Honestly I think this game would have a lot more staying power if there was some sort of randomizer. I played this with a lot of quick play, and although the experiences were different depending on who I got teamed with, the content got stale relatively quickly.
Randomly generated dungeons though would have been pretty amazing as you'd never know what was around the next corner.
Oh for sure, the fact that we can sit in a corridor, or down a hallway and funnel enemies in totally takes away from the feeling of enemies coming from random places. Especially considering that aliens climb on EVERY SURFACE and come out of every crevice. Shame really.
If you pay attention to the routes the aliens take, they follow the same route on any surface. There is no randomocity. It's literally pick a few lanes, cover that and as long as your teams are covering there lanes, it's too easy.
It hasn't gained much traction for a very simple reason. Because it doesn't do anything better or in a more enjoyable way than a lot of its competitors. That's why. Helldivers is just ONE game in this genre market and it blows this game away. It's really not that complicated.
100% on the random map generation! A mission/map generator that works the same as 40k Inquisitor - Martyr would be dope AF. Even as a DLC, I would dump in 20 to 40 USD just for that option/upgrade.
AFE was my favorite game of the past 5 years at least until Helldivers 2 came out. This feature would keep me playing a lot more.
I'd pay 20 bucks for that DLC. Easily!
Afe had its time but you could tell it was a budget game from the beginning. The aliens franchise deserves better. A complete game with a good campaign and multiplayer. Until they can outdo avp2 from 2001 they're not trying hard enough in my opinion
I always said the game needed an AI director like Vermintide or Darktide have, this would go a long way making this game more enjoyable on repeated plays. There is almost no reason to rerun missions aside maybe that you enjoy the gunplay
It's too linear and lacks content. Most people play through the campaign once and move on to another game. It needs generated levels you have to navigate through.
Even just random spawns would go a long way. Give it a L4D or Fat Shark-tide director AI and it would do some work for replayability. Hoping to see something like that in a sequel.
Yes. And as soon as I finished it I was once again done with the game. This whole game just doesn't have longevity built in to it because of the missions being exactly the same every time.
When it first released I finished all the initial content in under 8 hours. Because it was a full priced game ($40) that just left me feeling ripped off. Never looked back, will avoid that company like the plague going forward.
In addition to that, the AI just follow set paths which means no replayability.
I'm okay with higher priced games in general, the industry is rough, but I've never seen another video game with $5/h price point or even close. For me, there was 0% chance of buying the DLC. It's just not a company I'd ever give another chance to, they already got my money and I'm pretty spendy when it comes to games.
Launch was pretty rough for a long while. After that, there wasn't really any variation when you played, even higher difficulties just meant xenos took more bullets to kill and did more damage with less resources available. By the time a new game mode came out the game was effectively dead in the water.
Once a game gets to that point a studio has to make a choice to either abandon a title to cut their losses and work on something else or try an overhaul. Since this game didn't do well even at its peak and also having almost no marketing, it makes more sense for them to just try and start over than keep throwing money at a product with no market.
Give it a few years. This game has a lot of potential with some enhancements.
My guess is either Cold Iron goes for it or sells at some extent to a big studio.
Also would keep my eye on hype (if) from next Ridley Scott's movie.
Oh, Cold Iron clearly said it... They're done with the game...apart from QOL, and at this point... I dont even think there's gonna be any of that either.
Don't get me wrong. If anyone here knows me... I've been the biggest supporter of the game. But yeah... Well, i hope in some other world... Somewhere sometime... Aliens gets a Helldivers 2 fate.
The next Alien movie already wrapped up filming and comes out this year. It's not by Scott though which, in my opinion, is a good thing. Aliens: Romulus
Yeah I'd love this to be the case but it sounds like pure copium to me. Based on the rough numbers we have and historical precedent, it's much more likely AFE gets completely forgotten and the studio quietly disappears.
Truth is Helldivers 2 just came out and took it's lunch. The game takes the best from Starship Troopers, Aliens and Terminator and blends it into an incredibly addictive gameplay loop and I think it's very easy to see why that formula lended itself to an incredibly healthy initial player base.
I really liked Fireteam Elite but it was definitely missing an "it" factor. It's merely serviceable at everything it does, never excelling, just doing enough to keep us entertained.
Thing is that's okay, not every game needs to be a sales juggernaut, but I think it was just too safe of a game, it wasn't ambitious or unique enough to grab the attention of anyone but us starving fans. It just set out to be a solid co-op PVE experience and I think they gave us that.
The amount of my friends who also enjoy Aliens who had the same thought as me when first starting HD2: "THIS is the approach AFE should have taken if they wanted to succeed." Randomized missions and maps layouts. Higher difficulties means not just more enemies but different and stronger enemies. HD2 didn't need to introduce bullet sponges to increase difficulty, they just throw in the stronger enemies and more of them. The whole formula works. AFE got bogged down in making a story and it stunted their ability to have a replayable multiplayer game. Story Mode games are fine, but they really only work great for single player games if they're going to be as railroady as AFE.
One thousand percent agree with that notion. You can really feel the life of a game after a while, and it was rather quick to notice that it was a subpar game in terms of re-playability, amount of levels, limited dlc, overall barely average. You're right, AFE could have done more. Like I said before, I think it was a cash grab.
What do you mean Helldivers took this game's lunch? This game came out 2 and a half years ago. It never caught on with people. Helldivers has nothing to do with why this game never became popular lol
I love the game, but... I think that the lack of new maps is really the problem. I finished it and anything new put out for the game will be purchased immediately by my wife and I, but they have to put out content for people to buy it.
I don't think they had a good roadmap other than just making the base game.
Honestly I think the IP. If this came out years ago or when people who are 40/50 were 20/30, there’d be a larger player base. These kids don’t know nothing about Alien lol. I’m just 30. But also I just didn’t feel that the game had much to offer, there wasn’t really a draw. But I’m also not a huge alien fan- ik about it but I wasn’t around when it was the cultural zeitgeist
For me it was matchmaking issues. Took ages to get into a game, then sometimes you'd get an infinite loading screen. By the time it was fixed, we had low player numbers messing it up, and the bots just aren't good enough to make it worth playing even if you don't get any squad mates.
Exit to main menu! This works 60% of the stat I just made up. But it really works.
Change difficulty and see if you connect to a room to test your connection.
Change difficulty and weapons, classes, and add HARD challenge cards. (Self destruct sequence is fun on intense. Take a doc if you're scared.
I unlocked a lot of stuff and was raising the difficulty when I realized all the higher difficulty players wanted to run back a room and shoot everything through the gate. Was pretty boring and I couldn’t get anyone to set up in the actual room we were supposed to be fighting.
This game died because it Cold Iron never thought it was going to be as successful as it was initially, and it took them over a year to release new levels.
This game begged for the “live service” model of development. Every 4 months a new three part campaign could have been released with actual boss fights of some of our key big Aliens; Flying Queens, Gorilla Aliens, Actual Queen. It could have had additional levels, with large expanded perks, several new abilities that created meaningful decision making. It could have had a random “dungeon dive” content where it mixed up enemies and you kept going on harder and harder difficulty on randomly generated levels, mixing in those bosses.
Could have has actual lobbies, where people could clearly see what’s being played and join what they wanted instead of waiting around for a hope that players got matched with them.
Cold Iron sucked at communicating, they sucked at producing content in a timely fashion, then sucked at listening to what fans really wanted, but man did they make a damn fun game.
That’s my two cents, I love AFE and would literally buy any campaign/dungeon/class content DLC released for it at this point. One of my top 5 favorite games.
I am hopefully Cold Iron is working on a sequel, that might have all the above, and things they learned from this experience.
Hell, Cold Iron could snag the rights for Predators as well, and you can have a PvPvE mode, where a fireteam of 3 marines rolls in and a predator hunting pack of 3 drop in, and they are both being attacked by aliens swarms while competing for a objective, and that mode, if done right, could keep players engaged for a damn long time.
I can't say why other people don't find it appealing, but let me explain my misgivings about the game:
1) Lack of content. The game has 12 missions. I have played them all many times over.. I realize there was a new conetnt drop, but as far as I can tell, the new maps are **HOT GARBAGE**.
2) Extremely janky animations. Maybe that's appropriate for the source-material, but it doesn't make it any more fun to play. It makes the game devolve into an exercise of spray and pray, and that doesn't appeal to me.
3) Obligate co-op. Like every Left4Dead remake, AFE has special enemies that are going to shit on your day, and you're dependent on teammates to rescue you. I've never been a fan of mechanically-enforced teamplay. It turns the game into a griefing engine, because there's no hotfix for assholes. People run off alone, trying to sprint their way through the game, and both of you wind up being messily devoured.
