Melee Guide - Guide for Aliens vs. Predator

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This Guide is an in depth guide to melee fighting in Aliens vs. Predator. The 
tactics I describe here should apply across all platforms. It should be noted 
that, obviously, lag will play a huge factor in whether or not these skills 
will work.

You can test for lag a number of ways when a match starts. The number one way I 
have found is attacking someone and determining if there is a delay from the 
time you press the attack button to the time it actually has an effect on the 
person you’re attacking. You can also tell if you are getting damaged from 
someone who should not be able to damage you i.e. someone you’ve just killed 
and is now lying on the ground. What this means is, on their side they died 
shortly after you think you killed them and so they were still able to attack 
for a short time before dying. In other words there is a delay in effect that 
causes events on one side to happen at different intervals than the other.

The following is a guide for melee skills for all three species. I’ve developed 
these skills over my time playing the game and I find that anyone I’ve taught 
them to seems to improve their kill count exponentially. I will also include 
warnings for the limitations of each characters melee abilities. Such as 
potentially exploitable moves that can be much harder to defend against.

Basics

The basics of melee are pretty simple. Knowing just the basics will help but, 
against anyone who’s spent a lot of time developing their skills, you will find 
the basics don’t quite cut it. There are many subtle nuances that are hard to 
understand unless you spend a good deal of time playing the game. However here 
is how the basic melee system works

Blocks defeat light attacks
Light attacks beat heavy attacks
Heavy attacks beat blocks

When you block a light attack you are then able to perform a counter attack by 
hitting the light attack button. In other words when you block a light attack 
immediately hit the light attack button and you will hit your attacker and stun 
them. This opens them up for further attacks until they are able to regain 
control.

Works a bit like rock paper scissors

The Predator

The predator is by far the best at melee combat. It cannot be knocked down and 
it takes the most hits to kill of any species. The predators’ heavy attack is 
also faster than the alien heavy and much harder to counter. 

The breakdown for the predators’ health works like this

Pred Vs. Pred:	Heavy Heavy heavy		= Dead
       Heavy heavy light 	= dead
			Heavy light light light = dead
			Light light light light = dead

The lunge attack is performed by holding the focus button (L2 on PS3 by 
default). The lunge attack counts as a light attack and follows the same 
formula above. Unlike with other species you can never knock another predator 
down with a lunge attack.

Pred VS, Alien:	Heavy heavy				= Dead
       Heavy light light			= dead
			Light light light light		= dead

The lunge attack is performed by holding the focus button (L2 on PS3 by 
default). The lunge attack counts as a light attack and follows the same 
formula above. Unlike with other predators, against an alien you have the 
ability to knock them down. It still counts as a light attack but you have the 
added advantage of being able to now pull off any move you like. While grounded 
the alien is completely at your mercy.

Predator VS, Marine:		Heavy Heavy		= Dead
					Heavy Light		= Dead
					Light Light Light	= Dead

The lunge attack is performed by holding the focus button (L2 on PS3 by 
default). The lunge attack counts as a light attack and follows the same 
formula above. Unlike with other predators, against a marine you have the 
ability to knock them down. It still counts as a light attack but you have the 
added advantage of being able to now pull off any move you like. While grounded 
the marine is completely at your mercy.

WARNING: once you counter a predators’ heavy attack be EXTREMELY cautious of a 
follow-up heavy attack. This second heavy attack CANNOT be countered. I haven’t 
been able to determine if this is something the developers overlooked or if 
they intentionally put it in the game. Either way it is, in my opinion, the 
cheapest melee move the predator has. If you’re reading this guide I expect you 
to fight with at least a small amount of dignity. After all, the predator has 
always been portrayed as a creature of honor, and if you truly want to play 
like one you should never take unfair advantage of any situation.

SECOND WARNING: Both the predator AND the alien have the ability to start a 
heavy attack and then stop it with a block. If you attempt to counter the heavy 
attack with a light attack and they do this you will be countered instead. 
Again this seems like something the devs must have overlooked because it 
completely undermines players who have taken time to get good at the game. That 
is, players who had the presence of mind to react quickly enough to even do the 
counter get unfairly manipulated into a cheap trap. 

