The villains of Tournament Mode are...
Ian Tavares as the
Big Bad, Nicoli as
The Dragon, Jaqouline as the
The Heart, and Raven as
The Brute.
- Or, if you want to look at it from another angle and assume Jaqouline, Nicoli and Tavares were employees of Kreissack alongside Raven, then...Kreissack, naturally, would be the Big Bad and Raven The Dragon; Tavares would be The Evil Genius; Nicoli, The Brute; and Jaqouline, The Heart.
The Nova was downgraded to be just like the other HARs following Kreissack's death.
Because otherwise why would Ian Tavares be using it as the boss of the World Championship tournament?
And also Nicoli and secret character Bethany.
Either Shirro or Ibrahim won the tournament, which is why WAR as a company and a concept still exists but now has more of a sports theme behind the HAR battles.
This would fit better with Shirro's ending in Story Mode, but Ibrahim's motivation is just as likely. Explained in further detail in the points immediately below.
- This guideline site
provides quite a bit of information that supports this WMG, based on the timeline provided from the game's manual and input from the creators themselves. For instance, this page on the question of who won Ganymede gives the strongest support for the idea that either Shirro or Ibrahim won, and then the two collaborated to orchestrate WAR and the timeline of what we know as Tournament Mode (their respective goals in their endings could conceivably work together, plus in-game they're established as friends). - Alternatively, the same site provides a link to information from a datacube in fellow Epic Megagames creation Tyrian which hints that Steffan won control of Ganymede, though the datacube in question portrays him as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. The datacube info can be seen here. The site itself acknowledges that it's not certain that the two games share the same continuity and the Steffan datacube could simply be a Shout-Out (but the possibility of a similar continuity isn't ruled out either).
- It's possible that Shirro was the overall winner, but kept Ibrahim and possibly Cossette around due to their experience with HAR design, and assigned Steffan to man Ganymede on WAR's behalf. It's also quite possible that Shirro kept the following people in positions at WAR: Crystal and Christian, due to their father's previous position there; Jean-Paul, due to his brilliance; and Milano, due to his hidden legacy connected to the company WAR used to be under his father's influence.
The four Player Character choices in Tournament Mode are independent individuals in-universe
So therefore, within the context of Tournament Mode's story, the brown-haired man, the
Cool Shades guy, the blond chick, and the brown-haired girl in the green sweater all exist—it's just that when you, the player, are playing Tournament Mode, you're playing the game from the point of view of one of the four (i.e. when you choose one of them as your avatar).
The Battlegrounds sequel is canon, but not the same way that game portrays it.
(
NOTE: All of this is pure
Fanon, as if you really need to be reminded.)To be specific: the
Battlegrounds that was released to the public is in fact set in an
Alternate Universe where things are different from what happens in
2097's linear continuity. A couple of things from the
Battlegrounds we know do exist in the game's proper inner continuity, however. Examples below:
- The 'bots that got redesigned appearances...didn't. So the Jaguar, Pyros, Chronos, Gargoyle and Katana have the same look in Battlegrounds that they did in 2097. (Alternatively, their original and upgraded models exist side-by-side.)
- The 'bots from 2097 that weren't included in Battlegrounds (Thorn, Shadow, Electra, Shredder, Flail and Nova) are still around, with Force, Mantis and Warlord being mere additions to the HAR roster.
- All the Tournament Mode characters in 2097 are still around by the time Battlegrounds begins, unless dead through whatever means (old age, disease, unnatural means).
- The arenas in Battlegrounds were already present in 2097.
