Video Game / Lost Planet

He certainly looks lost.

Lost Planet is a Third-Person Shooter series developed by Capcom for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows.

The first game, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, takes place on a planet known as EDN III, a planet that humanity was attempting to colonize. However, the native Akrid, a mysterious race of insect-like creatures, drove off the colonists. Only after discovering the potent "Thermal Energy" inside their bodies did humans fight back. Now NEVEC, led by Commander Dennis Isenberg, is attempting to take control of EDN III by using what is known as the "Frontier System", which will terraform the cold planet in exchange for the elimination of all life on the planet.

You take control of Wayne Holden, an amnesiac and former colonist turned Snow Pirate, whose tasks revolve around the prevention of the Frontier System's activation. Initially, you are led by Yuri Solotov, who used to work for NEVEC, but he leaves around halfway through the game. Throughout the game you fight the Akrid and other soldiers. The first half of the missions pits you against the Crimson Unity, and the second half against NEVEC.

A sequel, Lost Planet 2, was released on May 2010. Ten years after the first game, large parts of EDN III have been terraformed, resulting in a variety of environments. The story follows the actions of several groups of "Snow" Pirates as they enter fights against opposing factions and fight off the increasingly aggressive Akrid. This time, NEVEC decides to use their space cannon NEOS to simply gather as much Thermal Energy as they can, and abandon the planet. At this point NEVEC becomes so heavy handed that a breakaway faction, known as Ex-NEVEC, begins to rally the Pirates to eliminate both the corrupted corporation and the titanic Over-G Akrid in the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

The series' executive producer, Keiji Inafune, left Capcom. Even still, a third game was released in August 2013, developed by Spark Unlimited.

Lost Planet 3 is a prequel revolving around one of the first expeditions to EDN III. You take control of Jim Peyton, who joins an NEVEC-sponsored expedition to EDN III to earn some to money to feed his family and to help find an alternate energy source to end Earth's energy crisis. However, he immediately discovers that the wild life is extremely hostile but also something weirder, a lost human colony established decades before and a cover up by the NEVEC corporation, who now plans to destroy all evidence of their mistakes and misdeeds.

The PTX-40A Vital Suit is a playable character in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom! It also makes a cameo in fellow Capcom game Asura's Wrath.

A cel-shaded cartoonish spin-off called E.X. Troopers was released in 2012 for PS3 and 3DS. It trades the cinematic sci-fi of the rest of the series for a VERY anime style. Apparently set at a NEVEC school/training academy, it features a Hot-Blooded shounen protagonist, his stoic Bishōnen rival, a mysterious girl who can somehow communicate with the Akrid, and Vital Suits that adhere more to traditional Humongous Mecha designs. Unfortunately, there are no plans to bring it to the west, and because of the way the text is coded into the game, it would have to be virtually rewritten from scratch in order to localize it. On the bright side, the PS3 is region free, the 3DS region lock can be circumvented, and the 3DS version received a full fan translation in 2019.

All three games are very different from each other, with the first game being a story-driven yet arcade-y shooter, while the second is a co-op centered missions-based shooter with emphasis on fighting giant monsters and the third is a story-driven cover shooter with Metroidvania elements.

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The series provides examples of:

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

• Absent Aliens: The Akrid are essentially dangerous wildlife and not "aliens" in a classic sci-fi sense. They're vicious, but they have no intelligence, tactical planning or technology.
• Amplifier Artifact: Wayne's Harmonizer gets supercharged by a device made just for it by Yuri Solotov, which enables him to unleash the full power of his father's VS.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Every single Akrid, from the smallest mooks all the way up to the massive bosses have glowing weak points where they store their thermal energy. In addition, both human enemies (the head) and Vital Suits (the engine or the kneecaps) have (fairly obvious) weak points.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Some of the bigger Akrid. There's also the massive Spider Tank boss in a late mission.
• Beam Spam: The Homing Laser can fire up to four beams that home in on targets. The typical VS can mount two of them.
  • However, it's Awesome, but Impractical. The lasers drain a lot of thermal energy, and can't do much at close range. Plus, it's useless in low-ceiling battles, since all the beams will hit the ceiling (the lasers shoot upward).
• BFG: Almost all VS weapons can be used on foot, from a gatling gun or a laser rifle up to a massive rocket launcher. Actually, using them on foot can prove to be Awesome, but Impractical in most cases- they're so big, they slow down your movement speed and limit your vertical jumping ability just by carrying them. On top of that, you can only stand and fire a VS weapon- not the greatest thing to do in battle.

