Video Game / Eternal Evil

Nothing happens to anyone that he cannot bear.

Marcus Aurelius

Eternal Evil is an indie Survival Horror First-Person Shooter developed by Honor Games (one-man developer Zlobin Vladimir). It was released on Steam on November 1st, 2022.

Described by the developer as "Resident Evil with vampires" and set in 2001, the game pays homage to the classics of the Survival Horror genre, but with modern graphics and gameplay.

In the aftermath of an apocalypse where an entire town's population has been converted to bloodthirsty ghouls, Marcus, a police officer, was contacted by his ex-partner, Hank, who's caught in a hotel where he uncovered a conspiracy involving ancient vampires and a curse to eradicate humanity. As Marcus grabs his guns and sets out, he's inexplicably blocked by hordes of zombie-like ghouls all over the streets.

The game has two different player characters - Hank, the ex-soldier, and policeman Marcus, both men beginning their stages in separate areas where the former has to escape a hotel filled with ghouls and monsters while the latter is investigating the long-abandoned city, in which their scenarios are happening concurrently and they will cross paths halfway through.

Unrelated to the 1985 film.

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Eternal Evil. Eternal Life. Eternal Tropes...

• Always Night: The entire game takes place at night, like every horror game out there.
• Ancient Tomb: The game's very last stage takes place in an ancient mausoleum, where Marcus confronts the vampire lords.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: At the end Marcus gets turned into a vampire even if he chooses to kill Saron, as Alukar turns him into a vampire anyway so he can protect humanity from future vampire threats, and he lives to witness humanity nearly destroy itself in the year 2104 just like Saron warned. If Marcus chooses to join Saron and become Sefar's replacement, Saron seems to just cut his throat (vampires can raise people as undead who have died from other causes besides bites, but we don't see Saron do this and Marcus doesn't appear afterwards in this ending).
• Apologetic Attacker: When Marcus executes his partner, Hank, after Hank was revealed to be a ghoul.
  Marcus: I'm sorry, Hank. [Boom, Headshot!] ...for honor.
• Apocalyptic Log:
  • Several can be uncovered during the course of the game, that details what happens to the town. Some of them can be quite chilling.
    "David left me a gun. I do not know what to do with it. I've thought many times about putting a bullet in my head and ending it, but there's no way out anyway..."
  • As Marcus, he can come across the last recorded footage of two hunters before they're mauled by the giant bear zombie.
• Anachronism Stew: In the police station, the computers used by their staff appears to be MacBooks, the first model debuting in 2006. Despite the game being set in 2001.
• Ate His Gun: There's a survivor in the Cross Hotel, hiding from the monsters which Hank comes across. Said survivor has a loaded gun with him, and confesses he's going to kill himself after witnessing the horrors of the outbreak, despite Hank trying to talk him out. As soon as Hank leaves the guy, an offscreen gunshot can be heard... backtrack into the room and the guy's dead, face-down with a bloody hole on his nape.
  "We are all gonna die soon anyway."
• Bears Are Bad News: Marcus is attacked by a zombie bear boss while searching the woods. He's not the first victim, with recovered notes mentioning said bear was stalking the area even before it gets converted into an undead.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The hotel has a giant spider and a giant scorpion lurking in it, and they'll become regular enemies later in the game. Notes you find indicate they were created by Cross and his scientist by feeding regular bugs the red water infected with the vampire pathogen, in order to create guard monsters to protect them so they wouldn't be completely reliant on the vampires who they don't trust. In the "worldwide vampire war" ending, Cross' scientist perfects this syrum into one that he hopes will turn humans into Super Soldiers in hopes of evening the playing field against the vampires.
• Blackout Basement: Both Hank's and Marcus' scenarios have several moments where they travel through dimly-lit areas, be it basements or attics, dark forests, ghoul-infested streets at night, and so on. Their flashlights are their only source of illumination in these cases, and it tends to happen more frequently in Marcus' levels since he's exploring the outdoors at dusk.
• Cutscene Boss: Sefar's last confrontation with Marcus - despite spending most of the game being a competent boss fought multiple times, the last encounter is resolved in a cutscene where Marcus shoots at Sefar only for Sefar to dodge every shot and grab Marcus. Turns out that's exactly what Marcus wants, using this opportunity to inject the antidote that negates Sefar's resurrection ability and nullifies his powers. With a weakened Sefar before him, Marcus then puts a bullet into Sefar's face.
  Marcus: For Hank.
• Decoy Protagonist: Hank is assumed to be the main character until he's abruptly knocked out while in the middle of the Cross Hotel, roughly a third into the game. Cue the real protagonist, Marcus, to take over. Hank does reappear again, but have since been converted into a ghoul and killed off in a cutscene.
• Degraded Boss: The giant spider and scorpion returns as regular enemies in the crypts.
• Downer Ending: Both endings are quite grim. If Marcus kills Saron, Alukar turns him into a vampire anyway to protect against future vampire threats. Saron's warnings about unchecked human growth prove correct, as by the year 2095 the world is overpopulated and ruled by megacorporations. The resulting social unrest eventually leads to the global elite purging the human race, reducing humanity down to 43 million people. If Marcus spares Saron, Saron will cut his throat (and may or may not turn him into Sefar's replacement) and enact a global vampire hegemony. Humans excess is kept in check by vampire social darwinism as they feed on the weak and decadent, but humans are not allowed to hold positions of political power, ultimately leading to an apocalyptic war between humans and vampires.
