History VideoGame / PhoenixPoint

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The President in the opening cutscene's face is obscured but he has former Vice President Mike Pence's distinctive hairstyle.

* WeaponsBreakingWeapons: An enemy's weapon can be attacked and damaged separately from the enemy itself. If an enemy's weapon is destroyed, they react by running full tilt off the map.

* BadassNormal: All humans in general really. While the other factions specialize in advanced tech and genetic modification, New Jericho gets by with nothing more than elite soldiers, heavy armour, and ''lots'' of CoolGuns

* AnimalisticAbomination: {{Justified}}, as a majority of the Pandoravirus's soldiers are mutated marine life fused with OrganicTechnology. Ranging from the simple [[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/595875e44f14bc66ff1ac2bd/t/5a3e58810852297f08fc5c16/1514035334312/crabby.png?format=1000w crabmen,]] to [[http://metagearsolid.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/phoenix-point-shark.jpg hulking and horrifying Sharkbrutes.]]

* CrapsackWorld: Even before the Pandoravirus hit, it's implied Earth was heavily factionalized and human governments cared more about ideological purity and the status quo than survival of the species. WorldWarIII began because China and the US couldn't be bothered to forgive the other trespassing on their territory while studying the Pandoravirus mist, India nearly nuked Pakistan into oblivion because some bright spark decided that Pakistan ''must'' have been behind the outbreak (stopped by the Phoenix Project flipping a lead technician on the nuclear systems to disable them), and {{Hollow Earth}} cranks [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking were given equal time to actual scientists on news programs discussing the Pandoravirus]]. It was already bad, it just went to ''hell'' when the millions of horrors poured from the oceans.

* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The Synedrion's aesthetic, which seems to be about building the ''prettiest'' cities around, if not the most strictly functional. It can also be seen as the GoodCounterpart to [[Videogame/XCOM2 ADVENT]].

%%* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''VideoGame/XComTerrorFromTheDeep'', and the ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'' as a whole, really, due to the general gameplay and Lovecraft influences. The latter goes a bit deeper, crossing into RecursiveCanon territory. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/698mdj/comment/dh4o6o8 As explained by Allen Stroud himself via Reddit ]], the events forming the lore of ''Phoenix Point'' may have actually been the in-universe inspiration for Creator/HPLovecraft's books. The game however doesn't include underwater missions, due to the stretch goal never being met.

Combat is in many ways similar to the [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown modern]] [[VideoGame/XCOM2 XCOM]] games, but also in many ways different, and in fact draws a lot of inspiration from the ''original'' [[VideoGame/{{Xcom}} XCOM]] [[VideoGame/XComTerrorFromTheDeep games.]] While it is still a grid-based TurnBasedStrategy, actions are still regulated by Action Points, and the player and enemie units take turns as a team, the intricacies of combat are more involved and complex than the modern games; rather than attacks being single shot affairs with a dice roll to hit, weapons fire consists of appropriate volleys of shots, with different accuracy, ROF, and damage ratings, and aiming can be done freeform from a first-person perspective to land precision shots. Pairing with this is a SubsystemDamage system, allowing shots to, for example, cripple legs or destroy enemy weapons. Armor is also tied to this system, meaning strategy often depends on breaking, penetrating, or just outright bypassing armor to deal effective damage. Logistics in battle are not quite so [[EasyLogistics easy]] here -- no BottomlessMagazines, for one - and items are much more individualized and consumable, meaning more thought is needed to effectively kit out units. Overall, Phoenix Point is a bit less newbie-friendly, but offers a deeper, more tactical experience that allows for a much greater freedom of approach.

* GatlingGood: The LGM class of weapon is an enormous Gatling Gun, one which can fire off a hail of armour piercing bullets, that burns through health faster then any other weapon.

* ArmorPoints: Armor protects for an ammount of damage up to its value. As it takes damage, it breaks away. Armor has to be gnawed through with normal damage before you can harm an enemy. Shred causes bonus damage to armor and if a weapon has the Piercing quality, it outright ignores a certain ammount of armor.
* ArtificialLimbs: With the Blood and Titanium DLC installed you get access to these. They come in three flavours: Heads, Torsos and Legs and confer such benefits as mind control imunity, extra carrying capacity or a limited rocket jump. All Bionic Augmentations are immune to Bleeding, as well as being highly resistant to Viral, Poison, and Paralysis, but at the cost of being vulnerable to Acid Damage and not being fixed by standard med kits, requiring you to either keep a Technician about or carry or a special item to repair them.

