Video Game / COUNTER:SIDE

"... I often think of our fate.

Had we known things would happen like this...

Would we have made different choices?

I know my regret means nothing.

No man or god can change the past.

So, please do not make the same foolish mistake I made.

Sometimes it's better to give up rather than hold on.

So, farewell.

It's time for us to part ways."

Her, Episode 1: A New Recruit.

Counter:Side: Beyond the End (often stylized as COUNTER:SIDE, previously subtitled Administration Licensed) is a Korean mobile gacha Science Fantasy RPG, produced by Studiobside. The original Korean server debuted with Nexon as publisher on February 4, 2020. A Southeast Asian version, encompassing most ASEAN nations, with text available in English and Thai, and technically playable from anywhere in the world due to a lack of true region locking, was published by Zlong Games and released May 17th, 2021. A Japanese version with added Japanese voiceovers was released by Nexon Japan on December 16, 2021. The official Global version, published by Studiobside themselves and with not only English, French, German, and Korean text but also Korean and Japanese voiceovers, was released on May 26, 2022, with a Steam PC client released on September 1. An update then merged the JP and GBL servers together after Studiobside was able to take over as publisher for those two regions.

The primary gameplay has been described by bside as "Line Battle", where combat is done on a 2D plane reminiscent of a Beat 'em Up. Players deploy units to the field (with units having varying "deployment costs" that use Deployment Points, which constantly recharge), choosing where the unit will initially appear, whereupon they move and act on their own (albeit with "ultimate moves" that can be triggered by the player). Each unit has different stats and abilities, which are (broadly) dictated by their classification. Battles are won either by eliminating the enemies in waves, eliminating the boss, or destroying the enemy's ship at their end of the field, depending on the mission type.

You play as the brand new CEO of the Coffin Company, a "research company"-cum-"resource acquisition group"-cum-general hard-luck PMC. Its official endorsement by the Administration gives it authorization to interact with the Counterside, an alternate dimension filled with otherworldly resources, ruins, and incredibly dangerous beings called "Corrupted Objects", which are just what they sound like: anything from rocks to plants to people that have been taken over by The Corruption and now seek to invade the Normalside, AKA our world. Your task is to help keep the world safe from the Counterside, and hopefully make some profit along the way.

However, the members of Coffin's lead Counter squad, Fenrir, seem to have a history with the Counterside, such as newcomer Yoo Mina's curious weapon; her strange feeling of familiarity with the dimension despite no prior experience with it; squad commander Hilde's long, unexplained leave of absence prior to Mina's onboarding; and how said absence seems related to a previous encounter in the Counterside with her old team. And then there's the fact that not everything may be as it seems with their new CEO...

• Note by [Class-1 Administrator]: Due to the various later servers being newer and behind on progress of the Korean server, there will be spoilers (marked and unmarked) regarding future events, characters, and story.
  • Additionally, everything in the first main arc (up to Episode 5) will be declassified.
  • Tropes in need of being updated or reviewed will be hidden until fixed..

---

Preparing to dive into the Counterside...

