Video Game / American Arcadia

Sometimes a perfect life is nothing but a perfect lie.

American Arcadia is a platforming and puzzle game developed by Spanish studio Out of the Blue and published by Raw Fury.

In-universe, American Arcadia is the name of a reality show that centers around Arcadia, a 70's retro-futuristic metropolis where all its citizens have a life of luxury and comfort all while oblivious to the fact that they are being constantly watched by an audience. Everyone in Arcadia has their own popularity rating, and if that sinks to a low point, then they will be literally killed off from the show.

One citizen in question is Trevor Hills (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal), an Everyman who has a simple and mundane life as an office worker and is perfectly content with it, which doesn't make him popular with the show's viewers and sets him up to be the next character to be killed off. Luckily for him, one of the stage technicians of the show, Angela Solano (voiced by Krizia Bajos), wants to get him out of Arcadia alive and will do everything she can to make that happen. Along the way, they'll discover the truth behind Arcadia's host Vivian Walton (voiced by Cissy Jones), and the lies upon lies she helped to orchestrate...

A demo of the game was released on October 10, 2023, with the full game releasing on November 15, 2023 on PC through Steam.

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American Arcadia provides examples of:

• 2½D: Sections where you play as Trevor are from a 2D perspective, though he can interact with objects in the background. This also applies to enemies, as they can use the background as a means of pursuing Trevor.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: Trevor's How We Got Here interview takes place on November 11, 2023. Arcadia is a metropolis with a 70's retro-futuristic aesthetic, while the world outside of it looks vastly futuristic in both appearance and the technologies used.
• The '70s: While the game isn't set in the era, Arcadia is designed to resemble a massive 70s city. This extends to people visiting the Arcadia Dome, which enforces a 70s dress code and a ban on modern-day technology.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Trevor's trip into Old Arcadia serves as a welcome respite from the constant chases he's endured the past couple days, letting him catch his breath, collect his thoughts with Angela, and demonstrate his keen piano ability.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Trevor has to go through multiple of these to navigate most buildings. Angela also has to go through one during a few of her gameplay sections.
• Arc Words:
  • "Don't be a fool" from the in-universe song of the same name unintentionally becomes this for Trevor. While Angela used it on purpose to try and tip Trevor off to the unordinary, he begins to hear other people play the song in person and over the radio. Angela also uses the line before Trevor signs a form while in captivity and it is Vivian's use of the line at the end of the game that causes Trevor to refuse her offer.
  • "Soar(ing) higher than ever before", the catchphrase of Cosmo and Walton Media as a whole. It's used as the closing line before the credits to describe American Arcadia's new ratings.
  • "Even my grandpa could jump that!" Initially said by Angela, but eventually adopted by Trevor as his increasingly hectic escape gives him more determination and self-confidence.
• Atomic F-Bomb: At the end of the game, Vivian asks Trevor to address the audience and explain he was never in any real danger. Instead, Trevor just shouts a single sentence into the microphone.
  Trevor: LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!
• Behavioral Conditioning: The residents of Arcadia are kept from discovering the world outside the Dome by the Jingle, a tune which subtly shapes their personality. It encourages them to seek routine with little control over their own lives, all shaped by fears of the outside and inability to realize they are not free.
• Benevolent Architecture: Everything in American Arcadia seems to be purposely designed to enable Trevor's escape. When he runs to get out of the airport terminal, for example, a vehicle screeches to a halt perfectly such that Trevor can climb onto it to access the parking garage. Another instance of this happening comes when he's exploring the abandoned factory: one guard would be impassible if there wasn't a wooden plank bridge that Trevor can damage and trick that guard into falling onto. The final act implies that all of this is deliberate on Walton Media's part, for it's all staged to make Trevor's story exciting as part of their new "Escape From Arcadia" show.
• Big Red Button: The failsafe button which will bring down the Arcadia Dome is a big red button on a dedicated pedestal atop a staired podium. It's the winner's podium for fugitives who beat "Escape from Arcadia".
• Bittersweet Ending: Trevor manages to escape Arcadia with Angela's help, but both American Arcadia and "Escape from Arcadia" remain on the air and are now more popular than ever. Luckily, he and Angela reach a settlement with Vivian and use the money to create their own studio, releasing a documentary on the events that they believe Vivian will try to sue them over.
• Black Bead Eyes: All characters have them, including animals like Angela's cat.
