History VideoGame / TheSecretWorld

According to the developers, the game takes a lot of inspirations from works set in TheRoaringTwenties, from Creator/HPLovecraft's [[CosmicHorrorStory books]] to the ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' franchise. It was even originally intended to be set in 1920s, but concerns over the setting's accessibility have led to a PresentDay setting being chosen. The old setting was instead picked up again by the devs' later project, ''Draugen''.

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: During [[spoiler:Che and John's]] drunken adventures in Kaidan, they get into fights with Akashi, the Korinto-kai, the House-in-Exile...and [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments a dance off with Ricky Pagan]].

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Secret_World_cover_5788.png]]

** Elder Vampires can transform into bats, usually to escape battles they can't win.

* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: Dr. Klein, who exposed himself to small doses of the Filth to build up an immunity, although it also caused him to develop a dependency. [[spoiler:Subverted; according to the bees, this does ''not'' give one an immunity to Filth, and Klein is plain infected by it. He retains his own personality -- but it's entirely devoted to the Filth.]]

* ALighterShadeOfGray: The Templars, their end goal is to save the world...unfortunately they don't care about the cost in doing so.

* BadassTeacher: Headmaster Montag of Innsmouth Academy, who admits to knowing how to decapitate a rampaging {{Familiar}} with a shovel.

* BlindIdiotTranslation:
** While fluid, the Dragon [=NPCs=]' Korean dialogue uses odd constructions, varies wildly between overly formal and extremely rude, and generally gives the impression that either the translator or the voice actors were more accustomed to using a dialect other than modern standard Korean.
** In the German version, some dialogue is not so much translated as it is completely replaced by dialogue that, while in essence still having the same meaning, often is much more confusing than the original dialogue. Most egregiously, all of the rather straightforward instructions in the tutorial are replaced by overtly flowery metaphors. Which is especially egregious as the German version is only subtitled; meaning every German player with some knowledge of the English language will quickly catch onto this and be likely to end up even more confused.
* BodyHorror: The transformation process inherent to both the Filth and the Draug. Not only do the lore entries go into horrific detail, but you actually get to see the transformation at a mid-point in the case of [[spoiler:Joe Slater, PatientZero for the Draug attack on Kingsmouth]]: when you finally track him down, he still looks vaguely human, [[spoiler:but his left arm has been distorted into massive club of bone and coral, his right arm is covered in wriggling tentacles, and his face is pockmarked with what look like barnacles.]]

* BunnyEarsLawyer: The Illuminati's highest of high-ups, The Pyramidion. He speaks in a calm, evenly-paced tone, and you can tell he obviously knows everything worth knowing. Too bad about that curious habit of peppering his speech with Public Announcements and context-relevant memes...

* CastFromHitPoints: BloodMagic specializes in this.
** Though not always. If a BloodMagic user gains enough resources (think the Rogue's Combo Points in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'') -- for example, a healing/shielding spell called ''The Scarlet Arts'' "requiring" five points -- the ability is cast without a detrimental effect. However, unlike other abilities, BloodMagic is a little lax on the amount of resources it requires. If you cast it "early", it will gradually strip you of a small portion of your health to repay what's quite literally a "blood debt".

* CloudCuckooLander: About every second NPC you meet, in one way or another. Of course, the game [[ConspiracyKitchenSink being what it is]], many of those turn out to [[TheCuckooLanderWasRight be]] [[ObfuscatingStupidity something]] [[MadOracle else]] [[CassandraTruth entirely]]...

* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Dying doesn't have any particularly high penalties. Your gear suffers some minor damage, and you have to either walk back to your corpse or respawn at an Anima Well. Death is ''so'' cheap, in fact, players used to commit suicide and respawn at the Anima Wells as a form of stopgap fast-traveling -- up until the game was upgraded to replace this exploit with a significantly cheaper magical teleport system. Killing yourself is even required in some quests, to access areas that are blocked to the living and to interact with ghostly entities. This is justified and even lampshaded in game -- when you go down, the Bees (the same ones that give your your powers) whisk you away to save you, and the first major villain you face actually says that he can't kill you because, unless he grinds you down to atoms -- which he honestly doesn't have time to do -- you'll just come back again. [[spoiler:So instead he traps you in a large underground library while he proceeds with his plans.]] Other savvy villains who know of your powers follow suit, the technique ultimately reaching its zenith when [[spoiler:Lilith just slices your legs off and leaves you to it.]]

