History VideoGame / MadMax2015

* ActionGirl: Tenderloin, the "fighter" who mans Max's thunderpoons during the big race.
* TheAllegedCar: The Magnum Opus starts out as a rusty frame on wheels, but can be upgraded and customized to a four-wheeled, fire-breathing death machine.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Improving strongholds involves building various facilities in them, and for most of those, you need to find project parts, which can be scattered across different scavenging locations. These only become marked on the map once you've been in their vicinity at least once, which would make looking for missing project parts quite frustrating, except that the Survey Crew, the stronghold project that reveals all of the scavenging locations in the region, always has its parts in Enemy Camps, which can be marked on the map by visiting Vantage Points in the region. This means you always have means to locate the required project parts without having to aimlessly drive around the map and hope you're lucky.

** When you need to use an explosive to get past a door, there is always a gas canister somewhere near by. Also if you blow up the gas canister before destroying what you need to proceed, another gas canister will spawn in the same spot. Just to make it even better, all destroyed doors eventually despawn, meaning that even if it briefly glitches and prevents you from progressing, it will disappear within a few seconds.
** Because of the minefield side missions, the player will have to take the Dog and Buggy vehicle out of the Strongholds very often. To compensate for the fact that the game is forcing you to use a car with no repair function or any weapons besides the shotgun, the Buggy has insanely high health that makes it all but indestructible.
* ApocalypseHow: The world has ended, but as is standard in the series, it's not really clear exactly what happened, though evidence seems to point to "everything, at once." Global warming thawed the ice caps and flooded the world while plagues and war ravaged the population, nukes shredded the already tattered biosphere and dried up the oceans, and the governments collapsed completely as they failed to protect and provide. Most animals went extinct as people ate them to stave off starvation, and everything devolved into the ScavengerWorld it is today.
* ApocalypticLog: Historic Relics consist of pictures, letters, and other records from people before the world fell into ruin, from Max's old family portrait to news articles about dwindling supplies.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Some of the cars Max can collect have cool and unique properties, such as a V12 engine, the ability to drop spikes, and high ramming damage. However, without Chumbucket's repairing ability or the other weapons available on the Magnum Opus, they aren't very useful. Though it does help if you have been upgrading Strongholds you should be getting a sizable donation of Scrap, you can use to repair the vehicles yourself.
* BadassBeard: Max sports one in the game. You can even unlock alternate looks that gives him longer hair and a longer beard.

* 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. Most of your allies are also warlords or slavers themselves, only not quite as murderous as Scrotus and his hordes.
* BloodKnight: Tenderloin, the "fighter" (basically the person taking Chumbucket's place in riding in the back and wielding the Thunderpoon) you need to recruit for the Gastown Race loves fighting and killing so much that when she's ''not'' fighting and killing in the races she's instead high as a kite from huffing nitrous oxide and gasoline fumes all day to pass the time.

* BreakableWeapons: The melee weapons you take from enemies break after a number of hits. You can level an ability that makes them last longer.

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

* CarFu: The main form of combat when driving around the wastes. Ramming, side-swiping, grinding, it all works. Combined with a boost it makes for fast and brutal fights.
* CombatPragmatist: Max throws windmill punches, surprise haymakers, kicks opponents in the abdomen or the crotch when they're down, stabs them with shivs when they're stunned, slams their faces into nearby walls, and even blasts them in the gut with his shotgun. But, really though, [[ScavengerWorld in]] [[ApocalypseHow a]] [[ScrewTheRulesItsTheApocalypse world]] like this, people who fought with elegance and has codes of conduct has already been gutted by a starving lunatic with a rusty knife.
* CompanionCube: Chumbucket is obvious in love with his Magnum Opus. His voice reveals a sexual thrill at some points when he talks about working on it. One character notes how he talks about it like he would to a girlfriend.

** Finishing all the single-player story mission gives the player the ability to drive the Interceptor, wear Max's iconic leather jacket, and use his iconic sawed-off shotgun.

