Chronological order of campaign

[PJ]

So I was pretty sure that the campaign missions happened somewhat simultaneously with the xeno missions coming first, then the pred missions, then human. However, at one point in the Pred mission I entered a location that appeared to be the beggining of the Xeno mission... but in the mission before that I dealt with events that had clearly happened in later Xeno missions... so now I'm just confused.

[Inferno]

They start to overlap after the first couple Alien missions. One of the problems is that 6 get's captured at the end of the Jungle mission, in which you can see 6 leaving Gateway before it falls down in pain from the Queen expiring. The Alien Ruins mission should have been second and not last.
This is basically how the whole thing transpires:

- Aliens escape the lab (Alien Research Lab mission)

- Predators either already on the planet or who arrived later, engage them and the humans there; they then send out a signal.

- Dark is currently in training (Predator Tutorial) and is then called to the planet with his allies.

- 6 attacks the ruins archaeological team, and harvests an Elite Predator (Alien Ruins mission).

- The Marlow and Pred vessel arrive; the Marlow is destroyed, and 3 more Predator pods including Dark descend from their ship upon the planet, while "Rookie's" dropship does the same.

- 6 engages the marines within the colony (Alien Colony mission).

- 6 attacks the refinery next (Alien Refinery mission), whilst Dark arrives in the jungle area, and Rookie's ship lands. Rookie's team enters the refinery, but are forced to pull back to the colony, leaving Rookie in the garage for stupid plot reasons.

- Rookie wakes up, and traverses the colony (Marine Colony mission), while Dark makes his way through the jungle area (Predator Jungle mission).

- Rookie gets knocked out, and Dark finishes with the jungle area, wherein a Predator/Alien hybrid is revealed to be on its own hunt.

- 6 leaves the refinery and makes its way to the Jungle area, which is being refortified by the Marines.

- Rookie wakes up in the mines (Marine Refinery mission), and starts going through the refinery. At some point during this, Dark arrives on the scene (Predator Refinery mission), just outside the refinery whilst 6 attacks the fresh marine occupation at Gateway (Alien Jungle mission).

- Rookie discovers and neutralizes the Queen Alien within the refinery and makes his escape, with Dark right behind him.

- As 6 is leaving the jungle area after its attack, the death of the Queen immobilizes 6 as 6 is leaving Gateway, where Weyland's androids capture and transport it off world. This ends the Alien campaign and story arch.

- Rookie finds himself in the swamp after escaping the refinery (Marine Jungle mission), and Dark goes after the "abomination" and an ancient Predator mask (Predator Ruins mission).

From here on, both of the Marine and Predator missions which remain (Ruins, Research Lab, and Pyramid, respectively), occur with Dark always being ahead of Rookie by a relatively wide margin, progress-wise.

[PJ]

So the Lab that Dark enters, which appears to have just started experiencing a Xeno outbreak, is not the same lab that the Alien starts in in the first mission, hence the outbreak started by the player in the first alien mission is not the same outbreak that happens when dark enters that lab?

[Inferno]

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

So the Lab that Dark enters, which appears to have just started experiencing a Xeno outbreak, is not the same lab that the Alien starts in in the first mission, hence the outbreak started by the player in the first alien mission is not the same outbreak that happens when dark enters that lab?

It's the same lab. Weyland had been trying to regain control of it ever since the breach caused by 6 occurred. Basically, Aliens continued to break back into the lab after the original containment failure.

[PJ]

All right, that works for me.

[Hinsonator]

Short anwser is, they start around the same time, each with a sort of prologue, Marine land on the planet for a sort of "bug hunt," Predator has an interactive tutorial for a prologue which is no doubt based a few days, months or years before the marines made planetfall with a sort of "trial" and the Alien, it's hard to say as how long the alien life cycle is hasn't been properly explained, that could've started hours, days even months before the marines made planetfall. Not that it matters much as the story for this game isn't all that deep.
Although unlike AvP2 you don't play as a facehugger or chest burster.

[domp4]

personally I think it' the xono first (outbrake of the bugs), then the humans (marines looking for survivors; trying to escape) then finally the predators as they finish off by blowing the whole place up.

[Hinsonator]

Originally posted by domp4:

personally I think it' the xono first (outbrake of the bugs), then the humans (marines looking for survivors; trying to escape) then finally the predators as they finish off by blowing the whole place up.

Then again, there is the "trial" in the Predator campaign which is obviously based a bit before the campaign start, which i think makes sense when i say marines made planetfall.
Same with the Alien campaign, which could be based a little before as you can see, the only part you don't get to see is the facehugger stage, let alone play as both stages.