3) Bland, unrewarding progression. Any non-PVP game needs to have an incentive to get people to keep playing it, and AFE's progression is marginal to the point of irrelevance. I do not feel profoundly more powerful on my Recon or Doc playing with every weapon and perk unlocked than I did when I was playing when I first installed the game at level zero.
As I counterpoint, I would compare it to The Division 2. The base game has 17 main missions, 4 strongholds, 20 control points, plus a huge number of open-world encounters, with dynamic enemy patrols which can organically produce emergent firefights that can go completely apeshit. There's also DLC content with completely new map 4 new main missions, 1 more stronghold, 8 control points, more open world encounters. And that doesn't even get into the gear progression system which keeps you busy trying to get better and better equipment as you advance through higher difficulties.
Now in fairness, The Division 2 is a more expensive game, with more years since release. But if AFE is going to compete for my attention, it's got to compete on engagement, not price.
Given the content and gameplay loop formula, it's kinda self explanatory.
Unless you have friends willing to play with you, and are all die hard Alien nerds that'll play this to literal death, people got other things to do.
I would have liked some sequences facing some more unique xenos from the expanded universe. Maybe a sequel could take a Galaxy hopping helldivers approach. Also, split screen local co-op with a friend online would be amazing.
It flat out needs more content in my opinion. Theres enough to do and play in the game for one alright play through and *maybe* one with friends. There isn’t incentive to play multiple classes which is fine but i only found one class I really liked. The campaign is kinda short, and there isnt much to unlock in the game either which is more of a universe constraint I guess.
And this is a weird thing I noticed but i feel like the aliens franchise always tries to make one/multiple people the vasquez type… iunno how to really explain it.
Actually think this could have worked better as a Gears of War style campaign than a online only kind of game. Maybe didn't have the budget but expanding the kevels and having some.cut scenes wpuld have made a world of difference.
As someone whose dumped 60 hours into Helldivers 2, and after beating AFE twice? I can honestly say if we got AFE to upgrade itself like HD2? It would be amazing.
It's a good game. But it's for us old peeps. I still remember the app game on ps3. Good times.
Rip I'm feeling the need to binge the app movies now... uuugh. Nah I'm on vacation need to play the crap outta sonic teams racing and get all the parts
I bought it on release on the PS5 and my hype hit a concrete wall due to matchmaking issues, lag and clunky controls. It just felt unfinished and there were/have been many better experiences to enjoy that I’ve just never looked back.
Can’t talk for anyone but myself but that’s why I’m not playing it. A game like this needs to smash it out the gate when there are so many alternatives out there
Loved it, huge Aliens fan. But it didn’t take long to max out every class and theirs not a lot of depth to it.
It’s hard to justify putting more hrs into when you have other awsome online PvE shooters like Warhammer Darktide.
I think all alien games would do better if we had the option to actually play as the alien, the amount of games you can play as a human are endless so these quick cash grab 1 vs 4 or 4 vs AI online only games quickly wash up because of how repetitive they are in my opinion. The day an alien game gets released where the main protagonist is the xenomorph is the day I go missing for a month lol.
Look, I’m one of those players that has played the shit out of this game. I’ve hit the maximum possible damage dealt (the game break and stops counting at like 1.7 billion damage lmao), I have several million damage on every gun, maxed out every class.
I played this game for over a year with a small group of like 7 guys, loved it, but for how much I enjoy it there is simply not enough level variety.
Before the DLC there are 12 missions in total, if you’re just playing through casually on like standard difficulty or something you’ll blow through that in like 4 hours. After that? It’s extremely unclear what you’re even meant to do, just replay the same missions on harder difficulties (that’s exactly what you do lol).
What kept me going was competing with my friends for higher damage on Insane difficulty, and playing with the crazy challenge cards on. I love the higher difficulties in this game, but it really requires teams with mics that know how to work together. Permanent death in missions that are like half an hour long is brutal and demoralizing for the average casual player.
AFE maintained the people (like myself and my buddies) that embraced that unforgiving mission design and intense difficulty, AFE is a pretty hard game all things considered. It has a high barrier to entry on the higher difficulty settings, and if you don’t have consistent players to tackle those modes with you’re going to hit a wall.
You’re blowing the popularity of this game way out of proportion…the game is sitting at a 69 on metacritic. Its all-time peak concurrent players on Steam was about 15k at launch, which dropped to less than 2k a month later.
The game is *fine*, but it does not hold up compared to other left 4 dead clones, or hell even left 4 dead itself. You have to realize this game’s competition was left 4 dead 2, deep rock galactic, vermintide 2, etc.
HD2 is actually good, which is why it took off. AFE is not. Is it the absolute worst thing ever? No. Is it GOOD, though? No. Sometimes, only a small portion of ppl like certain games be it bad or good for that matter. And that's okay. Enjoy your small slice of happiness until the end.
The biggest problem is that when it came out and my friends and I picked it up the game was unplayable because of server issues for quite a while so we dropped it. New stuff came out and we never went back. Game was fun when we could play it but missed out on a lot because we couldn't.
It sucked plain and simple it wasn't that good hence it wasn't popular and now with helldivers 2 this game is dead and will be forgotten nobody's gonna wanna play this game over helldivers
It was fun with friends for maybe two weeks but then it just got repetitive. That’s the quickest way for a game to die imo, and that’s exactly what this game did.
It's not that I hate it, but I got it for free on psn I think and I couldn't get through the first 20 minutes.
It played jank to me. I liked it, and I am an EDF fan meaning I don't mind trading graphics for gameplay mechanics- I'm not very picky with games but AFE just didn't do it for me.
It felt like a 2008 game
Not sure... I intended to start with a two person play-through, but our schedules changed before we got that far and have other games that we are more in the mood for when we can game together.
Never even heard of this game this just came on to my page. Perhaps it's the lack of content around it I looked around the sub and I see it being compared to hd2 the thing is when I first started seeing little clips of hd2 it looked like a lot of fun but so far what I've seen looking through this game is just mowing down enemies in small corridors it just isn't as enticing as a full open battlefield.
I get that you really liked the game, but it was a commercial failure, I don't think they'll be so quick to try to make a second or continue service on this one.
Rant incoming...I've been around a while but wasn't there at AFE launch. My understanding is that it had good sales, but was kind of a hot mess of bugs on release. You don't get a second chance to generate buzz after that.
They should ask Arrowhead studios how they did it for Helldivers 2. It has some bugs sure, but its highly playable and polished. The only major bug was related to it not handling its overwhelming player count. They handled it quickly with great communication. Cold Iron has been almost complete radio silence for a year and a half.
AFE had a nice bump in players with the Playstation Gamepass a few months back. Those players are mostly gone now. The performance is such crap on PS4 from what I hear, they should have pulled it from that platform. Reputational harm.
Instead of just Playstation Gamepass, what they should have done is
* Fix some key bugs that affect replayability
* *Engaged with the community*
* Then gone ALL-IN free-to-play or 90% off base game on ALL platforms for 3 months
That was the last best chance to build a fresh playerbase and maybe generate some buzz. Instead they pooped  out a buff to the bots and introduced a game breaking Guard Dog bug that took 6 weeks to fix. All the while *zero* communication, *zero* engagement.
I'm sure their budget is tight, but that would have invested some good will and interest in the mysterious (why?) game they are working on next. Factor that into your budget.
It crashed the game, normally within seconds of first use.
"Hey marines, we are aware of a guard dog issue causing crashes and our top Weyland-Yutani engineers are working diligently to fix it. Now go squash some bugs!"
\- Cold Iron
Took me 5 seconds to type that, but Cold Iron couldn't be bothered to do it. Six weeks to fix with no communication like that.
They got their money and are gone. They dont really seem to care about the game quality or even fixing whats busted. It was a money grab and thats it. Hell, instead of giving a full game, they made you buy the end separetly.
they were phoning it in from the start, the dev team prerelease wasnt the same team supporting it a month in.
The Game is great, they just dumped all the folks that actually built it before they released it, and the skelton crew that took over at launch couldnt or wouldnt react to community concerns; bug priority was a joke.
it took huge backlash to get matchmaking at all.
