Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a 2021 multiplayer third-person shooter game developed by Cold Iron Studio in collaboration with Disney's 20th Century Games (under the name of 20th Century Studios). It is a standalone sequel to the original Alien trilogy. In contrast to Alien: Isolation, Fireteam Elite is more in line with Aliens: Colonial Marines and focuses on action rather than survival-horror. The game is a third-person co-op shooter, able to be played with friends or AI teammates.
In the year 2202, the USS Endeavor receives a distress call from the previously thought-destroyed Katanga refinery station orbiting the planet LV-895 and moves in to investigate, sending a fireteam of Colonial Marines to board the station. The Marines quickly discover that the entire station has been overrun by Xenomorphs. They manage to rescue the sole survivor of the station, Weyland-Yutani scientist Dr. Timothy Hoenikker. Hoenikker reveals that Weyland-Yutani discovered Xenomorph eggs as well as a mutagenic substance dubbed the "Pathogen" on LV-895, and have been secretly breeding Xenomorphs and experimenting with the Pathogen before the Xenomorphs broke containment.
Determined to find answers, the Marines head down to the surface of LV-895, where they discover alien Engineer ruins that were being studied by Weyland-Yutani. They make contact with another Weyland-Yutani survivor, Cynthia Rodriguez, and head over to stage a rescue despite her insisting she is safe. The Marines fight their way through Xenomorphs and Weyland-Yutani combat synthetics until they reach the Weyland-Yutani facility, where they discover Rodriguez is actually a Mother AI called SN/TH/YA. Since SN/TH/YA has gone rogue, the Marines shut her down, but not before she activates "Asset Zero." The Marines travel further into the ruins and find that Asset Zero is an intact Engineer starship loaded with Pathogen that SN/TH/YA has arranged to send back to Earth. Realizing the danger the ship poses, the Marines sabotage its power source to prevent it from lifting off.
The Marines are then sent back to Katanga to manually overload the station's fusion power core and destroy the Xenomorph hive on board. While they succeed, they are forced to flee when they anger the Hive's Xenomorph Queen, and narrowly escape the station before it explodes.
However, despite the mission's success, Xenomorphs and large stores of Pathogen are still on the surface of LV-895, and both Weyland-Yutani and rival corporation Hyperdyne Systems are sending forces to claim the planet. The Endeavor and its Marines remain to prevent the Xenomorph infestation from spreading and the Pathogen from falling into the wrong hands.
The prequel to the game is the book Aliens: Infiltrator by Weston Ochse, published by Titan Books. The novel tells the backstory of the events that lead up to the game and ends when then game begins.
