March is continuing, and so does IGN’s coverage of Cold Iron Studio’s Aliens: Fireteam! Earlier this week they released a nearly hour-long interview in which Cold Iron’s co-founders Craig Zinkievich and Matt Highison talk about the studio’s history, working in a COVID world and more.
Now IGN have shared some images and lore behind 6 of the weapons that you’ll be rocking in Fireteam, which included some updated models of the familiar M41A Pulse Rifle, the M56 Smartgun and the Colonial Marine Tech Manual’s legendary M42A Scope Rifle!
M41A2 Pulse Rife: So notorious is the weapon’s volume of fully-automatic fire, Marines joke that the true sign of an expert is the ability to pull the trigger and fire just one bullet. As with most Marine firearms, caseless ammunition makes the M41 suitable for use during EVA and in microgravity environments – there is no risk of ejected hot brass floating into nearby allies.
DT-57 Medved: A shotgun designed in the Union of Progressive Peoples, provided free to their colonial militia units, and sold abroad under license.
Type 78 Burst Pistol: Initially designed for service with Three World Empire military police forces, the Type 78 has better accuracy and longer effective range than most machine pistols. Its compact, Weyland-Yutani trademarked Bevelpup™ design makes it exceptionally handy, but allows only average magazine capacities.
L56A3 Smartgun: A late-model variant of the popular squad support weapon that uses metamaterials to reduce the mass and bulk of the support harness.
M42A3 Sniper Rifle: One of the finest sniper weapons in existence, the A3 is a specialized variant of the M42, with an extended barrel, advanced optics, and stabilization features that permit engagement at greater range.
OCAP-91 Volcan: A militarized flame unit, adapted from a crowd-sourced civil engineering device. Widely used for aggressive containment of invasive species.
If you’re not caught up on the Fireteam news so far, be sure to check out our News Archive of the details that we’ve seen so far!
Keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest news on Aliens: Fireteam! You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. You can also join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums!
To line up with the charging handle/bolt carrier group it would need to be exactly where you have the line drawn.
They then went an inexplicably added an ejection port that is non functional because it is in the wrong place (and not necessary on a weapon system that doesn't produce casings).
They made it look cool without actually checking the functionality of it.
We guessed that the ejection port was meant for an add on functionality to the second barrel, but it still would be in the wrong place. Military is cheap as f**k, they aren't going to have a weapon system feeding two barrels from one magazine with two different types of ammo.
https://i.imgur.com/l8EXU4v.png
Yeah that's kind of a nono. We used to be only green, but we changed to where you could wear black before I left. When the new scorpion camo and new pt uniforms came out. Nobody really cared though unless you were in the field on the US side of things. I appreciated the black sock change though because you could wear black socks for both PT and the field. So it took away having three different pairs of socks.
I never was a stickler for that kind of stuff though because I was the only NCO in my squad. We were so short on NCOS, and there weren't even guys who had been to the school yet in my squad to be eligible for promotion. So most of the time I was running around like a madman doing both the work and the admin bullshit just f**king winging it.
We had three of seven ncos for my platoon. It had developed into a huge problem by the time I left.
GoW had the lights as design elements and a more stylized look in general from the very beginning.
The pulse rifle especially, if it weren't for the nonsensical parts. Besides that, for me it's easily the best looking one among the modernized variants, and second only to the original.
The DT-57 Medved is the Aliens: Fireteam version of the Kalashnikov MP-155 Ultima. It's funcional, looks cool, perfect for videogames.
I could do without the big bright blue circle on the Type 78, otherwise it's not bad. Different. I'd try it out.
The new smartgun... Shortened, but chubbier with the magazine moved to the underside. (maybe that's the problem, Hicks?) Sure, it loses the long and sleek look of the MG42, but it actually looks like some thought went into alleviating the shortcomings of the original M56 smartgun (long, difficult to manouver in close quarters). If the original was the equivalent of the contemporary M249, the new one would be the Para version of the M249. I like it, it makes sense. Maybe not as a replacement, but as a complement. Especially considering the prevalent environments the colonial marines are fighting in. I bet Drake and Vasquez would have preferred it while clearing all those corners.
M42A3. Just yes. Maybe a different designation to differentiate it further from the M42 from the Tech Manual. That one was semi-automatic, this one looks like a bolt-action. So they're probably meant for different applications.
OCAP-91 Volcan. Looks good. Not a fan of the glowy bits, but it's a repurposed civilian model so I guess it's kind of ok, although the military would have removed/covered those.
The only thing I actually dislike are all the random glowy bits on the new weapons and armor which seemingly have no purpose or reason to be there besides to be glowy bits.
It's like designing a weapon that is also a target. Same goes for armor, but probably worse. Complete nonsense. And completely unnecessary.
Maybe it looks cool in the civilian world, but it's a hard no-go for military service. It's out of place here.
I really hope we get the original versions in there too. That updated Scope Rifle doesn't look much like the one from the Tech Manual at all (as cool as I find this one) so I'd still like to see that in here.
No kidding:
https://cdn.staticneo.com/ca/mass_effect_2_conceptart_sxPzP.jpg
Yeah, that was my bad. Only just noticed they'd moved the placement of the port. Doh!! Proper blanked on that.
Because he's covering the game, he started that thread, the thread is recent and active, there aren't that many threads in that subforum anyway yet, he's a guy that's generally on top of things, and in case that he'd missed it, I've pasted the link right here.
For the game, let's hope the developers fix this blunder.. or at least make up their minds if the new pulse rifle uses caseless or cased ammo and design it accordingly.
Outright saying it's using caseless after designing it as using cased, with an obvious and exposed AR15-style case ejecting bolt, including a case deflector behind it, is just silly.
That being said, I still have no idea how the rounds make it from the magazine all the way to the top barrel if the aforementioned bolt and firing chamber for the lower barrel are in the way...
It can be reskinned quite easily, but it is a silly mistake.
Technically there could be hot brass in space for a weapon system that has casings, if I remember correctly in space things stay hotter or colder longer because convection is non existent in a vacuum.
You'd technically freeze quicker in the artic than you would in space. BUT if you are in space you are going to be in a spacesuit and thus wouldn't[t have to worry about hot brass.
I'm not sure the pulse rifle ever had single fire. For this game, I guess we'd have to see the other side of the rifle, the fire selector (if there is one) should be there.
@Hicks: I think you've missed my point perhaps because you haven't seen some previous posts about the new pulse rifle's problems. Here's more on page 4: https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=64813.45
I wonder if there's actually something underslung, but disguised.
Actually no, because of that bloody muzzle attachment. Yeah, that just seems like a goof.
To be fair, that might just be following the original prop's cues.
"So notorious is the weapon's volume of fully-automatic fire, Marines joke that the true sign of an expert is the ability to pull the trigger and fire just one bullet."
So, no semi-automatic selector?
Ok, now this is getting ridiculous...
Having a case ejector and case deflector on a rifle using caseless ammunition is just embarassing.
Wish the devs had a firearms advisor, or at least somebody at the company who had a basic understanding of how they work.