Video Game / Trepang2

Erase your light
Take your flight
To a place where you will be remembered
To a place where you will be
Loved

Trepang2 is an indie First-Person Shooter heavily inspired by First Encounter Assault Recon, namely its inclusion of features like Focus and advanced enemy AI. It was developed by Trepang Studios (a team of 4 developers) and published by Team17.

The Player Character is a mysterious Super-Soldier referred to simply as Subject 106. They wake up as a prisoner in a scientific facility run by the Horizon Corporation. 106 breaks free and fights their way out, only to be rescued by special forces from Task Force 27, also known as the Syndicate. Horizon has been experimenting with various "anomalous" technologies across the globe, and the Syndicate is devoted to stopping them before they cause a colossal disaster. However, as 106 takes apart Horizon's bases one by one, it becomes apparent that something more complex is going on beneath the surface...

It fully released on June 21st, 2023. You can download the playable demo from its Steam page.

A story DLC is due to release in 2024, preceded by Survival Mode in late October 2023. Buyers of the Season Pass will obtain both content with a single purchase.

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Tropes in Trepang2:

• A Day in the Limelight: Raven, your helicopter pilot, gets a larger role in the side mission "Crash Site".
• Aggressive Play Incentive: Noticeably in contrast to its most obvious inspiration in F.E.A.R., the Focus bar does not regenerate on its own: you have to go out and kill people to recover it. Kills also give you more stamina, including overcharging up to 200%, giving you the ability to turn one kill into a sudden rush of plowing through an entire squadron at full speed.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • What sort of seems to have happened at Site 32. Horizon had discovered a biomass that changed its DNA in response to electrical signals, similar to a computer's memory storage. They were experimenting with it as an alternative means of data storage, and one of the researchers had the brilliant idea of feeding it the Bible. As a result, the biomass became self-aware, determined that human civilization was doomed to be destroyed, and proceeded to wipe out or absorb the researchers. The handful of security guards noped out and ran away, dying from exposure or exhaustion out in the countryside.
  • Seemingly averted at Site 83. The Horizon A.I. at the site seems to have become self-aware because of the area's dimension-warping shennanigans, but actually seems to assist you in stopping Subject 83 (dimension-warping crystal monolith) and possibly even saves you at the end by teleporting you away from the blast of 83's destruction. That is, if its lines addressing you weren't just a hallucination brought on by the facility's hallucination-inducing properties.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Horizon's main website is accessible for info as a piece of expanded material. They clearly portray themselves as a morally upstanding company.
  • When cheats are unlocked, the player can access Tmod. With it, they can see the names of the NPCs both allies and enemies, although in many cases these are development names and not "official" names (i.e., the Enforcer is known as CultistCaptain, the Patriarch is listed as PopeMan, and the Corporate Soldiers are listed as LawyerThugs).
• An Arm and a Leg: The final boss chops 106's left hand off while they're distracted attempting to hack a computer. This severely cripples the player since it removes the ability to dual-wield, throw grenades and take hostages.
• Anti-Armor: The DMR/sniper rifle does roughly double damage against enemy armor. This lets it kill with a single headshot even against enemies wearing helmets, and even lets you crack the heavy armor of Juggernauts reasonably quickly. The Bolt Launcher can also be given a "penetrator" attachment that replaces its regular sticky-grenade salvo with large spikes that deal absurd damage, especially to armor - two shots are enough to crack even a Juggernaut's helmet.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If an enemy gets stuck in furniture/level geometry or somehow clips outside the map where you can't reach them, they'll die automatically after a short period, preventing the game from getting stuck in wave-based objectives where you need to kill all enemies to proceed.
  • If you shoot an enemy with the grenade launcher at close enough range that the blast would damage you, the grenade won't explode instantly but rather will stick into the enemy, giving you time to slide away before it detonates. Accidentally firing the grenade launcher into a wall that's too close to you will still damage you, though.
• Arc Words: "Break the Cycle" is uttered and written throughout the game, most notably by the Patriarch and Anton Lazar. The "Cycle" is the line of Super-Soldier agents created by the Syndicate to fight their wars for them and to be disposed of once their missions are complete. "Break the Cycle" becomes 106's final objective at the end of the game to destroy the Syndicate's cloning facility and end the Cycle program.
• Artificial Brilliance: Like its inspiration, the enemy soldiers in this game are smart. They will move as a team, perform suppressive fire, hide behind a soldier with a shield, throw flares at shadowy areas you might be hiding in, and so on. This video has the A.I. programmer talking about how the A.I. differs from most other shooters. One of the key design points is that the A.I. won't just charge single file through a chokepoint (like a doorway) into a killzone ambush but will instead try to flank around to another angle of attack. If an enemy runs out of ammo for their primary weapon and feels like they are in danger, they will switch to a pistol and continue firing while retreating to look for a safe place to reload their primary weapon. If their pistol runs out of ammo as well, they will charge the player and attack with melee.
