Line #90 Main/ASpaceMarineIsYou


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4	[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/Doom2016 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spacemarinecollage1.jpg]]]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:Once you put that helmet on, [[PunctuatedForEmphasis YOU. ARE. DOOMGUY.]]]]
6
7	->''"VideoGame/{{Doom}} introduced the grizzled space marine to the gaming world 15 years ago, dreamed into existence by someone at Creator/IdSoftware, probably just minutes after watching Film/{{Aliens}}. The grizzled space marine character so captivated the imagination of first-person shooter fans that they decided to have him star in every single FPS game since."''
8	-->-- ''Website/{{Cracked}}'', "[[http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html The Seven Commandments All Video Games Should Obey]]"
9
10	A form of ClicheStorm for VideoGames.
11
12	'''The prerequisites for this are:'''
13	# The game is a [[FirstPersonShooter First]] or ThirdPersonShooter.
14	# The game is MilitaryScienceFiction themed.
15	# The protagonist is [[OneManArmy a member of the military]].
16
17	'''If your game has the above, your plot will have a certain number of these cliches:'''
18	* Your character will be called a "SpaceMarine". The Player Character will [[AlwaysMale probably be male]], though [[ActionGirl female examples]] are not unheard of, and TheSquad will likely [[TheSmurfettePrinciple have at least one]] among the supporting characters. He will be either a low-level grunt (frequently the NewMeat) or an [[SuperSoldier ultra-elite soldier]]. Either way, he is [[SergeantRock almost never an officer]], and if he ''is'', he likely [[MildlyMilitary won't issue orders or otherwise act like an officer]]. He will be wearing PoweredArmor. Often, he will have the classic ActionGenreHeroGuy look, with a BaldHeadOfToughness and/or [[PermaStubble a 5 o'clock shadow]]. [[TheFaceless And that's if you ever actually see his face.]]
19	* [[SilentProtagonist The Player Character will never speak.]] Alternatively, he and his [[TheSquad squadmates]] will speak exclusively in ManlyMan quips and military jargon, most of it lifted straight from action movies. ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and ''Film/{{Predator}}'' are especially popular fonts of dialogue, providing the following lines:
20	** "I don't think we're alone here."
21	** "What ''is'' that thing?!"
22	** "StayFrosty."
23	** "Game Over, Man! Game Over!"
24	* The opening action sequence will either be of you and TheSquad landing in a hot zone, or being onboard a ship that is attacked in orbit. This sequence will be mostly unconnected with the rest of the game.
25	* You will have a radio, and you will hear annoying chatter and [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection probably be getting all of your orders from it]], which is necessary since [[ButThouMust your character has absolutely zero initiative]]. Even [[MeetTheNewBoss if you "rebel" against your side]].
26	* Most of the player's enemies will consist of rival enemy soldiers, boogeymen from space, and/or a HordeOfAlienLocusts.
27	* [[ExcessiveSteamSyndrome Steam]] from [[NoOSHACompliance leaky pipes]] will appear. Whether it is plot-relevant is another matter. May be explosive or hazardous for reasons besides heat.
28	* All (or a large portion) of TheSquad except the Player [[EverybodysDeadDave will die at some point]], usually fairly early on.
29	* Some kind of [[TheReveal shocking revelation]] or twist towards the middle. Usually either:
30	** You join the other faction.
31	** You are transformed in some way, usually by partial ([[CursedWithAwesome just the useful parts that make you superhuman]]) infection with TheVirus.
32	** You discover that [[TomatoInTheMirror you aren't what you thought you were]], usually in a way directly related to the antagonist.
33	** You uncover a [[TheConspiracy conspiracy]] that has roots going all the way to the top. Often used as a motivation for joining the other faction.
34	** A third force enters the fray. This, too, can result in you joining the other faction (or at least have an EnemyMine episode), but sometimes you just end up with a three-way war instead.
35	* The endgame consists of the player going into [[StormingTheCastle the core of the enemy base]] to kill the LoadBearingBoss. After the boss fight, there will usually be some kind of [[TimedMission timed escape]] run to get away from a time bomb or SelfDestructSequence activated by killing the LoadBearingBoss.
