Aliens Dark Descent: How to reset aggressiveness level? Aliens Dark Descent guide, walkthrough

The difficult level of alien aggression may prevent you in Aliens Dark Descent from continuing the mission. This guide page tells you how to reset the aggression level and lower the difficulty for clashes with xenomorphs.

Last update: 17 July 2023

When Alien Aggressiveness reaches red level, the gameplay may become unbearably difficult, making completing further mission objectives very hard. On this page of the guide, we show how to solve the problem - you'll learn how to reset Alien Aggressiveness and we answer the question whether you need to complete a mission in one go/sitting.

• Monitoring Alien Aggressiveness
• Returning to Otago and next day
• Returning to mission area and resetting Alien Aggressiveness

Monitoring Alien Aggressiveness

1. The Alien Aggressiveness bar determines the intensity of xenomorph attacks. As it is gradually filled, the monster attacks become more frequent and more enemies appear during them. This affects the current difficulty level of the game. Increased intensity of xenomorph attacks means more chances of your squad members dying or receiving serious damage, and your ammo and medicine supply is also depleted faster.
2. The current aggression level is displayed in the top right corner of the screen. Hunted and Detected statuses seriously affect this bar. The aggressiveness has 3 main levels - easy, medium, and hard.
3. Alien Aggressiveness stops increasing after you return to hiding. You should strive to stay in this state for as long as you can i.e. observe the Motion Tracker and avoid unnecessary confrontations.

Returning to Otago and next day

It is very likely that high Alien Aggressiveness will ensue long before you're close to the main goals of the mission, making the situation very difficult. Continuing on with the mission during this state is not recommended, as xenomorph attacks will become very frequent, with massive hordes appearing from every direction.

A big convenience appearing in Aliens Dark Descent is that you don't have to complete a mission in one go (without returning to the base). At any time, you can retreat from the mission area and return to USS Otago. This will not revert your progress in that mission to zero and at the next visit to the mission area (e.g. to Dead Hills) you will be back to the objective that you've left with.

Escaping the mission area is possible after returning to ARC. Once at the vehicle, choose Evacuation. You'll return to USS Otago and see the summary of the latest excursion.

At every return to USS Otago, you can do the following:

1. send injured squad members to the clinic;
2. use up loot and gathered resources e.g. to buy new weapons;
3. promote marines to higher ranks;
4. replace or upgrade equipment.

To continue with the abandoned mission, you need to advance to the next day, when next deployment is possible. You don't have to choose the same marines for the mission. It is even recommended to choose other marines from the pool of available personnel, preferably those rested and in good health.

Returning to mission area and resetting Alien Aggressiveness

On the command center screen, you can deploy to the same location you've abandoned. An additional convenience is the ability to choose the place to continue the mission from several deploy sites. During your rest at USS Otago, you may have received new mission objectives which weren't available then.

After returning to the mission, the alien aggressiveness bar will be revert to safe values. This will allow you to continue the mission without hordes of aliens breathing on your neck. We recommend returning back to base at least once during every mission so the aggressiveness level is lowered and the squad is switched to rested and healthy soldiers.