History VideoGame / PhantomDoctrine

''Phantom Doctrine'' is a TurnBasedTactics game developed by [=CreativeForge=] Games, published by Creator/GoodShepherdEntertainment, and released for the [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxOne on August 14, 2018.

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: A generous amount of startup cash is provided, but ''everything'' costs money: hiring new agents, base upgrades, crafting items, creating new identities. Passive income is relatively low, and the only option to generate extra income early on is forging cash - which requires an initial investment to set up the forger facility and then assigning agents to print money. Selling loot from missions is another option.

* PowerupLetdown: Before building the [[spoiler: the MK-ULTRA facility]], captured enemy agents are instantly interrogated and executed, for free. [[spoiler: Once you build it, interrogation takes time, execution costs money, and each captured enemy agent kept in the hideout constantly increases the danger meter.]] Later in the game, more useful options are unlocked such as [[spoiler: programming enemy agents to reveal or destroy cells, join your side when a firefight starts or implant a control phrase]]. All of these can change the outcome of a mission from failure to success - particularly an ambush - but initially the upgrade can seem underwhelming.

* TakeYourTime: The doomsday meter will only advance if the enemy completes conspiracy missions, and stopping them is a good way of grinding for XP and loot.

''Phantom Doctrine'' is a TurnBasedTactics game developed by Creator/CreativeForgeGames and published by [[http://www.goodshepherd.games/ Good Shepherd Games]], released for the [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxONE on August 14, 2018.

The game is due to be followed by a sequel, ''VideoGame/PhantomDoctrine2TheCabal'', which was announced in July 2020. [[https://youtu.be/M0XBjbbP3AM Announcement trailer]].

!! ''Phantom Doctrine'' contains examples of:

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The tutorial mission in East Berlin has the player controlling a Beholder Initative operative codenamed Kingfish. Cabal agents are not featured, though the main character ([[SchrodingersPlayerCharacter whether it's]] Deadpan, [[UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre Kodiak]], or [[spoiler: [[NaziHunter Hemlock]]]] is mentioned in dialogue. [[spoiler: All campaigns have a mission that has the Cabal track Kingfish to Glasgow to recover a stolen shipment.]]

* BoomHeadshot: An ability which ignores cover and deals massive damage, though drains the agent's focus. Undodgable if done in point blank range.

** You ''must'' kill Aguirre - the game DOES allow you to use a takedown on him (normally nonlethal on Agents), but you do not have the interrogation room unlocked at this point and you are not allowed to retrieve his body.

* DistantFinale: [[spoiler: The final mission of the extended campaign takes 8 years after the events of the rest of the game, when the Cabal has finally tracked down Tai-Pan, and storms in to kill him in revenge for being his UnwittingPawn in usurping Valhalla from power.]]

* DisposingOfABody: In infilitration mode enemy personnel or civilians will raise the alarm if they discover an unconscious or dead person. One option (unless playing on hard difficulty) is to 'dispose' of the body by hiding it where it will never be found. This leads to a fade-to-black animation and the body disappearing from the game.

*** Your gear is also incredibly limited: you have to manufacture lockpicks for a pretty extreme cost, and other than weapons, you're limited to health kits for support gear.

** The biggest roadblock to the early game is money: you start off with limited cash reserves ($15,000 on Easy, $10,000 on Normal, and $5,000 on Hard), and only earn $40 per hour. A set of lockpicks, the most basic piece of gear you can initially manufacture, costs $600. Forging a new identity for a compromised agent? $500. Recruiting a new agent? $1,000-$1,500. Base upgrades are extremely useful...and start at $1,000 minimum. The best upgrade you can get early on? The cash forging upgrade that, when staffed (tying up a valuable agent) gives you an additional $50 per hour. Even on Easy, you can burn through your cash reserves almost immediately just trying to get the things you'll need to ''survive'' in the short term. Once you've finished the second chapter and start seeing second-tier weapons, you can become a gunrunner by selling your unused, mostly useless weapons for cold, hard cash, and start to stabilize, but then a whole new set of upgrades appear, and they're even ''more'' expensive!

