Aliens Versus Predator: Extinction is a 2003 console exclusive Real-Time Strategy game developed by EA Games, marking a significant departure from most games in the Alien vs. Predator franchise. Rather than play directly as a single Alien, Predator, or Colonial Marine, you instead command groups of them as they engage in a war for dominance.

Weyland-Yutani and the Colonial Marines have jointly founded a mining colony on the wild planet of LV-742, but things quickly get out of control when the colonists accidentally unearth secret caches of Alien eggs. As Xenomorph hives emerge across the globe, a clan of Predators arrives seeking bloodsport and valuable trophies. The planet is quickly engulfed in a Mêlée à Trois, which is only complicated further once Weyland-Yutani starts taking an interest in both savage alien races...

This game features the following tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo:
  • The marine Flame Trooper and Smartgunner can be upgraded with cobalt-60 ammo. The radiation they put out stops the Xenomorph's Healing Factor.
  • Even the unupgraded smartgun fires target-seeking ammo, which can be seen to visibly swerve to hit maneuvering enemies and "dynamically re-target in flight."
  • The Sniper's rifle can be upgraded to fire controlled fusion cells that tunnel through obstacles and cover.
• Accidentally Beneficial Attack: Glaive Masters wear phoenix-hide armor, which reacts to heat and radiation by generating energy the warrior can then use, so it's a double-whammy if they're attacked by upgraded flamethrowers.
• Achilles' Heel: The Aliens possess a vulnerability to fire, it does extra damage to their units and negates any regenerative abilities they have. In the main "Aliens" series, they are implied to be immune to fire; it's just really painful.
• Action Bomb: Runners explode violently when killed by fire, like the one from Alien³ did. However, that was a special case, as it was subsequently doused with cold water after being heated to a dull red glow.
• Another Side, Another Story: The three campaigns are roughly parallel to each other, and many levels in each campaign involve dealing with the ramifications of events that occur in the other two. The best example is the destruction of Kadinsky's lab. Predator 6 deals with the attack on the lab and subsequent kidnapping of the doctor. This leads directly into Alien 5, as a stray plasmacaster bolt during the assault breaks the lock on a specimen containment cell, allowing the Aliens to escape. Meanwhile, the kidnapping of Kadinsky results in the Marines assaulting the Predator base in Marine 7.
• Artificial Stupidity: Terrible pathfinding AI, leading to units going on mile-long walks when the player's not looking, missing perfectly serviceable doors, etc.
• As Lethal as It Needs to Be: Despite possessing deadly claws, teeth, and blades, Alien attacks merely render their victims comatose so that they can be dragged back to the hive for impregnation. They never recover from this state, however, so they are still considered dead for gameplay purposes. The Alien Ravager, however, conspicuously subverts this - It will always kill its victims outright via decapitation, preventing later impregnation.
• Attack Backfire: Runners killed by fire violently explode.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Marine ExoSuit is built like a tank and packs some of the best firepower in the game, but is obscenely slow and takes up a whopping four population points. To put that into perspective, the Marines' cap is 25 units, so almost a fifth would be taken up by just one ExoSuit. While extremely tempting, it's better to save the cap and purchase more specialized units like the Smartgunners, who can make up for the ExoSuit's firepower, or limit yourself to one ExoSuit and use it as a damage sponge to keep the enemy off your more fragile units.
  • The Alien Ravager is an extremely powerful melee unit, the most powerful in the game, in fact. Still, they're a purely offensive unit that fights to kill, meaning they don't leave comatose hosts for impregnation, making them non-viable if your Hive's numbers are running thin.
  • The Predator Vanguard. They pack a mighty wallop with their Sinister Scythe that kills just about anything in three to four hits and are great at soaking up damage, especially with their upgrade that disintegrates projectiles hurled their way. Still, their attack speed is abysmal, their upgrade is useless against melee-focused units like the Aliens, Flamethrower, and SADAR Marines, or even hostile Predators, and not ideal in situations that pit them against multiple enemies, which is extremely common. It's best to use them as a Support Party Member to pick off strong enemies while backing them up with other units than solely relying on them as your frontline.
• Bad Black Barf: When upgraded, the Runner will poison enemies with symbiotic spores that turn their blood black and soupy, which weakens them and allows the Hive to track them. Enemies infected with these spores can be seen vomiting a black substance.
