History Main / TheWarSequence

* Near the end of ''VideoGame/{{Planescape}}: Torment'' the players get embroiled in a battle of the Blood War with both sides constantly respawning their troops. The [=PCs=] can get involved, or simply stand to one side and watch. Since it never stops, theoretically thousands upon thousands of enemies could be killed in this one battle. However, in an unusually-for-Black Isle linear and tightly-scripted game, this is one of the few areas where you have total freedom to earn large amounts of EXP, so throwing yourself into the free-for-all with wild abandon could be a good idea as well as fun. Expecially if you still have the [[GameBreaker game-breaking]] [=AoE=] spells you can gain [[DiscOneNuke ridiculously early in the game]] up your sleeve.

* ''{{Rune}}'' had a scene in which you're trapped in a room, forced to fend off hundreds of zombies while waiting for an enormous door to open.

* ''LegoStarWars II'' has one part where you must fend off a legion of stormtroopers on the Death Star. The first game has the Geonosis Arena battle.

* NinjaGaiden II (360 version) features a long stairway corridor near the end, where the ninja mooks you haven't fought since the first couple of areas will swarm at you; IIRC, around 3-400 of them. This is no doubt done ''solely'' so you can revel is slaughtering them with all the powerful weapons you've acquired since you last fought them. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome It works.]] Well, except for the massive slowdown...

* The final mission of ''FarCry'' has the player entering a volcanic caldera with at least a dozen of the toughest 'normal' creatures in the game (the giant, rocket launcher-armed grunts) and 1-2 dozen lesser enemies (although some of them were invisible).

* Inverted in ''MedalOfHonor'' with the D-day level. Here, YOU'RE the mook, along with several thousand others, being wiped out in countless numbers by an unreachable enemy. Only after about 20 minutes of dodging machine gun and rifle bullets, mortars, artillery, mines and the sea itself (and watching hundreds of hapless mooks fail to do the same) do you actually get to strike back at the enemy.
* Hell in the final level of ''{{Painkiller}}'' is this taken it's logical conclusion; the entire level is a landscape comprised of a series of wars frozen in time. You start out at a medieval siege, go through the broken wall and find yourself in the trenches of WorldWarOne. You then move into the final zone, which is an urban wasteland presided over by a giant mushroom cloud.

* ''SeriousSam'' has ''lots'' of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o46Rbcej5KU&feature=related WAAAAAAAARRRR!!!]] Sequences in store. The player will [[strike:often]] always find himself trapped in a wide open space with dozens of enemies spawning around him at a constant rate. This often includes [[ActionBomb Beheaded Kamikazes]] and Sirian Werebulls coming from all directions, making you really glad that you at least have an open space to work with.

* Chapter 1 and Chapter 5 in ''{{Drakengard}}''.
** It's really actually all of {{Drakengard}}.

* In the ''DynastyWarriors'' series, [[strike: practically]] every stage matches the trope.

* The introductory and end sequences of ''HeavenlySword'', where you take on Bohan's entire army. The first part of the final chapter, "The Goddess," is especially awesome, as you get to rock out using the full power of the titular sword, killing up to a thousand or more of Bohan's men before the final battle with Bohan proper begins.
* One of the ''LordOfTheRings'' games, appropriately enough, does this with an orc battle.

* ''{{Onimusha}} 3'' has a similar sequence against demons.
* In ''NinjaGaiden II'', chapter 10 features a loooooong stairway. Once you step on it, the door closes behind you and you are welcome by a dozen of mooks running at you. By the end of the fight, you will have dismembered and crushed your way through not far from 200 enemies. Ironically, some fan consider [[GoodBadBug the massive framerate drop that occurs during this sequence makes it even more epic due to the slow motion]]…

* In ''CityOfHeroes'' the developers have added zombie invasions as well as alien invasions that spawn in the open. Numbers of enemies, as well as their power level (minion, lieutenant, boss, elite boss) that spawn is based on how many heroes/villians are in the vicinity to fight them, so if you have a few dozen players you can expect to see hundreds of zombie and/or alien mooks show up for a good old fashioned curb stomping.

* A special mention goes to the final shutdown event of ''TabulaRasa'', in which hundreds of players gathered to defend the [=AFS=] Headquarters against a truly massive Bane invasion. UnwinnableByDesign, as the [=GM=]s simply ramped the enemies up until the defenders were overwhelmed.

* ''{{Planetside}} 2'' basically IS this trope. Three factions, thousands of players per server, larger battles can quickly ramp up into utter insanity.

* Following on the ending of the previous game, ''MegaManZero 2'' begins with Zero being found by an army of Pantheons (basic robot grunts). When you get control, the Pantheons are coming towards you from the left, and they'll keep coming as long as you keep killing them. If you do it for too long, Zero interrupts to say "This isn't fun anymore" -- but what does he know?

* ''TyTheTasmanianTiger 2'' actually starts off this way. Pity no one else seems intent on helping you afterwards...

* ''CrisisCore'' includes a series of optional missions where the player can mow down, successively, 50, 100, 200 or ''1000'' enemy soldiers at a time. Disappointingly, and thanks to the PSP's limited hardware, the soldiers only appear in groups of approximately fifteen at a time, with a one-on-one fight against their squad leader in between groups, which makes these battles extremely long and tedious (Having maxed out his HP and pimped out his thunder spells with fused materia from other side missions, this editor began to wonder if he had died and gone to Valhalla).

* ''VideoGame/SmashTV'' really goes to town with this. May be considered an inspiration for ''SeriousSam'' and ''{{Painkiller}}''.