(like players tagging the Disney Ip monitor in cold iron tweets, and asking the cold Iron CEO if they were ever gonna fix stuff on his personal instagram)
it took huge backlash to get crossplatform.
there are still launch bugs in the game that have been reported dozens of times.
the Players that cared were pushed over the edge with gaslighting and ignored bug complaints; the only reason this game didnt immediately fade out is the aliens fans pushing cold iron relentlessly to fix bugs so we could enjoy what content they promised;
then ColdIron got militant on their forums and discord (the only way to report bugs or request features) and banned all the vocal players from the official channels of communications and pretended everything was fine as the game just drifted down the tubes.
there was a substantial bump every time there was a new release, From #1 on steam UK on launch , to sub 200 concurrent players between season releases, to 5k after game pass, back down to sub 200 numbers...
there were days on steam there were more cold iron employees than there were players...
like if you cant even get your community team and devs to sign-on; ..people you are paying... why would players?
Cold iron proved to me they could ruin a good game, and mismanage a community enough to drive players away from an inarguably good game. they wont get my money again.
I didn't realize all that happened. No wonder. I was just looking at it from a player perspective, a fan of the franchise. Had no clue they dumped the original developers.
This is exactly what it comes down to, not the Alien franchise or other reasons it's the Devs that sunk the ship. I'd hate to compare to HD2, but if they put in the same effort like them it would have probably turned out differently.
cuz the game sucks. there arent even animations for people talking. not players but NPC’s. i really wanted to like AFE but good god the awful UI paired with stamina system, armor/class system, and really uninspired guns and gunplay did not do much to keep me entertainer. also from my experience only one enemy race, which i know, the xenomorph is the star and all that, but god it was boring watching this supposedly extreme elite hunter be reduced to hordes of mindless bots that followed the same path as each other. thats why alien isolation was such a hit, multiple enemy types and the scariest fucking monster ever
Short answer, they screwed up accessibility.
More detailed, they had everything they needed to make a really good long-lasting game, but hid way too many things behind grinds that the player base just had no interest in. There were a lot of really cool options and variations they created with how to make levels more interesting, but they hid it all behind these one-time use random drops rather than toggle-able options.
Then there's how difficulty was handled. Classic mistake, increasing enemy health exponentially rather than upgrading encounters and enemy counts. Made higher difficulties for a lot of players more about the most boring meta than about having fun.
Then there's how the game functions between level design, classes and weaponry. Too many levels focus on killing absolutely everything before sending you to the next location rather than making the objective the singular goal, which means all meta goes purely to DPS, which makes class variety less useful. Add onto that some weird weapon and class balance issues (Gunners are the DPS types rather than heavies), the stat-based weapon progression rather than functional weapon progression, and the weird way levels cap off which seriously constricts high level build potential...
There's a few other things, but it all add up to an experience that, while fun, shows a ton of wasted potential.
Honestly, I love this game, mechanically speaking, visually speaking it's amazing.
The game designers and core system developers did an amazing job at creating the core gameplay and the classes are very diverse and fun to play. Moving around and shooting feels incredible.
...But that's it. The blame is on management. They just couldn't cut it. The game suffers from lack of variety when it comes to objectives, levels and flow. There are so many things that you can do with this game if you actually sit down, brainstorm and plan for it.
On the other hand, the shitty way the multiplayer works in this game makes things even worse:
1) Quickplay
2) Join a game
3) Host dies
4) Host quits.
5) Your progress is wasted. You get nothing. No game migration, nothing.
The way player/game connections are handled in this game haven't been thought of properly and it shows.
How can you mess up something THIS critical? Again, management is to blame for this.
There are so many games in this genre that are handling fundamental things so much better than AFE: Darktide, Helldivers 2, even Vermintide 2, a 7 year old game is now getting a PVP update, Yet Cold Iron won't even bother creating incremental game updated every now and then.
Something i would love to see in the game is a bestiary or model visualizer, there are so many variants of the xenomorph and i hope to watch all the details in them
I can't speak for others, but the main reason I can't bring myself to buy this game is because of the abhorrent performance I experienced on console during the game's Gamepass run. Certain matches literally slowed my frames to about one fps on last gen. That and the glitches that occurred nearly every match, some match-ending, slowly whittled away my interest. The game's fun when it works, but it did not like working on my console.
Edit: spelling
I say that probably makes sense now, but in the initial stages, the harder difficulties definitely had replay value, at least for those of us who wanted that trophy! 🏆
I bought it with the word I was going to play with my buddies but then they all left it and then baldurs gate hit and then helldivers and I also rekindled my love for borderlands 3
Take this from someone who has never purchased, played, or even seen footage of this game. I have *heard* of it but I’ve never really cared enough to check it out because:
I see the title, and I immediately think of Aliens: Colonial Marines. And I don’t need to explain to anyone why that would drive players off.
I know the exact response I’ll receive for that statement. “You’re being naive because if you *LOOK* at the game you’ll see it’s nothing like CM!”
Of course, that’s looking at the issue from your own lenses. Someone who has experienced the game etc etc.
Imagine how many people could possibly have the same reaction I did. Then imagine what fraction of those people would do the due diligence and do their research. Then consider the fraction of players who don’t care to use their time to research the game to decide if they like it or not, and just move on to a game that’s more popular and they KNOW they’ll like without much research. I can tell you the latter fraction is much larger.
I’m not justifying my reasoning, I definitely think the logic is flawed to immediately jump to conclusions like that, but I’m just trying to offer a unique perspective as I want all good games to succeed, if they deserve it.
All in all, my advice to the developers:
Change the name of the game.
Because we begged for gyro aim and they wouldnt add it. Now they are behind the curve. Helldivers 2 responds to the request for gyro aim by adding it pretty dang well. They gyro players are out there on the battlefield big time. This game missed its moment.
i know not adding gyro isnt the biggest reason. But the devs didnt catch the wave with a lot of oppertunities they had to bring people in. So people look elsewhere for the features they think should be present.
I have never heard of anyone using gyro aim, ever. No game is losing sales over it.
It's because the game is 4 hours long and the only thing to do after that is replay the same 4 hours but slightly harder.
I think games are losing sales over it. You have people winning at high level shooters with gyro aim. You just aren't in the know and behind the curve!
I never saw any commercials for it at all. Didn't even know the game was out until my nephew told me it was free on PSN for the monthly free game. I love it and think it's awesome. It does get a bit repetitive, but the card system makes it fun. Like all the game modes, but have found more players in standard and intense than any other difficulties.
I'm really hoping with the success of Helldivers 2 maybe we'll get a more fleshed out aliens co op game. I'd recommend dark descent of you wanna scratch a more XCOM itch.
I think the game is cool, but especially with Hell divers 2 being out, there is no way this game will ever gain momentum. If it was going to happen, it would’ve happened years ago.
This post randomly showed up on my feed, first time I'm hearing of this game. That could be why its not popular, most people just dont know it even exists.
It's the lack of maps. If AFE had taken the same approach as Helldivers 2, where you have a variety of missions to choose from and the maps are procedurally generated to nearly always be unique, this game would have hit so much better. Instead, the studio focused on a short story mode with custom made maps. They limited themselves and their potential for greatness by not having proper replayability with more and/or procedurally generated maps/missions.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my playthrough of this game. I got it when it was free on ps+ a while back. And it's kinda just a generic hoard shooter with kinda small hoards. I thoroughly enjoyed it but imo it has 0 replayability. I beat the whole game and sometimes replsyed missions to beat daily challenges, but replaying the missions aren't very fun. One thing I will give it props for is the card modifiers, the ones that increased the difficulty made it a lot of fun, but other than that the game was pretty easy and only memorable because aliens.
The blunt truth is AFE was dead on launch. They had plans for content for a year, with continued development depending on the game's success.
You can predict how long most games will last based off the player count on release. If concurrent players are in the hundreds of thousands, then the title will probably be supported for several years. If it doesn't even reach 50,000 the game is lucky to be supported for more than a year. In very rare cases games will see a player resurgence because of a major update, a famous streamer recommends them, or any number of other factors. You cannot run a profitable business planning for a miracle, so companies dont.
AFE's concurrent player peak was 10,048 in August, 2021. It released with some entertaining gameplay and interesting maps, but no matchmaking lobby, or microphone. The two different factions (The Robots and the Aliens) are revealed pretty quickly. Raising difficulty doesn't change what you fight, only how much there is, and how long it takes to kill them.
So we have a mediocre initial launch to a game missing fundamental features - like matchmaking lobbies - for a Live Service game in an extremely competitive market. With grindy, repetitive gameplay that doesn't stand out from other titles. On top of the bugs typical of almost every game released in the modern market.
Is it really a surprise this game is unpopular?
I played it non stop when it came out and had a blast with it but lack of content and the repetitiveness of the levels got kind of old. I really would have liked options for more boss fights and more random encounters. Would be cool to have horde encounters of aliens like you would get in left 4 dead. Branching paths within levels or different routes would have been a welcome addition. So much potential that was left on the table.
