Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 (PS5) review: bugs and glitches

Cold Iron Studios released Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 five years after the original. The sequel offers a four-player squad slot and a new Specialist class. The PS5 edition supports cross-play and in-game voice chat. Early reports note performance and stability problems that affect session flow.

The game ships with a 15-mission campaign across four themed biomes. Each mission runs about 30 minutes. Environments include foggy industrial labs and planet-side colonies that aim for a tense atmosphere. After every mission, the game returns all players to a hub area; if the host or other players leave, the return-to-hub sequence can trigger additional loading screens for remaining players.

Objectives follow a narrow loop: clear enemy hordes, hold positions, activate terminals and survive timed sections. Those tasks form the core mission design and repeat across levels. Co-op play with voice communication changes how teams coordinate, while solo players or those relying on AI teammates face the same objectives without human coordination.

The class system offers six options. Duelists can carry two primary weapons. Machinists deploy turrets and drones. Medics provide healing and stamina support. Hunters focus on buffs and long-range threats. The Specialist lets players combine abilities from classes they have already leveled, enabling hybrid builds that pair abilities such as healing stimulants with deployable turrets. Weapons are modeled on firearms from the films and include customization for ammo capacity, scopes and passive upgrades. The loadout and equipment menus have been reported as clumsy on controller inputs.

The PS5 interface shows traces of a PC-first design. Menus rely on a cursor, with analog sticks functioning as a mouse and limited d-pad navigation. Cursor movement rarely snaps to options, and adjusting settings or swapping equipment can feel slow. The game lacks an option to join missions in progress. Pre-set nonverbal messages or gesture tools are not available.

Gunplay and enemy behavior have drawn attention in testing. Weapon audio and haptic feedback do not create strong differentiation between many firearms, and some weapons produce similar trigger responses. Multiple reports describe enemies that require extended sustained fire without clear visual feedback of impact, which affects aiming strategy.

Technical issues appear in combat and transitions. Frame rates can drop when large numbers of enemies appear or during area changes. Reported bugs include aliens lodged in geometry that block mission objectives, terminal interactions that fail to register and require mission restarts, and character models entering a T-pose or teleporting at mission start. These issues interrupt missions and can lengthen play sessions.

Progression depends on earning in-game currency and experience to advance class levels and unlock gear. Ammo and health are intentionally scarce on the map, increasing reliance on class synergies such as placing a Medic’s healing station near Machinist turrets to hold positions. Replay incentives focus on farming currency and experience rather than varied objectives. The title’s cross-play functionality may affect matchmaking longevity while technical patches address reported problems.