History VideoGame / FreedomFighters

[[quoteright:256:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/92a8fc5d708d5ef7201cf47293035bfc.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:256:Ordinary people turned tough!]]

A ThirdPersonShooter released in 2003, developed by Creator/IOInteractive of ''Franchise/{{Hitman}}'' fame. An AlternateHistory began when the [[DirtyCommunists Soviet Union]] developed the first [[AtomicHate atomic bomb]], and ended UsefulNotes/WorldWarII by dropping one on Berlin, shifting the balance of power firmly in their favor. The [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR]] [[RedScare steadily expanded]] to encompass most of the world, with only the [[{{Eagleland}} United States]] opposing them, until a massive invasion quickly overwhelmed the US. The player takes control of former [[ActionSurvivor plumber]] Christopher Stone, now the "Freedom Phantom", as he fights against the [[RedsWithRockets invaders]] to liberate UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity.

Well-received critically, though something of a SleeperHit, this game is notable for a surprisingly intelligent ally system. The player, can get up to twelve fighters under their command, and order them to attack specific targets or areas, secure and defend areas, or just follow the player. Allies (and enemies) will take advantage of cover and [[MoreDakka mounted machine guns]]. Also, it has a ''really'' great soundtrack.

A sequel was announced in 2004; however, [[VaporWare there hasn't been much said about it since that time]]. But as of 2019, IO Interactive has announced that they're interested in doing a sequel in the future and they retained the rights to the game after they left Square Enix, though the only thing to come of this so far is a digital re-release of the game on 21st September 2020 for Steam, GOG and Epic Games Store, (with minor updates to get it to run on modern systems without mods, and which includes its soundtrack, as well as a PDF of the original manual).

Not to be confused with the ''VideoGame/FreedomForce'' games.
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!!This game features examples of the following tropes:
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: It's your [[ElaborateUndergroundBase underground base]], a raft big enough to fit a dozen men can float comfortably along, and it's [[LaResistance the resistance]]'s preferred mode of travel for bypassing Soviet roadblocks. The game [[JustifiedTrope is set in]] UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, after all, which really ''does'' have sewers that big (some even describe the real network as an underground city).
* ActionSurvivor: Chris was a plumber before becoming a freedom fighter.
* AKA47: All the weapons are obviously real, but none are mentioned by name, just "assault rifle" or "shotgun".
* AllThereInTheManual: To a surprising degree. Just about everyone in the main cast has some form of backstory that never comes up in the game. Some interesting tidbits
** Christopher and Troy are Irish/Native Americans.
** Troy builds custom cars.
** The Kid (a recurring character) used to live in a boarding school until the school master refused to teach Soviet Principles.
** General Tatarin is perhaps the biggest example of this. According to the manual, he is a BloodKnight, FourStarBadAss, FrontLineGeneral. And non of this is ever brought up in the game.
* AlmostKiss: Isabella Angelina and Christoper Stone almost show each other how close they've become amongst the fighting when Phil Bagzton barges in saying they're going to miss the party. They then storm off and he fills embarrassed but then says something inspirational before the credits roll.
* ApatheticCitizens: Averted -- any civilians you encounter will by happy to tell you where the enemies are or any points of interest.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: [[spoiler:Even when you become the de facto leader of the resistance,]] you can only bring a small squad with you.
** [[DownplayedTrope Relatively small]], anyway – twelve men is usually ''more'' than enough to deal with most threats. With the maximum squad size, you can often overwhelm most Soviet positions with sheer weight of numbers.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: According to the Soviets' propaganda, "Last three American president were corrupt, involved in assassination of foreign countries' leaders, and cheated on their wives."
* ATeamFiring:
** It's rare that the friendly AI hits anything beyond a few feet, especially if there is cover, unless they are using a sniper rifle or a machine gun. [[RealityEnsues That said, none of them are trained soldiers or otherwise have firearms training]].
** The player character's accuracy starts off pretty terrible at first too, with more than half your shots ending up nowhere near where the crosshair is pointing. [[DownplayedTrope He gradually gets better over the course of the game]].
