‘Aliens: Fireteam’ puts you in the action as Colonial Marines

“Aliens: Fireteam” is the latest installment in the long-lasting Aliens franchise, and this time you get to gun up as the Colonial Marines as you fight a rampaging alien scourge.

If you’ve been jonesing for a third-person shooter you can play with your buddies, “Alien: Fireteam” lets you play three-at-a-time as you fight off swarms of mouth-punching aliens in a way that would even put the classic movie “Aliens” to shame. Instead of relying on flame throwers and a recently dethawed Elen Ripley to do your fighting for you, this time the players get to unleash automatic weapons on veritable mosh pits full of H.R. Giger’s creations.

“Aliens: Fireteam” opens 23 years after the events of the original Alien trilogy. You play the role of a Colonial Marine tasked with responding to distress calls from mankind’s outermost colonies. Unlike the previous game “Alien Isolation,” where you frantically avoid a single alien while trapped with it aboard a space station, Fireteam puts you on the offensive. You and your buddies land on overrun colony facilities strapped up with your best hardware and ready to unleash holy hell on 11 different kinds of the slimy monsters.

“This is the action game Aliens fans have been waiting for,” Cold Iron Studios head Craig Zinkievich said when announcing the game, with “hordes of different Xenomorphs swarming over ceilings and across walls, surrounding your team and striking from every angle.”

Because the original film trilogy and games like Isolation were focused on survival, “Aliens: Fireteam” looks like a welcome break from the sheer horror of the franchise. Don’t get me wrong, I love the “Alien” movies as much as anyone (or maybe even a bit more…) but it’s about time we got to splatter some that acidic green blood on the walls.

At the start, players will get to choose between five character classes, and throughout gameplay, there are opportunities to upgrade and customize your loadout or even to “mutate” through a challenge card system to give your character an edge in combat. This open-ended almost RPG-like approach is meant to give the game tons of replay-ability. The team behind “Alien: Fireteam” boasts that the game will provide a new experience with each and every playthrough.

“Aliens: Fireteam” drops this summer for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.