History VideoGame / CliveBarkersUndying

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Trsanti, a sort of pirate/gypsy hybrid. Patrick's journals show that he relishes slaughtering as many of them as he can.

** Played with in the [[spoiler:giant hellhound that makes it possible for you to defeat Ambrose.]] It seems like it [[AssPull comes out of nowhere,]] but read Patrick's journal and he'll mention that if you use the Gel'ziabar stone too much; you know, the one [[spoiler:Ambrose]] just stole and is using against you; a "strange dog-like beast" might show up to menace you. According to WordOfGod, the stone was once used to open a rift between our world and the hounds' dimension that never closed.

''Clive Barker's Undying'' was a PC game released in 2001. Set in the 1920s, Patrick Galloway is a paranormal investigator who has been exiled from his native Ireland for unknown reasons. He receives a letter from an old war buddy, Jeremiah Covenant, who saved his life during the First World War. The Covenant estate has been terrorized by frightening and deadly paranormal events, caused by a family curse that claimed the rest of his siblings, and Jeremiah's ailing health makes him helpless to stop it. Owing a life debt to his old friend, Patrick breaks his exile and returns to Ireland.\\

* BottomlessMagazines: Averted totally with the pistol and other real-world weapons, including shotguns and dynamite. Further subverted with the Tibetan War Cannon, which has infinite power, but must be recharged.

->''"Can you hear the whispers, Jeremiah? Even another continent isn't far enough. Remember, I tried to go as well. I still heard them, even in Asian dens and German gutters. I figured it out, it's inside ... It won't be long until you cross the threshold, brother."''

Except ... the Covenant siblings aren't quite dead, and they're not happy about Patrick sticking his nose into "family affairs." The Covenant siblings were cursed many years ago when they childishly performed an ancient occult ritual at the nearby Standing Stones, dooming them to madness and death only to be resurrected as nightmarish abominations. Now they seek to awaken the evil being known as the Undying King so he can reclaim his dominion over the earth.\\

* BallisticBone: The game has a spell (the game's equivalent of a rocket launcher) that pulls skulls out of the ground, charges them with magic and fires them when you release the button. The ammo is justified by the island having been a battleground for pretty much forever, "Not an inch of this ground where someone hasn't died." Doesn't explain how you can use it up on the roof of the mansion, though...

--> [[spoiler:Father always said "self-reflection is the key to enlightenment." Allow me to reflect on this day. How could I have saved my father from a slow, painful death? I could have hit him harder.]]

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Lizbeth kept the animated corpse of her mother in her lair, seated at a dining table and presumably "keeping her company." Becomes somewhat more tragic (but no less creepy) when you remember that Evaline Covenant died while giving birth to Lizbeth, making Lizbeth the only one of the Covenant children who never actually knew their mother.

** "You know what [[spoiler:Jeremiah]]? You talk too much." *slices off his head*

* SkepticNoLonger: Patrick started his career as an OccultDetective trying to "debunk folklore and mysticism." Presumably he stopped trying to disprove the supernatural at the latest by some point between obtaining the clearly magical Gel'ziabar stone and gaining a German wizard as an archrival.

* EverybodysDeadDave: Jeremiah’s parents and siblings all suffered various horrific and untimely fates, leaving him the last living member of his immediate family. [[spoiler:[[DeadAllAlong Except Jeremiah didn’t make it out of The Great War alive,]] [[EvilAllAlong and is the very same undying monstrosity is siblings all are.]]]]

Set in the 1920s, Patrick Galloway is a paranormal investigator who has been exiled from his native Ireland for unknown reasons. He receives a letter from an old war buddy, Jeremiah Covenant, who saved his life during the First World War. The Covenant estate has been terrorized by frightening and deadly paranormal events, caused by a family curse that claimed the rest of his siblings, and Jeremiah's ailing health makes him helpless to stop it. Owing a life debt to his old friend, Patrick breaks his exile and returns to Ireland.\\

** The game comes with Jeremiah's journal, where he explains how the Covenants were cursed and how they all met their untimely end. Also, you can find a transcript of some chat with one of the game developers [[https://web.archive.org/web/20120328120400/http://jonhunt.com/smf/index.php?topic=3.0 here]].

* AmbiguousSituation: Keisinger's motives for [[spoiler: getting Patrick to safety at the end of the game]] are left ambiguous, although it's rather doubtful it was due to any compassion on his part.

* AnimateDead: The game has the Invoke spell, which raises dead enemies to fight on your side for a little while. It also [[ReviveKillsZombie insta-kills skeletons]]. And [[spoiler: makes a targeted male Trsanti '''''kill himself''''', though not the female Trsanti]]. A journal [[spoiler: written by a Trsanti witch [[LampshadeHanging specifically calls out]] the tribe's men for their weak-mindedness]].

* ArbitrarySkepticism: Patrick doesn't [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBZUYELqe3Y believe in magic]]. But he uses magic all the time, and owns a magical stone.

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: Well, not the ''main'' bad guys, but by the end of the game it seems Keisinger has not only survived his WizardDuel with Patrick, but acquired the Gel'ziabar Stone and, with it, its vast occult power.]]

** After killing her, [[spoiler: your friend Jeremiah]] appears and reveals that [[TheManBehindTheMan he's been behind the whole thing]]! Looks like he's the final boss...but then Patrick just unceremoniously [[OffWithHisHead decapitates him]] [[TalkToTheFist mid-speech]]...

** ...only ''then'' does [[spoiler: the ''real'' Undying King (the Celtic King was just a human sacrifice) raise out of the ground in the form of some odd-EldritchAbomination-crab-spider-scorpion ''thing'']]. After him, the game ends. Promise.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Patrick manages to defeat the Undying King and subdue the evil pervading the Covenant Estate, but the entire Covenant family has been destroyed, [[EvilAllAlong Jeremiah is revealed to have been using Patrick to eliminate his fellow monstrous siblings and take the Undying King's power for himself,]] (and is in turn killed by Patrick for his treachery) and a robed man implied to be Keisinger has stolen the Gel'ziabar Stone from Patrick to use towards unknown (but likely less than benign) ends. Patrick's final monologue all but outright states he is traumatized by what's happened and, with the revelation that similar monasteries exist throughout the world, is terrified that he may one day be drawn back into the horror he witnessed.]]
* BlackSheep: Even without the curse, Ambrose was a hellion that eventually joined up with pirates and even [[spoiler: murdered his father before jumping off a cliff to escape arrest by the police (he gets better)]].

* BodyHorror: Bethany got her final revenge on her brother Aaron by [[spoiler:chaining him inside her private dungeon and letting rats ''eat him alive'', removing his jawbone so he couldn't scream. Which also qualifies as ArtisticLicenseBiology, since removing someone's jawbone does not affect his ability to scream - the ''vocal cords'' should be removed for it. As a matter of fact, he could probably do ''nothing but scream'']].[[note]]The wording might be meant to convey [[spoiler: Aaron's inability to scream ''for help''--that is, to say comprehensible words--]]but it's not clear.[[/note]]

** Aaron wields a chain that he uses as a whip against you. The only way to defeat him is [[spoiler: to position yourself in front of one of the rings on the wall and dodge his attack. His chain will get trapped in the ring, and you can attack him while he's busy trying to get the chain out]].
** Ambrose is [[spoiler: invulnerable because he grabs your magic Gel'ziabar stone and puts it in his axe. He's only killable when a giant Gel'ziabar dog comes out of nowhere and attacks him, and then you can only kill him by first shooting the stone out of his axe. If you don't rush up and kill him right away, the dog will vanish, and he will pick up the stone, put it back in his axe, and resume being invulnerable until the next dog attack]].

* BuriedAlive: An ancient warrior is buried alive at the Standing Stones to seal the Undying King. Also, [[spoiler: Lizbeth.]]

* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Jeremiah died in that battle with the Trsanti back in WWI, the same battle he saved Patrick’s life in. In a more figurative sense, the Jeremiah Patrick knew in life is dead, and the man who’s replaced is every bit the insane, fucked up monster his siblings have become.]]

--> [[spoiler: Father always said "self-reflection is the key to enlightenment." Allow me to reflect on this day. How could I have saved my father from a slow, painful death? I could have hit him harder.]]

* {{Determinator}}: Patrick survives UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, least decades of conflict with Otto Keisinger, gets through Irish customs unnoticed in order to fulfill a life debt, fights through wave after wave of unspeakable abominations that have racked up quite the kill count, handles the ArtifactOfDoom with fairly marginal damage, kills off the undead and superhuman Covenant siblings one by one, goes into HELL to defeat Keisinger, survives [[spoiler: Jeremiah]]'s betrayal, and even takes down the [[spoiler:EldritchAbomination]] that helped cause everything in the first place.

** Played with in the [[spoiler: giant hellhound that makes it possible for you to defeat Ambrose.]] It seems like it [[AssPull comes out of nowhere,]] but read Patrick's journal and he'll mention that if you use the Gel'ziabar stone too much; you know, the one [[spoiler: Ambrose]] just stole and is using against you; a "strange dog-like beast" might show up to menace you. According to WordOfGod, the stone was once used to open a rift between our world and the hounds' dimension that never closed.

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Keisinger plunges into the abyss of the tower arena after you beat him]].

* EverybodysDeadDave: Jeremiah’s parents and siblings all suffered various horrific and untimely fates, leaving him the last living member of his immediate family. [[spoiler: [[DeadAllAlong Except Jeremiah didn’t make it out of The Great War alive,]] [[EvilAllAlong and is the very same undying monstrosity is siblings all are.]]]]

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: The way Jeremiah describes their wartime encounter with the Trsanti by the standing stones at the end of the game seems to indicate Jeremiah was killed by the Trsanti shaman’s blast of the Gel’ziabar stone while saving Patrick’s life.]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: First Patrick [[spoiler: discovers that, by using the Scythe, he's been unwittingly collecting the souls of the Covenant siblings for Jeremiah]]. When he tries to fix that by [[spoiler: killing Jeremiah at the Standing Stones, he creates the necessary sacrifice to bring forth the Undying King]]. Oops.

* NotQuiteDead: It's ''heavily'' implied that the man Patrick encounters at the end of the game and who [[spoiler: steals the Gel'ziabar Stone]] is [[spoiler: Keisinger.]]

* SiblingRivalry: The twins Aaron and Bethany, who were bitter rivals. [[spoiler: [[AndIMustScream Bethany won]].]]

** Also [[spoiler:Jeremiah]], who mocked and shoved Patrick around, the very same man who [[spoiler:killed all of his other siblings]]. And who is ''at that very moment'' holding [[spoiler:the only weapon that can destroy him.]] Assuming, of course, that [[spoiler: the corruption of the Undying King isn't MoreThanMindControl.]]

* WipeThatSmileOffYourFace: Tiring of her brother's smart-aleck comments, Bethany [[spoiler: chained up Aaron in a dungeon and ripped off his jaw before leaving him to be ''flensed alive by rats'', then hid it in her cottage! The [[PlayerCharacter PC]], while being repeatedly attacked by hoards of things sicced on him by the tormented Aaron, must find the jaw, [[ViolationOfCommonSense break into the dungeon Aaron is chained up in, and place it back on Aaron's corpse]]]].

* FanDisservice: Lizbeth is wearing nothing but a barely-there torn dress, complete with {{Gainaxing}}, which would look sexy if she wasn't a cursed undead and the sheer amount of blood staining down the front from her previous meal. She's so horrifying it's not even ''remotely'' attractive. This is driven home when you use the scrye on one of her pretty portraits. Although, both {{Lets Play}}s comment on her being attractive and her [[HaveANiceDeath victory pose over Patrick]] makes it obvious she was intended to be hot in uncomfortable ways. Creator/CliveBarker's stuff tends to be "interesting" like that.

* BlackSheep: Even without the curse, Ambrose was a hellion that eventually joined up with pirates and even [[spoiler: jumped off a cliff rather than be arrested by the police (he gets better)]].

* CoolGuns/{{Revolvers}}: Patrick Galloway carries a Smith & Wesson Model 3 "Schofield".

** [[spoiler:Possibly averted, as it's possible that Jeremiah was well aware that he could not win against Patrick, and so it's only chance to be free from his curse (and from being an undead monstrousity for likely all eternity) would have been to lure Patrick into killing him with the scythe...something that Patrick may have not done had he knew that Jeremiah was the only "living seal" still standing between the King and its return]].

* AlienGeometries: Mostly happens in Oneiros, but some parts of the manor also feature this. For example, when exploring the Widow's Watch (located in the east side of the manor), you end on the great hall (placed in the west side). This was intentional, according to WordOfGod.
* AxCrazy: Most of the Covenant family are insane in one way or another, like with Ambrose beating his father to death with a pool cue simply because he was tired with him meddling in personal affairs, to Bethany settling a rivalry with her brother by gleefully removing his jaw, tying him up in the basement and setting a swarm of hungry rats on him.

** The game comes with Jeremiah's journal, where he explains how the Covenants were cursed and how they all met their untimely end. Also, you can find a transcript of some chat with one of the game developers [[http://jonhunt.com/smf/index.php?topic=3.0 here]].

* AnotherDimension: Oneiros and Eternal Autumn, both magical realms either controlled or created by Keisinger and Bethany.

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Keisenger plunges into the abyss of the tower arena after you beat him]].

* DumbwaiterRide: There's a dumbwaiter in the kitchen area of the mansion that connects the upper and lower floors. In one level, Patrick must use to travel between floors. Activating the dumbwaiter in another level will show that a Howler thought of doing the same.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: The way Jeremiah describes their wartime encounter with the Trsanti by the standing stones at the end of the game seems to intimate Jeremiah was killed by the Trsanti shaman’s blast of the Gel’ziabar stone while saving Patrick’s life.]]

* RevivingEnemy: The skeletons. Using the Tibetan War Canon sometimes prevents them getting up and invoke instantly destroys them (although it uses a lot of mana). The scythe puts a permanent end to them.

* TooDumbToLive: There are still servants working at the Covenant Manor, despite the fact that many have died from demonic beasts. One guy finally decides he's had enough and leaves, only to get killed at the front gate.
** Also [[spoiler:Jeremiah]], who mocked and shoved Patrick around, the very same man who [[spoiler:killed all of his other siblings]].
*** And who is ''at that very moment'' holding [[spoiler:the only weapon that can destroy him.]]
*** Assuming, of course, that [[spoiler: the corruption of the Undying King isn't MoreThanMindControl.]]

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Keisenger plunges into the abyss of the tower arena after you beat him]]