Tips and Tricks - Aliens: Dark Descent Guide - IGN (2025)

Aliens: Dark Descent can be a very punishing game. You’ll need to keep your wits about you, move fast, and pick your battles if you’re going to survive. Thankfully, we've got you covered with 10 essential tips and tricks to help you get the most out of every deployment in Aliens: Dark Descent.

10 Essential Tips and Tricks for Aliens: Dark Descent

Aliens: Dark Descent throws a lot at your squad. Use up your resources too fast, and you’ll be out of luck when a Massive Onslaught occurs. Make too much noise, and you’ll have every xenomorph after you faster than you can say “micro-changes in air density.” Leave your Marines in the fray too long, and they’ll develop debilitating conditions that will keep them out of service for a week or more.

There are many different enemy types and other challenges that await them. It's up to you to guide them through the locations safely and quickly, but you're not alone. IGN has got your back. Here are 10 essential tips that we've found to be especially useful.

Quick Tips and Tricks

• Slow your roll. Marines can only shoot and move while walking, not running. If you're being hunted, slow their pace to a walk so they can immediately start firing when they see an enemy.
• Use Intensive Training. Intensive Training is available from the Barracks. Use it to ensure your Marines are gaining valuable EXP even while not deployed.
• Use Sentry Guns. Sentry Guns are useful for more than just firing bullets. Enemies also target them, directing damage away from your Marines.
• Put the ARC to use. The ARC is a mobile killing machine. Keep it nearby to take out enemies that are wandering around outside.

Sentry Guns are key to your survival, so here's How to Rotate Sentry Guns so that you can take full advantage of their power.

Watch the Alien Aggressiveness Meter

The Alien Aggressiveness meter slowly moves up as you engage enemies. As it moves over certain thresholds, the aggressiveness of the aliens moves from Easy to Medium to Hard until it reaches Maximum Aggressiveness.

The Alien Aggressiveness meter also indicates when certain events will happen. Here are the symbols you'll see on the meter along with their meaning:

How to Survive Massive Onslaughts

Massive Onslaughts are triggered whenever the Alien Aggressiveness meter moves up a difficulty level. There’s no escape from it since the aliens will home in on your squad wherever they go. Your only hope is to hold out and kill every alien that’s thrown at you.

Here are a few tactics that can help increase your odds of success:

• Sentry Guns: Keep one or two Sentry Guns on hand for Massive Onslaughts and point them at chokepoints the aliens will have to come through to get to you.
• Welding doors: If you have a moment to prepare, get your squad into a room and weld the door shut. It will take the aliens some time to break down the door, and in that time they’ll have bunched up. You can blow away a significant portion of them with a single grenade as soon as they come through the door.
• Suppressive Fire: Have at least one Marine use Suppressive Fire in the direction the xenomorphs will come from. This will significantly lower their movement speed, giving your other Marines a chance to take them out before they get too close.

Make A and B Teams

Develop your Marines to form an A and B team. The easiest way to do this is to make carbon copies of each of your Marines as they level up. For example, if your A team has a Seargent, Recon, Gunner, and Medic, make your B team the same way. Give them the same upgrades so they function the same way too.

You can make your teams entirely different if you don't mind the extra effort. Either way, developing them into two teams ensures that while one team is healing their mental or physical ailments, the other team can go on missions.

Stay Quiet

Every shot fired or explosion detonated will draw the attention of the xenomorphs. Since Alien Aggressiveness increases as you engage the aliens, it’s best to avoid unnecessary firefights.

Choose your battles carefully. If there’s an alien roaming the hall, deploy a motion sensor elsewhere and trigger it to draw it away. If there’s a barricade blocking your path, try to find an alternate route.

Conserve Resources

There are quite a few resources spread out around every location, but try not to blow through them too quickly. Sometimes you’ll need to Weld two or three doors shut to take a rest.

Other times, your whole team will be ambushed, and you’ll need all the Medical Supplies you can get. Keep at least two of each ready for when you desperately need them.

Extraction Isn’t Quitting

If your Marines are at maximum Stress, low health, and running low on supplies, it’s time to go. There’s no need to force them to tough it out. Bring them to the ARC and select Extract Squad to bring them back to the Otago.

When you extract your squad, you aren’t giving up on the mission. You can still return to complete the mission with a fresh batch of untraumatized troops. Just keep in mind that every day that passes advances the Infestation level of the planet toward its next level.