Previews
[Preview] ‘Aliens Fireteam Elite’: In Space, No One Can Hear You Emote
While many horror fans would say the history of the Alien film franchise is a bit scattershot, its video game efforts are perhaps even more erratic. One of the series’ low points is Aliens: Colonial Marines, a 2013 Gearbox shooter that failed to do just about anything right, and its lasting blemish on the IP have left this summer’s Aliens Fireteam Elite with some skepticism from fans.
Distancing itself from the survival horror aspects of the beloved Alien Isolation, Fireteam Elite is much more akin to Colonial Marines, but after several hours with a good portion of the game, it feels like a much more competent shooter, albeit maybe still a curious use of the franchise.
In teams of three, players using their own customized avatars will star in Cameron-style Aliens action setpieces. The game wants you to play in co-op, but it will always fill out a team with one or two somewhat helpful AI companions as needed. The first campaign takes place aboard a spaceship not unlike those we’ve seen in the movies for decades and Cold Iron Studios nails the look in a way that immediately excites me. Analog computers and their scrawling green text, Working Joes ominously hibernating in their docking stations, and ample vents built into the framework of this first campaign’s spaceship setting make for a familiar and faithful scene.
It’s moody, but it’s quickly apparent this isn’t going to offer the slow-crawling tension of Scott’s original movie. In just seconds after I exited the starting area, I was greeted by hordes of xenomorphs. Most of the time, they were a basic type, with a slightly smaller frame and spawning in packs of a dozen or more. There were other types too, like a suiciding xeno that gets in close and explodes on players like an H.R. Giger-branded homing missile. Another spit its famous acid spit from a distance. Another stalked from behind corners or overhead and pounced on players, demanding they complete a QTE unless their teammates can assist.
The archetypes sound familiar, no doubt. The easy comparison to make for what Aliens Fireteam Elite plays like is – you guessed it – Left 4 Dead. I play a lot of games of that lineage, and admittedly I do grow wary (and even weary) of making the comparison when it can feel like low-hanging fruit, but sometimes the inspiration is too obvious to ignore. Fireteam Elite wants to be relentless, and in that regard, it succeeds. The past decade of Left 4 Dead-likes have passed or failed largely based on their ability to deliver proper pacing. Too much too fast, and it can feel pray-and-spray, but too few enemies mean failing to keep players on their toes.
Fireteam Elite betrays its franchise’s well-established rules of how even a single xenomorph is a catastrophic threat in favor of throwing hundreds of aliens at teams level by level. While this aspect is awkward and hard to ignore for the series’ purists, I was able to look past it once I saw how well-rounded Fireteam Elite is as a modern shooter.
Shooting from third-person feels great in Fireteam Elite, with optional waist-high cover available all over, though I didn’t find too much use in it, given how the aliens swarm from all over most of the time. Characters are split into classes, each given their own secondary items that use cooldown timers to reload. There’s even an emote menu with a few that are already incongruous with the typical Alien universe — is now the best time for a dance-off? Fireteam Elite is a modern co-op shooter first and foremost, and an Alien game second, and a deep menu of unlockable perks, attachments, weapons, and cosmetics reveal a long tail for this game once it launches in a few weeks. I think, ultimately, people coming to the game as merely Alien fans will need to squint to appreciate it as a part of their cherished franchise.
It’s going to take some appreciation for the genre, not just the familiar monsters roaming the ducts, but anyone who does enjoy both, as I do, I think they’ll quickly get sucked into the game’s reward dispersal schedule. It feels like pass or fail on any given mission, you’re always unlocking something new – or just about to, teasing you to go back in for another round. One of my favorite features is a perk system that demands players shuffle equipped bonuses like a puzzle akin to Resident Evil‘s inventory interface. I had several perks I earned, a few more I bought with the game’s free currency, and it was fun trying to squeeze them into my build like Tetris.
This is as unlike Alien Isolation as Aliens is to Alien, but Cold Iron overcomes skepticism with strong core mechanics, levels rich in homage despite a jarringly different pace, and an upgrade tree with countless branches for all types of players. It won’t be a game dedicated to its source material, but with about a month until launch, it feels like it could be a fun co-op shooter that just happens to have some famous aliens clawing at you and your teammates.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite preview code for PC provided by the publisher.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is out August 24, 2021, for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Steam.