* AttackAttackAttack: Once you're commanding a squad of at least 6 soldiers and everyone is armed with assault rifles, this becomes a suprisingly effective strategy - simply send them toward enemy position, while pinning down machine gun operators or sniping them out. This even works on highest difficulty, just needs an extra bit of commanding.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: [[RealityEnsues Realistically]] averted. General Tatarin goes down from a single sniper shot to the face from a few hundred feet away. Even if you do fight him directly (and you're not even supposed to), he's no tougher than a basic enemy soldier, and the only challenge is the fact that he's protected by a dozen or so EliteMooks and a heavy machine gun-wielding GiantMook.
** Played straight in that Soviet officers and other higher ranking units can survive noticeably more damage than basic Soviet soldiers.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** The submachine gun. It has considerable stopping power, but it's only accurate to pistol range and its high rate of fire is a mixed blessing, since ammunition for it is quite hard to find.
** The PKM machine gun can't be reloaded and has the aim you would expect from firing a machine gun from your hip.
* BareYourMidriff: The blonde female model of the female freedom fighter wears an outfit that shows her belly. At least in the earlier levels, in the levels where it is winter, that disappears.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: If Chris gives a wounded soviet police officer a med-kit, he will then join Chris in [[MookFaceTurn the fight against his former comrades that left him for dead.]]
* {{BFG}}: Chris can wield a PKM machine gun (over 16 pounds unloaded) like an assault rifle.
* BilingualBonus: The Soviets really speak Russian. [[AliensSpeakingEnglish They gain a rudimentary understanding of English if you heal them when they're wounded.]]
* BittersweetEnding: The Soviet Union has taken control of the United States, their strongest and last adversary, but thanks to Chris and his Resistance's victory over the Soviets in New York, some hope has been restored. [[AndtheAdventureContinues However, that just means the real war has just begun]]...
* BlatantLies: Courtesy of your local news leader Tatiana Kempinski, who serves as the face of all Soviet propaganda that insists that the invasion is actually a "liberation" of the American people from their "corrupted government leaders" and a path to a "better future".
** Thoroughly lampshaded in-game by the captured Troy Stone, who after being forced to decry his American ideals and to ask Chris to surrender blasts the Soviets as being full of nothing but lies, and pleads Chris to keep on fighting.
* BloodlessCarnage: Though with the stacks of bodies that accumulate after some especially spectacular set-piece battles you'll barely notice.
* BoringButPractical: The assault rifle is going to be the weapon of choice for almost the entire game. And you will actively fish out recruits that carry it, ignoring everyone else.
* BrickJoke: Seen in the SAFN [[strike:news]] propaganda ticker: "Trouble with your pets? Take them to [=Pets4Free=] at Lincoln Tunnel, and we will take good care of them for you". A bunch of unrelated propaganda later: "Trouble feeding your family? Registered workers can exchange food vouchers for 1 kilo of unspecified minced meat at [=Foods4Free=] at Lincoln Tunnel."
* CheckpointStarvation: The 6th Chapter, the AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs mission, has Chris fighting solo through a large gauntlet of enemies. It has no mid-level save points, so if you get killed (the last section is particularly tough, as it features several HeavilyArmoredMook enemies with heavy armor and machineguns) you get booted back to the very beginning of the level.
* CrapsackWorld: In this AlternateTimeline, the Soviet Union destroyed Berlin with the first atomic bomb at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, which eventually led to:
** The entire European continent being part of the Soviet Union, with the United Kingdom being the last to join, reclutantly.
** UsefulNotes/{{Guatemala}} and UsefulNotes/{{Honduras}} being "military advised" by the Soviet Union.
** South America being invaded and occupied by the Soviets.
** The fraudulent victory of the Mexican Communist Party in UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}.
* CreateYourOwnHero: Chris is shown as apolitical in the intro, and he only ends up becoming the Resistance's greatest fighter because his brother was kidnapped by General Tatarin, who mistook him for Resistance leader Isabella's boyfriend. [[spoiler: If you pay attention, you'll realize this was deliberately invoked by Colonel Bulba[=/=]Mr. Jones, as ''he's'' the one who came up with the name "Freedom Phantom" and started calling Chris that, and as Mr. Jones is responsible for giving Chris the key intel he needed to do as much damage to the Soviet occupation as he did; in essence, Bulba made Chris into a legendary figure that he could later destroy so he himself could become a hero to the Soviet Union.]]
