Aliens: Dark Descent Beginner Tips and Guide

Aliens: Dark Descent is a very tough game and as good as the game does trying to tell you everything, there is a lot of information to take in. Not everything you learn is crucial as well so here are six beginner tips plus three bonus tips to help walk you through getting started and make things easier when you start Aliens: Dark Descent

Know When To Fold ‘Em

Aliens: Dark Descent is not a fast game, it usually becomes a battle of attrition between you and the xenomorphs with the most important thing is knowing when to extract. You don’t have to keep finishing every objective, you can just chip away at the mission before you start to run out of supplies or worse, get picked off one by one. Risk is always high and in Aliens: Dark Descent what can go wrong typically does.

Check Map for Loot

Aliens: Dark Descent is a RTS, which means that there is fog of war, so you can’t see everything. As soon as you enter a new area, open up the map and zoom in to see what valuable items are now showing. You will know see everything needed including currency, repair kits and med kits. Bonus Looting Tip: Make the most of your time by getting each member to loot at the same time, potentially increasing your loot speed four fold.

Reload Everyone

Typically, each marine burns through ammo at about the same rate and because of this you can save some time and reload everyone at the same time instead of going into each marine and doing it one by one. This can come in handy when the situation gets hairy. On the Xbox, this is done by hitting left on the D-Pad.

Use Suppression

Early on, one of the most important skills that you can abuse is suppressive fire. If you see a radar ping coming your way, use a command point and have your marines aim at the direction the Xenomorphs are coming. If you are set the suppression area as far away as possible this allows you to move a good amount, while still remaining in what is essentially overwatch mode for fans of Xcom.

ARC

Use the ARC as much as you can to your advantage. There are two ways this can be done. First, always keep it as close to your objective as possible. Xenomorphs will always funnel to your objective area where you are and if you have the ARC parked outside this can help alleviate some of the pressure before they even get a chance to see you. Second, if your next objective is on the other side of the map, get in the ARC and travel to the deployment spot closest to your new objective.

Sentry Gun

As soon as you unlock the sentry gun, bring as many as possible on each mission. You can set them up and pick them up and take them to new locations at no cost other than time. They melt most enemies, and when you are hunted or a massive onslaught is about to happen, having four extra guns pointed at the door certainly help. Bonus Tip 1: If you had to extract in a rush to survive and didn’t have time to pick up your sentry gun, it will be where you left it, which means you could have a lot more sentry guns than you can deploy with. Bonus Tip 2: Position Sentry Guns smartly by rotating the placement. The game doesn’t explain this but, hold the placement button and rotate before confirming placement, it will show a cone of sight. On the Xbox X, this is done by holding A and then rotating the left stick.