Broforce's new Alien-inspired content will lead to so many accidental deaths

There are already countless ways to die in Free Lives' franchise mash-up shooter Broforce, most of them involving you or your co-op teammates putting an explosive somewhere ... inconvenient. That grand tradition will be continued in the game's upcoming update, which features enemies, environments and new mechanics inspired by the Alien film franchise. Only, you know, a version of the Alien franchise featuring the Terminator and Neo from the Matrix hunting down the devil.

There are, of course, enemies that will kill you in Broforce's new content, too. Facehuggers will spawn from eggs that players touch and fail to destroy in time. If one hops onto your dome — or an enemy's dome, for that matter — it's an insta-kill, turning your body into an incubator for a Xenomorph brute. Those have even more death-dealing prowess, as they can charge through a whole crowd of characters in the blink of an eye, killing everyone they touch. There's also a living alien cave that will try and digest you, which is pretty great.

But the source of the most laughter during my three-player demo session with the new content at PAX South were the deaths that we brought upon each other. Most of the levels in the update are tight quarter, underground areas, which makes those kinds of betrayals less avoidable. You've got less environment to use to avoid that exploding barrel or rocket-propelled gas tank, both of which spawn plentifully, inexplicably in these subterranean alien caverns. The ceiling is chockablock with boulders, which set off chain reactions when they fall, dropping even larger boulders, forever.

Certain passageways in the level are lined with bony spikes that will stab outward when a player comes near, which may have been the leading cause of death during my demo. When they're oriented in a passageway leading upwards, avoiding them means executing a fairly tricky series of wall jumps. When they connect rooms horizontally, they can easily dispatch you if you're not paying attention — say, if you're trying to not get killed by a hulking Xenomorph, for example.

Of course, with proper timing, you can use them to take out pursuing enemies, as well. Or you can just blow them up! This is Broforce; of course you can blow them up.

There's no exact release date for this new content, but you can follow along with its development on Free Lives' official website.