** ID photographs, fake citizenships, and agents' appearance customization are purely cosmetic and haven't any effect on the agent's heat. Things that would be highly suspicious in real life (ethnicity which would be very rare or nonexistent in their country[[note]]e.g. a black person pretending to be Japanese or Soviet[[/note]], face which doesn't look like the ID photograph at all, ID photograph and ingame model having ''a different ethnicity'', etc.) are completely ignored by the AI. Likewise, some weird customization options (non black men with an Afro haircut, eyepatches, pink sunglasses, bald women, jeans and a suit jacket worn together, female agents wearing a hijab in missions set in a place with no Muslim population, the customization options added by the free Halloween-themed DLC, etc.) have no effect ingame, while doing so in real life would make the agents more noticeable.

* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler: The Komplex (i.e. [[WarForFunAndProfit the Military-Industrial Complex]]), who want to create proxy wars so that they keep getting rich on selling weapons to all sides, [[ManBehindTheMan and were the ones backing Valhalla and the Beholder Initiative in order to do so]]. In both campaigns, [[KarmaHoudini the Komplex at large doesn't have its members brought to justice by the Cabal]], with the closest to comeuppance they get is being duped into putting Tai-Pan into Valhalla's position.]]
* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Played with. If you haven't sounded the alarm, guards have rather short view range[[note]]6 tiles ahead, 8 tiles for agents[[/note]] implying they are not paying so much attention. There's also several actions which aren't considered suspicious by the AI (jumping through windows, opening-closing doors leading to restricted areas, following people, being seen ''leaving a restricted area'', etc.) as long as agents are spotted doing them in unrestricted areas. Once they get alerted however, they can see your agents as far as your agents can see them.

* HeavilyArmoredMook: You will encounter these guys later on in the game. They are immune to knockdown and the only reliable way to kill them silently is by headshot with a powerful supressed handgun or breaching with suppressed weapons.

* HyperspaceArsenal: It is unknown how your agents hide big weapons like Assault Rifles and Machine Guns without a bag. However disguised agents cannot carry anything bigger than submachine guns.

* JudoChop: How Cabal agents perform takedowns.

* LogoJoke: The logos cutscene consists in the camera zooming in [[StringTheory a corkboard with items linked by strings]], including the names of the developer studio and the publisher.
* LuckBasedMission: Generally averted, as luck is as a factor is reduced compared to similar games. However, one thing that luck does factor in is the backgrounds of potential recruits for The Cabal, especially if the player is gunning for the "Cold Truce" achievement, mostly because finding SB agents is a far more rare occurance than CIA, KGB, Mossad, or even Stasi agents.
* ManchurianAgent: Beware of brainwashed agents who will turn on you once combat starts. Of course it is possible to reverse brainwash them. [[spoiler: Fender, Cyclone, and Deliliah are these type of agents, having been brainwashed by the Beholder Initiative]].

* MercyRewarded: Inverted in the early game. While capturing enemy agents might give you a little extra intel, it also generates danger for as long as you are holding them (until you get Faraday Cages). Because of this, early on it's usually better to just kill enemy agents rather than capture them.

* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: [[spoiler:In the mission where you go to the warehouse in Glasgow that supposedly contained the MacGuffin you wanted, it turns out to be an ambush set by your handler (Fender/Cyclone/Deliliah) who's a Beholder Initiative sleeper agent, who then cuts transmission with you, injuring Omikron and other agents at the base before making their escape]].

** Capturing enemy agents allows you to turn them into unwitting moles by brainwashing them. Doing so allows you to sabotage Beholder cells from the inside or have the enemy agent join your side during combat. Watch out, because if the Beholders capture your agent, they can do the same to you. [[spoiler:In the story, Fender, Cyclone, and Deliliah were all brainwashed after being captured in Vietnam.]]

* MultipleIdentityIDs: As the game progresses agents can become 'exposed' which results in higher risk of discovery if sent on missions. To remove this negative status it's possible (via use of a forgery facility) to create a new identity. This includes a passport with customisable name, nationality and photograph. Agents other than the main character can also change their codename.

** Machineguns cause massive damage and suppress enemies at the cost of being unable to move and fire in the same turn (at first).

** Assault rifles and submachineguns are very similar weapons in that they are both JackOfAllStats and offer selective firing modes. Assault rifles have better range, while [=SMGs=] are the only automatic weapons that can be carried while disguised.

