Rage for Gaia
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood is an action role-playing game by Cyanide Studio released in February 2021. It's based off the Werewolf: The Apocalypse game set in the Old World of Darkness universe.
Cahal, a werewolf who's part of the Fianna tribe and servant of Yfen, fights alongside his pack to stop humans who pollute the planet and cause environmental destruction. After a mission goes awry and ends with Cahal accidentally killing one of his own, he goes into exile for five years to try and control his rage.
But when Cahal learns that his tribe is in trouble and that an oil subsidiary called Endron is destroying the ecosystem and killing anyone in their path, Cahal returns to his tribe to stop Endron and to redeem himself.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood provides examples of:
- Air-Vent Passageway: When in Lupus form, Cahal can crawl around in air ducts to move without being spotted and bypass locked doors.
- An Arm and a Leg: During one of her confrontations, Major Graner had her arm maimed by a werewolf. It was so badly mutilated that it had to be amputated and was replaced with a prosthetic.
- Anyone Can Die: Quite a few named characters are killed off throughout the story. Depending on your choice in the final mission, everyone still alive will end up dead except Cahal and Onawa.
- Aura Vision: By phasing into the Penumbra, Cahal can see things hidden from mortal eyesight: all living creatures are visible as glowing forms regardless of cover, and this additionally reveals the presence of silver (as jagged, glowing white shapes), Bane possession (as writhing purple tentacles emerging from people), and spirits. However, physical objects aren't visible in this state, meaning that Cahal needs to return to his mortal senses when he wants to move around.
- The Berserker: Every Garou is this with falling to it, and becoming a permanent monster something that every one of them fears. It is also a very useful game mechanic and allows you to tear through enemies like Wolverine crossed with the Hulk.
- Big Bad: Richard Wadkins, the CEO of Endron and the developer of the Earthblood biofuel, who longs to convert all of humanity into servants for the Wyrm. His machinations are the source of Endron's conflicts with Cahal's pack, and the game centers around Cahal's attempts to retrieve his daughter, whom Wadkins kindapped, and his attempts to halt his plan to spread a Wyrm-tainted fuel.
- Body Horror: Bane possession horrifically disfigures its victims — the fomori that Cahal fights possess features such as distended throats and stomachs filled with bile, swollen heads covered in eyes, and spongy, hole-filled flesh capable of extruding tangled masses of spiny tendrils.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The Endron Elite Mooks are hulking, muscular brutes who wield either huge serrated knives or heavy, low-slung rotary guns that they use as improvised clubs in melee.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: It wouldn't be Werewolf: The Apocalypse if not for the fact that it is full of these. Unusual in that every single employee for Endron ranging from the highest executive to the lowliest goon is a scumbag of one sort or another. There's not a Punch-Clock Villain in sight.
- Destroy the Security Camera: One of the two ways of getting rid of security cameras is to snipe them down with a crossbow bolt. The other option is to find a computer terminal with which to turn them off.
- Downer Ending: Neither ending is particularly uplifting. No matter what choices you make, everyone in the game, including Aedana, ends up dead with the exception of Cahal and Onawa, and The Stinger implies that Pentex is going to dig up Wadkins' data and resume his plans anyway. You can potentially save Declan and Ava and stop the production of Earthblood, but doing so warrants Wadkins a Karma Houdini — which, again, gives Pentex the opportunity to restart his plans all over again. This verges on being a Bittersweet Ending for the Garou as a whole if not Cahal. He's cost Pentex hundreds of employees, gained data on the Earthblood project, halted it at least temporarily, and saved two caerns from destruction. At the very least he's done a significant amount of damage to the enemy and cost them billions of dollars in revenue.
- The Dragon: Major Graner, Wadkins' military operator who frequently deploys most of the Endron soldiers out to kill the Lambda activists and other enemies of Endron.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dusk is abruptly killed when he's exposed to the Earthblood gas Wadkins deploys in the Nevada desert. You don't even see his death or fight him as a Fomori; Ava just tells Cahal via earpiece that he perished and he's never brought up again.
- Elite Mook: The Earthblood project is designed to make these. It turns ordinary humans into Formor, basically disgusting mutant killers straight out of Resident Evil.
