Predator: Killer of Killers follows three warriors through vastly different periods of history, each of whom is forced to battle a bloodthirsty Yautja. The movie later reveals that they were placed in stasis before being awakened many years later by the Grendel King to fight each other.
He wishes to face the winner, and the implication seems to be that the Predators have kidnapped countless humans and aliens from across thousands of years, likely just for their entertainment and so they can prove themselves the superior species in an arena.
Prey helmer Dan Trachtenberg co-directs with Josh Wassung, and was asked by Screen Rant about Naru's surprise cameo. She's shown among those in stasis and was the lead of the critically acclaimed 2022 movie (played by Amber Midthunder).
Addressing that surprise twist, Trachtenberg said, "I mean, I'll clearly say it is not time travel. They are not time-travelling. That is the benefit of the cryo pod - they are plucked from their time period and then put into stasis and then unleashed when decided upon for that evening's delightful entertainment."
When and where we'll see Naru again, but the door is open to her and plenty of other characters from the wider franchise to be forced to battle for the Grendel King's delight in future projects.
Talking of that villain, his cape appears to be made from skeletal Xenomorph tails. The prevailing theory among fans is that he's killed several of the aliens, but is this meant to tease the Alien vs. Predator project believed to be in the early stages of development at 20th Century Studios?
"I would say the fans should interpret that the way they want to interpret it," Wassung teased. "I mean, we wanted to design that Predator with a regal elegance mixed with brutality. And that's what spoke to us about that. And we honestly were having fun imagining where they might've come from."
"But we really wanted to leave it to the fans to imagine where each of those skeletons and pieces of various creatures that he clearly has conquered and where they might've come from," the filmmaker added.
The trailer for this summer's live-action Predator: Badlands confirmed that Elle Fanning is playing a Weyland-Yutani Corporation android, so there's clearly something in the works for the Yautja and Xenomorphs to share the screen again.
The anthology story follows three of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause.
However, while all these warriors are killers in their own right, they are merely prey for their new opponent: the ultimate killer of killers.
Predator: Killer of Killers is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.