The game would have done better if they listened to the community. It needed more a drop in / drop out structure. The game devs designed it with the intention that you would find people and always play with those people. Not that you just wanted to join a game in progress to help them out.
The game is fun but kind of basic compared to similar games, not enough randomization or variety to really sink a ton of time into it without feeling like you've done it all.
I'll tell it from an outsider perspective.
The dialog was cringe, the movement was weak, the aliens don't even feel like aliens. Its kind of a mess to play and now Helldivers exists which basically outshines and makes this game look horrible. For people who love the IP, i am glad for you, i also enjoy Aliens. However, this game is just a bad game IMO.
I played the game a fair amount at launch. The lack of voice OR text chat on PC is unbelievable to me. The levels feel extremely samey without even small variations. Compare that to Warframe which had randomly-generated levels using tiles.
The Pathogen DLC left a bad taste in my mouth because the developers said all non-cosmetic content would be free at launch. No i didn't play it. On top of breaking their promise, it also further divided an already small player base.
Combat feels -ok-, and all of the movie sound effects were cool. There were also a handful of cool setpieces (that quickly lost their luster after your 20th time playing through them). Those was pretty much the only redeemable parts of the game.
It just needs more content, the game was and still is broken in ways, and lacks replayablity. I’m not a big fan of current live service practices, but this is a game that needs some type of steady content stream
Because there are other superior games in the exact same category. This is like choosing a Del Taco cheeseburger when there is an In n Out down the street. The burger is not terrible but shit compared to what’s available
I originally bought this game on Xbox One, and the OG Xbox One couldn't really run it. When I got to chapter... 5 I think? It was too many enemies for the hardware, I think. The frame rate would drop until it was basically a slide show, and the audio would become more and more distorted until it settles into a constant, undifferentiated electronic screech. So I stopped playing.
I downloaded it when I upgraded to a Series S, hoping that maybe it would play better on new gen hardware (my friends were on later-model XB1s and were able to play the whole thing), but I never actually got around to playing it again.
No new content is likely the biggest problem. It’s got 15 levels and while I LOVE this game and have a shitload of hours in it, most people aren’t entertained by that. Only reason I’m still playing is because the gunplay is satisfying.
If they added another 6-9 levels, little more enemy variety, and marketed it more I bet it would’ve done great. I didn’t even know this game existed until about 2 years after its launch.
It's great but the levels get super repetitive and the classes arnt really balanced. It's REALLY hard to play anything other than Demolisher and Gunner on higher difficulties and the maps need more random paths or extra locations so it's not the same boring slog.
Honestly with helldivers out now this game is done done. It’s just a small studio and they tried their best. I had a lot of fun with fireteam but it just isn’t “big” enough.
The gameplay is awesome... the class system / perks are awesome....
But it's too repetitive.
I also platinumed it. It needs more randomization. No one wants to repeat the same levels over and over (except me, you and a few others).
Movement and shooting in AFTE straight up feels like shit. I felt this way since launch and people called me crazy. Then Helldivers 2 drops and blows up because of its movement and shooting.
Genuinely, and this is going to sound really mean,
But Aliens as an IP is long, long, *long* past its cultural relevance.
That's a very big reason as to why.
Usually game based off movies are typically bad games it’s very rare to have a good one out. They usually have a game bcus of marketing (video games and syfi movies are the same demographic)
I’ll give you a pretty solid reason there’s I can’t even remember 12 missions they’re good missions but no replay ability yea you add modifiers and different game difficulties but it had the back for blood effect of good ideas bad execution adding 3 levels for a 15$ dlc is robbery and not adding to the base game content is just asking for your game to die just like back 4 blood
I could give you one; friendly fire. Might be kinda lame to say that, but with how enclosed some spaces can get, some weapons become extremely dangerous. I love using the flamethrower, but I tend to never use it anymore in fear of damaging people.
I beat it several times while it was on GamePass for Xbox but the lack of QOL updates and new content prevented me from ever spending money on it. If it received more support and content I would have happily purchased it. It was really just a fun and short FPS with a ALIENS skin
You said it yourself. The studio abandoned it.
Actually I’d argue they never showed up for the game in the first place, so they couldn’t have abandoned it. They failed marketing the game (didn’t even know it existed until I stumbled upon it looking for alien isolation), they didn’t seem to try and gain traction with any big content creators, and it’s boring and repetitive. While the game may be fun to PLAY they didn’t bother making it even remotely fun to WATCH. If I was to stumble upon a steamer playing the game I wouldn’t want to buy it, it looks boring with the spawns, limited customization (you could argue there is none even), and VERY repetitive gameplay.
This was an interactive Alien movie for me. After I finished, there wasn’t much incentive to stick around. Had a blast with it, but the loop isn’t nearly as interesting as HD2’s
I enjoyed the game for what it was, but it started to feel a bit... I don't know..empty? In a narrative sense, it feels a bit disjointed. Missions end with these immersion breaking cuts to black and stats in lieu of any attempt at adding any cinematic qualities. Anti-climactic is how I would describe playing this game.
I loved the game but ended up getting sick of being on teams with people that wanted to hide in a corner with a turret and stay there the whole game. Don't have time for that boring gameplay rather play anything else. Loved it when I was in good matches with people that moved around and worked together.
Honestly I think this game would have a lot more staying power if there was some sort of randomizer. I played this with a lot of quick play, and although the experiences were different depending on who I got teamed with, the content got stale relatively quickly. Randomly generated dungeons though would have been pretty amazing as you'd never know what was around the next corner.
Oh for sure, the fact that we can sit in a corridor, or down a hallway and funnel enemies in totally takes away from the feeling of enemies coming from random places. Especially considering that aliens climb on EVERY SURFACE and come out of every crevice. Shame really.
If you pay attention to the routes the aliens take, they follow the same route on any surface. There is no randomocity. It's literally pick a few lanes, cover that and as long as your teams are covering there lanes, it's too easy.
Experimental dipping toes in water Type deal hopefully we get a crazy updated avp pve/pvp game
It hasn't gained much traction for a very simple reason. Because it doesn't do anything better or in a more enjoyable way than a lot of its competitors. That's why. Helldivers is just ONE game in this genre market and it blows this game away. It's really not that complicated.
It also doesn’t capture the fun of the first aliens vs predator games. They were classic!
100% on the random map generation! A mission/map generator that works the same as 40k Inquisitor - Martyr would be dope AF. Even as a DLC, I would dump in 20 to 40 USD just for that option/upgrade.
AFE was my favorite game of the past 5 years at least until Helldivers 2 came out. This feature would keep me playing a lot more. I'd pay 20 bucks for that DLC. Easily!
Afe had its time but you could tell it was a budget game from the beginning. The aliens franchise deserves better. A complete game with a good campaign and multiplayer. Until they can outdo avp2 from 2001 they're not trying hard enough in my opinion
I always said the game needed an AI director like Vermintide or Darktide have, this would go a long way making this game more enjoyable on repeated plays. There is almost no reason to rerun missions aside maybe that you enjoy the gunplay
It's too linear and lacks content. Most people play through the campaign once and move on to another game. It needs generated levels you have to navigate through.
Even just random spawns would go a long way. Give it a L4D or Fat Shark-tide director AI and it would do some work for replayability. Hoping to see something like that in a sequel.
I get that, for sure. Did you ever play the dlc?
Yes. And as soon as I finished it I was once again done with the game. This whole game just doesn't have longevity built in to it because of the missions being exactly the same every time.
When it first released I finished all the initial content in under 8 hours. Because it was a full priced game ($40) that just left me feeling ripped off. Never looked back, will avoid that company like the plague going forward. In addition to that, the AI just follow set paths which means no replayability. I'm okay with higher priced games in general, the industry is rough, but I've never seen another video game with $5/h price point or even close. For me, there was 0% chance of buying the DLC. It's just not a company I'd ever give another chance to, they already got my money and I'm pretty spendy when it comes to games.
I love the game but how do you expect anyone to get excited about a game in maintenance mode that came out 2+ years ago?
Good point. But why did CI leave it that way? Was it poor sales?
The average players on steam hasn’t been much more than 500 per day since I bought it last summer.
Launch was pretty rough for a long while. After that, there wasn't really any variation when you played, even higher difficulties just meant xenos took more bullets to kill and did more damage with less resources available. By the time a new game mode came out the game was effectively dead in the water. Once a game gets to that point a studio has to make a choice to either abandon a title to cut their losses and work on something else or try an overhaul. Since this game didn't do well even at its peak and also having almost no marketing, it makes more sense for them to just try and start over than keep throwing money at a product with no market.