• Briar Patching: Vivan explains in detail how impossible it would be for Trevor to trigger the failsafe. He proceeds to attempt just that, exactly as Vivian wanted.
• Brick Joke: As it turns out, "Z.W." stands for Zach Wilson.
• Brown Note: During his first near-escape, Trevor begins hearing an odd noise which causes debilitating pain the closer he gets to the exit. "The Jingle" is a system of control buried in every Arcadian citizen to keep them from leaving the Dome, forcing their bodies to shut down unless they turn away from the transmitters broadcasting the signal. Angela has to remotely control a rental car for Trevor because he's unable to function at all. Trevor eventually gets an Antijingle instilled in him, which causes the effects of the Jingle to be inverted when he's affected by it.
• The Bus Came Back: Trevor's pet turtle Kovacs disappears after Trevor runs from home in the first act, briefly cameos during the dream sequence, and is shown happily living with Trevor at the end.
• Captain Ersatz: For an In-Universe example, one American Arcadia viewer may compare Trevor to Ned Flanders. The visual similarities are clear enough, for both of them are mild-mannered, bespectacled, sweater-wearing dorks from the late 20th century that can cause a ton of damage when sufficiently pissed off.
• Celebrity Paradox: Walton Media is an obvious stand-in for Disney, but at one point WALL•E is mentioned, a film made by the Disney-owned Pixar.
• Company Cross References: One of the film posters Angela can find at the Arcadia entry checkpoint is for Call of the Sea, which was the previous game Out of the Blue developed. The poster even has a depiction of Norah and Harry Everhart done in the American Arcadia's art style.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The posters for some of the fictional movies are attributed to a lot of real-world talent. For example, "The Castle Keep" alone credits Christopher Lee, Neil Gaiman and Steven Spielberg as being part of its production.
• Composite Character: Steve Just becomes one to Trevor and Angela in The Stinger when he's cast in "Escape from Arcadia", as he states he "was the most popular person in Arcadia" and has a moustache similar to Trevor's and uses the alias of 'Kovacs' to help others escape. Trevor and Angela are not amused in the slightest.
• Conditioned to Be Weak: A portion of the Behavioral Conditioning of Arcadia residents involves making them more fearful and compliant so none of them would be willing to attempt escapes or resist Walton Media.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: When the video tracking Trevor gets a stream commentary, standing still will result in the chatters yelling at Trevor to keep moving.
• Cool Car: The Sunlight Chrome Rush 166M and the Waltonmobile... both of which unfortunately end up totalled, one at the hands of the Interceptors, the other because of Trevor's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Deconstruction: This game's story borrows a lot of elements from The Truman Show, but one late plot development is instead a deconstruction that shows that a similar development from The Truman Show wouldn't work. In both stories, as the protagonist nears their climactic escape from the Immoral Reality Show they lived in, the audience cheers them on and celebrates them. In The Truman Show, this is unabashedly idealistic, with every viewer genuinely believing in Truman and caring about him more than the show. American Arcadia flips this on its head: if the greater population genuinely cared about Trevor, why has the reality TV show been allowed to continue this long? The audience only cares about Trevor for the entertainment value of his escape, and despite him leaving the show, the series gains sky-high ratings from the airing of Escape from Arcadia.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Arcadians are encouraged to become accomplished as models, musicians, and other professions in order to encourage viewership. However, Walton Media ensures their aspirations never exceed achieving local fame so that they remain within Arcadia.
• Domed Hometown: The Arcadia Dome completely covers the city and its outlying areas. The dome maintains perpetually pleasant weather inside and allows Walton Media complete control of traffic into and out of the city.
• Ear Worm: "Don't Be A Fool", both in-universe (to Trevor's unceasing frustration) and out of it.
• Easter Egg: Late in the game, the American Arcadia Live! stream chat will actually react if you just sit around and do nothing, egging Trevor to get on with it.
• Failed a Spot Check: For as thoroughly as Walton Media has arranged activities around the citizens of Arcadia and their own employees, they bizarrely didn't account for Angela subscribing to Trevor's stream feed on AA Live!, which later shocks her when she receives an app update notifying her that he has reached one million subscribers. This marks the point where she really starts putting the puzzle pieces together.
• Falling Damage: Besides being caught by the Arcadian law enforcement and their drones, falling from too great a height is the other way to lose a life and restart from the previous checkpoint.
• First Snow: The Arcadia Dome maintains a pleasant temperature and weather for the city's residents year round. When Trevor climbs to the top of the Spire, it's the first time he's ever seen snow in his life.
• Foregone Conclusion: The story occasionally cuts to post-story interviews with Trevor and Angela, showing them alive and well, non-incarcerated, and far from Arcadia.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Trevor's interviews start with him admitting he was the most popular character in "American Arcadia". His escape became the big smash hit Walton Media had been fishing for.
  • Angela initially identifies herself with the codename "Kovacs" to Trevor. It's revealed later that Kovacs was a scientifically-literate employee of Walton Media who was manipulated into their schemes against his will, ultimately leading to him leaving the company. Angela is a technology-literate employee of Walton Media, who is unwittingly playing right into their hands by trying to get Trevor out, and quits her work there in the final act.
  • Marcus seems to love repeating himself. That's because he's reciting lines, as an NPC; he's not actually any chief of security.
  • While walking through the Arcadia bus terminal, Angela describes the modern era to Trevor, noting how it's not terribly different, but it shows a much uglier and nastier side; Trevor laments that it sounds like there's no reason to leave, if he wasn't being actively hunted. Exactly the same conclusion Emily came to, leading her to reinstate her Arcadian life as Vivian.
  • When Angela travels to the entrance to Arcadia to bring an AccessBadge to Trevor, she sees a replica of the Waltonmobile in the lobby, musing that nobody knows where the real one is. But the real thing shows up later in Old Arcadia, along with Arpad Kovacs' "Architects of Tomorrow" piano, in perfect working order, meaning there was never any mystery there to the Arcadia staff and Trevor is meant to encounter and use them.
• Gilded Cage: Arcadia looks like the most pleasant place to live in, but the fact that it's encased in a giant dome (that nobody except the people outside it are aware of) that its residents can't leave and not being popular among the viewers of a show centered around the place leads to death doesn't make the place sound any better. Arcadia is even referred to as a Gilded Cage on a few occasions. In the finale, this is part of Vivian's rationale for her plan: she was one of the first people to get out of Arcadia only to realize that people like her wouldn't be able to live on the outside due to it being a Crapsack World, not knowing anything about it and several other factors. Her "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff is meant to deal with the escapee problem ethically by making the unpopular characters celebrities and letting them keep their lifestyle, thus providing them safety.
  Angela: The weather is probably the only nice thing inside.
• Gilligan Cut: Trevor driving the Waltonmobile straight into Arcadia Spire cuts away to Trevor telling the interviewer how that was the second car crash he got involved in during his escape.
• Gone Horribly Right: The procedure to remove the Jingle from Trevor includes elements of reducing his fear and increasing his desire for freedom. It succeeds, but his newfound courage and desire for freedom leads him to storm the Spire rather than flee the Dome as intended. Given who Number 6 really is, this is most likely intentional.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Donald Walton is the one responsible for turning Arcadia into a massively commercialised Immoral Reality Show and had a direct hand in its more unethical aspects, but he has no direct influence in Trevor's escape attempt.
  • There's also the US Government, who happily supports Walton Media in everything it does, from giving companies the ability to adopt and raise children to the Supreme Court making 'The Jingle' legal
• How We Got Here: The demo and full game open with Trevor recounting the story to someone interviewing him. The full game makes frequent cutbacks to the interview throughout the game.
• Immoral Reality Show:
  • The inhabitants of "American Arcadia" are filmed without their knowledge and the unpopular characters are Released to Elsewhere.
  • Inverted with the new "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff, since it is supposed to be an ethical way of dealing with people trying to escape; they're led to believe they'll be killed for being unpopular and their escape attempts are filmed to boost their ratings.
• Informed Ability: The Interceptors are stated to be elite capture agents with Marcus being the best at the job. Despite this, the office worker Trevor regularly manages to outrun and evade them. Given the entire thing is staged, their script likely includes giving him a chance.
• Interface Screw: One of the missions early in the game involves sneaking Trevor past guards by having him hide behind some sequencing fountains. Not too difficult normally... until Marcus starts grilling Angela over her loyalty to Walton Media. So the player has to hide Trevor behind the fountains, while only being able to observe him on Angela's primary computer monitor — and looking away from the monitor is the only way to answer Marcus' questions.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The live AA Live! stream chat of Trevor's final push to the Spire is timed off of your system clock, so for the player, it really is a live stream.
• Irony: Angela explains that Arcadia residents are valued based on their ratings, comparing Trevor's complete lack of viewership to Steve Just's sky-high ratings. At the end of the story, Trevor proved such a breakout character that Steve ends up becoming his Suspiciously Similar Substitute.
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: Trevor went in to work like any other day only for it to escalate into him having to escape Arcadia.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: The last area of the game is the Arcadia Spire, a giant tower that Trevor has to ascend to reach Vivian's penthouse and press a failsafe button to deactivate the Arcadia Dome. The whole thing is also being livestreamed to the general public.
• Justified Title: "American Arcadia" is both the name of the game and the in-universe show that focuses on Arcadia, and escaping it makes up the bulk of the plot.
• Kayfabe: People visiting the Arcadia Dome are required to dress in 70s fashion, and cannot bring anachronistic technology with them. This is to prevent Arcadia's residents from discovering that they're part of a TV show.
• Laser Hallway: Angela has to cross one while infiltrating The Hexagon. The lasers aren't visible to Angela, but they are on some monitors that she needs to memorize before going through the hallway.
• Long-Runners: "American Arcadia" has been running for fifty-five seasons with no sign of stopping.
• The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: The credits reveal that Walton Media is officially selling Trevor's in-universe iconic line "Leave me the f*ck alone!" as (censored) branded merchandise. An unscripted condemnation against Walton Media is just another useful asset to the company.
• Mascot: Walton Media has Comet the Canine Cadet, a spunky little pooch based on Elijah Walton's actual dog, who has had a few revisions and reboots over the decades. Angela calls the mascot of the Arcadia Atoms sports team "Comet on steroids".
• The Men in Black: The security of American Arcadia works like this. The travel agents are dressed and somewhat act like Men in Black, but Interceptors resemble sci-fi police officers and are never seen by the general public and most of American Arcadia's staff. The two have similar roles as they both deal with people within Arcadia, albeit differently. Marcus Javert, the Chief of Security is dressed like a typical Men in Black, only he wears a long coat in place of a suit and his tie and pants are red and blue, respectively.
• Morton's Fork:
  • When Vivian offers to remove the Jingle from Trevor, none of the protagonists trust her and try to do it themselves. Since "Number Six" is actually Vivian and is the one who makes the plan to install an "anti-jingle", they would have made the exact same realignment changes to Trevor had he agreed; his subsequent rampage to activate the failsafe button is all scripted as a pilot for "Escape from Arcadia".
  • A very minor one earlier when Marcus is interrogating Angela in her office. He asks her if the name Trevor Hills means anything to her; if she says no, isn't he one of the citizens in her assigned district? If she says yes, why would she ever single out a single unremarkable man out of her list of over 700 people?
• Named After Somebody Famous: In-universe, Trevor named his pet turtle after Arpad Kovacs, the scientist who ran "Architects of Tomorrow". When Angela tells Trevor to refer to her by her codename, 'Kovacs', he compares it to his turtle. When Angela clarifies this, Trevor also talks about how he is also a fan of his and named his turtle after him.
  Angela: Dude, why do you keep bringing your turtle into this conversation?!
  Trevor: Well... I-I just thought... ah, forget it.
• Near-Villain Victory: Despite Trevor and Angela's best attempts, Walton Media ultimately get what they want: a launchpad for a new spinoff and a huge ratings boost for American Arcadia. The only reason they don't win completely is because Vivian accidentally quotes "Don't be a Fool" before Trevor is supposed to give a speech to the AA audience. Had she not, Trevor would have likely become the host of "Escape from Arcadia" instead of being released.
• Never My Fault: When Vivian asks Trevor to tell the American Arcadia audience that his life was never at risk, the latter points out that she almost killed him and that he could've died while he was on the run. Vivian's response to this is to tell him that everything was under control with a few minor things being Angela's fault. Trevor points out that the only reason Angela had him do those things was because Vivian was guiding Angela, and Trevor ended up getting into those life-threatening situations because he and Angela were under the belief he would be killed if he got captured.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-Universe. The credits show that Walton Media has made merchandise out of Trevor's Atomic F-Bomb outburst, and the whole affair has only boosted their ratings.
• Non-Player Character: American Arcadia employs Non-Protagonist Characters, who are people who live inside Arcadia but know they're part of a show, to go along with its stories and make sure things happen. The only examples the player gets to know about in the story are the people in the sports teams that play in Arcadia, Trevor's neighbor, Vivian Walton and Marcus Javert, plus Gus, Trevor's coworker as a secret late in the game reveals.
• The Noseless: Characters in the game are depicted with no visible nose despite their faces otherwise being correctly proportioned and distinctive.
• Once More, with Clarity: Various points in the game involving Marcus Javert cut to a video of him giving a speech about his skills. The last one reveals these are actually Terry auditioning for the role as an NPC.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Interceptors are usually referred to as "Tackleberries" to the general public because of their resemblance to Eugene Tackleberry.
• People Farms: In the Realignment wing of Hexagon, there's an area covered by shutters that need hexagon access to unlock. Number 6 insists that you don't unlock it, but if you do, it turns out to be rows and rows of incubators growing Jingle-programmed babies.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Arcadia's populace is kept ignorant of the outside world, including pop culture. As a result, Trevor regularly doesn't understand references made by Angela and others, such as calling Interceptors "tackleberries" and his disguise resembling Steven Spielberg.
• Precision F-Strike: The game is fairly light on cursing ("shit" is the most common expletive), and Trevor in particular curses very rarely. This makes it all the more impactful when Trevor delivers the game's only F-bomb, in the last line before the credits roll: "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!".
• Public Secret Message: The rotating billboard outside Trevor's office seemingly glitches one day so that portions of different ads freeze to show the message "Gus is dead".
• Released to Elsewhere: You do not go to Fiji if you become an Edge Travel Grant winner. This is also how American Arcadia makes people within Arcadia not suspect anything is wrong when someone is never seen again, as they'll assume they're on vacation and not dead. Except they really aren't dead and the network intentionally makes the unpopular characters think that as part of the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff. Anyone who wins the Travel Grant just gets relocated to another part of Arcadia.
• Retro Universe: Arcadia is a giant metropolis that's stuck in the '70s while the outside world proceeds as normal. While people born in Arcadia are unable to leave, people from The Outside World are able to enter as vacationers, but are forbidden to have anything on them or do anything that could potentially Break the Fourth Wall of American Arcadia, like having modern clothing, technology, accessories or even dyed hair.
• The Reveal:
  • Vivian Walton is actually Emily Garland, one of the six Breakout members who escaped from Arcadia years ago. After realizing how terrible she found the real world to be, she returned to the dome and agreed to assume the identity of Elijah Walton's "lost granddaughter" and took control of Walton Media.
  • It turns out that the company isn't actually killing off unpopular characters; this is a lie to trick them into participating in their new "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff. This way the company can deal with unpopular characters ethically and still make money by making them popular.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • Vivian/Emily tells Trevor that she was one of the six people to escape Arcadia during The Arcadia Six Breakout, noting that some of the leaked pictures of the incident had her face in them. The one image of the incident you get to see early in the game has a long-haired woman who has the same face and glasses as Vivian/Emily. An article shown during the credits making the specific comparison between Emily then and Vivian now shows that there are people in-universe that made that connection as well.
  • A lot of the dialogue and actions of side characters come off differently after learning the entire escape is staged with all of Trevor's pursuers being paid actors with a strict script to follow.
  • Marcus sounds genuinely shocked when Trevor makes a long jump onto a rickety ladder, only to recover and boast about how he will win regardless. This is obviously a moment when Trevor went "off-script", shocking Terry who then has to cover his lapse.
  • All of Marcus' interviews are set in front of the same black curtain with him being fairly brightly lit as compared to Trevor and Angela's more homely settings. It's obvious all the clips are taken from Terry's audition for the role.
  • Angela repeatedly complains about how ineffective Breakout is, repeatedly calling them the "worst activist group". The finale reveals Breakout sold out to Walton Media and now exists as a tool to locate and control dissidents. They're not concerned with helping Arcadians escape, they're trying to make entertaining escape attempts.
  • Most of the time when the player dies or fails a task as Trevor, the feed glitches out even when Trevor is supposedly in places where's he not being watched. This is a subtle clue about the scripted nature of his escape, unbeknownst to him, and how it cuts away when he goes off it in unsalvagable ways.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Arcadia Dome has a failsafe which will bring down the Dome and end the Jingle if pressed, which is hidden atop the main Spire. The self-destruct doesn't actually exist, the button is just the finish line for a new show.
• Shout-Out: A lot of fiction and people from real life also exists within American Arcadia's world, as characters reference them by name.
