Video Game / Destroy All Humans!

Housewife: Aaah! Little green spacemen!
Crypto: I. Am not. green!

Destroy All Humans! is a Wide-Open Sandbox Action-Adventure video game franchise that began in 2005 by Pandemic Studios.

• Destroy All Humans! (2005)
• Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006)
• Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed (2008)
• Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon (2008)
• Destroy All Humans! (2020)
• Destroy All Humans Clone Carnage (2022)
• Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed (2022)

Taking place in a satirical version of America in The '50s, Destroy All Humans! follows a sarcastic, trigger-happy "grey" alien named Cryptosporidium-137 (or just "Crypto" for short). Crypto's species, the Furons, have been rendered sterile through centuries of nuclear warfare, and are dependent on cloning to reproduce. To keep their genetic code from becoming too corrupted, the Furons must steal DNA from human brainstems — apparently, Furon sailors on furlough left some untainted genes in the human pool back when the species still had genitals. Unfortunately, it seems Crypto's predecessor, Cryptosporidium-136, has been captured by The Government. Crypto's mission is to harvest human brains, find out what happened to the last Crypto, and generally cause mayhem. Along the way, Crypto confronts paranoia, mad science, the military, a government conspiracy, and exploding cows. Also notable for being pitched by Matt Harding. Yes, as in "Where the hell is Matt?" Harding.^note This game was more or less directly responsible for that, in fact — he pitched the exact opposite of the game he actually wanted to make, then quit when Pandemic took the pitch seriously.

It was followed up by a sequel, Destroy All Humans! 2, taking place in an exaggerated version of The '60s, and a pair of sequels set in The '70s: Big Willy Unleashed on the Wii in 2008, and Path of the Furon on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2009. Around 2006, it was pitched to Fox for a potential television show, but it was not to be.

In 2019, it was announced that a remake was in the works, developed by Black Forest Games and published by THQ Nordic. It was released on July 28th on PC via Steam, Epic Games, and GOG.com, as well as having Google Stadia, PS4 and Xbox One ports. The remake also includes a previously unused lost mission from the game's Area 42. Pre-Ordering got you free access to some cosmetic Skins for Crypto, while a later update added Christmas skins on December 17th, 2020.

A free demo of Destroy All Humans! (2020) that contains the first mission and Turnipseed Farm was put up on GOG on May 27th, 2020, with a Steam demo following two weeks later.

On February 23rd, 2021, a 'Midweek Madness Sale' trailer for the remake was uploaded. At the very end however, Crypto-138 appears asking if 137 is "done yet", before being told to "wait his turn". The remake of 2, Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed was later revealed, and the trailer was released on September 17th, 2021 during THQ Nordic's livestream.

Not to be confused with the Kill All Humans trope, though in case the name didn't tip you off, the game series definitely qualifies for it.

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Destroy All Tropes!

• Alien Abduction:
  • Crypto is occasionally instructed by Pox to mind control then bring specific humans into his UFO for interrogation, the first being Miss Rockwell from "Earth Girls Are Easy".
  • The Abducto-Beam weapon, though ironically not in the first game. In the first game you could only use it to pick things up, but in later installments you could actually abduct people into the saucer with it.
• Alien Among Us: Invoked (obviously) with the Holobob ability, and the later Body Snatch ability.
• Alien Invasion: With you playing as the alien invader. The game mostly favors the "infiltration" sub-type with Crypto committing subterfuge to gain control over the masses, but he has enough hardware at his disposal to wage all-out war by himself, which is indeed required for a couple of missions.
• Aliens Are Bastards: In a twist of irony, the humans are no angels either.
• Aliens Speaking English: Furons speak fluent English, though they do apparently have their own language given the various symbols aboard the mothership. Crypto also uses his native tongue in some missions during the second game.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: Your very first "Abduction!"-type mission is to steal all of Turnipseed Farm's cows by throwing them into the Mothership's Tractor Beam. The very second "Rampage!" mission (Rockwell) has all of these cows set loose so you can cook them into hamburgers by shooting them with your Desintegrator; Orthopox having developed a taste for fast food.
• Anachronism Stew: The games often joke about pop culture relevant to the time periods they're in, some of which accidentally falls into this.
  • One pedestrian in Albion's scan thoughts is "My mind says BBC 1, but my body says Channel 4" when scanned. Channel 4 started broadcasting in 1982, 13 years after 1969 (the second game's setting).
  • One Urban Female in the first game makes a reference to Audrey Hepburn and her role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which came out two years (1961) after the game's setting.
• Anal Probing: In the first game the anal probe is a Charged Attack that can make the victim's head explode. It returns in the second game without the need for charging, though it now requires ammo.
• Anyone Can Die: Humans are definitely subject to this a lot more then Furons, but three lead protagonists and one supporting protagonist die. Subverted with the Furons, because they can clone themselves.
• Artistic License – Biology: Every cell in your body is descended from the single zygote cell that resulted when your dad's sperm fertilized your mother's ovum, so if there were Furon DNA in any of your cells, it'd be in all of them.
• Astral Finale:
  • The last area of the second game is a Russian Moon base.
  • The last level of Path of the Furon takes place on the Furon homeworld.
• Asshole Victim: Nearly EVERY human in the series is portrayed as one, even the unarmed civilians.
• Ax-Crazy: Crypto.
  "Brains, man, when do I get to blow things up?!"
• Backtracking: Sometimes you might have to run back to an area in a mission if you miss a plot item or fail to kill everything somehow. Given that mission objectives are usually marked, you shouldn't be doing too much of it.
• Battle Theme Music: Each game has specific music tracks, different for each sandbox, that plays when in combat.
• Beehive Barrier: Most Furon shields have this pattern.
• Blending-In Stealth Gameplay: Most of the stealth in the series takes the form of the alien Player Character, Crypto having an ability which allows the player to take the form of some hapless character.
• Bloodless Carnage: While the games do get pretty violent, the lack of blood keeps them from an M rating, and Crypto's weaponry tends to either leave bodies intact or disintegrate them entirely. Even exploding a person's head to get at their brain is accompanied by, at most, a spray of green fluid while the brains themselves are given bright and unrealistic colors.
• Blown Across the Room: The Sonic Boom does this to anything it doesn't outright vaporize. Of course, being a saucer-mounted weapon, it's more like "Blown Halfway Across The City."
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Played-straight since Crypto's health bar actually represents his energy shields, which recharge if he stays out of combat long enough.
• Body Snatcher: Invoked as an ability in the second game onward.
• Boldly Coming: The reason why every human being has some Furon DNA.
  • After being recloned with genitalia, Crypto heavily implies having this with various human females in the second game. In the end of the second game, it's implied he had this with Natalya. In Big Willy Unleashed, this Eds up producing a human-futon hybrid son, though this is in Alternate Continuity.
• Brain Food: While the plot of the series is Crypto and Pox are harvesting human brains to replenish DNA for Furon cloning, there are various allusions that this is also happening.
  • In the first game, Crypto makes various eating-related quips ("Snack-time.") when given clearance to harvest brains.
  • In Path of the Furon, it's revealed that the Furon Empire had successfully created a synthetic replacement for Furon DNA, thus removing the need for Crypto's mission. After defeating the Emperor and his Evil All Along master, Crypto resigns himself to unemployment as he tastes the artificial DNA from its container. He remarks how foul its taste is, this being how Pox realizes that their mission still has importance since people will still prefer the genuine thing in spite of the option for alternatives.
  • In the remake, the title-card for the mission "This Island Suburbia" features Crypto licking a miniature brain on an ice-cream cone.
• Brains and Brawn: Pox and Crypto. "Don't look at me, Pox handles all the technical stuff, I just... Blow stuff up."
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Done rather often in the second, third and Big Willy Unleashed titles, mostly through self-aware humor from the main characters giving gameplay hints to the player.
  • If you stay idle on the menu for long enough, Pox will eventually call out the player for making him wait around.
• Clone Degeneration: The reason the Furons are screwed without pure Furon DNA.
• Color-Coded Multiplayer: In the second and third games, a second player could co-op split-screen or compete in minigames respectively. Players were differentiated by different color suits.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Show up as NPCs or even enemies in most of the games. Some missions even involve invoking this trope to manipulate the human populace.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Bosses are immune to Crypto's Psychic Powers, since they'd all be laughably easy if they weren't. You can generally scan the human bosses' thoughts, but that doesn't exactly help you beat them any faster.
• Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: When you read people's minds, they give you a succinct sentence. Maybe not a relevant one, but what did you expect?
• Cool Ship:
  • The Mothership, even though you don't get to fly it.
  • Also Crypto's saucer, especially in the third game where it has the weapons popping out of the hull.
• Crate Expectations: Largely played straight, and then the second game hangs a very heavy lampshade on it.
  • In the first game, if you read the mind of a dockworker, he mentions that he hates his job. "Push crate, climb crate, jump on crate, destroy crate...that's not fun!"
  • "Hey, Pox, 'dja ever notice there seem to be a lot o' crates lyin' around? Just random crates. I mean, what could they all be for?" This continues for a while, until Pox finally says, "I think they got the hint, Crypto."
• Crop Circles: Crop Circles tend to act as landing pads for Crypto's ship.
• Deadpan Snarker: Both Crypto and Pox engage in the snark frequently throughout the series, though other characters join in rather often as well. Orthopox in-particular makes frequent quips at the human race's expense (and sometimes Crypto's).
• Death Ray: The default weapon for Crypto's flying saucer. Could set buildings on fire in the first game and noticeable burn marks in structures in Path of the Furon. Also nicely averts Convection, Schmonvection, as just sweeping the beam within a couple meters of a human is enough to fry it instantly.
• Denser and Wackier: While hardly serious, the first game wasn't quite as over the top as the sequels, all of which played up the humor tremendously.
• Destroyable Items: Everything from cars to crates, and if destroyed with certain abilities in later games yielded ammo and health.
• Disadvantageous Disintegration: People fried by the Disintegrator and Ion Detonator can't be harvested for tasty brains-er, precious Furon DNA.
• Disintegrator Ray: One of the earliest weapons Crypto unlocks in each game, and the first one that requires ammunition clips. It is able to burn humans down to a charred skeleton, alongside being able to destroy objects faster than the Zap-o-Matic. It's upgrades imply it uses a combination of superheated fusion plasma and charged-particle beam to achieve its effects. Ammo upgrades mention protons and damage upgrades mention fusion.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Occasionally, shooting people with the anal probe will cause them to moan suggestively instead of scream.
• Double Jump: Thanks to the Jetpack.
• Elite Mooks: A few examples, notably the Psi-agents for the Majestic, the mutants and Blisk Warriors in the second game, and the red Nexo warriors in Path of the Furon.
• The Empire: The Furon Empire, to hear Pox tell it, though it's only ever really represented in-game by him and Crypto.
• The End of the World as We Know It: If the game title wasn't a dead giveaway, this is pretty much the Furons' endgame for Earth.
• Enemy Chatter: As well as the conventional kind, the games allows and in fact requires the player to access the hidden thoughts of non-player characters as well.
• Enemy Mine: Several humans team up with Crypto during the series.
• Evil Duo: Pox and Crypto. Well, more like Anti-Hero Duo.
• Evil vs. Evil: Crypto is evil, no question, but most of the antagonists (excluding regular enemies such as police officers and farmers of course) are not much better.
  • Majestic, the main antagonists of the first game, did Crypto's homework for him by already subjugating the US Government and brainwashing people through chemicals in burger restaurants and broadcasting anti-Russian propaganda. All Crypto had to was wipe out Majestic and continue their work.
  • In the second game, the KGB are out to conquer the world through alien tech, alien spores and a cocktail that destroys Furon DNA in humans, later revealed to be controlled by Martians that want to turn Earth into an irradiated wasteland.
  • Colonel Klunkin, the antagonist of Big Willy Unleashed! is out to end Pox's restaurant chain (which would endanger their brain-harvesting), but he is also converting corpses into food for his restaurant and is perpetuating the In-Universe equivalent of The Vietnam War to maintain a fresh supply of bodies.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Pretty self explanatory really. It's a game series about destroying humans.
• Fanservice: Silhouette and Natalya, two attractive badass spygirls in tight catsuits. As a bonus Natalya is Russian and has an accent.
• Fantastic Racism: Between the Furons and humans. On one hand, Furons view humans as filthy, stupid, inferior monkeys. On the other, humans view Furons as low-life savages. The latter is best exemplified by members of Majestic.
  • Averted with Crypto and Pox by the second game, who have grown rather fond of human culture. And in Path of the Furon, it is revealed that human women are quite popular on Planet Furon.
• Freud Was Right:
  • Will happen often when mind-scanning humans. The most common example are thoughts among the lines of "My mind says X but my body says Y". They happen a lot in the first game, and even more so in the second game.
  • Mentioned when Transmogrifying an object in Albion in the second game.
  Female Hippie: As if that's not Freudian!
• Good Lips, Evil Jaws: To show that the Furons aren't as benevolent as your common interpretation of The Greys, Crypto's mouth is filled with sharp teeth. Since Furons don't eat through their mouths (or at least this was implied in the first game), one has to wonder what they are for.
• The Greys: The Furons themselves. Crypto and Pox are Greys in the "evil conqueror" mode, although Crypto is often mistaken for a Little Green Man.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Up until the third game, the Furon Emperor is only mentioned twice, once in the first game, once in the second game. However, he does make an appearance at the end of the third game, just before being killed by Crypto.
• Hide Your Children: Understandably, no children appear in any of the games at any time.
• Humanoid Aliens: Having been based off The Greys the Furons are this, though much less so than the former.
• Humans Are Morons: The source of much of the series' humor. Though just because they're stupid doesn't mean they're not dangerous and serve as potentially formidable foes to Crypto.
• Humans Are Special: At least until their brain is removed.
• Human Shield: One possible application of psychokinesis is using it to hold another human between Crypto and a shooter (although it's usually just faster to use PK or some form of weapon on the shooter instead). They actually will hold their fire while trying to flank you if you do, though they'll occasionally try and shoot you through the hapless victim instead.
• 100% Completion: Mostly obtained through the accruing of collectibles.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Crypto carries up to 8 weapons on him at a time, and in DAH!3, all the saucer's giant weapons pop out of the hull. Judging by the in-game animations, Crypto's gun is able to reconfigure itself into the various weapons.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Sunnywood, Crypto disguises as an actor called Jack Trippleson to flirt with younger woman. When Pox tells him to remove the disguise, Crypto claims that Trippleson's voice gets on his nerves, despite the two both sounding the same.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: Quantum Deconstructor, Dislocator, Tornadotron, Black Hole Gun, Superballer... It should be quite telling that a self-recharging Lightning Gun and a superheated Death Ray are among the more boring weapons in Crypto's arsenal.
• Involuntary Dance: One of the primary ways in which Crypto uses his hypnosis power on humans is to make them dance, whose practical purpose is to make them unable to do anything about Crypto himself (and, depending on the game, possibly distract other nearby humans as well).
• It Will Never Catch On: Some of the civilians minds that can be read are of ideas that would later be invented such as Fast food restaurants and smartphones.