* FantasyAmericana

* ForcedLevelGrinding: initially averted very intentionally, with all content being easily accessible with the skill points and gear the player gets from playing through missions. But then, there is Tokyo, where abruptly the player has to redo a single specific mission six times to be able to use his weapons and unlocked skills at all... and abruptly a linear leveling mechanic is introduced and quests have to be re-done dozens or even hundreds of times to unlock the last bit of content in sharp contrast the the previously semi-open world design. ''Legends'' did away with it entirely.

* FunctionalMagic: Thanks to being symbiotically bonded with one of the Bees, players have the ability to use magic in the fashion of Inherent Gifts; however, many other magical prodigies were simply born with their powers without the intervention of the Bees, in some cases because of genetic inheritance, in others for no perceivable reason at all. Secret Worlders who haven't been touched by "The Buzzing" or inherited magic need to learn spells through Rule Magic, which can take years to master. Meanwhile, the Illuminati have taken Device Magic to an artform in crafting various MagiTek objects to control or enhance magical processes: Lore entries mention imprisoning demons inside specially-made hard drives, Dr. Zurn provides a full-body workout for your powers and a flashback to the Tokyo incident with a simple injection, and the faculty at Innsmouth Academy reinforce their wards with W.A.N.D. anima devices.
* FungusHumongous: The forests of Transylvania are home to at least two large colonies of gigantic fungus, one in the power station, the other in the water treatment plant. Several species here are mobile and extremely dangerous, requiring you to head in and destroy them before they start endangering the locals.

* HunterOfMonsters: Apart from Jack Boone and John Wolf, Solomon Island features the League of Monster Slayers, an entire club of monster hunters... comprised entirely of ''kids.'' Surprisingly, they actually have had quite a bit of success in the past, though the Lore entries reveal that their initial successes were largely due to having an [[ChildMage Innsmouth Academy student in their ranks]] and up until comparatively recently, it took a lot of effort to get them to [[GirlsHaveCooties allow girls into the league]]. Unfortunately, most of the league's current membership were killed when the Fog descended on Kingsmouth, leaving only Danny Dufresne and their well-fortified treehouse base.
* HollowEarth: The travel nexus between major cities and locations is the fabled Agartha, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin in the center of the Earth]]. How did you manage to ''find'' Agartha? Well, see, [[{{Yggdrasil}} The World Tree]] just sort of stuck out its branches...

* {{Immortality}}:
** The Bees -- people who have a connection with the insects of the same name -- are very difficult to kill, and the {{Player Character}}s are counted among their numbers. They ''can'' die, but their anima form (soul) just gets back up at the nearest Anima Well (a sort of fountain of raw magic) where it can either just spawn a new body, or hike its incorporeal form back to the old body and revive that. The Buzzing implies that unless they are killed deliberately, they will survive "until the heat death of the universe".
*** However, WordOfGod states despite our immortality the Bees won't stop aging, it will just happen incredibly slowly.
** Certain [=NPCs=] enjoy their own forms of immortality ([[WhoWantsToLiveForever or not]]): Khalid and Ptahmose are -- at the very least -- [[TheAgeless ageless]], though its implied that they're much more; the Sentinels have CompleteImmortality, as nobody has worked out how to destroy them completely; Säid and the rest of the Kingdom are all undead, being mummies, though it's implied that there are ways of killing them off for good; vampire elders have a certain degree of [[FromASingleCell Regenerative Immortality]]. If lore entries and his own claims are to be believed, [[spoiler:Beaumont]] has CompleteImmortality, being a former Norse God.

* InternetIncorporated: The Illuminati were responsible for the Internet's creation and have a major role in its continuing development and specifications. While they don't precisely own it, they've got the best real-time maps of it, the best monitoring of content and backdoor access to anything connected to the Internet... and, supposedly, a "kill switch" which entirely breaks connectivity worldwide.

* InUniverseGameClock: The game's HUD has a clock in the upper right-hand corner to give you the time of day, both in-universe and (if you click on it) in real life.

* MadnessMantra: Hello, I walk into empty
** [[spoiler:"My name is Sarah, I am still on this planet."]]