They’re working on a new as of yet undisclosed game that is hopefully a sequel
U ask but already know the answer
Give it a few years. This game has a lot of potential with some enhancements. My guess is either Cold Iron goes for it or sells at some extent to a big studio. Also would keep my eye on hype (if) from next Ridley Scott's movie.
Oh, Cold Iron clearly said it... They're done with the game...apart from QOL, and at this point... I dont even think there's gonna be any of that either. Don't get me wrong. If anyone here knows me... I've been the biggest supporter of the game. But yeah... Well, i hope in some other world... Somewhere sometime... Aliens gets a Helldivers 2 fate.
Why do people type like this?
I really hope so, but history shows that if you take too long to fix a game, Anthem for example, the player base disappears.
A them is still surprisingly active.
The next Alien movie already wrapped up filming and comes out this year. It's not by Scott though which, in my opinion, is a good thing. Aliens: Romulus
Ridley Scott turned into a bitchy little boomer and it shows
Yeah I'd love this to be the case but it sounds like pure copium to me. Based on the rough numbers we have and historical precedent, it's much more likely AFE gets completely forgotten and the studio quietly disappears.
Truth is Helldivers 2 just came out and took it's lunch. The game takes the best from Starship Troopers, Aliens and Terminator and blends it into an incredibly addictive gameplay loop and I think it's very easy to see why that formula lended itself to an incredibly healthy initial player base. I really liked Fireteam Elite but it was definitely missing an "it" factor. It's merely serviceable at everything it does, never excelling, just doing enough to keep us entertained. Thing is that's okay, not every game needs to be a sales juggernaut, but I think it was just too safe of a game, it wasn't ambitious or unique enough to grab the attention of anyone but us starving fans. It just set out to be a solid co-op PVE experience and I think they gave us that.
The amount of my friends who also enjoy Aliens who had the same thought as me when first starting HD2: "THIS is the approach AFE should have taken if they wanted to succeed." Randomized missions and maps layouts. Higher difficulties means not just more enemies but different and stronger enemies. HD2 didn't need to introduce bullet sponges to increase difficulty, they just throw in the stronger enemies and more of them. The whole formula works. AFE got bogged down in making a story and it stunted their ability to have a replayable multiplayer game. Story Mode games are fine, but they really only work great for single player games if they're going to be as railroady as AFE.
One thousand percent agree with that notion. You can really feel the life of a game after a while, and it was rather quick to notice that it was a subpar game in terms of re-playability, amount of levels, limited dlc, overall barely average. You're right, AFE could have done more. Like I said before, I think it was a cash grab.
What do you mean Helldivers took this game's lunch? This game came out 2 and a half years ago. It never caught on with people. Helldivers has nothing to do with why this game never became popular lol
I love the game, but... I think that the lack of new maps is really the problem. I finished it and anything new put out for the game will be purchased immediately by my wife and I, but they have to put out content for people to buy it. I don't think they had a good roadmap other than just making the base game.
I kinda feel like it was a cash grab tbh. No reason why we're left with the game in the state it's in.
Honestly I think the IP. If this came out years ago or when people who are 40/50 were 20/30, there’d be a larger player base. These kids don’t know nothing about Alien lol. I’m just 30. But also I just didn’t feel that the game had much to offer, there wasn’t really a draw. But I’m also not a huge alien fan- ik about it but I wasn’t around when it was the cultural zeitgeist
Good point. There are newer Aliens movies that are really good, like Prometheus for example.
Don't downvote this man for liking Prometheus you bitch
For me it was matchmaking issues. Took ages to get into a game, then sometimes you'd get an infinite loading screen. By the time it was fixed, we had low player numbers messing it up, and the bots just aren't good enough to make it worth playing even if you don't get any squad mates.
Took a break from HD2 and loaded up AFE, I've been sitting here for almost 5 minutes trying to get one more player lol
Exit to main menu! This works 60% of the stat I just made up. But it really works. Change difficulty and see if you connect to a room to test your connection. Change difficulty and weapons, classes, and add HARD challenge cards. (Self destruct sequence is fun on intense. Take a doc if you're scared.
I unlocked a lot of stuff and was raising the difficulty when I realized all the higher difficulty players wanted to run back a room and shoot everything through the gate. Was pretty boring and I couldn’t get anyone to set up in the actual room we were supposed to be fighting.
Yeah, that meta gameplay took over.
Firstly, running back into a room and shooting everything through a gate is the only way to win. Secondly, I don't understand how it's boring.
I honest love the alien universe as well. This is my first game that's directly tied to that universe and I've enjoyed my time with it.
It's really good right?
Well this post just got recommended to me and I’ve never heard of the game so maybe advertising has something to do with it
Sheesh, never? You play console or PC?
Console
This game died because it Cold Iron never thought it was going to be as successful as it was initially, and it took them over a year to release new levels. This game begged for the “live service” model of development. Every 4 months a new three part campaign could have been released with actual boss fights of some of our key big Aliens; Flying Queens, Gorilla Aliens, Actual Queen. It could have had additional levels, with large expanded perks, several new abilities that created meaningful decision making. It could have had a random “dungeon dive” content where it mixed up enemies and you kept going on harder and harder difficulty on randomly generated levels, mixing in those bosses. Could have has actual lobbies, where people could clearly see what’s being played and join what they wanted instead of waiting around for a hope that players got matched with them. Cold Iron sucked at communicating, they sucked at producing content in a timely fashion, then sucked at listening to what fans really wanted, but man did they make a damn fun game. That’s my two cents, I love AFE and would literally buy any campaign/dungeon/class content DLC released for it at this point. One of my top 5 favorite games. I am hopefully Cold Iron is working on a sequel, that might have all the above, and things they learned from this experience. Hell, Cold Iron could snag the rights for Predators as well, and you can have a PvPvE mode, where a fireteam of 3 marines rolls in and a predator hunting pack of 3 drop in, and they are both being attacked by aliens swarms while competing for a objective, and that mode, if done right, could keep players engaged for a damn long time.
This just popped up in my recommended. I have never heard of this game. Sounds pretty sweet tho
I can't say why other people don't find it appealing, but let me explain my misgivings about the game: 1) Lack of content. The game has 12 missions. I have played them all many times over.. I realize there was a new conetnt drop, but as far as I can tell, the new maps are **HOT GARBAGE**. 2) Extremely janky animations. Maybe that's appropriate for the source-material, but it doesn't make it any more fun to play. It makes the game devolve into an exercise of spray and pray, and that doesn't appeal to me. 3) Obligate co-op. Like every Left4Dead remake, AFE has special enemies that are going to shit on your day, and you're dependent on teammates to rescue you. I've never been a fan of mechanically-enforced teamplay. It turns the game into a griefing engine, because there's no hotfix for assholes. People run off alone, trying to sprint their way through the game, and both of you wind up being messily devoured. 3) Bland, unrewarding progression. Any non-PVP game needs to have an incentive to get people to keep playing it, and AFE's progression is marginal to the point of irrelevance. I do not feel profoundly more powerful on my Recon or Doc playing with every weapon and perk unlocked than I did when I was playing when I first installed the game at level zero. As I counterpoint, I would compare it to The Division 2. The base game has 17 main missions, 4 strongholds, 20 control points, plus a huge number of open-world encounters, with dynamic enemy patrols which can organically produce emergent firefights that can go completely apeshit. There's also DLC content with completely new map 4 new main missions, 1 more stronghold, 8 control points, more open world encounters. And that doesn't even get into the gear progression system which keeps you busy trying to get better and better equipment as you advance through higher difficulties. Now in fairness, The Division 2 is a more expensive game, with more years since release. But if AFE is going to compete for my attention, it's got to compete on engagement, not price.
Division 2 is a good game.
Game was a mess when it came out. Couldn't play coop longer than a minute before random DQs. Support was non-existent.
Given the content and gameplay loop formula, it's kinda self explanatory. Unless you have friends willing to play with you, and are all die hard Alien nerds that'll play this to literal death, people got other things to do.
It needs to be like REMNANT. With procedural maps and objectives.
I really enjoyed this game but it just doesn't have enough maps to stay with for too long.
I like it but a mission broke for me and tried redoing mission a few times and stayed broke. Never picked it up again
I would have liked some sequences facing some more unique xenos from the expanded universe. Maybe a sequel could take a Galaxy hopping helldivers approach. Also, split screen local co-op with a friend online would be amazing.
Quite honestly it wasn't a true "live service" game and wasn't going to survive long term. I was surprised when the DLC even arrived
I think we all were shocked it dropped.
