Simply being a Colonial Marine doesn’t make one invulnerable. I mean, we have all seen their corpses quickly litter the environment when going toe-to-toe with Xenomorphs in various forms of Alien media. The soldiers among their ranks are built differently and Aliens: Fireteam Elite understands this. That’s why there are multiple difficulty options to appropriately scale the experience to each type of combatant, bettering your chances of reaching the end in one piece.
Whether you are looking for a more forgiving journey through the alien-infested hallways tucked away on LV-895 or are ready to test your mettle against the most formidable Xenomorph variants ever encountered, Cold Iron Studios has you covered. The available difficulty settings tweak important factors, such as revive limitations, friendly fire, and enemy damage output. As you would expect, the list of challenging modifiers increase in severity as you rise in difficulty selection.
All Difficulty Settings in Aliens: Fireteam Elite
Aliens: Fireteam Elite includes five difficulty options: Casual, Standard, Intense, Extreme, and Insane. The final two require completing the main campaign to unlock, which doesn’t take that long.
Here’s an overview of each difficulty setting.
Casual: For those looking for a more relaxed experience. Like Standard, with the following changes:
- Enemies have less health and deal less damage
- Reviving a teammate is quicker, and you can do so as many times as is needed
- Synthetic teammates are more effective
Standard: Provides a good challenge for those familiar with shooters.
- Enemies are highlighted when aiming down the sights (this can be changed in the Gameplay Settings menu)
- There’s plenty of time to revive downed teammates, and each player can be revived up to four times
- Synthetic teammates are effective enough to complete missions
Intense: The true Aliens experience, the way it is meant to be played. Seasoned survival shooter players should find a challenge here. Like Standard, with the following changes:
- Enemies are not highlighted when aiming down the sights (this cannot be changed in the Gameplay Settings menu)
- Your guns deal light damage to teammates
- Enemy melee grapples are more difficult to escape
- Xenomorph acid is deadlier
- Enemies deal more damage and have more health
- There’s less time to revive downed teammates, and each player can be revived up to three times.
- Max ammo is reduced
- Synthetic teammates are not recommended
Extreme: I can’t lie to you about your chances but… you have my sympathies. Unlocks after completing the full campaign. Like Intense, with the following changes:
- Your guns deal moderate damage to teammates
- Acid and enemies deal severe damage
- Enemies have even more health
- You’ll find fewer aid kits
- Max ammo is further reduced
- There’s even less time to revive downed teammates, and each player can only be revived twice.
- Synthetic teammates are not recommended
Insane: That’s it, man. Game over, man. Game over! Unlocks after completing the full campaign. Like Extreme, with the following changes:
- Your guns deal full damage to teammates
- Enemies deal even more damage and have even more health
- Enemy grapple attacks can kill, and some foes have instantly-lethal grapples
- You have only seconds to save a downed teammate, and each can be revived just once
- Synthetic teammates are not recommended
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is now available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
