History VideoGame / Rimworld

* NiceGuy: Colonists with the Kind trait will occasionally say nice things to improve the moods of other colonists, will never insult others and don't judge anyone by their appearance.

** ''Anomaly'' is a full-on shift into horror game territory, covering such subgenres as BodyHorror, SurrealHorror and CosmicHorror.

** Played straight by characters with the Body Purist trait. They get ever-mounting mood penalties for having any of their body parts replaced with bionic ones, up to -35 at six parts, and have lowered opinions of other colonists with bionics. The Flesh Purity Meme from ''Ideology'' adds this opinion to every colonist who shares an Ideoligion with it.

* FossilRevival: One of the animals you can encounter in the wild is the megasloth, which is indeed the prehistoric ''Megatherium'' ground sloth (it was explicitly named so until the Alpha 16 update) that was brought back from extinction by advanced cloning techniques and then subsequently seeded across the cosmos.

* IncompatibleOrientation: Gay or bisexual pawns will often attempt to woo heterosexual pawns, due to said traits being so uncommon that getting a colony with even two gay pawns by random chance is extremely rare (and the chances of them actually liking each other enough to initiate romance is even lower). This tends to make "Gay" a mildly negative trait due to them constantly getting mood debuffs from "rebuffed by X".

* KickTheDog: Raider parties are technically supposed to be stealing stuff or kidnapping colonists, but more often they'll just wantonly destroy stuff, set fire to things, indiscriminately slaughter people, and kill random pets rather than having any observable end goal for their raids.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The ''Anomaly'' DLC introduces a "Mind Wipe" mechanic, which makes a pawn forget all of their past allegiances. This makes prisoners much easier to recruit, and is the only way to legitimately recruit prisoners with the "unwaveringly loyal" trait, as they will forget they ever ''were'' loyal''.

* PowerfulButInaccurate: The mortars launch a powerful explosive artillery shell to anywhere on the map tile that can easily cripple a large group of raiders or an insect hive in a single hit from a safe distance. However, it fires very slowly, has to be manned by a colonist to function (unlike the automatically firing turrets), and has horrendous accuracy, making it unviable against moving targets (on top of being the only major weapon in the game that has to be manually reloaded for each shot).

* UnspecifiedApocalypse: What caused the civilisation that built the ancient highways, vaults full of {{Human Popsicle}}s and other remnants of advanced industrialisation and technology to collapse is left up to the player's own interpretation. Considering the fact that some of these ancient vaults and crypts can be found deep inside mountains surrounded by hundreds of meters of naturally grown rock, and with no traces of previous entry points (implying the mountain grew around the structures after they were abandoned), some extremely cataclysmic events must've happened in the distant past, but no specifics are ever provided.

** You can drop pod stacks of toxic wastepacks on factions you don't like to get rid of them, but this will seriously hurt your goodwill with the faction, they may send back toxic wastepacks of their own in retaliation (and far more than you sent them), and raid your base more frequently. [[SubvertedTrope However]], if the faction you dropped the wastepacks on was only tribal level, they can't send them back.

* DeathOfPersonality: Once a person undergoes ghoulification in ''Anomaly'', they're as good as gone, replaced by an mindless husk that can do nothing but eay and fight. Their intelligence is so diminished that even a trained animal can perform more tasks than they can, and if they get hungry enough, they will eat their former loved ones without a thought.

* DeathOfPersonality: Once a person is turned into a ghoul in ''Anomaly'', they lose all higher-reasoning ability, becoming little more than a dumb animal that can't even do the most basic non-combat task.

* EmergencyTransformation: The ghoulification process added in ''Anomaly'' cures all life-threatening conditions, so one may turn a beyond-saving pawn into a ghoul to "save" them. Doing so won't exactly save them from death, but it will keep their reanimated corpse around as a powerful combat unit for your colony.

* EmergencyTransformation: The ghoulification process added in ''Anomaly'' cures all life-threatening conditions, so one may turn a beyond-saving pawn into a ghoul to "save" them. It's not going to save them from death, but it will keep their feral corpse alive as a powerful combat unit.