• Bad Boss: Downplayed with Horizon. On one hand, an HR report indicates a vast majority of former employees ended up giving them a one star rating on various corporate report websites for employee satisfaction; as well as their line of work inherently being very bad for one's health. On the other hand, Anton comes across as a Benevolent Boss, and it's implied if you're competent at your job you can really reap the benefits. Illustrating this dissonance, a file notes that if a containment breach happens, all employees are given a thirty-minute grace period to evacuate... before Talon Company is deployed and everyone still inside is designated as a target.
• Bittersweet Ending: 106 destroys Task Force 27's headquarters housing the next Cycle by blowing up their nuclear warhead, sacrificing themselves in the process. The Stinger also reveals an unknown person anonymously exposing the Syndicate's crimes to the public by publishing the data found in 106's memories, its success or failure depending on if 106 found the hidden data drones or not. However, The Director is still alive, leaving it ambiguous if the Cycle has been truly stopped. In addition, in the secret ending where all the data drones have been found, it is implied that either 106 survived, or a next Cycle has been made that retains 106's memory.
• Bland-Name Product: "HELL" brand PC are commonplace in Horizon's offices.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: This is how the player's body armor works. You can repair it by collecting armor pieces from dead enemies.
• Body Horror: The zombie-like enemies that are encountered in the Pandora Institute have exposed and mangled flesh. Even worse, your first encounter has you witnessing the infection process in action, with the unfortunate victim's skin exploding off of them in a cloud of viscera. If another human gets killed by the vomit (as can happen with your Task Force 27 allies at the end of the mission or in Horde Mode), their skin will explode and they'll turn into another zombie themselves. Similar zombie-like enemies can be found in the combat simulator, though these zombies use guns.
• Boss Bonanza: The final round of Survival Mode spawns HVTs, often several at once including the Heavily Armored Mook ones, in addition to various random enemies including ones that normally don't appear in the game such as Revolutionary War-era British redcoats.
• Brain Uploading: Collectible notes in the first mission indicate Horizon has this technology. Anton Lazar tries to upload his mind into another brain to escape when 106 comes after him, making the "boss battle" with him being 106 running around destroying brains before Anton can fully transfer into them. If 106 interfaces with all the memory scan drones, it's implied in the ending that his memories are uploaded to another Cycle.
• Bulletproof Human Shield: Stunned, wounded, and prone enemies can be grabbed and used as bullet shields until they die. The enemy will briefly hold fire as well when you first grab the human shield.
• Bullet Time: Activating Focus can slow down time. It consumes Focus meter, and you can gain it by killing enemies.
• Controllable Helplessness: In the first mission, you start with cuffed hands so you can't attack. You must flee from soldiers until you find a key for your cuffs.
• Color-Coded Armies: The Syndicate/Task Force 27 has blue lighting on its armor visor and laser sights, while Horizon has red lighting on its armor visor (whenever available) and laser sights.
• Continuing is Painful: If you die during a Horde mode session you can continue off from the last wave you cleared, but without any of the weapons, equipment, or money you had on you prior. Naturally, this makes retrying during later waves a less than desirable option.
• Cult: In the third mission, 106 goes after a cult that is allied with Horizon in order to capture the scientist acting as their liaison. The Patriarch, leader of the cult, is another Cycle who went rogue and allied with Horizon to fight the Syndicate. Completing the mission also unlocks the "Kellington Colliery" side-mission where you take on most of the cult's last holdouts.
• Dead Air: Your main warning that the boss of the "Unknown Site" is approaching is the game going mute, save the strange hissing of whatever the heck it is approaching you.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: The HVT "Hatchet" is a death row convict recruited by Horizon as a shocktrooper for suicide missions. It's mentioned he has an explosive device implanted in his body so Horizon can control him if he gets out of hand. Sure enough, when you kill him, he'll explode like a grenade after a few seconds.
• Doom Troops: Soldiers wearing scary-looking black armor spawn in late waves of Horde mode. They are more skilled than usual soldiers and more likely to be wearing body armor. In the game files, they are called Black Ops.
• Due to the Dead:
  • At one point in the first mission you see the corpse of the agent who saved you, with a katana buried through their chest, seemingly committing seppuku. Instead of taking the sword, you decide to leave them as they are, taking only the "CV" coin near them. Later documents show that this was Cycle 105, who was ordered to kill himself after he had saved 106.
  • In the "Pandora Institute" mission, there's an entire wing of the titular building devoted to those who (knowingly or not) sacrificed their lives as part of the Foundation's experiments.
