When first assaulting a hive, players will generally prioritize killing the Queen first. However, players will quickly realise that killing a Queen is not the end of a hive.

Regardless of hives age, but typically when Praetorians are present a hive can enter a unique state of becoming a “Queenless Hive.” During this, a Praetorian or other caste such as a Crusher will cocoon into a new, replacement queen later on. This will not occur immediately and rather is a process that can take awhile.

Queens are the central leading and reproductive unit of a hive, and whilst incredibly important they can still be replaced. The death of a Queen is never truly the end and is recommended to take out the entire hive rather than focusing simply on the Queen.

Queenless Hives are unable to grow new ovomorphs in the time being where a Queen isn’t present, from this players can abuse this to quickly take out present hive members as they cannot be replaced should the player require to retreat temporarily.