* AgeWithoutYouth: Colonists and animals can't die from old age alone. While increasing age comes with increased chances of all manner of illnesses and frailties, including heart attacks, the few that are potentially fatal can be treated by a doctor. With good enough medical care, and a survivable enough colony, your elderly colonists are effectively immortal [[WhoWantsToLiveForever but will probably be permanently bedridden]]. Even replacing parts as they fall with cybernetic versions (especially the spine, since it's one of the first to go), eventually the colonist will get struck with both Alzheimer's and Dementia, both incurable barring [[TooAwesomeToUse Mech Serum]] abuse. Ideology DLC includes biosculpting research, which allows the player to both heal most age-related afflictions and to reverse aging, allowing colonists to be young and healthy forever, though.

** the ''Biotech' DLC allows you to build your own mechanoids, and adds many new types both combat and utility.

* BigBeautifulMan: There is nothing stopping a fat pawn from having the Attractive or Very Attractive traits, not that the game's minimalist art style makes them look anything more than generic and plain though. With the Biotech DLC you can even make an entire xenotype of big beautiful men/women.

** Neanderthals -- Brute. A tribal subfaction in the Biotech DLC whose members are all of the neanderthaler xenotype. Slow and stupid, but they can take a beating and hit like a ton of bricks.

** Empire (Royalty DLC) –- Elitist. The Empire attacks in small numbers, but always come well equipped in mid to end game armor. Additionally, Imperial troopers are always skilled in either Shooting or Melee, making the Empire a formidable threat even in the endgame.

* EnhancedArchaicWeapon: Royalty DLC introduces melee weapons that use very advanced technologies, like Plasmaswords and electrical Zeushammers.

* SchizoTech: A direct result of being on a rimworld. The population of the planet consists of the descendants of crashed spacecraft survivors and some hardy explorers, pirates, and luddites. Many of them devolved to tribalism over the centuries or millennia, and a few managed to retain pieces of more advanced technology, resulting in a mixture of ancient and medieval weapons, modern firearms and technologies, and science-fiction machinery. The Royalty DLC throws in TheEmpire, or at least what's left of it and the Ideology DLC reveals a hint of the terrifying power of the Archeotechs.

* SuperSoldier: You can get one if you manage to sink the time and resources into fully upgrading a combat skilled colonist with [[BadassTransplant bionic limbs and body parts]] (bonus points if they're [[LostTechnology archotech parts]]), deck them out in [[PowerArmor power armor]], then give them a [[{{BFG}} big heavy gun]], or a [[AbsurdlySharpBlade plasteel sword]] and you've got yourself a cyborg warrior that can go toe to toe with a [[SpaceMarine Space Marine]] from [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Warhammer 40000]]. In the Royalty DLC, you can turn this to the next level with Imperial weaponry like the Zeushammer and the Monosword, which, along with powerful psy-casting abilities, enables the creation of a spellcasting, power armour clad, heavy weapon wielding Übermensch with nobility titles to boot. Enemies won't be able to flee when you can teleport into melee range and can't defend when stunned. A more questionable way is to use Luciferium on top of any other measures. Luciferium is, in essence, a swarm of microscopic robots that improve the user in pretty much every way possible, giving them nigh superhuman [[SuperSenses sight]], [[SuperSpeed speed]], [[SuperStrength Strength]], [[BoringButPractical blood filtration, metabolism, consciousness, blood pumping, breathing]], [[FeelNoPain pain resistance]] and a slow acting HealingFactor that can even regrow limbs and heal permanent brain damage. The drawback, is that once you take the drug, you're addicted and withdrawal is painful and has a 100% mortality rate. Hence why its named after a DealWithTheDevil.

* ThisIsADrill: A colonist with the Drill Arm from Royalty DLC can bore the body of enemies.

* UngovernableGalaxy: The lack of [=FTL=] makes the Rimworld galaxy this by default. In the background there's mention of political blocs that consist of up to three planets, but beyond the occasional trader frieghter all planets are on their own.

** The [[AntiMatter Antigrain]] Warhead is a very rare mortar shell. It will cause a vast and devastating explosion. This explosion is big enough to annihilate an entire raiding party or mechanoid nest with a ''near miss''.

