Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2

Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 released August 25, 2026, a four-player co-op shooter dropping Colonial Marines into the Alien universe to survive Xenomorph swarms. I never played the first game. I only played this sequel, with a full stack of friends, and had a good time. Spoiler up front anyway: this game is not worth $50.

The story sits in 2207, five years after the first Fireteam Elite and about twenty-eight years after Aliens and Alien 3. You are Colonial Marines aboard the USS Endeavor, investigating LV-558 after a mining colony sends a distress call. On paper, a company town digging for resources. In practice, Weyland-Yutani does what Weyland-Yutani does, and it is a front for one of their experiments. This is not a sequel picking up where the last one left off. Like most Alien extensions these days, it is an isolated experience. You and up to three friends drop in, pick from several classes, gun down bugs and synthetics, and collect resources to upgrade gear.

The loop reminded me a lot of Left 4 Dead. Not sure anyone else has made that comparison. Eight or nine missions at different difficulties, meant to be replayed with a team, point A to point B for evac, fighting Xenomorph types that read as reskinned zombie archetypes: a hunter, a boomer, drones as tanks, wardens as bigger tanks. Swap the level-up system in and go third person, and you have the pitch. If that premise appeals, you will probably enjoy this.

I did. I also played with a full squad. This game is built for friends. Solo, running the levels, it gets repetitive fast. Room, fight aliens, next room, fight aliens, next room, fight aliens. That is the design, and it is fine as a design, but it is very linear, running in a straight line, repetitive in look, feel, and play. Left 4 Dead let you get lost, genuinely lost, even on maps you had run before, with wrong turns and random swarms spawning unpredictably. Here, next room, tripwire, aliens spawn. That is the whole trick.

With friends it is way more fun, because the unpredictability comes from your squad: someone dies, someone runs dry on ammo, someone screws up, or you are racing for most damage dealt, or in our case most damage taken. Nothing wrong with being a friendslop game. That is the intent, and other reviews back it up: groups are having the best time, even people who have never seen the movies enjoy it with friends.

If you came for an interesting story, you will be disappointed, which tracks for this franchise at this point. The films themselves have felt hollow since Alien 3. I do not expect a friendslop shooter to course-correct forty years of lore into a gold-standard story. As a simple alien shooter with friends, that is fine. My actual issue is that the characters will not shut up. Between missions you button-mash through NPC dialogue at the hub about their feelings when all you want is to get back in the fight. It is the SNL Kit Harington sketch, the one where the video game NPC keeps wanting to talk feelings instead of fighting zombies. This is that sketch, exactly.

Optimization has bugs in the early days. I ran into a few solo, none while playing with friends. Some stuck loading screens between missions, annoying, not the end of the world. I expect that gets patched. The bigger issue: this is a simple friendslop shooter with bugs and a very linear structure, and it costs $50. Is the Alien license really that expensive that it needed a $50 tag? That is wild. Not worth $50. Feels like a $30 title with a handful of levels. Deluxe is $70. No chance. Other reviews say it is basically the first game again with barely anything new, so $50 for a game with nothing new is too much in this market.

Fireteam Elite 2 is a good time for players wanting a casual co-op shooter reminiscent of other casual co-op shooters. At $50, wait for a deep sale or stick with the original or something else. 5 out of 10, mostly because the price is outrageous. Not a bad game. Just not worth $50.