Layer 1: # to H

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The game takes place in an Urban Fantasy version of a vague near-future, where Applied Phlebotinum has made things like flying ships and particle weapons real, but much of the technology is still reasonably recognizable to people of the real-life 2020s. The end of the "Administration Failure" side story gives the start of the main story a more exact date: the year 2044AD, in the calendar and relative space-time frame of reference for this reality, with the events of the side story itself taking place twenty years ago in 2024.
• 24-Hour Armor:
  • Many of the soldiers in your management make no point about having to take their armor or protective gear off.
  • Justified with the Old Administration Rifleman troops, as their armour is specifically noted to be comfortable to wear for protection from Corruption Rays at all times.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Yen Xing, the current student president has the ability to influence whose allowed on an island owned by the school, even waiving off the expensive ship fees.
• Achilles' Heel: Awakened Na Yubin deals passive damage to Towers when he's on the field.
• Action Initiative: Certain characters are marked with "Forward Deployment" meaning they are able to be placed anywhere on the map, regardless of the enemy boss's HP.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Doing just about anything other than fighting requires credits. Raising employees' levels, building gear, tuning gear, even using unneeded gear to improve the ones you want.
• A Day in the Limelight: Sidestories, mini-events, events, and later chapters tend to focus on the side characters and expand their adventures or motivations in the story.
• Aerith and Bob: All over the place as a result of the different cultural juxtaposition. In just Delta Seven, you have Kyle, Jake, Maria, Dominic, Sylvia...and Jaina? ^note  This is without even getting into ther last names
• Allegedly Free Game: The most valuable currencies are Quartz (which can be earned via in-game quests or bought) and Admin Coins (which are only acquired through microtransactions).
• Alternate Universe:
  • The Counterside is revealed to be the zombified remains of different Worldlines and its inhabitants that are trying to devour the Normalside. You can also travel to different Normalside Worldlines with the correct coordinates. But barring the use of the Arks, those trips are mostly by accident.
  • Deconstructed in "Dead End Road", which focuses more on the Counterside itself rather than the threat of the Demon Lords.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Alternium Reactors introduced in Episode 9.
• Another Side, Another Story: Completing a chapter opens up a Side Story, giving you greater context of the world around the company and also showing other events that had happened in the game. (Several of these were previously full-on game events, with the Side Stories now serving as the archived versions.)
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Each banner has a pity net of 150, guaranteeing you that unit after pulling 150 times. The roll count is on each unit for normal pulls, but carries between them on Awakened banners.
  • The shop has sales that bring the cost of an item down from ten percent all the way to half. Patient players can find the chance to buy something they couldn't afford normally.
  • Any unit that was on the Battle Pass will be added to the main banner and get a special rate-up banner later for people who chose not to buy the Pass.
  • The first copy of each unit you get is automatically locked, so that you can't accidentally get rid of a unit entirely.
• Apocalypse How: A definite Class X-5. The Counterside Effect and Corrupted Objects slowly take over a Worldline until it ultimately becomes another layer of the Counterside. The existence of Simurgh, who in another Worldline was built as an escort vehicle for humanity's space migration fleet, implies that even the rest of the universe isn't safe. The only way to survive is to retreat to another Worldline and start over.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only deploy 8 units per ship, though they range from small drones, to single Counters, to squads of soldiers, to tanks or a Humongous Mecha like Titan.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Certain missions in sidemodes will restrict your team by enforcing Deployment limits or banning certain character types.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Most non-Counter and several Counter units use guns, but said guns often require bullets that are: made of Eternium, can be imbued with CRF, need to be fired in volleys,or be very high-powered, all which can be quite expensive. Compare that to melee Counters who have Super-Strength and Super-Toughness backing up their weapon alongside powers and equipment to enhance that power.