** Max's V8 Interceptor. [[spoiler:Intro action scenes aside, the car doesn't seem to die against all odds. Despite being shown to be broken down for parts in the beginning of the game, Scrotus managed to acquire it as his backup vehicle/trophy after ''having the car reassembled'' with extra modifications on top. This is followed by a final boss battle that damages the car enough to strip Scrotus' mods off, but not enough to totally destroy the car as Max casually drives it away.]]
* CrapsackWorld: The game did a very fine job of showing how the wasteland sucks balls and sucks even more when war tribes own everything. Maggots infesting corpses, cockroaches, rats and expired cans of dog food is considered a delicacy and the main sustenance the common people, you'll see a few people wandering the desert dying of thirst, people begging for a MercyKill and desiccated bodies being hung on the gallows from here and there.
* CreepyDoll: Areas inhabited by Buzzards sometimes have mannequins placed in a manner of ways, usually giving the impression that you are being watched. This is most obvious in the airport where most Buzzards seem to live but some of their outposts have them as well.
* CuttingTheKnot: Unlike a lot of other games of this type, there are no rules governing the races. Nothing is stopping you from destroying your competitors with your quad-barrelled shotgun.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Somehow manages to be this even for the likes of canonical ''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, and the combat is absolutely brutal as Max will gladfully shank, snap limbs, break jaws and eviscerate combatants with a shotgun as ''scare tactics''.

** 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: Dog food is actually the ''most'' palatable food available to Max. The other options are critters that he's just stepped on and handfuls of ''maggots''.
* ADogNamedDog: As with the film, Max never gives the dog a name and refers to it only as "dog." Chumbucket calls him "the dinki di," referring to the brand of dog food found in the game.

* EldritchLocation: 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 grants Max various advantages when he does things in the area or visits the stronghold.
* EveryCarIsAPinto: As might be expected, every car in the game explodes in a massive fireball when you kill it. You car is only slightly less volatile; when it runs out of health you get a five second timer to bail out and let Chumbucket repair it, and it explodes if you don't.

* FaceHeelTurn: While already a PunchClockHero, [[spoiler:Tenderloin fights Max after the race in the thunderdome, though she doesn't appear to have much choice in the matter]].

** 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.
** A variant: The big fuel storage tanks mounted on the back of convoy leader's vehicles will also start spraying flames when heavily damaged, which frequently causes the demise of their escort vehicles (or you, again).

** Played straight with Chumbucket, as he seems to annoy every faction leader. The only reason they keep him around is because he is a very skilled mechanic.

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

* GuideDangIt: A fair amount of the items in camps or scrap locations found through surveyor upgrades are still rather tricky to run down as they might tucked away in non-obvious corners or underneath stairs/ramps, etc. A few locations don't become available until much later in story missions. For those seeking HundredPercentCompletion this can be quite frustrating indeed.

* HateSink: Scabrous Scrotus is a brutal wasteland warlord and the son of [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad Immortan Joe]]. Introduced kicking his own dog to get it to attack Max, Scrotus also runs a substantial portion of the wasteland. Out of spite, Scrotus not only attacks Max after Max legitimately wins a race, and finally, decides to murder Max's new family, Hope and Glory, leaving Max lonely, insane, and dedicated to vengeance.

* 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 for the sexual chip on his shoulder.
* 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. One photo found even recalls a person meeting with an old friend who "can't recall the last time they had such good barbecue... shame that their other friend disappeared suddenly."

* InformedAttribute: The Top Dogs. Each is given a rather colourful bio, many of them feeling like they'd make great ''Mad Max'' film villains. In practice, the only difference their personality makes is how they taunt you pre-fight; otherwise, they're just [[PaletteSwap Palette Swaps]] of each other, who use the same fighting style and whose boss fights therefore play out almost identically.

** Let's see, Max plans to go to Gastown and acquire the V8, thus ending the game when he drives off via the Plains of Silence. What are the chances it works out that way when the V8 has its own large upgrade category?
** The fact that the Interceptor is listed as one of the other vehicles you can collect tells you that you will get it back at some point.
* JokeItem: One of the unlockable vehicles is the Kaboom Bug. It's as durable as paper, and it's basic gimmick is that it's a drivable bomb.

* KickTheDog: Literally in this case. Scrotus sends the dog after Max, but when Max fends the dog off, Scrotus tosses the dog off of his truck for his failure.
* LargeAndInCharge: Much like the Lord Humungus, Blaster and Rictus Erectus, Scabrous Scrotus is absolutely huge. This also applies to all Top Dogs, who are the head of their own encampments and are all gigantic.