36	* Your primary weapon will be some form of assault rifle. You will probably have a [[RangedEmergencyWeapon nearly useless pistol]] in case the rifle runs out of ammunition. Over the course of the game, you will have access to [[StandardFPSGuns a heavier machine gun, a shotgun, a grenade launcher, a rocket launcher, and a sniper rifle]]. You will probably also have access to some sort of advanced energy weapon (with a high chance of it being a {{BFG}}), and a powered melee weapon, such as a {{chainsaw\|Good}} or "{{vibro\|weapon}}" sword. No matter what, however, [[NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom these weapons will be incapable of shooting the locks off of doors]].
37
38	Much of the above comes from the tendency to take inspiration from ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'', which were themselves heavily inspired by Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'', along with sheer parallel evolution. Just remember that this [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools isn't necessarily bad or good, though]], and that the cliches can be excused if the various [[RuleOfIndex rules]] are applied, especially [[RuleOfCool Sci-Fi Awesomeness]] and just Plain Old [[RuleOfFun Fun]]. However, when worse comes to worst, there is also one of the ultimate rules: ''[[MST3KMantra It's just a game.]]''
39
40	----
41	!!Examples:
42	[[foldercontrol]]
43
44	[[folder:Action-Adventure]]
45	* ''VideoGame/AdventRising'' starts with the generic military elite Gideon's entire home planet destroyed by ScaryDogmaticAliens, after which he proceeds to gain lots of superpowers, kick much ass, and save the day. [[spoiler:The twist in this case is that for the finale, you get to fight the person whom you chose not to save at the beginning of the game.]] To his defense, Gideon often speaks and he is not bald.
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:First-Person Shooter]]
49	* The ''VideoGame/AliensVsPredator2010'' Marine campaigns. Well, ''obviously''.
50	* The 2005 version of ''VideoGame/{{Area 51\|FPS}}''. Although the player is a 'mission specialist' rather than a new grunt, the difference is almost purely semantic and the rest of the trope fits like a glove, barring the fact that the protagonist is voiced (by Creator/DavidDuchovny, no less).
51	* ''VideoGame/ArmorinesProjectSWARM''. Alien bugs have invaded Earth, and a team of high-tech Space Marines lead LaResistance.
52	* ''VideoGame/BlakeStone'': Blake Stone technically isn't an active ''proper'' member of the military (he's less a Space Marine than Space James Bond), but otherwise fits rather well as an agent sent to fight rogue soldiers, mutants and mutant soldiers on a space colony, and actually predated ''Doom''[[note]]by the barest margin -- the first Blake Stone game released a ''week'' before Doom.[[/note]].
53	* ''VideoGame/TheColony'' is an UrExample. You are a SilentProtagonist Space Marshal responding to a distress call from a remote outpost. On approaching the planet your ship is damaged and you crash land. You don your PoweredArmor and make your way to the entrance of the underground base, which you find has been overrun by aliens who appeared out of nowhere. You must penetrate to the depths of the base and out again to escape the planet alive.
54	* ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'', sort of. Nomad is an ordinary Earth Marine, but still fills a good number of the cliches. Surprisingly, he has both a voice and an officer rank.
55	** ''Crysis 2'' plays it even straighter, for thematic purposes.
56	** ''Crysis 3'', on the other hand, doesn't fit a large chunk of these characteristics. [[PlayerCharacter Prophet]] is no longer in the U.S. military, he has a lot of dialogue, undergoes CharacterDevelopment throughout the game, spends only about half the game listening to a VoiceWithAnInternetConnection before deciding he can get more things done if he acts on his own, and his primary weapon is [[TheStraightAndArrowPath a compound bow]] despite being the only person in the world who can use Ceph weaponry. Oh, and [[spoiler:he's not wearing PoweredArmor, he ''is'' [[AnimatedArmor the Powered Armor]]!]]
