"They say... hope begins in the dark. But most just flail around in the blackness... searching for their destiny. The darkness, for me, is where I shine."
— Riddick
The second of two games set in The Chronicles of Riddick universe. Assault on Dark Athena is a sequel to the 2004 game Escape from Butcher Bay. It also features an HD remake of the entire Butcher Bay campaign.
Dark Athena's story begins where Butcher Bay left off after Riddick and Johns escaped together. While in stasis sleep, they are taken forcibly aboard the Dark Athena, a massive mercenary vessel. The ship is run by Gale Revas (Michelle Forbes) and her second-in-command, Spinner. Whilst Johns is captured, Riddick manages to escape and must now fight his way off the ship to safety.
Whilst the game's AI showed its age a bit and the multiplayer disappointed, it was received very well and proved to be enjoyable to fans of the first game and newcomers alike. It was also praised for its great voice acting.
This videogame contains examples of:
- All Just a Dream: As with the previous game, it's strongly implied that the tutorial level is just a dream Riddick has in hypersleep.
- Anti-Frustration Feature: If you die and auto-reload at a checkpoint, you sometimes regain health. It doesn't work in some cases (e.g. before fighting Jaylor).
- Body Backup Drive: The Athena uses disposable cyborg drones as meat suits that can be accessed by anyone from a drone control station. Riddick at one point breaks into one and turns it against the mercs. Every time they kill a drone, Riddick can just "jack in" again and activate the next one in line; this is even necessary to advance beyond a Deadly Rotary Fan.
- Bond One-Liner: Riddick knocks Revas into an elevator shaft, then drops her after a short conversation. Lynn asks him if she's gone. "When I say goodbye, it's forever."
- Bounty Hunter:
- The Dark Athena ship is half this, half private military force/slave ship.
- Riddick plays a weird version of this in the game, as he collects bounty hunter bounties, with them having often strange and even hilarious reasons for the bounty, like a man wanted for killing a royal family member's goose, or one wanted for killing over 36,000 people, and his bounty being 25,000 UD, with the only person with that low of a bounty other than him having been convicted of stealing religious memorabilia.
- Break the Cutie: Lynn Silverman gets hit hard with this trope. To start, she and her parents end up on a shitty transport shuttle trying to find a new life somewhere, only for the Athena to raid it and capture everyone aboard. Then she manages to escape, while her parents are imprisoned. While evading the mercs by living in the ventilation system, she ends up witnessing her father get turned into a drone. She later meets up with her mother again after Riddick deactivates the prison cells in order to start a riot. Then she gets to watch her mother get shot in the back by a psychotic ex Athena merc turned prisoner named Jaylor while trying to let Riddick out of a ventilation hatch (in previous conversations with Riddick, Jaylor constantly talked about how he wanted to kill and rape Ellen. Yes, in that order). Later, after Riddick stabs Revas in the neck and gets off the ship in an escape pod, Lynn will run up to the window and beg him not to leave her behind, while the Made of Iron Revas will call you out on that and tell you she's going to make the kid suffer (and promptly shoots Riddick's pod down onto Aguerra Prime). After Riddick makes his way back onto the Athena to use it to get off the planet (who were raiding it), Lynn shows up again and helps you by causing the drones to attack the mercs. Riddick finally seems to have her safe after finishing Revas for good shortly after. By the way, Lynn is six.
- Cargo Ship: In-universe, towards Riddick's escape from the Athena one of the mercs can be heard describing the ship as a beautiful dame who lit up his life, and that she's serenading him. His partner laments being saddled with a weirdo on his last shift.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Riddick arrives on the Athena, he will steal Revas's hairpin (fashioned out of a bone) during the cutscene to use it as a shiv, among several other weapons you acquire. At the end of the first boss fight, Riddick will use it to knive Revas through the neck.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Jaylor means it when he says he's going to kill Ellen Silverman.
- Combat Pragmatist: During the prison break, Jaylor will challenge Riddick to put away his gun and face him mano-a-mano. If you don't, he'll come out shooting with an assault rifle. If you do, he'll come out to fistfight you. At this point, you can just pull out your gun again and shoot him in the head.