* NasalTrauma: As the Buzzing observes, this is a natural consequence of mummification, with the first step involving an iron hook being inserted into the nostrils to extract the brains... except the Atenists inflict this on their victims while they're still alive.

* NothingIsScarier: When one enters the vicinity of the Black House, all sound and music is muted, save for your own footsteps and a deep moan emanating from the bowels of the house. Needless to say, it is nerve racking.
* NoticingTheFourthWall: During Issue #11, an exploration of QBL Media's alpha level reveals that one unfortunate employee appears to have suffered this trope. [[spoiler:On one of the office whiteboards, the employee in question has written down the titles of several past issues of ''The Secret World,'' from issue seven through to eleven. There's even an attempt to write the title for the as-yet-unreleased Issue #12 -- which abruptly breaks into a manic scrawl of "[[GoMadFromTheRevelation OH GOD I CAN SEE FOREVER]]".]]

* OrderVersusChaos: The Templar are all about hierarchy, the Illuminati are Social Darwinists with a pyramidal scheme in mind, and the Dragon... believes in inciting chaos to force balance.

* PrestigeClass: Auxiliary Weapons function as this, showing up late in the game to add a small amount of specialized function to a character.
** The game's "decks" also count, to some extent. While there are technically no classes in the game, players can unlock specialized "decks" by taking on specific abilities from the various disciplines; even going so far as to offer one for mastering them all.
** The newly released "Augments" also count. They can add to and/or boost the effects of abilities. It's stated by the devs that they're more for those who have already obtained everything else in the game so far.

* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: The Agartha Stationmaster, who is probably far older than he appears to be. He makes frequent reference to the 'Great British Rail Service', mentions meeting "...that charming Amundsen fellow" and tells the story of the Queen visiting Agartha just after poor Albert died.
* RedShirtArmy: Orochi Group taskforces. In almost every single quest area of the game, they're either cowering behind shields or being horribly murdered.

* StabTheScorpion:
** In the introduction to "Ripples", the nameless VampireHunter points a crossbow at the player... only to reveal that he was aiming at the vampire creeping up behind you.
** The Iele does this in "The Wild Hunt": after spying on you from the treetops, she leaps down, gives every impression of being about to attack you, before neatly impaling the fungal monster just behind you.

* TapOnTheHead: At the end of the Egypt storyline, the player is knocked out by a random Orochi Grunt hitting them with the butt of their rifle, [[CutsceneIncompetence despite having survived much worse up to this point.]]

* VillainousBreakdown:
** Refuse to side with them and [[spoiler:the Dreamers]], who start off speaking in a calm, friendly manner, will quickly flip their shit.
** [[spoiler:Lilith]] when Emma refuses to leave Agartha with [[spoiler:her]] at the end of Issue #7.
** Happens to [[spoiler:John]] when [[spoiler:he learns you have met Lilith.]] It is enough to stop them from [[spoiler:[[MindRape forcibly going through your memories.]]]]

* VoiceOfTheLegion: [[spoiler:Lilith]] does this [[http://youtu.be/nvBYXUg6ESg?t=12m10s as she's listing off sixteen of her seventeen names.]] It's actually more unsettling when she delivers her current name in a low whisper.

* WhamEpisode: [[SeventhEpisodeTwist Issue #7, appropriately enough.]] Your current companion turns out to be [[spoiler:Lilith, the mother of just about every single monster you've encountered, and directly responsible for the Breach]], Emma is [[spoiler:Gaia's daughter, Anima]], and [[spoiler:the Filth has begun to infest Agartha.]]

''The Secret World'' was officially deprecated on March 29, 2017 and was replaced by ''Secret World Legends'', a FreeToPlay reboot, on June 26 2017. ''SWL'' features a new combat system, more streamlined skill trees, and a more traditional levelling system. Old ''TSW'' accounts will still be able to play on a legacy server which will receive no further updates or support.

* IntersexTribulations: Issue 9 introduces Kaoru, a character heavily implied to be intersex. Among other things, she was mercilessly bullied after being seen swimming in public and attempted to drown herself as a result; following the breakdown of her relationship with Ricky Pagan, she believes that it was prompted by him seeing "the real me"; finally, Ricky himself claims that he didn't dump her because of "what was between her legs" and insists that "[[AnythingThatMoves everyone's bits are beautiful!]]" [[spoiler: It turns out that he actually dumped her because of a tattoo on her thigh indicating that she works for the [[RuthlessModernPirates Phoenician Brotherhood]]; despite their shady status, Kaoru believes that they're the only faction in the Secret World that will accept her.]]