• The Berserker: Predator Brawlers' primary tactic is to close the distance and dish a flurry of blows that stagger basic enemy units, preventing them from retaliating. With the Glory Strike upgrade, they'll inflict a devastating blow that can take the head off their prey.
• BFG: The Marines love these.
  • SADAR troopers are equipped with multi-shot rocket launchers.
  • The Exosuit is equipped with twin miniguns by default, and its upgrade features a pair of railgun mitrailleuses, described in terms similar to the Metal Storm weapon system.
  • Smartgunners wield Squad-Automatic Weapons with target-seeking ammo, which is excellent against lightly-armored units, but is less effective against heavily armored units.
  • The Sentry Gun is equipped with an autocannon by default
• Big Bad: Dr. Kadinsky, a Mad Scientist whose studies into both alien species causes problems throughout all three campaigns.
  • Marine Campaign: The Marines are assigned to obtain Xenomorph specimens for Dr. Kadinsky to study, while protecting him from the hostile alien races. The final mission has the Marines storm the Predator compound in an effort to rescue him.
  • Alien Campaign: Two levels are spent within Kadinsky's laboratories; the first as captive specimens fighting to survive his experiments, and the second turning the labs into a new hive after the Predator raid causes a containment breach. His genetic alterations of the acquired Xenomorph specimens from the Marine campaign lead to the creation of the K-Series, which is battled by the original strain throughout the rest of the campaign.
  • Predator Campaign: A disgraced Predator allows itself to be captured and experimented on by Kadinsky, who imbues its DNA with that of a Xenomorph, creating a PredAlien Queen that must be killed in the final Predator mission. This act was deemed so sacrilegious, the Predators made a point to kidnap Kadinsky and torture him to death for birthing the creature, which leads to the Marines storming their base to rescue him in the final level of their campaign.
• Blade Below the Shoulder:
  • The Predator Brawlers fight exclusively using their arm-blades.
  • The Alien Ravagers fight using enormous scythe-like claws called Hullblades, which they use to decapitate opponents.
  • The Alien Carrier has mantis-like claws in place of hands.
• Bloody Murder:
  • The praetorian's digestive and vascular systems are connected, which allows them to vomit large amounts of their acidic blood on enemies.
  • Upgraded Warriors explode on depletion of their first health bar, showering their acid blood everywhere and leaving them bisected, but still very capable, well, warriors.
  • Runners explode when burned due to their hydraulic musculature boiling.
• Boring, but Practical: Every race has a unit that isn't as cool as others, but generally necessary for effective engagements.
  • The Marines have the basic pulse-rifle-toting Infantry. They're inexpensive and the most versatile unit on the Marine roster that pack respectable firepower. Their upgrades improve their health and combat effectiveness by equipping them with an under-barrel grenade launcher and armor that renders them immune to being staggered. You can never go wrong with having Infantry as the backbone of your platoon.
  • The Aliens have the rank-and-file Warriors, which are purely physical foot soldiers designed to fight and die in large numbers. They have the armor to soak up enough damage for your more specialized breeds to do their work while dealing reasonable damage themselves. Additionally, their upgrades enable them to continue fighting, showering enemies with acid as their legs are blown up, but fully capable of continuing the fight, providing them greater staying power in battles. If they can reach a Hive Node, they'll recover their legs and be good as new. When expecting to face large numbers of Marines, Warriors are going to carry the Hive through most engagements.
  • The Predators have the Hunter. They're nowhere near as tanky as the Vanguard, nor as flashy and powerful as the Hydra or Blazer, or even melee oriented for that matter, but they possess powerful focus fire and can kill most single targets with ease in large groups. They can also fire while moving, so it's perfectly viable to just compose your army of Hunters, acquire the vision upgrades to increase their range, and then kite the enemy to kill them before they close the distance. Their Dark Plasma upgrades furthers their damage output by scaling to a percentage of enemy health. This is especially effective against Aliens.
• Breath Weapon: The Drone Aliens, once upgraded, spit cystic spores that infect any enemy they strike and result in them birthing stronger Aliens. It's also the only truly ranged attack available to the alien faction.