• The Artifact: Ships are divided into various classes (Assault Ships, Armored Ships, Cruisers, and Auxiliary Ships) that require different materials for construction and leveling up and had different movement ranges in Battlefield missions. The Battlefield mode was later removed, but the ship classes still remain, albeit with no practical purpose aside from material requirements.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • The auto-battle AI always deploys units at your ship, which wastes units with Forward Deployment (particularly ones with powerful on-deploy skills).
  • Played in the player's favour in the old Battlefield mode. If a ship had no ammo remaining, any enemy that attacked them would automatically win. But sometimes the enemy would attack another ship that does have ammo, allowing the depleted ship to live.
• Artistic License – Explosives: Combined with Ridiculously Potent Explosives
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Inverted. Some of the characters trigger discipline is so good that they even maintain it while firing.
• Art Evolution: Several characters have had their designs changed. Shin Jia and Seo Yoon were given new art after negative player feedback. Mina, Hilde, and Shiyoon also had their designs changed in order to fit with the overall aesthetic that the game had taken. The Global version, of course, launched with the revised art already in place. This actually leads to one or two brief instances of people appearing slightly "off-model" in early story chapters (particularly Shiyoon watching Hilde's rotorcraft fly off at the end of Episode 1, as that CG is based more on his launch appearance.)
• A Taste of Power: Some events let you use hard-to-get characters, such as Awakened, to get a feel for them. In the Collections page, any unit you practice with is level 100 and with their skills maxed.
• Badass Adorable: A number of Counters are quite young, but they have enough strength to take on C.O.s one-on-one. Yang Harim and Sky Layfield are the real standouts in this category. Also, everyone takes on an edge of this in the content that uses the chibi sprites rather than the non-SD sprites.
• Badass Normal: Soldiers are intended to represent normal humans, without the Counters' superpowers or the heavy machinery of Mechs, fighting with only weapons, intense training and their own wits to carry them through.
• Balance Buff: Some characters have been given a Rearm that improves their stats and base kit. The Rearm requires that you level them to 100, it costs a lot of resources, and creates a new character at level 1.
• Battle Aura: All Awakened units have a glowing, scrolling background in their portraits, either when they are pulled or Limit Broken.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Chapter 5, right as Replacer Queen is about to kill Mina and destroy the Enterprise, down comes Awakened Hilde, utilizing her Qliphoth factors as Type:Siegfried. Fittingly, the Global version launched with this as the big capstone event of the launch story content and with the spoiler character in question as one of the big, featured gacha targets.
• BFG: The pulse revolvers from the Old Administration, as shown by Na Yubin and Mina.
• BFS: Nearly any Counter that uses swords. Lee Sooyeon's sword is as bigger than she is!
• BGM Override: In the old Chapter 5, the theme "Shadow of Memory" played through out the chapter. This has been replaced however with overhauling to ship maps.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: The main conflict up to the end of Chapter 5, is Coffin Company, Delta Seven and the Administration teaming up against the Replacer Syndicate. Each of the former has their own flaws, especially the enigmatic Administration, but the Replacer Syndicate is turning innocent people in C.O.s with no regard for lives.
• Blocking Stops All Damage:
  • Averted with the Protect mechanic (when units behind a Defender take less damage from area attacks) which only reduces the damage taken.
  • Averted with Evasion, which can only avoid most of an attack's damage and prevent hitstun.