*** The Shovel Face is based on the 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback (The car from ''Bullitt'')

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

*** The Ripper is based on the a 1965-1967 Pontiac GTO.
** Virtually every other 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.
* 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 in real life and/or video games set in the United States like ''Grand Theft Auto''.

* MagnumOpus: In-universe this is Max's car to Chumbucket, literally referred to as the 'Magnum Opus', starting off as literally nothing more than a chassis with tied-together wheels and a pitiful V6 engine to a monster of a vehicle capable of taking on anything within the game with brutal effectiveness.

** 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.
** As well as [[http://madmax.gamepedia.com/Griffa Griffa]], who seems to be able to "[[PointBuildSystem unlock Max's full potential]]" and is always found in a mystic like area that turns back to normal after talking to him. Doesn't help that it seems like only Max is able to see him.

* MeaningfulName: Hope and Glory represent the potential for a better tomorrow. [[spoiler:So of course they end up dead.]]

** The area where Griffa is found. The rocks covered in cave drawings and a strange aura surrounding the area. After Max wakes up all of that is gone.

* MookChivalry: ''Nope.'' Enemies in this game will swing at you whenever they feel like it, and certain attack animations leave you unable to parry should an enemy try to sucker punch you during it.
* MolotovTruck: One of the types of vehicles you can come across when driving about the wastes. They're nothing more than a buggy with zero armour and oil barrels ''worked into the rollcage''. They have sets of fireworks all over that the driver lights simultaneously as a makeshift fuse, making a [[HellIsThatNoise nicely hellish 'WHEEEEE' noise]] to let you know the car's about to go off.

** Griffa bears strong resemblance to the Gyro Captain in both looks and attitude, albeit with a decidedly supernatural bent to his motives.
** 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."
* 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 "dinki di" as "dinky dee" instead of "dinky die."
* NoticeThis: The colours yellow and (to a lesser degree) red are used as markers. Climbable ladders are yellow, ledges you can balance on are marked with a yellow streak, doors that can be kicked open have a yellow frame and a small red spot in the center, doors that can be opened via an explosion have a larger red splash in the middle, exposed fuel tanks are always red and so on. In general, yellow means "Go there", while red is "destroy this". Additionally, objects that can be picked up, like fuel canisters, shivs, melee weapons and scrap, are marked with flat yellow icons floating above them because depending on lighting and [[RealIsBrown background]], they might be [[PixelHunt less-than-conspicously coloured]] otherwise.

** 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.
** 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, for an example.

* PlayerHeadquarters: While they're not actually controlled by Max, the various allied warlords' strongholds function as this, being areas where you get most of your major quests as well as giving you various benefits such as refilling your ammo/health, passive scrap generation and automatically collecting scrap from destroyed vehicles with the right upgrades.

* 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.]]

** At the beginning each settlement is pretty much only existing because it has some form of shelter and everyone is miserable. After you come along and help it out, you are able to transform them into thriving societies where the people now believe there is hope that things can change.
** Max starts the game literally having everything stripped from him, by the end of the game he has a suped up car, a garage filled with other cars and more scrap than he could ever spend.

* RPGElements: In addition to a fully customizable car, Max can unlock upgrades via a combination of completing story missions, side quests, and accumulating Wasteland Legend reputation. You can even gain upgrade tokens which you can "trade in" to a certain NPC in order to upgrade Max's abilities.
* SaharanShipwreck: The play area before you cross The Jaw is littered with these. Notables include Chumbucket's sanctum, Gutgash's ship and many enemy bases and encampments. Fully justified as the area south of the Jaw was once a seabed, populated as it is with towering oil platforms and long dead coral reefs.
* SceneryGorn: In disturbing detail for the post apocalyptic setting. As a result of acute desertification what was formerly a coastal region has been reduced to an arid wasteland of dried undersea mountains, rockfaces and sand flats, jagged and blackened rockfaces and sulfur fumaroles surrounding a formerly underwater volcano, lifeless chalk-white landscapes littered with long-dead coral reefs, scores of rusting shipwrecks and aircraft, dried tree husks and decaying buildings swallowed up by desert dunes, and oil sludge lakes and massive mounds of rubbish surrounding Gastown.
* SecretCharacter: 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: Max carries a jerry-rigged shotgun as 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. Max can upgrade his shotgun and receives his original, "real deal" sawed-off shotgun as a reward for completing the story missions.

