Video Game / Red Faction

aka: Red Faction Armageddon

Space Asshole, hammer swinging, buildings falling down

Red Faction is a video game series developed by Volition where Earth has exhausted its supply of natural resources, and depends on mining operations on Mars for the survival of its economy. The main gameplay draw of the Red Faction series is the Geo-Mod engine, a Stuff Blowing Up simulator par excellence. Geo-Mod 1, used in Red Faction 1 and Red Faction 2, was based primarily around terrain deformation: Rock could be torn away with your weapons, but metal surfaces were usually safe. Geo-Mod 2, used in Red Faction: Guerrilla, reverses this, making the surface of Mars non-deforming, but enabling the player to destroy buildings using a physics system so realistic the game developers actually had to study architecture to get the buildings to stay up.

All five games take place in the same universe, although Red Faction 2 has very little to do with the others:

• Red Faction (2001) is about a miners' uprising on Mars against the Ultor Corp., a massive, corrupt conglomerate that manages the mining operations on Mars in the style of the British East India Company (though that MIGHT be an insult to the Ultor Corp). Through the heroic actions of miner-turned-revolutionary Parker, and the intervention of the Earth Defense Force, Ultor's reign of terror is brought to an end.
• Red Faction II (2002) is set on Earth, in the Republic of the Commonwealth, a corrupt dictatorship that has used captured Ultor technology to manufacture Super Soldiers. Fearing the potential of these soldiers, Chancellor Victor Sopot orders them killed. The survivors form The Squad, and join forces with a local resistance named after the Martian Red Faction in an attempt to overthrow Sopot. Red Faction 2 is generally considered a invokedstep down for the series, due to its separate plot, removed features, and Geo-Mod unfriendly terrain.
• Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009) is a departure from previous entries in terms of gameplay - a Wide-Open Sandbox Third-Person Shooter similar to Volition's Saints Row, as opposed to a First-Person Shooter - but a return to the continuing narrative. Fifty years after the original Red Faction, the Earth Defense Force have turned from liberators to oppressors, more concerned with exploiting Mars than helping it rebuild. A newcomer to Mars, Alec Mason, joins the reborn Red Faction to fight against the EDF after his brother is gunned down by an EDF gunship and troops investigating his house label him as a member of the Faction.
• Red Faction: Origins (2011) is a film interquel between Guerrilla and Armageddon.
• Red Faction: Armageddon (2011) is the fourth game in the series and takes place fifty years afterwards Guerrilla. It's a Third-Person Shooter, but features tighter Gears of War style corridor-shooter gameplay in contrast to the Grand Theft Auto style Wide-Open Sandbox gameplay of Guerrilla. After the planet's atmospheric terraformer is destroyed by cult leader Adam Hale, a descendant of the defeated EDF and long-time nemesis of the Mason family, the people of Mars are forced to take shelter underground from the now hostile surface. The game stars Darius Mason, the grandson of Alec Mason, who is tricked into opening an ancient sealed Martian temple by Hale, releasing a long-buried malevolent alien species and unleashing armageddon upon Mars.
  • There's also Red Faction: Battlegrounds (2011), a top-down, twin-stick Shoot 'Em Up for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 designed as a tie-in to Armageddon. It consists of various challenges narrated by Armageddon's Sergeant Winters, and multiplayer where up to four players can control a variety of vehicles from Guerrilla and proceed to blow up everything.

In July 2011 THQ cancelled the series, due to dramatically poor sales of Red Faction: Armageddon. In late 2012 THQ declared bankruptcy and had its assets sold off. Although Koch Media has bought Volition, they did not buy the Red Faction IP. Instead it was sold off to Nordic Games, along with a few other THQ assets such as Darksiders...until Nordic Games acquired Koch Media in 2018, thus bringing both Volition and Red Faction under the same umbrella once more.

In July 2018, Nordic Games released an Updated Re-release of Red Faction: Guerrilla, entitled Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered; rather than being a full overhaul of the game like Halo Anniversary, Fable Anniversary, or Shadow of the Colossus, it's more of an iterative re-release similar to the remasters of other seventh generation games like Bulletstorm, Bioshock, Dark Souls, etc. The texture resolution and lighting effects have been improved and the frame rate has been smoothed out, but the difference is rather subtle.

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Tropes:

• Abandoned Mine: You pass through one early on in the first game.
• Abnormal Ammo: Guerilla brings us the Grinder which fires curcular razor disks to impale people, the Enforcer which fires homing bullets, the Nano Rifle that fires nanites which disassemble everything they touch, and the Spiker class of weapons from the Marauder faction which fires spikes of rusty metal to impale people. Also, the Singularity Rifle and XNG-500 in Armageddon.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us:
  • Occurs off-screen in the first game while you're inside the Ultor space station.
  • In the middle of a Guerrilla mission, the game pulls a swerve: without warning the mission is aborted and you have to race to save a safehouse from a full-on assault. The safehouse is wrecked and your commander is killed.
• All for Nothing: Subverted early on in the first game; Parker tries to reach a shuttle that a bunch of miners stole to get back to Earth, but reaches it too late. But the shuttle gets blown up by Ultor AA batteries anyway. So it's good that Parker didn't make it in time. Hendrix lampshades this.
  Hendrix: *The shuttle takes off and Parker is locked in a hallway.* There they go, if only you'd been faster.
  Hendrix: *Moments later, several missiles destroy the shuttle.* Maybe being slow isn't such a bad thing.
• Ambiguously Gay: Quill. Let's see: very masculine, short hair, calls Tangier "a pretty little soldier", and says that she doesn't know what Tangier sees in Alias in such a way that may imply jealousy? Yep, it could fit. And if that wasn't enough, Quill uses male animations.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Guerrilla has missions that require the player to destroy a building within a time limit, using explosives and other tools that are provided. The restrictions range from simply using the tools quickly, to spotting a building's crucial structural weak points, to solving puzzles. Somewhat justified in that they're played as training to turn the civilian Alec Mason into an insurgent.
• Artificial Atmospheric Actions: In Guerrilla, civilians and EDF soldiers will go about their business normally if the alert level is green. Civilians will shop, eat, hang around talking, go home and rest, work at one of the various industrial sites scattered around, or mine ore deposits, dumping the mined rock into hoppers. Soldiers will patrol, talk, take inventory of supplies, change guard shifts, rest, and administer beatings or summary executions to insufficiently deferential civilians.
• Ascended Meme:
  • A photoshopped image on the NeoGAF gaming forum of the hammer looking like an ostrich resulted in the developer actually adding the "ostrich hammer" to Guerrilla as an unlockable.
  • A popular game mod contained a modded gun that fired the explosions from singularity bombs. Armageddon contains a weapon that does the exact same thing.
  • The song "Space Asshole" was written about Red Faction: Guerrilla, from the perspective of a miner witnessing the players' actions. When THQ Nordic released the trailer for the Re-Mars-tered version, they used the song as the background music.
• As You Know: In Guerrilla, Samanya is all about this trope. Because you'll be popping in to buy upgrades roughly every twenty to forty minutes throughout the campaign, the game feels that this is a good time to remind you of vital plot points. Unfortunately this can lead to Sam telling you that the Hydra is coming and that we're all doomed about thirty times, and Mason demonstrates repeatedly through his actions that he's aware of the plot points in question.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier:
  • The original game had one instance where you drive an APC to get to the shuttle that will take you to the space station. It's not required, but highly recommended, as the area you go through is full of mercenaries, many of them armed with railguns. Thankfully, the APC's armor will protect you from them, but not forever.
  • Guerrilla has drivable APCs, mounted with machine guns, rail guns and other futuristic weaponry, forming an integral part of the enemy EDF's presence on Mars. They are notable for the loving detail of their models and are undoubtedly cool.
• Ax-Crazy: Jenkins in Guerrilla seems fairly harmless (albeit completely nuts) at first, possibly even a little bit. However, the more missions you do with him, and the more he talks to you, it becomes more and more obvious something is very wrong with him upstairs, and that he is in fact a dangerously unstable individual who is as much a threat to the Faction as he is to the EDF. Some of his crazy talk is even his own made-up Martian language; one of the things he says when you attack him (being the indestructible NPC he is, you can keep doing this) is "Zooblah-bee-bop!".
• Badass Longcoat: Mason's outfit in Guerrilla, apparently a thick safety coat of the type worn by firefighters and certain miners and construction workers which reflects his former profession as a demolitions expert. It also becomes progressively more badass as upgrades add armor plating and reenfrocement layers providing yet more protection. In Armageddon, your Powered Armor has one.
• Badass Normal: Parker in the first game and Alec Mason in the third game are just regular blue collar workers with a gun (and in Mason's case, a hammer) and determination. In contrast, Alias in the second game is a nanotech-enhanced Super-Soldier while Darius Mason in the fourth game has a Super Wrist-Gadget that grants him an assortment of superpowers.
