Alien Grunt



An Alien Grunt a fictional creature from the first person shooter computer game Half-Life (Valve Software, 1998).

Alien Grunts are known as the soldier class of the Xen alien race. Tough and extremely hostile, Alien Grunts are armed with a biological weapon called the Hive Hand which contains Thornets that inflict injury. The Thornets are like insects and seek out living targets even if fired discriminately; they also respawn indefinitely.

The Alien Grunts may be a kind of Cyborg because as seen in Xen, they seem to be manufactured in a factory, and stored in containers.

It seems quite possible that the Alien Grunt is a surgically altered and cybernetically enhanced Vortigaunt, produced by the Combine for enforcement purposes, just as the Combine soldiers encountered in Half-Life 2 appeared to be surgically and cybernetically altered humans. That no other Xen life utilizes metallic armor or a weapon distinct from its own biology seems to suggest an outside influence. These elements add to the evidence that the Alien Grunts may be members of the Xen arm of the Combine Overwatch.