* CoolButInefficient: Sniper rifle, at least until you have one in your base. They show up rarely in missions and ammo is even more scarce, meaning you usually have the current mag and that's it. Once there is a crate stored in your base, sniper rifle is both cool ''and'' efficient.
* CombatPragmatist: Starting with Freedom Fighter difficulty, you have to be this to win. Here is a non-exhaustive list:
** Assaulting a Soviet position from the front is suicide. Circumventing them by going through damaged buildings and them from the sides is vital to overwhelming the most entrenched positions.
** You cannot win against armored cars bringing [[RespawningEnemies reinforcements]] with no end in sight without explosives. But they need a road to reach the AO. A road that always includes a bridge. Demolish it with C4, and you cut off the enemies from their reinforcements.
** Similarly, you cannot win against combat helicopters. You can, however, destroy their helipads with C4 to prevent them from deploying reinforcements.
** Soviet snipers usually set up vantage points in damaged buildings. Use stealth to attack them from behind, giving your self a free sniper rifle and a safe position from which to start thinning the enemy masses.
** Bypassing an MG nest and taking it over to kill reinforcements is very useful.
** EveryCarIsAPinto. If enemies hide too close to a car, remember [[ExploitedTrope it is a much easier target than enemies behind cover]].
** Fellow Freedom Fighters behind good cover make a surprisingly useful [[WeNeedADistraction distraction]]. They'll never see you flanking them or reaching a perfect position to throw a MolotovCocktail at them until it's too late if you play your cards right.
*** In the lower difficulty settings, [[EliteMooks large armored soldiers]] that [[MoreDakka wield a machinegun]] can be defeated with minimal support, sometimes with no support, provided the player has enough ammo, including grenades and molotov cocktails and plenty of medkits. In the higher difficulties, it's practically impossible to defeat a large MG wielding soldier alone. Thus teamwork and strategy become essential to complete the mission objective.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The opening cinematic of the final assault on Governor's Island is deliberately evocative of the famous painting ''[[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington Washington]] Crossing The Delaware''; the only real differences are that this crossing is in (an ice floe-littered) New York Harbor and the Soviets are actively shooting at the Americans.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: Colonel Bulba [[spoiler:is almost personally responsible for the resistance's existence, helps you obtain several key victories, and directs you to ''assassinate his own superior'' before showing his TrueColors and taking the reins as ''General'' Bulba. Said assassination ''might'' have been intended as an UriahGambit to get rid of Chris – it's certainly one of the harder missions – and the ensuing KlingonPromotion was simply a happy accident.]]
* DudeWheresMyRespect: It's shown right there in the corner. By completing missions and objectives, you gain charisma, which lets you get more allies to command. But if you try to recruit more people then you're allowed, they blow you off, which is a little insulting after you [[spoiler:infiltrate the enemy command center and shoot the supreme leader in the face.]]
* DummiedOut: Subverted. The Liberty Island bonus level can be unlocked and is perfectly playable, but is quite obviously nowhere near finished. The alternate version of the GiantMook enemy doesn't appear anywhere else either.
** By hacking the game, it's possible to obtain an normally unusable Combat Knife weapon.
* EatTheDog: The scrolling text during a Soviet propaganda news broadcast tells the people of [[InvadedStatesOfAmerica New York City]] that they can surrender their pets at a predetermined address if they can not feed them. The same text scroll mentions that anyone having trouble needing food can pick up [[MysteryMeat free meat]] at that same location.
* ExpositoryGameplayLimitation: In the rebel base prior to the attack on the post office, the player is prevented from using any weapons.
* EveryCarIsAPinto: and if enemy hide too close to a car, remember [[ExploitedTrope cars make easier targets than enemies in cover]].
* ExplodingBarrels: And cars, too.
* EvilerThanThou: General Tatarin, although brutal, shows that he at least wants to be seen as a VillainWithGoodPublicity. Colonel Bulba of the KGB, in contrast, isn't afraid to say on national TV to the American people that if the "Freedom Phantom" isn't caught, the Soviets may have to start cracking down on the civilian population. [[spoiler: Given that Bulba is actually Mr. Jones, he may very well be deliberately antagonizing the civilian population to increase the ferocity of the resistance.]]
* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Christopher Stone, the "Freedom Phantom" and eventually de facto leader of the NY resistance
** TheLancer: Phil Bagzton, his righ-hand man and demolition expert
** TheBigGuy: Troy Stone
** TheChick: Isabella Angelina, who focuses on organising things, rather than fighting
** TheSmartGuy: Mr. Jones, providing the resistance with most of their intel.
** SixthRanger[=/=][[TheSmartGuy The (other) Smart Guy]]: The Kid, who helps Chris after [[spoiler: Mr. Jones reveals his real identity]]
** TheMole: [[spoiler:see Mr. Jones, aka Colonel Bulba.]]
* FriendlyFireproof: The other freedom fighters are invulnerable to their ally's bullets (but not the player's grenades).
* GameplayAllyImmortality: Mr. Jones in the first level and Isabella in the last one are completely invincible. Your freedom fighter allies can be incapacitated, but can only be [[FinalDeath permanently killed]] by explosives, vehicles, EliteMooks, or [[SuperDrowningSkills water]].
* HarderThanHard: The Revolutionary difficulty, in which you have the exact same amount of health as the weakest enemy {{mooks}}. And there are hundreds of them, and only one of you. Hope you know how to use cover and put your squad to good use.
* HealThyself: With nice red medkits. You can also heal injured allies and civilians.
* HelpFaceTurn: Some of the Freedom Fighters you can recruit into your squad are Russian soldiers who were left behind to die by their superiors after being wounded. If you heal them up they're immediately switch sides to the revolution and join your squad.
* HopeSpot: The entire campaign in New York City becomes this for the rest of the Soviet-occupied United States. The city has been irreversibly scarred by the invasion and subsequent resistance, yes, but the American citizens who rallied to the cause now realize that they can fight and win against a superior enemy, and the success of the New York resistance inspires hundreds of other cells across the nation to take the fight back to the enemy.
* HyperspaceArsenal: Your primary weapon is on your back when it's not used, but your backpack apparently holds your ammo, pistol, wrench, twenty grenades and Molotovs, four packs of C4 explosive, ten medkits, and your binoculars. All of which can be accessed easily.
* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: The game actually has two entirely different sets. For selecting the difficulty there's Demonstrator, Rebel, Freedom Fighter, and Revolutionary. The save/load menu uses a second set with "A walk in the park", "Have a blast", "You got what it takes?", and "Against all odds".
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Neither you, your allies, or your enemies are particularly accurate with any firearm except for the sniper rifle or the mounted machinegun.
* ImproperlyPlacedFirearms: The AK, PP-19, PKM, RGO, RPG7, and Dragunov are all right at home in the Soviet military's arsenal. The Beretta 92 pistol and SPAS-12 shotgun, not so much.
* InstantWinCondition: It doesn't matter how many Soviet soldiers are left in the level (or even if there are other objectives yet to be completed), as long as the player can raise the flag, it's mission accomplished.
* InvadedStatesOfAmerica: Duh; this time by a Soviet Union that never collapsed and slowly encroached nearly the entire planet.
* InvisibleWall: Often found near an InsurmountableWaistHighFence. The latter are actually less common, as the player can mount ledges and boxes.
* IslandBase: The Soviets reappropriate Governor's Island as the headquarters for local occupation forces.
* ItsUpToYou: Even surrounded by allies and part of an organized resistance movement, Chris seems to do everything important, from demolition to assassination. Even when he [[spoiler:becomes the ''leader'' of the movement]]. Although, to be fair, he's never actually ''alone'' on any of his operations, with anywhere from two to ''twelve'' friendlies directly supporting him at any given time, far more than most other games will give for characters of equal skill and importance.
* JumpedAtTheCall: Chris, and probably most other freedom fighters.
* JustifiedTutorial: Chris is a plumber, so he needs the help to learn the ropes of fighting and commanding a squad.