• Bee Hive Barrier: The EDF employ these occasionally in Guerrilla to protect exceptionally high value areas. The technology is rare and not available to the player. However in Armaggeddon, Darius can use the Nano Forge to create a projectile-reflecting energy barrier.
• Big Bad:
  • Axel Capek in the first game, the Mad Scientist responsible for the creation of the plague and mutants who the titular Red Faction is uprising against. After he dies halfway through the game, Colonel Masako pulls a Dragon Ascendant and sends her mercenaries to wipe out the remainder of the Red Faction. For the remainder of the series, Capek is a posthumous Greater-Scope Villain. The rest of the series has -
  • Red Faction II has Chancellor Victor Sopot, leader of the Commonwealth who oppresses his citizens with an iron fist. After his is killed halfway through the game, your immediate superior Crate Molov takes over where Sopot left off and declares himself as new Dictator.
  • Guerrilla has a Big Bad Duumvirate between General Roth and Admiral Lucious Kobel of the EDF, who exploit the populace of Mars for the planets resources. Roth leads the EDF forces on Mars against the reborn Red Faction while Kobel controls the aerospace from the EMS Hydra.
  • Armageddon has cult leader Adam Hale, responsible for destroying the Terraformer and leaving Mars uninhabitable and eventually awakening a dormant alien race beneath Mars' surface. Much like Capek and Sopot, he dies halfway through the game leaving the Alien Plague Queen as the Final Boss.
• Black and Nerdy: Hendrix in the first game.
• Blatant Lies: The Ultor announcer in Red Faction at one point tells the miners to surrender and they won't get hurt. Given Ultor's previous treatment of them. It's doubtful she's telling the truth.
  Announcer: All miners are ordered to lay down their weapons and report to the nearest security checkpoint. You will not be harmed.
• Bloodier and Gorier: In Armageddon, humans and aliens can get gibbed in messy fashion, unlike Guerrilla.
• Blow You Away: The visible effect of the "Impact" power in Armageddon, which causes anything in front of you to be blasted away by a wave of Nanomachines.
• Bond One-Liner: Alec Mason in Guerrilla cracks a few of these, usually after completing certain guerrilla actions.
• Bookends: The first game begins with a transport shuttle arriving on Mars in the very first shot and then leaving Mars in the final shot.
• Border Patrol: In Guerilla, attempting to cross the Free Fire Zone before the mission to liberate it will result in you being killed by the artillery gun guarding it.
• Bug War: In Armageddon, the horde of alien bugs attack the humans on Mars. They are even referred to as such.
• Butt Cannon: Mr. Toots the Unicorn from Armageddon shoots rainbow laser blasts out of his butt.
• Canon Welding:
  • There are several clues (most notably Ultor) that indicate that Red Faction takes place in the future of Saints Row. For example, in Guerrilla, Mount Vogel from the finale is named after the Big Bad of Saints Row 2. It is also suggested that the FreeSpace series takes place in the same timeline, with a reference to one "Subach Industries" after you destroy the AAX gunships in the Badlands mission Air Traffic Control. On the other hand, it may just have been a passing Shout-Out. There is also a Radio Tag that belonged to Shaundi, a perpetually stoned Saint in Saints Row 2 that essentially acted as the Player Character's intelligence officer. It includes both her portrait and, unlike the rest of the Radio Tags, only her first name. It's unfortunate that the Tag is found on a skeleton, though (but what else can you expect from the far future?).
  • The gear and vehicles that the secondary antagonists of Saints Row: The Third, STAG, use, are very similar to the stuff the EDF uses in Guerrilla.
  • A somewhat significant event in Saints Row IV violently un-welds Red Faction from the SR universe. Maybe. Since the ending of SRIV implies some Time Travel shenanigans occurred, Earth may or may not have survived what would've ended it the first time around.
    • The ending of Gat Out of Hell indicates that it could be the future of the rebooted universe made by God.
• Captain Obvious: Hendrix tends to be this in the first game at times.
  Hendrix: There's a squad of miners with me, but the whole [merc] base is crawling with mercs.
• Car Fu: The enemies in the final mission of Red Faction: Guerrilla may attempt to run the player over. The tactic is variably effective as running Alec does only light damage but can stun lock him in attempting to get up sometimes even parking the car beside the player and doing nothing.
• Carry a Big Stick: The sledgehammer in Guerrilla. It can single-handedly destroy enormous buildings with enough swings and one-hit kill many mooks in the game...
• Casanova Wannabe: In the ending to Red Faction 1, Parker unsubtly attempts hitting on Eos, now that all's said and done. Eos is having none of it.
• Catchphrase: The Faction has "Better Red Than Dead". The EDF troopers throw back "Better Dead Than Red!" to taunt the miners.
• The Cavalry: In the last level of Guerrilla, at the very end of the game, a huge swarm of Marauders suddenly show up to help you fight the last group of EDF soldiers guarding the route to the final boss. They usually end up getting wiped out by the EDF Elite Mooks and their gunship air support unless you intervene, but it's still appreciated.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Guerrilla displays general enemy difficulty using different armor colors. The lowest rank gasmask mooks wear blue, the standard troops are in metallic brown with gold visors, and the elite troops are wearing bright white outfits making them stick out. The Ravager Mook in Armageddon comes in three different colors that denote their abilities. Reds shoot needles, blues shoot lighting blasts and oranges shoot explosive fireballs. The Berserkers also come in two different colors; greens have an affinity to energy and oranges have an affinity to fire.
• Combat Pragmatist: Ultor Guards and Mercs from the first game. If taken enough damage, they will turn tail and run away begging for mercy. Of course, they have no qualms about suddenly turning one-eighty and starting blasting you again, often right in your face if you decide to chase after them.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Guerrilla would like you to think Red Faction missions are urgent. They aren't.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Red Faction: Guerrilla has many references to the original game. The major cities are all named after Red Faction 1 characters, the defunct Ultor corporation plays a role in the game's plot, and there's an Easter Egg where Parker from the original game has a cameo appearance as an old miner who seems completely out of touch with reality but also keeps a stockpile of singularity bombs hidden in his house.
  • In the Ultor Echo mission, the first building you come across in the Marauder ruins is the chamber in which Parker fought his boss battle against Capek. Mason will even hear garbled, ghostly speech throughout the level; the speeches are actually lines spoken by Capek in the first game (one of which is an unused line, which may come off as confusing to players who aren't data miners).
  • Capek is mentioned often in Armageddon. You even encounter a holographic bust of him early on. Also, there are a number of implications that the plague the miners suffered from in the original Red Faction stemmed from Armageddon's aliens.
• Cool Starship: The Hydra seems to have been this, what little we hear and see of it, before it gets shotdown by a sucker punch of a nanite-infused missile.
• Coop Multiplayer: Armageddon introduces "Infestation" mode, similar to the "horde" or survival modes seen in other shooters. Up to four players can battle against increasingly nasty waves of aliens, using whatever upgrades they've obtained in the campaign thus far. In addition, you earn salvage for killed enemies and can purchase more upgrades, which then can be used in the campaign. These battles depict events that apparently occur concurrently with the campaign.
• Corralling Vacuum: The Singularity bomb pulls in enemies and destroys structures in a moderate radius before exploding.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: II has a long train corridor, with incoming trains insta-killing the player, and the player needing to take cover in the side passage from time to time. It's also possible to use explosives to create a temporary cubbyhole, but not necessary because the trains are spaced far enough apart.
• Crapsack World:
  • Nothing ever really gets better in this series; Earth is starving for resources so we mine Mars... but the corporation with a monopoly on it has zero interest in basic human rights. Parker brings them down... and then Earth itself puts things right back where they were. Mason liberates Mars... then the terraformers go down, forcing everyone to live underground while everything Parker and Mason fought for on the surface is buried in red dust. Then the underground is harboring a Sealed Evil in a Can and it turns into something that looks a little like Dead Space. And if you take the shared universes into account? Everything you did in Saints Row is irrelevant, because all of this comes next. Everything you do here is just going to lead to Sol being cut off from the rest of the galaxy, thus exacerbating the resource problem, while five-legged omnicidal aliens destroy everything else.
  • Earth itself by the events of Guerrilla, even. The Council is going ahead with a "Forced Sterilization Act" due to rampant overpopulation, London is now several feet below sea level and relies on a complex network of dams, pumps, levees and reservoirs to avoid flooding (which is becoming more and more frequent), countries that don't join the Earth Defense Council are pretty much on their own if they aren't wiped out and/or forcibly annexed by the Council, a passenger shuttle crashes in the "Amazon Desert" with the loss of all aboard, rescue operations are grounded due to severe storms... Earth is pretty much a terrible place to be, it's no wonder Alec left.
