When movie sequels do mostly the same thing as the original, audiences tend not to like it. When a sequel gets bolder, like how Aliens took the universe in a bold new direction and became one of the most beloved sequels of all time as a result, people remember it forever. And while we all appreciate radical new ideas in game sequels, if a game lands on an awesome formula, we\u2019re often perfectly happy when sequels merely build and layer on top of that great core gameplay and give us more of what we already love (Portal 2 being perhaps the all-time Hall of Fame example of this).<\/p>\n
Based on my initial hands-on time with Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, the sequel to the PvE third-person co-op shooter that pit you and up to two friends against countless Xenomorphs \u2013 including some special varieties that had unique ways of making your life a living Hell \u2013 it\u2019s looking like it\u2019s heading down the \u201citerating on what we already love\u201d road, but that\u2019s OK. More than OK, in fact. Fireteam Elite 2 is adding exactly what you probably want to its proven-fun formula: a fourth player on your team along with smarter Xenomophs and more types of them. <\/p>\n
I played the first mission within the first campaign twice \u2013 both times in four-player teams with the developers. You can try to survive this nightmare solo if you like, but it\u2019s not recommended. Anyway, the prologue mission sets up the story, with returning ally Ko in trouble on the planet surface below. You begin each mission on your orbiting ship, the USS Endeavor, where you can acquire new weapons, choose your mission, talk to your crewmates, etc. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s here you can customize your character and choose your class. Regarding the former, I was able to make a reasonable facsimile of myself, and though I did think while I was in the character creator that I wish I had some more options to more closely recreate myself, once I was actually in the game I only ever saw the back of my character\u2019s head on account of the third-person perspective, so any mild disappointment in the customization options melted away. <\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the latter: your class. The core five should seem mostly familiar: Duelist, Machinist, Marauder, Hunter, and the one I chose, the Medic (aka Doc). But then there\u2019s a new sixth class: the Specialist. This one is the a la carte buffet that allows you to choose any weapons and any abilities you\u2019ve unlocked from any of the other classes to create a unique custom soldier. As Doc, I had two initial skills \u2013 a deployable device that would slowly heal anyone inside its radius as well as an adrenaline burst that gave me and any teammates near me a damage boost for a short period of time. Both are on a reasonably generous cooldown.<\/p>\n
Speaking of generous, difficulty levels return, allowing you to tailor your Xenomorph-induced stress level. The developers I played with set us on Normal, but as with the first game, higher difficulty levels turn friendly fire on, meaning you\u2019ll have to be especially careful with your formations and where your bullets are going. Thankfully, a crouch button has been added, allowing particularly well-coordinated teams to take advantage of the new strategies this unlocks. I had a pretty easy time of it during both runs through the Prologue mission on Normal difficulty, but then again, I was playing with people who literally designed everything I was experiencing \u2013 not to mention that it was only the very first mission in the opening campaign! The difficulty no doubt ramps up significantly as you progress.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Getting back to my class, I gravitated towards Doc because, though I\u2019ve played a decent bit of the original Fireteam Elite, I obviously hadn\u2019t played any of the sequel, and it has admittedly been a few years since I last fired up the first one. I wanted to be useful to my team even in the event my combat skills didn\u2019t match those of my exponentially more experienced developer teammates, and sure enough, I had a fantastic time and felt useful while healing everyone and providing the occasional Adrenaline boost. My default machine gun and shotgun weren\u2019t particularly memorable (unlike, say, the Marauder\u2019s classic auto-targeting Smart Gun), but the shotgun in particular felt satisfying to use.<\/p>\n Fortunately, Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 isn\u2019t too far away for a game that only just got announced this month; it\u2019s due out this summer, which could (but probably doesn\u2019t) mean June or it could mean September. No matter where it lands, you won\u2019t have to wait too long to get your hands on it. Still, it\u2019s a game that\u2019s not done, but even in my hands-on (playing on my gaming PC with a 5080 graphics card), Fireteam Elite 2 ran beautifully and looked great too. That bodes well for its performance upon release. <\/p>\n Visually, that first mission has a familiar Aliens look: that Weyland-Yutani corporate and sanitized interior look \u2013 and when the Xenmorphs\u2019 organic, H.R. Giger-inspired architecture starts to creep in later on in the prologue mission, it makes your skin crawl a little bit. Fireteam Elite 2 definitely accomplishes the task of giving you that classic Aliens feel right from the jump, and I\u2019m eager to see what some of the later missions look like, aesthetically speaking. <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n I really liked the more subtle visual touches sprinkled throughout the first mission, like the fog hovering just above the floor, knee-high, in a hydroponics lab (where, as one character curiously points out in a line of dialogue, \u201cWho keeps flowers behind bulletproof glass?\u201d). That fog is used in a couple of places in the opening level, and it indeed adds an authentic Aliens flair to the proceedings. And overall, Fireteam Elite 2 seems to have a really polished, clean look to it, visually \u2013 impressive when you\u2019ve got three other human players and sometimes dozens of Xenomorphs on the screen at once.<\/p>\n When my play session began with three of the lead developers of Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, one of my first questions was what was the big thing they wanted to achieve with the sequel after the first one was received so well. Their instant, definitive answer was that fans had overwhelmingly asked for one thing above all else: a fourth player. And so that was a core building block on which this sequel was built, and after playing through the prologue mission twice, it feels so natural to have four players that it\u2019d probably feel weird to only have three if I fired the first Fireteam Elite back up. <\/p>\n <\/p>\nLooking Sharp<\/h3>\n
A Fourth Musketeer<\/h3>\n
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 – First Screenshots<\/h3>\n