  • Shiyoon and Shiyoung's Counterattack skill stops the attack entirely.
• Boring, but Practical: Many of the R Mechs and Soldiers don't have the flash of the SSR Counters, but are still perfectly serviceable and sometimes are preferred based on the map.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: The shop regularly sells various packs that can only be bought with Admin Coins or real money to speed up the raising or farming process for your units. Admin Coins are also only available with real money. Awakened characters in particular require either spending, patience or a lot of luck.
• Brown Bag Mask: The Magellan Prediction Society, a Cult that worships the Counterside and its Eldritch Abominations, has its members wearing brown paper bags over their heads as presumably a disguise. This actually bites them when Kang Soyoung investigates them in the SWAT 7 side story, since she easily deduces their hideout as being the only place in the city that orders so many paper bags and isn't a bakery.
• Buddy Cop Show: The character dynamics between Kang Soyoung and Lee Yumi in the storyline would feel right at home inside a Buddy Cop Show, albeit with several subversions to its typical tropes.
• Cast Herd: There are several different groups with their own goals and objectives.
• Cerebus Syndrome: At Chapter 3 and 7, the introduction of the main antagonists for the arc appears, leading to a darker story.
• Chess Motifs: The leaders of the Replacer Syndicate are named and themed after chess pieces. Replacer Knight is a Blood Knight and frontline leader. Replacer Bishop is a schemer who lays a trap for Yoo Mina. Replacer Queen is their strongest fighter, going out in the open. Replacer King is the leader who stays behind on the ship. Replacer Rook is kept as backup should their main force fail. And Replacer Pawn is a Hate Sink villain who was Reforged into a Minion and cloned as needed.
• Cool Ship: In-story, the New Ohio. There are also several other buildable ships in the Hangar such as the Enterprise, Kamiizumi, and variants of New Ohio.
• Crapsack World: Corrupted Objects regularly threaten the Normalside, hidden Eldritch Abominations lurk in the shadows, and shady businesses commit crimes with the general populace being blissfully unaware (or simply not caring when it doesn't affect them). The Administration also has very questionable motives for doing anything.
• Death's Hourglass: Part of the reason Counters are named as such is because the hands on their Watch counts down their remaining CRF (effectively their remaining energy, which is depleted with time and drains faster when actively using their powers). The hands are turned back when recharging themselves with Eternium, but if they count all the way down, the jig is up and they become a Shadow.
• Double Unlock: The Counter Pass Missions. There is a free one for all players and several bonus Levels and Rewards locked behind a paywall. The content for the paywall also differs.
• Dying Dream: The Framing Device for the "Horizon" sidestory is this for both Rita and Dash: they became Shadows and were killed in the first chapter of the story, and now the Administrator wants to give them peace as he processes the Eternium taken from their bodies.
• Dynamic Entry: Each of the Awakened Characters have one, where the camera zooms in and the action stops to emphasize it. Depending on the unit, additional effects can happen.
• Dub Name Change: The Japanese version took the controversial step of "Nihonizing" virtually all of the names of Korean and Chinese origin (as these names can be rendered "natively" in Japanese, due to the complicated linguistic history between the three languages). All the names that have been changed to date:
  • Yoo Mina to Yanagi Mina.
  • Joo Shiyoon to Akiyama Shiryu.
  • Joo Shiyoung to Akiyama Shinon.
  • Seo Yoon to Aoi Shizuka.
  • Eujin to Shiroko.
  • Kim Sobin to Amana Koharu.
  • Kim Hana to Nakashima Suzuka.
  • Lee Yoon Jeong to Yuko Watanabe.
  • Olivie Park to Olivie Atsuko.
  • Na Hee Rin to Kitahara Nozomi.
  • Yang Harim to Hoshino Usagi.
  • Han Sorim to Mizuki Haneda.
  • Cho Hojin to Itou Mayumi.
  • Gaeun to Yuki.
  • Choi Ina to Megumi Harajima.
  • Lee Yumi to Kasukabe Yumi.
  • Kang Soyoung to Maekawa Natsumi.
  • Lee Jin to Shinozaki Honoka.
  • Oh Saerom to Kendo Asane.
  • Kim Chowon to Suzuki Nao.
  • Lee Minseo to Himiko Kuroboshi.
  • Na Yubin to Ichinose Kaoru.
  • Lee Soo Yeon to Kanami Kizuna.
  • Choi Jihoon to Toshinori Goto.
  • Lee Yuri to Kasukabe Yuri.