• Face-Revealing Turn: Marcus eventually rendezvous with his partner, Hank, with Hank's back facing him. Marcus' completely unaware that Hank's been ghoulified until Hank turns around.
• Fan Disservice:
  • One of the hotel suites has a naked, dead lady on it's bed, lying in a huge pool of blood, with her carcass decapitated and horribly mutilated and hardly appealing to look at.
  • There's also a pale-skinned female ghoul enemy who attacks in the nude. Her jugs are hanging out and clearly visible when she's trying to chew Hank apart using her fangs. In fact both male and female ghouls have a chance to be extra aggressive, in which case they can randomly "hulk out", shredding their clothes and attacking shirtless after becoming more muscular.
• Flesh-Eating Zombie: One recurring sight of carnage, where ghouls can be seen feasting on human carcasses. Interrupting their meal will make them attack Hank or Marcus in sight. There's in fact areas containing ghouls and human skeletons, picked to the bones, still lying in fresh blood.
• Full-Boar Action: Marcus' scenario leads him through a forest, where his enemies includes zombified wild boards that tries goring him on sight.
• Giant Spider: The Cross Hotel has a huge arachnid monster hiding in the attic, one unsurprisingly filled with cobwebs, all the way to the ceiling. It's the first boss Hank fought for his scenario.
• Infernal Retaliation: Setting Sefar on fire during one of Marcus' boss battles is a bad idea - Sefar will continue charging at Marcus while set alight.
• Grenade Launcher: Hank could obtain one in the hotel's terrarium, which comes in useful when he needs to fight the scorpion boss.
• Hell Hotel: Hank's scenario begins in the ghoul-infested Cross Hotel, and he needs to find his way to the lobby while battling monsters. There's an oversized spider and a giant scorpion as bosses, and the ghoul Sefar stalking him, for good measure.
• Hulking Out: Ghouls which manage to grab and bite you will power up from the blood and become much faster and stronger, ripping their clothing as their muscles grow.
• Humans Are Bastards: At the end of the game Saron warns Marcus that without vampires to keep the human population in check and provide a source of struggle to enable natural selection, humans will grow out of control and destroy themselves. If Marcus kills him, Saron ends up being proven right, as overpopulation and the resulting social unrest causes the global elite to enact a global purge reducing the human population down to 43 million.
• Human Chess: Cross Hotel has a room which is a giant chessboard (albeit in a smaller, 4 X 8 board with a bishop, a knight, king and queen, and 4 pawns). Hank needs to play chess with himself and gain a decent Checkmate to reveal a hidden key.
• Looks Like Orlok: Sefar and his two brothers, the ghoul lords, are bald, sharp-teethed, pointy-eared humanoid monsters. The vampire king, Saron, is this plus a more skull-like face and a bunch of extra horns and spikes, giving him a more demonic appearance.
• Luck-Based Mission: The items found by destroying vases are random. Also, each individual ghoul has a small chance of being extra aggressive, moving much faster, and being able to run on all fours, making them much more likely to manage to grab a bite of you and power up into their more dangerous form.
• Molotov Cocktail: Players as Marcus can obtain petrol bombs for incinerating ghouls and monsters.
• Noodle Incident: Hank apparently did something during his days as Marcus' ex-partner in the police force three years ago, that lead to his resignation, but Marcus only mentions it in passing.
  Marcus: It's been 3 years since our last mission together. After which Hank retired and started working in the police. He knows I'm still not over what he did in that mission...
• Not Using the "Z" Word: The zombie-like creatures Hank and Marcus battles are called ghouls, and at no point did anyone use the Z-word.
• Raising the Steaks: Both Marcus and Hank have to content with zombie animals, from zombie snakes to rats and boars.
• Ramp Jump: Marcus' introduction cutscene sees him saving a young woman trying to jump over an opening drawbridge to escape the ghoul horde, where he grabs and pulls her over in time.
• Recurring Boss: Of the two ghoul lords, Sefar is fought twice, by both Hank and Marcus.
• Scary Scorpions: The Hotel is infested by a mutant scorpion monster who stalks Hank repeatedly; when faced as a boss it's roughly as large as the room you it's fought in. Notes regarding the scorpion's origins could be collected at various points - supposedly, it's a rare animal breed from China who grows in size and intelligence after being given the red water infected with the vampire pathogen. Surprisingly it's apparently loyal to the scientist that made it and can even take commands.
• Scenery Gorn: The game doesn't shy away from depicting the outbreak's aftermath, where most buildings are in ruins, curtains and walls stained with red, rodents feasting on a now-skeletonized corpse, and piles of bloodied bodies everywhere.
• Summon Bigger Fish: At the end of the game, Marcus revives the vampire lord Alukar (who is sympathetic to humanity) to fight the vampire king Saron. Alukar ends up losing said fight, but presumably weakens Saron enough for Marcus to take him on.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich:
  • The Hotel's dining room still have plenty of delicious pastries, cakes, cheese and other goodies on display, completely untouched.
  • One abandoned, ghoul-infested house Marcus investigates still has plenty of leftover food in the kitchen and dining tables, including pizza, loaves of bread, and the like. It's not like the ghouls are going to eat any human food.
• Undeathly Pallor: All ghoulified humans have pale-grayish skin. It's especially comparable to Hank and Marcus (both white men) whose hands are in-view in first-person.
• Unique Enemy: There's one nude female ghoul faced in the hotel, thankfully.
• You Dirty Rat!: Rats - huge, fat, albino ones - appears as enemies in the hotel's wine cellar, introduced gnawing at a human skeleton and feasting away. They attack Hank on sight, but can be killed with one hit by most weapons.

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Marcus: I was hoping this day would never come...