While new games gather players initially, some have difficulty staying near the top of the charts. There are a lot of examples ofvideo games that disappointed fans after release, but one recent example of a game that has lacked staying power isAliens: Fireteam Elite.
Released on August 23,Aliens: Fireteam Eliteis 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 Elitemanaged 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 somepopular games likeApex LegendsorPUBG: 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 ofAliens: Fireteam Eliteis a lack of new content. Players have been waiting since the beginning of September for a new update. And while theAliensfranchise has spawned several popular video games over the years, such asAlien: 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 Bloodwas releasedlast 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 toAliens: Fireteam Elite,Back 4 Bloodmay have taken away some of the former’s player base.
It will be interesting to see where theAliens: Fireteam Elitegoes 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 Eliteis available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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