• Crazy Survivalist: Jenkins from Guerrilla. While the player performs Rail Shooter missions from the back of Jenkins' trike-car, Jenkins relates his survivalist philosophy. He wants total independence of Mars from "them" (Earth), to the point of inventing his own "Mars words" to replace English. He also claims he has "taught himself" to breathe carbon dioxide and thinks mankind will eventually merge with their cars. Upon blowing up a target he will frequently cry out that he is "Clean and Righteous." At other points he announces that while everyone thinks he is crazy, he is the only sane man, and that "they" are always watching. Jenkins eventually goes right over the edge, deciding the Earth forces exist because of the rebellion, so the only way to be Clean is to betray the rebellion.
• Critical Existence Failure: In the original game, no matter how many bullet holes your envirosuit acquires, as long as it has 1 unit of armor left, it will still protect you from the Martian atmosphere. Once it hits 0 units of armor, though, you can say goodbye to oxygen.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Both literally and figuratively: Darius can use a melee finisher on some enemies, such as the scurrying Creepers. On them, he simply stomps their heads in for a One-Hit Kill.
• Cutscene Incompetence: At the very beginning of Armageddon, Hale manages to destroy the Terraformers after Red Faction has taken back the facility. Absolutely nobody thinks to even try using the Nano Forge to repair the Terraformers, not even S.A.M. until the very end of the game, even though it would simply be a matter of turning around and going back into the (completely cultist-free) facility and literally handwaving the place back to normal. Especially since use of the Nano Forge was covered in the tutorial section. It turns into regular incompetence when you go through the entire game without this being brought up as an option until the very end.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Try switching from Killzone 2 to Red Faction: Guerilla on the PS3. Both games have very similar control schemes, down to using L2 to stick to cover-except that the former requires you to hold the trigger down while in the latter you only have to tap it. Players who don't anticipate the change may find themselves running in place when they intend to take cover.
• Dead Character Walking: A glitch in multiplayer mode when the invincibility cheat was active; the flamethrower's alternate attack would set CPU-controlled players on fire, but never let them die. They would run around forever screaming in agony until you turned the cheat off. It was possible to inflict this cruelty on an entire level's worth of bots.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Alec Mason. His grandson Darius also. Runs in the family.
  • Eos in the first game would very much prefer it if you stopped standing around during the ending and disarm the giant-ass bomb right next to her. This continues right into the ending, as Parker tries flirting with her, much to her annoyance.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: In Guerrilla, all death does is subtract a mere four morale points and send you back to the nearest safehouse. When you die, you get credited for current kill streaks, property destruction and so on. It is common to have the "death penalty" refunded with interest before you even respawn. The only real penalty is losing progress on a difficult mission.
• Defector from Decadence: Samanya of Guerilla is one of the Marauders, being sisters with their leader no less, and yet has sided with their enemies in the Red Faction, becoming key player in the revolution. Subverted as she eventually gets Marauders help against the EDF in an Enemy Mine situation.
• Degraded Boss: In Armageddon, the first boss is a Marauder Scout Walker being used by the Cultists. Midway through the game, another Scout Walker is encountered as a regular enemy while the player is piloting a Scout Walker of their own.
• Destructive Saviour: All of the games to some extent, but especially Guerrilla, where Stuff Blowing Up pretty much advances the plot. It lowers EDF control in the region, which unlocks main story missions. The best part is the game actually permanently saves every bit of damage you do to the various buildings and structures scattered around the game world. By the end of the game the Mars colony may very well be a smouldering wreck thanks to you. This means you can't go back and destroy it all again, though, unless you have the PC version and enable the Reconstructor in single-player.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Guerrilla's finale, in which the ragtag Red Faction take out the most powerful space-faring vessel ever designed with a single missile. This vessel has sufficient firepower to "cleanse" entire planets and weapons accurate enough to hit individual people from orbit, yet can't shoot down a missile.
• Disaster Scavengers: The Marauders in Guerrilla live like this, with structures, weapons and vehicles that appear to be cobbled together from bits and pieces of scrap. It is however, a facade. They do this to hide their identities as former Ultor scientists, and descendants thereof. And they know very well how their Lost Technology works, thank you very much. Armageddon turns this up to eleven.
• Disc-One Final Boss:
  • Killing Capek in first game was easy. Just don't think about what comes next.
  • Just so you know, Victor Sopot is NOT the Big Bad of the second game. The game's second half, after your successful assassination attempt, is spent fighting and killing half of your former teammates.
  • Likewise, in Armageddon Big Bad Adam Hale is killed about 1/3rd of the way through the game, with the rest of the game spent trying to put a stop to the alien apocalypse he unleashed on Mars.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon:
  • Capek's inner sanctum in the first Red Faction. Here, Parker, with the help of Eos, fights and kills Capek. Then, he must escape from the lab before it explodes. All seems well, but then Ultor sends in reinforcements...
  • The missile silo in Red Faction II. Alias manages to corner Sopot in the missile control room, and proceeds to execute him by launching the missile and igniting him with the exhaust. For a moment, everything is victorious, until you return to the Red Faction HQ to find that your some of your teammates have slaughtered the Red Faction fighters present because they want to take Sopot's place.
  • The Marauder temple in Red Faction: Armageddon. After a chase on a mining cart, Adam Hale catches up to Darius with his Mantis Heavy Walker and chases him towards a dead end. Darius manages to kill him, putting an end to the Cultist movement, but now, he must focus on putting an end to the alien apocalypse.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Red Faction? Mars, the red planet? The rebels largely taking their support from manual workers and their symbol being a clenched fist holding a (sledge)hammer?
  • At one point, the EDF remnants even rebranded themselves as the White Faction.
• Doom Magnet: Darius Mason, hard. Lampshaded by Frank Winters:
  Sgt. Winters: You ever notice how when bad things happen - I mean the absolute WORST things imaginable. Horrible stuff - there's always a Mason around? Now I'm talking about shit you couldn't even dream of happening... y'know, it never fails!
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: In Red Faction II, the "best" ending is really a rather silly joke ending. The second-best ending is the one that actually feels the most satisfying and logical in terms of plot.
• The Dragon: Quill and Repta become this to Molov, serving as his Co-Dragons, however, it's clear that Repta is the bigger one of the two.
• Dragon Ascendant: Masako in Red Faction.
• Dragon Their Feet: Capek, the Big Bad of Red Faction, dies about halfway through the game, with the rest of the game being spent fighting Colonel Masako and her Merc soldiers.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Richard Gryphon in the original Red Faction is actually the Deputy Chief Administrator. Davis was the the actual Chief Administrator who you don't even have to interact with (though you can kill him). The only reason we even know his name is the name plate on his office. Presumably Gryphon was just trying to survive the chaos of the plague, rampant experimentation (especially since Capek experimented on his predecessor), and the revolution. Either way, it turns out that Capek may have been The Man Behind the Man as the plague is solely his fault. The first game didn't explain the background stories or responsibilities of the characters or Ultor very well.
• The Dreaded: Alec Mason essentially becomes this, not only becoming a major figurehead in the Red Faction but a lot of EDF soldiers, including Admiral Kobel to exclaim something along the lines of "It's Mason!" when confronted by him. To the point that a ranking officer who knows he's about to be tortured is initially more scared when he learns that Alec Mason is the one driving the car while he's pumped for information.
• Elite Mooks:
  • The Elite Guard and Merc soldiers in the original Red Faction, and the Sopot Elite Guard and Nano Elite in Red Faction 2. The Merc soldiers in RF1 are particularly elite. As in, you could be running around with a shotgun and an assault rifle gunning down Ultor guards left and right, and you'll be just fine, but when the Mercs roll in, it's a severe shock to the system when half of them are carrying Heavy Machine Guns and the other half carry the Rail Driver, which can kill you with one shot, through walls and on any part of your body. Apparently, Parker has vital organs in his feet.
  • Try multiplayer mode on impossible and watch the comp get a sniper rifle. Looks like computers can hit you with their back facing you so well... yea...
  • Guerilla has EDF Elites, who have better reflexes and often carry riot shields. The most dangerous elites are Heavy Troopers, 7-foot tall guys in white power armor. They have twice as much health as standard EDF soldiers, and only show up in the final region of the game, Eos.
  • Armageddon has the Wraith, capable of cloaking and blurring your vision with a psychotropic cloud. Also the Berserker, who aside from having a bit too much health has a nasty habit of exploding when you kill one.
• Enemy Mine: At first, the EDF, Red Faction and the Marauders are all at each others throats. Samanya's status as the sister of the Marauders leader, Vasha, helps to convince her that the Faction and Marauders need to work together against the EDF.
• Enemy Chatter: Mostly in Red Faction 1 and 2 you can hear conversations enemies have with eachother.
• Everything Breaks: One of the main draws of the series is the endless destruction made possible by the detailed graphics engine.