• Cannibal Larder: In the Alien campaign, players are encouraged to make these out of all the marines their brood incapacitates. All aliens can be set to "Gather", in a patrol fashion, fighting whatever enters a particular area and dragging them to either the queen or the nearest clutch of eggs. Once the number of bodies exceeds the population cap, they start piling up around the queen's feet, to be instantly facehugged the moment a soldier dies.
• Cannibalism Superpower: The PredAlien regains health by biting opponents, and is the only Xenomorph unit to do so.
• Chest Burster: Present as a nearly-useless unit that hatches from facehugged enemies and map-creeps (they are, after all, only babies). They exist solely to grow into another, actually functional unit. Their sole upgrade, Twin Implantation, produces two of them for the price of one.
• Civil WarCraft: Each race encounters a Palette Swap of itself at some point during their respective campaigns - The Marines fight mercenaries, the Predators come to blows with a rival clan, and the Aliens battle a genetically-engineered mutant strain of their species.
• Cold Sniper:
  • The Marines get the Sniper, the only female unit, who can be upgraded to overpenetrate targets and most obstacles in the environment.
  • The Predators receive a more exotic unit called the Stalker. This Predator wears thin, restrictive armor that enables it to cloak for fully twice as long as other units, and comes equipped with a speargun that can hit distant targets spotted by allies or the various Vision Modes. The speargun can be upgraded with 'bleeder spears' that lacerate targets and chemically induce bleeding, which quickly causes humans and most wildlife to become pathetically weak and barely able to move, thanks to the blood loss.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: On the minimap, Marines are blue, Predators are orange, Aliens are green, and bodies that can be harvested for skulls/Facehugger hosts are yellow.
  • Normal Facehuggers are the usual pale, fleshy color, but the Praetorian Facehuggers are deep red.
  • The K-Series Aliens have bright golden exoskeletons, distinguishing them from the original, darker-colored strain.
• A Commander Is You:
  • Marines: Balanced/Ranger. The Marines lack melee units and are pretty frail, but make up for it with a wide roster of powerful ranged and utility units. They're capable of fielding more troops than the Predators, but not as many as the Aliens, and are reliant on Commtechs to call in reinforcements at designated drop zones. The utilities of the various units encourage keeping your platoon diverse to cover each other's shortcomings.
  • Predators: Elitist/Guerrilla. The Predators have the smallest population cap, and each unit is fairly expensive. However, all Predator units can cloak and heal themselves at will by expending energy that replenishes over time. They're reliant on a slow-moving Shrine to call down reinforcements via drop-pods, and they deploy faster than any other race. Each Predator also excels at a particular role, while sorely lacking in others, which requires players to pick and choose which units to bring along for the hunt.
  • Aliens: Spammer/Technical. The Aliens have the highest population cap of the races, allowing them to amass a sizable horde to Zerg Rush the opposition. However, their upgraded Drones are the only dedicated ranged units; they're reliant on a Queen to lay eggs and impregnate hosts with chestbursters, which take time to incubate. On the other hand, they are capable of growing large batches of Aliens that can outpace the recruitment rates of both the Marines and Predators when managed properly. The Drones can also lay down Hive Nodes, which heal nearby units, as well as negate Predator cloaking. In essence, players who master the technical aspects of the Aliens will have a much easier time rolling over enemies through sheer attrition.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The campaign's rules for enemies vary wildly. Sometimes they'll Gang Up on the Human even if it's the Aliens and Predators working together, and other times the game just spawns swarms of them off-screen in a complete violation of unit spawns while still bringing them in the regular way to boot.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Predators' biggest flaw as a faction is that most of their hunting units excel at what they're meant for and only that.
  • The Brawlers are great melee units who can inflict a lot of quick damage; they're also lightly armored and can only face on enemy at a time, making them vulnerable to swarm tactics or being cut down by concentrated Marine fire before they can get up close.
  • The Hunters have powerful ranged attacks and can move while firing, but they fire only one shot at a time and are noticeably slow than the Brawlers. If caught out, Hunters will be quickly cut down.
  • The Spear Master has great crowd control and can insta-kill enemy units while cloaked, but their individual damage output is low, so they're going to struggle in one-on-one engagements.
  • The Disc Master is a handy ranged unit, but they have no staying power in melee and their discs take time to rack up damage.
