Tramuas in Aliens: Dark Descent are status penalties that accrue depending on the highest level of stress your Marines reached in the previous mission, with one Trauma Point being given per level of stress. For instance, if they reach Terrified (the third level of excess stress) stress levels at any point, they will then have 3 Trauma Points, which will then give them a Trauma. If they get three more Trauma Points, they will reach a worse version of that Trauma.
Here’s just a few Traumas that you can experience in Aliens: Dark Descent:
Depressive
Starts each mission more stressed.
Pyrophobia
Scared of fire, will take more stress damage near it.
Claustrophobia
Can no longer reduce stress when resting in a shelter.
Stress and Trauma are two systems that feed into each other a lot in Dark Descent, with many Traumas making your stress debuffs even more pronounced. Many different debuffs revolve around things like worse accuracy and making you gain Command Skill points slower, which essentially hamstrings how effectively you can use special skills in combat. For that reason, you’re going to want to avoid sending out traumatised soldier if you can and treat their trauma.
To remove Traumas in Dark Descent, players must unlock the Psychiatric Care Unit in the Medical Quarters, which unlock after completing Mission 2, Berkley’s Docks. Once back aboard the Otago and a brief cutscene with Counselor Saira Kabiri, you will then have access to the PCU.
In essence, you leave your traumatised Marines for a few days at the PCU and their traumas are slowly reduced until they are gone. You can pull them from treatment at any time, but it’s probably best to leave them there until they are fully fighting fit.
Players can also unlock the Mind of Steel common attribute, which removes any traumas after three days.
Bear in mind that if your soldier is both wounded and traumatised, you will need to wait until their wounds heal before they can then also be sent for trauma treatment, meaning that some Marines could be out for as much as a week of action, depending on just how badly the last mission went. For that reason, and to also keep aggression levels manageable, we recommend swapping your teams around every time you complete two main objectives.
Aliens: Dark Descent is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X & S.
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