* ExtremeOmnivore: Of the "unpicky eater" variety. The Pigskins, due to being genetically modified pigs, can eat any food, even rotten, without risking food poisoning, will not get a mood debuff from consuming raw food, and get the same nutritional value from raw food as a cooked meal. They will still hate eating insect meat, human flesh, and kibble though.

* GentleGiant: Thrumbos are massive creatures that occasionally pass through your territory in small groups. They're generally peaceful and make for extremely powerful attack animals if you can manage to tame them, and won't attack on a failed taming attempt (unlike most wild creatures), but their enormous power can also backfire if you attempt to hunt them.

* UndyingLoyalty: Some enemies will spawn with an "unwavering loyal" trait, making it outright impossible to recruit them if captured and imprisoned. The only way to bypass this is to enslave them, induce a mental break that turns them into a wild man/woman, and then they can be tamed and join the colony, but it's not clear if this is intended behaviour or a bug.

* CosmicHorrorStory: Although mostly LovecraftLite, the omnipresence of the godlike and utterly inscrutable [[ArtificialIntelligence Archotechs]] in the setting regularly puts your colonists on the level of ants trying to survive against a lunatic with a flamethrower. It doesn't matter how well your colony can handle physical threats like raiders, mechanoids or giant insects. If an Archotech feels like screwing you over in some horrific fashion for no apparent reason, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except hope that you can hold on long enough for it to grow bored and direct its attention elsewhere. The upcoming ''Anomaly'' DLC is teased to vastly expand upon this aspect of the game with all sorts of terrifying events, monsters, evil relics and more.

* DeusEstMachina: Archotechs, unfathomably vast machine intelligences that create super-advanced if not supernatural technologies like Dyson spheres, unlimited power generation, and psychic technologies. They are born on "Transcendent" worlds, planets where unrestricted AI development leads to a network of machine intelligences that convert their entire worlds into computing machines. They have vast plans spanning hundreds of years and mindsets that humans struggle to understand. They are the closest thing in the setting to true gods. ''Ideology'' allows the player to build ideoligeons which [[MachineWorship worship the Archotechs as divine entities]]. The Archonexus questline introduced in the same expansion centres around the player's colony trying to track down a [[PiecesOfGod fragment of the mind of an Archotech]] so they can touch it and gain the Archotech's attention, though what happens next is ambiguous. The upcoming expansion ''Anomaly'' centres on an Archotech who becomes the machine equivalent of a MadGod.

* GenreShift: The game started as a LowFantasy SpaceWestern where most available weapons, armour and technology were at or below modern-day levels in RealLife, [[AbsentAliens aliens were not a factor]], any unusual phenomena [[DoingInTheWizard has an explicitly scientific explanation]] and [[DeusEstMachina the closest things to gods are just giant machine intelligences]], with explicitly sci-fi elements like [[BigCreepyCrawlies giant space bugs]], [[RobotWar hordes of hostile robots]], hypersleep caskets and SpaceMarine-type weapons and PoweredArmor existed mainly to provide a HandWave for dissonance between biological and chronological age in-universe, or a variety of challenges beyond merely hostile humans or animals. As the DLC expansions roll on, the game has gradually adopted elements from more fantastical sci-fi works. ''Royalty'' introduced a [[FeudalFuture highly advanced feudalistic interstellar empire]] with old-fashioned clothes, tech-enhanced melee weapons and sanctioned psi powers, similar to those seen in ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', while also granting buffs to the Mechanoids and giving them an increased prominence in the story, as well as an ''Film/{{Avatar}}''-esque WorldTree that grants psi powers to the natives. ''Ideology'' added an ending path that allows the player to directly interact with the Archotechs that previously only existed as background elements to [[AWizardDidIt explain away hyper-advanced technologies]] as well as the Gauranlen trees and their symbiotic Dryad servants. ''Biotech'' knuckled down even further by introducing not only HumanSubspecies as a compromise with true aliens, but [[OurVampiresAreDifferent a science-based form of vampires]]. Finally, the upcoming ''Anomaly'' expansion is advertised as a full-on shift into horror game territory, covering such subgenres as BodyHorror, SurrealHorror and CosmicHorror.