Combat is in many ways similar to the [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown modern]] [[VideoGame/XCOM2 XCOM]] games, but also in many ways different, and in fact draws a lot of inspiration from the ''original'' [[VideoGame/{{Xcom}} XCOM]] [[VideoGame/XComTerrorFromTheDeep games.]] While it is still a grid-based TurnBasedStrategy, actions are still regulated by Action Points, and the player and enemie units take turns as a team, the intricacies of combat are more involved and complex than the modern games; rather than attacks being single shot affairs with a dice roll to hit, weapons fire consists of appropriate volleys of shots, with different accuracy, ROF, and damage ratings, and aiming can be done freeform from a first-person perspective to land precision shots. Pairing with this is a SubsystemDamage system, allowing shots to, for example, cripple legs or destroy enemy weapons. Armor is also tied to this system, meaning strategy often depends on breaking, penetrating, or just outright bypassing armor to deal effective damage. Logistics in battle are not quite so [[EasyLogistics easy]] here - no BottomlessMagazines, for one - and items are much more individualized and consumable, meaning more thought is needed to effectively kit out units. Overall, Phoenix Point is a bit less newbie-friendly, but offers a deeper, more tactical experience that allows for a much greater freedom of approach.

* AttackItsWeakPoint: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Some enemies have small areas that have less armor and are very helpful when destroyed - a Siren's head or an Arthron's arms, for example - but it's not required to kill them, and shredding or piercing weapons can make it unnecessary.

* BoringButPractical: You can actually manufacture ''food''. While having food handy is a necessity to keep your operatives from starving, food can also be traded with different factions for other materials. This is ''extremely'' important, as food is the only major resource in the game that you can produce on your own.

* CompetetiveBalance: The basic assault rifle is middle of the road, firing six bullets out of a 30-round magazine that deals 30
HP worth of damage per bullet and shreds 1 point of armor. Synedron's laser assault rifle is the exact same in every way, except for the fact that it has twice the ammo capacity and looks cooler. New Jericho's gauss rifle has higher damage values, doing 40 damage per bullet and shredding 15 points of armor, but firing 4 bullets per shot.

* ArmorIsUseless: Averted. Armor absorbs some damage from bullets and explosions, although melee attacks and anything else with the Armor-Piercing trait bypass this. Some types of Pandorians from the very beginning have large sections of heavy carapace that are very resistant to damage, although they typically also have squishier bits that can be specifically targeted.

* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: With the last DLC, it's more like "Attack of the 500-Mile Monstrosity". The game brings a "Behemoth", a truly gigantic creature similar to [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering the Eldrazi]] or [[Wiki/SCPFoundation SCP-169]] in size that tramples entire cities and looks bigger than several countries in real life. Worse, it hosts a festering aura of atmosphere around itself that corrupts nearby havens, and hosts an endless supply of flying Pandorans much like a beehive or an aircraft carrier. Killing it will take a long, long chain of quests, blood and tears.

* CrapsackWorld: Even before the Pandoravirus hit, it's implied Earth was heavily factionalized and human governments cared more about ideological purity and the status quo than survival of the species. WorldWarIII began because China and the US couldn't be bothered to forgive the other trespassing on their territory while studying the Pandoravirus mist, India nearly nuked Pakistan into oblivion because some bright spark decided that Pakistan ''must'' have been behind the outbreak (stopped by the Phoenix Project flipping a lead technician on the nuclear systems to disable them), and {{Hollow Earth}} cranks [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking were given equal time to actual scientists on news programs discussing the Pandoravirus]]. It was already bad, it just went to [[UpToEleven ''hell'' when the millions of horrors poured from the oceans.]]

* EnergyWeapon: Synedrion's weapons tend towards laser weapons. Instead of New Jericho's raw damage, they tend to have armor-piercing attacks or additional effects like inflicting paralyze damage on enemies.