- Contractual Boss Immunity: Counter-attacks don't work against melee combat bosses (Ironlord, Jaylor, and Captain Revas herself), although if your timing is good you can still interrupt their attacks with regular strikes from a fast weapon like fists or the knife.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The mechanics of the melee combat system have been changed quite a lot between the original Butcher Bay and this game. This is especially noticeable when replaying the remastered Butcher Bay levels. In general, enemies are a lot better at blocking, and there is greater emphasis on counters rather than "stick and move". You need to use somewhat different tactics than in the original version, or else you'll get pummeled.
- Dark Action Girl: Revas got control of the Athena by being even tougher and meaner than the other mercs. She is a proficient soldier and even takes on Riddick directly in a knife fight and powered armor.
- Demoted to Extra: Johns was an important character in Escape from Butcher Bay, but here, he doesn't have any relevance to the plot and spends nearly the entire story unconscious. This was apparently
caused by his voice actor being unavailable. - Disney Villain Death: Revas dies this way, as she falls to her death in the elevator shaft of the Athena.
- The Dragon: Revas's second-in-command Spinner, overlapping with The Brute. Blindly loyal to her, he is the penultimate enemy Riddick faces before squaring off with Revas.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Two mercs are discussing the punishments Revas metes out to the crew to keep them in line. When one of them makes a black humored joke about the apparent Torture Technician known only as "the Dentist", his older colleague reminds him that there's nothing funny about it with a Precision F-Strike.
- Elite Mooks: The red-armored Mercs with red goggles encountered towards the end of Dark Athena have insane amounts of armor and can take more than a full magazine of assault rifle fire to kill. Most players never notice this, though, since by that point in the game you're given a One-Hit Kill rifle with unlimited ammo.
- Embedded Precursor: Assault on Dark Athena comes packaged with an HD remake of Escape from Butcher Bay.
- Endless Corridor: During the tutorial level, Riddick enters a seemingly endless hallway after he's killed all the enemies and goes through the last door. Walking towards the end makes all the lights progressively go out as Riddick notes how the dark doesn't scare him.
- Fate Worse than Death: Getting turned into a Drone. At one point Riddick encounters two prisoners in the middle of the conversion process, and both beg him to mercy kill them. It's up to the player to oblige them.
- Faux Affably Evil:
- Gail Revas, who is often polite and well-spoken to her fellow mercs, though she makes it clear she is an utterly monstrous person with no regard for human life.
- Also Jaylor. He acts somewhat friendly towards Riddick when he is helping him get what he needs, however he does a bad job at hiding how repulsive he really is, particularly when Riddick mentions Silverman to him, where he expresses his disgusting lust for her. And when Riddick refuses to rile her up for him, Jaylor drops his friendly act and starts cussing at Riddick, calling him a cunt. And according to his profile, Jaylor has a history of preying on the innocent and manipulating them by pretending he is Nice Guy, for his own malicious purposes.
- Foregone Conclusion: Anyone who has watched a Riddick movie will know that he and Johns will survive, but their past beforehand is largely unknown in the movies, so only their survival is known, not the events.
- Giant Mook:
- Ironlord early in the game when you are on the to kill Margo, overlapping with The Brute. This guy has a large health pool and can take a lot of damage, and his punches deals massive damage even through your blocks. Your only way to survive is never be hit by him. Or else, even if you are armed with ulaks or knives, if you get hit few times, and even if you had blocked all those times, he will force you to go back and heal yourself twice and maybe even more. The club makes it slightly easier due to its range, but its still quite difficult to beat him. And it becomes an even bigger mightmare in Hard Mode It is revealed later that he is the best fighter of the underground club there. His inhuman strength and endurance is due to the steroid abuse, though it came with the price that his mental faculties became very low
- Once you reach planetside, you start facing Alpha Drones as mini-bosses. They're massive, 9 to 10 foot tall drones equipped with a heavy grenade launcher for an arm and a shoulder-mounted heavy machinegun. They're essentially Immune to Bullets and can only be killed with either the SCAR Gun or their own grenades.