Always remember, if you’re doing something that’s extremely effective AND 
extremely easy to do, it’s probably also extremely cheap.

The last tip for overall gameplay as the predator is, DO NOT HIDE. The 
predators’ cloaking is a TOOL to help you get the drop on people. You’re not 
going to win any matches just standing on top of a building or pillar or 
whatever, the whole time trying to pick people off from afar. The predator is a 
HUNTER. That means you need to go out and, you know, hunt.

When fighting as the predator there are several strategies that are effective 
against specific types of players. I’ll try to explain how each type of player 
fights and with what species and how to defeat them.



Pred Vs. Pred

Against predator players you’re going to have the greatest difficulty because 
they will almost ALWAYS go for either the plasma caster or the spin disc. To 
get around this you need to be very agile and run in and out of walls, doors, 
pillars, whatever you can to close distance. AS SOON as you get within about 10 
feet start a heavy attack (this is the ONLY thing that can interrupt a 
predator’s weaponry. NOTHING else will work except perhaps a weapon of your 
own). If you successfully perform the heavy attack and stop them from using the 
weapon you can then follow up with mostly any move you like keeping in mind the 
way the predators health works as I described above. 

For instance if you successfully connect with a heavy you need either; two more 
heavy attacks, or one heavy and one light, or three light attacks. In my own 
personal opinion if they are going the cheap route and are using weapons then 
they deserve an equally cheap death by using that second heavy that they will 
not be able to counter, followed by a light attack to finish things quickly. 

If they do not go strictly for the weapons then they are likely to try 
exploiting the predators’ heavy attack. If you encounter a predator starting a 
heavy attack IMEDIATELY perform a light attack. If you are fast enough you will 
counter their heavy. The next attack you do is extremely important. If you 
suspect they are going to try another heavy after you’ve countered them you 
HAVE to do a heavy your self before they get the chance to power theirs up. If 
they pull of that second heavy you might as well consider the fight over 
because afterwards all they need is another heavy and a light as described 
above to kill you. And they will almost ALWAYS do so.

Once you’ve performed your second attack follow-up with whatever attack you 
think necessary based on the predator health breakdown I described above. 
Personally if I do a heavy counter and then a heavy you’ll only need two lights 
to kill them. More often than not you’ll pull them off before they even know 
what hit them).

If they do not go for either of these they are most likely not one of the 
“cheap” pred players and you can fight them on fair equal footing. This can 
still be a challenge though as the predator has some formidable melee 
abilities. The best method of fighting a predator in a fair fight is to simply 
hone your reflexes. The timing to counter a heavy is VERY short. Once a heavy 
has begun to charge up you will hear the predator start to growl, as well as 
seeing the predator draw his striking hand back to let loose a heavy. Once this 
process starts you have about half a second OR LESS to perform a light counter. 
It’s insanely tough but with practice you can get that fast. 

A couple of things to keep in mind as well, if you block and counter a light 
attack from a predator and the predator tries a light attack again you can 
still block it but your counter will not stun the predator. You must wait for a 
second block in order to start another counter. I don’t consider this 
particularly cheap because it can be fairly easily defended against but it is 
still something to keep in mind.



Predator vs. Marine

It may not make much sense but the marine is actually the second hardest 
species to fight as a predator (assuming you don’t fight with the weapons. With 
weapons NOTHING is hard to fight, which is why the weapons are cheap). Melee 
against a marine is mostly a judgment call. If the marine likes to shoot shoot 
and shoot some more go for a light attack as this will temporarily stun them 
and allow you to follow up with another attack. If you notice them blocking a 
lot go for a heavy BUT, be careful because they may be an advanced player and 
counter you. If you’re fighting the marine and at ANY point you get countered, 
well, you’re going to die. 

There are a few things to be very cautious of while fighting marines. These are 
the shotgun and the grenades. If you are a close range fighter (as all 
predators SHOULD be) the shotgun and grenades are instant death or near enough 
any way. If either don’t kill you outright they WILL stun you and leave you 
easy pickings for follow-up shots. Always approach marine players with caution.