* AwesomePersonnelCarrier: Unlike in the newer ''XCOM'' titles, vehicles make their grand return, such as APC-type vehicles. And yes, they certainly fit the ''awesome'' in the trope name, as despite their main role being troop transportation they can deliver an ''extraordinary'' amount of damage on their lonesome. Each faction gets their own distinctive class of vehicle. The vehicles are capable of moving on their own and at the least provide mobile cover to nearby soldiers at the cost of taking up a ton of space on your air transport. On top of all this all of the vehicles can carry a huge amount of resource in their inventory, perfect for raids and scavaging missions.
** New Jericho's is the ''Armadillo'', a ''very'' heavily armoured APC. Four wheeled, and covered in metal plating, it's almost more of a mobile ''tank'' then a troop transport, bearing a heavy, roof mounted turret, the ability to carry 4 squad members, and travel at high speeds.
** The Phoenix Point ''Scarab'' like the Armadillo can carry 4 squad members and travel at high speeds, but there the similarities end. Its mush more lightly armored (but still hellishly tankier then a normal human) it carries what is effectively a mortar both capable of hitting enemies halfway across the map and utterly distroying basicly anything it hit, from buildings to anything but the heaviest Pandorians.
** The Synedrion ''Aspida'' is the least heavily of the three, has no ranged abilites to speak of and can only carry one soldier. It makes up for this by being able to ''heal'' people with its robotic arms as well as being able to applying a very strong Paralyze as self defence.

* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: With the last DLC, it's more like "Attack of the 500-Mile Monstrosity". The game brings a "Behemoth", a truly gigantic creature similar to [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering the Eldrazi]] or [[Wiki/SCPFoundation Scp-169]] in size that tramples entire cities and looks bigger than several countries in real life. Worse, it hosts a festering aura of atmosphere around itself that corrupts nearby havens, and hosts an endless supply of flying Pandorans much like a beehive or an aircraft carrier. Killing it will take a long, long chain of quests, blood and tears.

** (Removed in Ctulhu patch) The Oneiric Delirium Index (ODI), which represents the intensity of Pandoran psychic influence on humanity. It increases throughout the game and can be reduced by destroying Pandoran structures. As it increases, gradually causes nightmares, hallucinations, eventually shifting to periods of somnambulistic mind control, and finally even seizures and death. If it reaches 100%, Pandoravirus takes control of humanity and the game is lost.

** The Assault class is this personified. The cant use flashy heavy weapons, or become invisible, or use psychic powers, but literally every single other class can be improved by combining it with Assault due to how ubiquitously useful their abilities are. They can dash for extra movement, fire back at anyone that fires at them, rearange items on the ground or in their inventory without using action points and gift other classes extra action points.

** In XCOM, outside of explosives FriendlyFireproof is in full effect. Not so here. Take a shot at an enemy, and one of your buddies happens to be standing in the way? He'll happily eat those bullets to the face. This means positioning and angle-of-fire is '''much''' more important than in Xcom (where friendlies would simply duck non-explosive shots in their direction.)

* AnimalisticAbomination: {{Justified}}, as a majority of the Pandoravirus's soldiers are mutated marine life fused with OrganicTechnology. Ranging from the simple [[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/595875e44f14bc66ff1ac2bd/t/5a3e58810852297f08fc5c16/1514035334312/crabby.png?format=1000w crabmen]], to [[http://metagearsolid.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/phoenix-point-shark.jpg hulking and horrifying Sharkbrutes]].

* ThatOneAttack: ''Viral Damage''. Viral Damage reduces your Will Points, and if a soldier runs out while still taking Viral Damage they panic, preventing them from taking any actions except recover (which restores half of a units total will points) and potentially causing them to run to an disadvantageous position. Problem is Viral Damage only reduces by 1 every turn, potentially stun-locking a unit for turns on end and preventing you from extracting.

* EarnYourBadEnding: [[spoiler: The ending where Phoenix Point did not ally with the other groups, see MultipleEndings below]].

* GreyAndGreyMorality: All three of the factions have their own flaws and appeals, along with being at odds with each other; even the Phoenix Project are hardly saints.

** One cosmetic DLC makes your guns look organic.

* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The Synderion's aesthetic, which seems to be about building the ''prettiest'' cities around, if not the most strictly functional.

* JustTheFirstCitizen: The "leader" of Synderion, or at least, the de facto one who speaks to you most often, has no title other than "Citizen," matching with the factions absolute democracy.

* VastBureaucracy: Two! Synderion, being an "absolute democracy," is riddled with about a thousand political sub-factions all struggling to figure out the best way to move forward in the strange new world. The Citizen complains on multiple occasions that all of the arguing makes it remarkably difficult to actually get anything done. The Disciples of Anu have a clear hierarchy (including a near absolute dictator at the top) which makes actually getting things done a bit easier, but it's still got several dozen confusingly-named stations of loyalty.