• Dwindling Party: During "Site 83" the Task Force 27 assault force is gradually wiped out as they descend deeper into the Horizon facility, with the pair of troops sent in with 106 found dead in the Backrooms and the rest of the team killed while trying to destroy Specimen 83.
• Easter Egg: Shooting or meleeing the Big Red Button on the thermonuclear warhead under the safehouse will unsurprisingly result in a Non-Standard Game Over. Until it's time to do so deliberately, anyways.
• Eldritch Location: Thanks to Specimen 83, the entirety of the Site it's contained in has been transformed into one. While relatively minor at first when the facility was first established in the 1970s, to the point that those working there dismissed the odd activity as hallucinations brought on by a gas leak and went on as usual, an unknown yet disturbing incident in 1986 would result in both the facility being sealed permanently by the Soviet government and the mass disappearance of the personnel still trapped within. When Horizon moved in to excavate and reopen the site nearly 50 years later, they too would encounter rampant supernatural phenomena. This ranged from objects vanishing only to reappear in random places, sometimes duplicated, to their own staff hearing and seeing things, experiencing blackouts, vanishing into thin air, never to be seen alive again, or just straight-up inexplicably going insane. By the time 106 and the Syndicate investigate the area, things have only gotten worse: doors open and close by themselves or no longer lead where they're supposed to go (with one particular doorway leading straight into the Backrooms itself), hostile shadow creatures actively stalk the corridors and the Vox AI of the facility seems to have become self-aware on its own.
• Elite Mooks:
  • Horizon Black Ops are part of a Horizon-owned PMC known as Talon Company which takes orders directly from Anton Lazar. They wear all-black uniforms and red night-vision goggles, and are more skilled and have more confident/professional dialogue compared to regular Horizon soldiers.
  • Anton Lazar's personal bodyguards in Horizon HQ (referred to as Corporate Soldiers in the credits) have glowing red eyes, designer suits, and heavy body armor, and some of them wield heavier weapons such as the minigun. They're even tougher than regular enemies wearing body armor, able to withstand a point-blank shotgun blast to the chest and still take a few rounds of automatic weapons fire before falling, and are in fact almost as tough as the HVT "minibosses".
  • In the Kellington Colliery side mission in which you take out The Remnant of the Cult, the last two waves of enemies consist of Tactical Elite cultists with black robes, body armor, and assault rifles.
  • In the final mission, there are Syndicate Elite Mooks (called Cyber Mercs in the TMod sandbox), identifiable by their ballistic mandible helmets. Like the Black Ops, their skill level is higher than regular troops, and also their durability is just slightly above that of regular enemies wearing body armor.
• Enemy Chatter: Enemy soldiers have various dialogue for various situations.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: In close combat, enemies will either attack with a jab, hook, or utilize martial arts kicks (such as a round-house, sweep, and axe-kick) - this makes sense for Task Force 27 or Horizon, but when even cultists, scientists, or civilian workers are capable of pulling this maneuver, this trope is in full play.
• Evil Brit: The Talon Company Commandos all have British accents and speak in calm, controlled tones, distinguishing them as Horizon's elite.
• Evil vs. Evil:
  • Task Force 27, AKA the Syndicate, is focused on systematically destroying Horizon piece-by-piece, something that sounds good on paper, considering the horrific experiments Horizon is revealed to be conducting. However, Task Force 27 itself has a Super-Soldier project, and they dispose of 106 after their mission is complete so that they can be replaced by more monstrous soldiers that look like BOWs straight out of Resident Evil.
  • The Patriarch's cult ends up fighting both the Syndicate and Horizon at the same time when the Syndicate snatches the Horizon scientist working with the cult. By the end of the mission there's a full-on Mêlée à Trois between three evil factions.
• Exact Words: After the Pandora Institute mission, the Director has 106 go down to the lowest level of the safehouse where a nuclear warhead is located with orders to detonate it if the safehouse is "overrun by hostiles." In the final mission, the safehouse is indeed overrun by hostiles, only they're hostile Syndicate soldiers trying to kill 106.
• Exploding Barrels: Fire extinguishers in levels explode when shot. It's lethal enough to kill nearby enemies instantly. Juggernauts also carry oxygen tanks that can be shot.
• Expy: Multiple, which is unsurprising considering the game's numerous inspirations.
  • Subject 106 is a mysterious, mute warrior who can use Bullet Time and has an unknown relationship with the antagonists and was created by the villains as part of an experiment to make an army of supersoldiers. He is pretty much the Point Man in all respects.
  • On the subject of F.E.A.R., several guns are a near match for a similar gun in that game, often even using similar models. There's a handgun that's devastating when used akimbo and in slow-motion (modeled after the Mk 23, a close relative of the USP used in F.E.A.R.), a submachine gun with a 50-round magazine that it empties in a handful of seconds, and a SPAS-12 with insane power.