* KarmaHoudini: Colonel/General Bulba is nowhere to be found by the game's ending after [[spoiler:having your hideout destroyed and revealing himself as {{the mole}}]]. [[FridgeBrilliance Of course, that doesn't mean he got off scot free]], due to the [[YouHaveFailedMe probable response]] of the Soviet Command to [[spoiler:his formation of a resistance group in New York for personal glory [[GoneHorriblyRight that actually threw him and the Red Army out of the state]].]]
* LaResistance: It's right there [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin in the title]].
* LargeAndInCharge: General Tatarin, the leader of the Soviet invasion force, is a 7-foot tall giant. He's a rare realistic example of the trope in that, from his facial features, he shows indications of having giantism and acromegaly, rather than simply being abnormally tall for no apparent reason.
* LimitedWardrobe: Averted. Chris' outfit changes to match the weather and his objective, and his hair grows longer as the game progresses.
* MadeOfIron: The [[GiantMook Soviet heavy machine gunners]] take about 3 full magazines of assault rifle fire to bring down, and can even survive several direct frag grenade hits. Hint: [[spoiler:A direct hit with a Molotov will sap their health to something manageable over time. Grenades can help, too, if they get knocked over; you can pump them full of lead or beat the crap out of them while they're down and unable to respond.]]
** Allies that can join you (other freedom fighters and defecting Soviet police officers) also seem to be able to take a good deal of damage as well.
* MagneticHero: A gameplay mechanic, even. You can even get some wounded Soviet soldiers to follow you if you're kind enough to patch them up.
* MolotovCocktail: Quite realistic ones, too.
* MonumentalDamage: A bonus map in the game is Liberty Island, with the Statue of Liberty in pieces and scattered all around it.
* {{Mooks}}: It's raining Soviets!
** MookLieutenant: Soviet Officers fight with shotguns and are noticeably larger and tougher than regular troops. They also coordinate enemy squads with hand gestures in battle.
** EliteMooks: Two different types of Soviet special forces, both armed with blistering-quick submachine guns; burly men wearing orange scarves who roll around and choke your rebel allies to death, and female Splinter Cell ninja wannabes who cartwheel around and can take almost a full magazine from an AK-47 before dropping.
** {{Giant Mook}}s: Huge Soviet supermen wearing full plate armor and carrying heavy machine guns, who can eat 2 rockets, at least 3–4 sniper rifle shots to the face, or 2–3 mags of AK-47 fire before finally dying. In the bonus level, a different variant appears with automatic shotguns and white armor. Run. Away.
** MookFaceTurn: giving a med-kit to abandoned, wounded Soviet police officer will net you an AK-wielding ally.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Chris Stone becomes such a headache for the Soviet occupation forces, he earns the name of "Freedom Phantom". Cross him at your own peril.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Chris himself [[LampshadeHanging wonders about this]] at the end, if he's destroyed so much to defeat an enemy that will just be back with even more troops.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:As Mr. Jones, Colonel Bulba successfully manipulates Chris into assassinating General Tatarin, allowing Bulba to fill the void created by his death and letting him conquer New York on his terms, with the added pleasure of wiping out the resistance. However, by this point he had already allowed the resistance to grow into a formidable fighting force under Chris' inspiring leadership, enabled them to kill hundreds of his countrymen and had effectively created the Freedom Phantom that would go on to put a serious wrench into the Soviet Army's plans to subjugate the entire country]].
* NintendoHard: The game gets like this after the SewerLevel even on the lower difficulties.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Subverted all to hell on the Soviet side, as you'll often find wounded Soviet police officers that have been left behind to die.
** HeelFaceTurn: Wounded Soviet police officers, if Chris patches them up, they'll join your band (assuming you have the space for them).
* [[OminousLatinChanting Ominous Russian Chanting]]: Based on the Soviet Army Choirs, nonetheless!
* OneBulletClips: To the point where the game automatically reloads for you if you go more than a couple seconds without firing, whether you want it to or not.
* OptionalStealth: Stealth is crucial in earlier missions, and mission descriptions typically warn you to stay out of Soviet floodlights, but with a large enough squad and some good weaponry you can easily just charge straight through enemy defenses.
* OrnamentalWeapon: At some point in the game, Chris gets a knife on his left shoulder. You can't equip it.
* PermanentlyMissableContent: Once you complete the primary objective in an area, you cannot come back to that area [[FridgeLogic for some reason]], and any bonus objectives, supplies, or useful equipment there is permanently lost.