---> '''Mission Control''': And don't kill any civilians!\\

* PowerupLetdown: Before building the [[spoiler: the MK-ULTRA facility]], captured enemy agents are instantly interrogated and executed, for free. [[spoiler: Once you build it, interrogation takes time, execution costs money, and each captured enemy agent kept in the hideout constantly increases the danger meter.]] Later in the game more useful options are unlocked such as [[spoiler: programming enemy agents to reveal or destroy cells, join your side when a firefight starts or implant a control phrase]]. All of these can change the outcome of a mission from failure to success - particularly an ambush - but initially the upgrade can seem underwhelming.

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: The preferred mooks of Beholder. Which makes sense, seeing as they get more contracts from Beholder's plans coming to fruition.

* SpiesInAVan: When required the Cabal operatives call in a van for extraction.
* SpyFiction: Stale beer mixed with bleach and ammonia.

* TheSpymaster: The non-mission portion of the game has elements of this, with the player moving Cabal agents around cities on a global map.

-->A: Bad news: [DELETED] has been field testing some CODA equipment, and a bunch of ham radio operators recorded the signal and called the cops.
--> B: Why is that a problem?
--> A: The police have been looking into the "sidewinders" affair -- they might just connect the dots.
--> B: Then discredit those radio people in front of the cops -- convince them we can control their brains with microwaves.
--> A: But that's exactly what we're doing!
--> B: Yeah. So exaggerate until it becomes implausible. Tell them a tinfoil hat could protect them or whatever.
--> A: Tinfoil hat? They'll never buy it.

* UnusableEnemyEquipment: You cannot take enemy weapons, but you can take those from chests and crates.

** While the game advises to kill (or capture ''then'' kill) enemy agents each time you encounter them, building the [[spoiler: the MK-ULTRA facility]] allows to release agents after interrogation; of course, they go back to their employer. Since Beholder Initiative progressively replaces their losses with unidentified agents, releasing live agents means you're able to keep track of agents' locations and identities longer. [[ButtMonkey There's also the amusing possibility of capturing, interrogating, and releasing the same guy, again and again.]]
** Active Beholder cells either reduce your money income, constantly generate danger, or both. Since the income loss is low, and there's a limit to the number of cells active on the same time, it's actually more interesting to ''not'' destroy them if they don't generate danger, since destroying a cell which drains money without increasing danger could be remplaced by a cell which generates danger (and cell localisation is hard until you're far enough in the game and in the tech tree).

* VirtualPaperDoll: The character's creation menu allows to customize your character's appearance, with a couple of bodyshapes, varying faces, skin and eyes color, a selection of clothes (both casual and formal), haircuts, facial hair, hats, eyeglasses, scars, tattoos, make up, and various accessories. Once you research the Forger upgrade, the same customization menu can be accessed at will to modify the main player character again, or to alter any of the other recruits, for free. Mini cutscenes in missions (e.g. when your team arrives on site or leaves the area in the evac vehicle, when you use a support ability, etc.) are dynamically generated and featured the agents on site with the look you gave them.

* WithThisHerring: Averted. Your agents all start with automatic weapons. You will find better weapons as the game progresses, but early game weapons will kill early game enemies, no problem.

* WigDressAccent: If tactical recon is completed prior to a mission, agents can wear disguises. This has drawbacks: weapons are restricted to pistols, revolvers, and sub machine guns, and no support items can be equipped. However the agent can enter restricted areas without immediately raising the alarm if spotted. Equipping a disguise changes the outfit to something less conspicuous [[JanitorImpersonationInfiltration like a construction worker]].

''Phantom Doctrine'' is a TurnBasedTactics game developed by [[http://www.creativeforge.pl/ CreativeForge Games]] (whose previous credits include ''VideoGame/HardWest'') and published by [[http://www.goodshepherd.games/ Good Shepherd Games]], released for the [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]], UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/XboxONE on August 14, 2018.

The game includes squad and base management, and a strategic world map for controlling agents. Tactical missions are turn-based with similar elements to the ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' (hand-crafted maps, random enemy placements, varying objectives) but also some key differences, notably the reduced impact of a RandomNumberGenerator.

