Aliens: Fireteam Elite can be a bit of a xeno-stomp, or it can be a real nightmare. So if you’re planning on grinding the Endeavor’s harder difficulties, here’s some friendly tips.
These tips will apply regardless of what platform you’re playing on, although things like sniper rifles and single-shot affairs like the DMR are a bit easier on mouse and keyboard. But regardless of how you outfit your Marine, there’s some solid, simple advice you can take to limit how many hits you take.
Try to keep the flamethrowers to a minimum.
If it’s not obvious already, flamethrowers take up an enormous amount of space on the screen. At higher difficulty levels, flamethrowers are a prime way to dish out a ton of friendly fire.
But the bigger problem is what just one flamethrower — and I’m talking the version of the flamethrower that can be equipped into your heavy slot — does to your team’s visibility. Fire in this game completely fills up the screen, making it astonishingly hard to spot oncoming enemies. And given almost everything in Aliens: Fireteam Elite charges at you, flamethrowers can make things tricky for everyone who’s not holding the flamethrower. The third act funnels you through a ton of corridors, too, so having more than one flamethrower simply means you’ll always have one member of the team struggling to get into range.
But I’d still argue the flamethrower is great to have especially when you start facing multiple warriors and drones in a mission. The rate of damage is enormous and it’s a great fit for those times when you have to hold a central location or a particular area. Just set up a turret or two and camp that flamethrower at the front.
Unlock at least two Aliens: Fireteam Elite classes to level 2 before fully progressing through the campaign.
This is a bit of a weird one, so let me explain.
Progression in Aliens: Fireteam Elite is XP based, and it’s individual to each class and weapon. As soon as you reach level 2 in any class, you’ll unlock “core perks” that offer pretty sizeable buffs, and usually to a particular type of weapon. The gunner, for instance, has two core perks for rifles and CQW (close quarters weapons like shotguns, submachine guns, smaller flamethrowers, etc). The recon class, which you can’t unlock until finishing the main campaign at least once, also has core perks for CQW and rifles.
Multiple classes share weapon types, too. The Demolisher, for instance, has a heavy and rifle weapon slots, while the Gunner only has CQW and rifle slots. So if you get both classes to level 2, you’re able to equip two core perks for the weapon you’re going to use the majority of the time.
You’ll generally use one gun more than the other in Fireteam Elite, whether that’s the heavy smartgun, flamethrower, a standard assault rifle, or in my case, the single-shot, high-damage DMR. But stacking your buffs on that weapon — coupled with the extra bonuses from attachments you can find — will serve you well.
Save up your money for a good gun first.
There’s two currencies in Aliens: Fireteam Elite. The first one is your bog-standard credits, redeemable for perks, attachments and various weapons. The second is scrip, which can be used to buy cosmetic items, skins, gun decals and challenge cards, the latter of which I’ll cover later.
It’ll take you a few missions before you can buy a gun outright from the requisition store. But because your progression is individual to each weapon, the best move is to save up those credits until you can get something you want. I’d recommend avoiding the grenade launchers initially — they’re a bit underwhelming, I found. The sniper rifles also aren’t recommended: any amount of magnification when aiming down sights will make it supremely hard to kill all the xenomorph runners, especially when they’re falling out of vents, climbing up walls and running across pipes. An upgraded DMR (like the M42A2 seen above) is much more suitable.
Double check what perks have attachments that can buff the whole team.
Once you start hitting level three and level five, your “perks grid” will expand with more slots. This gives you more space to upgrade your existing abilities and capacity. You could simply use this to provide yourself with another benefit, but it’s better instead to upgrade your core abilities (those on the left and right sides of the grid) with something that expands its versatility.
The Gunner I played, for instance, can access a modifier that extends the Overclock’s reload speed buff to the entire team. That’s an enormous benefit when you’re dealing with onrushing warriors and drones. Other classes will have modifiers of their own, too, and you can see what modifiers are available by hovering over the skill and hitting R on the keyboard or Y/triangle on the controller.
Use Aliens: Fireteam Elite’s challenge cards for a quick boost to your credits or XP.
While some challenge cards are brutal — don’t play with the one that jams your guns, just trust me — you will acquire the occasional rare or exotic challenge card with no downsides whatsoever. Sometimes you’ll get these by completing daily and weekly challenges, which can be found in the “Tactical Opportunities” tab at the bottom-left of the campaign mission menu.
You can also buy packs of three challenge cards from the Endeavor’s quartermaster, SSGT Park. This will cost you 150 scrip, but it’s the best use of your scrip given most of the cosmetic items are pretty ordinary. These cards can be played one at a time and they expire when used, regardless of whether you finish the mission or not. It’s also good to talk to your team to make sure you only play one challenge card as a group. Fireteam only applies one challenge card at a time, and if multiple players try to set a challenge card for the mission, the game will randomly select from all the cards chosen. Talk on the mic!
