It isn’t easy to make a good Aliens game. Something about nailing down this particular franchise has been very rough terrain to navigate. I’ve played them all, and I can say that Aliens Fireteam Elite and Alien: Isolation are the high points when it comes to transforming the cinematic experience to games. That being said, Aliens Fireteam Elite is not a perfect game in any single way. But it is a good one.

Cold Iron Studios and Focus Home Interactive set out to give us a game that was built into the existing world of Aliens. The game is set after the events of Ellen Ripley’s time on LV-426 in James Cameron’s Aliens. You play as a member of the Colonial Marine Corps as part of The Broken Rooks team. The world that you know from James Cameron’s Aliens is very well represented and transports you back to your viewing of the film and hanging with the mean machine Marines. While this is a different bunch of Marines the camaraderie and dialogue is very much intact.

The games hub or lobby is aboard a ship called The Endeavor. The ship is the place that you are able to purchase weapons, new perks, weapon skins, clothing and weapon upgrades. Here you can also talk to other members of you team. Kickback and put your team together, while selecting your class. Basically it comes down to gathering intel and chatting about the world. The game does a nice job of creating a really deep mythos built around Weyland-Yutani and the history of Colonial Marine Corps. All of this ancillary dialogue really does assist in making you feel like you are part of this world and its history.

From The Endeavor, you can choose your mission. Each of the 4 primary missions have 3 submissions within each of them. Making for 12 Fireteam missions total. During each mission, you work your way through fighting off hordes of Xenomorphs in different areas of the levels. The sieges are made up of hundreds of smaller Xenos coming after you in number. The monotony of the smaller Xenomorphs is broken up by the special types of Xenomorphs. These come in the form of Spitters who can spit acid at you, prowlers who wait in the shadows to pounce on you, Bursters who run up to you and covering you and frying you in acid. The larger more difficult Xenos come in the form of Drones, Elites and Warriors. These guys are a little tougher and come after you hard. At the wrong time when being surrounded by the smaller Xenos a couple of Warriors types can really cause big trouble for your team.

Later in the game, you get to the other types of enemies including facehuggers, androids and big bosses that I’ll keep as a surprise.

Controls are nice and comfortable for a third person shooter. There isn’t anything ground breaking in ways of controls. The added mechanic of being able to take cover similar to Gears of War is almost useless until later levels. Cover doesn’t help against Xenomorphs at all, so it was a weird mechanic to add and play so prominently.

Each of the four main levels break the world into nice chunks of visuals that don’t allow your eyes to get bored. You go from a ship’s confines to caves, to outdoors and in that way the levels always seem fresh. The monotony comes from the hordes of Xenomoprhs. But, the game does spring a bit of survival horror on you in the midst of combat. You will run low on ammo. This will leave you with a pistol. It makes things exciting and makes getting to ammo crates your bread and butter of survival.

Aliens Fireteam Elite does a great job of recreating the feeling and design of the film. From the weapons, to your gear to the ship confines and the music. Everything is very much set in the James Cameron world. To add to that, the developers throw in all sorts of great homages in dialogue and offer up plenty of easter eggs in levels. Best of all, you have to really look for the easter eggs, they aren’t plainly in your face. Certain weapon decals you unlock for example are quotes from the film. It’s little things like that, that make up a nice part of a larger picture that sits nicely next to the second film in the franchise.

Aboard The Endeavor, pre-mission you are also able to change your class to suit your needs. The big four available to you are Gunner, Medic, Demolitionist and Technician. Each of the classes come with a different set of weapons and allow you to perform two special moves unique to the selected class. For example, the demolitionist can launch a barrage of missiles and set down a shockwave that kills enemies in your vicinity. The gunner class can launch a grenade and overclock the fire rate of your teams weapons. Each class assists the team in different ways, the medic is the most helpful for obvious reasons.

In Aliens Firteam Elite your team is made up of three members. If you play single-player you are joined by two androids that fight along side you. I can say that this game is a total slog if you go at it in single player. Aliens Fireteam Elite is best played online with friends. It really makes a huge difference, the enemies are even more difficult to kill with multiple buddies joining you. The single-player mode is completely soulless and makes the game totally devoid of enjoyment. It’s disapointing that the team didn’t give a better single player experience. Some people don’t like playing online, that leaves them with the very droll experience and can completely kill the game, if you are not going to play online with friends.

The longer you play the game and the more credits you get, the more weapons you can unlock. These weapons really do change the playing field and give a fresh approach to the game as a whole. For example going at the game with a flamethrower gives you a totally different experience than going at it with a pulse rifle and shotgun.

One of the best mechanics that the game pulls off is making you feel like you are never safe. They do that by creating levels where the Xenomorphs never stop coming at you. They also spawn and come at your team in different areas. So, just because a prowler was waiting for you in one spot the first time around doesn’t mean it will be there the second time. Maybe it will pop out of vent to get you down the line instead. If you clear an area it doesn’t matter. The Xenomorphs keep coming at you from in front of you and the room that you just cleared behind you. It’s a nice way of keeping you on your toes and a perfect reason you to heed the advice of Corporal Hicks form Aliens and ‘stay frosty.’

My biggest gripe with the game is that the level breakdown doesn’t feel organic at all. It makes the experience feel more like you are choosing from an arcade’s missions. The 4 levels with 3 sub level selection doesn’t make progression exciting. I think the game would have benefited greatly from a natural level progression, like one you find in Halo or Gears of War, not something that you can select on a screen after each level. The game also feels a bit too short at the moment. I’m not sure if there is a lot of DLC coming down the line, but it could definitely use it. The game as is just feels too short. The addition of two extra difficulty levels helps but, isn’t quite the same as having more levels to see.

Aliens Fireteam Elite offers up the goods that you wanted it to. It’s an Aliens game that feels like it was built next to James Cameron’s world. It creates a tense environment of missions that never allow you to feel like you are safe. While the constant flow of Xenomorph’s can feel monatonous from time to time, it is broken up by the special breeds of Xenos that are a blast and a challenge to take down. Aliens gives you a pulse-pounding experience that offers up a lot of fun to be had online with friends. While I am strictly against singleplayer in this game multiplayer offers hours and hours Fireteam action. Take the express elevator to hell and give Aliens Fireteam Elite a go.

Aliens Fireteam Elite is out now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows.