History VideoGame / UnrealIITheAwakening

The first VideoGame/{{Unreal|I}} was well received, but it was ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' the game which made the franchise famous all around the world. Creator/EpicGames decided that the next step should be taken by another company, and thus, Legend Entertainment made the next game of the franchise.

This game was ''Unreal 2: The Awakening'', released for PC and Xbox in 2002.

The game was not well received, due to these changes, almost complete failure to deliver promises from early blurbs of the game, and being regarded as an average and somewhat derivative {{FPS}} even for the time. Perhaps, in part, to this, the SP side of the Unreal world has not been explored since then, although Creator/EpicGames have dropped some hints they may be willing to work on a sequel in the future.

Followed chronologically by ''VideoGame/UnrealChampionship'' on Xbox and ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2003'' on PC.

* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: Averted, unlike the previous games, there's no Shield Belt nor similar item here. The level of your shields affected their effectiveness. At full shields they'd absorb 100% of any damage you took, but below 90% or so you started taking partial damage to your health with the shields only absorbing a percentage of total damage, which got lower and lower as your shields dropped (i.e. at 50% shield strength your shields would absorb less than half of the damage of a hit). It's not uncommon to die with with your shields still at 33% or more.

** During the early games, the Rocket Launcher had two firemodes that launched either up-to-six rockets (in spread or spiral formation) or grenades. This trend was broken in ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'' with the Hydra Rocket Launcher, which can launch either one big rocket, or the rocket itself splitting mid-path into up to four subrockets, each dealing less damage. But it wasn't until ''VideoGame/UnrealChampionship'' and ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2003'' that the Rocket Launcher would find its definitive design, with the main fire shooting a rocket and the alternate fire shooting up to three rockets in spread or spiral formation.

* ContinuitySnarl: In this game we are told the Skaarj are socially highly fragmented and disorganized and often at odds with each other. The Skaarj uniting behind a single cause or leader is virtually unheard of. This directly contradicts the Skaarj in the first game where they were all united in opposition towards you in standard FPS fashion. There was even a Skaarj Queen controlling everything.

* EscortMission: One guy forces you to do so since he won't give you the item until he's safe.

* ArmorMeterPoints: Shields are represented by a meter gauge.

* AmazonBrigade: The Liandri Angels.
** {{Stripperiffic}}: Some of them appear to be completely naked under armor that includes a transparent bubble canopy.

* ASpaceMarineIsYou: The entire game, with the sole exception of the characterization of the main characters. It's somewhat of a running gag of Dalton complaning about how he should have been one.

* SeeYouInHell: ''Literally.'' Ne'Ban, who doesn't speak English very well, tells you he is on a course for Hell, because your mission officer told him to go there. Then you go and talk to the mission officer, who casually tells you that your next mission is on a frozen moon called "Hell".

* StandardFPSGuns: Defied, with many of the later guns are unorthodox (such as deployable force fields, Spider Gun that shoots colonies of spiders, and Drakk Takkra that can turn into insectoid drone or spherical attack drone) and even early guns have secondary function.

* DownerEnding:
** Although Dalton managed to [[spoiler:avenge the death of his crewmates and decimated the TCA]], the last we see of him is [[spoiler:him drifting into space in an escape pod, all alone, watching the final words of his late crew recorded in the burst transmission. It's also left unclear if all the Kai in the universe are turned into the Tosc, not just the one in the Dorian Gray spaceship that was just destroyed. However as the game somewhat still counts as canon, it seems like the Kai didn't appear anymore. And if that isn't enough, the death of Ne'Ban has all of the potential to spawn into a conflict of its own]].
** On a meta sense, this was the last game of Legend Entertainment, as [[CreatorKiller the studio was later shut down]] by Creator/EpicGames and Atari.

* DownerEnding: Although Dalton managed to [[spoiler:avenge the death of his crewmates and decimated the TCA]], the last we see of him is [[spoiler:him drifting into space in an escape pod, all alone, watching the final words of his late crew recorded in the burst transmission. It's also left unclear if all the Kai in the universe are turned into the Tosc, not just the one in the Dorian Gray spaceship that was just destroyed. However as the game somewhat still counts as canon, it seems like the Kai didn't appear anymore. And if that isn't enough, the death of Ne'Ban has all of the potential to spawn into a conflict of its own]]. On a meta sense, this was the last game of Legend Entertainment, as it was later shut down by Epic Games and Atari.

--> ''"As earth expands in this sector of space, different corporations are establishing colonies on uninhabited planets. They do everything from creating vacation resorts, to mining exotic ores, to terraforming. We in the Terran Colonial Authority patrol between the planets to keep the peace. The corporations try to get away with a lot out here, and they hire mercenary forces to help them get their way. We often find ourselves fighting the mercs to defend civilians who work for their own corporation. If we run into something we can't take on alone, we call in the marines."''

* DummiedOut: The presence of simple point based deathmatch during the tutorials and death messages on console indicate that this game should feature multiplayer. It didn't exist in the first release, but later added in as the XMP free expansion that was further enhanced by mods.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The last we see is Dalton drifting into space in an escape pod, all alone, watching the final words of his late crew recorded in the burst transmission. It's also left unclear if all the Kai in the universe are turned into the Tosc, not just the one in the Dorian Gray spaceship that was just destroyed. However as the game somewhat still counts as canon, it seems like the Kai didn't appear anymore.]]

* [[spoiler:KillEmAll]]: [[spoiler:Only Dalton survived]].

* MisbegottenMultiplayerMode: Inverted. While the game is SP-oriented, it had so many weak points, you'll be mistaken if you thought it was an afterthought at best. The official multiplayer addon, XMP, on the other hand, although online-restricted, not only featured a solid gameplay, but also laid the foundations for what would became the [[VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004 Onslaught]] and [[VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII Warfare]] modes, as well as properly introducing vehicles and [[VideoGame/UnrealChampionship2TheLiandriConflict player classes]] into the Unreal universe. It says a lot that, while ''Unreal Tournament 2003'' and ''VideoGame/UnrealChampionship'' had a very short lifespan (with both being eventually replaced by ''[=UT2004=]'' and ''[=UC2=]'' respectively), the [=U2XMP=] community was still around when ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'' was released.

* KillTheLights: In a CallBack to [[videoGame/UnrealI the first game]], in the first mission, "Elara V: Sanctuary", [[PlayerCharacter John Dalton]] is going down in an elevator when it suddenly stops in the middle of the trajectory, then the lights go out, and a Light Skaarj falls from above, damaging the counterweights and sending Dalton plummeting to the lower floor.

* [[Expy]]:

* Expy:

* DismantledMacGuffin: Dalton spend most of the game travelling from planet to planet picking up pieces of an ancient artifact. When the artifact is finally assembled and used, [[spoiler:See EldritchAbomination below]].

* EscortMission: One guy forces you to do so since won't give you the item until he's safe.

* FacelessGoons: The UMS space marines and the Izanagi mercs.

The game was not well received, due to these changes and being regarded as an average and somewhat derivative {{FPS}}. Perhaps, in part, to this, the SP side of the Unreal world has not been explored since then, although Creator/EpicGames have dropped some hints they may be willing to work on a sequel in the future.

The game focused on more story-driven [[VideogameSetpiece set-piece]] laden linear levels and lots of character interaction, as well as pitting you against Humans for the majority of the game, with the only link to the original being a few cameos and battles against the Skaarj and armored versions of them, called Mecha-Skaarj. Its place in the Unreal timeline is set between the first Tournament game and ''Return To Na Pali''.

* EscortMission: One guy forces you to do so since he's GenreSavvy and he won't give you the item until he's safe.

* BladeOnAStick: The Izarians use a variation.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, although still LighterAndSofter than the first Unreal given you interact with various personalities throughout the game.
* DialogueTree: Whenever Dalton rans into someone who isn't about to die or trying to kill him.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The last we see is Dalton drifting into space in an escape pod, all alone, watching the final words of his late crew recorded in the burst transmission. It's also left unclear if all the Kais in the universe are turned into the Tosc, not just the one in the Dorian Gray spaceship that was just destroyed. However as the game somewhat still counts as canon, it seems like the Kais didn't appear anymore.]]

Check the [[Characters/UnrealIITheAwakening game's character sheet]] for character specific tropes.

!Recurring tropes for the series include:

* ShoutOut: On ''Acheron'' the entrance to the dig site is clearly inspired by the Sarlacc from ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.

The first VideoGame/{{Unreal|I}} was well received, but it was ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' the game which made the franchise famous all around the world. EpicGames decided that the next step should be taken by another company, and thus, Legend Entertainment made the next game of the franchise.

The game was not well received, due to these changes and being regarded as an average and somewhat derivative {{FPS}}. Perhaps, in part, to this, the SP side of the Unreal world has not been explored since then, although EpicGames have dropped some hints they may be willing to work on a sequel in the future.