• Jerkass:
  • Crypto, he's a sociopath alien hell-bent on destruction, and has little regards for others lives (including his own kind). He starts to show a slightly (read: slightly) softer side after being cloned for the 138th time, but it still shows.
  • Pox has his moments, such as constantly moaning to Crypto in the second game to get his new clone body. By the time he gets it, on the other hand...
• Jerkass Gods: Arkvoodle has his moments, like asking Crypto to smite some humans for traveling to the moon.
• Justified Extra Lives: Respawning in the games is justified as Crypto is being cloned.
• Kill All Humans: You'd expect this given the title, but it's subverted. The Furons are on Earth to harvest DNA, and they can't very well do that if they wipe humanity off the face of the planet. In fact, from the second game onwards, Crypto occasionally has to cooperate with humans. That being said, there's nothing stopping Crypto from killing anyone else that gets in his way.
• Large Ham:
  • Pox loves to chew the scenery.
  • Premier Milenkov in the second game, such as when he boasts to Crypto about his "FIENDISH MASTER PLAN!" (see Lampshade Hanging above).
  • Crypto's not bad at Chewing the Scenery himself. For example, in the opening of the first game:
  "A Cryptosporidium captured by a bunch of monkeys?! We gotta go in. We gotta crack some craniums! We gotta rescue me- him- he's gonna rescue me... We gotta- I gotta- Brains, man, WHEN DO I GET TO BLOW THINGS UP?!"
• Larynx Dissonance: Crypto's voice when talking in a Body Snatched human is the same as his regular alien voice, no matter what nationality, race, age or gender the person is. However, he is able to maintain a human's correct voice, as shown during "Citizen Crypto" and an Albion side mission in the second game. Presumably, Crypto uses the human's own voice in-universe, with his voice being used out-of-universe for convenience, both to make it clear to the player when Crypto is talking and to avoid having to cram a million different voice files into the game.
• Laughably Evil: Most of the evil things Crypto does qualify.
  • Pox as well, with a does of Large Ham.
  • The villainous humans Crypto fights against.
• Lightning Gun: Crypto's initial weapon, the Zap-O-Matic. While it's not as spectacularly destructive as most of his arsenal, it still fries humans very well, especially when upgraded with Chain Lightning capabilities. It also doesn't require ammo, making it an effective weapon that is still useful after Crypto has obtained much better arsenal.
  • The humans have giant Tesla coils used as anti-air weaponry, capable of dealing heavy damage to Crypto's saucer. They don't appear in the second game, but the Blisk have very similar technology that does the same effect.
• Little Green Men: This seems to be how humans view Furons. Crypto does not approve.
• MacGuffin: Human Brainstems. Crypto treats his groin as this.
• Mana Meter: The first game gives Crypto a "concentration" meter that's used to fuel his Psychic Powers and Holobob and refills either over time or by reading people's thoughts.
• Man on Fire: Humans unfortunate enough to be near explosions can be set on fire, resulting in them running around flailing wildly (while also losing health for obvious reasons). The remake does away with this, but allows the Disintegrator Ray to ignite people with an upgrade. And, of course, some of the responses from people getting set on fire are just plain hilarious.
  Cop: Attention! Please step away from the burning policeman. Thank you for your cooperation!
  Soldier: They never covered autocombustion in basic!
• Meaningful Name: Both "Cryptosporidium" and "Orthopox" are pathogens that cause bad diseases. Emperor Meningitis is more straight-forward, being named after the disease itself as opposed to a pathogen that could cause it.
• Money Is Experience Points: Turon DNA, which can be harvested from human brains, is used for upgrades, but can also be used to unlock new areas.
• Monumental Damage: Invoked when destroying famous monuments like the Washington Memorial or Eiffel Tower. Subverted with the London Bridge-esque monument in Albion in the second game, which you can't destroy at all ^note You were originally supposed to be able to, as the trailers show the bridge's tower falling down.
• Mundane Utility: Crypto's telepathic abilities allow him to mind-control humans... and when you're not using it for mission-specific purposes, it can be used to make people do the chicken dance.
• Named After Their Planet: Furons from the Planet Furon. The Majestic in the first game confuse it as being called "Gorta", which is actually implied as it's capital city.
• No Biological Sex: The Furons' penchant for gratuitous nuke usage ended up getting their genetic code degraded by their own weapons, leaving them without genitalia and therefore unable to reproduce except by cloning; they wisely decided to switch to largely conventional weaponry before they messed up their gene pool any further. This is also the reason why Crypto's "package" from the second game is a pretty big deal for them.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Crypto's voice is a not-so-subtle Jack Nicholson impression. Parodied in Path of the Furon, where Crypto body-snatches a Jack Nicholson Expy in Sunnywood and has a habit of zapping him while complaining about how his voice is grating.
• No Communities Were Harmed: Numerous. We've got Area 42 (Area 51), Union Town (Norfolk, Virginia), Capitol City (Washington D.C.), Bay City (San Francisco), Albion (London), Takoshima (Tokyo), Tunguska (USSR traits, Moscow and Siberia), Vietnmahl (Vietnam), Las Paradiso (Las Vegas), Sunnywood (Hollywood), Shen Long (Hong Kong) and last but not least, Belleville (Paris).
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • Despite what the title suggests, Crypto spends the series avoiding the total destruction of humans, since he needs their DNA, and even has to protect them on numerous occasions.
  • The Disintegrator Ray isn't actually a ray; it shoots fireballs. The Furon Handbook in the 2020 remake explains that the weapon was of Martian origin and the original incarnation did actually fire energy bolts, but the Furons juiced it up after appropriating the design and kept the name as a souvenir of their conquest.
• Notice This: Mission objectives are marked with a very visible column of magenta light (orange and white in the remakes, distinguishing main and secondary objectives).
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: The humans can be quite a challenge when they bring out their soldiers and war machines.
• Our Clones Are Different: The Furon race keep themselves alive through cloning on account of them having no genitalia to reproduce naturally. However, each clone becomes more unstable. In order to better stabilize their cloning, Orthopox and Cryptosporidium are sent to Earth to harvest humans of untainted Furon DNA.
• Period Piece: The series take place in a twenty year timespan from the first game taking place in 1959, to the latest game, Path of the Furon, taking place in 1979.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Crypto. Well, Pox too. He was upset after his body was destroyed because there weren't any explosions.
• Pigeonholed Voice Actor: Richard Steven Horvitz. The guy seems to love titular aliens.
• Planet Looters: Pretty much invoked as the reason the Furons invade, with human brains being the thing they're looting.
• Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Crypto takes on this gesture whenever he uses his powers, even while disguised as a human.
• Psychic Powers: The Furons' massive heads aren't just for show, they possess potent psychic abilities such as psychokinesis and mind reading.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The Running Gag / Catchphrase / Title Drop "DESTROY! ALL! HUMANS!"
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Pox is the Blue Oni being more thoughtful and intelligent, Crypto the Red Oni being more violent and destructive. Interestingly, personality-wise they can just as easily take the reverse roles, with Pox being more shouty and expressive while Crypto is more subdued and deadpan.
• Redshirt Army: The humans, considering they're going up against an advanced alien race that specializes in warfare.
• Reference Overdosed: The series is drowning in references.
• Resurrective Immortality: If a Furon dies, they can just be cloned again, retaining their memories and personality from their past iteration; if that's not an immediate option, they can also linger as a Virtual Ghost. It's all well and good until their DNA pool starts to run dry.
• Roofhopping: Invoked with how buildings are designed for Crypto's jetpack in mind. It's often the easiest way to get around without being shot up from five directions at once, and is occasionally required to grab Furon Probes/Furotech Cells.
• Rule of Three: Crypto's Disintegrator Ray (the orange weapon) can shoot out three orbs instead of just one when you purchase the upgrades.