57	* ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'':
58	** The [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} original]] [[VideoGame/DoomII games]] were the {{Trope Maker}}s. You play as a silent Space Marine who was deployed with his squad to a space base over Mars which was attacked in orbit. Everyone else in said squad dies before the game even starts, which [[AllThereInTheManual (according to the manual)]] you hear over your radio. And your enemies are demons who appeared out of nowhere in a space base. That's seven of the tropes right there. It also established the chainsaw, high-energy weapon, shotgun, and rocket launcher as standard Space Marine armaments. The similarities to ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' are to be expected, because [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the game was originally supposed to be based on]] ''Aliens'' until id Software gave up on the idea because of 20th Century Fox's strict licensing demands, and the game was re-imagined as a mix between ''Aliens'' and ''Franchise/EvilDead''. (That didn't stop experienced modders from doing ''Aliens''-themed mods - Aliens T.C.[[labelnote:*]]"Total Conversion"[[/labelnote]] was the most famous one, being rather impressive in its own right.)
59	** Likewise, you play as a Space Marine in ''VideoGame/Doom3'', albeit a different one from the last two games. He's only ever addressed as "Marine" by the [=NPCs=], and he's just as silent as the rest. The player character in ''Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil'' is a different marine as well, except he's on engineering duty.
60	** The ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' incarnation actually doesn't fit the trope that well. While the Doom Slayer used to be a part of an elite fighting group known as the 'Night Sentinels', that's all in the past and superseded by his current Seraphim-empowered ''hatred'' of all things demonic - he doesn't kill demons because they're invading, he kills demons because they're ''demons''. He's never referred to as a SpaceMarine, isn't sent into a combat zone in the beginning ([[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs the combat zone comes to him]]), and while he is talked to through a radio, he's not so much given orders as he is ''suggestions''. There's no midgame twist, no LoadBearingBoss, no timed escape after killing the final boss, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and he prefers the double-barrelled shotgun over a machinegun]].
61	** ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' reveals that [[spoiler:the Slayer ''was'' an example of this trope -- because he ''is'' the Space Marine from the original games.]]
62	* Substitute "megacorporation" for "space station" and you pretty much have the first ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'' game, down to TheReveal: [[spoiler:You're Alma's ''son''. Well, [[EvilTwin one of them]].]]
63	* ''VideoGame/GunmanChronicles'' flirts with this trope, but ultimately manages to have its own style by having all the characters dress like 19th century Civil War soldiers.
64	* ''VideoGame/HalfLife'':
65	** The [[VideoGame/HalfLife1 original game]] was a break from this trope. Instead of a soldier, Gordon Freeman is a scientist and an ActionSurvivor, albeit one who slowly grows into an ActionHero as he progresses. He is wearing PoweredArmor, but his HEV suit was meant more as a high-tech hazmat suit than a combat uniform. He is silent, though. Meanwhile, the Marines who would normally fulfill this trope are the ''villains'', as they are sent in to mop up the Black Mesa incident and [[LeaveNoWitnesses kill any witnesses]] -- including you. The {{expansion\|Pack}}s ''[[VideoGame/HalfLifeBlueShift Blue Shift]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/HalfLifeDecay Decay]]'' similarly avert it, the former having you play as the security guard Barney Calhoun who's more interested in getting out alive than in fighting off an AlienInvasion, and the latter once more having you play as scientists, Gina Cross and Colette Green.
66	** In the ''[[VideoGame/HalfLifeOpposingForce Opposing Force]]'' expansion, the protagonist Adrien Shepherd is a normal Marine rather than the space kind, but otherwise plays by the rulebook.
67	** ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' re-embraced this trope by making Gordon into a dimensional mercenary/freedom fighter, albeit not exactly by choice.
68	* The ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' series. While Master Chief speaks ([[SilentProtagonist occasionally]]) during cutscenes, is technically a Naval NCO (Master Chief Petty Officer, to be precise), and has short hair ([[AllThereInTheManual according to the novels]]), the games hit most of the other aspects of this trope, with the most notable exceptions being the general lack of a FinalBoss and the fact that most players prefer to discard their assault rifle and use the pistols and semiautomatic rifles as their primary weapons instead (despite what the cutscenes and advertising would have you believe).
69	** ''VideoGame/Halo2'' steers a little away from the trope with the Arbiter, a disgraced [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Elite Supreme Commander]] who in the first game was the guy commanding the very same aliens attempting to kill you.