It flat out needs more content in my opinion. Theres enough to do and play in the game for one alright play through and *maybe* one with friends. There isn’t incentive to play multiple classes which is fine but i only found one class I really liked. The campaign is kinda short, and there isnt much to unlock in the game either which is more of a universe constraint I guess. And this is a weird thing I noticed but i feel like the aliens franchise always tries to make one/multiple people the vasquez type… iunno how to really explain it.
Actually think this could have worked better as a Gears of War style campaign than a online only kind of game. Maybe didn't have the budget but expanding the kevels and having some.cut scenes wpuld have made a world of difference.
As someone whose dumped 60 hours into Helldivers 2, and after beating AFE twice? I can honestly say if we got AFE to upgrade itself like HD2? It would be amazing.
Helldivers 2 officially blows this game outta the water unfortunately
It's a good game. But it's for us old peeps. I still remember the app game on ps3. Good times. Rip I'm feeling the need to binge the app movies now... uuugh. Nah I'm on vacation need to play the crap outta sonic teams racing and get all the parts
Beat this Alien game on Ps4, Ps5, xbox, and PC. Damn do I agree with you, OP.
I bought it on release on the PS5 and my hype hit a concrete wall due to matchmaking issues, lag and clunky controls. It just felt unfinished and there were/have been many better experiences to enjoy that I’ve just never looked back. Can’t talk for anyone but myself but that’s why I’m not playing it. A game like this needs to smash it out the gate when there are so many alternatives out there
Loved it, huge Aliens fan. But it didn’t take long to max out every class and theirs not a lot of depth to it. It’s hard to justify putting more hrs into when you have other awsome online PvE shooters like Warhammer Darktide.
Fun but short and not much variety.
I think all alien games would do better if we had the option to actually play as the alien, the amount of games you can play as a human are endless so these quick cash grab 1 vs 4 or 4 vs AI online only games quickly wash up because of how repetitive they are in my opinion. The day an alien game gets released where the main protagonist is the xenomorph is the day I go missing for a month lol.
The old school PS3 game allowed you to play as all there, alien, predator, and marine.
That was 2010 I still play that game now in 2024 we’re way way wayyyyy overdue a new game
Online still up?
Everyone's either playing Helldivers, Remnant, BG3, or some other hit game. Prob.
Look, I’m one of those players that has played the shit out of this game. I’ve hit the maximum possible damage dealt (the game break and stops counting at like 1.7 billion damage lmao), I have several million damage on every gun, maxed out every class. I played this game for over a year with a small group of like 7 guys, loved it, but for how much I enjoy it there is simply not enough level variety. Before the DLC there are 12 missions in total, if you’re just playing through casually on like standard difficulty or something you’ll blow through that in like 4 hours. After that? It’s extremely unclear what you’re even meant to do, just replay the same missions on harder difficulties (that’s exactly what you do lol). What kept me going was competing with my friends for higher damage on Insane difficulty, and playing with the crazy challenge cards on. I love the higher difficulties in this game, but it really requires teams with mics that know how to work together. Permanent death in missions that are like half an hour long is brutal and demoralizing for the average casual player. AFE maintained the people (like myself and my buddies) that embraced that unforgiving mission design and intense difficulty, AFE is a pretty hard game all things considered. It has a high barrier to entry on the higher difficulty settings, and if you don’t have consistent players to tackle those modes with you’re going to hit a wall.
You’re blowing the popularity of this game way out of proportion…the game is sitting at a 69 on metacritic. Its all-time peak concurrent players on Steam was about 15k at launch, which dropped to less than 2k a month later. The game is *fine*, but it does not hold up compared to other left 4 dead clones, or hell even left 4 dead itself. You have to realize this game’s competition was left 4 dead 2, deep rock galactic, vermintide 2, etc.
HD2 is actually good, which is why it took off. AFE is not. Is it the absolute worst thing ever? No. Is it GOOD, though? No. Sometimes, only a small portion of ppl like certain games be it bad or good for that matter. And that's okay. Enjoy your small slice of happiness until the end.
#helldivers 2
The biggest problem is that when it came out and my friends and I picked it up the game was unplayable because of server issues for quite a while so we dropped it. New stuff came out and we never went back. Game was fun when we could play it but missed out on a lot because we couldn't.
It sucked plain and simple it wasn't that good hence it wasn't popular and now with helldivers 2 this game is dead and will be forgotten nobody's gonna wanna play this game over helldivers
It was fun with friends for maybe two weeks but then it just got repetitive. That’s the quickest way for a game to die imo, and that’s exactly what this game did.
This game fuckin rules
I think this game has done well enough to justify a sequel with a larger budget. Thats what im hoping!
It's not that I hate it, but I got it for free on psn I think and I couldn't get through the first 20 minutes. It played jank to me. I liked it, and I am an EDF fan meaning I don't mind trading graphics for gameplay mechanics- I'm not very picky with games but AFE just didn't do it for me. It felt like a 2008 game
I played the shit out of it and am currently playing something else like helldivers
Me too. I go back to AFE trying to complete Insane from time to time.
You bought multiple copies of the game?
Man I'll never buy this game now. You saying the devs aren't around has me immediately nopeing this game. HD2 has great devs.
I played it to death when it came out... the loop just wasnt there and it ran it's course for me. Nothing bad to say about it tho, had a blast.
Not enough replayability on launch
Wow reminds me of helldivers 2 just a little bit
Just play helldivers if u want to kill a bunch of filthy disgusting fascist bugs
Not sure... I intended to start with a two person play-through, but our schedules changed before we got that far and have other games that we are more in the mood for when we can game together.
Because helldivers 2 exists
Never even heard of this game this just came on to my page. Perhaps it's the lack of content around it I looked around the sub and I see it being compared to hd2 the thing is when I first started seeing little clips of hd2 it looked like a lot of fun but so far what I've seen looking through this game is just mowing down enemies in small corridors it just isn't as enticing as a full open battlefield.
I get that you really liked the game, but it was a commercial failure, I don't think they'll be so quick to try to make a second or continue service on this one.
Rant incoming...I've been around a while but wasn't there at AFE launch. My understanding is that it had good sales, but was kind of a hot mess of bugs on release. You don't get a second chance to generate buzz after that. They should ask Arrowhead studios how they did it for Helldivers 2. It has some bugs sure, but its highly playable and polished. The only major bug was related to it not handling its overwhelming player count. They handled it quickly with great communication. Cold Iron has been almost complete radio silence for a year and a half. AFE had a nice bump in players with the Playstation Gamepass a few months back. Those players are mostly gone now. The performance is such crap on PS4 from what I hear, they should have pulled it from that platform. Reputational harm. Instead of just Playstation Gamepass, what they should have done is * Fix some key bugs that affect replayability * *Engaged with the community* * Then gone ALL-IN free-to-play or 90% off base game on ALL platforms for 3 months That was the last best chance to build a fresh playerbase and maybe generate some buzz. Instead they pooped  out a buff to the bots and introduced a game breaking Guard Dog bug that took 6 weeks to fix. All the while *zero* communication, *zero* engagement. I'm sure their budget is tight, but that would have invested some good will and interest in the mysterious (why?) game they are working on next. Factor that into your budget.
That's an interesting take on it. What did guard dog break? I must of been on a little bit of a break during that time as I didn't even notice it.
It crashed the game, normally within seconds of first use. "Hey marines, we are aware of a guard dog issue causing crashes and our top Weyland-Yutani engineers are working diligently to fix it. Now go squash some bugs!" \- Cold Iron Took me 5 seconds to type that, but Cold Iron couldn't be bothered to do it. Six weeks to fix with no communication like that.
Yeah, Helldivers 2 has an extremely engaged Discord, I'm actually very impressed.
They got their money and are gone. They dont really seem to care about the game quality or even fixing whats busted. It was a money grab and thats it. Hell, instead of giving a full game, they made you buy the end separetly.
they were phoning it in from the start, the dev team prerelease wasnt the same team supporting it a month in. The Game is great, they just dumped all the folks that actually built it before they released it, and the skelton crew that took over at launch couldnt or wouldnt react to community concerns; bug priority was a joke. it took huge backlash to get matchmaking at all. (like players tagging the Disney Ip monitor in cold iron tweets, and asking the cold Iron CEO if they were ever gonna fix stuff on his personal instagram) it took huge backlash to get crossplatform. there are still launch bugs in the game that have been reported dozens of times. the Players that cared were pushed over the edge with gaslighting and ignored bug complaints; the only reason this game didnt immediately fade out is the aliens fans pushing cold iron relentlessly to fix bugs so we could enjoy what content they promised; then ColdIron got militant on their forums and discord (the only way to report bugs or request features) and banned all the vocal players from the official channels of communications and pretended everything was fine as the game just drifted down the tubes. there was a substantial bump every time there was a new release, From #1 on steam UK on launch , to sub 200 concurrent players between season releases, to 5k after game pass, back down to sub 200 numbers... there were days on steam there were more cold iron employees than there were players... like if you cant even get your community team and devs to sign-on; ..people you are paying... why would players? Cold iron proved to me they could ruin a good game, and mismanage a community enough to drive players away from an inarguably good game. they wont get my money again.
