Aliens Fireteam Elite Review 

For the Sandscript’s first ever video game review, we will be taking a look at Aliens: Fireteam Elite; a game based on the Alien movie franchise, which takes place 23 years after the movie. In the game, players join a squad of three Colonial Marines as they fight their way through swarms of Xenomorphs, the main enemy of the game and of the franchise itself.  The game features a lengthy 10 hour campaign mode, which consists of 4 levels, each containing 3 missions, which can be played at many difficulty levels.  The game also has a “Horde Mode,” which can be played after completing the main campaign, and players can be certain they won’t  get bored. Fireteam is available for PS5, PS4, PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One. The game is rated as 16+, and can be purchased for $39.99 at your local electronics store or buy it digitally.  Aliens Fireteam Elite was developed by Cold Iron Studios, and debuts as the first  game they’ve ever created. 

  You are allowed to make your own colonial marine and suit him or her up with accessories, helmets and body armor. This game has 5 classes for you to choose from: the Gunner, Demolisher, Technician, Doc, and Recon which you unlock by completing the game. You will encounter many xenomorph variants; from the Facehuggers that attempt to jump you, to the Warrior Xenomorph attempting to destroy you if you’re not careful, to the Queen Xenomorph herself who is invincible to your weapons and will instantly defeat you if she gets her hands on your.  You will even encounter synthetic androids, which have weapons and will attempt to stop your from reaching your objective which is to destroy the Xenomorphs and search for any survivors.

The first level of the game takes you from your ship which serves as your base as you go through the levels. , the USS Endeavor, to the Katanga Refinery, which orbits LV-895. There, you will extract Dr. Timothy Hoenikker, one of the last survivors of the refinery . The second level will take you down to LV-895 ,where you will be conducting search and rescue missions for any survivors of the Katanga Refinery. The third level will take you under the surface of LV-895, where you discover an Engineer ship and shut it down, as it was creating gravity distortions which were causing problems for the colonial marines . The last level of Fireteam will take you back to the Refinery, where you must destroy the hive created by the Xenomorphs. As you complete your mission, you are given a limited time to escape, where you finally encounter the Queen, who tries to prevent you from escaping the exploding facility. 

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a solid game, despite its repetitive mission design consisting of the same mission objectives in all of the levels, along with some minor bugs, which will hopefully be fixed soon enough.  Fireteam captures the same atmosphere of the movies and the other games in the series, from the dark hallways of the Refinery, to the Hive itself. When fighting the synthetics in the other parts of the game, the only thing I could think about was getting back to  blasting xenomorphs. Cold Iron Studios has shared that there will be free season content, which comes out every couple months, coming to the game including a new class, new weapons, new decals, new cosmetics, and new story levels and new game modes. 

Fireteam, still, was a blast to play; even with its flaws and its bugs, you can pick up the game and have a fun time with friends or by yourself – especially if you’re a big fan of the Aliens franchise. We here at the Sandscript would rate Aliens Fireteam Elite with a score of 4 out of 5 stars and encourage you to try this one out.