History VideoGame / MetalGearSurvive

* AlternateContinuity: WordOfGod states that the game takes place in an {{alternate universe}} from the main ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series.

!Tropes present in ''Metal Gear Survive'':

* AfterTheEnd: Appears to be the case for the alternate dimension Dite. [[spoiler:Eventually revealed to be an alternate timeline Earth set in the 2100s which has undergone a Class 4 apocalypse due to a self-replicating nano-plague. Said nano-plague has consumed most of the life on the planet, and is trying to open portals to other worlds so it can repeat the process.]]
* AlternateContinuity: WordOfGod states that the game takes place in an alternate universe from the main ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series.

* {{Irony}}: When the Captain was trying to [[spoiler:rescue Seth from going through the worm hole, what knocks them off their stable foothold on the tower?]] A cardboard box. Yeah, that tried and true companion to all the protagonists in the series causes the events of the plot [[spoiler:or at least as it pertains to the Captain and Seth's suffering.]]

** From ACertainPointOfView [[spoiler:The Lord of Dust, the nano-machine hive mind's physical body, and basically the size of two whales put back to back. It may not be conventional "metal" but it is a machine based life form made out of countless nano-bots converging together into one being.]]

Taking place moments after the events of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVGroundZeroes'', the burning remains of Big Boss' Mother Base continues to crumble after XOF's attack. However, Mother Base did not unceremoniously sink to the bottom of the ocean. Instead, it's sucked up by mysterious wormholes appearing on top of it. The Militaires Sans Frontières survivors left behind were also sucked up and find themselves in a world inhabited by zombie-like creatures with crystals sticking out of their heads. The survivors come in touch with other inhabitants and realize that their place in this world is a fenced off area surrounding the remains of their ruined Mother Base.

* EarthAllAlong: [[spoiler:The reveal that Dite is set in a possible future where nanomachines have gone out of control and have laid havoc on Earth.]]

* TimeTravel:[[spoiler:The monster The Lord of Dust has the power to open up portals to different worlds containing alternate timelines of Earth. In an example of a stable time loop the Captain's Handler Good Luck is actually a grown-up Chris who went through one such portal. Afterward Chris landed on a US Navy ship in 1943 and was taken into Section custody. He's spent the last 32 years thinking of the day he'd see the two men he admired for saving him -- Captain and Reeve. He's been racked with guilt over going home to Earth without them, and wants to make sure they get home successfully this time.]]

* ContinuityPorn: The game continues a ''massive'' amount of references to past ''Metal Gear'' games, even the non-Kojima titles such as ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance''.
* ContinuityNod: During the intro, Goodluck is handed a list of MSF's casualties. The wandering Mother Base soldiers, alongside Mosquito from ''The Phantom Pain'' are specifically listed as MIA.

* UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar: Factors into the plot in an interesting way. [[spoiler:The portals have sent wanderers to various points in human history, both past and present, but apparently only in the framework of the 20th century where humanity has weapons equipped to fight and kill them. In 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, wanderers corrupted villagers which Section had to use American commandos to neutralize. As a dig at the culture of "baby killers", Section wrote the dead bodies off as just another massacre by overzealous American soldiers, expecting that no one would dig deeper beyond that.]]

* TheVietnamWar: Factors into the plot in an interesting way. [[spoiler:The portals have sent wanderers to various points in human history, both past and present, but apparently only in the framework of the 20th century where humanity has weapons equipped to fight and kill them. In 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, wanderers corrupted villagers which Section had to use American commandos to neutralize. As a dig at the culture of "baby killers", Section wrote the dead bodies off as just another massacre by overzealous American soldiers, expecting that no one would dig deeper beyond that.]]

* WorldWarII: The story references an infamous conspiracy surrounding the US Navy [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment Philadelphia Experiment]]. Apparently according to the conspiracy a US Navy ship had the ability to be cloaked (leading some to speculate that they were testing their application for war time use) and not only were UFOs spotted hovering over the ship, but the ship itself just vanished and teleported away in a flash of light. The US government officially denies it as nothing more than a hoax. [[spoiler:Turns out the ship's experience with a portal was real, and Chris ended up landing there. Whether they were testing a cloaking device or not is not mentioned.]]