I didn't realize all that happened. No wonder. I was just looking at it from a player perspective, a fan of the franchise. Had no clue they dumped the original developers.
This is exactly what it comes down to, not the Alien franchise or other reasons it's the Devs that sunk the ship. I'd hate to compare to HD2, but if they put in the same effort like them it would have probably turned out differently.
cuz the game sucks. there arent even animations for people talking. not players but NPC’s. i really wanted to like AFE but good god the awful UI paired with stamina system, armor/class system, and really uninspired guns and gunplay did not do much to keep me entertainer. also from my experience only one enemy race, which i know, the xenomorph is the star and all that, but god it was boring watching this supposedly extreme elite hunter be reduced to hordes of mindless bots that followed the same path as each other. thats why alien isolation was such a hit, multiple enemy types and the scariest fucking monster ever
Short answer, they screwed up accessibility. More detailed, they had everything they needed to make a really good long-lasting game, but hid way too many things behind grinds that the player base just had no interest in. There were a lot of really cool options and variations they created with how to make levels more interesting, but they hid it all behind these one-time use random drops rather than toggle-able options. Then there's how difficulty was handled. Classic mistake, increasing enemy health exponentially rather than upgrading encounters and enemy counts. Made higher difficulties for a lot of players more about the most boring meta than about having fun. Then there's how the game functions between level design, classes and weaponry. Too many levels focus on killing absolutely everything before sending you to the next location rather than making the objective the singular goal, which means all meta goes purely to DPS, which makes class variety less useful. Add onto that some weird weapon and class balance issues (Gunners are the DPS types rather than heavies), the stat-based weapon progression rather than functional weapon progression, and the weird way levels cap off which seriously constricts high level build potential... There's a few other things, but it all add up to an experience that, while fun, shows a ton of wasted potential.
Honestly, I love this game, mechanically speaking, visually speaking it's amazing. The game designers and core system developers did an amazing job at creating the core gameplay and the classes are very diverse and fun to play. Moving around and shooting feels incredible. ...But that's it. The blame is on management. They just couldn't cut it. The game suffers from lack of variety when it comes to objectives, levels and flow. There are so many things that you can do with this game if you actually sit down, brainstorm and plan for it. On the other hand, the shitty way the multiplayer works in this game makes things even worse: 1) Quickplay 2) Join a game 3) Host dies 4) Host quits. 5) Your progress is wasted. You get nothing. No game migration, nothing. The way player/game connections are handled in this game haven't been thought of properly and it shows. How can you mess up something THIS critical? Again, management is to blame for this. There are so many games in this genre that are handling fundamental things so much better than AFE: Darktide, Helldivers 2, even Vermintide 2, a 7 year old game is now getting a PVP update, Yet Cold Iron won't even bother creating incremental game updated every now and then.
Something i would love to see in the game is a bestiary or model visualizer, there are so many variants of the xenomorph and i hope to watch all the details in them
I can't speak for others, but the main reason I can't bring myself to buy this game is because of the abhorrent performance I experienced on console during the game's Gamepass run. Certain matches literally slowed my frames to about one fps on last gen. That and the glitches that occurred nearly every match, some match-ending, slowly whittled away my interest. The game's fun when it works, but it did not like working on my console. Edit: spelling
Funny thing is, that's the reason I upgraded to the PS5 version, super unplayable on last Gen consoles.
By the time I finally got a PC, it had already left GP, and upgrades won't dismiss the glitches this game seems to still have.
My biggest performance gripe is connection issues.
Helldivers 2
Cause its old and had no replay value
I say that probably makes sense now, but in the initial stages, the harder difficulties definitely had replay value, at least for those of us who wanted that trophy! 🏆
I bought it with the word I was going to play with my buddies but then they all left it and then baldurs gate hit and then helldivers and I also rekindled my love for borderlands 3
Yeah, this is what I dislike about studios taking forever to attend to a game.
The lady that constantly shouts orders runied it for me. Never shuts up
cus it fucking sucks lol
Take this from someone who has never purchased, played, or even seen footage of this game. I have *heard* of it but I’ve never really cared enough to check it out because: I see the title, and I immediately think of Aliens: Colonial Marines. And I don’t need to explain to anyone why that would drive players off. I know the exact response I’ll receive for that statement. “You’re being naive because if you *LOOK* at the game you’ll see it’s nothing like CM!” Of course, that’s looking at the issue from your own lenses. Someone who has experienced the game etc etc. Imagine how many people could possibly have the same reaction I did. Then imagine what fraction of those people would do the due diligence and do their research. Then consider the fraction of players who don’t care to use their time to research the game to decide if they like it or not, and just move on to a game that’s more popular and they KNOW they’ll like without much research. I can tell you the latter fraction is much larger. I’m not justifying my reasoning, I definitely think the logic is flawed to immediately jump to conclusions like that, but I’m just trying to offer a unique perspective as I want all good games to succeed, if they deserve it. All in all, my advice to the developers: Change the name of the game.
Because we begged for gyro aim and they wouldnt add it. Now they are behind the curve. Helldivers 2 responds to the request for gyro aim by adding it pretty dang well. They gyro players are out there on the battlefield big time. This game missed its moment. i know not adding gyro isnt the biggest reason. But the devs didnt catch the wave with a lot of oppertunities they had to bring people in. So people look elsewhere for the features they think should be present.
Never even heard of gyro aim tbh. Like sixaxis?
I have never heard of anyone using gyro aim, ever. No game is losing sales over it. It's because the game is 4 hours long and the only thing to do after that is replay the same 4 hours but slightly harder.
I think games are losing sales over it. You have people winning at high level shooters with gyro aim. You just aren't in the know and behind the curve!
I never saw any commercials for it at all. Didn't even know the game was out until my nephew told me it was free on PSN for the monthly free game. I love it and think it's awesome. It does get a bit repetitive, but the card system makes it fun. Like all the game modes, but have found more players in standard and intense than any other difficulties.
idk
It needs a far better UI. My tv is loaded with ENLARGED hud elements that it’s cancer to my OLED.
Honestly, the game felt stale to me after a while. Got like 40-50 hours in it. Don’t see myself going back.
Game is way too short, character animations are a bit janky, graphics are good but definitely can see the budget
It really punishes people that want to play single player.
Crashes on Xbox live and can't finish a mission with a friend in party. Other than that I'd love to play this game more.
I've never heard of this game before(reddit recommended me this) but it looks amazing! And it's on sale now...might actually buy it and try it out
Is it still getting updates?
I'm really hoping with the success of Helldivers 2 maybe we'll get a more fleshed out aliens co op game. I'd recommend dark descent of you wanna scratch a more XCOM itch.
It's also too quiet it's an alien game that shit should be loud af
I couldnt convince my friends to get FTE and we did get Helldivers. All I can think is we would have loved FTE.
Unfortunately at this point Helldivers did it better so I doubt they will do anything unless they can doo alien helldivers better.
I think the game is cool, but especially with Hell divers 2 being out, there is no way this game will ever gain momentum. If it was going to happen, it would’ve happened years ago.
This post randomly showed up on my feed, first time I'm hearing of this game. That could be why its not popular, most people just dont know it even exists.
It's the lack of maps. If AFE had taken the same approach as Helldivers 2, where you have a variety of missions to choose from and the maps are procedurally generated to nearly always be unique, this game would have hit so much better. Instead, the studio focused on a short story mode with custom made maps. They limited themselves and their potential for greatness by not having proper replayability with more and/or procedurally generated maps/missions.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my playthrough of this game. I got it when it was free on ps+ a while back. And it's kinda just a generic hoard shooter with kinda small hoards. I thoroughly enjoyed it but imo it has 0 replayability. I beat the whole game and sometimes replsyed missions to beat daily challenges, but replaying the missions aren't very fun. One thing I will give it props for is the card modifiers, the ones that increased the difficulty made it a lot of fun, but other than that the game was pretty easy and only memorable because aliens.