''The Secret World'' was officially deprecated on March 29, 2017 and was replaced by ''Secret World Legends'', a FreeToPlay reboot, on June 26 2017. ''SWL'' features a new combat system, more streamlined skill trees, and a more traditional leveling system. Old ''TSW'' accounts will still be able to play on a legacy server which will receive no further updates or support.

On September 4, 2022, Star Anvil Studios announced a kickstarter to turn the setting of The Secret World into a TabletopGame based on the Fifth Edition ruleset of TableTopGame/DungeonsAndDragons, which was launched on the 4th of October and was fully funded in four hours.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: While fluid, the Dragon [=NPCs=]' Korean dialogue uses odd constructions, varies wildly between overly formal and extremely rude, and generally gives the impression that either the translator or the voice actors were more accustomed to using a dialect other than modern standard Korean.
** In the german version, some dialogue is not so much translated as it is completely replaced by dialogue that, while in essence still having the same meaning, often is much more confusing than the original dialogue. Most egregiously, all of the rather straightforward instructions in the tutorial are replaced by overtly flowery metaphors. Which is especially egregious as the german version is only subtitled; meaning every german player with some knowledge of the english language will quickly catch onto this and be likely to end up even more confused.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: All three factions use different variants of this trope when recruiting you. The Templars play with it by merely issuing an invitation. You're entirely free to refuse, and the Templars will do nothing to force you to join... but it's made clear that you won't last long without help, and the Templars only help their own. The Illuminati more or less tell you that you're drafted, and give you a place to go and a time to be there -- or else. Most extreme of all, the Dragon literally kidnap you with magical chloroform, and you wake up in Seoul with no money and no way of getting home except through them (in theory you have a chance to walk out, but as the NPC recruiter explains to you, "sooner or later, they all go upstairs").

* NoticingTheFourthWall: During Issue #11, an exploration of QBL Media's alpha level reveals that one unfortunate employee appears to have suffered this trope. [[spoiler:On one of the office whiteboards, the employee in question has written down the titles of several past issues of ''The Secret World,'' from issue seven through to eleven. There's even an attempt to write the title for the as-yet-unreleased Issue #12 -- which abruptly breaks into a manic scrawl of "[[GoMadFromTheRevelation OH GOD I CAN SEE FOREVER.]]"]]

* HoldYourHippogriffs: Some characters who are deeply involved in the secret world tend to swear by Gaia.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The Wampiry are predominantly human in appearance, and benefit from the usual boosts in strength and speed; however, most are little more than {{Mooks}}. Elders are much more difficult to deal with, being capable of escaping battle by transforming into bats and -- given enough time and power -- are even capable of recovering from being staked, though according to Hasdatean, it hurts a lot. Actually killing vampires is fairly simple, given that most of their traditional weaknesses were myths spread by vampires themselves: they have no apparent weakness to holy symbols -- judging by Hasdatean's presence in the church; most can be destroyed by gunfire or magic, and stakes are only required in the case of elders. Vulnerable to the sun as always, Wampiry tend to dress in skin-concealing coats and gas-masks, and only elders are resilient enough to bare skin in daylight. However, according to the Bees, vampires aren't actually immortals: it's just that their life spans are so incredibly long that it's popularly assumed that this is the case, and besides, vampires live such violent lives that few if any die of natural causes. [[spoiler:They were actually created by Lilith.]]

* HoldYourHippogriffs: Some characters who a deeply involved in the secret world tend to swear by Gaia.

* BazaarOfTheBizarre: The seedy 'Darkside' district in downtown London is a surreal collection of monsters and myths from the entire world. A ghoul runs a taco-cart there!

On September 4, 2022, Star Anvil Studios announced a kickstarter to turn the setting of The Secret World into a TabletopGame, which was launched on the 4th of October and was fully funded in four hours.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: The Illuminati are described as "Sex, Drugs and Rockefeller". [[SubvertedTrope Note]], however, that all Illuminati must pull their own weight [[KlingonPromotion or be culled]].

* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/TheSecretWorld Has it's own page]].

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The Wabanaki are a real-life confederacy of native tribes and not just made up for the game.