- Enemy Chatter: Endron guards are often found talking with one another when Cahal enters an area, which often serves as a source of information on Endron's internal goings-on and on the turnings of the wider Garou-Endron conflict.
- Expy: Carried from the game, Endron is a combination of Exxon and Enron with their evil (a bit) larger than their real-life counterparts.
- Feathered Serpent: Pachu'a, the guardian spirit of the Red Talons camp, resembles an immense skeletal rattlesnake with the wings and skull of a hawk.
- Flunky Boss:
- During his boss battle, Pachu'a calls in a constant stream of Red Talon warriors to harass and distract Cahal.
- In the final boss battle, Wadkins call in teams of Endron fomori to bog Cahal down.
- Fragile Flyer: The airborne drones encountered among waves of alerted guards are among the frailest enemies in the game, going down to a single claw swipe.
- Gaia's Lament: One of the trailers starts with newsreels of deforestation and strip mining. Another follows some red leaves blowing across a torn-up field into an industrial zone until the protagonist picks one up only for it to turn to ash in his hand, and then cuts back to the tree bleeding.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Stinger reveals that a businessman, presumably the CEO of Pentex, was fully aware of Wadkins' deeds and possibly even helping him with his plans.
- Greenwashed Villainy: Endron, the corrupt oil company serving as the game's primary antagonistic force, runs a publicity campaign to advertise a new biofuel in order to present itself as eco-friendly. In truth, Endron is a thoroughly evil company and actively trying to corrupt and destroy nature as part of its service to the Wyrm, and the eco-friendly image is just a publicity stunt. This is acknowledged in a conversation between two NPCs, where one notes that the new fuel is just the same old stuff with new packaging.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Said almost word for word after Cahal has to explain to Ava that he killed Rodko after he succumbed to his Rage.
- I Have Your Wife: Aedana, Cahal's daughter, is kidnapped by Wadkins halfway into the plot.
- Karma Houdini: Choosing to save Ava and her allies instead of going after Wadkins will result in Wadkins escaping the oil rig via helicopter. It's mentioned he's fired from his job, but Pentex opts to seek him out and recruit him for further use with the implication of restarting his schemes.
- Killed Offscreen: Dusk, who dies during the Earthblood gas attack.
- Last-Second Ending Choice: At the end of the game, Wadkins runs for a helicopter while Ava and her team are under attack. Cahal can either rescue Ava and the others, at the cost of letting Wadkins escape, or let them die and finally slaughter Wadkins.
- Lightning Bruiser: When Cahal enters Crinos form, he becomes extremely fast and strong when compared to his abilities in his default wolf and human shapes; he is also generally faster than most of the upper-tier enemies, which, while tough and strong, are also lumbering and slow in comparison. This becomes especially pronounced when he amasses enough Frenzy to enter his Super Mode, which greatly increases both his strength and speed and allows him to tear his way through even the toughest non-boss enemies with ease.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Enemies attacked while in Crinos form spray blood everywhere. After a melee sequence, the walls and floor typically look like they were splashed with buckets of red paint.
- Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Justified. Endron's limitless supply of goons is due to the fact they're taking prisoners from America's hardest penitentiaries and giving them pardons using their government influence, in addition to recruiting anyone willing to work for them and giving them advanced guns. An NPCs in the Nevada base also wonders how Endron can afford to buy and maintain all their high-tech labs and facilities, which another replies to by stating that it's all bankrolled by Pentex, Endron's parent MegaCorp.
- Optional Boss: At the end of the game, the player is given a choice between turning back to help Ava and the activists and pressing on to avenge himself on Richard Wadkins. The second option leads to a boss battle against Wadkins and his hordes of fomori.
- The Phoenix: After Cahal cleanses the Red Talon caern of its Wyrm corruption, Onawa compares Pachu'a, the tribe's avian patron spirit, to this. Cahal had to kill him to destroy his Wyrm taint, but Onawa states that he will recover his strength in time and be reborn from his ashes.
- Pistol-Whipping: When in melee, the Endron Elite Mooks armed with rotary guns will swing their heavy firearms like clubs.
- Plant Person: Yfen, the guardian spirit of the Tarker's Mill caern, takes the form of a giant humanoid with feet cover in roots, skin covered in leafy vines, and a head made out of intertwined branches.