  • The Stalkers are great at picking off lone enemies under the safety of cloak, but they're slow, have poor armor, and can only attack one unit at a time, so they can be quickly cut down if exposed and routed.
  • The Vanguard has a lot of armor and health, and their percent-based damaging scythe will cut down even the toughest units in the game within a few hits, but they're slow in mobility and attacking, so they can be cut down before they inflict any meaningful damage if not properly supported.
• Critical Hit: Upgraded Predator Brawlers are able to score critical hits on opponents, and can deal decapitating blows with their wrist-blades.
• Damage Typing: The game features Raw, Fire, Acid, and Dark Plasma damage. Raw damage is basic damage from claws, bullets, plasma globules, and stinger tails. Fire causes Damage Over Time and has a habit of ruining the special abilities of most Aliens if they die while burning (and results in an Attack Backfire when used on Runners and Glaive Masters; as Runners explode when burnt and Glaive Masters absorb the energy through their phoenix-hide armor). Acid is dealt through exposure to a Xenomorph's corrosive bodily fluids (whether through their blood or saliva depends on the breed), and directly reduces Armor protection. Dark Plasma initiates a "controlled energy reaction with the target's mass, allowing it to kill in a limited number of shots;" effectively a percent damage attack (10% for Hunter plasma guns and 25% for the Glaive Master's, er, glaive.)
• Deadly Disc: The Predator Disc Master throws homing smart discs to strike multiple targets, and can keep three discs in the air at once. Upgrading them will cause the smart discs to lodge in an opponent's body, dealing massive amounts of damage.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Aliens cannot gather the dead marines or predators put up as set dressing. They're already dead, so they're of no use to a parasitoid.
  • Aliens can be set to drag back comatose victims to the hive, and they pile up once the population cap is filled. If this were an Alien/AVP movie, they'd be cocooned to the walls.
  • Similar to how the aliens cannot make use of set-piece corpses, neither can the Predators. There's no glory in harvesting the skull off of a body that somebody else killed.
  • Killing Hive Nodes doesn't generate honour either, because they don't fight back. No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction.
  • Synths don't leave bodies for the aliens to infest, and they No-Sell most status effects, such as cystic tumors, blood poisoning, irradiation, and being speargunned. They're robots, so they have no biology to mess with.
  • The Commtech cannot call for backup inside buildings or caves, nor does his upgrade, a laser assassination system mounted on the USMC gunboat in orbit, function.
• Dragon Their Feet: After Kadinsky was captured and tortured to death by the Predators, all of his containment protocols fall apart, setting loose his genetic creations—the K-Series Aliens and a PredAlien Queen that creates its own hive. The K-Series is wiped out by the original strain, while the PredAlien Queen's hive is annihilated and nuked by the Predators.
• Elite Army: The Predators are described to a one (the only pronoun the Bestary uses to refer to them is "it") in terms of being trained to the pinnacle of their species' physiology, and wielding Advanced Archaic Weaponry just to make their trophy hunting more fun. Their actual army, which is comprised of the two most powerful units in the game, could and would easily crush the US Colonial Marine Corps if it weren't a mere distraction from the real threat.
• Elite Mook:
  • The upgraded Drone Aliens spit cystic spores at enemies that cause the hybrid Aliens born from them to be stronger and have more health, evidenced by a red stripe running down the middle of their heads.
  • Praetorian eggs spawn enhanced, scab-colored facehuggers that impregnate hosts with Praetorian xenomorphs, who act as the queen's Royal Guard. These can be further upgraded into Ravagers and Carriers
  • The Predators can requisition two "military-grade" hunters, the Blazer and Hydra, who are equipped with serious weaponry rather than hunting equipment.
• Escort Mission:
  • The third Marine mission has you escorting a noncombatant observer with your squad, and he's painfully fragile. Thankfully, keeping him alive is only a secondary objective.
  • In the sixth Alien mission, you need to rescue a captured Queen and keep her alive for the duration of the level. Unlike the Marines' escort mission, this is less of an issue since the Queen is more than capable of defending herself, and is especially dangerous when buffing the horde with the War Empress upgrade.
  • The final mission for both the Marines and Predators involves escorting a unique unit equipped with a thermonuclear device.
