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, and it’s also true of its sequel, which freshens that returning structure up with things like an additional player and a new class. I’m not done with Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 yet (the joys of international travel to Gamescom, I reckon), but I’ve played enough to start laying down thoughts like one of my squadmates is spiriting for an objective and my words are covering fire. The short version is this: I’m having a good time with my friends, but I am curious how long we’ll want to play after the credits roll.
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 Fireteam Banshee, an elite squad, 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.
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; Ko, your tough-as-nails, no-nonsense squad leader; Piper, an analyst who is new to boots-on-the-ground work and a little nervous as a result; Esther, the ship’s android; 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 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 the voice 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?
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; Marauder is Vasquez; Medic is Dietrich (there’s a deep cut for you); and so on. My favorite was 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 smartgun, which is one of my early favorites. Well, the Specialist will let you do that. 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. But if you want to do some tweaking, 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 until you can get out, 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 quickly. 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.
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.
My favorite thing, aside from the happy brain chemicals released from acquiring the M41A1 Pulse Rifle used in the film (you start with a newer model) and the sound it makes, 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?
So far, I’m quite enjoying my time with Fireteam Elite 2, even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It’s best with three friends (the squad size is now four marines, up from the original’s three, so your usual squad can all play instead of one person being perpetually sad), but it’s solid enough solo. Let me get to the bottom of this round of Weyland-Yutani’s startlingly bad decisions, and I’ll have a score for you. So far, however, I can confirm that it is in fact a bug hunt.