  • Angela initially calls the travel agents bargain-basement Beastie Boys but refers to them as travel agents since Trevor doesn't know who they are.
  • Why is an Interceptor referred to as "Tackleberry" by the public? As Angela puts it:
    Because he looked like that guy from the "Police Academy" movies. You know, helmet, sunglasses, leather jacket and all that.
  • One travel agent in the Blue Fountain Mall refers to the Interceptors as the "RoboCop Army".
  • Another agent calls Trevor "the stapler guy from Office Space."
  • Trevor confirms to Angela that his middle name is Clarence, using the angel from It's a Wonderful Life as reference. He even quotes a line from it.
  • Angela's amused reaction instead seems to come from Papa Doc's real name.
  • Angela points out how Trevor's disguise in the Blue Fountain Mall makes him look like Steven Spielberg. One travel agent makes this same exact remark.
  • Angela needs to steal the identity of someone whose name sorts out to be alphabetically late; she ends up using that of a coworker named Z.W. whom she dubs "Zazu Waluigi", as a reference to characters from The Lion King (1994) and Super Mario Bros. respectively.
  • If annoyed by an AutoDroid enough, Angela calls it WALL•E.
  • For a brief moment, as Trevor is getting up from his fall, his lying position mirrors the memetic death/knocked-out pose featured in Family Guy.
  • Besides American Arcadia having a similar premise to The Truman Show, Angela's fake name when booking into the Cygness hotel in preparation for Trevor's escape, Sylvia Lauren, references Lauren Garland and her character, Sylvia. There's also mention of a Burbank Act which was passed in order to create Arcadia.
  • One of the chat users in American Arcadia Live, Evil Trevor, refers to the real Trevor as "Angry Flanders"
  • Another chat user, once the reveal that Trevor's entire escape was planned by Walton Media drops, writes "Truth is, the game was rigged from the start".
  • Angela compares Marcus Jarvet's deep menacing voice to Darth Vader after he's shot with the taser, breaking character with a shrilly scream.
  • Cutting back to Marcus Javert's interview, his actor Terry Robinson cites that he can change his direction to match the T-1000, or Tommy Lee Jones' Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive.
  • One that's not acknowledged by the characters: the leader of Breakout is called "Number 6", a reference to another work about a man trying to escape from a pleasant prison.
  • When confronted with the Laser Grid Hallway in The Hexagon, Number Six tells Angela to memorize the beams before going through the hallway. Before Number Six could say the second part of that, Angela finishes their sentence by assuming they were going to tell Angela to reenact the laser scene from Ocean's Twelve.
• Small, Secluded World: Arcadia has been sealed off from the outside world and the information given to its citizens is heavily censored. The citizens think they're still living in the '70s and have no desire to learn what is happening outside their city. This situation is carefully maintained by Walton Media through various methods.
• Staged Populist Uprising: Vivian Walton reveals Trevor's escape and revolution rallying cry to the viewers, unbeknownst to Trevor and Angela, is just the pilot for another Walton Media spin-off: Escape from Arcadia.
• Stealth-Based Mission: A number of levels involve moving Trevor around, out-of-sight from enemies that threaten to catch him if they see him.
• Static Stun Gun: The Interceptors and their drones use non-fatal taser guns to capture Trevor.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: At the end of the game, Walton Media evidently didn't expect Trevor to reject the offer of hosting Escape from Arcadia, because once he calls it quits with the whole thing, their backup plan is Steve Just... with a blatantly Trevor-esque moustache. Both he and Angela are disgusted by the lack of originality.
• Switching P.O.V.: Trevor's gameplay is done in third-person 2½D; Angela's gameplay, whether she's looking through security cameras or doing something physical, is in first-person.
• Take That!: Walton Media is a big one to Disney, with the Arcadia Dome itself being treated as the world's own Disney Theme Parks. Tourists are allowed to visit, with lots of steps being taken to ensure they maintain the setting's kayfabe (no anachronistic fashions or devices are allowed inside); travel to and from their hotel via a monorail system; and are given an AccessBadge^note MagicBand to enter and exit. There's also line skipping available akin to FastPass.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Whenever Angela says anything along the lines of "Finally, you're going to make it" or "What could go wrong" to Trevor, something goes wrong moments later. It gets to the point where Trevor doesn't want to hear her say the former because of this trope and lambasts her for tempting fate.