Sometimes the marine will go for the smart gun. This may seem like a formidable 
weapon but ONLY if you hesitate. It takes the most shots to kill anything aside 
from the pistol and the flame thrower. If you’re swift you can duck in and out 
of cover to get to them and kill them before they can do any serious damage to 
you.

Rarely, you’ll find a marine coming at you with the flame thrower. Do your best 
not to die laughing at them and put them out of their misery quickly. Be 
careful though. As with the pistol, this may be a highly advanced player who 
really knows their stuff and is simply testing the limits of their skills. It 
still won’t be terribly difficult to kill them but, if you slip up just enough, 
you could find yourself dead.



Pred Vs. Alien

Lastly, the alien, by far the easiest opponent to kill as the predator. The 
alien may take more hits than the marine but the difficulty in pulling off 
those hits is laughable. Firstly, the aliens’ heavy attack is slow. Slow enough 
that it can almost ALWAYS be countered, and furthermore it CAN ALWAYS be 
countered. Unlike the predator, which can perform an uninterrupted heavy attack 
after the first one is countered, the aliens’ heavy attack can be countered 
again and again so long as they don’t use the heavy fake out attack.

The second thing that makes the alien particularly easy to kill is the fact 
that it can be knocked down. If you perform a block counter on the alien it 
will fall to the floor, nearly guaranteeing victory.

There are a couple of things to be cautious of though. The alien can attack you 
with its tail from ceilings and walls. It’s completely uncounterable and 
unblockable and in close quarters it’s a guaranteed kill if it connects because 
it stuns you. It can be fairly easily avoided if you are just aware of your 
surroundings. You CAN knock the alien off the wall if you manage to hit it 
before it can hit you. If you manage to knock it off the wall or ceiling you 
should try very hard to not allow it to get there again. Kill it, and kill it 
quickly.

The second thing to watch out for is the alien jumping up in the air to heavy 
attack you. This is actually a glitch in the game that the developers actually 
took out in the pc version. The reason it’s a glitch is because when you 
counter the alien while it’s doing this it reacts differently from when you 
counter it on the ground. It seems to be random how the alien reacts exactly. 
Sometimes they don’t get countered AT ALL other times they start moving around 
in ways I can’t really describe in words. Point is it’s cheap and more and more 
players are exploiting it. While it is annoying the alien can STILL be killed 
fairly easily while doing this if you act quickly enough


The Alien

The Alien is probably the hardest character to truly be “good” at. It has 
several useful abilities but they tend to fall short against the other species. 

The aliens’ greatest strength is its speed. It can get in and out of places 
quickly and survive to fight again.

The breakdown for the aliens’ health works like this:

Alien vs. Alien:		
       Heavy heavy heavy			= dead
				Heavy heavy light			= dead
				Heavy light light			= dead
				Light light light light		= dead

The lunge attack is performed by holding the focus button (L2 on PS3 by 
default). The lunge attack for the alien does more damage than a light attack 
but not quite as much as a heavy. It also does not stun the person you are 
attacking giving them the ability to block and counter a light attack or 
counter a heavy with a fair amount of ease.

Alien VS, Predator:
				Heavy Heavy heavy			= Dead
				Heavy Heavy	Light			= dead
				Heavy light Light Light		= dead
				Light Light Light Light Light	= dead

The lunge attack is performed by holding the focus button (L2 on PS3 by 
default). The lunge attack for the alien does more damage than a light attack 
but not quite as much as a heavy. It also does not stun the person you are 
attacking giving them the ability to block and counter a light attack or 
counter a heavy with a fair amount of ease.

Alien VS, Marine:
				Heavy heavy		= Dead
				Heavy Light		= Dead
				Light Light Light	= Dead

The lunge attack is performed by holding the focus button (L2 on PS3 by 
default). The lunge attack for the alien does more damage than a light attack 
but not quite as much as a heavy. It also does not stun the person you are 
attacking giving them the ability to block and counter a light attack or 
counter a heavy with a fair amount of ease.


