History VideoGame / MadMax2015

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:This game somehow manages to have an ending even more depressing than the end of the first movie. You know, the one where his family was killed leaving him a broken shell of a man? Hope and Glory end up getting brutally murdered by Scrotus, triggering the voices that Max start hearing, and Max ends up destroying the Magnum Opus while trying to kill Scrotus, killing Chumbucket in the process.]]

*** The Wild Hunt is based on the 1973 Ford XB Falcon, which is the same kind of car as Max's V8 Interceptor.

The general plot is that Max's beloved V8 Interceptor has been stolen and dismantled by marauders and he ends up working with Chumbucket, a deformed "blackfinger" (mechanic). Chumbucket sees Max as a saint sent by the Angel Combustion to help him complete his car, the Magnum Opus. Max simply sees Chumbucket as a means of getting a replacement vehicle so that he can finally reach an area of the Wasteland called the Plains of Silence and find peace in a world gone mad.

* ImAHumanitarian: Multiple enemy factions have turned to cannibalism as a means for survival. Even Max himself in a roundabout sense, as he can eat the maggots growing off a rotting corpse.

* BigNo: After [[spoiler: Max discovers he was too late to save Glory (who [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dies in his arms]]) and her mother from the hands of Scrotus.]]

** Scrotus [[spoiler: survives having a chainsaw shoved straight through his head in the opening movie. Due to the fact that the blade couldn't be removed without killing him, he wears it like a crown for the rest of the game.]]

* CoolCar: The Magnum Opus, due to being completely customizable and decked with a slew of utilitarian and combat equipment.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: This game somehow manages to have an ending even more depressing than the end of the first movie. You know, the one where his family was killed leaving him a broken shell of a man? Hope and Glory end up getting brutally murdered by Scrotus, triggering the voices that Max start hearing, and Max ends up destroying the Magnum Opus while trying to kill Scrotus, killing Chumbucket in the process.]]

* FreakOut: [[spoiler: Max near the end, in which he starts hearing voices, possibly leading to his AmbiguousDisorder status in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''.]]

** The Furnace is based on the Perentti Coupe, an Australian kit-car inspired by the Chevrolet Corvette and based on a Holden truck chassis.

* MadeOfIron: Scabrous Scrotus [[spoiler: takes a chainsaw ''to the head'' at the hands of Max at the beginning of the game, and '''survives'''. Albeit with severe brain damage.]]

** [[spoiler: Max's hallucination from blood-loss: Dog appears with a human body, Chumbucket wearing a top hat, and Dog acting as a preacher to Max and Hope's wedding. You will be wondering what the heck is going on.]]
** [[spoiler: After Hope and Glory are killed, Max's mental health is clearly failing.]]

** For those disappointed at not being able to drive the Interceptor [[spoiler: at first]], one of the available car bodies for the Magnum Opus looks very similar.
** The second half of the Gastown Race [[spoiler: where you're pitted against your wingman Tenderloin]] is basically just the [[Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome Thunderdome]] without bungie cords or weapons being given to you by the crowd. The Outcrier even gets the crowd to start chanting "Two men enter, one man leaves."

* PlayableEpilogue: [[spoiler: Following Max's final defeat of Scrotus and the deaths of Hope and Glory, as well as Chumbucket's death with the destruction of the Magnum Opus, the game appears to revert to having all of the characters still alive, as well as the Magnum Opus still intact. However, there is a strong implication that this is merely Max's grief-shattered mind hallucinating in a desperate attempt to assuage his guilt]].

* ThePromisedLand: Max is trying to make his way to the Plains of Silence when he is accosted by Scrotus's War Boys. [[spoiler: Ultimately subverted. Max's character bio reveals that the Plains of Silence don't exist: Max is so mentally broken that he created a mythical place in order to escape from his demons. That said, it might be double subverted. Griffa tells Max at one point in the game that he is "already there," at the Plains of Silence. The Plains of Silence are actually the result of Max wiping Scrotus' influence from the game map. After all the convoys, fuel pumps, and transfer stations are destroyed, the wasteland does seem to be noticeably quieter, and emptier. At the end of the game, after the credits roll, Max stands on the edge of a cliff overlooking the wasteland, proclaiming that his mission is done, and that the Plains of Silence await. The game then presents you with free roam mode, inviting you to continue exploring...or "crossing the Plains of Silence," as it were.]]

* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler: Max destroys the Magnum Opus and kills Chumbucket by using the vehicle to knock Scrotus' Landmover off a cliff. Not only does it not knock over (till it explodes), but Scrotus survives by escaping it before it falls by using Max's Interceptor stored in the Landmover.]]

-->'''random wanderer''' : *upon checking a rather recent wreckage* Surely this must be your doing?
-->'''Chumbucket''' : Yes it is! [[Film/{{Airplane}} And don't call him Shirley!]]

* SmallRoleBigImpact: [[spoiler: Scab, a former war boy turned into a human blood bag after he had failed Scrotus. It's thanks to his blood that Max was saved and then later gives Max the information of where to find Scrotus.]]

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: [[spoiler: After Hope and Glory's deaths, everyone Max talks to across the wasteland constantly calls him out on their deaths or even turn into Hope or Glory and berate him, with the person talking's voice unchanged. All of this is clearly going on in in Max's head.]]

* TragicKeepsake: Glory's snow globe. Refused by Max when he rejects Hope and Glory's offer to stay with them, then taken up again after [[spoiler: Hope and Glory are killed]]. He keeps it with him during the showdown with Scrotus, [[spoiler: but ultimately casts it aside as he drives off in the Interceptor, effectively ridding himself of the last testament to the whole sordid events of the game and returning to the state in which he started it.]]
* UnexplainedRecovery: [[spoiler: Tenderloin can be found back in the same shed you first met her after the Thunderdome match, despite being apparently a fight to the death. She can be found there before the post-game, in fact.]]
* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler: After finally getting his V8 engine, Max all but states he is going to abandon Chumbucket and steal the Magnum Opus from him. Then he gets mad at Chumbucket for "stealing it" in a panic.]]

Not to be confused with the game of the same name, developed and published by Mindscape for the NES.

* BodyHorror: Scrotus [[spoiler: survives having a chainsaw shoved straight through his head in the opening movie. Due to the fact that the blade couldn't be removed without killing him, he wears it like a crown for the rest of the game.]]

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Because the game is set in Australia, all of the cars are right-side drivers. If the player gets into the left side of the Magnum Opus a few times, Chumbucket will ask if he's forgotten where the driver's seat is. This is obviously a poke at players who are accustomed to enter cars from the left side due to real life or the influence of video games set in the United States like ''Grand Theft Auto''.

* MachineWorship: In a way with Chumbucket, who worships the "Angel Combustion" and believes his goal in life is to make the greatest car ever, with Max being the Saint sent to help him in his work.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: In spite of taking place in Australia, the game's cast is mostly composed of Americans who use their native accents. Most notable is Chumbucket, who mispronounces the Australian term "dinky di" as "dinky dee" instead of "dinky die."

* TooAwesomeToUse: Like in the ''Road Warrior'', ammo is hard to come by, forcing Max to use melee weapons. Even the largest bandoleer only lets you carry a pitiful amount of ammo (7 shotgun shells, 15 sniper rifle rounds, 15 thunderpoon heads, and 5 shivs).

* AwesomeButImpractical: After clearing the game and [[spoiler: retrieving Max's Interceptor, it becomes available as a vehicle. Hpwever, while it's fast and has better nitro than most of the other vehicles that isn't the Magnum Opus, it lacks any form of weaponry or increased durability found on some and, like the other vehicles, is not automatically repaired by Chumbucket as he is only present on the Magnum Opus.]]

* CombatPragmatist: You're on your own in the wasteland and the only thing that matters is survival; those who fought with rules and codes of conduct stopped existing a long time ago.

* CrippledGenius: Chumbucket, who is hunchbacked and deformed but a savant of a mechanic and a sure shot with a harpoon or thunderpoon.

* TheAllegedCar: The Magnum Opus starts like this. Chummy's bug never evolves past this stage.

* WhatAPieceOfJunk: The Magnum Opus. No matter how much you pimp it, it still looks just a bit better than your typical wasteland mess. You can't turn it into [[AceCustom the Gigahorse.]]

* BadassDriver: Of course.

* BullfightBoss: The Top Dogs all love to charge at Max, which can lead to them charging into [[BossArenaIdiocy the various flame-jets around the arena]].