• Evil Versus Evil: The regular Aliens vs. the human-engineered K-Series Aliens.
• Explosive Breeder: Aliens can be upgraded with several abilities that increase their reproductive rates. Eggs get "Hyperfertility," which crams more facehuggers into them, and facehuggers get "Binary Infestation," which causes them to implant two larvae at once.
• Expy: Flamethrower Marines for StarCraft's Firebats. Both are a Heavily Armored Mook armed with a Fire-Breathing Weapon; deployed alongside rifle-grunts against Bioweapon Beasts on one side, and technologically advanced bastard aliens on the other.
• Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The Aliens generate new units by impregnating Marines, Predators, and wildlife with chestbursters - Different types of units require different hosts.
• Fastball Special: Xenomorph Carriers, well, carry facehuggers on their backs, and attack by throwing them at enemies.
• Fast-Killing Radiation: Humans can be upgraded to use radiological ammo, which counters the Xenomorph Healing Factor and causes Damage Over Time.
• Fragile Speedster: The Alien Runners can move extremely quick and take most enemies by surprise, but their damage output is rather weak. They're best used in hit-and-run tactics, especially in packs. If upgraded, they make good rush units as they explode upon death and deal damage to the enemy.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: The final missions of both the Alien and Predator campaigns involve battling mutant Alien strains created by the experiments of Weyland-Yutani. The Aliens have to fight a Palette Swap strain called the K-Series, while the Predators have to destroy a PredAlien hive ruled by a genetically-engineered PredAlien Queen.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The Commtech can't call in dropships or use the starships' assassination system indoors.
• Gatling Good: The Combat Loader Mini-Mecha carries twin miniguns.
• Glass Cannon: The Colonial Marines exemplify this trope on a faction-wide scale. A well-equipped and diverse platoon of Marines can output devastating firepower that mulches scores of enemy units before they get into range to inflict damage. However, the Marines are comparatively frail and can die quickly if caught out or faced with enemy ranged units. It isn't uncommon to lose a few Marines in skirmishes with Predator Hydras or Blazers. The only unit to avert this is the Combat ExoSuit.
• Godzilla Threshold: According to the codex, the Ravager Aliens are only brought in during extreme conflict, as they only kill their opponents and never take them as hosts.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Dr. Kadinsky for the Alien Campaign's final mission. After Predators ransacked Kadinsky's lab, the K-Series are set free and end up competing with the original strain for space and hosts. The conflict escalates into an all-out Hive War between the species, but Kadinsky is never faced by the Aliens (in fact, he was likely already killed by the Predators at this point).
• Grenade Launcher: The Marine Infantryman's upgrade equips them with M41A Assault Rifles, which include an underslung 40mm grenade launcher, which replaces their single-shot-at-max-range attack. This has an Arbitrary Weapon Range whereupon they switch to sprayin' and prayin'.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Upgraded Warrior Aliens deal armor-ignoring damage and gain the ability to keep fighting after their health reaches zero; they burst apart in a flurry of acid, and their upper bodies continue living. If they reach the hive and heal, they'll even regrow their lost limbs.
• Hazmat Suit: The Flame Trooper wears body armor called an "Apesuit" (so named because it makes its wearer resemble a gorilla) that is resistant to flames and acids. This includes its distinctive facemask, which is impossible for Facehuggers to grasp due to its shape, making them ideal for clearing out egg fields.
• Health Food:
  • Upgraded Drones spit predigestive "spores" that cause the hosts' flesh to erupt into cysts full of a nutrient goo that makes chestbursters grow up big and strong.
  • This is how the bestiary justifies that Hive Space enhances the alien Healing Factor.
  • Predaliens have predigestive saliva that turns enemies they harm into "nutrient slurry," invoking Life Drain.
• Hybrid Monster: A mechanic of the Alien faction. Different map creeps and enemy soldiers produce different strains of Xenomorphs. For reference, Oswocs' birth drones, Krillitics' and Kurns' birth runners, humans' birth warriors, and Predators' birth Predaliens.
• The Immune: Synths are immune to most status effects. In fact, it's easier to list which ones they ARE vulnerable to: acid scarring and immolation.
• Infernal Retaliation: If a Runner Alien dies sustaining fire damage, it will explode violently.