  • When Trevor asks if anyone is looking for him in the Blue Fountain Mall, Angela reassures him that he's completely unknown in the city and suggests he take advantage of that. Not even five seconds later and Vivian makes an announcement about Trevor and provides a mugshot of him, meaning everyone now knows what he looks like.
    Angela: Famous last words.
  • During the climax of the story, as Trevor is making a beeline towards the Spire to take down Arcadia, he sees a billboard saying "Soar higher than ever before" while driving, which he tries to turn into a Badass Boast Ironic Echo:
    Trevor: "Soar higher than ever before..." "soar higher than ever before..."?! YEAH! I'LL SOAR HIGHER THAN EVER BEFORE! [cue his car going flying downward as he speeds off the ramp into an underground parking lot] AAAAAAAAAA— [cue Smash Cut to an interview]
• Title Drop:
  • Barring "American Arcadia", most chapters are usually introduced through a character speaking. For example, the chapter when Trevor is forced to go on the run:
    Trevor: Those were probably the worst two weeks in my entire life. Or at least, the weirdest. Although it was nothing compared to what I was going to experience later that day. Do you know they even had a... name for it?
    Interviewer: You mean a name for you...
    Trevor: Yes, that's it: "The Day the Running Started".
  • Doubling as a Rewatch Bonus, Vivian tells Trevor that the only way to "escape from Arcadia" is to press the failsafe button in her penthouse. When he gets there and presses the failsafe button, it's revealed that Walton Media planned Trevor's escape for their new show, "Escape from Arcadia". Vivian dropped an in-universe example of the trope.
• Train Escape: Trevor escapes the travel agents in Gemini Towers by boarding a monorail before its doors closed.
• "Truman Show" Plot: Everything that happens in Arcadia is part of the in-universe American Arcadia, which is a reality show. It focuses on several people within the metropolis who are constantly watched by an audience with the least popular characters getting killed off from the show. Then we learn that actually the network is only tricking the unpopular characters into believing that as part of the new "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff, making it a Truman show plot within a Truman show plot.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody really reacts to the Travel Agents and the Interceptors going after Trevor. How many of the bystanders are NPCs intentionally staying out of it is up in the air.
• Uterine Replicator: A news article in the credits implies that Arcadia's population is produced with this technology. Walton Media of course denies it.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: During the game's finale, Trevor's stream camera feed gets cut off with a card when Angela replaces the "Escape from Arcadia" trailer with footage showing how Trevor's life was put in genuine danger by Arcadia's security. It's also implied Trevor's earlier Rousing Speech is intentionally cut off by an advert.
• Wham Line:
  • When Angela discovers that Trevor gained a sudden influx of viewers when he goes to the Arcadia Spire in the final stretch of the game, she decides to track down Number Six's location for answers. When she gets Number Six's exact location, it quickly dawns on her on who exactly she's been talking to the whole time.
    Angela: Number Six is INSIDE ARCADIA?!?
  • The pursuit of Trevor takes on a very different tone after this line from Marcus Javert, the man in charge of the Interceptors.
    Marcus: I-I'm Terry Robinson. I'm just an actor!
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Walton Media and their complete lockdown over Arcadia stands in stark juxtaposition to how they're seemingly unable to catch one office worker who never goes to the gym. The ending implies that this is all on purpose, as part of the ploy to get Trevor to escape Arcadia and pilot the new spinoff show.
  • Arcadia security fields a flying taser-drone that is capable of detecting Trevor when visibility is poor, flying fast enough for him to be unable to outrun it, and incapacitating him instantly with no chance to fight back. But the drone only ever gets sent in if the player screws up a gameplay challenge, and as such most of the game is Trevor being (unsuccessfully) chased by human Mooks who can't take him down with anything but their own two hands.
  • Trevor is constantly being watched by cameras as part of American Arcadia's live feed; watching his stream is how Angela keeps tabs on him. Nobody at Walton Media seems to think to use the constant camera feed on Trevor as a way to stay one step ahead of him at every step of his journey, for traps and ambushes are the exception rather than the norm, and usually only from single members of law enforcement that run towards Trevor from another angle.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: When Marcus Javert is held at gunpoint by Trevor in their first chase, he invokes You Wouldn't Shoot Me. It works as Trevor simply throws away the gun in his direction. Marcus repeats this tactic against Angela, but she actually fires her taser at him. When it's revealed that "Marcus" is actually an actor, it's fitting that he expected the encounter to follow the usual tropes like last time.

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