It’s time to get tanky in the co-op shooter Aliens: Fireteam Elite, as yesterday saw the release of the game’s first season, subtitled Phalanx — a reference to the new Phalanx class that lets players whip out a shield and absorb damage. Provided that damage is coming at them head-on, of course.
According to a preview, the Phalanx’s shield can be swiftly deployed or retracted at will and simply halts damage from arriving with the exception of acid damage, explosions, and any attacks that come from the sides or behind. The drawbacks to that, however, is the Phalanx moves slowly when the shield is deployed and it can only use pistols or close quarters weapons like shotguns.
In addition to the Phalanx, Season 1 adds four new weapons including a laser pistol and a sniper rifle, some new cosmetics, and an adjustment to the way weapons level up, with weapon-based benefits now needing to be unlocked instead of being earned immediately. This also includes a general reduction in XP required to rank up weapons, while characters created up to the implementation of this patch will see their currently owned guns ramped up to max level.
We played this one for a stream last month and initially found it to be rather shallow gameplay-wise but extremely fun in that “turn off your brain” kind of way, while the game’s atmosphere absolutely knocked it out of the park with its visuals and sound design that all feel right at home with the Aliens IP. We incidentally still don’t know who owns developer Cold Iron Studio in another bout of Daybreak-styled obfuscation. But hey, new class, right?