• Big Damn Heroes: Joe saves Wayne from The Dragon Bandero, while blowing away two spider-tank VS's with his anti-VS rifle. Later, he single handedly destroys the Frontier Project from the inside, presumably avoiding all the NEVEC Mooks inside hunting for him.
  • To an extent, Rick saves Joe from Bandero as well, as Joe realized what the Frontier Project will actually do.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: A chainsaw is mounted in the arm of the PTX-class VS units.
• Book Ends: The end of the game has Wayne become amnesiac again, just like in the beginning.
• Boom, Headshot!: Landing bullets in the head will deal double the damage it would deal to another part of the body. It's also the only way to obtain weapons from enemies in the Campaign.
• Cast From Hitpoints: Recovering health consumes thermal energy. Energy weapons and piloting VS's also use up thermal energy, so it may not be the best idea to use them unless you've got plenty to spare.

• Charged Attack: All but two of the thermal energy based weapons can use the "hold trigger to charge" method. One of the two is a marksman rifle, and the other is a three-barreled rapid-fire weapon.

• Do Not Run with a Gun: Averted as all hell. Except when using VS weapons on foot (understandable, considering how big they are), almost every weapon can be used while moving. In fact, not running 'n gunning will end up wasting thermal energy due to wasting time or getting hit.
• Drill Tank: One VS can transform between this and a Spider Tank.
• Eleventh Hour Super Power: The L-P-9999, only usable in the last mission, once Wayne gets a device that unleashes the full power of his father's VS.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Green Eye is a massive Akrid with... green eyes.
• Fake Mixed Race: Wayne is supposed to half white, half Japanese, but his character model is patterned on the full-blooded Korean actor Lee Byung-hun.
• Gatling Good: The VS Gatling Gun. It's commonly equipped on the VS's you find.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: By simply pressing a button, you can lash out a hook (called the Anchor) that serves to pull you around places, rappel down chasms, knock down enemy humans, and so on. Unfortunately, you need to be on the ground to use it.
• Harder Than Hard: Extreme Mode fits this trope to the MAX.
• Heel–Face Turn: From NEVEC to Luka's Snow Pirate team, we have Joe.
• Hostile Terraforming: NEVEC is planning to terraform E.D.N. III in a way that would instantly thaw out the planet and kill the native Akrids and the rebelling colonists. Fortunately Wayne discovers an alternative that won't fry the colonists and by Lost Planet 2, ten years later, most of the frozen wastes of E.D.N. III have been replaced by deserts and jungles, and several new Akrid species are coming out of hibernation.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Averted. You can only carry two guns at any time (or one gun and a VS weapon), and one type of grenade.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Most of the weapons in the game are simple kinetic weapons. The handful of energy weapons that do exist are fairly rare and are not really worth using.
  • Subverted with the Plasma Gun. While its shots do not travel as fast as the Rifle's, it has a larger hitbox so you can hit your enemies even if your shot is not on par. It only costs 40 Thermal Energy per shot, and is a fairly effective weapon for all targets. The only downside is that you have to lead your shots at far out distances.
  • The Energy Gun also counts. Charged shots are its only effective use, but it can force a non-boss VS pilot to eject, making it available to you.
• A Mech by Any Other Name: The mecha are referred to as Vital Suits, or VS for short. They handle pretty much like standard Mini Mechas.

• Mini-Mecha: Most VS models fall under this designation: Not massive enough to be Humongous Mecha, too large to be Powered Armor.
• More Dakka: The typical VS can mount two weapons. Gatling Guns Akimbo = There Is No Kill Like Overkill.
  • It's useful too; Gatling Gun ammunition is piss-easy to come by and it comes in packs of 400 out of 999. That's not mentioning that the Gatling Gun is just as trustworthy as the Machine Gun on foot.

