Aliens vs. Predator

Aliens vs. Predator (2010) is a first-person shooter developed by Rebellion Developments and published by Sega, released on February 16, 2010 in North America, February 18 in Australia, and February 19 in Europe for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It has three separate campaigns, one each for the Colonial Marines, the Aliens, and the Predators, which together tell a single story set around a Predator pyramid on a Weyland-Yutani colony. It is a reboot, not a sequel to Aliens versus Predator 2. Critics were lukewarm, with Metacritic scores of 68 on PC, 65 on PS3, and 64 on Xbox 360, but players bought it: it entered the UK all-formats chart at number one and sold more than 1.69 million copies worldwide by May 2010.

Several games share this name, and the search results mix them. This card covers the 2010 game. The 1999 Windows game by the same studio, sold on GOG as the Classic 2000 edition, has its own page at Aliens versus Predator (1999), followed by Aliens versus Predator 2 and the real-time strategy game Aliens versus Predator: Extinction.

Technical Specifications

Three Species, One Pyramid

The three campaigns are separate in plot and gameplay, but they share a storyline. In the Marine campaign, Weyland-Yutani discovers a Predator pyramid and the Aliens escape; a Marine known as “Rookie” survives a crash on the colony and works with Corporal Tequila and the android Katya. In the Alien campaign, a Xenomorph called “Six,” bred by Weyland, escapes after an electromagnetic pulse from the pyramid, frees the others and their Queen, and eventually becomes a new Queen itself. In the Predator campaign, a young Predator named Dark is sent by clan leader Spartan to investigate a distress call, destroys the pyramid and a Weyland-Yutani lab, and kills a Predalien. Lance Henriksen voices Karl Bishop Weyland.

How Each Species Plays

The Marines are the conventional shooter, with pulse rifles, flamethrowers, and smartguns, plus lamps, flares, and a motion tracker whose beeping builds tension. The Aliens fight in close quarters with claws and tails, climb walls and ceilings, and hide in shadow; in the campaign they harvest hosts with facehuggers and perform stealth kills. The Predators are stealth-focused: they jump between treetops with “focus jumping,” switch between thermal and other vision modes, and carry a plasma cannon, mines, a disc, a combi-stick, and wristblades. Each species sees the others through its own vision mode, so a firefight with all three present means choosing which threat to deal with first.

Multiplayer Modes

Shacknews lists seven modes: Death Match, Infestation, Mixed Species Death Match, Survivor, Predator Hunt, Species Death Match, and Domination. In Infestation, one player starts as an Alien against Marines, and each Marine who dies joins the Aliens. In Predator Hunt, one stealthy Predator hunts Marine prey. Survivor is a co-op mode in which up to four players hold an arena against waves of stronger Aliens. Species Death Match sets Marine, Alien, and Predator teams against each other, and Domination is a control-point mode. Reviewers called multiplayer the strongest part of the package, singling out Infestation, Predator Hunt, and Domination, but they also complained about recycled campaign maps and, in Destructoid’s console review, weak matchmaking, no host migration, and no dedicated servers. A PC patch in March 2010 added dedicated-server support, with the server files in the Tools section of Steam. We have not verified how active lobbies are today.

Is Aliens vs. Predator (2010) a Good Game?

Players keep asking this, and the reviews split on it. Game Informer gave it 5.75/10, calling it derivative and repetitive and noting that all three campaigns reuse the same levels. Destructoid gave 6.5/10, praising the Alien campaign as the standout, finding the Marine campaign tense but cheap in places, and calling the Predator campaign the weakest. GamesRadar was warmer, calling it a creepy, ultra-gory three-species war that mostly lives up to the franchise, with a short single-player mode, bland level design, and confusing Alien and Predator controls. Edge scored it 5/10. Praise went to atmosphere and multiplayer; criticism went to the melee system, the lack of set pieces, and thin multiplayer content.

Controversy and Ratings

An early build was refused classification in Australia in 2009, which effectively banned it. Sega appealed and won in December 2009, and the game was rated MA15+ without cuts. In the United States, the Predator’s trophy-kill animations were partly censored to avoid an Adults Only rating. Rebellion’s CEO Jason Kingsley defended the violence as part of the franchise’s adult-oriented world.

DLC

Two map packs followed. The Swarm Map Pack, released on March 18, 2010, includes two multiplayer maps (Docks and Machine) and two Survivor maps (Outpost and Hive), all previously exclusive to the Special Editions. The second pack is the Bughunt Map Pack. Both were sold on Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live.

Where to Play It Today

The PC version is sold on Steam, whose store page is age-gated, so check the current price there directly. Physical PS3 and Xbox 360 copies circulate secondhand (GameStop listed them at $19.99 but out of stock when we checked), and the Xbox 360 version runs on Xbox One and Series consoles through backward compatibility; the disc plays directly on an Xbox One. If you meant the older game, Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 is on GOG for $5.99, with multiplayer through GOG GALAXY and crossplay with Steam; see Aliens versus Predator (1999). Wolf from Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is available in this game as a Predator skin.