While undoubtedly a triumph, Alien: Isolation never felt like a Alien experience to me. Yes. Amanda Ripley is a badass and wholly worthy to carry her similarly badassed mother’s name, but creeping around to avoid a single – and singularly terrifying – Alien, I never felt like a real Ripley. Tip-toeing from room to room, cramming myself into lockers to hyperventilate quietly until the monstrosity retreats again just makes me feel cowardly. It makes me feel too much like .
Aliens: Fireteam Elite? With its gloriously gooey entrails, chunky gunplay, and plentiful frenzied fights, Aliens: Fireteam Elite does let me live out my power fantasies as Ripley – even if we technically have nothing to do with Ripley this time around.
Aliens Fireteam Elite reviewPublisher: Focus Home InteractiveDeveloper: Cold IronPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out August 24th on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X
Between us, I didn’t expect that going in. The trailers and screenshots looked cool, if a touch generic, sure, but… well, we’ve been burnt by the Alien franchise before, right? And while Aliens: Fireteam Elite might lack longevity – I can’t see many of us sticking around for long after the four-six-ish hours of the main campaign are done, no matter how many different Challenge Cards we apply to spice things up a bit – there’s no denying that those four hours are bloody good fun. Literally.
Going in, however, I did wonder if it was going to be Alien Isolation all over again. You’ll enter the refinery to see the faint flicker of the emergency lighting, a long maroon streak of something bloody on the floor, and catch the corner-of-the-eye clatter of a vent cover falling from the ceiling. Nothing happens until everything happens – it’s a fabulous bait and switch – and then things unfold precisely as I’d hoped; piles and piles of dead Xenos.
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Aliens: Fireteam Elite dares to pick up the story 23 years after the trilogy left off. I’m not going to give away too much about what happens here, I promise, although if I told you it kicks off with a rescue mission, you can no doubt guess what happens next. Your adventure will take you through a deserted refinery and the cavernous LV-895 and more, and while, in theory, there’s just enough diversity in the backdrops to keep boredom at bay, don’t expect much fluctuation from those green/black/blue palettes we know all too well from the franchise.