* SigilSpam: The flaming red sigil of Lord Scrotus is spread all over his followers' camps, and there's an achievement for destroying them all. [[spoiler:As revealed in ''Fury Road'', this is actually the sigil of Immortan Joe's army, and Max would be branded with it at the beginning of that film]].

* SpikesOfVillainy: A vehicular version. The Buzzards faction are ''obsessed'' with covering stuff in metal spikes, such as their cars and their barricades. But later you can also upgrade the Magnum Opus with these as well, which are used to skewer the enemies that jump off pursuing cars and onto yours.
* StuffBlowingUp: Lots. There's the gas tanks on enemy cars, landmines, the fuel tanks of flamethrowers, gasoline cans that you light on fire and throw to take out gates/enemies, Thundersticks (spears with contact-fused grenades on the business end), the Thunderpoon (Thundersticks shot out of your car's harpoon launcher like rockets), enemy vehicles in general,

* 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.]]

* TrailersAlwaysLie: One of the Loading Screens shows Max taking on a Top Dog out in the open world, but they never spawn outside of their boss fight.

** [[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.]]

* ViolationOfCommonSense: The sane thing to do when faced with a sandstorm of Biblical proportions is to get into shelter and wait for it to pass. However, venturing into the sandstorm and exploring can provide you with very lucrative amounts of scrap.

* WhatAPieceOfJunk: The Magnum Opus. No matter how much you pimp it, it still looks like something that's been smashed together with scrap metal and chewing gum, which it is. Once it's fully upgraded, however, it is quite the beast of a machine.

* WouldntHurtAChild / WouldHurtAChild: Zig-zagged with the Buzzards. When they capture people, they kill off adults and take the children to use them as dig slaves. If the children survive and grow up, the Buzzards take them as one of their own although we do not know how they do that (given Buzzards are heavily implied to be {{Humanoid Abomination}}s). They also don't seem to have much interest in raping or torturing their captives, which is a rarity in the Wasteland. In the end, it is unclear if a child captured by the Buzzards is better or worse off compared to the other children in the Wasteland.

** While the game gives Max other benefits for leveling up, one benefit is the ability to choose different faces for Max, giving him longer hair and/or various accessories.
** Defeating Top Dogs gives you access to a new paint option for the Magnum Opus. One paint color is required to complete the main storyline. Also only One of the paint jobs give the Magnum Opus any perks, being the red and black paint job that gives the vehicle a 50% reduction in fire damage.

With the PC release of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' coming earlier in 2015, and Mad Max being released on the same day as ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', it was massively overshadowed by those two open world mega franchises. Despite this inauspicious start the game launched to fair to good reviews and did enough to become one of the sleeper hits of 2015, subverting the expectations of many people in the media & gaming community who thought it would be a [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames rushed, zero-depth licensed game]] due to launching around the same time as ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''. In short, ''Mad Max'' is an under-rated gem of a game with visceral, satisfying combat, rollicking driving mechanics and a wasteland aesthetic combined into a game that surprises many with the quality of it's 25 to 50 hour long single player experience.

** When you need to use an explosive to get past a door, there is always a gas canister somewhere near by. Also if you blow up the gas canister before destroying what you need to proceed, another gas canister will spawn in the same spot.

The player takes on the role of titular character, and features a variety of weapons which Max can use to defeat his enemies. Though the shotgun is Max's weapon of choice, ammo is scarce, so melee options are generally the easier and the smarter way to go. The 'thunderstick' is an explosive weapon that can be lanced into an enemy's chest, blowing the victim up. The harpoon can be used in-vehicle with Chum riding along. The Magnum Opus can be combined with a V8 engine and powerful ramming ability to destroy enemies' vehicles and weaponry. Weapons, such as a collapsible sniper rifle and under-mounted side burners, can also be added to the Magnum Opus.