• Evil Genius: Axel Capek during the first game is this by using his his ethically lacking science to help maintain the status quo. His main goal in doing this is to ensure he could continue scientific advancement.
• Eviler than Thou: In Red Faction there is a conversation between two Ultor guards who talk about the miners, however, the other guards is more worried about the mercenaries as they give him the creeps.
• Evil Sounds Deep:
  • In his propaganda broadcasts in Red Faction II, Chancellor Sopot has an impressively authoritative deep, booming voice. Subverted when you actually confront him in person; without the benefits of studio ADR, added bass, and other post effects, his voice is raspy and hoarse.
  • Adam Hale in Armageddon plays this straight.
• Excuse Plot: Make no mistake, there are stories in the Red Faction games, but for the most part they're pretty barebones so that the player gets to the Stuff Blowing Up with the GeoMod system as soon as possible. Guerrilla even kills Alec's brother five minutes in and then dumps him into the Red Faction to kill the EDF and wreck Mars rather abruptly. Armageddon is the only one to avert this by focusing a lot more on a linear, narrative-driven story than normal, but the crux of the content is still mass destruction.
• Exposition Fairy: Armageddon has one in the form of Darius' wrist-computer AI, S.A.M. He's frequently exasperated with her. To her credit, she occasionally snarks back.
• Expy: Kara is pretty much one of Guerrilla's Samanya, being another native Martian woman who helps a Mason. They also both wear clothes that show their midriff.
• Fallen Hero: The EDF in Red Faction: Guerilla can be seen as this. They once saved Mars from the Ultor corporation, now they have become just like them.
• Faceless Goons:
  • The mercenaries. The only one whose face is shown is Masako's.
  • The Sopot Elite Guards.
  • The EDF drones of all types. The field officers wear the least headgear, but even then they have berets, goggles and a mini gas-mask.
  • The Marauders. In Guerrilla, they all wear masks.
  • The Cultists. They wear insect-like headgear; standard warriors wear helmets with eight glowing red visors (sort of resembling a spider's face), while heralds wear helmets with a single, circular glowing white visor (which doubles as a headlight).
• Fan Remake: The Kava: a Red Faction Prequel mod for the original Red Faction is a reimagining of the Red Faction 1 Mobile game in Red Faction 1's engine.
• The Federation: The Earth Defense Force, although they gain Imperial tendencies in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Apparently, this is due to political corruption as they now have private financial backers.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Unknown if it's intentional or not, but the old coot in the Badlands (Parker) mentions that there aren't any monsters left on Mars, unless you look real hard. While there are none in Guerrilla, guess exactly what happens in Armageddon...
  • During the "Ultor Echo" mission, when Samanya asks about the Marauders that Alec followed in, she's suspiciously curious about whether or not he killed them. Later in the game, guess what Samanya reveals she used to be prior to the game's events...
  • In the early levels of the first game, you can hear guards talking about mercs. Guess who you end up fighting later on...
  • In the first half of the second game, Molov, Quill, and Repta show a particular disinterest in helping the Red Faction. Guess what they end up doing in the second half...
  • In the Parker cutscene in Red Faction: Guerrilla, Hugo Davies tells Alec that the EDF will hunt him from Parker to the ice caps. The ice caps happen to be the game's hidden seventh sector: Mount Vogel.
• For the Evulz: Unlike Capek, who, at least, is all about For Science! with a dose of Lack of Empathy, Masako and her goons gun down Ultor miners and security guards because they feel like it. Masako even tells Parker she'll kill his parents, even though she holds no particular grudge against him.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Alec Mason in Guerilla starts out as just a new immigrant in Mars, looking for work, up until the EDF kills his brother and he sees just what they are doing to those under their rule. He soon becomes the hero of the Martian Revolution against the EDF.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Red Faction 1's revolt wound up not changing much for the poor miners in the long run, as Guerrilla reveals. This almost, almost happens in Red Faction 2, with your squad leader declaring himself the new leader of the Commonwealth and wiping out most of the Red Faction the very instant Sopot is killed. It also happens to a certain extent in Armageddon, where the Red Faction government decides to keep the population underground rather than repair the Terraformer.
• Game Mod:
  • What enterprising users are doing with the PC version despite the lack of official tools. It's pretty primitive right now, but they're starting to make some headway. What's more fun than destroying that gigantic bridge in the Badlands? Painstakingly rebuilding it piece by piece as the EDF try to kill you, and then blowing it up all over again!
  • Due to how old they are, the first 2 games require mods to run on modern resolutions (anything wider than 4:3). Dash Faction is the definitive "run it on modern systems" mod for the first game, replacing the older Pure Faction mod (which was made in the Windows 7 era). The second game has less unofficial support due to its lower popularity, but a fan-made widescreen fixer for it does exist.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In Red Faction, mercenaries use Rail Drivers in space station. Seriously, would anyone use a rifle that can punch through multiple walls when the vacuum of space is outside and there are plenty of windows that could be broken by stray weapon fire?
• Game-Breaking Bug: In Red Faction, the level where you have to escort Gryphon, do NOT skip the last door (The one with the turrets). For some reason, pressing Tab there will cause the scene to end with him getting shot, even though other cutscenes before that are fine. Dash Faction does not fix this. Do not skip the final door, or Gryphon WILL die.
• Generation Xerox: The protagonist of Armageddon, Darius Mason, is the grandson of Guerrilla protagonists Samanya and Alec Mason.
• Glass Cannon:
  • The major bosses in the first Red Faction can't take that much damage (at least by FPS boss standards), but deal massive damage themselves and can kill you in just 2 or 3 shots on Normal difficulty.
  • Military soldiers in Red Faction 2 aren't as heavily armored as the Elite Guard fought earlier in the game, but are equipped with full military weaponry instead of the machine pistols and PDWs used by the Elite Guards.
  • This also applies to the E.D.S. Hydra, given what little we hear and see of it. Sure, it can do anything from kill a single person from high orbit without collateral damage to wipe out all life on Mars in one volley, but when push comes to shove, it's still destroyed by one Nanomachine enhanced missile. It doesn't even have adequate point defense systems.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Darius, though he does actually put them down over his eyes when he's out in the Martian air.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: The eponymous faction in Guerrilla is forced to ask the Marauders for help after the events described in All Your Base Are Belong to Us above.
• Gory Discretion Shot: An absolutely bizarre one in Armageddon. After Darius battles Hale's spider tank to a standstill, Hale is shown sitting still in the cockpit, apparently without severe physical injury. After a brief cut to show Darius standing outside the tank wondering if the battle is over, Hale's head suddenly rolls out from under the tank. No explanation is given for this, although it most likely is a visual joke regarding the character's Staying Alive tendencies and the sudden expiration of his Joker Immunity.
• Graffiti of the Resistance: "Eos Lives" can be seen spray-painted on walls throughout the game.
• Gravity Screw: The wondrously entertaining "Magnet Gun" in Armageddon allows you to hurl almost anything through the air using two "anchors". The first does nothing until you shoot a second, at which point whatever was shot the first time (such as an unfortunate enemy) will be hurled headlong at the second target. There's also the "Shockwave" power, which hurls nearby enemies into the air and suspends them there temporarily.
• Grumpy Old Man: Parker is this when you meet him Guerilla. Fighting for the freedom of Mars only to see your allies set up another dictatorship will do that to you.
• Guns Akimbo: Darius can do this in Armageddon, either with a pair of low-damage pistols or Banshees, which are high-damage, but slow-firing Hand Cannons.
• Hand Blast: Red Faction: Armageddon has this, coming from the nano-forge.
• Heroic BSoD: Alec goes through a momentary one following EDF retaliating by carpet bombing the largest RF safehouse and killing dozens of fighters, including its commander. Mason briefly loses faith in the revolution after the carnage - until Samanya snaps him out of it with her plan to join forces with the Marauders.
• Heroic Mime: In the first game, Parker talks freely in cutscenes but is totally silent during gameplay, even in situations where you'd expect him to talk.
  • Alias as well, he hardly ever talks in the game at all, either during the game or cutscenes. In fact, he only speaks twice in the entire game.
