In Anomaly: Warzone Earth, humanity was caught in the crossfire of an alien war in 2018. We managed to repel the hostile forces... or did we?
Turns out that we did, but then they came back stronger... much stronger.
It's now 2034. Earth's average temperature is down to -8.7F, the human population has been severely reduced, and the machines rule the planet. You''ve been placed in charge of a surviving military convoy dispatched to find Dr Zander, a scientist who is working on a weapon called Project Shockwave that could turn the tide of the war.
Anomaly 2 is the sequel to Anomaly: Warzone Earth. The gameplay is mostly the same as the first one, though now all of your available units have the ability to transform; thus, each unit now can perform in more than one role, and some new combat abilities replace the old ones. Its big draw, however, is its asymmetric multiplayer mode where 2 players battle each other: one as the convoys, and another as the towers. Both sides have different units and abilities and resource gathering, and must research in order to unlock more advanced units to beat the other side.
The game was released on 16 May 2013 on Steam
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This game contains examples of:
- Ambushing Enemy: Predators remain burrowed in the ground until your units approach them, rendering them immune to damage and abilities until they reveal themselves. Not all Predators will awaken however.
- Apocalypse How: On the new scale, somewhere between a Planetary Class 2 and a Planetary Class 3 (what would have been a Class 3A on the old scale).
- Bittersweet Ending: Both endings cast long shadows on humanity's recovery and future after the defeat of the Machines but are not without optimism.
- Blood Knight: Colonel Ellen Bolt, your direct superior, is very enthusiastic about destroying any of the machines she comes across, and has no interest in peace with the machines' creators' infants. If the machines have not spared humanity, why should humanity spare them?
- Came Back Strong: The alien machines, naturally.
- Crapsack World: What Earth is reduced to, with the machines taking over.
- Darker and Edgier: With such a setting, it's a given.
- Downer Beginning: The fights in the first episode were for naught, the Machines have decimated humanity and reduced Earth to a frozen wasteland. At the end of the introductory mission, the original commander dies.
- Draw Aggro: Charger towers redirect your units' fire to themselves, so they can gain enough energy to transform into the mighty Storm Reaper. The player can invoke this on enemies via the A.I.M ability, which overrides a Charger's target priority, making their units target towers in the ability's radius first, while dealing extra damage.
- EMP: One of the player's abilities and arguably the most powerful, it instantly shuts down any towers. Towers remain shut down unless damaged.
- Glass Cannon: The predator deals high damage, but can't take it in return, being the most frail of the towers. On the player's side, the hammer units deals high damage, but can't really take it in return.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Poise and the 14th are killed, but they manage to send the data that will be essential to turn the tides of the war a few years later.
- Intro-Only Point of View: The first mission has you play as another group of soldiers, in a mission (set in 2028, before the main story) concerning the retrieval of Project Shockwave's data from a research station. You play as the character from the original game, and you and your platoon are wiped out at the end of the mission. Doubles as Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome.
- Kill It with Fire: Hellhounds just like the Dragon form the first game attack with dual flamethrowers, and can set towers on fire for extra damage over time.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Storm Reaper is the transformed version of the Charger, and despite its massive size, can rapidly swivel itself to lock on to and rapidly destroy your units. Bonus points for literally using lightning.
- Long-Range Fighter: Sledge Hammers can outrange any tower, and at max level can One-Hit Kill Blasters and Predators, but can only fire 45 degrees in front of them.
- Mighty Glacier: Behemoths are large towers that can easily wipe out your most frail units in 2 shots, and have a large AOE, but they are slow to turn. A single Gripper Guard can slow their rotation speed enough to prevent them from firing on you altogether, and decrease their already slow fire rate to a snail's pace.
- Multiple Endings: The final mission changes the ending depending on whether you destroyed the blue nodes or the red nodes. Destroying all blue nodes will have the machines disabled, but the Anomaly will persist, allowing the machines' creators' infants to hatch with humanity as their parents. If the red nodes are targeted, the machines will be completely destroyed, along with the Anomaly, turning the Antarctic from a lush tropical area back into the frozen wasteland it once was, killing off the alien infants, but the world will begin to return back to normal instead of being frozen over.
- No Name Given: Averted, both your character and the late commander of 14th Platoon, original game's player character are both named: Simon Lynx and Captain Poise
- Oh, Crap!: Happened to a soldier when he realized the scorchers can now fire sideways. Another soldier calls bullshit when the machine boss begins healing nearby towers and when it begins to resurrect itself.
- Stealthy Mook: The Shadow Servant can cloak your entire squad for a limited time, allowing you to fire on towers without fear of retaliation.
- Support Party Member: Two units on both sides of the conflict are purely for assisting their team and can't do any or very little damage to the opposing team.
- Gripper Guardians slows down the turret rotation speed of any towers it locks on to. When attacking from the correct angle, towers might not even be able to attack at all. Their alternate form, the Shield Guardian generates an Energy Shield to block incoming damage for nearby units.
- Supply Servants generate abilities from destroyed towers. Not particularly interesting, but free repairs or EMPs never hurt. Their alternate form, the Shadow Servant shrouds human squads with a cloaking field when they reach full charge and encounter a tower. While this makes them immune to most towers, they're still vulnerable to shockwaves in PVP.
- Hacker towers launch energy fields that cause any human squad units inside it to target the commander if the commander is standing inside the energy field as well. What they lack in damage, they make up for in disruptive ability.
- Harvesters (multiplayer exclusive) are important economic utility towers that should be protected second only to Generators. They can gather resources, victory points or abilities.
- Transforming Mecha: All of the human units qualify, and their roles change depending upon which form they take.