  • Horizon is a colossal MegaCorp with bases across the world and involved in horrible, unethical experiments involving supernatural anomalies, though they contain and study those anomalies. They're a dead ringer for the SCP Foundation.
  • In turn, The Syndicate, AKA Task Force 27, is a dead ringer to Chaos Insurgency, opposing Horizon in the same manner as opposing the SCP Foundation.
  • At one point in Site 83, you have to evade a creature known as the Whisper, a shadowy presence that, if it catches you, reveals a skull-like visage before teleporting you somewhere nasty. Given all the other SCP vibes on this level, he's rather akin to SCP-106.
  • Subject 107, a gray-skinned superhuman who emerges from a large glass vat to fight you, is a dead-ringer toward the Tyrant from Resident Evil.
• Faceless Mooks: The enemies (and even the Syndicate allies) have face-concealing coverings in some way or another. The player character can blow away these facial protections to secure a headshot. Units such as Black Ops (for Horizon) and the NVG Syndicate Mercs have Panoramic Night-Vision goggles, red for Horizon and blue for Syndicate. Members of the Patriarch's cult also wear metal masks, which one intel item says are nailed to their skulls.
• Facial Horror:
  • Your first hint at the Mothman's existence is a file that contains a Gross-Up Close-Up of a test subject turned into a Mothman. His face looks like it'd been flayed off as he screams in agony.
  • One of the collectibles you can find reveals that the masks the cultists wear are nailed to their face. An examination of the Cultist character models shows that the left side of their mouth is extending up their face unnaturally and growing asymmetrical fangs. The Martyrs and the Alchemist are even worse, their faces are so mutated their entire face is mostly a gaping fanged maw with only a single human eye left.
• Featureless Protagonist: Fittingly enough, Subject 106's face is unknown. The final mission and some intel items imply that they may be wearing a mask to hide a monsterous visage, as 107 and the other newer Cycle clones are clearly not human, but 106 may also look like a normal person as some of the older Cycles are able to pass as humans, as Anton Lazar is implied to be one, as is Dr. Emerson (who carries a coin with "XCV" printed on it [95 in Roman numerals], just like Cycle 105 had a "CV" coin).
• Flash Step: 106's slide ability seems to look like this from the perspective of normal humans, if the similar dash ability used by the Patriarch and Cycle 107 are any indication.
• Flesh Golem: One Mid-Boss enemy type is outright called a Flesh Golem; it's an 8-foot tall brute composed of multiple fused human bodies which the Cult is apparently creating via alchemy in an attempt to create their own version of Super-Soldier.
• Gas Mask Mooks: All Syndicate/Task Force 27 soldiers possess a gas mask with large, blue, glowing visors. They even have a visible HUD on them. In comparison, Horizon's PMCs mostly have realistic military helmets and (occasionally) ballistic mandibles (as shown by the TTM Rifle mook variant).
• Gatling Good: One of the weapons included in the final release is a Minigun. It's smaller than the classic Predator-style minigun, with a more rifle-like form factor - the model is more or less an existing machine gun given an extra two barrels - but functions similarly. It's exceptionally devastating but takes a second to spin-up and firing slows the player down to a walk (though you can still slide). Juggernauts can rarely wield them against the player, as can a few other specific enemies. You can also attach bayonets to the end of the barrels for a portable Helicopter Blender, or even fit it with a "smart scope" that makes bullets curve in-flight to hit targets.
• Gorn: Enemies are nearly Made of Plasticine, as your weapons, explosives and even bare hands can turn them into Ludicrous Gibs. Limbs and heads can be blown off, guts and entrails will fly about, entire rooms can be covered with copious amounts of blood, enemies can burn and char to death while flailing and screaming, you name it. You'll have a rare time that a mission area isn't a gory mess afterwards.
• Grapple Move: You can grab unaware, stunned, or downed enemies. You can use the grabbed enemy as a human shield, kill them quickly and silently via Neck Snap, throw them into another enemy to knock them both down, or pull the pin on one of their grenades and toss them into a group of their buddies as a living bomb.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: Who is leaving those drones around that encourage you to defy the Task Force, and in the end, take a backup of your brain?
• Guns Akimbo: The player character can optionally dual-wield two of one gun - as one would expect, accuracy is decreased somewhat, but it doubles the amount of hurt you can pour out. This is done with a serum that can found near the end of the third mission. This works on almost any weapon, up to and including sniper rifles or even grenade launchers. About the only weapons you can't do this with are the bolt launcher and minigun.
• Harder Than Hard: Rage mode. It's even noted in the description the publishers had asked the developer not to include it.
• Hard Mode Perks: Increasing the difficulty offers more collectibles, particularly more HVTs, and in fact is required for at least two missions to unlock access to every weapon from the supply crate: the Bolt Launcher requires beating Jorvik Castle on Hard, which is also one of two requirements (the other being the Iron Dragon Data Center, also on Hard) to unlock the Minigun.
• Heavily Armored Mook:
  • The Juggernauts/Heavy Soldiers are Horizon troopers with really thick EOD armor. They move somewhat slowly but they can take lots of punishment (several dozen rounds of assault rifle fire or 8 point-blank shotgun blasts), and you can't grab them. Most seem to wield shotguns, but they can occasionally be equipped with shields, rifles, and even miniguns.
  • To a much lesser extent, some regular enemies wear heavy body armor which gives them about 50% more durability than their equivalents who are only wearing armor vests. The Syndicate Elite Mooks fought in the final mission have comparable durability.
  • The Corporate Soldiers in the executive floors of Horizon HQ are tougher than regular enemies wearing body armor, able to survive a point-blank shotgun blast and still take a few rounds of automatic weapons fire before falling.
• Hellish Copter: Raven, the Syndicate pilot who spends the whole game transporting you, gets shot down during the final confrontation with Anton Lazar while dropping off the breaching charge you need to defeat Lazar.
• Heroic Mime: 106 doesn't talk at all. In fact, in the "Site 83" mission, one of your two teammates is very chatty, and your other teammate eventually gets tired of this and tells him to stop talking and be more like 106. A note found in the first mission by 106's captors indicates he's unresponsive to all communication, and no form of interrogation works on him as a result.
• Hold the Line: Several of the side missions work like this. You have to protect hacking devices from Horizon soldiers. Occasionally you'll need to take out counter-hackers who will disrupt the hack. During the mission you earn money that you can spend on supplies or reinforcements.
• Incendiary Exponent: The red-robed Cult "Martyrs" carry firebombs and will charge at you, attempting to detonate their bombs in your face to set yourself and themselves on fire. If you dodge their detonation, they'll continue to chase you while on fire until you put them down. The HVT the Alchemist also sets himself on fire at the start of combat, then chases you with a penetrator launcher and protective weapon shield. He's got high health and armor and can last quite a while on fire.
• The Illuminati: The Syndicate Cycle coins have the Eye of Providence on their back, indicating the Syndicate is a version of the Illuminati.
• Injured Player Character Stage: During the last two phases of the final boss fight, you lose your left arm, with obvious results (see An Arm and a Leg above). However, Critical Existence Failure is in full effect, and you at least could fight back with any available weapons, though shotgun cocking is considerably slower and you can no longer throw grenades, take human shields, or dual-wield.
• Invisibility Cloak: Using Cloak makes you invisible. It will be cancelled when you shoot your gun, throw a grenade, or slide into an enemy. In direct contrast to the Focus meter, it charges on its own at a steady rate when not in use, but dropping it early automatically empties what was left in the bar before it regenerates. Cycle 107 also has one, which he uses to close and strike with his sword during his boss fight.
• Karma Houdini: The Director, the true mastermind behind the Cycle, is still alive by the end of the game and never even physically encountered. The Quartermaster also pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here before the Syndicate base explodes, but he was more of a Punch-Clock Villain anyway.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Cult's Enforcer and Chaplain have comparable durability to a Juggernaut and are armed with miniguns, but run at full speed (and charge straight for you rather than taking cover) rather than being limited to a brisk walk like the Juggernauts are.
• Limited Loadout: You can only have two guns at a time. You can technically double that number after injecting a serum partway through the third story mission, though these third and fourth guns are simply copies of your first and second wielded alongside them.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Considering the game's nature as a fast-paced shooter built around tearing through enemies in the messiest ways possible, you can bet that there will be buckets of well-detailed blood and guts painting the areas you rampage through. Killing enemies with point-blank shotgun fire or grenades often generates buckets of blood, organs, intestines, and dismembered limbs.
• MegaCorp: The Horizon Corporation is one, right down to being able to call upon Private Military Contractors, doing secret, immoral research, and having many secret agendas to fulfill that the player character and his allies oppose. They have over 463 offices spanning 62 countries, and one of their other specialties is surveillance. They even keep secrets from their own Security Contractors and are willing to kill their experiment subjects to deny rivals any info or allies. Fortunately, the player character escapes before this fate befalls him.
• Mirror Boss:
  • The Security Chief fought at the end of the first mission is a mundane example. Unlike normal enemies, he wields 2 weapons (an assault rifle and shotgun) and is tougher than a normal HVT, being approximately as durable as the player character on Normal difficulty. He's also slightly larger than normal characters. He can still be taken out relatively quickly, and the Juggernaut that accompanies him (the first you'll encounter in the game) proves much more of a challenge.
  • The Patriarch fights with multiple weapons (an assault rifle and a bolt launcher), throws grenades, and has a similar dash ability as 106's slide. This is because he's another Cycle similar to 106.
  • Cycle 107 is a semi-example: he's explicitly 106's Evil Counterpart and has a cloaking ability and dash ability, but since he fights with a sword his fighting style is quite different from 106's.
• The Mole:
  • An unseen yet benevolent hacker has been planting drones throughout the game, the player as 106 interfacing it will allow the hacker to collect 106's battle data and memory fragments in order to tell the truth of the conflict.
  • The Syndicate has been infiltrated by a disguised Horizon assassin known as The Infiltrator. There's a 25% chance he'll attack you in the hub area after you complete a mission on Extreme difficulty.
• Mook Horror Show: The security team becomes increasingly more panicked during the first level's climax as the player character effortlessly kills their units, to the point where they start hesitating on sending more men into the fray.
  Sierra 4: Control, this is Sierra 4 actual, uhh... Sierra 3 is KIA, should we still move in there? Please advise.
  Control: GET THE FUCK IN THERE NOW!
• Moral Myopia: The Director expresses disgust towards Horizon's horrific human experiments in the Pandora Institute, sneering at their justification of using their research to make a better world. The Syndicate basically uses the same justification for its equally horrific Super-Soldier program.
• Neck Snap: One of the possible animations for when you choose to kill a grabbed enemy. It even has a small chance of decapitating them.
• Never Trust a Title: This game doesn't have any sea cucumber, much less squared ones. According to the devs, Trepang2 is just a placeholder title.
• No OSHA Compliance: Like it's inspiration F.E.A.R., the game has a lot of buildings that don't make much practical sense. The first level has a great deal of heavy, bulletproof boxes all around the place, and not a single trolley to move them. More on the trope page.
• No Fair Cheating: Enabling any cheats prevents any achievements (which allow the player to unlock more cheats and content) from being obtained.
• Pineapple Surprise: The player can pull the pin on one of a hostage's grenades, then throw them at the enemy.
• Player Headquarters: The Task Force 27 Safehouse. In it, players can change the clothing colors of the unnamed main character, play the Horde Mode, and select their next mission. It's also the setting for the final battle as 106 fights his way to the Self Destruct Device to blow up himself and the entire Syndicate cloning facility.
• Private Military Contractors: Though the game doesn't make much mention or attention to it, one of the main focuses of the game seem to involve these kinds of soldiers. Horizon Corp has its own "Elite Security Contractors" who fight against Mercenaries hired by the Syndicate. It is unknown if the Syndicate soldiers have a stake on the rivalry beyond payment, but perhaps some have a personal investment, as after the prologue mission is done, a female voice tells the protagonist that they want revenge as much as he.
• Professor Guinea Pig: One of the new HVTs added in the October 2023 update, "Biohacker", is a prodigy Horizon doctor known for deliberately infecting himself with deadly diseases and managing to come up with a cure every time. Since he's a zombie by the time you find him, it seems he finally bit off more than he could chew.
• Punch-Clock Villain: A lot of Horizon personnel believe that their research is important to protect and save mankind, and many of the mercenaries that 106 fights honestly believe they are the good guys. Many of them stay and fight even in the face of impossible odds because they believe Horizon's ethically questionable work is too important.
• Quick Melee: You can hit the enemy with your weapon while standing and kick them while jumping. You'll also perform a quick kick if your hands aren't available when meleeing, such as while pumping both shotguns when dual-wielding. Those melee attacks are powerful enough to dismember limbs of enemies. Currently the player character can dropkick enemies via running, jumping and then pressing the melee button.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking:
  • The Patriarch and Enforcer are the leaders of the Cult and also by far its best fighters. The Archivist, Alchemist, and Chaplain who lead The Remnant of the Cult later on are also quite tough, almost as tough as a Juggernaut.
  • HVTs are typically tougher than regular troops (most take half a mag of assault rifle fire to kill, compared to 6 shots for regular enemies and 9 shots for enemies wearing heavy body armor) and are usually equipped with more advanced weapons with special attachments, such as incendiary shotguns or fully kitted out assault rifles.
• Right-Handed Left-Handed Guns: The Assault Rifle and DMR both eject to the left for reasons unknown, considering all the other bullet-firing weapons eject properly to the right. At the very least, this is possible with both models: the DMR's ejection port is far forward enough that it doesn't really get in a leftie's way, and the AR, though being a bullpup, is based on a model with an enlarged sort of brass deflector built into the cheek rest, which is supposed to keep brass out of your face so long as you keep it behind that deflector. Going Guns Akimbo, as expected, results in a second gun that's simply mirrored from the right.
• Rogue Agent: Multiple examples throughout the game.
  • The Patriarch is a renegade Cycle who turned on the Syndicate and took control of a cult which studies ancient knowledge about changing flesh through anomalous rituals.