• Hero of Another Story: Listening to the radio operators at Red Faction bases in Guerrilla will reveal that the Faction has several lone agents much like Mason out in the populace, doing much the same thing he's doing (it's possible to hear an individual being called in to attack a convoy, for example, or track down a courier). You never actually see them, though.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Averted with the rebel leader in the third game; he appears in several cutscenes, and you can also see him in-game at the rebel camp in the Badlands, where he has an office.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Both played straight and subverted in Guerrilla. Played straight with the Red Faction's technicals, civilian vehicles openly mounting machine guns, anti-tank cannons or rocket launchers that you can casually drive right through an EDF checkpoint with no one batting an eye. Subverted with Mason himself. By the late game you'll be openly wearing an obvious suit of makeshift body armor over the top of miner's clothes, operating in areas of the planet where miners are rare in general, and with giant digital billboards showing Mason's mugshot - and people do notice this, while EDF soldiers immediately treat you with suspicion and eventually just start shooting on-sight, even at the green (safe) alert level.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Guerrilla heavily encourages this, which isn't surprising considering the game is named after a type of irregular fighter who specializes in doing just that. In fact, some structures and bases are nearly impossible to take down without using such tactics - unless you're using a Walker, the EDF will swarm you and gun you down, even with the best weapons and armor, and given the nature of this game, cover never lasts long. As opined in Zero Punctuation^note "You get enough ammo to worry half a scout troop.", you run out of ammo in long battles when starting out. Even later, you tend to run out of the good stuff.
• Hooked Up Afterwards: During Guerrilla Alec and Samanya get at most some very low key Ship Tease but apparently became a couple after the games, with the next protagonist being their grandson.
• Humongous Mecha: Mining Walkers are very fun whenever you can get them. Heavy ones trash buildings like a walker through a butter factory. There's also the Light Walker, which is a fun runaround and has jumpjets, and the Combat Walker, which is... pretty much a Macross Missile Massacre on legs, what with the rocket pods. The EDF initially attempted to confiscate Heavy Walkers under the fear that the Red Faction would weaponize them, which lead to the Red Faction stealing them back to help ease the burden of miners and in turn weaponizing them.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: The first and second games let you carry your entire arsenal on you at the same time. It's not really necessary in the second game, as about 70% of your weapons are all just automatic rifles each of which is a straight upgrade over the previous ones. Likewise, in the first game, all non-Merc weapons become pretty much obsolete once the Mercs show up.
• Hypocrite: The EDF labelling the Red Faction terrorists when they themselves murder hundreds of innocent civilians in cold blood.
• Idiot Hero:
  • Parker in Red Faction is hotheaded, with a hair trigger of a temper. For starters, he was accepted into Harvard before the events of the game, then decided to become a miner to spite his parents (rebelling against their carefully crafted plan for his development).
  • In Guerrilla, it is fortunate Samanya is the brains of the outfit, because Mason is really good at tearing things down, but not much else. This introduces an odd note of humor when giving him the nano forge is seen as putting it "in safe hands."
  • Darius in Armageddon takes this up to eleven, where, after the terraformer is destroyed by Adam Hale, he doesn't even think of using the nanoforge (capable of repairing any solid material) to repair the terraformer at all. Five years later, aliens are released and lots of people die. Only after finding out that the weakness of the aliens is Earth-like air does he decide to repair the terraformer, and all it took to get it running was repairing the power cores.
• Ignored Confession: During the final Collateral Damage mission in Guerilla, Jenkins straight up tells Mason that he told the EDF where the Red Faction Bases are and even drew them a map to them; Possibly subverted, since there's so many explosions and so much chaos during Collateral Damage missions that Mason might not have heard him.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Kara, in Armageddon. She appears to have been Killed Off for Real, though Darius never finds her body... It's a relatively small impalement, as they go, though in a rather crowded part of the body.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The EDF officer in the "Parker" cutscene in Guerrilla, who doesn't hit anyone with his pistol.
• Improvised Weapon: Much of the Red Faction's own weaponry in Guerrilla is like this. Some of the Marauder's weapons are too. Examples;
  • The Arc Welder, a welding tool for large vehicles as the name suggests modified to shoot streams of electricity, incapacitating enemies and letting you hijack vehicles. Upgrades include allowing the streams to discern friend from foe, and an additional stream for extra damage as well as hitting an additional target in groups.
  • The Grinder, which shoots dinner-plate-sized sawblades fast enough to take your head off. It can be upgraded to charge faster, and to make its sawblades explode on impact.
  • The Rocket Launcher, which shoots rocket-propelled mining charges using an initial burst of compressed gas. It can be upgraded with heat-seeking capabilities and the ability to shoot multiple rockets/missiles at once.
  • Mining charges from Red Faction blow up more things than just rocks. A move that's continued into Guerrilla where they'll blow up just about anything except rocks.
• Instakill Mook: The Mercenary Commanders in the original Red Faction, who often carry Rail Drivers capable of killing you in one hit, even on the lowest difficulty, thankfully, are unable to use the Thermal Scope.
• Interface Spoiler: The weapon upgrade menu in Guerrilla spoils that the artifact Mason finds in the Ultor ruins will become the Nanite Rifle.
• In-Vehicle Invulnerability: Even if you are one shot away from death, the moment you get into a vehicle, it takes all the damage which comes your way. Don't be inside a vehicle that is taken to zero hit points though: it will explode and hurt and/or kill you.
• I Surrender, Suckers: The enemy guards in Red Faction often give off this effect. When injured, they may choose to run away for a brief moment and then continue to attack the player anyway.
• Iwo Jima Pose: In Guerrilla, an Iwo Jima-like monument can be found in Eos, commemorating the EDF soldiers who died liberating Mars from the Ultor Corporation, complete with a plaque listing all their names.There's a mission to blow it up.
• Jerkass:
  • Quill in Red Faction II, especially the way she treats Echo. She also verbally harasses Alias in the "Dancin' With The Dead" mission.
  • The Guerrilla EDF in general, constantly beating, executing, and generally abusing the population.
  • Colonel Paul in Armageddon. In a surface mission in the middle of the game, he rants about Darius the whole time. Thankfully, Darius gives him a well-deserved punch at the end of that mission. Even Winters is relieved.
• Jet Pack: Mason gets one in Guerrilla after liberating Oasis, and the Light Walker has one. Both of them have limited flight time, but automatically recharge.
• Kaizo Trap: In Guerrilla, after you kill General Roth in the game's final battle, you need to clear the missile launch tube to finish the game. If you just dick around, maybe taking cover to regenerate the health you lost fighting the General, a pair of airships will appear behind you and riddle you with bullets, forcing you to restart the entire 20-minute long level over again.
• Kick the Dog: Colonel Masako kills Hendrix with a trap near the end of the first game. The killing could be excused as he did cause Ultor and the Mercs a lot of problems, but he was unarmed and Masako then gloated about the killing. His bravery and service earn him the honor of having the Capital Building of EDF-controlled Mars named after him.
• Kill Sat:
  • Ultor has these in the first game, which must be shut down to let the EDF fleet enter Mars orbit safely.
  • The Red Faction military in Armageddon has this, during Path To War's third mission.
• La Résistance: The eponymous Red Faction, with the exception of Armageddon's iteration.
• Large Ham: Evil Overlord Victor Sopot in Red Faction 2, especially in his big speech that plays during the game's title menu.
• Lethal Joke Item: Mr. Toots in Armageddon, the shoulder-mounted, dog-sized unicorn pony that farts a destructive rainbow beam.
• Luck-Based Mission: Ashes to Ashes in Guerrilla, as the somewhat random mortars, physics for destructible objects, and constantly-respawning Marauders can result in colonists dying or supplies being destroyed before you can actually have any chance to save them.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me. The first game features a bulletproof shield.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The Missile Tank and Combat Walker in Guerrilla. The Combat Walker fires a constant hailstorm of rockets from its mounted rocket pods, and the Missile Tank can unleash a long, staggered barrage of missiles over a few seconds, pulverizing vehicles, buildings, and infantry alike in a Katyusha-esque fashion. You can also upgrade your rocket launcher in Guerrilla to fire up to 3 rockets that home onto a target. Awesome, but Impractical because of the tiny ammo repertoire.
• Made of Iron: Colonel Masako (well, at least if she still has her shield) and Secretary of Defense Molov can both take multiple rocket launcher shots (and your entire stock of small arms ammo, railgun rounds, and... well, you get the idea) to the face before dying, even on the easiest difficulties. This is averted in Red Faction: Guerrilla, where Big Bad #1 General Roth drives a tank to fight you for the game's final battle, and Big Bad #2 Admiral Kobel is killed in the ending cutscene. It's very satisfying to shove several rockets up Roth's tailpipe whilst he's in the middle of his speech. You can also snipe him with a railgun through the tank's armor. Or electrocute him with the Arc Welder.
• Made of Plasticine: Enemies in Armageddon, especially the aliens.
• Magikarp Power: The Grinder in Guerrilla. Mostly useless at first, but far more effective with rapid charging and explosive blades. In online play however the grinder is more immediately effective and affectionately referred to as a giant sniper rifle.
• Meaningful Name: Alec Mason carries a big hammer. Captain Gunnarsen meets protests with lead. General Bertram Roth is not calm and reasonable.
• Mecha-Mook: Often encountered throughout the series.
  • The first game has a single Ultor Combat Drone, Mecha-Turrets, and Spike Bots.
  • Red Faction II has the Battle Armor.
  • Armageddon has SHIVA exosuits and Scout Walkers, which are used by the Cultists.
• MegaCorp: Ultor is the most prominent example, but there are several smaller Mega Corps, primarily the AmRuKuo Corp. and Kuroari Industries.
• Militaries Are Useless:
  • The EDF in Guerrilla, despite being the armed forces of all the nations of Earth combined, is literally incapable of taking on both the Marauders and Red Faction. Their bases seemed to be poorly defended, to the point where one man is able to single-handedly wreck them. You would think a military organization would at least protect its buildings with automated turret guns?
  • The Red Faction military is quite incompetent in Armageddon. Not only are they incapable of stopping the Cultists from destroying the Terraformer, but they can barely even take on the aliens. They even send Darius on fetch quests while they sit around doing nothing.
• A Million Is a Statistic: The final mission of Guerrilla requires the player to blow up the E.D.S. Hydra before it can begin bombing Mars. While the entire sequence is quite heroic, they seem to be totally forgetting one detail; according to the Voice of Mars, Hydra had a crew complement of over 200 thousand. So unless Mars had an unprecedented period of growth, they're killing off more than the total population of the planet. Other than that one news broadcast, this is never brought up by the heroes, who seem to treat the whole thing as cool heroic action and an excuse for a catchy one-liner, rather than mass murder. Regardless of how justified and Necessarily Evil it is, that's just cold.
• Mini-Mecha:
  • Red Faction 2 has battlesuits, mecha about twice the size of a normal soldier armed with dual miniguns and separate launchers for regular missiles and incendiary grenades.
  • Armageddon substitutes these for Guerrilla's much larger mining walkers, likely due to the cramped conditions of most of the levels. They may not be quite as destructive, but they do the job well - especially the L.E.O., a uniquely-styled mecha with flowing skirt armor, a heavy machine gun, and rocket pack.
• Mission Control: Each of the games have characters that take this role:
  • Hendrix, and Eos, occasionally, in the first game.
  • In Red Faction II, each of your squadmates fit this role in various parts of the game. Echo, who is not part of the squad, takes this role in "Hangin' In The Hood".
  • Guerrilla has Hugo Davies, and later, Samanya after the former's death.
  • Armageddon has S.A.M. (Situational Awareness Module).
• The Mole:
  • In Guerrilla. An interesting case as the "traitor" is not actually a member of the other side, but simply batshit insane. It's Jenkins: see Crazy Survivalist, above.
  • There are several "Guerrilla missions" where you are asked to hunt down a traitor who is going to sell out the location of the Safehouses to the EDF. Interestingly, even if you do all of these, they still know where the Badlands Safehouse is.
  • There's a mission where a truck carrying a POW and followed by half-a-dozen EDF gunships gets perilously close to the base before being ordered to break away. There's literally nothing else in that direction, no wonder they were suspicious.
• Molotov Truck: You can make these yourself in Guerrilla by sticking remote explosives on a vehicle then driving it (in)to a target building before exiting and detonating the charges. Be careful that it doesn't end up toppling in your direction. This also applies to the MOAB explosives left behind by Ultor, once you find one driving over it will affix it to your vehicle of choice.
• Mook Commander:
  • Ultor Guard Commanders in the first game, known for using the fully-automatic alternate fire mode of their assault rifles. Also, aptly-named Mercenary Commanders, who often carry instakill railguns.
  • The second game has female Commonwealth Military officers, who carry the NICW and make perfect use of it's alternate fire grenade launcher.
  • Guerrilla has EDF officers(identified by their berets) who can coordinate other EDF troops.
  • Armageddon has Cultist Heralds, who often carry heavy weapons like rocket launchers and nano rifles. You get to play as one in the Path to War DLC.
• Mook–Face Turn: There is one occasion in Red Faction where you can find an Ultor guard who has switched sides, although he gets killed almost as soon as you meet him.
• Mundane Utility: The Nano Rifle, the technological wonder containing the "future of Mars", is also extremely handy for salvaging crystals. Unlike mining charges or the sledgehammer, it doesn't send the valuable bits scattering all over the place and cleans up its own mess.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In the Path to War DLC for Armageddon, the interleaved story of mission 1, 3, and 4 (2 is just a cathartic break to wreak havoc as a Red Faction tanker,) is that of a Cultist lieutenant named "Mallus." His name is one to run away from exceptionally quickly.
• Nanomachines: The Nano Forge, a key MacGuffin in Guerrilla, is among other things what enables the Red Faction to destroy the EDF Flagship Hydra at the end of the game. It returns in Armageddon, now strapped to Darius' left arm, and can be used to repair destroyed objects as well as grants him various abilities. In both games it's also the basis for the Nano Rifle, a powerful weapon that can disassemble whatever it hits.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • In the first game, some of the late-game levels where you fight against the Mercs can be this, as many of them are armed with one-hit-kill railguns, and even their normal weapons can kill you in just 4 to 8 shots. Guerrilla can often be this as well, with its large number of Escort Missions and the fact you're often expected to fight 10-20 enemies at the same time with a character who really isn't particularly durable by shooter standards.
  • The final two regular levels in Red Faction: Armageddon qualify as this. With truly countless enemies spawning left and right (including at least one Behemoth boss) and being stuck to tight corridors with little environment to destroy, playing the levels, even on normal, can be enough to induce a lot of rage.
• Non-Standard Game Over: In the first Red Faction, dying is not the only way to get a game over. Should you let any of the key characters die, or fail to complete a critical task, you will get a game-over screen with an elaborate description of how that one single small event led to the whole revolution ultimately failing, and/or everyone dying.
• Noob Cave: Downplayed. In the first Red Faction, you literally start the game inside of a cave.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Alec is this at first when the EDF killed his brother only joining the Red Faction due to the preemptive death orders put out for him due to association with his brother for less then a week after arrival. Of course he eventually gets talked out of this mindset and embraces the revolution.
• Notice This: In Guerrilla a wave of shine will highlight scrap on the ground. Periodic shine also occurs on dropped weapons. This effect can be jarring: while target arrows look like HUD symbols, this is inexplicably "in world".
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • What did you expect from an evil corporation with no regard for human safety, anyway?
  • Seen again in the underground shanty towns in Armageddon.
• Offscreen Teleportation: In Guerrilla, no matter how fast you drive between safehouses, Sam will be there to exchange salvage for goodies.
• One-Man Army: The great majority of the of destruction and salvation that occurs in the Red Faction series is the result of one person. In II, Alias, being a nanotech-enhanced Super-Soldier, is capable of absorbing four times as much damage as any normal human, and even though he's part of a squad(who are also supersoldiers), he often finds himself alone in many situations. In Guerrilla, NPC Guerrillas fight alongside the player, but Mason is still very much a One-Man Army. Lampshaded in Guerrilla: After purchasing an upgrade, Sam will sometimes say "We'll turn you into a one-man army." Darius at least has an excuse: The Nano Forge affords him an array of powers.
• Only One Name: Parker's first name is never given. Same goes for Hendrix.
• Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: Guerrilla does a good boxy gun. It does several good boxy guns. Boxiest would be the assault rifle, which looks like it hasn't been unpacked from the box it came in◊. Fits with the general angular theme the EDF has going on.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: What happens during Catch and Release in Guerrilla. You might almost end up feeling sorry for Colonel Broga, but given that he seems to have done a lot of torturing of the kind he is now receiving, it's a bit of sorely overdue Revenge.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In-universe. Mc Mohan, the Jerkass colonist in Armageddon, is prejudiced towards Marauders, evidenced by his referring to Kara as "Marauder trash".
• Poor Communication Kills: Darius Mason decides to wait until after the miners are riled up and ready to kill him to try to explain his side of things. Of course, these miners are already very surly and they might have taken it out on him anyway, which is why he held back in the first place.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Mason breaks out a wonderful one in the grand finale of Guerrilla.
  Admiral Kobel: This is Admiral Kobel of the EDS Hydra. What is your status?
  Alec Mason: Just fine, Admiral, but yours is about to go red.
• Propaganda Machine: The Voice of Mars Broadcasting System. The loudspeakers scattered around work for the EDF as well, until the EDF are driven out and the loudspeakers begin saying to join the Red Faction. And oh what a propaganda machine it is...
• Pun: Achievement and Mission names in Guerrilla.
• Rail Shooter:
  • The missions on Jenkins' trike-car, popping off rockets at EDF assets while the game controls the car and keeps count of the damage cost to the EDF. In Red Faction 2 you occasionally take the gunner position in a tank or aircraft.
  • Armageddon has a few sequences like this, most notably while riding a barge down river of lava.
• Rebel Leader:
  • Eos in the first game.
  • Echo in Red Faction II.
  • Hugo Davies(and later, Samanya) in Guerrilla.
