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- Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 game director Chris Cross says the sequel will have four-player co-op because it was "highly requested" and it "just feels better"
- Cross says four players also comes with "challenges"
- Balancing the "attention economy" is "basically a constant challenge for us"
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 game director Chris Cross has explained why Cold Iron Studios decided to make the sequel four-player co-op, but acknowledged that it came with some obstacles during development.
Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Summer Game Fest 2026, Cross said one of the "challenges" of making the jump to four-player was balancing the "attention economy" and the multitude of assets and effects on screen at the same time.
"There's four times the amount of things that you need to put on screen," he said, "like more enemies and such, because if everybody focuses fires on something, it'll melt, [so] managing enough targets and distractions for the team is basically a constant challenge for us."
Fireteam Elite was two-player, but when asked why the team decided on making the successor four-player instead of three-player, as you would typically find in other online co-op shooters, Cross revealed that it was for two reasons. One, it was "highly requested" by fans, and two, "four works better in a PVE game because you can do two and two."
"You can have even more combinatory-like abilities, mixing and matching, but also it kind of harkens back to like four-player split screen, right? Like it feels good to have co-op before."
Cross continued, saying, "The thing for us, though, is if you go three and one person splits off, they would end up being a liability. Whereas, [with four players] you can do two and two now. But another thing, though, is the three-person sort of convention I kind of felt like came from battle royale games, like trios [in] Apex Legends, Fortnite, etc.
"It feels like a good, a good mix for a solitary unit, but I just like four, [it] just feels better... A four-person rifle team feels good having four slots with five classes and a possible six. The opportunities that mix and match are so much greater than just three."
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 doesn't have a release date yet, but it will launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.
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