After some recent hinting by Cold Iron about upcoming content for the co-op horde shooter Aliens: Fireteam Elite, the game’s first major expansion has been announced. The ‘Pathogen’ expansion will give us a new campaign, featuring three missions, and new enemy types.
This new chapter is unique from the first year roadmap of content which still has one more season release in its schedule. Check out the preview below that was shown off during IGN’s Summer of Gaming Stream!
Via IGN:
Pathogen will see Aliens: Fireteam Elite expanded with a brand new campaign containing three missions and new enemy types. The storyline sees the Endeavor’s crew visit LV-895 where they find that the planet’s xenomorphs have been infected and mutated into fearsome new forms. The trailer shows off several of these new aliens, which draw upon the grotesque white Neomorph designs from Alien Covenant.
To combat those new threats, Pathogen provides eight new weapons, 26 new weapon attachments, and a new perk for each class that modifies its main ability. You can also expect two new outfits for all seven class kits, six new head accessories, 21 new weapon colours, nine gun decals, and 10 new emotes.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite – Pathogen will launch as a paid-for expansion on August 30. Coming alongside the expansion will be a free update that adds a hardcore mode that provides an “extreme survival challenge”.
Some screenshots of the new chapter showing off some of the new enemies were also released with the announcement:
The paid expansion will be landing on August 30th, and also includes a host of other content beyond the campaign. Players will receive eight new weapons, 26 new weapon attachments, and a new perks for each class affecting primary abilities. Also included are numerous outfits, decals, weapon skins, and emotes.
UPDATE:
As part of today’s announcement, IGN has released an interview with Cold Iron founder and CEO Craig Zinkievich. They discuss the upcoming Pathogen campaign that will continue the marines’ story, as well detail the free perma-death Hardcore mode coming to the game. The video features new footage of the expansion not shown in the trailer.
Zinkievich details a number of interesting points, such as the addition of a new weapons manufacturer that some fans may recognize from the comics and RPG: Alphatech Hardware Inc.
Crossplay has also been confirmed to be coming with Season 4 next month! Allowing friends on different consoles and PC to party up with each other.
The game’s composer Austin Wintory also mentioned all new music he’ll be delivering for the campaign.
Make sure to keep a close eye on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for the latest intel on Aliens: Fireteam Elite! 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!
And Hardcore is free for everyone, just drops at the same time as Pathogen.
Sounds like the new campaign may have more map/layout variety. It's something you get a little of in the first mission, but be interested to see how prominent it is in the Pathogen missions.
Interesting to hear that Alphatech is being brought into it now. That's a deep-cup I like. I had to look that one up as I couldn't remember it from Dark Horse's Colonial Marines.
Not sure I like the idea of the Alien mutated Neomorphs though. We've only really seen it in Fire and Stone, otherwise I don't think it's been a thing in other lore like Into Charybdis. Will have to see how it comes across.
https://c.tenor.com/H3cA7Qqk9FIAAAAC/stressed-stress.gif
But the devs LIED to the FANS!!!
It will. Interview said July.
Proof:
Steam Archive
After year one of no DLC charges for new content (which was either promised or illuded depending on your perspective), we will be getting a new business model. Regardless. I'm glad. I simply hope they can deliver on the trills and chills. I'm confident they will.
Nope, this was their first ever statement around DLC, nowhere does it mention year 1 or anything, just that nothing except cosmetics would be paid, they quietly changed it after they added Elite to the title to say that only the deluxe pass packs would be cosmetics, but that will never change the fact that their original statement was and always will be that there would be no paywalls.
It's also worth noting that the Spiked user has been very unconstructive and unreasonable on this topic, trying to piss people off, putting words in their mouth and ignoring proper arguments
I think that might've been specifically about the Year 1 roadmap, and the question was in reference to lootboxes and MTX.
https://i.imgur.com/9vuBWyA.jpg
Some more interesting responses from them in the Discord I'll be looking through later.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/816573701213388850/985081425852248114/Screenshots_2022-06-10-19-51-05.png
Since I solo everything I forgot this was actually an mp game lol. But you are right, the last two MP games I've played were Breakpoint and Division 2. One of which had a ton of free content and the other that did not.
Guess it'll be price vs content to determine if it is valued or not.
I don't know about Season Pass, but S4's coming July I assume because that's when we get crossplay, whatever the case the DLC's separate from the released roadmap.
What if the differences we are seeing here are because they are "Alien Neomorphs" ? As in Neomorphs born from them. Hence the hive type structure and new types. Just a potential theory.
Thank you to Heraldry for the link here: https://www.ign.com/articles/aliens-fireteam-elite-pathogen-dlc-announced
I'm thinking we'll get more, they've already teased Pala Station.
100% Agreed.
I have no issue with it being paid, and genuinely think that it's okay, being that it's not part of the roadmap that all being said...
I really hope it's more substantial than what we are seeing here, I paid twenty six pounds for the Deluxe Edition and I just don't think it's worth anything more, they can not charge half of that for a single campaign afterwards.
Especially with this nonsense.
Heh, yeah I guess any character that goes in there without a mask is going to die a horrible death about one mission later.
I had the same thought. Equip the gas mask cosmetic I guess.
Another thing to note, only 3 missions and 4-5 enemies is not worth more than 10 dollars here. The base game is 40 dollars and it includes 12 missions and 20ish enemies. I'm frankly disappointed that the devs failed to follow their own promises and are actively trying to silence criticism.
Hopefully they'll include the "standard" Neos the same way they included pretty much all the "standard" types of Aliens along with the new variants, but I've got no problem with the inclusion of more variants themselves.
It does kinda contradict Into Charybdis, but the pathogen did affect them in the Fire & Stone and Life & Death comics.
Liking the sound of all this.
Not a fan of gorilla arms there though.
A lot of that stuff though would have been an incredibly hard sell to charge for (loadouts, stats, weapon attachments, challenge cards etc.). And I'd honestly forgotten about point defence I've played it so little, but yeah I guess by that measure alone there's been a little bit more content over the past year than I remembered there being.