* PinnedDown: The AI tends to take cover when under fire. Using your squad to lay a suppressive fire on the enemies, making them take cover, then flanking them, is an extremely effective tactic.
* PlayerMooks: The other freedom fighters.
* PlayerHeadquarters: Three of them: the sewers, the subway tunnels, and the interior of one of the vent shafts beneath Governor's Island. They gradually evolve over the course of the game, becoming better equipped, more populated, and more sophisticated as the resistance grows in strength.
* RagdollPhysics: Present, but rather subdued. [[SillinessSwitch Until you switch on the FlyMo-Ragdolls and/or Nailgun cheats.]]
* RareGuns: The Bizon submachine gun, which has only seen limited service in RealLife, is occasionally carried by Soviet special forces. However, it shows up too rarely to ensure a steady supply of ammunition, so the player usually won't get a chance to use it.
* RealityEnsues:
** RareGuns may be powerful... But their rarity means you won't get enough ammo for them. There's a reason the basic assault rifle is the second best weapon of the game: every {{mook}} carries one, so ammo for it is plentiful.
** The game is all about UrbanWarfare... Go on, charge that soviet checkpoint protected by an MG nest... It'll end up as it would IRL. Flank it by going through a damaged building though, and the barely trained conscripts manning it won't last long.
** No one is accurate past 20 meters... Which is pretty much what would happen if you pit civilians who picked up guns in a hurry to defend their homeland against barely trained conscripts...
** You are LaResistance. Act like it and cripple the enemy's logistics by demolishing supply helipads and bridges. It's called asymmetric warfare for a ''reason''.
* RedshirtArmy: An interesting subversion, as the many nameless rebels under your command are shown to be extremely capable fighters and stand a high chance of survival if you play your cards carefully.
* RespawningEnemies: In some levels an armored car or transport helicopter will periodically [[MookMaker bring in reinforcements]].
** DefiedTrope: You can blow up the helipad/bridge with C4, preventing reinforcements from coming in. Or, if you're feeling particularly vindictive, you can just blow up the transports as they come in.
* RevolversAreJustBetter: [[AvertedTrope Nope]]. Even disregarding how difficult it is to find ammo for them, they kinda suck. The only advantages are that it has more power and is more accurate.
* RousingSpeech: After the resistance takes back the news studio in times square, Chris addresses his fellow Americans - turns into a BalconySpeech at the end.
* SavePoint: The manhole covers allow you to return to the rebel base and save or quicksave in the mission.
* SchmuckBait: The mission to [[spoiler: assassinate general Tatarin]] is choke-full of those, bordering on FakeDifficulty. You automatically start with a sniper rifle and [[AwesomeButImpractical revolver]], while the game doesn't exactly mention the fact [[spoiler: Chris can swim]]. If you just go head-on with the mission, you will have two unwieldy and impossible to reload guns to go through far more sentries than your ammo count and then probably back on foot against twice as many guards searching for you.
* ShortRangeShotgun: Almost every gun has poor accuracy at long range, but the shotgun is useless beyond a few feet. It makes up for this by being able to kill a typical mook in only two shots at close range.
* ShoutOut:
** The Mario Bros. uniforms worn by the game's protagonist plumber brothers.
*** He is a plumber, who teleports through sewer pipes and can throw fireballs (molotovs). This is probably why they make a Mario reference.
** In the beginning of the game, there's a movie poster starring Agent 47 from ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'', IO Interactive's more well-known franchise.
*** When someone decides to kill the BigBad, Phil says "Sure! Let's sneak into his cocktail party and put some cyanide pills in his glass!". This is exactly what you do in ''Hitman 2'' to assassinate a Russian general.
*** Some trains carry the name "47 United".
*** In one of the news tickers, it's mentioned that newborn babies will have their Social Security numbers tattooed to their necks; Agent 47 has a barcode tattooed in the same place.
** One of the lines your allies can call out when taking control of a mounted machine-gun is [[Film/{{Scarface1983}} "Say 'ello to my little friend!"]]
* SnipingMission: To assassinate [[spoiler: General Tatarin]]. You can also drop the {{sniper rifle}} for another weapon in the beginning, making it ''considerably'' easier to reach your vintage point - you'll be able to get another one later on.
