“Aliens: Fireteam” Is the New Action Game 2021 Needs

Can you survive the hive?

There is nothing that can get me more excited than an out-of-nowhere announcement that a new Aliens game, Aliens: Fireteam, is set to be released in winter this year for Xbox Series X, PS5, Xbox One, PS4 and Steam.

Cold Iron Studios—the developers behind the game—casually dropped the news in a press release today alongside an official announcement trailer.

The third-person shooter game will be set in the year 2202, 23 years after the events of the original Alien trilogy. If you haven’t watched those films, do yourself a favour and check them out. It literally revolutionised sci-fi/horror films and video games forever.

Players will be able to take charge of one of five Colonial Marine classes: Gunner, Demolition, Recon, Doc, and Technician, as well as given the option to stamp your own identity onto the character with customisation abilities.

You can expect to be able to level up your kits and weapons, gain access to more equipment as the game progresses, and even decide how your character looks and sounds.

In the words of Craig Zinkievich, Head of Cold Iron Studios: “It’s not about inhabiting a pre-created character in a licensed universe, we want to create our own character and become immersed.”

The good news is you won’t be stuck with the one class for the entirety of the game. You will be able to swap between classes as you’re readying up before the start of each mission. I’m a big fan of this as it allows the player to escape the FOMO that another class might be better, and I’ve made the wrong choice and can’t change.

Clearly, I’ve been hurt in the past.

Gameplay wise, there are some classic Alien franchise tropes that you can expect all throughout the game. Spread across four different campaigns, players will engage in some mindless shooting, spraying Xenomorphs (that is the Alien if you didn’t know) with lead, squirting their lurid green, acidic blood all over the hallways of the spaceship you’re aboard, the USS Endeavor.

This game is not to be played solo though. Aliens: Fireteam is being developed specifically for you to play alongside two mates to take on the hordes of aliens crawling along the ceiling and walls.

Don’t worry if your mates can’t play though; you can tackle the game with two AI squad members.

However, it is not just Xenomorphs you will fight off. Cold Iron stated there will be 28 different types of enemies within the game, spanning from the Xenomorph and facehuggers all the way to the Weyland-Yutani synthetics.

If you played the 2014 game, Alien: Isolation, you would understand how terrifying those synthetics are. If you haven’t played it, come on–you call yourself a gamer? 

Back in 2013, SEGA tried something similar with their own licensed game, Aliens: Colonial Marines. It was woeful to say the least.

Nonetheless, I have high hopes for Aliens: Fireteam later this year.

God damn it i hope this is actually really good like Isolation and not another Colonial Marines

— Mike (Now with 2 vaccinations!) 🇵🇷🇺🇸 (@MikeThe4th) March 2, 2021

Header Image: IGN