Aliens: Fireteam Elite has a new season of content coming before the year’s end, and two more seasons currently planned in 2022!
Since the early September release of Season 1 content featuring the Phalanx class, it’s been a bit quiet on the Aliens: Fireteam Elite front in terms of new content. But in today’s blog post on the game’s website by Cold Iron Studios, we now have our full Year 1 roadmap for future DLC detailed.
Cold Iron has given us an idea of what we can expect with future content, while not entirely giving away the details of what’s to come:
You can look forward to Season 2 before the end of the year! With it we will introduce a New Game Mode, as well as a New Feature, Weapons, Attachments, Challenge Cards, and a variety of cosmetics! If you enjoyed Horde Mode then we’re sure you will enjoy our next new game modes. You can expect twists to the session length, goals, and the tools you will have available, as well as the cool new environments they will be set in.
Our focus is first on bringing quality of life improvements to the game that will add more enjoyment to the game’s existing content. These new features shouldn’t drastically alter the way the game is currently played, but we hope you will greatly enjoy them all the same . We’ll share more details as we approach the release of each of these free Season updates, so stay frosty and keep an eye out.
In terms of the free updates, there are two new game modes planned, as well as another new kit (or class). Each season also has a “New Feature” prominently listed. We’ll also be seeing additional new weapons, attachments, perks, and challenge cards over the course of Year 1.
When a new season drops, Endeavor Pass holders will also receive an assortment of cosmetics and emotes. These packs can be purchased individually for $9.99/£7.99/€9.99, or you can still upgrade your game to the Deluxe Edition to receive the paid DLC packs of all four seasons as well as the Endeavor Veteran Pack.
If you have questions you’d like to ask Cold Iron Studios about the game, they will be hosting a Q&A session on their Discord channel on Friday, October 29th, at 12PM PDT.
So what will these new features and game modes be? We won’t have to wait too long to find out what’s in store for Season 2 as the end of 2021 approaches.
Make sure to keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest intel 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!
I never said any game was shit because of how much it did or didn't make
So why do companies invest their time and resources on such a thing? Why dont they just do My Little Pony and make a killing? I understand the frustrations in this complicated gaming market. Why don't they just make it a Monetized MMO with paid cosmetics and f**k originality? Good creative sci-fi franchise is just going to stifle the money sucking blackhole that we all need and NEED to love. Correct? At least can any one with half a brain say something worth saying about the creative business market and what they should actually do? Or should this game be given the benefit of a doubt because there was a lot of love put into the product?
Rather than reiterating someone else's brainless commentary that this game is shit because it didn't make masses amount of money?
Listen dude, if you're going to post comments like this, except people like me to rain down on you with a storm of real-sarcasm.
Though, in disappointing earning reports, public companies tend to always point to external reasons why something of theirs underperformed, versus pointing the blame inward. But, it's still probably safe to say it wasn't a "roaring success" financially at launch. But success in customer satisfaction and quality though? Absolutely!
If I'm not mistaken, "Dead Space" is owned by EA and subsequently generates more revenue per dollar because it's not a licensed IP, and the smart money is to grow your own IP. But of course, it's not just sales numbers, it's always about money spent versus money earned, sales vs budget, to judge the winners and losers not just in games, but movies too. And unfortunately, we just don't have access to these video game budgets to make a proper assessment.
"Despite moving 2.11 million copies, Sega calls Alien: Isolation's performance weak. It pins this shortcoming on the nebulous factor of "harsh market environment." Of Sega's six major titles released in 2014, Isolation did the best by a large margin. The other games were Football Manager 2015 (810,000 sold), Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal (combined 620,000 sold), Ryu ga Gotoku 0: Chikai no Basho (380,000 sold), and Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold (280,0000 sold). It's worth noting that Sega's packaged game sales saw a year-over-year increase of 1.23 million units."
-Kotaku
Also, a number of games that launched with lower sales than Alien: Isolation, such as the original Dead Space, still were seen as being valuable enough to launch multiple sequels, and eventually now, after hiatus, a relaunch. By EA's account Dead Space had a weak launch with initial sales of only slightly over a million, but excitement around the new franchise was such that they continued to invest in the property for a time.
Alien: Isolation has possibly sold many times more than that through the years from release given its reputation and Nintendo Switch port. Games can sell better in the long run. Resident Evil VII initially sold 3 million copies which was below what Capcom expected, but over five years would go on to sell over 10 million, becoming the franchise's best and the company's 2nd best selling game of all time.
The perceived sales of games being "below expectations" is pretty common in the industry and often comes down to publishers having unrealistic expectations I think. Gaming commentator Jim Sterling did a good piece on this. Dead Space 2 is in the top 10 selling horror games of all time and still sold lower than EA's expectations.