• Invisibility Cloak: A standard-issue Predator ability.
• Kill It with Fire: The only Xenomorphs not fucked right up by flamethrower troopers are the Runners, who explode when burnt to death, and the PredAliens which are mostly fireproof. Most others will have their Death-Activated Superpower ruined by being burned to death.
• Level in Reverse: The fifth level for the Marines is the same as the first level for the Aliens, in reverse — Where the Alien mission starts in the caves and requires you to destroy a human camp in the northwest, for the Marines you start in that northwestern corner and need to head southeast to invade the (now thriving) hive.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • The Predator Hydra - One of the two "Military Predator" units - carries a miniature missile silo on his back. The Hydra can send missiles to strike multiple targets, and when surrounded by enemies, it can simply launch a flurry of projectiles to indiscriminately hit everything around it.
  • The upgraded Marines' SADAR Troopers carry four-barreled rocket launchers that fire a barrage of HEAT missiles. Multiple SADAR Troopers can easily create a storm of missiles and immolate just about anything.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Kandinsky, a Weyland-Yutani geneticist brought in to study the alien races that face humanity. Two Marine levels involve capturing Aliens for him to study, one Predator level involves ransacking his lab and kidnapping him, and the final Marine level involves rescuing him. Two major threats—the K-Series Aliens and the Pred Alien Queen—are the results of his experiments on the nonhuman races.
• Man Bites Man: The PredAliens are the only Xenomorph unit to have a biting attack, augmented by corrosive saliva that restores health.
• Magnetic Weapons:
  • The ExoSuit's upgrade replaces its miniguns with a railgun mitrailleuse.
  • Likewise, the Sniper's upgrade is a railgun rifle equipped with plasma-tracer bullets, which can penetrate walls.
• Maximum HP Reduction: Alien cysts reduce enemy HP by the value of their attacks. This can only be fixed by Marine Medics with the "Counter-Xenology" upgrade. On the Predator side, Medicomps simply ignore the status effect and cure it instantly
• Meat Moss: Unlike the films, Alien hives are actually resinous moldings. The alien's "turrets," called "Hive Nodes," create a web of root-like filaments that secrete Health Food.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Xenomorphs. They're the only faction with any sort of base-building mechanics. To wit, they're expected to have their Queen produce an egg sac, then fortify her position with Hive Nodes for an Early-Warning System, and eggs to act as a minefield. The aforementioned Hive Nodes create a Home Field Advantage by spreading Meat Moss within a largeish radius around themselves that causes Alien units to heal over time. Furthermore, they can't requisition units directly. Their army is predicated on what enemies can be facehugged. If there's no Oswocs on the map, you don't get any drones; if there's no Krilitics, then there's no spawning Runners. Lastly, their "turret" is 100% sessile and helpless, whereas the other two can be deployed into automated gun emplacements or folded up and moved elsewhere; either being packed up and carried around by the USMC's Synthetics or move autonomously for the Predators.
• Mercy Kill: Units rendered 'comatose' by Alien attacks cannot be revived - The best you can do for them is to order your other units to kill them before a facehugger reaches them.
• Metamorphosis Monster:
  • The Praetorian Aliens can morph into a Queen provided that one doesn't already exist. They can also morph into Carrier or Ravager Aliens once upgraded.
  • Upgraded PredAliens will grow in power every time they engage in combat, molting and gaining HP as well as spines on their backs. Once they reach their maximum HP cap, the PredAliens will resemble lionfish.
• Mid-Season Twist:
  • Marine campaign ("New Focus on Predators"): The Marines starts to fight against the Predators.
  • Predator campaign ("The Predator Ancients, Revealed"): The Predator clans are being made to fight each other.
  • Alien campaign ("Bio-Engineered Aliens"): Artificially bred aliens called the K-series has been bred by humans.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • The Marines have the Combat ExoSuit, which moves at a snail's pace, but packs heavy firepower and can soak up damage like a sponge.
  • The Predators' base unit, the Shrine, is quite slow, but has a large health pool and can fire a multitude of heat lasers that fry enemies to a crisp, making it an excellent support unit in large engagements.
• Mini-Mecha: The ExoSuit, an armored power loader equipped with twin minigun Arm Cannons or twin railgun mitrailleurs, one on each arm.