• Rump Roast: The Anal Probe can cause humans to have their rectums become ablaze of green fire.
• Running Gag: For the remake series, the reveal trailers use a different Rammstein song. The first game has "Ich Will", while the second games' remake uses "Amerika" in its trailer.
• Satire/Parody/Pastiche: All the games are generally a satirical parody of the date the setting takes place in. For example, the first game spoofs and parodies hundreds of events from The '50s, including the first big Sci-Fi craze and America's fear of communism. The second one spoofs The '60s and the hippie counterculture, and the last two spoof The '70s and spoof off several popular movies.
• Satellite Character: Crypto and Pox would be pretty bland alone. Much of their humor and personality comes from the way they play off each other.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: The Furons are roughly the "conquistadore" variety. Also parodied in the first game with the various comments made by humans that see Crypto's true form, often labeling him as a "communist" or claiming that he's there to destroy their way of life (which isn't inaccurate, but still). The Blisk in the second game are an interesting example, in that they founded Communist Russia in this universe and tried to terraform the world to their needs by plunging it into nuclear war; the result of this attempt was the Cold War.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: Invoked with Crypto's mind control abilities.
• Simple, yet Awesome: The Zap-O-Matic and the Disintegrator Ray may not be as special as some of Crypto's later arsenal, but they are very useful in later parts of the first two games. This is due to the fact that the Zap-O-Matic requires no ammunition and is able to be daisy-chain onto humans when upgraded, leading to their health being drained quicker, and in the second game, can take on the tediously annoying Blisk Warriors better. As a side benefit, humans can't do anything while being electrocuted by the Zap-O-Matic, making it decent for crowd control. The Disintegrator Ray, on the other hand, requires ammo, but the ammunition is the most common type found (and with the Transmogrify ability, even easier to find), and is fairly effective on humans and vehicles.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: The number appended to a Furon's name indicates the number of times they've been cloned. Each time you die in the first two games, Crypto's clone number increases by one. Canonically, Crypto never dies in either game; Crypto-137 is Killed Offscreen between the first and second game, while Crypto-138 dies in a saucer crash between the second game and Path of the Furon.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • (So Nice) Summer Sammba by Walter Wanderly playing as Crypto is ordered by Pox to vaporize a group of partygoers and the mayor of Santa Modesta.
  • In the second game, "She Changes Like The Weather" by Nic Armstrong plays twice — When Crypto is about to destroy The Rock in Bay City, and later on as Crypto convinces the cosmonauts to fight against their Blisk allies, leading to a massive war inside the dome.
  • In the third game, songs such as "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People or "Pick Up The Pieces" by Average White Band will sometimes play in the background during scenes where Crypto is causing massive destruction.
• Sphere of Destruction: The Ion Detonator's ammunition, as well as the Quantum Deconstructor.
• Spy Drama: The first two games have varying shades of, but especially the second one as it directly parodies James Bond.
• Standard FPS Guns: Most of Crypto's arsenal is composed of alien versions of familiar video game weaponry.
  • The Zap-O-Matic is very obviously a Lightning Gun.
  • The Ion Detonator is basically a Grenade Launcher in all but name.
  • The Disintegrator Ray is functionally an assault rifle.
  • The Anal Probe serves as a marksman weapon, especially once it was reworked to specifically require targeting enemies' asses.
  • The Meteor Strike functions like a laser designator, only it calls down asteroids rather than traditional artillery.
  • Gastroenteritis serves as a Sentry Gun.
  • Most other weapons serve as some form of BFG.
• Strange Salute: The Furon salute consists of extending one's arm perpendicular to the body, touching one's chest, and then raising the hand to about eye level at the side of the body. If Crypto is any indication, the salute is typically done with the left arm.
• Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: The Furons and Blisk definitely invoke this.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Any human who thinks it's a good idea to attack Crypto after watching him disintegrate a dozen of their buddies.
