Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Aliens: Fireteam Elite has horror's best creature design. Mostly, though, it's used for combat rather than dread. Three-player squads clear mission-based levels against waves of xenomorphs, and it plays closer to a sci-fi Left 4 Dead than anything genuinely scary. I keep coming back to it between other picks because the mission length fits a weeknight better than most of this list. Crossplay spans PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and reportedly Switch, giving it one of the widest platform pools on this list. The scares thin out fast once you've cleared a few runs and learned the enemy spawns. This one's for groups who want the Alien fantasy and don't mind trading atmosphere for firepower.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite makes the list because it does one specific thing very well: it makes you feel like you are in the film. Corridors go dark, motion trackers ping, someone makes a bad call about splitting up, and suddenly the whole squad is running. That atmospheric tension is harder to manufacture than it looks, and this game earns it. Class synergy matters at higher difficulties, and a well-coordinated three-player group will clear missions that a random matchmade team struggles with. It is a smaller, tighter experience than most games above it, which is fine. Not every co-op session needs to be a 40-hour commitment. Sometimes you want three friends, three hours, and a lot of xenomorphs.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a straightforward three-player horde co-op with full crossplay across PS5, Xbox, and PC — and no external account required. It's the simplest horde co-op setup on this list. The classes have distinct roles and the co-op synergies are real: a Phalanx and a Gunner pairing plays completely differently from a Doc and a Technician combination. What pushed it to honorable mention rather than the main list is server health: Cold Iron Studios moved on post-launch, and player counts are low enough that matchmaking with strangers is unreliable. For a specific group of three friends who want a horde shooter with minimal setup, it still works well in 2026.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is the most underrated game on this list. Three marines, five class roles, and a four-act campaign built around holding chokepoints against endless Xenomorphs—it nails the tension of the films while giving each player a clear job to do. The Doc keeps the squad alive, the Demolisher handles hordes, the Recon scouts ahead. Challenge Mode cards add replayable modifiers to missions you've already completed, extending the endgame meaningfully. It's a PS5 native release with DualSense support, available at low cost with no predatory monetization. The content ceiling is the honest limitation—once you've cleared everything on high difficulty, there isn't much new to discover. For a focused 20-to-30-hour co-op run with friends, though, it consistently delivers.