Previews
‘Evil Dead: The Game’ Looks to Be Raising the Bar for Asymmetrical Horror [Hands-On Preview]
The idea of synthesizing all of the moving pieces of the Evil Dead series into one cohesive package is one vicious, behemoth Deadite in itself. But on top of that, transcending the medium of film and television and adapting it into a gaming genre as volatile as asymmetrical multiplayer? One would naturally question how Saber Interactive could possibly appease every possible audience with EVIL DEAD: THE GAME, from veteran film fans to savvy gamers who want a unique and engaging experience. But as someone who fits into both camps who recently spent an hour with the developers kicking Deadite ass (and kicking ass as Deadites), I can happily report that Saber Interactive has pulled it off. EVIL DEAD: THE GAME is asymmetrical multiplayer at its best.
For those unfamiliar, asymmetrical multiplayer is a gameplay paradigm that heavily skews the power dynamic between two opposing teams. In the case of EVIL DEAD: THE GAME, four players select a character from the roster of Ash Williams and his cohorts from across the Evil Dead franchise (the “Survivor” team) to face one player who controls the all-powerful Kandarian Demon (the “Killer” team).
The survivor team is packed with familiar faces, including multiple iterations of Ash Williams as he appears throughout the Evil Dead series, meaning if you want to play Avengers multiverse style as a team of four different Ashes, the choice is yours. Just expect to hear a lot of quips from Bruce Campbell, who returned to reprise his role along with almost all of the original cast members from the films and television series. If you’re feeling a bit more sadistic, you can opt to play as The Kandarian Demon, which gives you the ability to control and summon Deadites to hinder and destroy the survivor team before they have a chance to use the Necronomicon to open a portal and excise the evil.
One important question I had when going into the preview was “How is this game going to stand out from its peers in the asymmetrical multiplayer space?” The genre is already well-known for hits like Behaviour Interactive’s Dead By Daylight, and is becoming further saturated with upcoming titles like Gun Media’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre game. Walking out of the preview, I felt that Saber Interactive knocked it out of the park in multiple ways, but my biggest takeaway was the sense of agency that the gameplay provides on both the survivor and killer sides.
For starters, on the survivor side, you’re given the option to select a character that fits into one of four categories: Leader, Warrior, Hunter, or Support. Each character in their respective class holds certain abilities that fit their archetype–for example, Cheryl in Support has an ability that heals the team as they converge around her. This system immediately establishes an element of complexity to the gameplay: how do you build synergy based on these classes? Do you want to be in the fray battling it out, or would you rather scout out objectives and rally the team to success? Additionally, you have the option of upgrading your abilities via cans of Pink-F scattered throughout the map, and have access to an expansive list of weapons to choose from shotguns to Medieval swords.
On the other hand, as the Kandarian Demon, you’re given free rein to zip across the map and collect Infernal Energy, which is used for all sorts of offensive options from summoning Deadites, to conjuring up traps, and my favorite, possession. Think of it like the survivors are in one big haunted house, and you’re the one with the master switch that controls everything that happens, from jump-scare traps to possessed trees and cars. Survivors themselves can even become possessed once their fear meters max out, giving you the option to take control of their characters to lay the smackdown on their team members, waste all of their ammo or separate them from the group. It’s as chaotic as it is a genuinely unique and a fresh take on the genre that’s never been seen before.
These factors of complexity and agency are so important because it counteracts an issue that often presents itself in asymmetrical horror: redundancy. Continuously playing matches can grow stagnant quickly if the gameplay isn’t complex and the same objectives need to be completed over and over again. The one hour I played of EVIL DEAD: THE GAME left me hungry to explore more. How does the gameplay differ between survivors? What are the other weapons like? How can I best optimize my team? And more importantly, I was excited to try out playing as the killer again. Like many other folks who play asymmetrical multiplayer, I tend to favor playing as the survivor over the killer, but playing as the Kandarian Demon was such a blast that I could see myself defecting to the dark side with EVIL DEAD.
EVIL DEAD: THE GAME truly offers something for everyone. Those who have stuck with the franchise since Sam Raimi’s first film in 1981 will love the homages and faithful adaptations, and those new to the series will love the blend of action, horror, and humor. People familiar with asymmetrical multiplayer can expect a fresh and innovative take on the genre, and if you’re new to asymmetrical multiplayer? I can confidently say EVIL DEAD: THE GAME will set the bar high for you.
EVIL DEAD: THE GAME will release on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Series X/S, and PC via the Epic Games Store on May 13th, 2022.
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