• Eldritch Location: The Counterside, naturally. Despite many man-made buildings and materials, the only inhabitants are Corrupted Objects. Chapter 5 explains that the Counterside is many different worlds from other Worldlines combined and will eventually consume the world.
• Evil Church:
• Expy:
  • Many of the characters bear striking similarities or are dead-ringers for characters from Arknights, Azur Lane, Blue Archive, and Punishing: Gray Raven.
  • Most of the corrupted units, especially early ones, resemble the Zerg. The early flying units are especially blatant about this as they are virtually identical to SC1 Mutalisks, down to having very similar animations.
• Faceless Goons: Soldier-type characters identified by their unit rather than having a unique identity tend to also wear face-concealing masks or helmets. This is a plot point in "Proof of Heart"; because Alphatrix's guards use standard issue Steel Lane gear, which includes a face-concealing helmet, the assassin is very easily able to disguise themselves.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: You have your typical military soldiers, and specialized vehicles contrasted to Sci-Fi technologies like Watches and Counters, contrasted by magic done by actual witches and Lovecraftian entities. Chapter 7 later includes the Knights of Redemption, who speak in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
• Freemium Timer: Each quest requires stamina in the form of Eternium, which recharges at a rate of 75 every 5 minutes. You can get more either through level-up (Which gives more Eternium at higher levels), limited trade through the Gauntlet shops, or trading in quartz or Admin Coins.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • In story and event gameplay, characters will frequently comment on the fight regardless of if they fought or will comment on fighting alone in maps where you are expected to bring at least 2 ships.
  • Certain later events assume that the player had encountered and acquired Side Story characters or Story characters despite the fact you never need to do them.
• Guest-Star Party Member: In certain events and Talent Recruitment, other characters will join in fights. In the latter's case, the featured character will fight alongside you.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted several times.
  • Na Yubin is a backline support Ranger and Lee Sooyeon is a frontline BFS Mighty Glacier. Played straight with their Awakened versions.
  • In the Maze Division, the Rifleman are male and the Swordsman are female.
  • In the Fenrir Squad, despite Shiyoon and Hilde both wielding swords, Shiyoon functions as a backline Ranger due to him having a long-ranged Dash Attack while Hilde is a frontline fighter.
  • In Fallen Hawk, Frederick Doma is a gunslinger while his sister Frederick Yuma is a bare-knuckle brawler.
• Halloween Episode: A reoccurring event that comes with specific costumes.
• Harder Than Hard: Challenge Mode and Shadow Palace. These modes not only pit you against powerful enemies, but also impose various restrictions on your team.
• Healer Signs On Early: Averted. None of the starting units are healers, however you can possibly get one from your starting 10-roll. It's for this reason that most would suggest trying to pull Evelyn or Claudia. The Global launch made Claudia and Evelyn both accessible through newbie missions, meaning they're fairly quick to obtain.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You're given the option of renaming the Administator at the start of a profile or having just the name "Admin" followed by a random number.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Some Awakened units can do this against their enemies:
  • Awakened Na Yubin applies "Barrier Reflux" which causes any barriers to dissipate and deal damage to their health equal to the removed barrier. This ability was later also given to Grendel.
  • Awakened Seo Yoon applies "Healing Reflux" which nulls healing and deals damage based on how much they would have been healed by. Momo's operator skill also applies Healing Reflux to enemies on activation.
• Hold the Line: Used in missions where you're fighting waves of enemies while you protect either your ship or an arbitrary placeholder.
  • Lampshaded in "Yoo Mina's Bizarre Adventure" where Amy wonders why it is necessary to keep the ship when they don't need it for combat.
• Hotter and Sexier: Used in some costumes designed to bring about the characters Fanservice appeal.