There are a number of setbacks to the alien. These are:

No ability to manually heal like the predator or marine:

If you get near death you have only two options. Go out and try to get just one 
more kill (the way I suggest to go) or wait and hide somewhere for about 30 
seconds to get your health back. If you decide to wait and hide you’re wasting 
time not getting kills. If you go out and fight you could possibly get one or 
two more before dying. And even if you don’t you’ll re-spawn with full health 
faster then it would take to wait and heal. As with the other species you must 
NOT be a wait and strike player if you want to get a lot of kills. While I 
agree that a wait and strike strategy is more like the alien from the films, 
game wise it will just put you at the bottom of every match. 

The wall crawling ability: 

While it can be useful for getting the drop on someone every now and then, it 
can get severely disorienting. Unless you spend a LOT of time getting used to 
it, you will likely find yourself confused about just where the hell you are 
more often than not.

The alien can be knocked down by EVERYONE:

By far this is the biggest disadvantage the alien has. If you get in a fight 
and someone knocks you down you ARE going to die. Unless they decide to take 
pity on you instead and let you get back up. Make no mistake though, if you get 
back up it IS because they let you.

The best alien payer can be easily defeated with the pistol:

I can personally attest to this. If you have decent melee skills you can EASILY 
kill the best alien players with your pistol. It takes something like 10 or 12 
shots and you have to REPEATEDLY counter and knock down the alien. But it CAN 
be done and not with much difficulty. This is assuming they don’t use the cheap 
tactics I described before i.e. the jump heavy attack and the heavy fake-out 
attack. If they don’t do either of these things and fight you fairly, you can 
beat them easily.

No long range attacks:

All of the other players have multiple long range attacks AS WELL AS some melee 
abilities. The alien has nothing to fight with at a distance if the need arises 
FORCING them into close quarters fights. Couple this with the awful melee 
skills the alien does have and you’ve got a nearly useless game character.

The alien lunge attack rarely knocks down a human and NEVER knocks down a pred:

The predator lunge attack will almost always knock down the alien AND the 
marine but the alien can only ever HOPE to knock down a human. One upside is 
that the lunge attack does a great deal of damage. Almost as much as a heavy 
attack, which means you only need to hit a human once more with a light attack 
to kill them. The only problem is the lunge doesn’t stun the human. If you 
lunge at a human and manage to hit them they have the opportunity to start 
blocking. Which means you either HAVE to try a heavy attack which, again, can 
easily be countered, or, more likely, you’ll automatically go for a light 
attack to finish them and get knocked to the ground. 					

Setbacks aside, the alien has similar melee mechanics to the predator. It has a 
slightly faster light attack so it can counter the predators’ heavy attack more 
easily than a predator can.

Here are some strategies for the alien against the different species

Alien vs. Alien:

The only species you will ever be on fair footing with. Although as an alien 
you have the option to go up on walls after other alien players who are hiding 
their and knock them of with your tail attack. You have to be very quick to 
catch up with them again though.

If you feel like you HAVE to do a grab MAKE SURE it’s safe to do so. Invariably 
when I play alien players they do the grab every chance they get, so my advice 
is if you’re going to do it try to make sure you’re not going to be immediately 
killed afterwards. Otherwise just melee kill everyone and get the hell out of 
there to fight someone else. I’ve tested this time and again and there really 
is no better way to rack up kills than to go out and fight. If you’re good 
enough you can take out about one person every 15 to 20 seconds. With grabs you 
can only get an average of about one every 30 to 40 seconds. 

Ultimately you’re going to want to stick with melee as you can potentially kill 
more than one person in a fight if you’re fast enough and with a bit of luck.

Alien vs. Marine:

Can potentially be the hardest to kill depending on the play-style of the 
marines and other preds in the match. If the marine is using the shotgun or 
grenades it’s going to be damn near impossible to get a lot of kills. Both are 
almost as cheap as the pred weapons against an alien. The best shot you have 
against someone using shotgun rounds is to get in behind them and do a light 
attack. This will stun them for about a second giving you time to do a heavy 
attack and kill them. You can try hiding on a wall and lunge at them and follow 
up with a light attack but it’s risky. If they see you coming or think to block 
you will most likely get killed.