  • It is implied that Anton Lazar, CEO of Horizon, is another Cycle who turned away from the Syndicate to found Horizon in order to use anomalous technologies to save humanity.
  • 106 becomes one in the final mission when he is betrayed by the Syndicate and nearly incinerated, and then fights through the Syndicate headquarters to detonate the nuclear warhead in the basement. It's implied from some intel items in the first mission that 106 has been rogue for longer than anyone thinks, as Horizon's attempts to upload 106's brain to another human brain resulted in the volunteer going berserk and talking about "breaking the cycle".
• Schmuck Bait: Go ahead, push the Big Red Button attached to the nuke in the Syndicate Safehouse's basement. You know you want to.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Understandably, Horizon goons don't want to stick around when a Super-Soldier and a kaiju-sized alien spaceship begins rising out of the sea in the Oil Rig mission.
  • More generally, side missions with distinct waves of enemies can often have those waves end early when the last couple enemies decide their paycheck is not worth jumping into the unstoppable meat grinder that is 106 and just flee the area.
• Shield-Bearing Mook:
  • Enemies with a ballistic shield can block your bullets. You have to shoot their exposed feet or hands, or flank them by using Cloak. Alternatively, sliding into them knocks them into the air, allowing you to shoot or grab them.
  • Some enemies, notably some of the Corporate Soldiers, wield a smaller deployable combat shield. It only protects their upper torso, but has a slot through which they can fire a two-handed weapon (such as a rifle, smg, or shotgun) while wielding it.
  • There's another type of shield, a manhole-sized ballistic glass buckler that can only block a few shots before shattering. However, most of the enemies that wield it were Dummied Out and only seen in the TMod sandbox. The only enemy who has one in-game seems to be the HVT Blackout, who wields it with a silenced pistol.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The game's SPAS-12 shotgun follows after the rather famous VK-12 from First Encounter Assault Recon, being able to deal tremendous damage and even gib enemies to bloody pieces. Its effective range is rather short, though. There's even a trailer showcasing the power of the shotgun!
• Shout-Out:
  • Mission 4 ("Site 83") has a section in which you visit The Backrooms, complete with a few squads of yellow hazmat wearing enemies. These troops are led by a gas-mask-wearing HVT wearing a blue-and-white camouflage uniform known as the Blue Sky Officer, a reference to Clear Sky from S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
  • The Site 83 VOX automated voice having a voice line that out of nowhere seemingly suggests it may be self-aware is reminiscent of a similar moment in Nightmare House 2, a Half-Life 2 mod that likewise took heavy inspiration from F.E.A.R..
  • The leader of the Horizon forces on the Oil Rig is mentioned as being the leader of the Horizon Engineering and Construction Unit, or HECU. The soldiers on the Oil Rig even have unique uniforms that match that of the HECU grunts from Half-Life (particularly Black Mesa), including red berets on the squad leaders, black balaclavas on the shotgunners, and Adrian Shepherd's distinct facemasks with green goggles on the regular soldiers.
  • Towards the end of the final mission, a Syndicate soldier shouts over the radio "Forget about 106! We need to cut our losses and pull out!"
  • One of the camo patterns that can be unlocked for 106 consists of the same black and purple checkerboard infamously used by Valve's Source engine to denote a missing texture. Another camo pattern, titled "Hazardous", consists of orange with black highlights, mirroring the color scheme of the HEV Suit.
  • In the side quest to eliminate the remnants of the Cult, you can find a note which lists some supplies the Cultists have acquired in a recent raid. Among the supplies are listed a couple of captured prisoners, with a note next to this remarking "Meat's back on the menu, boys!"
  • In the TMod Sandbox, there's an NPC category called "Count Your Strikes", who are recreations of the four original different Counter-Terrorist models ("America 6" for Seal Team 6, "Sassy" for SAS, etc.). They're all a separate faction from the regular NPCs except for "Bot Killahxtwenty", a special NPC with maxed out A.I. (max accuracy, max rate of fire, etc.) who's allied with you.
  • Also in the TMod Sandbox is an NPC category called Creepers, who are representations of all the different factions from S.T.A.L.K.E.R..
  • The "TTMF" faction, also known as Replica in the model files, appear to be recreations of the Replica soldiers from the first F.E.A.R. game (specifically the Recon, Fatigues, and Urban models). They only appear in a single wave in Horde mode and in the TMod sandbox, and are slightly tougher than regular enemies.
• Slide Attack: Sliding can trip enemies over. You can also move very fast while sliding.
• Sprint Meter: You have a stamina meter, which is drained by running or sliding. Thankfully, killing enemies replenishes your stamina, and you can even overcharge your stamina temporarily with enough kills. As long as you're killing enemies fast enough, you can run and slide around pretty much nonstop until everything is dead.