* RareGuns: Are they ever! In addition to several usual entries, the game has some very obscure ones that never left the prototype stage, such as the Russian [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKB-022PM TKB-022 assault rifle]] and Harrington & Richardson SPIW, an assault rifle which fires triple flechette rounds.

* GunPorn: The game has loads of Cold War era guns for agents to use with a couple of RareGuns, such as the H&K CAWS, for good measure.

* RareGuns: Some of the guns that you find during the game are rare in real life, for various reasons:
** The Sparrow LMG is the Israeli Dror (Dror is Hebrew for sparrow). A few thousand were made in the late 1940s, but it didn't see much service because it reacted badly to dust.
** The EIW rifle is the British EM-2. It passed military trials, but was only adopted for a single year before being retired because NATO wanted to adopt a standard rifle round, the US demanded that it be 7.62mm, and the EM-2 didn't work well with the 7.62mm NATO round. Only 59 were ever made.
** The TKB rifle is the Soviet TKB-022. It did not pass trials because of concerns about the durability of the plastic body.
** The [=PM63=] is a Polish sub-machine gun. Moderately common in Poland, but rare elsewhere. The game was developed in Poland.
** The CAWS shotgun was made by Heckler & Koch. It didn't pass trials, partly because of reliability problems, and partly because the US army decided that they didn't want a fully automatic shotgun after all.
** The Gyro-Gun pistol is the Gyro Jet, which fired miniature rockets instead of bullets. It was a commercial failure partly because of quality problems with the ammo, and partly because of AwesomeButImpractical.
** The Semi 12 shotgun is the Franchi SPAS, another victim of AwesomeButImpractical.

** In the KGB storyline one mission has your team [[spoiler: sabotage the doomed K-429 submarine]].

** Completely averted in the ''very'' early game, specifically before you unlock the MK-ULTRA facility: captured agents are interrogated for intel and then summarily executed with no cost. This takes away a Beholder agent, gives you intel, and ''doesn't cost anything''. Once you get the MK-ULTRA facility, interrogating an agent costs money, as does executing them. It can therefore feel like a step ''backwards'' once you've built the MK-ULTRA facility and it starts draining your limited funds (or driving up your danger level).

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The tutorial mission in East Berlin has the player controlling a Beholder Initative operative codenamed Kingfish. Cabal agents are not featured, though the main character ([[SchrodingersPlayerCharacter whether it's]] [[CIAEvilFBIGood Deadpan]], [[UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre Kodiak]], or [[spoiler: [[NaziHunter Hemlock]]]] is mentioned in dialogue. [[spoiler: All campaigns have a mission that has the Cabal track Kingfish to Glasgow to recover a stolen shipment.]]

* EnemyCivilWar: The opening cutscene starts with Valhalla and his right-hand woman [[spoiler:Cardinal]] usurping the control of Beholder Initiative by killing its previous CEO. Later dossiers in the extended campaign also revealed that [[spoiler:Beholder Initiative under Valhalla's leadership is a RenegadeSplinterFaction of [[BiggerBad the Komplex]], who's using the Cabal as pawns to eliminate Valhalla for them while they watched from the shadows. And then there's [[WildCard Tai-Pan]] who's been orchestrating everything that leads to Valhalla's downfall so he can usurp his position.]]

** BiggerBad: [[spoiler: The Komplex (i.e. [[WarForFunAndProfit the Military-Industrial Complex]]), who want to create proxy wars so that they keep getting rich on selling weapons to all sides, [[ManBehindTheMan and were the ones backing Valhalla and the Beholder Initiative in order to do so]]. In both campaigns, [[KarmaHoudini the Komplex at large doesn't have its members brought to justice by the Cabal]], with the closest to comeuppance they get is being duped into putting Tai-Pan into Valhalla's position.]]
** DragonAscendant: [[spoiler: Tai-Pan usurps Valhalla's position in the extended campaign, playing off Valhalla's arguements with the Komplex to assume his position upon Valhalla's assassination by the Cabal. He too is weaker that most mooks, but this is justified in-game that he's a [[TheChessmaster Puppetmaster]], and a DirtyCoward to boot, as [[LockedInAFreezer he locked himself in a freezer]] that [[PuzzleBoss you'll need to hit a switch to open]].]]

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The game is due to be followed by a sequel, ''VideoGame/PhantomDoctrine2TheCabal''.