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Sort of, since the game takes place in Australia, the wheel is on the right side of the car, however, since a lots of people are from countries where it's on the left side, they often enter the Magnum Opus by the wrong side. Do it enough and Chumbucket will comment on it.
** This trope may also apply more traditionally on the PC version of the game. Most PC driving games have the spacebar mapped as the handbrake, while this game has it mapped as the nitro boost by default. So you may find yourself rocketing forward when you mean to stop.
** While fans of AssassinsCreed may find the "right trigger to sprint" control scheme familiar, tapping B to fire the shotgun is an unexpected change. Expect to accidentally waste a shotgun shell while trying to pick up scrap or block a melee attack. And considering how rare ammunition is....
* DarkerAndEdgier: Somehow manages to be this even for ''Mad Max''. Max's sanity and altruism is at his lowest, the War Boys and Buzzards are shown to be even worse than in the movie (the latter faction being AmbiguouslyHuman child slavers) and the combat is brutal as Max will shiv, break limbs and purposefully shoot combatants in the gut as scare tactics.
* DeadlyDustStorm: Sandstorms will occasionally kick up, turning the visibility down to near zero. You ''must'' find some form of shelter or stay in the car, lest you get hit with the large chunks of scrap flying through the air. Though if your car's armor is weak this won't do you any good. Worse, there are sandstorms that bring lightning storms within them. However, Sandstorms can also yield Motherloot containers, which can give you a ridiculous amount of scrap provided that you survive.

* DogFoodDiet: Dinki-Di dog food returns as a healing item.

* EldritchLocation: The game has a soft border around the world map called the "Big Nothing", a hellish landscape of unending sand and lightning storms.
** Any of the places where Griffa appears, rocky mazes that only Max can enter, where the air turns an unearthly [[SupernaturalIsPurple purple or burgundy tone]], ethereal screams fill Max's mind and the walls are covered in strange, chalky glyphs seeming to depict corpses and atomic blastwaves. Not only does the atmosphere clear after speaking with Griffa, but the drawings disappear as well, further deepening the mystery of just what the hell Griffa actually is.
* EnlightenedSelfInterest: Completing the various Stronghold projects makes it easier for the factions based there to survive in the Wasteland. It also allows Max to resupply whenever he stops by said Stronghold and acquire scrap more easily/in greater quantities.

* FlamethrowerBackfire: The enemy cars with rear-mounted flamethrowers are vulnerable to having the tanks shot. The explosion this causes usually won't total the vehicle it's mounted on, as those tend to be armored, but it can take out other vehicles (or you) if they're close together in a convoy.

* IdiotSavant: Chumbucket, who happens to be an incredibly skilled mechanic, thus proving himself useful to Max and becoming his "sidekick". He's also capable of handling the weapons mounted on the Magnum Opus very well.

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler: Averted as Glory dies in Max's arms.]]

* InvulnerableKnuckles: Averted with Max, the upgrades for stronger melee attack is to make improvised cestus with wrenches and pistons, his fists aren't directly hitting the enemies.

* LawyerFriendlyCameo: The various car bodies for the Magnum Opus are all based on real car bodies, changed just enough to avoid copyright infringement.
** The Shovel Face is based on the 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback (The car from ''Bullitt'')
** The Wild Hunt is based on the 1973 Ford XB Falcon, which is the same kind of car as Max's V8 Interceptor.

** The Death Rattle is based on the 1934 Chevrolet Master 5 Window Coupe.
** The Die Rolla is loosely based on the body of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III.
** The Ripper is based on the a 1965-1967 Pontiac GTO.
*** Virtually every vehicle in the game is based on a real world counterpart. There's even a 1959 Oldsmobile 88 coupe utility called "Hardball" although Olds never made a Ute.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Did Chumbucket really receive visions of Max's coming, or is Max just taking advantage of a poor lost soul? Sure, badass drivers aren't exactly rare in the wasteland so Chumbucket was likely to run across one eventually, but he did know Max's nickname for the Interceptor, the Black on Black, which makes it more ambiguous.

* PaletteSwap: Aside from different color schemes, dialog and biographies, all the Top Dogs are basically the same giant Lord Humungus lookalikes with some sort of makeshift-hammer/polearm thing who all fight the same way.

* PlayableEpilogue: [[spoiler: Following Max's final defeat of Scrotus and the deaths of Hope and Glory, as well as Chumbucket's death with the destruction of the Magnum Opus, the game appears to revert to having all of the characters still alive, as well as the Magnum Opus still intact. However, there is a strong implication that this is merely Max's grief-shattered mind hallucinating in a desperate attempt to assuage his guilt, as the entry under ThroughTheEyesOfMadness attests.]]

