While new games gather players initially, some have difficulty staying near the top of the charts. There are a lot of examples of video games that disappointed fans after release, but one recent example of a game that has lacked staying power is Aliens: Fireteam Elite.
Released on August 23, Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a third-person shooter featuring co-op gameplay. Despite having mediocre reviews from many critics, the game developed by Cold Iron Studios managed to gain a significant following from players on Steam. With generally favorable reviews from players, the game was quite successful after its launch. Unfortunately for the developer, things have started to decline recently.
After first releasing on Steam, Aliens: Fireteam Elite managed to pull in a respectable concurrent player count of around 10,000. According to Steam Charts, the game even reached 15,550 players at one point. While this average player count wasn’t jaw-dropping compared to some popular games like Apex Legends or PUBG: Battlegrounds, it was still solid enough to put the title in the top 100 played games on Steam. However, those numbers are in decline. Unfortunately for fans of the series, this new installment has dropped significantly from its spot in the top 100. As of the time of writing, it now occupies the number 523 position on the list.
With the game averaging under 1,000 players only a couple of months after release, many fans are left questioning what happened. One of the possible reasons behind the decline of the player count of Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a lack of new content. Players have been waiting since the beginning of September for a new update. And while the Aliens franchise has spawned several popular video games over the years, such as Alien: Isolation, it seems that its notoriety isn’t enough to keep players invested in the gameplay.
In addition to a lack of content, the game faced competition in the weeks following its launch. Back 4 Blood was released last week, bringing a new challenger to the co-op shooter genre. However, the game had already been popular during beta, which had close to 100,000 concurrent players at one time. Featuring similar gameplay to Aliens: Fireteam Elite, Back 4 Blood may have taken away some of the former’s player base.
It will be interesting to see where the Aliens: Fireteam Elite goes from here. While it is too early to declare the game dead, the developer needs a strategy to attract players back to the co-op shooter.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Kotaku, Steam Charts