Line #59 Main/RemilitarizedZone


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4	%% The examples on this page have been sorted alphabetically and by genre. Please add new ones in order. Thank you!
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16	[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/war_levels.png]]
17	[[caption-width-right:275:WarIsHell...on your controller.[[labelnote:Top to bottom]]''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', ''[[VideoGame/MarioParty1 Mario Party]]'', ''VideoGame/ConkerLiveAndReloaded''[[/labelnote]]]]
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22	->''"Son, do you realize that to take my course I will have to pull you into my mind... And you will have to relive every bullet-scarred memory of every battle I have ever faced? It won't be pretty."''
23	-->-- '''Coach Oleander''', ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}''
24
25	Stand to attention, player! You're not in GreenHillZone anymore! This {{videogame setting\|s}} suddenly has a lot of guns, bombs, {{tank\|Goodness}}s, warships, soldiers, barbed wire, trenches, smoke, and mines, often in stark contrast to the rest of the game. Often seen in platformers to mix up the usual mix of generic level types.
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27	The music will generally switch to a more sinister theme to warn you, if not a straight-out military marching tune.
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29	Don't be surprised to see SchizoTech, SuperSoldier enemies, a MilitaryMashupMachine for a boss, and for the battlefield to resemble {{Mordor}}. Compare BattleshipRaid.
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31	Note that if the game's whole setting is already military, then it doesn't count (for the same reason a SurvivalHorror game isn't eligible to count as an example of BigBoosHaunt). This trope is a VideogameSettings trope in the same sense as SlippySlideyIceWorld or BandLand.
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33	!!Examples:
34	[[foldercontrol]]
35
36	%%[[folder:Action]]
37	%%* ''VideoGame/DoubleDragonNeon'': The Assault Zone (Mission 6), whose boss is a [[MilitaryMashupMachine Giant Tank]].
38	%%[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Action-Adventure]]
41	* ''VideoGame/{{Folklore}}'': Warcadia. Particularly noticeable since you head there directly from [[{{Arcadia}} the Faery Realm]], a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin fairyland filled with friendly little elves, breathtaking architecture, and lots of big, green trees]]. Whereas Warcadia is filled with monsters based on soldiers and WWII-era weapons, craters, burning buildings, and at least one MilitaryMashupMachine.
42	* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'': Planet Norion and Pirate Homeworld. The former is a force-of-good version, as it's run by the Galactic Federation and only becomes a threat for Samus when the Pirates invade it during the game's prologue. In contrast, Pirate Homeworld is definitely an evil place as it's filled with Space Pirates and mechanical enemies; the environment is another enemy, due to the acid rain.
43	* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'': One of the main overworld areas is Call of Battle, a desolate city that used to be the setting of a fierce warlike conflict, and still retains much debris from those days. The atmosphere is much bleaker than that of the other hub areas of the game, mimicking the tone of many shooter games like ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty''. Fortunately, by default, the place is quite peaceful. The southern coast is where Travis eventually goes for the Rank 4 fight: [[spoiler:It's supposed to be Sniping Lee, but a supporting character kills him right before he attempts to do the same to Travis; the real boss ends up being Destroyman, who was previously defeated in the first two games and now commands an army of robots having his likeness to take revenge; Travis first dispatches the robots and then meets his nemesis in a military laboratory located right under the coast's sand]].
44	* ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'': The very first level, Basic Braining. You're [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind in the mind of your coach]], who had served in the military, and everything in his mind that you can see so far is war, war, war. Explosions, war-themed figments, minefields, cannons, camouflage. Even the trees are made of bullets and the [[{{Foreshadowing}} rabbits]] are wearing soldier's helmets. [[spoiler:If you revisit his mind, you discover that he [[PhonyVeteran never served in the military in the first place]], as he wasn't accepted due to his [[TheNapoleon short stature]].]]
45	%%* ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002'': Planet Batalia.
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Fan Games]]
49	* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorldPiranhaIsland'': Piranha Tank is a fleet of the Piranha Wizard's finest tanks and battleships used to protect Piranha Castle. The tanks are constantly moving, so if Mario touches the ground, he gets squished flat and loses a life.
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Fighting Games]]
53	* Guile's iconic Air Force Base stage from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' with the F-16 Fighting Falcon jet and Guile's cheering mates in the background. It was brought back in ''V'' as well.