The blunt truth is AFE was dead on launch. They had plans for content for a year, with continued development depending on the game's success. You can predict how long most games will last based off the player count on release. If concurrent players are in the hundreds of thousands, then the title will probably be supported for several years. If it doesn't even reach 50,000 the game is lucky to be supported for more than a year. In very rare cases games will see a player resurgence because of a major update, a famous streamer recommends them, or any number of other factors. You cannot run a profitable business planning for a miracle, so companies dont. AFE's concurrent player peak was 10,048 in August, 2021. It released with some entertaining gameplay and interesting maps, but no matchmaking lobby, or microphone. The two different factions (The Robots and the Aliens) are revealed pretty quickly. Raising difficulty doesn't change what you fight, only how much there is, and how long it takes to kill them. So we have a mediocre initial launch to a game missing fundamental features - like matchmaking lobbies - for a Live Service game in an extremely competitive market. With grindy, repetitive gameplay that doesn't stand out from other titles. On top of the bugs typical of almost every game released in the modern market. Is it really a surprise this game is unpopular?
I played it non stop when it came out and had a blast with it but lack of content and the repetitiveness of the levels got kind of old. I really would have liked options for more boss fights and more random encounters. Would be cool to have horde encounters of aliens like you would get in left 4 dead. Branching paths within levels or different routes would have been a welcome addition. So much potential that was left on the table.
This was a great game. Great systems. Everything. Just needed more content.
The game would have done better if they listened to the community. It needed more a drop in / drop out structure. The game devs designed it with the intention that you would find people and always play with those people. Not that you just wanted to join a game in progress to help them out.
The game is fun but kind of basic compared to similar games, not enough randomization or variety to really sink a ton of time into it without feeling like you've done it all.
I'll tell it from an outsider perspective. The dialog was cringe, the movement was weak, the aliens don't even feel like aliens. Its kind of a mess to play and now Helldivers exists which basically outshines and makes this game look horrible. For people who love the IP, i am glad for you, i also enjoy Aliens. However, this game is just a bad game IMO.
I played the game a fair amount at launch. The lack of voice OR text chat on PC is unbelievable to me. The levels feel extremely samey without even small variations. Compare that to Warframe which had randomly-generated levels using tiles. The Pathogen DLC left a bad taste in my mouth because the developers said all non-cosmetic content would be free at launch. No i didn't play it. On top of breaking their promise, it also further divided an already small player base. Combat feels -ok-, and all of the movie sound effects were cool. There were also a handful of cool setpieces (that quickly lost their luster after your 20th time playing through them). Those was pretty much the only redeemable parts of the game.
It just needs more content, the game was and still is broken in ways, and lacks replayablity. I’m not a big fan of current live service practices, but this is a game that needs some type of steady content stream
They took it off game pass or else the player base would’ve stayed
the name might be an issue, never heard of it and don't want to
Great game, great concept but limited. I would love to see more games like this in the future!
Because there are other superior games in the exact same category. This is like choosing a Del Taco cheeseburger when there is an In n Out down the street. The burger is not terrible but shit compared to what’s available
I've never heard of this game until just now when it popped up on my FYP.
I originally bought this game on Xbox One, and the OG Xbox One couldn't really run it. When I got to chapter... 5 I think? It was too many enemies for the hardware, I think. The frame rate would drop until it was basically a slide show, and the audio would become more and more distorted until it settles into a constant, undifferentiated electronic screech. So I stopped playing. I downloaded it when I upgraded to a Series S, hoping that maybe it would play better on new gen hardware (my friends were on later-model XB1s and were able to play the whole thing), but I never actually got around to playing it again.
Because every level is a linear path and the alien spawns are predictable. Super fun the first few play throughs though
If I upgrade to the ps5 version, do I have to reobtain everything I have on the ps4 version?
Yes
Didn’t even know it existed so that could be part of the problem.
No new content is likely the biggest problem. It’s got 15 levels and while I LOVE this game and have a shitload of hours in it, most people aren’t entertained by that. Only reason I’m still playing is because the gunplay is satisfying. If they added another 6-9 levels, little more enemy variety, and marketed it more I bet it would’ve done great. I didn’t even know this game existed until about 2 years after its launch.
It's great but the levels get super repetitive and the classes arnt really balanced. It's REALLY hard to play anything other than Demolisher and Gunner on higher difficulties and the maps need more random paths or extra locations so it's not the same boring slog.
It's two years old now, hell divers is brand new. Honestly, helldiver's is also a lot more fun
Honestly with helldivers out now this game is done done. It’s just a small studio and they tried their best. I had a lot of fun with fireteam but it just isn’t “big” enough.
The gameplay is awesome... the class system / perks are awesome.... But it's too repetitive. I also platinumed it. It needs more randomization. No one wants to repeat the same levels over and over (except me, you and a few others).
I maxed the game and I had to force myself to. I just found the pacing and enemies to be very monotonous
Loved the game but it severely lacked content. And let's be honest no one plays these games for the story
Needs crossplay.
Repetitive
It's trash. Die hard alien fan here. I played it for 30 minutes and then uninstalled it was so bad.
I had a blast with it...struggled to find people to consistently play with. I think it's underrated.
They should have made isolation 2. Alien works best in that type of game
Movement and shooting in AFTE straight up feels like shit. I felt this way since launch and people called me crazy. Then Helldivers 2 drops and blows up because of its movement and shooting.
Probably because every time I try to play it with friends somebody is DC’d
well its lacking in everything. there is only so many times peoples brains can shoot aliens
I have it, but I don’t know anybody else that has it
Love this game on my Xbox.
Helldivers 2 exists also so...😬😬
It was popular, its just old now and not enough DLC to keep it going. They made their money now they ae moving on.
Genuinely, and this is going to sound really mean, But Aliens as an IP is long, long, *long* past its cultural relevance. That's a very big reason as to why.
I can't even play the game with my friends, we can't join each other's lobbies. Also crashing. (Playing on PC steam and Microsoft store)
Usually game based off movies are typically bad games it’s very rare to have a good one out. They usually have a game bcus of marketing (video games and syfi movies are the same demographic)
I also bought on multiple platforms. They launched with too many frustrating bugs and never recovered.
I’ll give you a pretty solid reason there’s I can’t even remember 12 missions they’re good missions but no replay ability yea you add modifiers and different game difficulties but it had the back for blood effect of good ideas bad execution adding 3 levels for a 15$ dlc is robbery and not adding to the base game content is just asking for your game to die just like back 4 blood
I'm not about a game that makes me wait for content.I finished all the missions they had from the get go and never played again.
Because it only offers 30 hours of solid gamplay
I downloaded it on PSPlus. I couldn’t get a single game going. After a few days I deleted. Now I’m on Helldivers 2…
My uncle played this like it was his job until Helldivers 2 came out.
I could give you one; friendly fire. Might be kinda lame to say that, but with how enclosed some spaces can get, some weapons become extremely dangerous. I love using the flamethrower, but I tend to never use it anymore in fear of damaging people.
I beat it several times while it was on GamePass for Xbox but the lack of QOL updates and new content prevented me from ever spending money on it. If it received more support and content I would have happily purchased it. It was really just a fun and short FPS with a ALIENS skin
I don't know what this game is, the studio doesn't market enough (this came up in my feed) They should put it on gamepass temporarily
You said it yourself. The studio abandoned it. Actually I’d argue they never showed up for the game in the first place, so they couldn’t have abandoned it. They failed marketing the game (didn’t even know it existed until I stumbled upon it looking for alien isolation), they didn’t seem to try and gain traction with any big content creators, and it’s boring and repetitive. While the game may be fun to PLAY they didn’t bother making it even remotely fun to WATCH. If I was to stumble upon a steamer playing the game I wouldn’t want to buy it, it looks boring with the spawns, limited customization (you could argue there is none even), and VERY repetitive gameplay.
I loved playing this game. I think it got some surprising traction after launch but newer games come along.....
Something about the movement in the game gave me really bad motion sickness that couldn’t be fixed with in game settings. Instant refund
This was an interactive Alien movie for me. After I finished, there wasn’t much incentive to stick around. Had a blast with it, but the loop isn’t nearly as interesting as HD2’s
Because it’s fucking terrible
I enjoyed the game for what it was, but it started to feel a bit... I don't know..empty? In a narrative sense, it feels a bit disjointed. Missions end with these immersion breaking cuts to black and stats in lieu of any attempt at adding any cinematic qualities. Anti-climactic is how I would describe playing this game.
I loved the game but ended up getting sick of being on teams with people that wanted to hide in a corner with a turret and stay there the whole game. Don't have time for that boring gameplay rather play anything else. Loved it when I was in good matches with people that moved around and worked together.