* [[SecretCharacter Secret Vehicle]]: On top of the vehicles that can only be unlocked through story and side missions, there are three gold-colored vehicles that can only be unlocked by finding them in certain scavenging locations and returning them to a stronghold.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Well, the shotgun is the ''only'' firearm you get in the game besides the car-mounted weapons, but it's amazingly powerful nonetheless. Ammo for it is rare but it's a guaranteed kill against almost any enemy and can often be used to blow cars up instantly if their gas tanks are exposed.
** After Max's trademark double-barrelled sawed-off shotgun gets taken by Scrotus in the opening cutscene, he acquires another one with a single barrel that is obviously made of bits of old pipe. Over the course of the game, you can upgrade it, to both boost the damage you do with it and increase the number of barrels it has; to two, then three and finally ''four'' barrels (at which point it [[BangBangBANG sounds like a cannon going off when you fire it]]).
** [[spoiler: After Max beats Scrotus for good at the end of the game, he gets his sawed-off back. Though it still only has the two barrels, it's much faster to reload than the custom version (which the game justifies as being because its a purpose-built firearm, rather than something made out of junk).]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: After [[spoiler:Max is shot with an arrow]], a dude is used as an IV to nurse him back to health. Either [[spoiler:Max]] is extremely lucky that said dude had his blood type, or he's going to have complications down the line (assuming that neither that dude has O- blood, nor [[spoiler:Max]] has AB blood).
** According to the in-game lore notes, the character was deliberately converted into a bloodbag for the whole horde, after annoying Scabrus. Assuming the capability of testing blood is lost to the ages, a universal donor blood and rhesus type would still probably have been noted long before simply by empirical testing, as one assumes [[spoiler:Max]] is not the first recipient. Then again, there certainly are a ''lot'' of sick people in the Gastown tunnels...

* AlternateContinuity: Subverted - it only looks this way due to George Miller's view of the story as less of a coherent narrative and more as a series of myths and legends about one figure, [[NegativeContinuity in which you can usually find quite a bit of inconsistency.]] Because of [[RunningGag the fate of the Interceptor]] in this game, it seemingly neither fits in with ''The Road Warrior'' nor ''Fury Road'', though Gastown is a location here.
** The ''Fury Road'' tie-in comics reveal that Scabrous Scrotus is one of Immortan Joe's sons, shows Max participating in the Gastown races to get a V8 in order to rebuild the Interceptor, and has Max rescuing a child named Glory from the Buzzards (though the events are quite different). Scrotus' lack of appearance in ''Fury Road'', the voices Max starts hearing, and the fact that [[spoiler: Max gets the Interceptor back]] means that the game is something of a prequel to ''Fury Road''. It also explains why Immortan Joe's War Boys were pursuing Max in the first place at the beginning of ''Fury Road'': they were likely out for revenge.
** The tie-in comics for ''Fury Road'' tell another story with similar events; Max makes his way to Gastown to obtain a [=V8=] engine and is later enlisted by Hope to rescue Glory, [[spoiler: and they both later get killed]] are all common plot elements.
*** This all ties nicely in with the overall theory that the ''Mad Max'' franchise is a mythology rather than anything with solid continuity.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: The Buzzards have a lot of odd details as explained under the humanoid abomination entry. However Chumbuckets says they are just people who worships the dark and their bios doesn't mention them that different from the roadkillers or war boys..

* HumanoidAbomination: The strange tribe of wastelanders known as the Buzzards all seem to be this. For a start, none of them are ever seen without their face-covering [[GasMaskMooks gas masks]] on and the [[RedEyesTakeWarning red light shining from the eyepieces]] doesn't appear to be any form of electric illumination. Unlike their brief appearance in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' , where they spoke Russian, the ones Max encounters here only seem to communicate in animalistic growls and snarls. They also only ever come out raiding at night, and retreat to their camps and burrows during the day. Finally, whenever one is hit or shot, rather than bleeding red like every other living thing in the wasteland, they bleed a black tar-like substance that closely resembles motor oil.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Max certainly isn't the "Saint" Chumbucket believes he is, but it's easy to root for him against the AxCrazy Scabrous Scrotus, the [[BarbarianTribe barbaric]] Roadkill and the [[HumanoidAbomination walking nightmares]] of the Buzzards.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Somehow manages to be this even for ''Mad Max''. Max's sanity and altruism is at his lowest, the War Boys a Buzzards are shown to be even worse than in the movie (the latter faction being AmbiguouslyHuman child slaver) and the combats are brutal as Max will shiv,break limbs and purposefully shoot combatants in the guts as scare tactics.