70	** You play as five different characters in ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'', but they're relatively well-characterized (Bungie certainly wasn't going to waste the voice talents of Creator/NathanFillion, Creator/AlanTudyk, Creator/AdamBaldwin, and Creator/NolanNorth, after all), with only the Rookie remaining a blank slate, mostly due to the fact that he never takes off his helmet and has zero lines of dialogue. Also, unlike most examples of the genre, [[spoiler:the entire squad survives]].
71	** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' plays it mostly straight, but protagonist Noble Six is a Naval Lieutenant.
72	** In ''VideoGame/Halo4'', much more emphasis has been put on the Chief's personality, with him speaking even during gameplay.
73	* ''VideoGame/{{Haze}}'' was an attempt at a {{deconstruction}} of this trope, thwarted by ExecutiveMeddling among others.
74	* Creator/{{Bungie}}'s previous game ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' also fits the bill fairly well. (Technically, the player takes the role of a security officer rather than a marine, but he's often called "The Marine" by fans anyway.) The protagonist is a faceless soldier with a bunch of guns who fights off aliens from a spaceship at the command of a group of [=AIs=]. He is also almost certainly the missing 10th super soldier on board. However, the trope is played with: you are a cyborg machine who will fulfill orders given by the terminals, [[spoiler:no matter who gives the orders or what they entail]].
75	** This trope is cited by name in the GameMod ''Phoenix'', in which it's the name of the first real level.
76	* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'':
77	** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' features a squad of Space Marines landing on the planet Aether who are quickly slaughtered by the local indigenous extradimensional bug monsters. Reading the dead troopers' logs reveal that they conformed as closely to the stereotype as they possibly could. Did we mention that ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' was a huge influence on the ''Metroid'' series?
78	** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'' contains most of the clichés in the description. The Federation military comes into their own, troopers alternate between seriously kicking ass and dying horribly.
79	* The ''Half-Life'' mod ''Natural Selection'', later spun off into the standalone game ''VideoGame/NaturalSelection2'', embraces this trope. One team plays space marines, the other an invading alien species.
80	* ''VideoGame/QuakeII'' and ''[[VideoGame/QuakeIV IV]]''. Both games hit every single bullet point above with a straight face, bar a loaded boss for ''Quake IV''.
81	* The ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}}'' series:
82	** Nathan Hale, the protagonist of the first two games, is a United States Army Ranger in TheFifties rather than a SpaceMarine, but otherwise fits the description perfectly. He's an elite soldier who rarely speaks and has little backstory or characterization outside the ExpandedUniverse and his participation in an experimental program called Project Abraham to give him immunity to the [[TheVirus Chimeran virus]], which means that, when he and his squad get infected at the end of the first game's first mission, he winds up getting superhuman abilities from it instead of killed and turned into a Chimera. His weapon of choice is an assault rifle, specifically one inspired by the M1 Garand and the M14, though all of the StandardFPSGuns eventually show up. The first game ends with him storming London, where the Chimera have their main base in the UK, the destruction of which destroys all Chimeran forces in the British Isles. The second game has him speaking a lot more, as well as becoming more aggressive, [[spoiler:possibly because the Chimeran virus is taking hold of him. The game ends with him succumbing to Chimeran infection and being [[MercyKill put out of his misery]] by his partner Joseph Capelli, after the Chimera had largely [[TheBadGuyWins succeeded in invading the mainland United States]].]]
83	** Joseph Capelli was this in the second game where he served as Hale's partner and a fellow Project Abraham subject, but by the time he becomes the protagonist in the third, he's more concerned with protecting his family and his homestead, the military and most human governments having fallen to the Chimera years ago.
84	* ''VideoGame/StarWarsRepublicCommando'' is such a straight example that it might even be a purposeful lampshading, given that the player characters are literally clones. It does, however, avert many other criteria. The player character "Boss" is very talkative (voiced by none other than Creator/TemueraMorrison) even when he ends up on his own, he is addressed as "sir", and giving TheSquad commands is what the game is all about.
85	* ''VideoGame/TimeShift'' substitutes a military organization with a research organization owned by and infiltrated by the military, and the future setting with {{steampunk}}, but obeys the remainder of the recipe. Rather oddly for the trope, you end up preventing all of the [[EverybodysDeadDave cutscene and first act deaths]]. Oh, and the main character ''[[ShrugOfGod might]]'' be the female researcher who gets blown up in the opening cutscene.