- Guide Dang It!: The first time you meet an Alpha Drone, you will be killed because you have no idea how to defeat it. (You have to first stick five SCAR Gun shots on it, detonate them to make it kneel, and kill it up close.) Thankfully, most times the game drops some hints after a while.
- Human Resources: The Ghost Drones. Human prisoners gutted, lobotomized, and given rudimentary AIs that can be overridden by a human operator.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- At the end of the first boss fight with Revas, Riddick puts her down by stabbing Revas through the neck with her own hairpin, with he had stolen from her earlier. Subverted though, as Revas survives with a nasty throat wound.
- At the end of the game, the Dark Athena crew are all slaughtered by their own Ghost Drones, who Lynn manages to reprogram to kill all the mercs. Given that the Dark Athena's main activity was to raid colonies and spaceships to kidnap civilians en-mass to turn them into Ghost Drones, it's a richly deserved Karmic Death.
- I Love the Dead: Jaylor states in no uncertain terms that he intends to do this to Ellen Silverman after first killing her as soon as the prisoner riot starts. He makes good on the "killing her" part, but doesn't survive for long afterwards.
- Intercom Villainy: Revas uses the intercom of the Athena to taunt Riddick from time to time. When he hijacks a Mech suit of armor, she does the same with a one-way video uplink.
- Long Song, Short Scene: The game contains a very brief sequence in which the player can control Drones, during which the ordinarily ambient soundtrack is dropped for an
Awesome techno beat... which is used nowhere else in the game and appears to be impossible to find in MP3 format. Is this
it? - Made of Iron: For no clear reason, Jaylor has more health than any other melee combat enemy in either Assault on Dark Athena or the Escape from Butcher Bay HD remaster, including Ironlord and Revas. However, he's an otherwise mediocre fist-fighter and you can also just whip out a gun and shoot him in the face.
- Mercy Kill: Riddick encounters a man strapped to an operating table who's being converted into a Ghost Drone. The man begs Riddick to pass a message on to his family and kill him before the doctors can finish. It's up to the player to do so.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: This game feels more like an expansion pack to Escape from Butcher Bay than a sequel. Since the graphics, weapons, enemies and mechanics are virtually the same. Interestingly, this game was originally supposed to be a level add-on for Butcher Bay.
- More Deadly Than the Male: Most of the mercs on Revas' ship cower in fear of her. She became the captain of the Dark Athena by seducing the original captain, then leading a mutiny against him and keeping the rest of the crew in line with torture and forced roboticization.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: The Proxy. Mercs controlling Ghost Drones are using them as meat puppets in the field so the mercs themselves are protected from all harm. Death becomes a minor nuisance to the player when Riddick himself uses a drone station, as every time a drone falls in battle you just immediately wire back in and the next drone in line activates.
- Nintendo Hard: Hard mode. Stealth is an absolute must. Luckily, the only thing that changes is enemy damage. Their health and intelligence remains the same.
- No-Gear Level: In the first boss fight against Revas, she kicks you and your assault rifle flies under the table. Yet, when the game starts up again, all your weapons are gone besides your club, blades, and fists. Additionally, you often lose any NanoMED cartridges you have in your inventory when transitioning between levels.
- Pet the Dog: It's mentioned that Lynn has managed to survive hiding in the air vents of the ship because some of the mercs have been leaving food out for her, against the orders of their superiors who want the kid captured or dead. At one point you hear a merc feeling awful because he forgot to leave food out for the kid, and worrying about whether she'll be alright. Makes it doubly difficult since you have to kill him to proceed
- Powered Armor:
- The Athena's version of the Riot Guards from the first game. It seems to be a military-grade version that lacks the prominent vulnerable vent in the back that the Butcher Bay guard version had.
- The Iron Lord, a personal combat suit (think Iron Man or Bubblegum Crisis) which Revas wears in the final boss fight.
- Puzzle Boss: Revas in your second and final fight. She's immune to any conventional attacks, but the SCAR gun or Ulaks can knock her backwards. Beating her requires opening the doors of the elevator shaft behind her, and knocking her back enough times to make her fall in to her death.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The sadistic Jaylor expresses his intent to rape Silverman, and asks Riddick to rile her up for him. Riddick refuses and replies he just murders people. In fact, Jaylor is a prisoner in the first place because his fellow mercs found his expressed desire to rape the prisoners to be going too far; bear in mind these are the same mercs who are perfectly fine with gunning down fleeing civilians or kidnapping them to be butchered into Ghost Drones.
- Regenerating Health: You can regenerate damage within a box of health by standing still for a few seconds, but if the segment is lost, you need a med station. However, the Powered Armor in the space walk uses a fixed amount of health that gets fixed at repair stations.
- Sculpted Physique: The armor worn by the Athena mercs have this appearance, which fits with the "space gothic" tone of the second film.
- Space Pirates: What the Athena and her crew has become under Revas's command. The former captain built the ship to formally operate within the law as a mercenary vessel that would capture criminals and function as a military force for hire. After deposing him, Revas orders every ship in sight seized, colonies raided, and their inhabitants gathered up to be sold as slaves or used as Human Resources.
- Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: You stab Revas through the neck and she's still alive once you leave.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- After killing Ellen Silverman, Jaylor demands Riddick to put away his gun and "fight like a man". Take a good guess how well that turns out for Jaylor.
- After Riddick kills Jaylor, another prisoner named Sad Eyes attacks him due to her being a member of the Blueskins gang, whom Riddick killed several members of back in Butcher Bay. She dies even faster than Jaylor did.
- Torture Technician: An unseen member of the Athena crew occasionally referred to as "The Dentist" is strongly implied to be this. Being sent to him/her is considered an extreme punishment, on par with having your body harvested into a mindless cyborg. One seasoned merc is willing to face the One-Man Army that is Riddick when Revas threatens him with a "trip to the Dentist". Earlier in the game another merc can be overheard joking about it, and his partner immediately shuts him up with a sincere "Don't even fucking joke about that".
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Those who have played Butcher Bay will be surprised with this game at first, as it is an action shooter at most times of the game, as Butcher Bay was mainly a stealth game up until the end and the dream sequence at the beginning. It is easy to get used to, but it is obvious that the engine was built around stealth and melee, something you won't be able to do when you're sandwiched by several drones all shooting at you.
- Unusable Enemy Equipment: A variant with drones, who's guns are attached to their arms. While you can use them as a Meat Shield and wield their guns that way, there's no way to detach the gun and carry it with you.
- Unwilling Roboticization: Much of the Athena's mission since Revas took over is to annihilate major colonies so the survivors can be harvested for her cyborg army. The "Ghost Drones" can be remote-controlled by the other mercs from specific control stations and are mindless automatons. Riddick encounters a guy who's in the middle of the transformation process and begs Riddick to kill him.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: A helpless prisoner on the Athena is being converted into a Drone. He asks you to kill him to spare him this fate, but you can just leave him lying there, in which case you may well imagine him as one of the Drones you kill later in the game. Though this may be a good thing, as when drones help you he might be one of them, so he gets revenge on his captors.
- We Can Rule Together: Revas makes this offer to Riddick a couple of times. He's characteristically unimpressed. After all the mayhem he causes, Revas quickly decides she just really, really wants to kill him.
- Worthy Opponent: After the boss fight with Spinner, when Riddick finishes him off he notes that Spinner was "better than average", which is rare praise from the man. Given that there wasn't anything particularly exceptional about Spinner compared to all the other roided-up muscleheads he's faced, it's likely Riddick was just in a generous mood.
- Would Hurt a Child: During Riddick's escape from the Athena, Revas reveals herself to be alive. She tries to kill little Lynn, who was trying to get on Riddick's escape craft after it took off.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Roughly halfway through the game Riddick boards an escape pod and gets off the Athena, only for Revas to shoot him down, causing him to crash land on the colony planet the Athena is currently raiding.
- You Wake Up on a Beach: The game opens with Riddick washed up on a beach on some alien planet before running into mercenary soldiers, which later turns out to be All Just a Dream he experienced in hypersleep. This is revisited later in the game when Riddick crash lands in an escape pod on a very similar beach and planet.
