#Hunt Xenos With Friends – /Film

Posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 by Eric Vespe

They’ve been making Alien video games almost as long as video games have existed. In 1982, an Alien game was released on the Atari 2600. If you’re not old enough to remember that game, it was essentially Pac-Man but instead of eating ghosts you obliterate the multicolored “aliens” chasing you with a flamethrower while you travel a maze and pick up yellow dots (alien eggs in this case).

But considering how interconnected this movie series is with gaming, the recent track record for ‘Alien‘ games is pretty sketchy. There was the much reviled first-person-shooter Aliens: Colonial Marines release from Gearbox in 2013 and the more beloved Alien: Isolation in 2014, the former of which leaning heavily on James Cameron’s contributions to the franchise and the latter more in the survival horror vain of Ridley Scott.

There’s a new Alien game on the horizon from Cold Iron Studio and it’s called Aliens: Fireteam Elite, and it has finally dropped a trailer after months of teasing glimpses.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite Trailer

As you can see, they’re taking a page from Left 4 Dead by putting you in the shoes of Colonial Marines and teaming up with your friends to hunt some bugs.

In Fireteam Elite you can play with multiple classes (Gunner, Doc, Technician, Demolisher and Recon) that support each other through waves of aliens, some of which you’ve seen before and some new ones. It’s a horde mode, so they had to throw in some explodey aliens to shower your team with acid, right?

Based on what little we’ve seen, it’s very clear we’re getting a more Cameron game than a Scott game. The Colonial Marine weapons and character builds all mirror the squad we saw accompany Ripley back to LV-426 in Aliens, down to Vasquez’s mounted smart gun.
I’m not going to lie – just hearing the sounds of those weapons and the screeches of the xenomorphs gets deep into the nostalgia centers of my brain and squeezes.

It’s also frankly about time someone put some Xenomorphs into this kind of co-op survival game. Who knows if they’ll be successful or not, but on paper it’s a perfect fit. Hell, Cameron himself directed a whole sequence in Aliens that’s essentially a horde mode game scenario, when waves upon waves of Xenomorphs throw themselves at the stationary guns and barricades protecting Ripley, Newt and the gang. Sure, that sequence was axed from the theatrical cut, but it lives on in the Director’s Cut so it still counts.

Alien: Fireteam Elite has an August 24, 2021 release date and will be available on Playstation, Xbox and Steam.

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