Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000: Three Campaigns and Skirmish Mode on Windows

Three Species, Three Campaigns

Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 brings back the three campaigns from the original Alien versus Predator Gold Edition, released in 2000. You can take the role of a Colonial Marine, an Alien, or a Predator. Each species has its own campaign, and the game lets you fight through a series of missions. In addition to these campaigns, the single-player Skirmish mode is included, offering a separate way to play. The game was updated to run on modern PCs and laptops using DirectX 9.0c, and it supports the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows.

The inclusion of three distinct campaigns means you can experience the game from different perspectives. As a Colonial Marine, you rely on firepower and technology; as an Alien, you use agility and close-quarters attacks; as a Predator, you employ stealth and advanced weaponry. Each campaign progresses through levels, and the Skirmish mode provides standalone battles. The game's basis in the Gold Edition ensures that the original 2000 content is preserved, while the DirectX 9.0c update and Xbox 360 controller support make it accessible on current systems.

Unique Abilities and Weapons for Each Species

As the Alien, movement is built around scaling walls and elevator shafts, letting you cross vertical spaces with frightening speed. Up close, you attack and devour your victims, so the character favors direct, physical engagements rather than ranged exchanges. The Colonial Marine instead carries a motion tracker, grenade launchers, and flame-throwers, using that equipment to exterminate foes at a distance. The Predator brings wrist blades, shoulder cannons, and a stealth mode, combining silent approach with heavy armament when striking. Each species therefore draws on its own set of abilities, weapons, and equipment rather than sharing a common arsenal.

How these tools interact shapes each campaign's moment-to-moment play. The Alien scales shafts and walls to reposition and then closes in to attack and devour, while the Marine tracks movement and answers with grenade launchers or flame-throwers. The Predator can enter stealth mode to stalk prey before committing wrist blades or shoulder cannons. Because the three species never share these options, the same environments are approached through distinctly different routes and equipment. That division carries across the three campaigns and the standalone Skirmish battles, where the chosen species determines which abilities, weapons, and equipment are available.

Skirmish Mode and Bonus Episodes

Skirmish mode delivers standalone battles against endless waves of Aliens, separate from the three story campaigns. You choose to play as a Colonial Marine, an Alien, or a Predator, and that selection locks in the same unique abilities, weapons, and equipment those species use elsewhere. The mode is included alongside the campaign content from the original Gold Edition. As you fight the infinite Alien hordes, the species you picked determines your available tools, so the skirmish plays out differently depending on your choice.

Bonus Episodes are included in this release, expanding the single-player content beyond the three campaigns and the endless skirmish battles. The package also contains every level from the original Gold Edition plus the Millennium Expansion Pack. Whether you are moving through the Bonus Episodes or holding out in Skirmish, your chosen species still determines which unique abilities, weapons, and equipment you can use. The Alien can scale walls and elevator shafts at high speed while attacking and devouring, but that option is not available to the others.

Multiplayer: Steam Overlay and Lobby Browser

Multiplayer in Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 is tied directly into the Steam client rather than a separate service. The game is integrated with the Steam Overlay, and it uses your Steam name, so the identity you already carry across the platform is the one shown in matches. To set up a session, you host or join games through a bare-bones in-game lobby browser: you open the browser, pick or create a game, and enter it. Beyond that browser, you can also invite and join friends and other players via the Steam overlay while the game is running.

Online play here is host-based rather than server-based. Dedicated servers are neither supported nor planned, so one player's machine hosts the session that others join through the in-game lobby browser. The game attempts host migration, a rule that matters because a hosted match does not simply end when the hosting player drops; the game tries to move the host role to another participant. Combined with the Steam Overlay invite path, this means the lobby browser and the overlay both feed players into sessions that are hosted by a participant and can attempt to continue after that participant leaves.

Updated for Modern Windows PCs

Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 on Windows has two documented pieces of modern hardware support. One is DirectX 9.0c, the graphics programming interface the game was updated to use. The other is the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows. Both work together with the Windows platform itself, so a current laptop or desktop can run the material from the 2000 Gold Edition without the original era's hardware assumptions. The DirectX 9.0c update and the controller support are the only compatibility items the source lists, so nothing beyond those two specifics should be assumed about how the game runs on any particular machine.

The Windows release carries the controller flag as a feature rather than an optional extra. That means a player using an Xbox 360 Controller for Windows has the game's documented input support, while the DirectX 9.0c path covers rendering on modern PCs and laptops. The updated edition keeps the content from the Alien versus Predator Gold Edition of 2000 while altering those two system-facing details. Anyone playing on Windows this way is still using the same three campaigns and the standalone Skirmish mode, just routed through the newer DirectX and controller support the source names.

Environments and Atmosphere

The missions unfold across suspense-filled locations: starships, space stations, colonial bases, and eerie planetscapes. These settings are where the three species carry out their campaigns, and they are also where the Skirmish mode's standalone battles against infinite Alien hordes take place. The Predator stalks prey through them using wrist blades, shoulder cannons, and stealth mode, while the Colonial Marine moves with motion trackers, grenade launchers, and flame-throwers to exterminate foes. The Alien crosses the same ground differently, scaling walls and elevator shafts at frightening speed before attacking and devouring victims.

Sound supports the atmosphere in this edition, which includes music from the original soundtrack CD. The release bundles all levels from the original AvP Gold Edition together with the Millennium Expansion Pack, and it also adds Bonus Episodes. Across the starships, space stations, colonial bases, and planetscapes, each species still works from its own kit: the Marine's motion trackers and flame-throwers, the Predator's stealth mode and shoulder cannons, the Alien's wall-scaling and devouring. The selected species determines which of those abilities, weapons, and equipment are available in any given environment.

First published Oct 16, 2026.