• Mirror Match: Each campaign features combat against a competing faction of the player character's species. The marines encounter mercenaries searching for xenomorph specimens, the Predators fight another clan, and the Aliens' ultimate enemies are the K-Series.
• Mr. Fixit: The Commtech can heal Synths and sentry turrets the same way the Medic heals troops.
• Mook Commander:
  • The upgraded Queen Alien will buff all transbreed Aliens (born from regular facehuggers) around her, making their heads glow green.
  • This is an actual unit for the Marines. The Commtech is responsible for requisitioning new soldiers and directing the fight.
• More Dakka: The Marines' M.O. is to essentially pump out so much firepower that their enemies can't close the distance to inflict casualties to their relatively weak units up close.
  • The Exo Suit is equipped with twin miniguns, and its upgraded form features a pair of railgun mitrailleuses. The ensuing storm of bullets slows most units significantly and can rapidly deplete their health bars, but it is hindered by its slow speed and limited mobility.
  • Marines take aimed shots at long range, but spray 'n' pray at close range, effectively doubling their damage output.
• Neutrals, Critters, and Creeps: Docile cow-like oswocs, aggressive scorpion-like krilitics, and neutral kurn. Humans can ignore all of them (unless they piss off a krilitic or pack of kurn for some reason), while the others use them to generate resources in their own way (infestation or trophy hunting).
• No Ending: The game snaps to the credits when the final missions of each campaign are completed. While each faction achieves its respective goals— the Aliens thwart all attempts to contain them and outperform the K-Series; the Predators win their trials, kill Kadinsky, and destroy the hybrid queen; the Marines nuke the Predator base — the overall fate of the planet remains unspoken.
• No-Gear Level: There are several instances where you'll be expected to complete a mission, or part of a mission, without your faction's headquarters unit available to summon reinforcements or buy upgrades.
  • Marine 3: You begin the mission without a Comm Tech, but find one not five minutes into the level as the survivor of an attack.
  • Predator 4: You lack a Shrine and have to complete the mission with a handful of units. Unlike the other campaigns, this is played straight for the entire level.
  • Alien 5: You begin without access to a Queen or Praetorian, and have to find one in the holding cells.
• No-Sell:
  • Marine Flamethrower troopers wear special helmets that prevent facehuggers from getting a good grip, which means they can't be impregnated while conscious.
  • Synths have no biology to speak of, meaning they're immune to a host of status effects, like cystic tumors, blood poisoning, being instakilled by facehuggers, and being slowed or taking Damage Over Time from the upgraded Stalker's bleeder spears.
  • PredAliens in turn are able to shrug off fire attacks, which are devastating to other Alien units.
• One-Hit Kill: Facehuggers will instantly kill most organic creatures they manage to attach themselves to, assuming they don't get smacked aside or shot mid-leap. The sole exception is the flamethrower marine, whose facemask is acidproof and difficult to grip.
• Percent Damage Attack:
  • Plasma gun Predators can use "Dark Plasma," which does 10% of an enemy's health.
  • The Vanguard Predator's scythe does 25% health as damage.
• Plague Master: Alien Runners have a unique symbiosis with alien spores: they weaponize them through nematocysts on their hands, which causes blood poisoning on anyone they can't kill outright.
• Punched Across the Room: The Alien Queen's melee attacks can send smaller enemies flying a considerable distance, stunning them.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The Alien Queen is one of the strongest units in the Alien lineup; only surpassed by the Ravager in terms of attack power. Having the Queen lead major assaults is a valid tactic, especially once she's been upgraded with the army-buffing 'War Empress' trait.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: The PredAlien produces a fire-resistant secretion that prevents it from igniting and reduces flame damage, making them ideal for dealing with enemies that are deadly to other Alien units. It is explained that they acquired this trait from their Predator hosts, which lived on an arid Death World.
• Secondary Fire:
  • Basic Marine Infantry switch between Zoom at range and Rapid Fire up-close. Their upgrade issues an advanced assault rifle (and acid-resistant body armor) with an underslung Grenade Launcher, which they use at range.
  • Plasmacaster Predators can swap between regular, incendiary, and "dark" plasma bolts.