* AbsentAliens: Averted. Two optional bosses known as Big Mouth and Frostbite descend out of the portals. Both of them are obviously alien in origin given the weirdness of their designs; with Big Mouth looking like an Alien Xenomorph if it was the size of Gear REX, and Frostbite being a hovering squid monster with ice powers.

* WorldWarII: The story references an infamous conspiracy surrounding the US Navy [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment Philadelphia Experiment]]. Apparently according to the conspiracy a US Navy ship had the ability to be cloaked (leading some to speculate that they were testing their application for war time use) and not only were UFOs spotted hovering over the ship, but the ship itself just vanished and teleported away in a flash of light. The US government officially denies it as nothing more than a hoax. [[spoiler:Turns out the ship's experience with a portal was real, and Chris ended up landing there. Whether they were testing a cloaking device or not is not mentioned.]]

''[[caption-width-right:350:"Can't find a way home..."]]''

%%* EarthAllAlong

* WorfHadTheFlu: The surviving MSF and XOF soldiers, some of the most skilled BadassNormal units in the entire series, get ''slaughtered'' as soon as they find themselves in the hellish alternate reality. In their defense, they are up against super powerful monsters and an incredible lack of supplies -- even your player character barely survives the opening segment of the game, despite being depicted as an ace sniper in Big Boss's army.

* [[spoiler:EarthAllAlong]] Goodluck lampshades that Dite looks very Earth-like in nature, but a good majority of it is a desert ruin which makes Section write it off as an alien world from another dimension. For good measure we even see a few actual alien life forms, leading credence to the idea that it's an alien place. [[spoiler:It isn't. It looks like a desert biome Earth because it is one, and one caused by rampant, murderous nanomachines no less.]]

* WorfHadTheFlu: The surviving MSF and XOF soldiers, some of the most skilled BadassNormal units in the entire series, get ''slaughtered'' as soon as they find themselves in the hellish alternate reality. In their defense, they are up against super powerful monsters and an incredible lack of supplies -- even your player character barely survives the opening segment of the game, despite being depicted as an ace sniper in Big Boss's army.
* WorldWarII: The war itself isn't shown, but a character has a significant thing happen to them during its height, circa 1943. [[spoiler:Chris, a younger Goodluck, was sent through the wormhole and fell on a US Navy ship. Not a wartime ship, however, as it's noted that Chris fell out of a portal over Philadelphia. Afterward, through Pentagon channels, Section got a hold of Chris and raised him to be a researcher in their group.]]

** [[AMechByAnyOtherName Metal Gear]] is a threat once again. [[spoiler: Specifically a ''demonic'', corrupted, Sahelanthropus, that looks even more like a MechanicalAbomination then how it did in ''Phantom Pain''.]]

* {{Hell}}: A heavy part of the story's theme is that the world beyond the wormhole, Dite, can be compared to hell. This references ''[[Literature/TheDivineComedy Dante's Inferno]]'' a few times (with the biggest one being an AI named [[http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Virgil_AT-9 Virgil]]). In addition, Section's (the group who sent the player character) special forces unit is known as the Charon Corps, invoking the imagery of the boatman of the underworld from Greek mythology.

* ActionSurvivor: Downplayed. Whilst you aren't playing the legendary [[OneManArmy Big Boss]], you are playing a competent commando, whose a ''member'' of Big Boss's BadassArmy. That being said, it's still a regular, if well-trained, soldier going up against hordes of zombies and other monsters.