86	* ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters'':
87	** The first game was an aversion. The "[[ExcusePlot plot]]" consisted of a number of mostly-unrelated missions to acquire various [[{{MacGuffin}} MacGuffins]], and had you playing as different characters in different time periods (and the one bald character is a criminal from the year 2000).
88	** ''[=TimeSplitters=] 2'', [[ZigZaggedTrope zig-Zags]] this trope, as the game ''starts'' with the baldy space marine infiltrating a space station with a female partner and a VoiceWithAnInternetConnection while fighting off alien monsters. But then he jumps into a time machine and spends the majority of the story possessing multiple characters during different time periods in a manner akin to ''Series/QuantumLeap'' (standout player characters being a zombie-hunting female harlequin, a black cowboy, and a {{Fembot}} cosplaying as Red Riding Hood), and fighting a wide variety of enemies. He returns to the space station at the end of the game, [[BookEnds whereupon the trope returns with a vengeance]] as [[spoiler: his partner is killed and]] he must escape before the station self-destructs.
89	** ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters: Future Perfect'' falls into this category quite neatly also. The protagonist is bald, an elite trooper, lands on a hot zone with a lot more people that either die or for whatever reason don't go on for the rest of the game... one by one, it fills all the conditions. The ''[=TimeSplitters=]'' series is largely a parody of other first person shooters and video games in general, so this was likely done on purpose. For further proof, the baldy space marine protagonist is a LargeHam with a corny catchphrase, other characters are frequently weirded out by him, and the first mission of the game after the stereotypical ''Aliens''-esque tutorial involves him time-travelling to 1912 and going through what may as well be a level from a stereotypical UsefulNotes/WorldWarII shooter (time period notwithstanding).
90	* The 2008 reboot of ''VideoGame/{{Turok}}'', to such a degree that ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' spent the entire review ripping the game for it.
91	* ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'' was like this, which resulted in numerous complaints by fans of the original game who felt the developers had traded in the unique atmosphere of ''VideoGame/{{Unreal\|I}}'' for a generic Space Marine storyline. Granted, Dalton and crew were given great characterisation that was a total aversion of the usual cliches, but the rest of the storyline and game design were pretty much 100% A Space Marine Is You.
92	** ''[[VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004 Unreal Tournament 2003]]'' also took some flak for for generic-looking Space Marine character designs.
93	** ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'' took everything from this trope and stuffed it right in. (With a handwave to explain why an eerily straight A Space Marine Is You game still plays like the earlier tournaments)
94	* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' licensed games:
95	** ''Warhammer 40000: VideoGame/FireWarrior''. The best way to sum it up is that "Fire Warrior" is how the Tau say "Space Marine". Make that tiny adjustment, and the trope fits like a glove from A to Z.
96	** Amusingly, the game actually '''titled''' ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine'', where you play as one of the genetically-engineered super soldiers of the Adeptus Astartes, doesn't fit the trope. The Player Character is much too talkative, and the third-person gameplay has quite a few elements of StylishAction hack-and-slash games.
97	[[/folder]]
98
99	[[folder:Platform Game]]
100	* Samus Aran of ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' fame ticks many of the boxes. She is the lone survivor of a planet overrun by SpacePirates, taken in and given her [[PowersAsPrograms ultra-modular]] battlesuit by the Chozo, and [[TheQuietOne doesn't say much while on mission]], leading her to have very little personality of her own, at least until Nintendo began to develop her more after her original trilogy of games. While she now operates as a bounty hunter, she used to be a member of the Galactic Federation military serving in its Army. A few games give her an [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection AI partner in constant contact with her]], the "shocking revelation" moment drops in several games, and [[TimedMission timed escapes]] are so frequent on her missions (''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeHunters'' has no fewer than ''eight'') that they're practically her version of an afternoon jog. The big twist on the formula, of course, is that [[SamusIsAGirl she's also a woman]].
101	* ''VideoGame/TheMummyDemastered'', a video game tie-in for the less-than-successful ''Film/TheMummy2017'', has you play as a generic masked soldier of the task force Prodigium whose mission is to face such supernatural threats rather than any characters from the film (in part because Creator/TomCruise has always prohibited use of his likeness in video games). This allowed for the game's unique death mechanic, where death was permanent and you took control of a ''new'' soldier who had to hunt down and find the former, now zombified, soldier and kill it to recover the weapons and gear the player had amassed with the previous soldier.