• Sensor Suspense: The Synth is equipped with a motion tracker, which lets out the classic, insistant "mling...! mling...!" sound-effect from Aliens, and marks the location of all enemies in a radius that extends beyond visual range with an "it's somewhere in this radius" icon on-screen, but doesn't actually identify what they are until they're within range of the Synth's pistol/shotgun.
• Sickly Green Glow: A Color Motif of the Aliens, derived from the logo of their franchise. Their HUD is stylized to resemble green light, Alien units on the minimap are marked with bright green dots, and Aliens buffed by the Queen's 'War Empress' upgrade have their skulls glow green.
• Sinister Scythe: The Predator Vanguard wields a dark plasma scythe that scales its damage output with its target - no enemy in the game can survive more than four strikes from a Vanguard.
• Stock Sound Effect: The One-Woman Wail vocalization from Xenosaga's "Song of Nephilim" plays as part of the background music in the first Alien level, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
• Taking You with Me: Several Alien units can damage or even kill enemies upon death (though several of them are only accessible through upgrades).
  • The upgraded Carrier will shower the immediate area with acid and facehuggers when killed. In contrast, the upgraded Warrior will splatter acid when their legs are blown off though they can still fight afterwards. However, both of these will be negated if killed by fire.
  • On the other hand, the Runner will explode into what the beastiary describes as "cartilaginous shrapnel" only if killed with fire, making them ideal rush units when Marines with Flamethrowers.
• Techno Babble: The game attempts to explain how xenomorphs see with no eyes. They produce spores that "encode information on ambient radiation," whatever that means.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Provided one has enough currency, there is nothing stopping players from investing all their unit spots into fully-upgraded high-power units like Xenomorph Ravagers, Predator Hydras or Blazers, or Marine SADAR Troopers and ExoSuits, and utterly obliterating every enemy they come across.
• Unique Enemy:
  • The PredAlien Queen in the final Predator mission.
  • The final Alien mission features the only appearance of non-hostile human cultists that bow down and worship approaching xenomorphs.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Well, yes and no. As mentioned previously, most xenomorphs get crispy fried by flame marines, but this can result in an Attack Backfire if used against runners, and predaliens No-Sell fire damage.
• Weaponized Offspring: The Alien Carrier is a late-game unit that can carry and nurture up to twelve Facehuggers on its back. In combat, the Facehuggers can detach from the Carrier and pounce at nearby enemies.
• Weird Currency: The marines are the only faction to use actual cash as their resource, which is acquired by repairing atmospheric generators. Aliens use "Infestation Points" gained whenever they incapacitate a host and birth a new adult alien, and Predators use Honour, gained by collecting trophy skulls from fresh kills.
• Worker Unit: The Marines have Androids, who set up Sentry Guns, and the Commtech, who requisitions new soldiers. The Aliens have drones, which serve as their basic combat unit, capable of producing and moving Hive Nodes. However, any alien breed, except the Queen, can drag stunned enemies to the hive. Facehuggers act as both resource harvesters (because the xenomorph economy is based on how many hosts are infested) and "larvae," as the resultant Chest Burster will grow into a Hybrid Monster based on whatever they face-hugged. The Predators have the Shrine, which is more of a Base on Wheels.
• You Have Researched Breathing:
  • Marines have to upgrade to the M41A, which was previously depicted as standard-issue.
  • Predators have to upgrade to heat vision, which not only comes standard in their helmets in every other Predator work, but seems to be their biological mode of view^note going by the POV shot in Predator (1987) when the yautja takes off his helmet!
  • The Aliens are less egregious, as their upgrades are largely never seen outside of this game (ex, 1 egg=1 facehugger=1 chestburster everywhere else), but still unlock things they ought to be born with, such as the ability to spit acid (drones) or have stinger-cells on their palms (runners).
• You Require More Vespene Gas: An unusual variant. Each race has a unique currency that it utilizes and obtains through combat. However, only the Marines solely use their money for everything; for the Aliens and Predators, unconscious or dead bodies are a resource. Both races can be set to "Gather" with Predators collecting all viable trophy skulls to get a bonus to their Honour, and the Aliens dragging them back to their nests for breeding, as the only combat unit they can directly produce is Facehuggers.
• Zerg Rush: The Aliens' high population cap encourages this strategy. It's perfectly viable to amass a large force and overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers.