Alien vs. Predator’s Predalien Explained: Origin, Alt Designs & Powers

The Alien vs. Predator movies introduced a host of weird, wacky concepts to the series’ extended universe. The one that stood as the wildest, though, might just be the “Predalien”, the hybrid creature that is the result of a Xenomorph facehugger impregnating a Predator. This monster was the main antagonist of the much-maligned crossover sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, and remains an oddity of both franchises to this day.

Although the creature has reached notoriety due to the negative reception to Requiem, the Predalien has existed in the franchise’s expanded universe long before the film was released. In fact, the first real appearance of the Predalien was in a 1995 two-part comic book story entitled Aliens vs. Predator: Duel. The Alien vs. Predator video game series, first released in 1999 with a sequel in 2001, also incorporated the hybrid beast in their storylines, as did other future games.

The Predalien is the logical conclusion to a crossover of the two film franchises, a killing machine that incorporates the most brutal aspects of both types of species. Fans and critics consider the Alien vs. Predator films—especially Requiem—to be a low point for both franchises, so the creature has unfortunately not received the cinematic reverence it arguably deserves. Luckily, the Predalien lives on in expanded universe entries that may be more palatable than Requiem‘s messy disaster of a story.

Predalien Design For The Movie

Concept art by Dave Dorman for the creature initially surfaced with the second draft of Peter Briggs’ unproduced script for an Alien vs. Predator movie all the way back in 1991. Entitled Alien vs. Predator: The Hunt, the film would have been heavily based on the crossover comic books, and would have introduced a Predalien significantly different than the beast that finally appeared in 2007.

At first, the special effects artists for the film wanted to emphasize the Xenomorph aspects of the Predalien since the creature wasn’t technically an offspring of a Predator, as well as to clarify what side of the conflict the monster was fighting on. This design, which included the signature Predator mandibles with a Xenomorph body, was more similar to Dorman’s artwork. However, in a story infamous within the fanbase, a 14-year old boy on a tour of Fox Studios saw the bust and proclaimed, “Wow! Cool alien!” This prompted the artists to re-design the Predalien’s dreadlocks, which were initially a tendril-like mass of tails, to make them look more like a traditional Predator’s.

The Predalien’s In-Universe Origin

Alien 3 had already established that a Xenomorph took on the physical traits of its host when that film’s alien, which emerged from a dog, ran on all fours. The Predalien thus adapts the traits of its Predator host. The ending of the first Alien vs. Predator shows a chestburster with Predator mandibles erupting out of its victim’s body. The events of Alien vs. Predator: Requiem pick up immediately afterward when the creature attacks the other Predators on board their space ship, and causes the vessel to crash land in a small town in Colorado. The Predalien escapes with a group of facehuggers, wreaking havoc on the place, as a Predator receives a distress signal to hunt the creature down.

Special Abilities

The Predalien has the unique ability to impregnate hosts through direct mouth-to-mouth contact, bypassing the use of facehuggers. This innovation led to one of the most notorious aspects of Requiem, which saw the Predalien disturbingly hunting pregnant women as hosts for its spawn. The idea is that the Xenomorph needed an embryo to feast on in order to help it grow, but this detail was reviled by fans and critics as needlessly gratuitous and cruel. This ability also implies that the Predalien is a Xenomorph queen.

Besides this, the Predalien is also stronger, faster, and deadlier than either of the species it shares its DNA with. In deleted scenes and concept art for the film, the Predalien is shown to skin its human victims and rip out their spinal columns in true Predator fashion. However, this aspect was incorporated in the 2010 Alien vs. Predator video game when a different Predalien called the Abomination used the tactic.

The Predalien’s Weaknesses

The Predalien is a combination of two of the deadliest extraterrestrials in the galaxy and thus has no glaring weakness. The main Predator of Requiem, named Wolf, manages to badly wound its adversary in combat, but it isn’t until the military completely obliterates the Colorado town with a nuclear strike that the Predalien is gone for good. If the rules of the 2010 video game are applied to the film, the Predalien might even be able to shrug that off, too, since it was able to survive temporarily in a tub of molten lava.

The Predalien In Other Media

Comic books and video games have elaborated on the Predalien, incorporating traits and characteristics that differentiate the film’s version of the creature. In the 1999 game Alien versus Predator and its sequel, released in 2001, the Predalien is the result of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s experimentation with Xenomorph and Predator biology. An expansion pack entitled Primal Hunt, released in 2002, let the player take control of the Predalien in its own story missions. The Predalien was resurrected for the 2010 Alien vs. Predator game as the main antagonist for the Predators, this time called the Abomination; it featured distinctly more Xenomorph-based traits.

From here, people started to revel in the silliness of the creature, as the Predalien’s appearances became more outlandish. An expansion pack for Mortal Kombat X unlocks the Predator and Xenomorph as playable fighters, leading to some memorable interactions between the two. If the Xenomorph performs a fatality on the Predator, a Predalien chestburster will emerge from the corpse. The craziest appearance is probably in the comic series Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens, in which the Predalien is the genetic experiment of the Cursed Earth’s mad scientist, Dr. Niels Reinstot.

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