The horror gaming market has also shifted since Alien: Isolation's release. With first person horror games like Resident Evil VII and Resident Evil Village pulling in big sales. Companies often follow trends and hopefully they'll see there is still a demand for solid first person horror.
Perhaps their unrealistic expectations allowed an inflated budget, and that would certainly be on them, but year-end financial results are year end financial results.
Say they netted $20 a pop on the game through a range of prices after advertising, licensing and physical manufacturing expenses, and sold 2.1 million copies. Wohoo! $42 Million dollars! It sounds great... until you look at a budget spent of say 60 Million (random guess - not putting it around the $200 Million budget that some AAA games insanely get). So suddenly those are disappointing sales in relation to budget. So it seems they put too much stock in how a game like this with the Alien IP would perform, true...
They wouldn't have announced sales were disappointing to their shareholders if it was a roaring success, nor reduced a sequel to a mobile game. It's all about budget spent versus dollars earned.
Isolalien sold half the copies it was supposed to.
No inside track, just a hunch.
Imagine though if Season 2 did drop in November. Season 3 (based on the roadmap below) won't drop until Quarter 2 which is April-May-June, so a November drop would make the wait between Seasons 2 and 3 that much longer!
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8f9f00c6a5157bc93958d57665bc5cf8-768x432.jpg
I'm confused, are you saying it's a decent game but refuse to pick it up? Because how would you know unless you play it?
It's sub £20 now, or whatever your currency is, which represents really decent value no matter whether future updates bring back players or lure in new players.
You know anything to suggest Season 2 is December or is that just your hunch? I was hoping "before the end of the year" might mean by the end of November
Can't argue with your slightly more gloomy outlook to be fair. Me and my mate aren't blessed with a third person that's got the game to try extreme difficulty with, and the matchmaking has never worked allowing a third random person in the lobby, so we can't progress past the 1st level on that difficulty mode. Bit of a disgrace really. But aye, generally had my money's worth and really enjoyed it nonetheless
It's been hovering around that 300 number even prior to Halo's early multiplayer release.
Although short-lived, A:FTE is still fun, so I recommend giving it a try for a discounted price, especially as an Alien fan.
This' a decent game, by all accounts anyway, but I believe that my disinterest to the point I have never and never do intend to pick it up speaks volumes.
It is simply not (the online completely optional) story driven, lengthy campaign, four player splitscreen thriller shooter horror, riffing on Republic Commando that we all want deep down.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/50117d2e8770556052cde2e1821724f1-1200-80.jpg
https://www.thehdroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/12106b.jpg
Some have higher hopes, but I'm personally not confident at all that any new content will save this game. I'm glad Cold Iron admitted they have quality-of-life issues, but just two months in after release is not ideal to be recognizing & dealing with such QOL problems. My depressing guess is what they give us in December will be rushed and broken and a case of too little too late.
This sadly shouldn't have been the state of the game 2 Months & 3 Weeks after release (which I'm sure is indicative of each non cross-play platform A:FTE is on.)
https://i.ibb.co/Xs8fGWc/Screenshot-20211119-090046-Chrome.jpg
Agreed. That was needed at release. And a nice co-op random game mode would also bring this game some much needed replayability.
Everything you need to know is built in the below image. The seasons are listed vertically and the timeframe is horizontal underneath. Q4 2021 means Quarter 4 (Oct-Dec in a calendar year) etc. etc.
https://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8f9f00c6a5157bc93958d57665bc5cf8-768x432.jpg
Season 1, like in rainbow six seige: how long is a season, is it like in sports one season is one year? And year 1 roadmap, well if that is all contents they will be releasing until november next year its not much. But I have a feeling year 1 isnt a litteraly one year
I agree with Hemi here. The game is fun, it's the amount of content to keep you around. Not going to lie, I'm disappointed there's no campaign content in here or Horde maps (unless New Feature is new campaigns or Horde maps, but I'm not so sure they'd use that wording if so). But I am definitely excited to see what new game mode is coming out! Eager to hear more of that.
Doubt the horror survival aspect is what killed this game. It's clearly the lack of things to do. People love the gameplay and the pew pew. But after you played the campaign a few times, things dry up fast. No endgame and 1 bloody horde map is just so much "meh".
Pretty much. It's a good game but I haven't touched it in a week or two.
To me it seems the audience has spoken and we'd all prefer a horror survival over an arcade shoot em up...or at least, I do.
That was my main issue with the reporting.
It is a founded fear. Hopefully they can bring it strong with the content.
New accolades trailer today, and the game is on sale until November 1st:
How so? To my knowledge nothing has been promised that hasn't been delivered.
Hopefully the New feature will be multiplayer PVP, Or what about some sort of 6 player Raid like in destiny1/2?
Yeah, I hear ya. I'm part hopeful, yet I'm part doubtful (and mostly part frustrated it came out in the state that it did.)