54	* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'': The Shadow Moses stage brings the military setting of the ''Metal Gear'' games.%%The Subspace Emissary has the stages set within Halberd.
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Maze Games]]
58	* ''VideoGame/{{Cratermaze}}'': The Wartime levels, where the enemies become UsefulNotes/WorldWarII soldiers. In ''Booby Kids'' for the Famicom, the collectibles also become radios.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	%%[[folder:MMORPG]]
62	%%* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'': The Rikti War Zone. Also the Shadow Shard.
63	%%[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:Platformers]]
66	* ''VideoGame/ApeEscape2'': Code C.H.I.M.P., the [[DiscOneFinalDungeon penultimate level]], fits this quite well. Most of the {{M\|ascotMook}}onkeys in the level are heavily armed and decked out in military uniforms, the Mooks are either [[StuffBlowingUp rocket-happy]] [[MechaMooks robots]] or [[CallARabbitASmeerp Porkies]] dressed up as {{Tank\|Goodness}}s (in a game where the grand majority of non-catchable enemies are assorted MixAndMatchCritters), and the soundtrack is a sinister military beat. Plus, it's the second of two levels in the game where you get to use a Tank yourself.
67	* ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'': The War chapter, and by extension the multiplayer stages based on it. The former takes place in the middle of a war between the Squirrel High Command and the villainous Tediz, set on the latter's island base. A good portion of the chapter sees Conker DualWielding guns and switching to first person shooter mechanics.
68	%%* ''VideoGame/JazzJackrabbit'': Technoir.
69	%%* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'': The Halberd. Meta Knight's airship is probably the biggest example of MoodWhiplash in the series that doesn't involve a CosmicHorror.%%And how does it fit this trope?
70	* ''VideoGame/Klonoa2LunateasVeil'': The Kingdom of Anger, Volk, consists entirely of people who do nothing but fight all the time.
71	%%* ''VideoGame/MegaMan5'': Napalm Man has this for the second half of his stage.
72	%%* ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}: Abe's Exoddus'': The Slig Barracks, the training ground of the game's {{Mooks}} and the headquarters of [[GeneralFailure General Dripik]].%%Missing context. Are they just seen, or played through, or what?
73	* ''VideoGame/PizzaTower'': The final regular level, WAR. The first half is set on a battlefield with jets and bombs on parachutes visible in the background. Enemies include tanks and helmet-clad pizza slices that hide in false bushes. The second half is some sort of cloning facility. The stage sees use of the shotgun mechanic to mimic a war, and its unique mechanic is that a bomb's timer is constantly ticking down and needs to be replenished by destroying terminals.
74	* ''VideoGame/RainbowIslands'': World 2 ("Combat Island"). With cute, cartoony-looking bomber planes and tanks, no less.
75	* ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse'': Scuttle Town becomes this at the start of the game when the Ammo Baron performs his invasion, with plenty of soldiers, Gatling guns, missiles, and mines to go around.
76	* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':
77	** ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'': The Prison Island portion is big on this one. Metal Harbor, Weapons Bed, Security Hall, Iron Gate, and Prison Lane all fall under this trope. The first two take place on the island's G.U.N. naval base (Sonic even climbs up an ICBM launch pad and hitches a ride on the missile); the other three are more accurately within the TheAlcatraz trope. They are in a top-secret military-level prison, however...
78	** ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'': Many levels in this game fall under this category due to its alien invasion premise; key focus goes to the city levels of Westopolis, Lethal Highway, and Central City, and the G.U.N. military bases of Air Fleet and G.U.N. Fortress.
79	** ''VideoGame/SonicForces'': Yet another game focused around a war, this time against the Eggman Empire, practically every level in Forces counts as this; special focus goes to the levels set in the battle-scarred town, Eggman's capital city of Metropolis, and the Eggman Empire Fortress.
80	%%** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog18Bit'': [[AirborneAircraftCarrier Sky Base Zone]].
81	%%** ''VideoGame/SonicRush'': Huge Crisis Zone.
82	%%** ''VideoGame/SonicAdvance'': Secret Base Zone.
83	%%** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'': [[AirborneAircraftCarrier Wing Fortress Zone]].
84	%%** ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'': [[AirborneAircraftCarrier Flying Battery Zone]].
85	%%** ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'': The Sky Deck, particularly in Sonic and Tails' versions.
