History VideoGame / PhoenixPoint

* DoomsdayClock: 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, it causes one-time events, such as lowering soldier Stamina points. If it reaches 100%, Pandoravirus takes control of humanity and the game is lost.

* SealedEvilInACan - Or rather in Permafrost. After the Antediluvians defeated the previous strain of Pandoravirus, the Yuggothian Entity sent another, which landed in permafrost and became inert, until the permafrost melted as a result of Global Warming.

* GreyAndBlackMorality: Whilst the humans are unscrupulous in their methods, they are all ultimately well intentioned, generally just trying to stop the species from dying out. You ''cannot'' say the same thing about the Pandoravirus, which wants to entirely devour all life on the planet, although, it's more of a case of Grey and BlueAndOrangeMorality than downright evil.

* ArmorIsUseless: Zig-zagged. While armor on soldiers is indeed good at absorbing bullets and explosions, sniper rifles, melee attacks and anything else with the Armor-Piercing trait ignores it. {{Averted}} like ''hell'' when it comes to the horrors of the Pandoravirus, their heavy carapaces will be be ''the bane'' of any players existence, especially on bosses.

* ExplodingBarrels: Large red canister explode if damaged enough, or if an explosion goes off around their general vicinity, damaging enemies and friendly's regardless.
* FriendlyTarget: Not being careful about the game's realistic ballistics can result in allies getting the brunt of the damage from an attack.

* GreyAndBlackMorality: Whilst the humans are unscrupulous in their methods, they are all ultimately well intentioned, and want what's best for their dying species. You ''cannot'' say the same thing about the Pandoravirus, which wants to entirely devour all life on the planet, although, it's more of a case of Grey and BlueAndOrangeMorality than downright evil.

* JustTheFirstCitizen: The "leader" of Synderion, or at least, the de facto one who speaks to you most often, has no title other than "Citizen."
* LovecraftLite: The alien Pandoravirus has [[FogOfDoom spread]] on Earth, corrupting every living being in its path and transforming them into [[EldritchAbomination otherworldly monstrosities]], decimating humanity and forcing survivors to retreat into fortresses named "Havens." Even the survivors are suffering from some sort of mental attack, either due to the stress or because of insidious psychic influences. However, as bleak as it looks, humanity is still shown to be willing and fully capable of fighting back, showing there is still hope for man. And with the Phoenix Project, humanity has the potential to defeat the alien menace.

** The Disciples of Anu also delve into benevolent mutation technology for their own side. The armor is better than pretty much anything that can be manufactured by mortal means, but it can't be unequipped since it's ''part of their body'' now.

* SubsystemDamage: Each body part for soldiers and monsters has its own armor value and hit point track. Depleting a body part's HP causes bleeding damage over time, reduces the unit's maximum HP, and has other effects depending on which part it is (disabled arm means the unit can't attack with that arm, disabled leg reduces movement range, disabled head can cause confusion or panic, etc).

* TakeCover: It's very important to keep your troopers behind corners, chest-high walls, inside buildings, etc. and the enemies will seek to do the same. Due to how the aiming system works, bullets will always hit their intended target (unless the soldier in question has such terrible aim that their reticule is huge) so the only way to protect your body parts is with cover. However, a lot of the potential cover is easily destructible, and the free aim system with simulated ballistics allows you to shoot whenever you want to destroy whatever you want.

* 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 Disciples of Anu have a clear hierarchy which makes the chain of command more defined, but it's got several dozen confusingly-named stations of loyalty.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: Both before and after the Pandoravirus has been discovered, many factionalizations among the humans led to World War III erupting, and Pakistan nearly got nuked. In the game, politics play a role in appeasing three major factions with differing ideologies, who are ''still'' fighting each other despite the human race being a small fraction of it's former size and very close to extinction.
%%* WorldWarThree: Happened before the game's start, [[FromBadToWorse on top of the first two Pandoravirus outbreaks]].