[PJ]

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

the only part you don't get to see is the facehugger stage, let alone play as both stages.

And why would you. Six was likely born in a test tube.

[Hinsonator]

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

the only part you don't get to see is the facehugger stage, let alone play as both stages.

And why would you. Six was likely born in a test tube.

Six was born like every other alien, in an egg-like overmorph or pod which when it "hatches" creates a facehugger, nither stage is shown in this game though, although as i said you can't play as a facehugger or chest burster, like in AvP2, one of the many steps back AvP3 has over 2.
*EDIT* Yes, i know i'm feeding a troll.

[PJ]

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

And why would you. Six was likely born in a test tube.

Six was born like every other alien, in an egg-like overmorph or pod which when it "hatches" creates a facehugger, nither stage is shown in this game though, although as i said you can't play as a facehugger or chest burster, like in AvP2, one of the many steps back AvP3 has over 2.
*EDIT* Yes, i know i'm feeding a troll.

An egg in a lab. The facehugger was quickly contained and then slapped on some guy who was strapped to a chair. The chest burster then burst out into a test tube, and then brought to a holding cell. There are cutscenes in the game that show these things happening. There is no reason to bring back those gameplay elements - they weren't even that interesting to begin with in AvP2, so in my opinion it was good that they left them out.

*EDIT* Yes, I know I'm feeding a troll.

[Hinsonator]

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

Six was born like every other alien, in an egg-like overmorph or pod which when it "hatches" creates a facehugger, nither stage is shown in this game though, although as i said you can't play as a facehugger or chest burster, like in AvP2, one of the many steps back AvP3 has over 2.
*EDIT* Yes, i know i'm feeding a troll.

An egg in a lab. The facehugger was quickly contained and then slapped on some guy who was strapped to a chair. The chest burster then burst out into a test tube, and then brought to a holding cell. There are cutscenes in the game that show these things happening. There is no reason to bring back those gameplay elements - they weren't even that interesting to begin with in AvP2, so in my opinion it was good that they left them out.

*EDIT* Yes, I know I'm feeding a troll.

Gratz, you've figured out how to use the copy/paste feature.
You obviously haven't played AvP2 as the facehugger and chest burster gameplay was actually very interesting, picking your moment to facehug someone in multiplayer and hide away untill you grow into a an adult alien of w/e species based on what side you facehugged.
Oh and quickly finding a hiding spot if you facehugged an enemy with another one or two close by.

[PJ]

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

An egg in a lab. The facehugger was quickly contained and then slapped on some guy who was strapped to a chair. The chest burster then burst out into a test tube, and then brought to a holding cell. There are cutscenes in the game that show these things happening. There is no reason to bring back those gameplay elements - they weren't even that interesting to begin with in AvP2, so in my opinion it was good that they left them out.

*EDIT* Yes, I know I'm feeding a troll.

Gratz, you've figured out how to use the copy/paste feature.
You obviously haven't played AvP2 as the facehugger and chest burster gameplay was actually very interesting, picking your moment to facehug someone in multiplayer and hide away untill you grow into a an adult alien of w/e species based on what side you facehugged.
Oh and quickly finding a hiding spot if you facehugged an enemy with another one or two close by.

I did play AvP2 and I didn't find any of those things interesting at all.

I see you still haven't learned how opinions work.

[Hinsonator]

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

Gratz, you've figured out how to use the copy/paste feature.
You obviously haven't played AvP2 as the facehugger and chest burster gameplay was actually very interesting, picking your moment to facehug someone in multiplayer and hide away untill you grow into a an adult alien of w/e species based on what side you facehugged.
Oh and quickly finding a hiding spot if you facehugged an enemy with another one or two close by.

I did play AvP2 and I didn't find any of those things interesting at all.

I see you still haven't learned how opinions work.

There is a difference between an opinion and pure stupidity.

[PJ]

Originally posted by Hinsonator:

Originally posted by ZippyMaGoo:

I did play AvP2 and I didn't find any of those things interesting at all.

I see you still haven't learned how opinions work.

There is a difference between an opinion and pure stupidity.

Yes, and you don't know that difference.

[Inferno]

There was really no reason to speculate any further, I already laid out the timeline; but also, two things:

1. It is correct that 6 was born in a controlled environment within a lab, rendering a birthing sequence in gameplay meaningless; hence, his rhetorical question.

2. If the Facehugger/Chestburster levels in AVP2 didn't interest him, then they didn't interest him. It's neither smart nor stupid, it simply is.