• Older Than They Look: Potentially anyone who uses the Harmonizer. Wayne is actually 30 years older than he's supposed to be. Though in Wayne's case it might have more to do with the fact that he was frozen in his Vital Suit after his first encounter with Green Eye.
• Pure Energy: Thermal Energy, harvested by killing Akrid. All we know is, it's some kind of glowing orange liquid, and that it's a good fuel source. Possibly overlaps with Green Rocks.
• Real-Time Weapon Change: Averted on foot, where Wayne/your online dude has to pause for a second to switch weapons. Played sorta straight with a VS, which will swap weapons on the ground almost instantly (so as long as there's a VS weapon on the ground).
• Redemption Promotion: Joe looks like another standard NEVEC mook who would get killed easily, but after defecting to Wayne's side he single-handedly infiltrates the orbital elevator and shut down "Frontier Project".
• Regenerating Health: Justified, as it is explained that the Harmonizer converts collected Thermal Energy to something usable in the body. One thing's for sure, though: run out of T-ENG and you're not gonna to live very long.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Fuel tanks and old vehicles can be destroyed to get more thermal energy. You can also find Akrid eggs to break, which also give energy.
• Sand Worm: A variant in snow rather than sand appears in Mission Three. Defeating one of them will get you an achievement.
• Single-Biome Planet: EDN III is completely covered in snow and is freezing 24/7. In other words it's an Ice Planet.
• Slow Laser: Fall into all of the standard erroneous tropes: glowing, slow-moving beams? Yup. Huge kickback? Uh-huh. Higher-end models capable of Roboteching? Of course!

• Spider Tank: One VS can transform between this and a Drill Tank.
• Sticky Bomb: The Disc Grenade will stick to Data Posts and enemies. The Gum Grenades stick to any flat surface.
• Stupid Sacrifice: Basil blows her chance to go see Yuri and escape at the same time, instead opting to stay behind and detonate bombs to "buy Wayne time" from the NEVEC reinforcements.

• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Sure, you could just turn them into Swiss cheese, but taking out his whole squad with the VS Rocket Launcher is much more satisfying.
• Trailers Always Lie: In the trailer, there is an epic war between the humans and the Akrid. In-game, it's all One-Man Army. The only time you fight alongside others is in the prologue.
• Transforming Mecha: One VS can transform between Drill Tank and Spider Tank modes. Another VS can transform between bipedal walker and a jet-propelled snowmobile.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: For the most part, the game is a third person shooter with the odd Mini-Mecha thrown in. Except for the end, where it decides to pull off a Zone of the Enders.
• Updated Re-release: Lost Planet: Colonies adds new weapons, maps, characters, and Akrid Hunter to multiplayer.

Lost Planet 2

• Artificial Stupidity: Your AI teammates are mediocre at taking out enemies (especially groups of them), but they might activate data posts and certain mission critical devices for you. Don't expect them to use Vital Suits effectively (much less get in one) or find their way around easily. Of course, they tend to get killed a lot, but this doesn't cost you anything.
  • The AI in any multiplayer simulation gets this treatment as well. You can get 50 kills off of them without moving from your camping spot, for example.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The support cannons. They deal immense damage and have incredible range, but they require a MINIMUM of 2 players (the person firing the weapon, and another supporting) and a whopping two thousand units of thermal energy (more than is usually carried by most players at any one time) from each player, and all participants have to remain stationary for the cannon to charge and fire.
• Badass Army: While Wayne's was only a prototype, here just about everyone has a Harmonizer. It could explain their improved strength, reflexes, and resilience.
• Bandito: The Vagabundos in Episode 5, who act as the game's comic relief.
• Base on Wheels: All of Episode 5 revolves around a hovering behemoth(s) packing a Death Ray. The ends of Episode 2 and 3 focus on the Railway Cannon, a massive train mounted artillery cannon.
• BFG: In Episode 3, you hijack the Railway Cannon, which you can then use against one of the biggest Akrid that is known to EDN III. Kill Big, indeed.
  • In Episode 5, you hijack the Thermal Laser Cannon, which fires an extremely high-powered energy beam.
  • Of course, all VS weapons are this to a normal person.
• Bigger Is Better: The entire game, including its tag line (KILL BIG) runs on this trope. Bigger Akrid, bigger guns, bigger Vital Suits and bigger explosions.