* AndIMustScream: Research includes vivisecting (live autopsy) of paralyzed pandorans. They are propably still concious during the process.
* 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]].

* GreyAndBlackMorality: Whilst the humans are unscrupulous in their methods, they are all ultimately well intentioned, and want what's best for their dying species. You ''cannot'' say the same thing about the Pandoravirus, which wants to entirely devour all life on the planet, although, it's more of a case of Grey and BlueAndOrangeMorality then downright evil.

** [[spoiler: If the Phoenix Project allies with New Jericho, they use humanity's remaining nuclear arsenal to destroy the Pandoran Palace, killing the Yuggothian Entity's receptacle and severing its connection to the Pandorans on Earth, allowing New Jericho and the Phoenix Project to systematically eradicate the now in disarray Pandorans, the Disciples of Anu are reduced to a shell of their former selves but continue to resist new Jericho while Synedrion, while disapproving of the eradication still works to ensure victory. In the end under Tobias West mankind unifies into a new age of freedom and prosperity]].

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

* TheyWouldCutYouUp: Before the collapse, some governments allegedly did invasive studies on pandoravirus survivors.

%%* ArmorIsUseless: Zig-zagged. While armor on soldiers is indeed good at absorbing bullets and explosions, sniper rifles, melee attacks and anything else with the Armor-Piercing trait ignores it. {{Averted}} like ''hell'' when it comes to the horrors of the Pandoravirus, their heavy carapaces will be be ''the bane'' of any players existence, especially on bosses.

** Synedrion are generally portrayed as ALighterShadeOfGrey as their ideas tend to put a compromise between the Disciples' belief in adapting to the new world and New Jericho's goals of human survival. Whether their beliefs are altruistic or naivete is yet to be seen, but it is certain that their decentralized structure meant that the execution of their ideas would be too slow to react to Pandoravirus. Even their leader complains that they waste too much energy bickering due to their absolute democracy.

%%* ArmorPiercingAttack: Weapons with the "Armor-Piercing" trait ignore any armor a character/creature has, examples so far being sniper rifles and melee attacks. Explosives and the Heavy's weapons are also capable of decreasing armor, similar to ''VideoGame/XCOM2''.

%%** 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, as well as a ''devastatingly'' powerful iron ram that can be used to absolutely demolish enemy formations, and travel at high speeds. It's so well built, it's almost as tough as a Pandoravirus ''Queen''. It can hold a single squad of up to four friendly soldiers.

%%* BadassNormal: All humans in general really, but New Jericho gets by with fanatically loyal elite soldiers, advanced technology, heavy armour, and ''lots'' of CoolGuns.

%%* 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 all went to [[UpToEleven literal ''hell'' when the millions of horrors poured from the oceans.]]
%%* CounterAttack: One of the abilities is Return Fire, which allows the user to retaliate against enemy fire even if not outright using Overwatch.

%%* 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.

* MagneticWeapons: Jericho has Gauss weapons, like their Cyclops [=SR7=] sniper rifle.

%%* OrganicTechnology: Backers who preorder the 50$ or higher editions of the game (Or get these features later in a DLC) will receive purely cosmetic chitin armor for their soldiers, along with three not so cosmetic organic guns.
%%** This is the Pandoravirus mutants ''tee'', as many are depicted using ''gun'' mutations that mimic human weapons, such as riot shields, assault rifles, snipers, rockets, and [[OhCrap artillery]]. As the game goes on, Mutants will mutate more powerful equipment to counter the Phoneix Project's growing power.
* OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture: Phoenix soldiers' assault rifles seen in the backers' builds are essentially flat rectangles with a fist-length fire suppressor at one end and a shoulder grip at the other. The sniper rifles are longer and thinner, but are still pretty rectangular.