** In a smaller form, dust devils will also arise in the wastes that strip health from anything caught in them. Minor nuisances in the Magnum Opus, but if you're on foot, they can be lethal.

* GoodOldFisticuffs: Everyone, the closest you'll get of martial arts is Max breaking limbs with leg lock and armbars.
* HumanoidAbomination: The strange tribe of wastelanders known as the Buzzards all seem to be this. For a start, none of them are ever seen without their face-covering [[GasMaskMooks gasmasks]] on and the [[RedEyesTakeWarning red light shining from the eyepieces]] doesn't appear to be any form of electric illumination. Unlike their brief appearance in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' , where they spoke Russian, the ones Max encounters here only seem to communicate in animalistic growls and snarls. They also only ever come out raiding at night, and retreat to their camps and burrows during the day. Finally, whenever one is hit or shot, rather than bleeding red like every other living thing in the wasteland; they bleed a black tar-like substance that closely resembles motor oil.
* IdiotSavant: Chumbucket, who happens to be an incredibly skilled mechanic, thus proving himself useful to Max and becoming his "sidekick". He's also capable of handling weapons mounted at the vehicle very well.
* ILoveTheDead: Dead bodies splayed in sleeping areas which are still populated pop up from time to time. The most lurid and direct example comes from the [[KingMook Top Dog]] [[MeaningfulName Stump Grinder]], who not only proclaims his intention to use Max's twitching corpse to pleasure himself with, he also has a king sized bed in his quarters with a freshly used corpse resting atop it. His bio reveal that Stump Grinder is [[EunuchsAreEvil castrated]] and he is overcompensating with violence and necrophilia the sexual chip on his shoulder.

* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Scabrous Scrotus. He begins as a normal warlord, but something happens to him that turns him into a bloodthirsty monster who can only find solace from his own pain through the suffering of others. [[spoiler:Turns out that he ''survived'' the chainsaw to the head, albeit taking severe brain damage in the process.]]

* LighthousePoint: Jeet has built his stronghold by an old lighthouse although the stairs to the tower are blocked of by debris. There are several lighthouses occupied by enemies. At least one which is used as a lookout and sniper position.

* MagikarpPower: The Magnum Opus goes from a hunk of junk to the most powerful and feared vehicle in the game.

* PaletteSwap: Aside from different color schemes, dialog and biographies, all the Top Dogs are basically the same giant Lord Humungus lookalikes with some sort of makeshift-hammer/polearm who all fight the same.
** All three of the enemy factions are this to each other. There is nothing different between a War Boy shieldbearer and a Buzzard shieldbearer beyond cosmetic differences, as an example.

** One codex entry explains that slavery is a specialized business, as anyone would work for slave like conditions, so the slaves are either beautiful, particularly useful or [[CollectorOfTheStrange have advanced mutation]].
** Stank Gum, being way skinnier than the Top Dogs or Scrotus, is way easier to fight on foot than during a race. While he is fast Max is stronger, trained as a police officer and is armed with a shotgun.

** After Max's trademark double-barreled sawed-off shotgun gets taken by Scrotus in the opening cutscene, he acquires another one with a single barrel that is obviously made of bits of old pipe. Over the course of the game, you can upgrade it, to both boost the damage you do with it and increase the number of barrels it has; to two, then three and finally ''four'' barrels (at which point it [[BangBangBANG sounds like a cannon going off when you fire it]]).

* AmbiguouslyHuman: The Buzzards, their blood looks black, they have glowing red eyes and their language sounds morelike snarls and gurgling than human language.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Somehow manages to be this even for ''Mad Max''.

* ILoveTheDead: Dead bodies splayed in sleeping areas which are still populated pop up from time to time. The most lurid and direct example comes from the [[KingMook Top Dog]] [[MeaningfulName Stump Grinder]], who not only proclaims his intention to use Max's twitching corpse to pleasure himself with, he also has a king sized bed in his quarters with a freshly used corpse resting atop it.

* RealityEnsues: Falling a pretty long way down is a bad idea. If he survives, Max will limp for a few seconds before being able to stand upright again.

Not to be confused with the [[VideoGame/MadMax1990 1990 game of the same name]] developed and published by Mindscape.

** Possibly a coincidence, but one mission involves stealing a subway car from the Buzzards, [[{{Metro 2033}} who are of Russian descent]].