• Character Customization: Cosmetics, load-outs, titles, and abilities can be established, once you get them, of course.
• Colony Drop: The Over-G is finally killed when NEOS is dropped on top of it.
• Combination Attack: When fulfilling certain conditions, a team of players can pull off one of these. They are very flashy, and, if used well, very devastating.
• Combining Mecha: Two VS's can merge to form a bigger threat of a mech, complete with the ability to shoot a very powerful, focused laser called the "Final Cannon".
• Cosmetic Award: You can unlock new Noms De Guerre (translation: Names of War) through the slot machine and other means. Also, the various outfit pieces that can be unlocked by level ups or the second slot machine.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: The Waysiders get this big time trying to crack through the Over-G's outer shell while battling a pair of Cat-G Akrid. To put it simply, "Man, screw loading this anti-armor round with the crane. Here, I'll just throw the shell to you, you thrust kick the shell to reload it, and our buddy on the gun here will just pop that sucker off at a ninety degree angle." It's pretty epic.
• Death World: If it wasn't one before, the terraformed EDN III makes it more so, due to the fact that warmer climates make the Akrid go completely berserk.
• Defector from Decadence: The Ex-NEVEC faction. They wear the uniforms from the first game to differentiate them from the still-decadent types.
• Dual Boss: A few in the last episode, but the most recognizable of them would be the snow worm from the first making a return, this time with a partner. Also of note is the pair of sound-dependent Akrid from Episode 3-2.
• The End of the World as We Know It: According to the research of Ex-NEVEC, NEVEC's newest plan would send EDN III back into an ice age, this time much, much worse then before. Put simply, the planet becomes an absolute zero freezer.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Does EDN III have any other natural life-forms besides the Akrid?
• Faction Calculus: There are five playable factions in multiplayer that players can join. This trope, however, is slightly averted as the only thing different from each faction are the characters used^note The Guest Fighters listed in Intercontinuity Crossover can be used for all five factions:
  • Rounders: A faction consisting of Snow Pirates who constantly need to be on the move, or get around. There are two groups here, the Mercenaries, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and the Waysiders, a group of people who fight to survive.
  • N.E.V.E.C.: The main antagonists of the series, who are divided between the Ex-N.E.V.E.C (i.e. soldiers who underwent a Heel–Face Turn and rebelled against their former employers) and New N.E.V.E.C (i.e. soldiers loyal to N.E.V.E.C) groups.
  • Fight Junkies: As the title says, a faction consisting of people who like to fight and exert their dominance over other groups. These consist of the Jungle Pirates, Sandraiders, and Vagabundos.
  • Snow Pirate Elites: All members of this faction consist of the Snow Pirates from the first game, such as the Crimson Unity, Bug Ranchers, Hunters, and now the Carpetbaggers, Sea Dogs, and Mountain Bandits.
  • Femme Fetales: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, an all-female faction consisting of the female members from the other factions.
• Featureless Protagonist: All the player characters are random members of the various Snow Pirate factions or part of an Ex-NEVEC assault team.
• From Bad to Worse: Pretty much what the Waysiders had to go through throughout their chapter. So far, this is what had happened to them in a relatively short amount of time:
  • They attacked the Carpetbaggers' base, and lost half their men only to successfully steal four days' worth of T-ENG.
  • They are pursued on their train by an Over-G, and are forced to ditch the T-ENG they managed to steal.
  • Their aircraft are shot down by Sand Pirate snipers, and they are forced to fight a pair of large, reptilian Akrid before escaping.
  • In a bit of good news, they managed to steal the Carpetbaggers' Railway Gun, and used it to kill an Over-G that was similar to the one that attacked them; bad news is that when they took the Railway Gun back with them, they found out that their home base was no longer recognizable.