• Redshirt Army:
  • In Red Faction your allies have literal red jumpsuits and are scripted to be completely useless. Enemies will kill off your buddies before they can fire off a shot, as Red Faction miners literally die in one hit. Even if they somehow survive the gunfight they'll contrive to drop dead for no reason anyway. In the last few levels, you get to see some miners live a little longer, but they'll pretty much lose against the more powerful mercenaries.
  • Averted with your squadmates in the Red Faction II, who are invincible and quite useful in combat. However, some levels have you fighting alongside Red Faction fighters, who are not invincible and less likely to kill an enemy than your squadmates.
  • In Guerrilla, your fellow rebels can occasionally hold their own. Rebels in Guerilla actually have more than twice as much health as EDF soldiers, but they're usually outnumbered at least 10 to 1, not to mention the fact that the EDF have seemingly limitless reinforcements. Still, the average rebel devotes much of their time to a) shooting other rebels by accident, b) complaining because another rebel shot them, c) walking into the player's line of fire, or d) seeking cover by huddling in front of the vehicle you are driving. They get cover — from the top as you bump over their brave rebel skulls.
  • Armageddon continues this proud tradition, for the few times you have allies. The player cannot damage allies, and many of them are invincible in several areas.
• Red Is Heroic: The Red Faction is this in spades. In the first game, Red Faction miners even wear red suits.
• Regenerating Health: II has the health bar start regenerating after several seconds of avoiding damage. This is similar to regenerating up to a health segment in other similar games. The regeneration speed is much slower than in most other games with regenerating health and is more for giving you full health between firefights rather than healing in the middle of a fight.
• Replacement Mooks: In the first Red Faction, the mercenaries end up replacing the security guards as your primary enemy. They are indeed challenging, because they're ex-military, heavily armored, and carry advanced weaponry.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Villified: Played straight in the first game, subverted in Red Faction 2 and Guerrilla.
  • In Guerrilla, the Red Faction attacks legitimate military targets and defends the workers from retaliation by the EDF... However, it can be easily argued that the retaliation and repression are an effect of Red Faction activities (in fact, most real-life revolutions deliberately did this to erode popular support for regimes), while the EDF's actions are necessary to maintain Earth's lifeline (which is a dying world reliant on resources from Mars).
  • In fact, several missions Mason carries out are classic terror attacks, like blowing up a shopping mall and coffee shop popular with EDF supporters/collaborators, destroying a war memorial commemorating the EDF dead from the first Red Faction rebellion, assassinating top-level corporate executives during an ad hoc EDF economic summit, or destroying the seat of the civilian government apparatus of the Mars colony. The Red Faction also really doesn't like suspected collaborators. All are rationalized as necessary measures: Punishing those who support the EDF, destroying a symbol of the beginning of the EDF's occupation, killing [https://redfaction.fandom.com/wiki/Death_By_Committee capitalists benefiting from every EDF atrocity against the workers], and wiping out a puppet state existing to rubber stamp EDF decisions.
  • The biggest bit of grayness/Moral Myopia comes right at the end. The EDS Hydra arrives in orbit, to carry out orbital bombardment and get boots on the ground. The planetary invasion would be carried out with the ship's full complement of 200 thousand soldiers. You read that right. The final act is shooting the Hydra out of orbit, destroying it with all hands. Whether it's a justifiable act of war against a hostile power happily massacring civilians throughout the game and planning to wipe out most of Mars' population, or unconscionable massacre bordering on classicide is left to the player to decide for themselves.
• Re Vision: We didn't know much about the EDF in the first or second game, besides the fact that they police most of the Earth and that Eos has friends and contacts amongst them. In Guerrilla, they're given a much darker painting - they're a puppet state for a bunch of Mega Corps and were apparently brutal fascists even when the Red Faction rebellion occured - old Parker claims that the EDF were assholes, but Ultor made them the lesser evil.
• Rewarding Vandalism:
  • In Red Faction: Guerrilla, upgrades to your weapons and other assorted things, such as body armor and safehouse warps, are earned by trading in scrap metal for it used either as components or to barter for equipment. This scrap is earned by destroying EDF buildings, their vehicles, hell, anything that says EDF on it. Since damn near everything short of the environment is destructible in this game, there are also some indirect ways that the game rewards you for vandalism, such as destroying a wall separating you from EDF soldiers to ambush them, busting a hole through a wall to escape through if you find yourself trapped, or cracking holes into pipes in order to find a safe way into otherwise well-guarded structures.
  • The first game takes advantage of this from time to time. Blowing up some suspicious walls can yield you hidden supplies and once a beam of light that heals you instantly, along with a Fusion Rocket Launcher (obtained much sooner than it would normally be).
• Ridiculously Fast Construction: Darius Mason in Armageddon has a more powerful, arm-based version of the Nano Forge, and he's able to repair or rebuild just about anything (except explosives or explosive machinery) in a matter of seconds. This is actually quite necessary since odds are good you'll wind up destroying a bridge or staircase you needed to get to the next area.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What starts Alec's bid in the Martian Revolution, starting out by killing the EDF soldiers that killed his brother.
• Roboteching: The Missile Tank can fire its rockets like this. The modified one you get to use in the final mission takes this up to eleven.
• Sacrificial Lion: Happens every game, usually to Mission Control:
  • Hendrix, the brains of the team, is killed near the end of the first game.
  • Echo, the leader of the Red Faction on Earth, is killed midway through the second game by your former squadmate, Quill.
  • Hugo Davies, the Red Faction commander, dies when the EDF attack the Badlands safehouse. Carmen and Kepler also die.
  • Kara, your sidekick, dies while helping you find the alien queen.
• Sequential Boss: Particularly annoying in Red Faction II. The final boss is your Super-Soldier commander piloting a Mini-Mecha. The mecha has an insane amount of health but its weapons are only of average power. After you blow it up, the boss jumps out to fight you on foot. The annoying part is that he fights with a railgun which can take off a lifebar in one hit, so if he manages to shoot you four times in a short timespan (or just once if you're out of medkits/lifebars), you die and have to restart the level and fight the mech suit all over again (including sitting through the unskippable pre-boss cutscene).
• Shock and Awe: The Arc Welder in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Quite a useful little weapon, as Mason cannot hijack occupied military vehicles (it's the future, after all, and the EDF developed a door lock to prevent people from doing exactly that). And hey, without that, you wouldn't have the incentive to use the welder to electrocute an entire APC worth of troopers.
  • Armageddon adds a more militarized Arc Welder, which has a longer range and is capable of chain-linking enemies. The Marauder Scout Walker comes with dual lightning projectors that tear apart enemies in seconds.
    • In the same game, one of the aliens, the Ravager, has a variant that is blue-colored and shoots electric balls.
• Shout-Out: References abound to other Volition games, movies and so on and so forth in mission names, dialogue and news reports.
  • There's even shoutouts in filenames. In Guerrilla, one of the most hyped and previewed missions involved the theft of a Mining Walker. The filename of the briefing video? walker_martian_ranger.bik
  • One of Armageddon's new vehicles is the Inferno GX space fighter, so named and designed (it even has the same aiming reticule and twin lasers) as a nod to the legendary space shooter Descent. Not surprising considering Volition's origins as Parallax Software, which they shared with now-defunct Descent 3 and Red Faction II developers Outrage Entertainment.
  • An achievement in Armageddon is "What is best in life?" It's for crushing enemies beneath your feet. No word on the lamentations of their insectfolk, though.
  • The Elite Mooks in the first game, such as the guard in the Guard Station level, sometimes yell "Rebel scum!", in reference to Return of the Jedi.
• Spider Tank: Two in Armageddon, both belonging to the Marauders. The Scout Walker, armed with Lightning Projectors and a massive laser cannon, and the much larger Mantis, armed with plasma guns and a weapon that first allows you to paint a line with a targeting laser before lighting that area up with explosions.
• Spikes of Villainy: Subverted by the Marauders, as it's part of their Masquerade. Played painfully straight by Hale and his cultists, as well as some aliens, in Armageddon.
• Sticky Bomb: The first game gives remote charges that can be thrown on enemies to panic and kill them, but is less effective against late-game mercs. In Guerrilla, mining charges can be stuck to EDF soliders, who then flail about in a panic before the player sets the charge off. ''Armageddon' gives the player a Grenade Launcher that fires similar charges, up to four at once.
• Strictly Formula: Averted. None of the games play similarly to the others, even when they share the same genre. Red Faction is similar to the first Half-Life in several ways (i.e., the one-level world feel, the second section's science-gone-awry angle, and the merc-heavy final third of the game). Red Faction 2 goes more for Halo, down to the super soldiers, quick toss grenades, and regenerating health. Guerrilla puts a destructive spin to the Wide-Open Sandbox genre Grand Theft Auto popularized, and Armageddon evokes the Gears of War-esque third person shooter. The only things these games share are the geo-mod system, and Mars (except Red Faction 2, which takes place on Earth).