With the PC release of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' coming earlier in 2015, and Mad Max being released on the same day as ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', it was massively overshadowed by those two open world mega franchises. Despite this inauspicious start the game launched to fair to good reviews and did enough to become one of the sleeper hits of 2015, subverting the expectations of many people in the media & gaming community who thought it would be a zero depth rushed licensed game due to launching around the same time as ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''. In short, ''Mad Max'' is an under-rated gem of a game with visceral, satisfying combat, rollicking driving mechanics and a wasteland aesthetic combined into a game that surprises many with the quality of it's 25 to 50 hour long single player experience.

* InterfaceSpoiler: Let's see, Max plans to go to Gastown and acquire the V8, thus ending the game when he drives off via the Plains of Silence. What are the chances it works out that way when the V8 has its own large upgrade category?

** Defeating Top Dogs gives you access to a new paint option for the Magnum Opus. One paint color is required to complete the main storyline.

* RagsToRiches: At the beginning each settlement is pretty much only existing because it has some form of shelter and everyone is miserable. After you come along and help it out, you are able to transform them into a thriving societies where the people now believe there is hope that things can change.

* SaharanShipwreck: The play area before you cross The Jaw is littered with these. Notables include Chumbuckets sanctum, Gutgash's stronghold and many enemy bases and encampments. Fully justified as the area south of the Jaw was once a seabed, populated as it is with towering oil platforms and long dead coral reefs.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Max carries a gerry-rigged shotgun as 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. Max can upgrade his shotgun and receives his original, "real deal" sawed-off shotgun as a reward for completing the story missions.

* SpikesOfVillainy: A vehicular version. The Buzzards faction are ''obsessed'' with covering stuff in spikes, such as their cars and their barricades. But later you can also upgrade the Magnum Opus with these as well, which are used to skewer the enemies that jump off pursuing cars and onto yours.

* SuperMode: Fury Mode, which accumulates as you land large attack combos. Once it's active, Max's attacks hit harder and he even uses different attacks, such as decking people in the face so hard they do a backflip and using wrestling moves like suplexes.

* 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. Once Max builds an Armory project one or two of his bases, however, it becomes easy to completely restock his inventory.

* WaifFu: Tenderloin is awful scrawny for such a competent fighter.
* WhatAPieceOfJunk: The Magnum Opus. No matter how much you pimp it, it still looks like something that's been kludged together with spare parts, which it is. Once it's fully upgraded, however, it is quite the beast of a machine.

* CrapsackWorld: The game makes a good point to show how the wasteland sucks and sucks even more when a war tribe own everything. Corpse maggots and dog food is the main sustenance for the common people, you'll see a few people wandering the desert dying for thirst, people begging for MercyKill and corpse being hung from here and there.

* 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, and the combat is brutal as Max will shiv, break limbs and purposefully shoot combatants in the gut as scare tactics.

* BloodKnight: Tenderloin, the "fighter" (basically the person taking Chumbucket's place in riding in the back and wielding the Thunderpoon) you need to recruit for the Gastown Race loves fighting and killing so much that when she's ''not'' fighting and killing in the races she's instead high out of her mind from huffing nitrous and gasoline fumes to pass the time.

** 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.]]
** Jeet pushes razor blades into the raw scar tissue that covers half of his body as a coping mechanism.

* BorderPatrol: Crossing the boundaries of the map leads to you entering the Big Nothing, where you'll continually take damage until you die.

* CombatPragmatist: Max throws windmill punches, kicks opponents when they're down, stabs them with shivs when they're stunned, slams their faces into nearby walls, and even shoots them in the gut with his shotgun. Those who fought with rules and codes of conduct stopped existing a long time ago.
* CompanionCube: Chumbucket is obvious in love with his Magnum Opus. His voice reveals a sexual thrill at some points when he talks about working on it. One character notes how he talks about it like he would a girlfriend.

The general plot is that Max has run afoul of Scabrous Scrotus, a psychotic warlord and his War Boys. After a scuffle that left him half-naked and wounded, he got his beloved V8 Interceptor stolen and dismantled by marauders and he ends up reluctantly working with Chumbucket, a zealous, hunchbacked "blackfinger" (mechanic), to build a new car. Chumbucket sees Max as a saint sent by the Angel Combustion (Chumbucket's personal deity) 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, but not without going up against many of its savage inhabitants with the only way he knows: [[GoodOldFisticuffs fists,]] [[AWrestlerInAllOfUs sick wrestling moves]] and his trusty [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter sawn-off shotgun.]]