• Stealth Pun: During the final mission, 106 finds himself in a room rigged to explode, forcing him to disable the bombs using a nearby terminal. After he does so, 107 ambushes him and cuts off his hand — leaving both the bombs and 106 disarmed.
• Stuff Blowing Up: In addition to the variety of hand grenades, there are two weapons that focus on blowing things up, including a rotary grenade launcher and a "Bolt Launcher" that, in its unmodified form, fires a trio of sticky grenades
• Super-Soldier: Subject 106 is explicitly one, with superhuman reflexes, the power to briefly become invisible (which is indicated to be an innate ability rather than some piece of equipment, though it might be due to being a Cyborg, if 107 is anything to go by), superhuman strength, and can even fall multiple stories without taking any damage. The Cult is developing their own super-soldiers in the form of the Flesh Golems, who are fast, super-strong brutes composed of multiple human bodies fused together. Then there's Cycle 107 and the other newer Cycle clones.
• Two Girls to a Team: The Director and Sparrow are Task Force 27's only female members.
• Undying Loyalty: While many of Horizon's soldiers are mercenaries who abandon the corporation in the final mission when the truth of their experiments is released, a large number of them are dedicated to the corporation's ideals and honestly believe that they are saving humanity through their experiments with anomalous technology. At one point in the "Pandora Institute" mission a group of Horizon guards consider cutting their losses and running but decide to stay because they believe thousands of human lives depend on them. In the final mission, despite the revelations regarding the corporation's crimes, a large number of Horizon soldiers stay and fight to protect Anton Lazar's attempt to upload his brain because they believe in his vision to save the world.
• Unique Enemy:
  • Bodyguards are special cap-wearing soldiers that spawn accompanying certain manager-type HVTs, namely Fletcher, Armstrong, and Whitman. They're very rare and only encountered a few times in the game.
  • The side mission "Crash Site" is where you face the game's only white hazmat snipers (a trio known as Woodchipper squad), the only armored soldier with a minigun besides the Corporate Soldiers in Horizon HQ, and what seems to be the only Juggernaut with a minigun.
  • The OpFor27/"Evil Mercs", TTMF/"Replica", and zombies with guns only spawn in a single round of Horde mode each.
  • A new faction added in the October 2023 update, the Scientists, only appears in Survival Mode. They're the only faction with a unit equipped with a minigun with homing rounds.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: If there is only one enemy, you can repeatedly grab and throw him at walls until he dies from blunt trauma.
• Virtual Paper Doll: 106, once the Prologue mission is finished, can change the color of his shirt, gloves, pants and shoes in a locker labelled by the UI as Player Customization.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Horizon in general, and Anton Lazar in particular. They are devoted to saving the human race by using unsafe, horrific experiments with anomalous technologies, no matter the cost in lives. The "Pandora Institute" mission shows that while they are coercing or concealing the true nature of their experiments, they honor those who die in the process and the breakthroughs have resulted in technologies that improved mankind, albeit at a staggering and unethical cost in human lives.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The "Site 83" mission is a double whammy. The entire scenario is essentially an SCP Foundation containment breach of an incredibly dangerous artifact. Then, midway through the mission, 106 ends up being transported to an endless labyrinth of yellow-plastered walls and florescent lights, complete with enemies in yellow hazmat suits.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: The main gimmick of Survival mode. You have a hunger meter that you need to keep down by eating food that spawns in the arena, which is rewarded to you for completing kill challenges. Should the meter fill up completely, you'll take periodic damage until you're able to consume more food.
• Wreathed in Flames:
  • The Patriarch's body appears to be made out of fire (likely a result of the Cult's studies into transforming human flesh), and smoke releases from his mask when you kill him. In the final level, Syndicate notes indicate there wasn't enough of his body left to collect and dispose of.
  • One of the cult enemies are suicide bombers whose main attack is to run up to you and set off fire grenades that light themselves on fire. If they're not dead before they do so, they'll continue running at you while screaming and on fire.
  • The Alchemist HVT fights while on fire. His health and armor are high enough he can do this for a long while within collapsing unless you pump him full of lead.
• You Are Number 6: The protagonist is known as Subject 106, often referred to as just 106.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Cycles seem to typically be instructed to self-terminate after completing their missions, likely due to being Anomalies employed by an organization that is opposed to Anomalies. Cycles 78 and 91, aka Anton Lazar and the Patriarch, broke free from the Syndicate before this could happen, and the Syndicate has to betray Cycle 106 and try to kill him, either because his self-termination directive was removed by the partial deprogramming Horizon did to him, or he was never given such a directive because his mission (terminate rogue Cycles 78 and 91 and destroy their organizations) was more open-ended than usual.
• Zombie Puke Attack: The zombies you face in the Pandora Institute attack by spitting acid on you. Anyone killed by this acid turns into a zombie themselves.

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