%%* SubsystemDamage: Each body part for soldiers and monsters has its own armor value and hit point track. Depleting a body part's HP causes bleeding damage over time, reduces the unit's maximum HP, and has other effects depending on which part it is (disabled arm means the unit can't attack with that arm, disabled leg reduces movement range, disabled head can cause confusion or panic, etc).
%%* SuicideBySea: The Pandoravirus causes this compulsion in some infected. Many came back as crabmen or other mutants.
%%* SuperSpit: Backer Release #4 introduced the Goo Spitter mutation for the Pandoravirus Queens.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2be6c57b0900ce73a07ccb987a45526e.jpg]]

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''Phoenix Point'' is a TurnBasedTactics game developed by Snapshot games. Several team members worked on the original ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}'' title, including franchise creator Julian Gollop himself. The game was releaced in December 3 2019 for the PC.

%%* AwesomePersonnelCarrier: Unlike in the newer ''XCOM'' titles, vehicles make their grand return, of which APC's have been confirmed so far. 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. As a rule of thumb, all vehicles must be manned by a separate soldier to use, can travel across most terrain, and they can clear enemy cover

* ConcealmentEqualsCover: Averted in the later backer builds, which now allow for even solid "cover" like wooden house's panels to get shot to pieces in order to get at whoever is behind them.

%%* ExplodingBarrels: Large red canister explode if damaged enough, or if an explosion goes off around their general vicinity, damaging enemies and friendly's regardless.

** The Disciples of Anu are considered as a friendly and neutral faction who wish to adapt to the new world created by the Pandoravirus. Unfortunately, their beliefs tend to do more damage than good as their experiments involving Black Mists tend to create more monsters.
** New Jericho wish to reclaim the Earth from Pandoravirus through military means, but their militarism tends to put at odds with more scientific-minded communities along with have friction between themselves.

* LovecraftLite: The alien Pandoravirus has [[FogOfDoom spread]] on Earth, corrupting every living being in its path and transforming them into [[EldritchAbomination otherworldly monstrosities]], decimating humanity and forcing survivors to retreat into fortresses named "Havens." However, as bleak as it looks, humanity is still shown to be willing and fully capable of fighting back, showing there is still hope for man. And with the Phoenix Project, humanity has the potential to defeat the alien menace.
%%* MagneticWeapons: In the backer builds, we see that Jericho has Gauss weapons, like their Cyclops [=SR7=] sniper rifle.

* TakeCover: In all the builds it's very important to keep your troopers behind corners, chest-high walls, inside buildings, etc. and the enemies will seek to do the same. However, later builds also complicate this by making a lot of the potential cover easily destructible, and the free aim system with simulated ballistics allows you to shoot whenever you want to destroy whatever you want.

** Synedrion are generally portrayed as ALighterShadeOfGrey as their ideas tend to put a compromise between the Disciples' belief in adapting to the new world and New Jericho's goals of human survival. Whether their beliefs are altruistic or naivete is yet to be seen, but it is certain that their decentralized structure meant that the execution of their ideas would be too slow to react to Pandoravirus.

''Phoenix Point'' is an upcoming TurnBasedTactics game developed by Snapshot games. Several team members worked on the original ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}'' title, including franchise creator Julian Gollop himself. The game is planned to release in December 2019 for the PC.

* AlienInvasion: A more...subtle example then most, at first anyway. The Pandoravirus introduced itself to the planet, in a relatively harmless fashion, melt from the ice and go towards the ocean. Coincidentally, humanity was fighting a brutal war, and was preoccupied killing each other, so the only interest it drew was from news tabloids. Whilst this farce was happening, the Pandoravirus was fast at work mutating marine life, and preparing for an invasion of the surface, as it festered in the water. By the time the governments of the World ''knew'' something horrible was about to happen, ''hundreds of thousands'' of abominable mutants we're storming the surface, making it an unusual example of this trope; the origin of the virus is extraterrestrial, but the actual invasion didn't come directly from space, but the sea.

''Phoenix Point'' is an upcoming TurnBasedTactics game developed by Snapshot games. Several team members worked on the original ''VideoGame/{{XCOM}}'' title, including franchise creator Julian Gollop himself. The game is planned to release mid-2019 for the PC.