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:Based on Seth's perspective, who the audience is treated to him transforming into a Wanderer from a first person view, Wanderers maintain some small measure of their original identity. Making it worse is that even this small measure of identity is stripped of them as their bio-mass is replaced by nanomachines and their consciousness is just fluxed straight into a wireless network up in the sky. To what degree they're aware of their own suffering is ambiguous, but it's not a pleasant experience to say the least.]]
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: [[spoiler:Happens to the Captain in the "Home" ending, which requires you to follow Chris through the portal and abandon the fight against the Lord of Dust. The Captain succeeds in getting back home to Earth, but at the cost of his sanity, who is now reduced to a Wandering Mother Base soldier that we see in The Phantom Pain. If there is some silver lining to this it would be that Venom Snake does succeed in bringing the wandering Mother Base soldiers home.]]

* BackStab: Wanderers have weak points on their backs. If you sneak up on them, you can knife them in the back for a OneHitKill.
* BigDamnHeroes: Also doubles as a HeroicSacrifice. As Morpho's helicopter was taking off from the sinking Mother Base during the climactic battle, XOF commandos we're about to shoot down Big Boss, and all the survivors. Cue to the PlayerCharacter icing them with a bullet to the head from their sniper rifle, relinquishing their chance of escape to save [[UndyingLoyalty their boss.]]
* BodyHorror: The zombies have crystal-like spines sticking out of their flesh and in some cases their ''head is gone'' and replaced with a cluster of spines.

* ChildSoldier: [[spoiler:Chris is revealed to be a child soldier. Apparently he suffered some sort of war injury which has left him wheelchair bound.]] Reeve for his part expresses disgust at the concept, pointing out that kids should live the sort of average life that children in America live -- going to school, playing with their friends, and reading comic books. He even goes so far as to say that adults like them have paid for their sins, but a child doesn't deserve to be in a hellish place like Dite.

* EnemyMine: One of the major allies in the single-player campaign turns out to be a ''[[SociopathicSoldier XOF commando]]'' [[spoiler:named Reeve, who becomes your base manager later on.]] Though it's possible he's a TokenGoodTeammate to XOF's otherwise sinister motives. To be fair to both parties, the Captain and the XOF commando in question both realize that they have a better chance at survival and getting back home to Earth if they work together. [[spoiler:Reeve does mention to Miranda, the nurse, that he has no intention of sticking together with the Captain when they get home, showing that he hasn't forgotten his animosity towards Mother Base.]]
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The player character is never given a name (other than what the player chooses for them, and it briefly shows up on a clipboard Goodluck looks at) and instead everyone follows Goodluck's suggestion and calls him Captain. Ironically, Goodluck calls Captain and his allies "heroes with no names" (despite some of them having very clear-cut names). [[spoiler:There's actually a very good reason for why Goodluck insists on the player character having the codename Captain, it's because when he was a little boy Chris that's what he remembers everyone calling the player character.]]

* FishOutOfTemporalWater: [[spoiler:This is Chris', otherwise known as Goodluck's, situation. Happened to him twice no less. Apparently, he's a child soldier who comes from the 80s, sent back in time to Survive's 1975 setting (some AfterTheEnd revelations imply it might be the 22nd century relative to Dite's framework). Then at the end of the game he gets sent back in time to 1943 so he can grow up to be Goodluck by 1975.]] Time travel is confusing.

* HiveMind:[[spoiler:The Lord of Dust is actually this. Through Seth it explains to the Charon Corps that the collective memories and consciousness of every human it has absorbed lives on as a massive colony of nanomachine dust cells. These dust cells are flying around in the upper atmosphere as they speak, allowing for a global communication network of the sort humanity on its own could only dream of. This existence allows the individuals in the colony to be guided by a collective will, preventing conflict and therefore ensuring "paradise" on Earth.]]

* MachineMonotone: Virgil AT-9, both the male and the female personalities, speak in this way. Gets borderline hilarious in some scenes, where they speak to the protagonists about urgent matters with all the excitement of "Oh man, did I leave the stove on?"

* MouthOfSauron: [[spoiler:The Lord of Dust explains its motives, and by proxy the nanomachine collective, to the Charon Corps using Seth as its vehicle. Dust Seth lampshades that using this body is useful for communication as the rest of its forms are too unwieldy to communicate in any real sense. Moreover, the sentimental attachment the Captain has to Seth makes it easier to convince him to listen.]]