- Powered Armor: Exos are mechanical frames intended to be piloted by a single soldier, and are equipped with a variety of weapons such as giant knives, rotary blades, guns, and flamethrowers.
- Private Military Contractors: Endron employs these as their primary tool against the Garou. Subverted as it turns out plenty of them aren't trained mercenaries at all but convicts released with bribes or guys literally off the street.
- Running Gag: Wadkins escaping Cahal via helicopter just before Cahal has a chance to stop him. You have the option to prevent this from happening again in the final mission, at the cost of Ava, Declan, and the other Lambda activists' lives.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Ludmila, Cahal's wife, dies in the prologue, both to set up Cahal's subplot where he abandons his daughter and pack for five years and to show that even the likable side characters can be killed.
- Sacrificial Lion: Rodko, whose death makes it clear that no one is safe anymore and to show that the game's plot is only going to get grimmer from this point forward.
- Sentry Gun: Starting in the midgame, Endron installs automated turrets around its sites that will automatically spray Cahal with bullets if an alarm is raised unless he first deactivates through computer terminals.
- Shock and Awe: Some Endron exos are equipped with electrical weaponry with which they can electrify large patches of ground around themselves.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The second half of the game is spent chasing after Wadkins after he kidnaps Aedana. When Cahal finally finds her in the final mission, she's already been tortured and experimented on to the point where she's a horrific Wyrm scorpion-like abomination that Cahal is forced to put down.
- Silver Bullet: Naturally used by Endron's soldiers as the game progresses. Silver-loaded weapons glow white in Cahal's Penumbra Vision, and damage dealt by them heals much more slowly than regular damage.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Onawa of the Red Talons wears a snake skeleton like a scarf and a loincloth decorated with a skirt of human fingerbones.
- So Much for Stealth: A handful of areas will automatically invoke a game over if Cahal is seen. Most of the time, however, being spotted just means going into Crinos and reducing everyone present to the consistency of jam.
- Stealth-Based Mission: Most missions revolve around espionage and infiltration, with the ideal sequence being to sneak into the bad guys' heavily defended base, accomplish some goal, and sneak back out. Cahal spends most of this time in either Homid or Lupus form: as a human, he can interact with technology to sabotage or turn off automated systems, silently assassinate guards, and snipe distant enemies with his crossbow; as a wolf, he moves much more silently, has a lower profile, can bark to lure guards from their posts, and can crawl through narrow passages such as air vents. Should he be spotted, the guards will raise the alarm and start calling in waves of reinforcements; at this point, gameplay shifts to straightforward brawling as Cahal enters his hybrid Crinos form and tears his way through hordes of enemies as a huge, berserk Wolf Man. Cahal can viably just carve his way through most of the game, although using stealth can still serve to set up the battle to his advantage — for instance, by disabling the security doors that deliver fresh waves of soldiers once the alarm is raised.
- Super Mode: Frenzy, shown as a purple meter next to your health and Rage bars. When it's full, you can tap into it and gain a massive attack and defense boost.
- Super-Soldier: Later stages reveal giant soldiers who have been exposed to Endron's biofuel, which results in them becoming hulking powerhouses who have no problem fighting werewolves and carrying heavy weaponry.
- Tempting Fate: Aedana is 100% confidant than Endron can't pierce her disguise. She never fooled them in the first place.
- Vader Breath: The Endron Elite Mooks, guards turned into muscular hulks through the use of a Super Serum and equipped with breather masks, breathe loudly and raggedly when moving or fighting.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The Garou Nation is not united against the Wyrm, with the Red Talons disdaining Cahal's caern for working with humans. Cahal's caern is also only working with humans who want to protect the environment under heavy duress.
- World in the Sky: The Umbral Realm to which Yfen moves Cahal and Graner's forces during Endron's second attack on the Caern is a land of floating islands of earth amidst a misty white sky.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: After spending half of the game trying to rescue Aedana, Cahal finally finds her in the final mission aboard Wadkins' oil rig. She's been converted into a Wyrm monster, and she dies in Cahal's arms after he's forced to fight and kill the beast.
- Zerg Rush: While Endron is experimenting with various approaches of making its goons capable of standing up to a Garou, their go-to approach remains sending in wave after wave of Mooks in order to use sheer numbers and attrition to wear down the Lightning Bruiser wolf-man rampaging through their bases.
