Aliens: Fireteam Elite Review

"Generic Space Marines"

Campaign

August 23, 2021 at 8:00am
By Jason Stettner

This is definitely one of those more interesting types of premises. The goal is that you’re working in three player coop with real players or bots and fighting through a campaign filled with Aliens. Well, you’ll shoot a lot of xenomorphs or well I killed four thousand in a campaign run alongside other surprise enemies.

It sounds interesting, and while it’s visually appealing this is very bland. You basically go down hallways shooting these enemies and then you stand still to fight a few waves. You can always tell as they have ammo, a couple healthpacks and some extra crates to use for survival. The most exciting level, or only different one had you shooting ship goo to blow it up. That happened once, with everything else being insanely repetitive.

There’s replay value in choosing higher difficulties, but levels don’t change and it feels again, repetitive. It was very lifeless at times, yet I still had some fun with it in coop. The story behind what you’re doing isn’t too bad, but there’s not much to it. It should make Aliens fans happy lore wise, at the same time it’s not chunky and very generic.

There’s not much meat on the bone in this one, but you do get about five hours of campaign or so depending on effective you are. The ends of levels tended to be more grindy possibly causing a fail. That would make you restart the level from scratch with them being about twenty minutes each in length. Outside of the campaign there’s a single horde mode level to fight endless enemies. It felt very tacked on and last minute to try providing something extra for this.

Gameplay

The visuals are where this game shines. It looks really good, it’s quite impressive on Xbox Series X being a dynamic 4k resolution experience at 60fps. It tries a little for the spooky atmosphere of the Aliens universe but that lasts for a couple minutes in the opening. Then it’s just a straight up typical third person shooter being all about action.

I think it captures the aesthetic of the series well, providing some neat looking spaces. It’s just linear however, no exploration outside of the odd special cache and these aren’t at all hidden. It’s just so lifeless at times which is disappointing. The shooting is fine in this, with a cover system that you don’t need outside of Synth situations. The enemies move too fast to use cover, so it seems unnecessary. You do get a range of weapons to use and you unlock more as you play.

The same goes for attachments on weapons and various mods. The mod system is really neat for better abilities and you improve your chosen class through progression. This has many in-game unlocks from a visual perspective and an improved combative one. That aspect is very well done, the whole earning system and I just wish the replay style was better suited for it.

It’s a shame really, so much to work towards and yet it feels too bland to continue to replay it. It also sounds very authentic to the universe, that’s good. I will note that this features regular matchmaking for campaign which is nice and a good sense of difficulty. With that, we did have some cross-gen connection issues starting matches between the Xbox Series X and base Xbox One platforms.

The Conclusion

Aliens: Fireteam Elite has some interesting mechanics to it, great visuals but lacks the replayability it needs to be successful as it’s such a minimal experience. It really is lacking in content, and I didn’t feel a need to replay it. It aims to lean on a Left 4 Dead type of style but it feels like a corridor Alien cleansing simulator.

You just literally shoot some enemies, shoot some more and then hold off an area shooting foes. There’s not much depth to it, and this feels very shallow. Again, quite a shame as this has so many neat things to unlock for customization or usage. There’s potential here, but it feels like it doesn’t live up to it.

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Aliens: Fireteam Elite Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Taro PR

Rating Overall: 6.2