• Gondor Calls for Aid: Towards the end of the game, the Ex-NEVEC Commander puts out a message to everyone on the planet, asking him to help stop NEVEC's latest destructive plot. It's a fairly Rousing Speech, and at the time you hear it, you're navigating an orbital minefield in a VS on your way back down to the planet's surface.
• Gratuitous Spanish: The Vagabonds from Episode 5 occasionally shout, but are not limited to, "oye" (hear or listen) and "cabrones" (bastards).
• Guide Dang It!: Most of the Noms de Guerre have rather ridiculous unlock conditions. Also, the Railway Cannon, when you're using it for the first time at least.
  • The merged VS may sound like this, but most people fail to realize that the VS Manual tells you how to do the odd combo for transforming and which VS's can transform.
• Hand Cannon: A literal one, first seen in Lost Planet: Colonies. It requires "sniper accuracy", but will quickly kill most enemies. Seems to behave like a Grenade Launcher though.
• Healing Shiv: All players have a secondary projectile that gives some of your thermal energy to another player... by shooting it at them. It's handy to warn them if you can before Hilarity Ensues. There's also the Injection Gun, which, depending on the type, either powers up or flat out heals any teammates in a small radius of the impact, including yourself. There are also the healing grenades.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: This game features Albert Wesker and Frank West as old save bonuses or through a password, Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago (Xbox 360 only), a Monster Hunter suit and a Helghast Scout and Soldier (PS3 exclusives). [Incidentally, the Gears of War characters' presence was announced on January 26, 2010, the same date as the American release of another Capcom crossover which included a Vital Suit as a playable character].
  • Rule of Cool: Epic Games' opinion over letting Capcom use Marcus and Dom.
    "They [Capcom] contacted us about the cameo and we said 'heck yeah.'"
• Kill Sat: NEOS is equipped with a massive Thermal Energy cannon. You hijack it towards the end of the game. When the cannon is not enough to kill the monstrous Over-G Akrid, Task Force First Descent decides to simply drop it on the thing.
• Jiggle Physics: A couple of outfits for female Snow Pirate models. These outfits not only come with very motion-prone breasts, but a rather soft behind as well. Jump in place to your heart's content.
• Just Eat Him: Larger Akrid can and will. The first Category-G you fight, however, has soft, squishy innards, so jumping down the beast's gullet is not only an option, but endorsed by the game's GJ rewards system.
• Level Grinding: Most of the Noms de Guerre require this. Also, you have the standard Faction Levels that max out at Level 99.
• Luck-Based Mission: Sort of, with the slot machine that you get your abilities, titles, weapons, and eventually outfits from. It's entirely up to chance what you get from it, but you won't get the same two items from it.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: The Gun Sword. It packs half the ammunition of the standard Machine Gun and has a much slower rate of fire; in return, it's fairly accurate, deals great damage (10-12 shots on the higher difficulties to kill a standard soldier, in contrast to the 30-40 bullets of the Machine Gun), and inflicts higher base melee damage than any other weapon save the Pile Bunker and Laser Lance (both VS weapons), and its own upgraded variant the Gun Sword SP (which trades bullet damage for even greater melee potential).
• Mood Whiplash: Episode 4 ends with one Ex-NEVEC team beginning their second phase of their mission by heading to NEVEC's space station to prevent The End of the World as We Know It. Then Episode 5 opens up by establishing your POV on the Vagabonds as the game's comic relief.
• Nerf: All energy weapons were given an overheat gauge, supposedly to prevent abuse of the Homing Laser among other things.
  • In a patch, many things were nerfed in multiplayer to balance with other weapons. Of particular note is the Cannon, which had its ammunition changed from ∞​ to 15, and its reload time quintupled. The Gun Sword SP also had its lag time lengthened.
• Pile Bunker: A hand-held weapon. Can be attached to a VS. One in particular seems made for it, as it dashes forward when it uses the Bunker
• Press X to Not Die: A new addition, QTEs are in Lost Planet. In an interesting variation, however, the situations requiring them are very static (the input is all that changes), and have every player participate. The third time you have to do this, you have to react a total of three times.
  • An unusual thing is that, while your character DOES... die, the mission isn't necessarily failed. It only fails if your Battle Gauge is depleted.
• Send in the Clones: Late defecting NEVEC team Task Force First Descent are clones of Ivan Solotov, blamed for several betrayals in the first game.
• Stripperiffic: Some of the female Snow Pirate uniforms are... revealing, to say the least. Of course, there are more reasonable options as well.
• Single-Biome Planet: Averted with the appearance of jungles and deserts, though some areas are still iced over. The emerging Cat-Gs and the Over-G make it much like the climate it was a decade ago on EDN III.
• Taking You with Me: Episode 3-3: Once Red Eye has low health, it will make one final attack that will end your mission outright if not stopped. You gotta fire the Railway Cannon one final time into Red Eye's open mouth to prevent this and finish it off.
• Traintop Battle: Against one of the biggest Akrid in the game.
• Underground Monkey: Well, sort of. In addition to Snow Pirates, we now have pirates of the jungle and desert varieties, and then subsets of those pirates.
• Underwater Boss Battle: Episode 4: The experimental submarine as the Episode's boss and the two Akrid seas serpents in Episode 4-4.
• Unstable Equilibrium: The farther you are in the game, the more weapons and abilities you can choose from, giving you an adaption advantage over newcomers.
• Virtual Paper Doll: With many wardrobe options (and cameo skins) for your multiplayer pirate, you will see people with either horrifying, sexy, plain, or awesome clothing combinations.