Alien vs. Predator:

Can potentially be the hardest to kill depending on the play-style of the 
marines and other preds in the match. If the predator is using the plasma 
caster or the disc it’s going to be damn near impossible to get a lot of kills. 
Your best bet is to try and close distance by ducking in and out of cover. If 
there are marines on the map this can be a lot easier as the pred will likely 
be in heat vision mode and not see you coming, at least, not as well. If you 
can close the distance to about 15 to 20 feet start a heavy attack. But you 
need to make sure it’s a proper heavy attack and not the aliens’ quick tail 
whip. If you can connect the heavy attack before the predator fires you will 
counter him. Follow that up immediately with another heavy and then a light and 
the pred will go down. Never give predators using weapons a chance. If they’re 
cheap enough to use them they’re cheap enough to do anything else that’s 
unfair.

Against predators using nothing but heavy attacks you’re going to have a hard 
time as well. Keep in mind that the alien has a larger range than the predator 
so if you know this is a heavy attack spammer try to start your own heavy from 
as far away as possible to stop them. If you connect you have a couple of 
options. You can just destroy them if you need to get out of there by doing 
another heavy and a light. Or you can try and show them up by waiting for them 
to try another heavy and countering it. If you go this way you HAVE to connect 
another two light attacks. You will not be able to pull off a second heavy 
attack after you counter them before they can hit you with a heavy of their 
own.

Even if the predator doesn’t do either of these two cheap tactics it will still 
be difficult fighting them because they have the ability to knock you down like 
everyone else. Always keep in mind that the slightest mistake can lead to a 
knock down and guaranteed death. 

Ending note:

I think the alien COULD have been a great character if the developers had just 
tried a little harder. Giving the alien a long range attack for instance. Even 
in the single player version you encounter acid spitting aliens. Why not 
replace that useless screech with something like that. Or they could have even 
implemented the face hugger into it. Imagine if scattered around each map were 
alien eggs that worked like the other weapon pickups for the marine and 
predator. You could then hide up in a dark space and send one of them out to 
attack people. Or something like that, I’m sure it would have made the alien a 
much deeper character.


The Marine

Probably the most balanced of the characters. Though not with out a couple of 
cheap tricks of their own.

The marine easily has the weakest melee attacks of any species but that doesn’t 
mean they aren’t staggeringly effective. 

The breakdown for the marines’ health looks like this

Marine vs. Everyone: Approximately 30 strikes. But you have guns so why bother.


The marine has a lot of strengths and not too many weaknesses. The combination 
of your radar and good judgment can make you a formidable opponent if you have 
good melee skills. Always shoot everything you can see if it’s at a distance 
and use your melee skills when fighting in close quarters.

The marines’ melee abilities can’t really be talked about without including 
their weapons. All the weapons have strengths and weaknesses. Some have more 
weaknesses than strengths but we’ll get to that later.

The one thing you should always keep in mind is that the pulse rifle (the gun 
you start with) has a seemingly built in delay in its counter speed than ALL of 
the other weapons. Where all of the other weapons can counter instantly upon 
pressing the light attack button, the pulse rifle has about a half second to a 
full second delay, Which may not sound like much but trust me it makes a WORLD 
of difference.

Strategies for the marine against other species are:

Marine Vs Marine:

Almost entirely straight forward, Point and shoot until dead. You will almost 
NEVER have to worry about melee while fighting another marine. Even TRYING to 
melee a marine is a guaranteed loss.

Marine vs. Alien:

Almost laughably easy, IF you know what you’re doing you can beat an alien 
player with the pistol, and even the awful awful flamethrower. The only thing 
you need to be very cautious of is aliens on a wall or ceiling, the jump heavy 
attack, and the heavy attack fake-out. Either of these three can spell quick 
death. 