86	%%** ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'': Most levels have this in one way or another. Central City, Westopolis, Prison Island, G.U.N. Fortress, and [[AirborneAircraftCarrier Air Fleet]] are probably the most applicable to this trope.%%"Probably" or actually?
87	%%** ''VideoGame/SonicColors'': Sweet Mountain... and it's made out of [[LevelAte FOOD]].
88	* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'':
89	** ''VideoGame/SpyroTheDragon1998'': The Peace Keepers Home bases its theme on the open warfare style of the 18th and early 19th Centuries. It has background music that sounds like a military march with bugles and snare drums, the enemies are dressed like old-fashioned soldiers with fancy {{Highly Conspicuous Uniform}}s, and there are some cannons sitting around that can be fired. None of the actual Peace Keeper worlds you visit from there continue this trope, though.
90	%%*** The final regular level of Gnasty's World, Twilight Harbor.
91	** ''VideoGame/Spyro2RiptosRage'': The Zephyr stage features the war between the Breeze Builders and Land Blubbers. The main goal of the level is to capture an enemy building.
92	* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
93	** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' combines this with LevelsTakeFlight in the form of airship levels, which sees Mario take on Bowser's air force and confront the Koopalings. ''Super Mario Bros 3'' also has the terrestrial (tank) and naval (warship) military levels of the Dark World.
94	** ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'': Bob-omb Battlefield is a subversion. It contains references to a war between two groups of Bob-ombs, but the only actual fighting seen is when the Bob-ombs on the mountain shoot bubble cannons at Mario in the first episode. After that (and even before it), it's a pretty standard GreenHillZone.
95	** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' have both several examples of this (such as Battlerock Galaxy), which become [[ThatOneLevel difficult to tackle]] when it comes time to collect Purple Coins in them (except the Bowser and Bowser Jr. levels, which only have 1 star each in the first game and 2 in the second).
96	** Airship levels are present in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'', ''[[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosU U]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/NewSuperLuigiU Luigi U]]'', but only appear in plot-critical moments. The boss fought in all of them is Bowser Jr.
97	** ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' alternates between having castles (where Bowser is the boss) at the end of some worlds, and airships at the end of others; in turn, in some airship levels, the boss is Boom Boom, and in others, it's Pom Pom (in the case of World 7's airship, [[DualBoss both are]]). The game also has World 8-1, a metallic fort that heavily features spiked balls.
98	** ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'': The game primarily has [[AlliterativeName Bowser's Bullet Bill Brigade]] and Bowser's Bob-omb Brigade, which contain the goosestepping Blockstepper {{Mooks}} and also mark the return of the tanks from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3''. There's also Bullet Bill Base in World 6, a tower filled with many cannons, and The Bowser Express in World 8, which is a train-based military level. Lastly, Cosmic Cannon Cluster is a SpaceZone variant, where Bullet Bills and Cannonballs are the most common threat (alongside Parabones).
99	** Airship levels can be created in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker2'', even in the game styles that originally didn't have them (namely ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld''). In the second game, in night mode, enemies and items behave as if they were underwater, though Mario and his friends move normally.
100	** ''VideoGame/MarioKartDS'' has Airship Fortress which, true to its name, harkens back to the [=SMB3=] Airship levels while also incorporating the Fortress motifs. It returns in ''VideoGame/MarioKart7'' and ''VideoGame/MarioKartTour'' as a NostalgiaLevel.
101	** ''VideoGame/MarioParty1'': Wario's Battle Canyon. In this board, the Red and Black Bob-ombs are at war with each other over which army is better, and the only way to get them to settle their differences is by collecting the most Stars. This board's gimmick is that the Bob-ombs load the players into cannons and shoot them to other islands. Landing on the Happening Spaces changes the positions of the cannons so that the players can be shot to different islands.
102	** ''VideoGame/MarioParty6'': The minigame Shoot Yer Mouth Off puts three characters encased in a street that has been taken over by Banzai Bills, Bob-ombs, and Thwomps. The fourth player can input commands (namely say numbers with the Mic) to order the Shy Guys to unleash the mooks that are waiting in line to attack the others. If the fourth player manages to eliminate all three players, they'll win; but if at least one player from the trio manages to survive for 60 seconds, then the trio wins.
103	[[/folder]]
104
105	[[folder:Puzzle Games]]
106	* ''VideoGame/MischiefMakers'': The War levels have lots of tanks and bombs. You even ride a missile at one point!