Yep, it would be nice to get some more transparency on the fixes.
Plus a "New Feature", whatever that means.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Let's hope it's something good!
And that's the fear with Aliens: Fireteam Elite
Yeah, they should have definitely added the words "On PC" or "On Steam" to that headline.
ACM actually never matched the peak users of AFE on Steam. That game's activity dropped more than 85% in a month on that platform and never recovered:
https://steamcharts.com/app/49540
Their headline was "Seven Weeks After Launch, Fewer Than 800 People Are Playing Aliens: Fireteam Elite"
Which is misleading because it doesn't specify that count is only on Steam where a minority of the player-base resides. As for a slowdown on consoles too, sure I'd think plenty are taking a break. But they'll likely be back with new content, as is common. Even games with totally failed launches like The Avengers had a bounce back with new DLC.
Only point I'm really trying to make here is it's premature to declare this as a Dead Gaem. But alas, arguments against such declarations are usually fruitless. Not every game needs constant high levels of concurrent users to have success and a rebound when there's new stuff.
Just way too long between each new content release, we will only get another marine class next year.
Hmm. I still don't know how Predator on Steam a year after Epic can put things in any different context or use it to suggest Kotaku is being misleading about Aliens: FTE drop in activity.
But I also personally believe it's not realistic to think this drop in "Aliens: Fireteam Elite" playerbase is exclusively isolated to Steam players only - on an island - and not happening on every format, considering the game's vast problematic issues in maintaining a players interest expressed in complaints on social media, in these very boards and with our friends we play with. That's why as a fan, I was so concerned Cold Iron released this game the way it is; not enough to be a single player experience - not enough to be a replayable online service game. The writing was on the wall truth be told. And it worried me.
But I wasn't so much trying to make a comparison as much point out how it's unfair to use just Steam as a diagnosis for the health of a game's player-base, when the vast majority of both games' audiences are on console.
Actually, it's pretty misleading to compare "Aliens: Fireteam Elite" on Steam to "Predator: Hunting Grounds" on Steam to be honest.
"Predator: Hunting Grounds" was exclusively released for PC on Epic Games for an entire year. Meaning, PC players could not purchase the game through Steam when it came out.
Only 1 Full Year later, 12 months after launch, could Illfonic post "Predator: Hunting Grounds" on Steam with little-to-no press or fanfare. By then, the overwhelmingly majority of PC players who wanted to play "Predator: Hunting Grounds "already bought "Predator: Hunting Grounds" through Epic... and would hardly have interest to start entirely over at Level 1 on their same PC a year later, with nothing unlocked and a new need to re-purchase the DLC content.
So to compare that to Aliens: Fireteam Elite's vast first month drop is just looney!
I mean... they don't explain their updates until the day of release really. Illfonic's forums are full of users griping about lack of engagement or transparency with their community.
Mind you I don't blame Illfonic for that and I love them as a developer. They have a massive publisher and IP holder to deal with so it takes extra time to get everything agreed upon and their hands are somewhat tied. Cold Iron probably gets a bit more leeway with self-publishing.
No new campaigns? Well that's horrible... And again with them being super vague. What the hell is "a new feature" supposed to be. They need to be more specific and transparent. Just like with their vague updates, "stability fixes" doesn't mean anything. Predator Hunting Grounds explains their updates with much more detail.
Fireteam hasn't even really been on my mind for 2022 as I've been more fixated in stuff like Monster Hunter Rise (PC), the full release of Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord and Company of Heroes 3.
They would have to pull some spectacular amounts of new content out of nowhere and also greatly improve the matchmaking to get me back on board and I kinda don't see that happening especially when the roadmap talks a whole lot about a whole bunch of new weapons, cards and cosmetics... which just tells me their priorities are poor.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCuJOvYXoAUBXun?format=jpg&name=medium
Take it from me, PC players have much shorter attention spans. We have way more games to play. But we do come back quickly when there is substantive new content. Steam Holiday sales are also massive, and a lot of Steam players will do most of their purchases and plenty of digital gifting during this time. Hopefully Season 2 brings it strong for that Holiday appeal.
Steam activity on its own isn't a great indicator of overall activity in a game. I mean just look at Predator: Hunting Grounds...
https://i.imgur.com/8CC3L0B.jpg
https://steamcharts.com/app/1556200
Which is why it was pretty misleading for Kotaku to run that piece.
This game released cross generationally on PlayStation and Xbox, so the majority of players will be on consoles.
One thing is for sure, the game could really use crossplay.
No mention of any new campaign content is quite disheartening for me personally though.
I wonder what these "New Features" are about....
May 22, 2022, 09:33:57 AM
I'm guessing since it's seasonal, we'll get this in December, but then we have to wonder how many will be still playing to notice by then?
https://i.ibb.co/0VWGjRr/IMG-20211027-132214.jpg