102	[[/folder]]
103
104	[[folder:Real-Time Strategy]]
105	* ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'' has a strategy game take on the formula, with Jim Raynor (siding with the good aliens) and Sarah Kerrigan ([[AndThenJohnWasAZombie forcibly mutated into an evil alien]]) fitting the bill close enough. Pretty much all the Terran units follow this trope, right down to the dropship pilots quoting ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' when you click on them.
106	* ''Warhammer 40000: VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' has you take control of (though not always) the Blood Ravens Chapter as they embark on their newest campaign.
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder:Role-Playing Game]]
110	* Played with extensively with Commander Shepard of the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' series. Despite hitting most of the marks on the list, Shepard is by no means faceless and voiceless, [[MagneticHero possesses an uncanny charisma and ability to persuade]], is given complete control over his/her ship and mission-relevant decisions, and is, in fact, TheCaptain first and a badass SpaceMarine second. OneManArmy is explicitly averted, as, over the course of the series, Shepard transforms a RagtagBunchOfMisfits into TrueCompanions willing to follow him/her to hell and back.
111	* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' pits a futuristic soldier in a decidedly FishOutOfWater situation, as he explores an EldritchLocation full of demons born out of humanity's collective unconscious. Negotiating with them is just as important as combat.
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Shoot 'Em Up]]
115	* ''VideoGame/BigSkyTrooper'' plays like an {{affectionate parody}} of the concept, coming out almost as early as [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} the codifier itself]].
116	* Website/FunOrb's "Hostile Spawn".
117	[[/folder]]
118
119	[[folder:Third-Person Shooter]]
120	* ''VideoGame/AliensFireteamElite'' places you in the shoes of a Colonial Marine, with the assistance of either two other players. Other than that, it aggressively sticks to the checklist.
121	* The Silencer from the ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}'' series of games is a textbook example, right down to the zero personality. However, in the intro for the original ''Crusader: No Remorse'', we see the two other members of The Silencer's original squad - right before they're [[SoleSurvivor gunned down]] by their BadBoss - and they've definitely got personality, arguing loudly about the morality of their recent refusal to gun down unarmed civilians on orders. The Silencer, however, didn't participate in the argument, remaining voiceless even then, so his bland personality might well be a [[TheStoic character trait]].
122	* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace1'' plays all elements of the trope but the key one -- your character is not a soldier himself, just a simple civilian engineer who was assigned to a squad of proper space marines. [[spoiler:Ironically, a group of {{Space Marine}}s ''do'' show up late in the game but are almost immediately all utterly destroyed by the Necromorphs, possibly due to their "Rambo-ing out" mentality, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation or because the plot says so]].]]
123	* ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForce5'': The player characters are grunts and new recruits in the EDF caught in the middle of a hostile alien invasion that kicks off by directly attacking the EDF's bases and underground facilities. The players wind up almost singlehandedly defeating the hordes of alien enemies along the way.
124	* ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForceIronRain'': The player character is a member of the EDF squad that fought the hiveship in the beginning of the game, and the SoleSurvivor after the assault goes horrifically awry. When the game picks up again after your character spends seven years in a coma, you are placed back on the frontlines of the war against the invaders because your [[PoweredArmor PA Gear]] is the only one still using a special energy core from the hiveship battle.
125	* The entire point of ''VideoGame/EatLeadTheReturnOfMattHazard'' is becoming the DeconstructorFleet for such games, the main character being a parody of shooter protagonists.
126	* The first few opening bullets described ''VideoGame/{{Fracture}}'' almost perfectly. No actual space stuff is involved, but its a sci-fi game nonetheless.
127	* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'': The first three games cast you as veteran marine Marcus Fenix, a guy with little personality and no emotions. He wears trademark bulky armor, isn't afraid of anything, and most of his lines consist of less than five words, [[ClusterFBomb usually swears]]. He has some backstory (concerning his dad), but usually, he's just mowing down Locusts and not giving a damn. The prequel ''Gears of War: Judgment'' has you playing as Damon S. Baird instead, who also hits many of the same notes. ''Gears of War 4'' has you playing as Marcus and Anya's son James Dominic "JD" Fenix, who's gone AWOL and is now living with the Outsiders, while the protagonist of ''Gears 5'', Kait Diaz, is a female version of this trope.