Aliens: Fireteam Elite’s perks favour guns with high damage values.
Whatever gun works best for you will obviously be down to personal choice. But I only mention this because all of the perks and buffs in Fireteam Elite are percentage based, rather than being fixed values. In practice, that means you get much better value from, say, 20 percent extra weak point damage on a gun that does 500 damage a shot, versus one that does 80 damage a shot.
If you’ve played Hades recently, you’ll understand this idea well. Fast-firing weapons with lower damage values tend to favour fixed increases because those bonuses will proc far more often. On guns like sniper rifles, the DMR, grenade launchers and shotguns, those flat percentage increases will often ensure you’re one-shotting weaker enemies instead of having to two or three-shot them. That makes the majority of waves infinitely easier to deal with — and means you have more room and space to deal with the bigger bosses.
Shoot all the goddamn eggs.
The eggs are a special infestation that pops up in the fourth act. If you don’t deal with the eggs, they’ll eventually hatch and some Half-Life style headcrabs — painted all white — will start crawling around the floor.
They’re annoying as hell because they, without fail, will stunlock your character. This is one of the worst things that can happen in Aliens: Fireteam Elite. In fact, at the highest difficulties there’s a chance your character can immediately die during these sequences (and some xenomorphs will kill you instantly if they grapple you). Just save yourself the trouble and burn all the eggs to the ground.
To deal with the bigger xenos, identify who’s being charged and make sure they have the space to continually dodge.
With the exception of the synths — who are really only a primary factor in the second act — the biggest threat you’ll face will be the tougher, faster, armoured xenomorphs. These can include the Drone and the Crusher, mini-bosses like Monica (from the first act) or the royal Praetorians who appear towards the end of the game.
Either way, the approach for dealing with all of them is relatively straightforward. You’ll hear a massive roar just before they attack, giving you just enough time to put down any extra traps, cyro pods or whatever extra assistance you need. Once they come into view, the whole team should start wailing on them immediately until it’s clear the boss is charging a particular target.
Whoever that target is should wait until the bigger boss gets to just within melee distance, at which point they should dodge away — ideally into a space away from your two teammates. The last thing you want is for the boss xenomorphs to switch targets and stunlock an ally who didn’t have time to dodge.
The bigger bosses will typically attack in two motions, so you’ll need to dodge both times to stay out of the way. This should give your teammates enough time to drop any abilities and firepower they need into their weak spots. It’s worth noting that debuffs like fire, electrically charged bullets from turrets or consumables, and cryo pods, will all help to slow the xenos down. If your weaponry has a chance to stagger, slow or stun, it’s worth using those first. At most difficulty levels you’ll be able to see icons under their health bar, too.
Just remember: you can’t reload while dodging.
This is a simple one that’s easy to trip up on. You’ll run into plenty of scenarios where you need to reload, but you also want to avoid taking a swipe from a nearby runner. Fireteam Elite won’t let you finish reloading while you’re dodging. You can automatically reload through certain abilities (like upgraded version of the Gunner’s Overclock) but for the most part, you’ll have to find a space where you have a couple of seconds of cover first.
Be careful when going around corners, and check ceilings too.
Prowlers are some of the more annoying xenos, because they like to pounce on your character, locking them into a quicktime event. You can usually spot these beforehand if you’re careful with your movements. The first act, for example, often has prowlers just camping out on the floor around a corridor. Your characters might occasionally shout them out via a voice line as well, so pay attention to those.
Let anyone who’s playing as Doc grab all the medkits.
This one’s down to how the Doc’s AOE heal works. The Doc can put down — and pick up — health beacons that heals all allies within range. It only has three uses, but it also recharges every time the Doc grabs a spare medkit. So if you’re running around with the Doc, it’s best to leave the medkits to them: one medkit that can heal three people is a lot more valuable than one medkit that can only heal yourself.
Pay attention to where xenos fall off a pipe/roof, because all xenos behind them will attack from the exact same entry point.
One of the problems with Fireteam Elite‘s AI is that the enemy always charges at you in a line. It’s most prominent whenever the xenos are crawling on a roof or charging via a pipe, and you’ll often see runners and other xenos flooding through these areas in single file.
The benefit of this — especially if you’re playing on controller or not accustomed to a lot of co-op shooters — is that you can aim at a single point and just fire when the xenos come into your crosshair. You can see this behaviour in the GIF above — and it’s something that pans out through all of the campaign missions.
Everyone has to open a crate to benefit from it.
This includes the “hidden crates” on every level, too. You’ll generally find a crate or two alongside the ammo resupply points, and every player needs to run up to them and “open” them individually. Bit annoying, but the extra cyro pod/sentry turret inside could make a world of difference in the next fight, so make sure you grab them.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X consoles. Read our review, and grab the game on PC here or for consoles here.
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