To avoid the wall or ceiling tail attacks just stay clear of them. You need to 
maintain a distance of about 15-20 feet away from an alien on a wall or ceiling 
to keep from being tail attacked. If you see one and have a weapon that can 
reach it from afar don’t hesitate to open fire. If you have a shotgun you can 
take a chance and get close but I don’t recommend it. I find the use of the 
shotgun against an alien to be distasteful any way, as well as the grenades. 
But against an alien using equally cheap tactics I can’t really blame you if 
you decide to kill them that way. Face to face though, you should never do it 
except in infestation. And the only reason it’s ok then is because more often 
than not if everyone is an alien they will all rush you and use every cheap 
trick in the book just to prevent you from winning. 

To beat the jump heavy attack it’s mostly the same as face to face just about 3 
times as hard, AND the alien can react unpredictably to being countered while 
in the air. So just be cautious and shoot shoot shoot every chance you get. 
Eventually they will try light attacking you and there are some good strategies 
for when they try this as well. I’ll explain them in the fair fighting portion 
of the marine guide.

The heavy fake-out is one of the hardest things to predict when fighting the 
alien, and even the predator. Just remember that ANY time you have the chance 
to shoot DO SO. It dose not take many bullets to kill an alien and if your 
timing is good you can kill an alien trying to heavy attack you before the 
heavy attack even finishes, which means if they try to fake you out you just 
keep shooting and they’ll go down easy.

For fair fighting aliens (that is, aliens who fight you face to face and commit 
to every attack without using the cheap tricks described above) you should tone 
down your efforts a little as well. If they have the decency to fight you 
fairly you should return that in kind. For instance let them get close enough 
to actually have a chance at fighting you before shooting at them, don’t use 
the shotgun OR the grenades, and allow them to get up from time to time if you 
knock them down. 

In a melee fight against an alien you have a number of options as the marine. 
First and foremost is offense. Shooting and shooting and more shooting. If you 
get in close, things get a little trickier. If the alien goes for a heavy, you 
light attack them to counter and then shoot till dead. If they go for a light 
attack block and counter they’ll fall down and again shoot till dead. IF THEY 
LAND ONE LIGHT ATTACK they WILL get another before you can block. One more 
light attack after that and you’re dead BUT, you CAN BLOCK AFTER THE SECOND 
LIGHT ATTACK. Almost ALL aliens will go for that third light attack because 
they know that’s all they need to kill you. If you block and counter you can 
completely turn the fight around.

Even though you can knock the alien down there are still a couple of odd bugs. 
These are almost ONLY ever encountered while killing the alien with the pistol 
or another weak weapon. If you block and counter the alien once knocking it 
down and let it get up you can’t knock it down again until you’ve blocked it 
twice. In other words, if you block and counter an alien, let it get up, and it 
tries another light attack, you can block it but you can’t knock it down. You 
have to wait until the next attack after that to start countering again.

So it works like this, block counter block block counter block block counter 
etc etc. if you decide to take on the alien with a weak gun to test your skills 
keep this in mind. Also keep in mind that the alien heavy attack can ALWAYS be 
countered if you see it coming in time

Marine vs. Predator:

By far the hardest species to beat even playing a fair fighting predator 
player. Against a weapon only predator or a heavy attack exploiting predator 
you’re going to have a hell of a time. A predator using weapons is going to be 
standing still A LOT, which means their cloaking is going to be much harder to 
see (the preds cloaking shimmers and breaks up in places while moving) and it 
only takes a couple seconds to get a lock on with the plasma caster and kill 
you. It also only takes about 5 seconds for a predator to recharge their 
energy. All of this adds up to a very unfair UNFUN playing experience. You CAN 
defeat a pred player that plays like this but it’s going to be very VERY hard. 
The first thing you need is the smart-gun so that you can get a fix on them. 
You then also need lots and lots of cover. You need to be able to get behind 
something quickly in order to take them out. Also try to hang out in spots 
where the plasma caster is to try and catch the predator before he has a chance 
to pick it up. You’re also going to need to be on a careful lookout for mines. 
Although, predators that go straight for the caster tend not to bother with 
mines, and vice versa. Even being on your very best game, fighting a player 
like this is not likely going to go well.