128	* ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine'' puts it [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin right there in the title]]. Though the game does put its own spin on it. The player character is not a zero-initiative macho grunt soldier but a soft-spoken, FatherToHisMen, AsskickingLeadsToLeadership Captain, all of your [[TheSquad squadmates]] survive the initial landing, and the gameplay works hard to avoid RealIsBrown and TakeCover (tagline: [[TakeThat "Cover is for the weak."]]). On the other hand, the story itself has been deemed cliché even by the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' fanbase, revolving around a MacGuffin, a token [[TheReveal "shocking revelation" about the protagonist]], and a demonic invasion that was [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil given away in the trailer]].
129	[[/folder]]
130
131	!!Non-VideoGame Examples
132
133	[[folder:Literature]]
134	* ''House of a Thousand Floors'', a surrealist science fiction novel by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Weiss Jan Weiss]], a Czech writer, can be considered the UrExample of the ClicheStorm structure established by mid-2000s sci-fi shooters, such as ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', ''VideoGame/TimeShift'', ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon'', and ''VideoGame/BioShock''... despite the fact that it was written and published ''[[OlderThanTelevision in 1929!]]'' It starts off by showing the AmnesiacHero with a MysteriousPast who wakes up in a place he doesn't recognize, quickly discovers that he appears to be Petr Brok, a special investigator sent to infiltrate the eponymous LayeredMetropolis - a giant skyscraper where most of humanity lives - and proceeds to use his power of {{Invisibility}} to infiltrate the dystopic building, find out its secrets, and kill Ohisver Muller, the ShadowDictator who rules the place. On his way, he witnesses the [[CapitalismIsBad savage capitalism]] seeping through the city, gathers information, fights a QuirkyMinibossSquad of evil assassins, becomes an IconOfRebellion and helps the burgeoning resistance, goes through several {{Nightmare Sequence}}s that make no sense untill the ending, ends up getting captured by the enemy only to be quickly freed by an ally, and finally goes in to kill the LoadBearingBoss, complete with a LastSecondEndingChoice offer and what would be a CutsceneBoss fight in a video game, [[spoiler: and there is even the obligatory, heavily foreshadowed [[TheEndingChangesEverything ending twist that changes everything.]] ]] The only thing that ''doesn't'' fit the formula [[UnbuiltTrope is the fact that across the story, the hero never wields a gun.]]
135	[[/folder]]
136
137	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
138	* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'':
139	** ''TabletopGame/AlienTheRoleplayingGame'' has the original Colonial Marines as a playable group in the core rules. An expansion, ''The Colonial Marines Operations Manual'', adds further options for running a campaign using the marines, while ''Destroyer of Worlds'' is a high-lethality "Cinematic Module" that focuses on the Marines investigating a colony that has gone dark.
140	** ''Aliens: Bug Hunt'' is a board game putting the players in the shoes of the cast of ''Film/{{Aliens}}''.
141	* ''TabletopGame/{{Deathwatch}}'' is a RPG that has you playing as the legendary Space Marines from ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', part of the eponymous Deathwatch, an indepedent special forces group that is supposed to be the elite of the Space Marines tasked with defending humanity from alien horrors. The players can choose between many Space Marine [[ModernDaySciFiRPGClassEquivalents specialities]] available, such as Devastator (heavy weapons), Assault (close-quarters-combat), Tactical (generalists), Librarian (PsychicPowers), Apothecary (CombatMedic), among many others, and to accompany your badass space marines, you also have a huge arsenal composed by various big and mean guns, such as bolters, plasma weapons, rocket launchers, [[ChainsawGood Chainswords]], PowerFist, various models of PowerArmor, etc. The game is noted to be more combat-heavy and tactical compared to other games in the ''Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay'' line like ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' or ''TabletopGame/RogueTrader''.
142	* ''Slipgate Chokepoint'' is a loving homage to ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' using a modified version of the Black Hack.
143	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ASpaceMarineIsYou