• Super Drowning Skills:
  • Crypto in every game, except the third, in which he still can't swim, however he just gets warped back to the shore. The first game even has different post-mission headlines used when Crypto drowns. In the Remake the drowning is no longer instantaneous, as his shield prevents him from falling in unless he takes too much damage. On the other hand, because water shorts out his shields on contact, this means that even stepping in deep puddles and swimming pools is hazardous to Crypto, whereas in the original he could (strangely enough) remain completely submerged in pools with no repercussions.
  • Humans and objects in the game also universally sink like rocks.
• Superhero Packing Heat: Crypto being a villain example with his guns and psychic powers.
• Surprisingly Easy Mini-Quest: There are a few that don't require much, if any real effort.
• Telepathic Spacemen: The Furons have evolved Psychic Powers over the ages, allowing them to read minds, hypnotize lesser beings, and telekinetically throw enemies around. Crypto gets a lot of mileage out of all three.
• Theme Naming: Furon names are all names of illnesses or pathogens.
• Timed Mission: Show up many times, both as main missions and side quests.
• Tractor Beam: The Abducto Beam weapon for the saucer effectively functions as this.
• Twinmaker: The plot is driven by the Furon's need to harvest human brains to retain their immortality through cloning.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's a game called "Destroy All Humans!" with you playing as the aliens in an Alien Invasion. This is a given.
  • Telekinesis and Mind Control are such nicely sadistic weapons.
  • The Anal Probe. Nothing says "cruelty potential" like a weapon that goes up the victim's ass, causing rectal incontinence with a side of Your Head A-Splode. In the first game, it didn't even have to be lethal; you could simply probe a hapless civilian repeatedly, watching them run away while uncontrollably soiling themselves. Rinse and repeat until bored.
  • A big part of the appeal of the game is also the ability to get into a space-ship and use the various weapons it possesses to fly around thinly-veiled versions of various cities and destroy the everlasting fuck out of them.
  • Then there are the Ruin Lives side-missions, in which you ruin random people's lives for absolutely no reason.
  • You can use the Anal Probe to free the Blisk Mutants and turn them back into humans, or you can just kill them. Or you can Anal Probe the mutants and then kill them anyway.
  • Extracting human brain stems takes the form of Crypto telekinetically making a person's head explode and then picking up the brain left behind. While generally used on corpses, there's nothing that says the victim has to be dead; in fact, in the first game, brain stems extracted from living people often yield more DNA.
    • The remake allows you to upgrade your brain extraction to affect up to two other humans within the vicinity of the unlucky victim, and with a compulsion, can turn them against their fellow humans until they die.
  • If mindless destruction gets boring, there are plenty of dialogue options for Crypto to harass, threaten and insult the people he talks to. One standout example is when Crypto has to get a code from Dr. Go's old girlfriend Yuki. Depending on how Crypto chooses his words she could end up giving him a second chance or want nothing to do with him. Either option advances the mission so feel free to pick whichever.
• Villain Protagonist: Though your opponents aren't any better.
• Wanted Meter: Appears as a military response alert meter in each game.
• World of Jerkass: Every character in the game is a jerk but for different reasons. You control a sociopathic alien invader who is gleefully killing humans for his own entertainment while battling ferocious American warmongers who think you're a Communist invader but ironically are enabling an underground terrorist group that seeks world domination through mind control and propaganda.
• Wreaking Havok: A fairly obvious gameplay selling point for the games.
• You Are Number 6: Each clone is designated by the number of times the Furon has been cloned. If you've been cloned 13 times, you clone number is 13. It's quite telling that, at the beginning of the series, Crypto is already at 137. Gastro has been cloned so many times he broke the numbering system and is stuck at 999.
• Your Head A-Splode: The basic method for extracting brain stems from humans.

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Crypto has just conquered a single TV Tropes page. After the credits roll, the rest of the website comes into view, with The End? appearing as ominous, eerie theremin-laced music plays.

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