Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 Locks In August 25, and This Time the Fireteam Is Four Marines Strong

Five years after the first game turned bug hunts into a proper co-op shooter, the Colonial Marines finally have their marching orders. Cold Iron Studios and Daybreak used San Diego Comic-Con weekend to confirm that Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 launches on August 25, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.

The date landed alongside a short new trailer, and the studio is following it up with a behind-the-scenes panel at the show dedicated to the game's art and sound.

Video: Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 on YouTube

A bigger fireteam and nastier things to shoot

The headline change for the sequel is squad size. The original Fireteam Elite capped your squad at three, which always felt one Marine short of the movies. The sequel expands co-op to four players, so a full fireteam can now walk into the hive together.

The enemy roster is growing to match. Beyond the classic Xenomorph castes, the sequel throws Pathogen-mutated horrors and hostile Weyland-Yutani synths at your squad, so you are not just kiting the same runners for twelve missions. Class options are expanding too. Alongside returning archetypes, Cold Iron has been showing off the Marauder and Duelist classes, plus a fully customizable Specialist class that lets you mix weapons and abilities across classes instead of being locked into one rigid kit. Dedicated Horde maps with escalating waves round out the package for groups who just want to hold a corridor until the ammo runs out.

Two editions, and a 40th anniversary angle

The standard edition costs 49.99 dollars, which is a welcome sight in a year where 70 and 80 dollar releases have become routine. The 69.99 dollar version is called the 40th Anniversary Premium Edition, a nod to James Cameron's Aliens turning forty in 2026, and it bundles two cosmetic packs: Herk's Mondo Pest Pack, with a comic-inspired outfit, a modified pulse rifle, decals and weapon color variants, and Ripley's Hive Exterminator Pack, built around an outfit inspired by Ellen Ripley in the 1986 film along with its own modified pulse rifle and decals.

Nothing in the premium tier appears to gate content that affects gameplay progression, which is how we like our upsells: strictly for people who want to cosplay as Ripley while burning down a hive.

August 25 is a bold pick, sitting right in the launch corridor between Modern Warfare 4's beta and the fall rush. But the first Fireteam Elite quietly built a loyal co-op following over five years of support, and a four-player squad shooter at fifty dollars is an easy pitch for a group of friends. If the gunplay holds up, this could be the sleeper co-op game of the season.