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler:During the final battle against the Lord of Dust, the Captain has the option to leave his team behind using the same wormhole Chris entered. The Captain ends up in a desert, becoming a wandering Mother Base Soldier similar to the ones that appeared in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain''.]]

* TheStinger: Per Metal Gear tradition. [[spoiler:After the credits roll and the Metal Gear Survive logo appears, a conversation between Goodluck and Gruen is heard in voice over, revealing that the wormhole that Goodluck predicted would open over Mother Base during XOF's attack never appeared, and Goodluck would be facing repurcussions for his actions. After Gruen leaves, Goodluck expresses relief that the Captain succeeded in destroying the Lord of Dust, and he can now focus on getting everyone still stuck in Dite home.]]

* TokenGoodTeammate: Reeve is revealed to be an example of this for [[spoiler:Mother Base's arch-enemy XOF]] being the only member of that group with any significant positive characterization, or even personality for that matter. [[spoiler:That is if you don't count Skull Face.]]

* TwoBeingsOneBody: This is the case with Virgil AT-9. There are two AI units housed within, one that speaks with a male voice and the other with a female voice. Confusingly, both male and female personalities share the exact same name.

* HiveMind:[[spoiler:The Lord of Dust is actually this. Through Seth it explains to the Charon Corps that the collective memories and consciousness of every human it has absorbed lives on as a massive colony of nanomachine dust cells. These dust cells are flying around in the upper atmosphere as they speak, allowing for a global communication network of the sort humanity on its own could only dream of. This existence allows the individuals in the colony to be guided by a collective will, preventing conflict and therefore ensuring "paradise" on Earth. The Wanderers being raving lunatics rather than sapient humans that can interact with each other is supposedly a "necessary sacrifice" because someone needs to stay on the ground so any straggling humans that aren't part of the collective can be added.]]

* ImmortalsFearDeath: Virgil uses this argument during the end of the story. [[spoiler:Apparently the hyper-intelligent being who has done nothing but cause death on a planetary scale doesn't know what death is. Virgil inflicts the fear of death into The Lord of Dust's programming, allowing it to be destroyed. Apparently the shock to its system is too traumatizing for it regenerate from.]]

* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:Happens to the player character Captain when he tries to rescue a fellow Mother Base soldier from going through the wormhole. He reaches through the wormhole to grab said comrade, only for it to close on him and sever his left arm. Thanks to the advances in technology Section has gained from the other dimension Dite, they succeed in regenerating his left arm but at the cost of infecting the Captain.]]

* [[spoiler:EarthAllAlong]] Goodluck lampshades that Dite looks very Earth-like in nature, but a good majority of it is a desert ruin which makes Section write it off as an alien world from another dimension. In our own world we have several Earth-like planets in our observable universe, so probably just a coincidence. [[spoiler:It isn't. It looks like a desert biome Earth because it is one, and one caused by rampant, murderous nanomachines no lesa.]]

* AbsentAliens: Averted. An optional boss known as Big Mouth shows up at one point, descending out of a portal. It is obviously alien in origin, looking like a Gear REX sized Alien Xenomorph.

* MissionPackSequel: ''Survive'' reuses assets from ''Metal Gear Solid V'', not just from ''Ground Zeroes'' and ''The Phantom Pain'', but also from ''Metal Gear Online'' in the form of the attire and designs of the player characters. The gameplay footage shown at TGS 2016 even takes place in an alternate version of Shago Village, a location in ''TPP'', and even shows the [=iDroid=] with a new interface that features a revamped interface (to take into account the return of the Cure system). To drive the point home, the game's title has the same initials as the mainline series (''MGS''), with ''Survive'' spelled with a heavily stylized "V" in the middle (the same font for the logo is also used on ''Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience'', which includes ''Ground Zeroes'' and ''The Phantom Pain'' in one package).