Aliens: Fireteam Elite tech review — Do the jitterbug

Fire in the hole.
Aliens Fireteam Elite Tech Review

Aliens: Fireteam Elite has finally made landfall, leaving thousands of swarming bug-like creatures straight to our PCs. The game is noticeably not a AAA title, but it still has some power to display. The Xenomorphs themselves can animate goofily and glitch in and out of existence from time to time, but this is a respectable version of the game, and I noticed few large bugs (pun not intended) and had no crashes during my time with it.

Recommended Videos

Let’s take a loot at the game’s specs before we move on.

 

Minimum:

  • CPU: AMD Athlon X4 950 / Intel i5-2500K
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • GPU: AMD R9 285 4GB / Nvidia GTX 760 4GB

Recommended:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600AF / Intel i5-7400
  • RAM: 16 GB
  • GPU: AMD RX 480 8GB / Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB

Reviewer:

  • CPU: AMD 2600x
  • RAM: 16 GB
  • GPU: AMD RX 5700XT

Those are far from demanding requirements, as you can see. They are somewhat misleading, though, as they’re both strictly for 1080p. At 1440p and max graphics, I tended to get around 75-90 fps in most situations. I rarely got temporary dips into the 40s, but the fps is pretty consistent here. As I said before, I didn’t have a single crash during my time with Aliens: Fireteam Elite, although I did see a fair amount of disconnections after attempting to continue onto the next mission with my team. One or more of them would simply lose their connection with me, forcing us to regroup back at base.

Next, let’s look at the game’s graphics options.

Involve yourself within my dreams

20210824043502 1

No Surprises here. Yes, we’ve got borderless at the very least, but the game doesn’t appear to currently support ultrawide monitors. The framerate can be locked up to 120, but anything above that will require you to switch to unlimited. There’s image sharpening, but I’m not sure what it uses to do this. The same can be said about the game’s anti-aliasing, which goes up to 16x. There are no more than three settings for textures and shadows, so there isn’t a massive amount of leeway for getting your frames up by messing with those. Here are some comparison shots of everything using one of Aliens: Fireteam Elite‘s few bright, outdoor areas.

Texture Quality Low

Texture Quality Low.

Texture Quality High

Texture Quality High.

Shadow Quality Low

Shadow Quality Low.

Shadow Quality High

Shadow Quality High.

Aa Off

AA Off.

Aa Max

AA Max.

Ambient Occlusion Off

Ambient Occlusion Off.

Ambient Occlusion On

Ambient Occlusion On.

Image Sharpening Off

Image Sharpening Off.

Image Sharpening On

Image Sharpening On.

As you can (hopefully) see, there are some noticeable differences to be found, even pared down like this. Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a good-looking game overall, at least from a technical standpoint. The aforementioned wonky Xenomorphs will often flail and behave strangely. Sometimes they’ll teleport randomly or fall through floors. But there are hundreds of them in each level, so this isn’t the most surprising thing in the world. Next, let’s look at controls.

Keep your soul

20210824044104 1

Controls are a mostly standard assortment. Aim ramping and analog acceleration are nice to have for people who don’t feel like aiming precisely despite playing a PC game about shooting things, but some people also like ketchup on steak. One persistent issue I had was that having a controller plugged in would often cause the controller and keyboard icons to flicker back and forth. This was not only distracting, but made the quick-time events when escaping from enemy grabs quite difficult, as I often didn’t know what keys to hit. At least all buttons on both M/KB and gamepad are fully rebindable.

20210824044050 1

20210824044042 1

And there you have it. Aliens: Fireteam Elite has a perfectly acceptable PC version, unless you’ve got an ultrawide monitor.


PC Invasion is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more
related content
Read Article How to delete wallpapers on iPhone (iOS 16+)
iPhone Wallpapers Three Phones
Read Article Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse PC Port Report — Shutter chance
Fatal Frame Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse pc Port 1
Read Article Like a Dragon: Ishin PC Port Report — Samurai I amurai
Like a Dragon: Ishin PC port report featured
Related Content
Read Article How to delete wallpapers on iPhone (iOS 16+)
iPhone Wallpapers Three Phones
Read Article Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse PC Port Report — Shutter chance
Fatal Frame Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse pc Port 1
Read Article Like a Dragon: Ishin PC Port Report — Samurai I amurai
Like a Dragon: Ishin PC port report featured
Author
Andrew Farrell
Andrew Farrell has an extreme hearing sensitivity called hyperacusis that keeps him away from all loud noises.  Please do not throw rocks at his window.  That is rude.  He loves action and rpg games, whether they be AAA or indie.  He does not like sports games unless the sport is BASEketball. He will not respond to Journey psych-outs.