Layer 2: I to Z

• Idle Animation: All characters have one, some of which are more detailed than others in motion.
• Instant-Win Condition:
  • Defeating the enemy ship/boss in non-Wave battles wins the fight instantly, regardless of any enemy units still in play. Losing your ship in a battle, in the same vein, counts as an immediate loss.
  • In the old Battlefield mode, completing the main objective on either "Defeat Boss"/"Reach Escape Tile" will instantly finish the map regardless of health or enemy placement.
• Interface Spoiler: The Collection tab after "Counters Saga" was added to the Global servers has in-depth information on employees that feature heavy spoilers.
• Item Crafting: You can create new equipment in the Workshop. You can also make Cores and Event items when necessary.
• Jack of All Stats: Strikers are the most balanced in terms of classes. While they lack the speed of Rangers, the hardiness of Defenders, and the range of Snipers, they also aren't saddled with those classes' weaknesses.
• Last Chance Hit Point: The "Immortal" status allows a unit to survive any damage on 1 HP as long as the effect lasts. Veronica and Rearmed Estarosa both have passives that allow them to become Immortal briefly when their health drops low, while Lucretia grants Immortal to up to 3 allies for a short time when deployed.
• Lighter and Softer: Certain events tend to be a significantly less dramatic tone from the main story.
• Limit Break: All Counters have both a Special and an Ultimate.
• Long-Range Fighter: Snipers attack from a farther distance than Rangers. In terms of game mechanics, their attack is treated as "melee" when their target is within five meters of them.
• Lovecraft Lite: The world is besieged by an Eldritch Location unleashing alien monsters, and powerful Eldritch Abominations lurk in the shadows of the Counterside. You take the role of CEO of a company (one of many, in fact) dedicated to fighting those monstrosities, and making a killing in the process. While the game takes place in a Crapsack World, it's also a World of Badass where villains from both the Counterside and Normalside have people opposing them and succeeding.
• Magitek: The settings of the world. Most superpowers or magical abilities demonstrated can be recreated sufficiently with enough application of science and Eternium.
• Me's a Crowd:
  • You can have both Awakened and non-Awakened versions of the same character in the same party.
  • Some units like Bomi and Shin Jia can summon copies of themselves.
• Ms. Fanservice: Many of the female playable characters have skimpy or skintight outfits, and many that don't by default have buyable skins that do.
• My Name Is ???: Used for several cutscenes when characters appear on the scene and speak prior to being properly introduced.
• Non-Indicative Name:While Counters' power sources are known as "Watches", they don't always resemble a timepiece (although they often do); Amy Strickland's yoyo and Yuna Springfield's staff, for instance, are also classified as Watches.
  • Deconstructed on Episode 11, Where its revealed that each Worldine has a unique form of "Watch: Most Wordlines have Watches, Elysion has Stigmata crests, Arcadena has Armaments, and Laura and Evelyn's Wordline has Staffs.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: A story point in the "Project Crossroads" side story. Karin and Shiyoung use the "main" universe as a dumping ground for a potentially world-ending Corrupted Object to save theirs, but it turns out to only be world-ending because their universe had no equivalent to the Administration and their advanced technology. Hilde and Shiyoon identify it as a Category 4, which is powerful but not overwhelmingly so for strong Counters like them, and kill it with little issue.
• Obvious Rule Patch: An update gave most SSR Defenders (except Replacer Knight) a new stat known as Max Damage Limit^note if damage exceeds a certain percentage of the Defender's max HP, the remaining damage is reduced by 80% (e.g., if your Defender has 20,000 max HP and a MDL of 10% against an attack that deals 3000 damage, the Defender would take 2200 damage). This was added to prevent them from being one-shotted by Ultimates and Specials.
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Administration, and before that, the Old Administration.
• Once a Season: In terms of seasonal skins appearing, you can usually expect one Premium skin, one Uncommon skin, and one Rare skin.^note  While what the differences may be different per round a Premium skin usually has an unique cut-in and voice lines, an Uncommon skin will have one or the other, and the Rare skin will have neither.
• Power at a Price: So you got yourself a Watch? Congrats, you now can have Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, possibly Elemental Powers, and possibly more! You also have to feed it Eternium for the rest of your life, otherwise you might start to break down and if you're in the Counterside, possibly become a Shadow.
• Power Equals Rarity:
  • Generally downplayed, as lower rarity units tend to have lower play costs, allowing for them to be used more frequently; additionally, some low rarity units have kits that give them unique niches (like Ingrid and Assault Troopers being able to drop onto the enemy's back lines, Sparrow and Woodpecker being cheap air Mechs, and Claudia and Ironside's healing). However, if they don't have unique quirks and are all about straightforward damage or health numbers, then they inevitably get outdone by higher-rarity units.
  • Played Straight with Awakened units, as currently they're all SSRs.
  • Also played straight with Operators and ships, as high-rarity Operators universally have more functionality than lower-rarity ones and higher-rarity ships generally have better stats and stronger abilities. In the Gauntlet, SSR rarity ships also get MDL.
• Power Source: All Counters awaken their power from a Watch if they are suitable for it, or manifest in their possession under certain conditions. This Watch acts as Power Limiter and tracking device for the Adminstration to keep an eye on it and Eternium is used to power it. The Watches also protects the Counters from Corruption Rays when supplied with Eternium.
  • However, if the Watch runs out of Eternium during Counter Missions, it will suffer from Power Incontinence and turn the Counter into a Shadow, while engulfing the area in a high Corruption Ray Radiation.
• Power Levels: The Administration has classification systems for ranking the power of Counters, Mechs, and Corrupted Objects, and playable units have their classifications listed in their Collection profiles. This is also the only way to see the power categorization of most Mechs, while Counter and C.O. classifications are used regularly in the story.
  • Counters receive a grade from D to S based on their CRF output (correlating to how powerful their abilities are), with D being the lowest and S being the highest including "anything off the chart" (Jake Walker, for instance, is listed as Grade S in the story but "Beyond Scale" in his Collection profile).
    • Category 6 breaks the scale, and for good reason; COs can only evolve to Category 5, meaning Category 6s dont come into play naturally.
  • Mechs are tiered from T1 through T5 based on their combat capability, with some Fennec Fox equipment and the Steel Lane drones falling under T1, and scaling up to Titan at T4 and Evolved One at T5
• Punny Name: In the Kabbalah, the realm where the Qilphoth energy resides is known as "Sitra Archra" ("Other side" or "Counter:Side").
• Purple Is Powerful: The Ultimate gauge is a purple meter.
• Puzzle Boss: The Danger Close bosses are designed so that certain strategies deal more damage to them/slow them down.
• Relationship Values: The Loyalty meter, increased when in the party and win, and during Salary Negotiation. Decreases if the unit goes down in combat, unless the unit has a Lifetime Contract. A later update gave the Dorm, which increases Loyalty depending on the Furniture level, which can be bought using Quartz.
• Retcon:

  • The Administrator lampshades in Ldft Behind Alone that he created the Terrabrains. However, Administration Complete has him throwing a line that this is not the case.
  • One of the major plot points of Episode 9.5 is activating Hive Control so the Administator can calculate the future and win the Qlipoth Game. Administration Complete throws this all out the window by saying he has done this before.

• Orwellian Retcon
  • The "Administration Failure" side story used to be the tutorial for new accounts in the original Korean server. At some point it was changed to begin with Yoo Mina's first day in the Fenrir Squad 20 years later, with the old tutorial becoming the Administrator's unlockable Counter Case after Episode 1 instead. The Counter Case was subsequently made a Side Story in a later update, which was carried over to the later servers.
  • The original introduction of Coffin Company's HQ in the Korean server had Kim Hana meeting Machine G.A.P. and not the CEO. At some point it was changed to Hana picking up the CEO from the airport shortly before Yoo Mina is introduced (making Hana part of the CEO's inner circle alongside Lee Sooyeon), which was carried over to the later servers.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The civil war in Gronia was started by greed and power-hunger from the rebel faction, and insurgents are seen inflicting wanton cruelty onto citizens trying to escape in several cases. Gaeun was just one of many children orphaned by the civil war and kidnapped by the rebels before she managed to escape and be rescued by the CEO. And she was very, very lucky; the other children the rebels capture are sold to Jehuty Biotech as test subjects for inhumane experiments.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • The "Routine Branch Report" Dispatch Mission shows Shiyoon in front of a bar graph, but the x-axis labels the bars the four quarters of 2019, which predates not only Coffin Company itself but also the Administration Failure (which explicitly happened in 2024 of the setting). This seems to be an old asset from the game's official KR release in 2020.
  • The updated Collection tab has in-depth information on employees, but said information often runs contrary to what is shown in story.
• Sexy Villains, Chaste Heroes: Units of the antagonist faction have their purchasable skins more seductive and teasing compared to allied units more innocent ones.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: A relatively common power among Counters, with several of them having weapons either formed (Elizabeth, Cindy) or summoned by their abilities.
• Starter Mon: You begin with the Fenrir Squad from Coffin Company (Hilde, Mina, and Shiyoon), accompanied by Rifleman, Shieldman, and Woodpecker.
  • Later in Episode 1, you get a free SR copy of Eujin.
  • When the gacha is introduced, you are given access to a "Selector" banner that allows you to reroll a ten-roll for free up to 30 times, with one SSR and 3 SR characters guaranteed. Out of both Nanahara sisters (Chifuyu or Chinatsu), Elizabeth Pendragon, Gaeun, and Esterosa de Chevalier, one will be with you practically from the start.
  • A Global update that coincided with the Steam client added a new set of newbie missions with Irie Alford, Claudia Nelson, Evelyn Keller, Seo Yoon, and Administration Shieldman as rewards.
• Stone Wall: Defenders are the defensive characters, either through barriers, shields, taunts, or just high stats.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: When a unit uses their ultimate, a cut-in of that unit is shown on-screen.
• Super Serum: The Elixirs distributed by the Replacer Syndicate.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Classes deal 30% more damage to those that are advantageous, and take 30% less damage. The system form a square with Strikers being strong against Rangers, Rangers being strong against Defenders, Defenders being strong against Snipers, and Snipers being strong against Strikers. Siege, Supporters, and Tower units are not affected by this; however, Towers and Siege units have their own interaction in that Siege units will attack Towers in their path instead of ignoring them like they do most units on their way to the enemy ship/boss.
• Temporary Online Content:
  • Subverted, most rate-up banners have their units put into the main pool. Played straight with Awakened units where certain units are pulled out of the pool and shuffled around.
  • Events and Season/Limited skins are this. They will be available for a certain amount of time. Season/Limited Skins will be rerun at the same timeframe they debuted and events will be added to Side Stories a certain amount of time after it gets a rerun.
• Timed Mission: Battles have a 3-minute timer by default, and if the timer runs out, the player loses. In the Gauntlet, the win is given to whoever has the most ship HP remaining.
• Title Scream: As of the New Origin update, starting up the game gives one from a random character.
• Unobtainium: What Eternium is. It is used to counter Corruption, power the Counters on the battlefield, and has many other applications in the technology of the world. A 4koma reveals that it is also more valuable than gold due to it's properties.
• Urban Fantasy: Solidly in the genre, and a classic example of it. The setting is the real world with a major fantastical element to it (the Counterside and all its related elements), the characters utilize weaponry and devices based on modern ones but enhanced with Applied Phlebotinum, daily life is very similar to the real world of The New '20s, and much of the action takes place in urban environments.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • As you use your units they slowly gain Loyalty, either through surviving encounters and leveling up through Salary Negotiation. When loyalty reaches 100, they get a 2% buff to all stats, and have the ability to get a Lifetime Contract, which gives new voicelines and are equivalent to marriage options in other gachas, some characters noting it's basically the equivalent of marriage in the industry.
  • The Strategy Battle mode in the Gauntlet has players setting up a defense team for other players to challenge, giving a handful of rewards if your defense team wins. However, because having your defense team lose battles doesn't come with any penalty and because players are unlikely to challenge a team they'll lose to anyway, some players fill their defense teams with weak R and N rarity units so other players can get easy wins.
• Video Game Delegation Penalty:
  • When set to auto-play, the game will only deploy units at your ship and only in a fixed order, meaning it does not try to adapt to battlefield conditions and cannot take advantage of forward deployment (making certain characters less efficient).
  • Sweeping through previously cleared Dives costs more Info than playing through them the old fashioned way, and while you get some Credits as compensation for not going through all the battles, you miss out on the other rewards for doing so and the Credits are often less than what you'd receive if you picked up artifacts along the way.
• Beach Episode: Several Vacation Events. If you change the required units in certain maps with your own version of the unit, they will be given the summer skin.
• Warfare Regression: Noted in story that "Warfare" is different from "Anti-corupption tactics"; the latter involves batle lines if Shieldmen holding off the Zerg Rush of C.Os whole other troops and vehicles provide fire support and a strike group used to deal with stronger individuals. Becomes a plot point in Episode 9 where Maria is able to turn the tables on the Knights of Redemption whereas the Old Administration veteran Lee Sooyeon was unable to and Dead End Road where Delta Seven: Pathfinder realises they are royally screwed when attacked by and army of C.Os during an anti-personnel operation.
• Willfully Weak: For a number of characters with Awakened forms, their regular form is shown to be them voluntarily suppressing their true strength for one reason or another:
  • Seo Yoon and Shin Jia do it to conceal what they really are.
  • Hilde only uses her Awakened gear as part of a Godzilla Threshold.
  • Amy Strickland pretends to be much weaker than she actually is to deflect suspicion and to help blend in better with the Freedom Riders.
• You ALL Look Familiar: For less important NPCs there are using either some of the more generic soldier designs or use the non-L2D generic salaryman/salarywoman.

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Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And the days of auld lang syne?