Lost Planet 3

• Authority Equals Asskicking: Colonel Caleb Isenberg puts up one hell of a fight against Jim in the finale.
• Badass Normal: Jim, a colonist who, unlike the battle-hardened heroes of previous games, is an everyman trying to provide for his family back on Earth. Doesn't stop him from cutting down Akrid by the hundreds.
  • This is even more so when you consider that Wayne and the characters of Lost Planet 2 all had Harmonizers. These haven't been invented yet at the time Lost Planet 3 occurs yet Jim still fights thousands of Akrid just fine. Story-wise at least; in gameplay no matter how many grievous injuries he takes he can always Walk It Off.
• Bittersweet Ending: Jim and the rest of the Coronis crew are stranded on E.D.N. III and Nushi dies, but Colonel Isenberg & his army are all killed and Jim's wife and son made it to E.D.N. III to live with him. Jim himself manages to live another 50 or so years but when NEVEC returns to the planet, he ends up dying in a cave trying to hide from them in his granddaughter's arms. Diana Peyton states that Harmonizers have started a new arms race, and a vicious pirate group called the Crimson Unity have come to E.D.N. III for those as well.
• Bug War: The Akrid. As if surviving on E.D.N. III wasn't hard enough on its own. The First Colony had to be abandoned because they lost the bug war.
• Call-Forward: Gale's last name is Holden, meaning this guy will eventually become Wayne's father.
  • For the final boss fight, Colonel Isenberg pilots a Vital Suit.
  • The Crimson Unity is mentioned in the ending.
• Chekhov's Gun: The device that Kovac builds that drives the Akrid into a frenzy. Isenberg steals it at the end and takes it to the heart of Nushi, hoping to use it to take complete control of the Akrid.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Jim is always eager to leap at the chance to help anyone out. Got some loose support columns that need tightening? Need to collect some Akrid DNA samples? Got to rush into the heart of an Emperor-class storm to take some readings? Have a Category G Akrid that needs to be put down, stat? Jim's your man to do it! This is actually what saves his life after fighting the Cat-G Akrid and falling off the cliff of the comm tower, as Mira implies she would have left him to die had she not seen that he was such a good man. Later on, this tendency of his goes through a Deconstruction as he has to choose between helping people who have mutually exclusive goals.
• Crapsack World: It's mentioned many times that Earth is suffering from a severe energy crisis, and austerity riots are commonplace.
• Darker and Edgier: The game incorporates more elements of the survival horror genre like Dead Space. The plot, unlike the previous games which had more or less an Excuse Plot, focuses on people being unable to trust each other and ends on a bittersweet note.
• Deflector Shields: Laroche's Rig near the end has a force field protecting its cockpit, courtesy of NEVEC upgrades. This forces Jim to focus his attacks on the limbs.
• Energy Economy: Unlike the previous installments, this entry has weapons and upgrades that can be purchased, and the unit of currency is T-ENG... which is also Akrid blood.
• Feed It a Bomb: Several enemies can be defeated much more easily if you throw a grenade in their mouths.
• Foregone Conclusion: Just from the first cutscene alone, it is clear that Jim's plan to prevent NEVEC from ever returning to E.D.N. III is unsuccessful.
• Framing Device: The entire game's plot is actually being told by an elderly dying Jim Peyton to his granddaughter.
• French Jerk: Laroche is a jerk from the moment you meet him. He gets better by the end, to the point that 50 years later, he is proud to call Jim "my oldest friend."
• Gaia's Vengeance: The Akrid. They're actually a defense mechanism for Nushi, the organism within E.D.N. III that produces the Thermal Energy. Soichi even refers to them as "antibodies." This is crucial for the final battle, where Jim is completely outgunned against Isenberg's Vital Suit, so he has to force Isenberg to hit nerve clusters in Nushi that will unleash the Akrid on him.
• Gender-Blender Name: Jim initially thinks Gale is a woman upon hearing the name. If they're on, though, the subtitles spoil it for the player since they spell the name out and the player can see it is "Gale", not "Gail."
• Generation Xerox: Dennis Isenberg clearly turned out to just as bad as his father Caleb.
• Heel–Face Turn: Unlike previous installments, N.E.V.E.C. is not a major antagonist, but instead an organization that assists in colonization efforts on E.D.N. III. This game marks N.E.V.E.C.'s Start of Darkness as the player uncovers their dark secrets.
