Aliens: Fireteam, A New Chance To Ruin The Franchise?

Let’s Hope This One Isn’t A Colonial Cockup

Do you recall Colonial Marines? If you do, you have our condolences, especially if you revisited it to enable the AI that was broken at launch.  Alien:Isolation was a great comeback, albeit a completely different take on a survival horror game compared to the old games; you were wielding a welder, not an M41A Pulse Rifle.  Cold Iron Studios are trying to revive that style of Aliens shooter with Aliens:Fireteam.

We first heard word of the game back in 2018 as a rumour but until now we hadn’t seen a trailer, with or without gameplay.  That has now changed, as the game was officially announced, a trailer provided and a release date of sometime this summer.  The gameplay looks similar to the old Aliens games, however there is a big difference which might not be apparent at first glance.  This iteration of the franchise will be a cooperative, third person shooter, with classes and skills as well as including weapon customization.

This is somewhat worrisome, as so far changing the formula from the originals has not worked well.  There was something special about being trapped all alone, in first person view, with Xenomorphs lurking in every shadow, which you probably aren’t going to experience with a group of people all yelling at each other and trying to snag a kill so they can get a level.  Then again, there have been quite a few very enjoyable games built on similar systems so we should not yet abandon all hope.

On the plus side, you can be guaranteed it won’t be a cover based shooter, as Xenomorphs consider cover just another surface to scramble up on to get at your juicy bits.