• Stuck Items: In Guerrilla, Mason's sledgehammer fills up a slot, being only possible to exchange with one of the two upgraded versions (costing salvage on switching as it's done at the upgrade table.) It becomes unstuck in Armageddon.
• Stuff Blowing Up: A major raison d'être for Guerrilla. The storyline may as well be "Save the planet, here's a rocket launcher"
• Suicidal Overconfidence: In Red Faction and Red Faction 2, injured enemies may turn around and start to run away, but after a few seconds they'll immediately spin around and resume shooting at you as though nothing had happened. In Guerrilla, trying to attack a base head-on like Master Chief will leave you and your idiot friends dead before you even get into firing range. Mason himself doesn't help matters: when an army comes in to help him at the end, he whines "I thought I was the attack force." The aliens in Armageddon never retreat.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The matter-dissolving Nano Rifle in Guerrilla, which contains the one-of-a-kind Nanoforge which is the Martians' only hope of defeating the EDF. Your female sidekick outright states "It's not just a gun; it may be the future of Mars". ^note "So... can I have my gun back?"
• Take Cover!: Guerilla allows the player to duck behind cover to shield themselves behind cover. Given that a lot of the scenery is destructive, it's important to not take cover in one spot for too long.
• Take Your Time: Generally, the player advances the action when they want to in Guerrilla. The commander thinks Sam might be walking into an ambush... get over there right now! Or later! When you feel like it!
• The Artifact: Shrike is described as having mental issues in Red Faction 2, yet doesn't act that differently than most of the cast generally, this due to him being drastically toned down from the E3 Demo (Where he spoke in second person and his gunship had a custom paint job.)
• Technical Pacifist: Hendrix in Red Faction and Echo in Red Faction 2. Both support armed rebellion but don't use weapons themselves. This actually bites Echo in the butt later on because he was caught with his pants down when Molov stormed his office to take over. Echo wasn't carrying as a symbol of the future government's peaceful stance. Molov being an old soldier felt that he would have no place in a peaceful government.
• There Was a Door: Guerrilla provides the player with a sledgehammer of unlikely power. You have the option of bashing your way through walls and windows rather than go through the doorway. This can be a lifesaver when rescuing hostages, running from a horde of drones, and so forth.
• Third Act Stupidity: In Guerrilla, when you start the final invasion of Eos. You're in Eos to start with, but your commander first sends you to Dust as you can go to pick up a no-name band of Rebels to join you (in the south), then sends you to meet the army in the Badlands (way in the east). Both areas are about as far as you can get from your goal in the northwest. Sure enough, while you're running around the boondocks of Mars the Badlands base is attacked and the Eos attack called off. You race to its defense to no avail: All Your Base Are Belong to Us. As a result of this stupidity the ending gets stretched out for a few more hours.
• Token Trio: Parker (white man), Eos (white woman) and Hendrix(black man) in the first game.
• Tournament Play: Since the addition of the Major League Gaming Playlist to Red Faction Guerrilla.
• Translation Convention: Not in Guerrilla! Whilst practically all colonists speak English (or what is presumably English) it is possible to hear Russian, French and other languages as well, usually from the citizens you rescue during House Arrest events. The emergency vehicles have reflective panels that read 'AMBULANCE' or 'EMERGENCY' in three different languages as well, depending on which angle you look at them from.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • The nuclear bomb in the first game.
  • The overhead-view protect-the-truck-with-artillery mini-game in Guerrilla.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: Buildings do not generally respawn once destroyed, including bridges. Unless you're willing to put up with making significant detours, you may want to leave the second Dust mission (where you destroy a bridge over a dry ravine in order to flee pursuers) until you're done with all the optional side missions in Dust (the gap can still be traversed afterwards, but only if you're good at driving fast to jump the raised hills to the north side or patient enough to navigate the steep ramps leading down to and up from the ravine to the south), as well as leave that giant memorial bridge in the Badlands alone (there's sufficient targets and side missions elsewhere in the Badlands to break the EDF's control without destroying the bridge).
• Unwanted Assistance:
  • Darius tells SAM to remain silent several times.
    Darius: Would you stop detecting!?
  • In Guerilla, civilians will sometimes join the player in fighting the EDF. Unfortunately, they tend to die rather quickly, lowering your morale.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • In the original Red Faction, you can do some heinous things. Use flamethrowers on medics and unarmed civilians! Attach mining charges to the faces of security goons and watch them flail about helplessly to try and get it off! Blow out bridges to send people to their deaths!
  • Most apparent in Guerrilla, a wide-open sandbox-style game in which literally anything built by human hands can be destroyed. In fact, the Cruelty Potential is so blatant in Guerrilla that it's actually had a song written about it: Space Asshole takes the point of view of a colonist who is afflicted by Mason rampaging though Mars.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • Averted in the original Red Faction. Even when you murder civilians or innocent people, there won't be any consequence.
  • Red Faction 2 has a Karma Meter, and killing too many civilians would get you the bad endings.
  • In Guerrilla, killing civilians or fellow Red Faction members results in a minor morale penalty.
• Vulnerable Civilians: In Guerilla, EDF patrols will randomly stop civilians for questioning. These encounters inevitably escalate to the EDF troops just mowing down the unarmed civilians, unless you intervene.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In Red Faction 2, your vehicle specialist Shrike never wears a shirt.
• Walk It Off: Red Faction 2 has regenerating health, although it's justified by your character's status as a nano-augmented Super-Soldier. It's noticeably slower than the regenerating health seen in more modern FPS games picking up medkits, usually, restores lives not health as such. Guerrilla has straightforward regenerating health: Mason regenerates health very fast once he can catch his breath.
• The War of Earthly Aggression: To a limited extent in Red Faction 1. Played full-tilt in Red Faction: Guerrilla.
• Warp Whistle: By the time you reach the 3rd zone, you can purchase an upgrade that lets you instantly travel to any safehouse, as long as you haven't triggered an alert level. It dramatically cuts down on the transit time, although you still have to slow-travel to all non-safehouse locations.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The aliens in Armageddon have but one weakness: Earthlike air. Reactivating the dormant terraformer is the killing blow.
• Weapons That Suck: The Singularity Cannon in Red Faction: Armageddon. It will suck everything in vicinity like a tiny black hole, then explodes.
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Every mining operation in Guerrilla consists of a bunch of people literally digging out the ore by hand with picks and shovels, then carrying it by hand to a loading hopper. The all-powerful EDF has access to energy weapons, terraforming engines, and super-advanced VTOL aircraft, but not mining drills or excavating machines.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Orion in Red Faction, who only appears once in the game(outside of the training stage) to receive Gryphon. After that, he's mentioned many times by Hendrix, but his status remains unknown by the end of the game.
  • Gryphon's status in the first game is also left unknown, as the last we hear about him is Eos mentioning that he says Capek knows how to cure the plague. If he was still at the Red Faction base when the mercenaries attacked it, it is possible that they killed him when they attacked the base for helping the Red Faction.
  • Subverted with Shrike in Red Faction II disappears after Molov seizes power, but resurfaces in the game's final mission. He also disappears after crashing both the gunship and the tank.
  • Carmen and Kepler in Guerrilla, who both disappear after the EDF destroy the Red Faction's main base in the Badlands. They were most likely killed, as civilians can be heard saying "I can't believe Carmen's dead" or "Oh no! They got Kepler!".
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gryphon will call you out for murdering civilians in the first game.
  Gryphon: Do you have to kill everyone you meet?
• What the Hell, Player?: Try murdering your brother in Guerrilla's prologue.
  WTF? YOU KILLED YOUR BROTHER!!!!! (yes, this is actual game over text)
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Red Faction: Guerrilla. One of the nice features is the modicum of active events such as EDF raids and spontaneous firefights that break up the usual passive sandbox mission-supermarket vibe.
• Wreaking Havok: In one mission, you have to assassinate a group of corrupt government officials. You can sneak in and stealthily take them out, attack from long range with a sniper rifle. Or you can destroy the roof supports from long range and watch a growing cascade of rubble smoosh your targets.
  
  Or you can attach a shitload of demolition charges to a truck, crash the truck into the building, blow up the truck, then fire off rockets in every direction until the building is a pile of smouldering rubble, then hijack an enemy APC and drive off into the Martian sunset. Basically, Guerrilla doesn't often tell you how to do something. You want to smash a back door into an enemy base and steal a tank or two? Sure why not? You want to charge into an outpost and hammer away at the support struts until the entire thing comes tumbling down with you inside it? Go nuts. Just try not to die in the process.
• Wrench Wench: Samanya from Guerilla is the chief engineer of the Red faction organization and creator of all their weapons.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Red Faction are considered by the EDF propaganda to be terrorists. The EDF however are an oppressive regime that the Red Faction is revolting against.

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