• I Have Your Wife: Near the end Isenberg shows Jim that Grace and their son have been taken into NEVEC custody under the guise of protecting them from riots. Subverted later when we find out Braddock managed to get them released and sent to E.D.N. III instead.
• Improvised Weapon: The Rigs have a variety of equipment for mining Thermal Energy which can also be quite handy for fighting Akrid. In fact, the Rigs could mount actual weapons on them, as noted early on when Laroche demands a machine gun for his Rig, but NEVEC company policy forbids this. A brief rundown of the Rig weapons is as follows:
  • Fire-Breathing Weapon: An acetylene torch: perfect for welding. Also burns Akrid alive.
  • Power Fist: The left hand claw can be used to manipulate devices, or it can be used to grab Akrid limbs and hold them in place.
  • This Is a Drill: Great for mining or for tearing through Akrid flesh.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: The winch on the left hand can be used to set up a zipline and also makes for a pretty effective ranged attack.
  • Shock and Awe: The Shock-Jumper is meant for recharging batteries, but can fry Akrid pretty well. As well as an enemy Rig.
• Lampshade Hanging: Jim eventually grows irritated with the fact that nearly every door on the planet is either locked or out of power. The same can be said for practically every generator outside of Coronis.
• Lost Colony: Jim is under the impression that the expedition he's signing up to join is the first human presence on E.D.N. III. That's not quite true.
• Mini-Mecha: Instead of Vital Suits, the game will feature Rigs, which are not weaponized (these are meant for mining materials above all else) and serve as the predecessors of Vital Suits. These Rigs seem to be very important as well for exploring E.D.N. III, as the game's HUD is tied into the Rig; the farther you are from it, the more transparent your HUD is. Rigs, unlike VS's, are also customizable.
  • Colonel Isenberg's Vital Suit at the end of the game serves as the Final Boss.
• Moral Myopia: While the base was being completely overrun with Akrid, General Braddock of the First Colony expedition gave the order for the NEVEC ships to take off and evacuate E.D.N. III as soon as he and his wife and son were aboard. The thousands of other colonists he left behind could go to hell for all he cared.
• Multinational Team: The NEVEC expedition on E.D.N. III, while mostly American, also includes an Indian, a French Rig pilot, and two scientists of Serbian and British descent.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Jim easily cuts through Isenberg's assertions that he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist, accusing Isenberg of being nothing but a killer. Isenberg fires back, saying that Jim is a hypocrite as he murdered over 100 NEVEC soldiers who were only doing their jobs in a cowardly act of terrorism by using a false distress call to lure them back to their ship and then detonating it. While Jim wasn't the one who did it, he was privy to it, and he does not refute what Isenberg says.
• Poor Communication Kills: Jim ends up keeping a lot of secrets from his comrades at Coronis after meeting the survivors and descendants of the First Colony expedition. This causes some serious problems when later on Laroche, believing that Jim is conspiring with Snow Pirates to steal Thermal Energy, calls NEVEC's paramilitary force to come to E.D.N. III and secure the colony.
• Prequel: The game takes place long before the events of the first game.
• Private Military Contractors: NEVEC's armed forces are referred to as paramilitary and they are a PMC in all but name.
• Redemption Equals Death: Phil Braddock also dies when he destroys the NEVEC cruiser as a result of the survivor's guilt he carries on being part of the reason why the First Colony expedition was marooned on E.D.N. III.

• Start of Darkness: We see NEVEC's first true atrocity is slaughtering as many of the First Colony survivors as they can once they make planetfall on E.D.N. III, because if it ever became public that one of their generals marooned thousands of people on the planet, it would be the end of the company.
• Take Cover!: A cover mechanic is introduced in this installment, which helps as some of the Akrid are able to spit spines and even highly explosive blobs at you. Later on in the game, the cover mechanic is played much straighter when you fight human enemies.
• Truth Serum: Isenberg uses Sodium Veribarbital on Jim after capturing him at the first colony.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Isenberg sure thinks of himself as one, and believes control of the Akrid, and by extension T-Energy, will solve Earth's energy crisis.

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