Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2

Introduction

Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, released 25 August 2026 by Cold Iron Studios and published by Daybreak Game Company, is a direct follow-up to the 2021 four-player co-op horde shooter built on the Alien film franchise's licence. The pitch hasn't changed: pick a class, drop into a squad of up to four marines, and hold ground against overwhelming numbers of Xenomorphs across a linear campaign. It sits Mixed with a very large sample of 3,192 reviews at the time of this check, and reading through a wide cross-section of them turns up a split that's unusually easy to describe precisely — this is a game whose core combat loop still works for a large number of players, wrapped in a technical and pricing package that a comparably large number of players say lets it down.

The same formula, and reviewers are split on whether that's the problem

The single most repeated observation across both positive and negative reviews is that this is, structurally, very close to the first game. Several detailed reviewers who completed the full campaign describe it as the same core loop with real, specific improvements layered on top: a fourth squad slot, new classes, new environments to fight through, a larger roster of Xenomorph variants, and — according to more than one long-time player of the original — noticeably reduced bullet-sponge health pools that made enemies feel more responsive to gunfire than in the first game. One reviewer who waited until finishing the campaign before writing specifically frames it as "not a revolution, an evolution," reporting smooth performance through roughly 95 percent of their playtime and no major issues during large combat encounters.

Set against that account is an equally common complaint, voiced by reviewers on both sides of the recommend line: that the sequel feels less like a new game and more like a large paid expansion. Multiple reviewers explicitly describe encountering maps and encounters that feel reused rather than newly built, and more than one names specific classes or abilities from the first game that return with only cosmetic changes. This review cannot independently verify how much content is genuinely new versus recycled, but the volume and specificity of reviewers making this exact comparison — often while still recommending the game — suggests it reflects a real, felt continuity rather than a small vocal minority's complaint.

A rough technical launch

Independent of the content debate, a large number of reviewers report specific, severe technical problems at launch. Frequent stuttering is the most commonly named issue, described by multiple reviewers as occurring unpredictably during large combat encounters and, in several specific reports, when passing through doorways or loading transitions — one reviewer with a genuinely high-end PC states performance "struggled heavily" despite the hardware being well above the stated requirements. Co-op-specific problems recur too: reviewers report connection drops between squad members, and several describe missions becoming impossible to complete due to bugs like doors locking players out of the next area, controls becoming randomly unresponsive mid-mission, or friendly and enemy characters alike getting physically stuck on level geometry. Several reviewers separately report crashes tied specifically to changing graphics settings mid-session.

It's worth noting the other side of this clearly, because it complicates a simple "broken game" verdict: multiple reviewers with a thousand-plus hours logged between them report a smooth full campaign completion with none of the above issues, and at least one detailed technical reviewer frames most of the negative-review technical complaints as coming from players with very low playtime, arguing two hours isn't long enough to fairly judge a game's stability across its full length. Read together, the technical problems appear real, specific and widely reported, but plausibly inconsistent across hardware and network configurations rather than universal.

Dialogue that draws unusually harsh, specific mockery

Where reviewers on both sides of the recommend line converge most strongly is on the writing. Multiple detailed reviews single out the character dialogue and voice acting as a genuine low point — stiff line deliveries, tonal whiplash between horror-adjacent set pieces and jokey banter, and at least one specific complaint about randomly inserted trivia lines that feel disconnected from the scene they interrupt. More than one reviewer goes further and speculates, without offering evidence, that the writing reads as AI-generated; this review has not investigated the game's production pipeline and reports this only as a stated, unverified suspicion that recurs across multiple independent reviews rather than as a confirmed fact about how the game was made. Several players who otherwise recommend the game specifically note muting voice chat or NPC dialogue as their workaround, which is a notable thing for a narrative-adjacent co-op shooter to be prompting in its own reviews.

A price the game's own fans argue against

The most consistent complaint across this entire sample, cutting cleanly across positive and negative reviews alike, is price. At roughly NZ$76 for the standard edition, with a separate higher-priced Deluxe tier on top, multiple reviewers directly compare the asking price to genre peers like Vermintide, Darktide and Remnant 2, arguing the amount of new systems and content on offer doesn't clear that bar — one reviewer notes the first game itself can now be found on sale for a small fraction of this sequel's launch price, undercutting the case for buying the follow-up at full cost. Several reviewers who otherwise gave the game a thumbs-up still flag price as the one thing keeping them from a stronger recommendation, explicitly stating they'd feel comfortable recommending it to a friend only at a meaningfully lower cost than what's currently being charged.

Final Verdict

Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 keeps the mechanical core that made the first game a reliable co-op pick — four-player squads, distinct classes, and genuinely tense moments of being swarmed by Xenomorphs in numbers the original never quite matched, with reduced bullet-sponge enemy health that several long-time players single out as a real improvement. What holds this score down is that this review found broad, specific, and repeated agreement on three separate weak points: a rough technical launch marked by stuttering and connection issues, dialogue writing that draws unusually pointed mockery even from fans of the underlying gameplay, and a full-price tag that a large share of the game's own supporters argue isn't justified by what's new. Worth it for an existing squad of first-game fans prepared to look past the rough edges; a poor first purchase into the series, and best approached after patches land or at a discount.