you, and so on. Figuring out the right answer for everything while managing your limited resources is a lot of fun, and Fireteam Elite 2 isn’t scared to throw everything at you in the big moments. And aside from one particularly notable difficulty spike in the game’s fifth act, it manages to be challenging without feeling overwhelming.

If that wasn’t enough, certain missions also ask you to deal with Wey-Yu synthetics. These require a more methodical “take cover, approach carefully” strategy, where the Xenos will just have you running for your lives. It’s a nice change of pace, and you’ll have to equip different weapons and ammo types to deal with them. The smartgun, for instance, is great against Xenos, especially the smaller ones, but it’s a lot less effective against synths, who come with a little more beef. So what’s an enterprising Colonial Marine to do? Why, switch to the railgun and blow their heads off from mad yonder, of course. They do pop so satisfyingly. There’s also a secret third faction (well, maybe not so secret if you’ve played the original, but let’s assume you haven’t) to test yourself against. They all feel unique, but none of the others are quite as much fun as the Xenomorphs. I mean, it does say Aliens on the box. It’s good to have your priorities straight.

The missions are pretty standard fare for the genre, but they are fun. It’s not just your weapons that make the difference. You’ve also got single-use items like turrets, mines, ammo bins, and so on to help you survive until the next “resupply or die, folks” ammo crate and health pack rest stops scattered throughout each level. Different elements work better against different factions. Electric ammo doesn’t bother Xenos, but they’re not keen on fire; synths, as you’d expect, are just the opposite, so getting the most bang for your buck means choosing the right ammo (free tip: cryo ammo works on everything), though you can still make do if you don’t. It also encourages you to experiment with builds and try out new guns. Why not take that flamethrower to a level where you know there will be Xenos, or that rifle that comes pre-equipped with a little zap to a showdown with Weyland-Yutani’s robotic security force?

Fireteam Elite 2 encourages you to experiment with both consumables and your build, and rewards you for doing so, and I really appreciated that. One of my friends armed his Marauder with a perk that fired a shoulder-mounted rocket every time he reloaded. Pretty good, right? Well, it’s even better when paired with a M41A1 Pulse Rifle used in the film (you start with a newer model, but it doesn’t make The Sound™ or have a grenade launcher) and its underbarrel grenade launcher, which you can reload after firing once. Many explosions ensued. And if you run out of grenades, why not switch to your pistol, fire once, reload, and get a shoulder rocket? Is that the most efficient way to play? Probably not. Is it a lot of fun? Absolutely.

I also have to give it up for the level design here. See, each of the six acts of Fireteam Elite 2 takes place in its own area, which means you’ll revisit those places multiple times. Some might poo-poo this as backtracking, but I think it adds to the whole thing. Yeah, man, I’m on the colony or in this ship or in the mines or wherever else. It makes sense that I’d visit the same places several times. What matters is how those return trips change my understanding of those areas, and that they feel different when you go back, and they largely do. Fireteam Elite 2 also has some great atmospheric moments: shafts of light cut by a rotating fan, pitch black cargo holds that are so dark you can barely see, all the more terrifying when aliens show up. It gets the vibe, and that matters.

If there’s one weird thing about missions, it’s that you usually end up holding out against a giant horde and then bugging out. But aside from the opening mission, you’re never really at a landing pad where a dropship can pick you up. In general, you’re… well, you could be a lot of places. You kill all the aliens, and then you just… leave. I get that it would be a bit repetitive to wait for the dropship every time, but it’s a little odd to be like “okay, all the aliens are dead! Time to walk to the dropship!” I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s polite of the Xenos to just let us leave and all, but it’s also a little weird for them to be all “don’t worry girls, we’ll get ‘em next time” and then say good game and walk off the field.

Back on the Endeavor, you can buy new weapons, upgrades, items, and all sorts of other goodies. My favorite are decals. See, you can customize your armor, which is already cool, but you can also add decals that you can move, rotate, and resize. I like the dropship I’ve attached to my Pulse Rifle and the heartbeat monitor that I’ve slapped on my breastplate, but I’m still searching for Vasquez’s Adios because I want to slap it on my smartgun. Feels right, you know? And it gives you something to hunt for in the levels themselves.

If you’re looking for more challenge, you can also equip Challenge Cards, which do things like spawn special enemies after so many kills or ask you to hit a point total in exchange for rewards (or buff you in exchange for fewer). They’re a neat feature that add replayability and encourage teamwork, though don’t be surprised if a random player you’ve been paired with picks one without asking when you’re matchmaking. Sometimes it works, and sometimes… yeah, you get the picture.

One larger complaint I have is progression. If you’re a few missions ahead, and your friend wants to help you out, they can’t really progress until they catch up. Oh, they’ll level and such, but they won’t get access to certain parts of the store until they complete earlier missions, so you’ll either have to go back and help them (which can be fun, but time consuming) or they’ll just have to grin and bear it. Is it a huge deal? No. But it is annoying.

Once you finish the campaign, you unlock Horde mode, which is exactly what it sounds like: multiple waves across three maps. Surviving gives you cash you can spend on turrets, special ammo, mines, and the like. It’s a good system, but I think what I liked the most was that ammo crates offer limited top offs here, unlike in the campaign, where they seem to be unlimited. I had to pick and choose which crates to use because they didn’t restock, and while using the ammo crates that were closer was definitely easier, it also meant I wouldn’t have them during harder waves. I think I ultimately prefer the campaign, but Horde mode is fun, and a little more low-key… provided you extract before you die and lose most of what you’ve earned.

I suppose I should talk about the bugs, and I don’t mean the Xenos. Fireteam Elite 2 has some, but none are gamebreaking. The worst were desyncs, which were mostly the fault of a player on our team who had internet problems. Occasionally, an alien’s foot will get stuck in the vents and the Xeno attached to it will dangle there limply and bounce around, but that’s funny and more than a little endearing. Now and then, the cutscenes will run into some serious slowdown when a bunch of stuff is exploding, or an item will de-equip for a mission. Annoying? A bit. But hardly a big deal. The thing about Fireteam Elite 2 that will stick with me is that I always enjoyed playing it, even when things weren’t going exactly right.