* SquadControls: It might have been the TropeCodifier, being one of the first shooters to have the streamlined commands for controlling the squad and individual soldiers, combined with (relatively) competent AI following your basic orders. Stands out to this day due to the simplicity and effectivness of the design.
* TheStarscream: [[spoiler:Mr. Jones, or rather Colonel Bulba, to both the Rebels and to the Soviets. Though ultimately his loyalty has always been to the latter.]]
* StealthBasedMission: The game doesn't spell it out, but stealth is an actual feature in it and you can sneak past various enemies without combat. Normally this is useless, but when you're on the mission to [[spoiler: assassinate general Tatarin]], the best approach is to sneak through majority of the level and use the sniper rifle solely against the tiny handful of targets that can't be sneaked around. There are more straightforward ways of doing it, but stealth is the easiest and fastest one.
* StormingTheCastle: Done ''twice'', though the first is more of an infiltration.
** Really kicks in [[spoiler:during the final stage when you take Fort Jay on Governor's Island]].
*** Pretty much every area of every level save three has this on a more subdued level, as it is necessary to knock out the local Soviet field HQ in order to clear an area.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Everybody except Chris dies instantly if they fall in the water.
* SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity: Rocket Launchers and Sniper Rifles generally appear only where they would be the most useful, and generally only with enough ammo to be immediately useful.
* TheUnfought: [[spoiler:Colonel/General Bulba disappears after TheReveal [=3/4ths=] of the way through the game, and is nowhere to be seen during the final battle on Governor's Island]].
* TookALevelInBadass: Chris was just an everyman plumber to begin with. But when Chris gives his RousingSpeech to all of New York City, and when he and his men approach Governor's Island for the final assault, you can see just how far he's come as the leader of the American resistance. So much so that in the final fight, you [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington cross the frozen water on a boat with Chris standing on the bow]]. Whatever the ultimate outcome, Chris becomes a very significant player in this AlternateHistory.
* TreacherousAdvisor: He was really the BigBad all along, building LaResistance up so he could destroy it later and get the glory.
* UniqueEnemy: The Liberty Island bonus level ends with a fight on the Statue of Liberty's torch against a pair of unique Soviet Heavies. They wear fancier armor than the regular Heavies, and in addition to their usual machineguns, they also carry unique full-auto shotguns.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: Averted. ''All'' of the weapons come from the enemy.
* VaporWare: A sequel was announced six months after the game's 2003 release. It was supposed to have come out in late 2005. Little is known about it, except for an IO Interactive representative saying in 2007 that it was on the to-do list.
* WeHaveBecomeComplacent: It's implied that America simply ignored the Soviet Union's imperialism until it was too late. In the opening, Chris outright dismisses the Soviet invasion of South America as conspiracy theory. Colonel Bulba even mocks Chris and America for having "one finger on the remote control and one up their nose", which allowed the Soviet invasion of the United States to easily succeed.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** [[spoiler:Colonel Bulba]], who is not seen during the final liberation of New York.
** Tatiana Kempinski just disappears after the death of [[spoiler: General Tatarin]], and is nowhere to be seen when you take over her broadcast studio just a couple of missions later.
** The People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union's other major adversary, is never mentioned in the game. However, it's unknown if it became a major power or if it had a political fallout with the Union in this timeline.
** Also in a meta-example America is being overrun by the Soviet war machine, and the US Army is nowhere to be found.
* WhatIf: …the Soviets got the bomb first, while Americans remained isolationist?
* WrenchWhack: Your plumber's wrench is actually the best melee weapon in the game. And is also the one you score your first kill with.
* YouALLLookFamiliar: There are about a half-dozen different models for freedom fighters, and only one for each enemy type. A bit less noticeable for the latter, ironically, since they're all in uniform.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: As soon as Tatarin is killed, Colonel Bulba is promoted to General in his stead and he immediately orders the destruction of the very resistance movement he had deceived into helping him carry out this plot; luckily for everyone, his attempt to kill Chris fails miserably.
* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Duh. The resistance movement is called a terrorist group on the Soviet propaganda channel, SAFN.
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