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder:Rhythm Games]]
110	* ''VideoGame/FridayNightFunkin'': Week 7 takes place on a battlefield where Platform/{{Newgrounds}} mascot Tankman is holding Girlfriend hostage unless Boyfriend can beat him in a rap battle. Aside from the two soldiers pointing their guns at Girlfriend, a sniper tower, and ruined buildings, there isn't much "military" until the final song where [[spoiler:Pico appears and starts battling a whole army in the background]].
111	[[/folder]]
112
113	[[folder:Role-Playing Games]]
114	* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIVLegendsOfTheTitan'': At first, the fourth mainland (Cloudy Stronghold) is heavily patrolled by the aerial forces of the Empire. Being spotted by one of them will cause the party's skyship to be gunned down, resulting in the characters being brought back to Tharsis with critically low health and any food gathered lost. By the time you complete the fourth Stratum (Echoing Library) things change for the better, as you'll not only be able to wander around the Stronghold freely but also hire Imperial-class characters for your party. The Echoing Library itself remains an example of this trope, however: Those robotic F.O.E. will continue patrolling the rooms like they own the place (which is why the stratum revolves around sneaking through the corridors without being spotted, though in one instance you ''have'' to make them chase you as they're obstructing the path to the boss room).
115	* ''VideoGame/EvolutionTheWorldOfSacredDevice'': After spending the majority of the game exploring [[RuinsForRuinsSake ancient ruins]], the climax takes place on [[spoiler:the 8th Empire's battleship, the Crown Prince/"[[AdaptationalNameChange KronPrinz]]"]].
116	%%* ''VideoGame/PaperMario'':
117	%%** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'': Bowser Jr.'s Flotilla, the penultimate stage of the game taking place on an airship.
118	%%** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'': Cobalt Base, likely because Ludwig and his gang have built the base over the natural landscape.
119	* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'': Sword Valley and Galahad Fortress, one explored early on in the game, and the other a lot sooner. There is a much larger number in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', in the form of Ganglion bases scattered through the five continents of planet Mira (among which [[LethalLavaLand Cauldros]] is by far the most occupied).
120	* ''VideoGame/WrestleQuest'': A war field called the Glory Fields is home to things that scream military, war zones, military bases, and sniper rounds.
121	[[/folder]]
122
123	[[folder:Shooters]]
124	%%* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}: Werner Werman in Murine Corps''
125	%%* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'': When the Army comes, and some places of ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''.
126	* ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'': Ichor is the planet where Mizar's insect drones are trained and, from there, carried by the large vessels to the planets they aim to invade. Vela is the first character to storm the facility, and much later in the game Juno and Lupus follow suit.
127	* ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}}'': Planet Helghan looks like this beside all the other stages in ''VideoGame/PlayStationAllStarsBattleRoyale'' (at least until it gets invaded by ''VideoGame/ApeEscape'''s [[GiantMecha Goliath]] and an army of [[MascotMook Pipo Monkeys]]).
128	* ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'': Aside from actual military bases, the games and levels are known for their quirky settings, but when up against General Morden's Rebel Army, you can be sure that they've fortified their positions in anticipation of the players. Hell, they've in the past, militarized a sea plane wreck, mosques and even an actual GiantEnemyCrab by festooning them with armour plating, rocket batteries and the occasional giant RayGun.
129	%%* ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'': Military base.
130	%%* ''VideoGame/SeriousSamII'': Moon Kronor.
131	[[/folder]]
132
133	%%[[folder:Stealth-Based Games]]
134	%%* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'': All games feature these prominently.
135	%%[[/folder]]
136
137	[[folder:Strategy Games]]
138	* ''VideoGame/{{Desperados}}'': The mission ''Piggies in the Middle'' has the team return to a town in a battle between the BigBad's men and the US cavalry. Artillery fire from the Cavalry is a hazard in some places on the level.
139	[[/folder]]
140
141	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
142	* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Adventure Path "Reign of Winter Part 5: Rasputin Must Die!": Your MedievalEuropeanFantasy-ish party travels to UsefulNotes/RedOctober-era Russia to take on soldiers, vampires, tanks, and clouds of sentient mustard gas in a prison camp before trying to give UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk himself ''another'' [[RasputinianDeath brutally overdone death]].
143	[[/folder]]

Context Main / RemilitarizedZone