What to Do After the Campaign in Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2

1. Check Horde before replaying the campaign

Cold Iron's official site describes an updated Horde mode with new rewards, and the Steam store says the game launched with multiple dedicated Horde maps whose rewards increase as a squad survives deeper. That makes Horde the clearest post-campaign destination: it changes the objective from reaching the next story checkpoint to holding a position, managing pressure and deciding how far the squad can safely push.

Players in the current endgame discussion say campaign completion opens Horde, but the public official pages reviewed here do not spell out that unlock condition. Treat the mode menu as the source of truth for your account. If Horde is still unavailable after a completed campaign, record the completed mission, difficulty, platform and current game version before assuming you missed a hidden requirement. Current Steam discussions also include reports of Horde rewards not unlocking, so this guide does not promise that replaying a mission will repair an account state.

Start with the Horde Mode guide, then use the Horde squad builds to give every Marine a job.

2. Pick one progression target, not “everything”

A new Steam discussion asks how players are unlocking and leveling everything. The useful answer is to narrow the target. Choose one class, one primary weapon family and one build problem. The official site confirms five upgraded classes plus the customizable Specialist, while Steam confirms deep weapon customization through fire modes, Augments and Traits. Trying to raise every class and weapon at once makes it hard to tell which reward belongs to which progression track.

Use a simple loop: note the class and weapon levels before a run, capture the reward screen, then check the loadout once you return to the Endeavor. This matters now because Steam threads continue to report missing weapon Traits, mission rewards, Horde rewards and crate emotes. Those are community reports, not proof that every reward system is broken. A before-and-after record gives support something concrete and prevents a missing cosmetic, weapon Trait and experience grant from being treated as one defect.

For verified systems, use Progression & Unlocks and Weapon Traits & Augments.

3. Build toward the Specialist

Cold Iron calls the Specialist an endgame class for fully custom Marines. It can mix major and minor abilities from the available class pool, so it becomes most useful after you understand what the standard roles contribute. Do not copy a pile of individually strong abilities without a purpose. Decide whether the build needs swarm clear, heavy-target damage, recovery, healing or lane control, then select abilities that solve that job.

If the Specialist is still locked, do not follow unsourced save edits or invented level requirements. Check the current Specialist hub and progression guide, and capture the exact lock text shown by your client. Official public pages confirm the class's endgame role, but they do not provide every account-state troubleshooting step.

4. Move up one difficulty when the build is stable

Higher difficulty is useful when it exposes a weakness you can act on: running out of ammunition, losing control of a lane, taking friendly fire, or lacking a safe answer to a heavy target. It is not useful when a squad jumps several tiers and cannot identify why it failed. Increase difficulty one step, keep the same core loadout for a few runs, and change one element at a time.

The Reddit endgame thread includes concern that friendly fire makes combat too chaotic. Treat that as a squad-positioning problem before treating it as a damage problem: define firing lanes, avoid crossing a teammate's muzzle, and reserve wide-area weapons for controlled spaces. See Difficulty Levels and Squad Composition.

5. Use Challenge Cards and build experiments

Community replies recommend Challenge Cards and unusual builds as the long-term replay loop. That is editorial advice rather than an official claim that one card or build is optimal. Use modifiers to create a specific test: can the squad preserve ammunition, survive without its usual healing safety net, or finish with a different class mix? Avoid stacking changes while diagnosing a reward or mission-completion problem, because it becomes harder to isolate what happened.

The Build Planner is the quickest way to save a role before the run. Compare it with the sourced build database afterward.

If rewards or completion do not register

Do not delete or replace save files. Record platform, storefront, game version, mission or Horde map, host/client role, difficulty, the reward screen and the missing item type. Check whether the problem is experience, a Trait, an emote, an achievement or mission completion; those may not share one cause. Cold Iron has acknowledged post-Queen reward problems and says another update is being prepared, but no universal recovery procedure has been published. Use Known Issues and Mission Issues for current status.