The heavy attack spamming predator is SLIGHTLY easier to kill than other 
species because you’re bullets kill them faster than any melee attacks will. 
But you HAVE to know it’s coming. These types of players will run around more 
so it’s easier to spot them but it’s still difficult to kill them before they 
get to you. You’re going to want to stick with the shotgun. Because as soon as 
they go for that heavy you need to counter it and the shotgun counters faster 
than the pulse rifle (along with every other weapon) and deals the most damage 
at close range. Always use the alternative fire for the shot gun. This shoots 
both barrels at once and so doubles the amount of damage you deal. Just be sure 
to make every shot count. You can’t afford to miss. As soon as you counter 
start unloading shotgun shells into the pred and he should go down.

Against a fair fighting predator (one that doesn’t hide in a corner waiting for 
you to happen by or using weapons or any of the cheap stuff I’ve described 
above) it’s still going to be hard. You’re going to need to rely on two things 
almost exclusively, your radar and sound. Your radar lets you know where things 
are in terms of distance away from you on a horizontal plane. It does not give 
you any indication of where things are above or below you. Pay very careful 
attention to this and listen VERY hard for the predators’ growl. 9 times out of 
ten this is the sound of the predator lunging at you. With some luck you will 
be facing the predator because you were using your radar and have the ability 
to block (you can block ALL lunge attacks) and counter. As soon as you counter 
open fire. Sometimes the predator will be able to pull off a light attack just 
before being countered and stun you. The next attack by the predator will 
almost always then be a heavy attack because that’s all he will need to finish 
you off. If you block and counter the lunge and get hit with a light attack 
immediately try to counter the predators’ heavy attack. If you are successful 
you can then shoot him to death.

About Grabs (applies to ALL species)

One more thing to keep in mind as ANY species in regards to being grabbed. 
First of all, all grabs from behind are instant kills. There is nothing you can 
do to survive being grabbed from behind. If the animation for it starts, you 
WILL die regardless of all other circumstances. This means if you get grabbed 
and the grabber dies before he actually finishes killing you, you STILL die and 
the grabber gets a point. HOWEVER, there are a number of ways you can escape 
being grabbed from the front and most of them only work if the person doing the 
grabbing makes a mistake.

It works like this


As a marine: 

1.) If a predator or alien lunges at you and knocks you down 

You will survive a lunge grab as long as you have at least a small portion of 
health in your third bar. In other words if you haven’t lost a COMPLETE bar of 
health when you get grabbed you will survive.

2.) If a predator or alien blocks and counters you and you fall down

You will survive this with the same circumstances as number 1. In all other 
cases you WILL get killed as a marine. Anything beyond that first bar of health 
is a guaranteed death if you get grabbed FOR ANY REASON.

As an alien OR a Predator:

1.) Same as one and two for the marine. If you have full health before getting 
knocked down you will survive a frontal grab.

2.) You can survive ONE heavy attack and a follow-up grab. In other words if 
you have full health and are then heavy attacked the attacker will be given the 
prompt to grab you. If they do so you WILL survive. 

You WILL NOT survive a grab if it is performed after being light attacked once 
and then heavy attacked OR being light attacked twice in the case of the alien 
or three times in the case of the predator. It’s also possible to walk around 
behind a knocked down opponent and perform a grab from behind. 

Possible defenses after surviving a grab:

Number one thing to do is start BLOCKING. Frontal grabs take a HUGE amount of 
health away from you but not all of it (this is why you have to be damaged 
first before getting grabbed from the front for it to work). The reason you 
start blocking is because you only need to be hit one or two more times to be 
killed and MOST people will try to light attack you to finish the job. If you 
are blocking you can counter them and turn the whole fight around.

If they go for a heavy attack you will be ready to counter it as well. If you 
are a marine player you will have the easiest time killing someone who tried to 
grab you because after one counter of any kind you can kill them very quickly 
with bullets. Chances are you’ll be looking them right in the face already. As 
the predator or alien it’s a little harder because you have to worry about 
committing to your attacks and it’s not terribly hard to counter them if you 
aren’t careful.




I hope this guide is useful to all of you who play this great game.

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