-->-- '''Chumbucket'''

''Mad Max'' is a post-apocalyptic action-adventure game with vehicular combat elements, set in an open world environment and based on the ''Film/MadMax'' film series. It was developed by Creator/AvalancheStudios and published by Creator/WarnerBrosInteractiveEntertainment and was released for [[UsefulNotes/{{MicrosoftWindows}} Windows]], UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 on September 1, 2015, with a macOS and [[UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} Linux]] port provided by Creator/FeralInteractive on October 20th, 2016.

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), to build a new car. 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.

The player takes on the role of titular character, and features a variety of weapons which Max can use to defeat his enemies. Though the shotgun is Max's weapon of choice, ammo is scarce, so melee options are the smarter way to go. The 'thunderstick' is an explosive weapon that can be lanced into an enemy's chest, blowing the victim up. The harpoon can be used in-vehicle with Chum riding along. The Magnum Opus can be combined with a V8 engine and powerful ramming ability to destroy enemies' vehicles and weaponry. Weapons, such as a collapsible sniper rifle and undermounted side burners, can also be added to the Magnum Opus.

With the PC release of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' coming earlier in 2015, and Mad Max being released on the same day as ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'', it was very overshadowed by those two open world mega franchises. Despite this inauspicious start the game launched to fair to good reviews and did enough to become one of the sleeper hits of 2015, subverting the expectations of many people in the media & gaming community who thought it would be a zero depth rushed licensed game due to launching around the same time as ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''. Mad Max is an under-rated gem with visceral combat, rollicking driving mechanics and a wasteland aesthetic combined into a game that surprises many with the quality of it's 25 to 50 hour long single player experience.

* TheAllegedCar: The Magnum Opus starts out as a frame on wheels, but can be upgraded and customized to the best car in the game.

* 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.]]

* AwesomeButImpractical: Some of the cars Max can collect have cool and unique properties, such as a V12 engine, the ability to drop spikes, and high ramming damage. However, without Chumbucket's repairing ability or the other weapons available on the Magnum Opus, they aren't very useful.

* HandicappedBadass: Max still has his busted knee.
* HateSink: Scabrous Scrotus is a brutal wasteland warlord and the son of [[Film/MadMaxFuryRoad Immortan Joe]]. Introduced kicking his own dog to get it to attack Max, Scrotus also runs a substantial portion of the wasteland. Out of spite, Scrotus not only attacks Max after Max legitimately wins a race, and finally, decides to murder Max's new family, Hope and Glory, leaving Max lonely, insane, and dedicated to vengeance.

''Mad Max'' is a post-apocalyptic action-adventure game with vehicular combat elements, set in an open world environment and based on the ''Film/MadMax'' film series. It was developed by Creator/AvalancheStudios and published by Creator/WarnerBrosInteractiveEntertainment and was released for [[UsefulNotes/{{MicrosoftWindows}} Windows]], UsefulNotes/XboxOne, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 on September 1, 2015, with a macOS and [[UsefulNotes/{{Unix}} Linux]] port provided by Creator/FeralInteractive on October 20th, 2016. Completely unrelated to the 1990 NES game of the same name.

* MeaningfulName: Hope and Glory represent the potential for a better tomorrow.

* ParachuteInATree: A variation where Max finds a skeleton hanging from a parachute hung up on the mast of a shipwrect, done as an EasterEgg referencing Rico Rodriguez, the protagonist of the ''VideoGame/JustCause'' video game series made by the same developer.

* RealDreamsAreWeirder: As Max is being operated on, he has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69xFg774jQo rather weird dream]] of Chum with a top hat and Dog as a FunnyAnimal talking about friendship. Then Max's deceased wife shows up and implores him to not give up helping people. She then turns into Hope and Dog performs a wedding ceremony between her and Max. As they embrace, the Interceptor speeds towards them but crashes on an invisible wall, tumbling over the couple. And then he wakes up.