* One of the missions of ''{{Freelancer}}'' involves taking out an alien battleship... while shaking down 6 gunboats, 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, and roughly 20 fighters.

* In the ''FreeSpace'' community, this sort of mission type is called "[[StarWars Battle of Endor]]" and many people discourage it due to the complexity, system requirements, and difficulty of making it balanced and fun, but some [[GameMod custom campaigns]] have produced very respected Battle of Endor missions, such as "Nemesis" from ''Inferno Release 1'' and "Universal Truth", "Delenda Est" and "Her Finest Hour" from ''Blue Planet''.

* In ''Tom Clancy's {{HAWX}}'', the PC and his squadron mates are called upon to go to Rio de Janiero to protect it from an alliance of hostile nations. Cue a huge battle with dozens of planes, landing craft, and tanks, ending in a dogfight against four aces flying Su-47s.

* ''VideoGame/Hitman'':

** ''BloodMoney'' climaxes with 47 waking up at his own funeral and wasting a few dozen FBI agents ([[MoralDissonance as well as an innocent priest and reporter]]).

* ''FireEmblem: Radiant Dawn''. While the most of the FE series and indeed most tactical [=RPGs=] are nothing ''but'' war sequences, things truly get out of hand at the end of part 3 of this game, when almost every important character in the game (including a good number of peace lovers) clash with each other amongst a huge army of Mooks. What's more, this is a ''[[KillEmAll rout map]]'' so you're being expected to wipe out almost all 100+ enemies to win. [[spoiler:Then the increasingly ominous death counter hits 80, and a sudden plot twist immedeately cuts the battle short.]]
* In an early mission of ''StarCraft'' you are supposed to hold off apparently endless numbers of Zerg long enough for the Sons of Korhal to rescue the colonists. However, as it is an early mission the Zerg numbers are not actually that overwhelming, and it is easy to actually destroy the attacking forces by just having 7-8 bunkers at each of the two entrances to the city. In the later mission where Kerrigan is captured it is also possible for the player to hold off the supposedly overwhelming Zerg attack by filling the area to the max with siege tanks and bunkers with Battlecruiser air support, although in this case the Zerg horde keeps replenishing until the mission ends regardless of what you do.

* The ''TotalWar'' series completely revolves around thousand-men armies duking it out on the battlefield. The game engine was so efficient while rendering these battles, it was even used to create a History Channel documentary.

** Likewise, ''ResidentEvil5'' has the Public Assembly battle at the end of the first level. In addition to the seemingly endless hordes of Majini, the Executioner is stalking you with a humongous axe.

* Near the end of ''{{Planescape}}: Torment'' the players get embroiled in a battle of the Blood War with both sides constantly respawning their troops. The [=PCs=] can get involved, or simply stand to one side and watch. Since it never stops, theoretically thousands upon thousands of enemies could be killed in this one battle. However, in an unusually-for-Black Isle linear and tightly-scripted game, this is one of the few areas where you have total freedom to earn large amounts of EXP, so throwing yourself into the free-for-all with wild abandon could be a good idea as well as fun. Expecially if you still have the [[GameBreaker game-breaking]] [=AoE=] spells you can gain [[DiscOneNuke ridiculously early in the game]] up your sleeve.
* In ''Throne of Bhaal'', the ExpansionPack to ''BaldursGate 2'', your party will charge an army trying to reach one of the [[BossBattle bosses]], and he'll stay away for a few minutes while you entertain yourself by slaughtering his minions.
** One might argue that ''BaldursGate'' as a whole was full of this, with many areas featuring groups of enemies that inexplicably appear out of thin air the moment fog of war covers an area.
** ''IcewindDale'', far more so than ''Baldur's Gate''. Justified, since it was far less talking and far more fighting in the first place.

* Played very much straight by ''StarWarsBattlefront II''. The second Kashyyyk mission in the Rise of the Empire campaign, appropriately named "A Line in the Sand", recreates the Separatists' siege of Kashyyyk from ''Revenge of the Sith'', and you better believe it's AllUpToYou to get the Republic through this battle in one piece. After taking the command post on the beach and holding it for a while, you must fall back behind a huge sea wall to protect a Wookiee oil refinery on the other side. With limited reinforcements and a single tank at your disposal, you must StandYourGround and prevent the limitless swarms of droids from destroying the refinery for about three minutes. The sea wall itself is a great metal gate connected to two consoles on your side; if the CIS troops manage to destroy either console, the gate falls and their grenade-lobbing tanks can roll in and join the fun; if this happens, the voice-over of your commanding officer lets you know that all hell is about to break loose with the line, "They've breached the sea wall! ''Brace yourselves!''" By means of consolation, if the refinery survives this hellish firefight, Yoda arrives JustInTime and the whole battle turns around, allowing you to drive off the CIS and claim victory.

* ''SaintsRow: [[VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird The Third]]''[='s=] penultimate mission, "[[MeleeATrois Three Way]]", features [[spoiler: the entire city of Steelport breaking out into chaos as the Luchadores and STAG attack each other full-force, with the Saints trying to clean up the mess by killing off both groups in the worst outbreaks of fighting]]. Naturally, there's countless enemies that you're required to kill, not to mention the extras that randomly spawn around you every second or two due to double maxed notoriety.

* This was the pride and glory of ''{{Ninety-Nine Nights}}'', which boasted the ability to have over 1000 enemies on screen at any one time.

f->''"Hear me, my hordes! The spell is nearly complete! Until then, you WILL keep that whelp from interfering with my ritual. [[WeHaveReserves I don't care if the whole lot of you get lodged on the end of his blade]]. You will buy me the time I need! Do not fear him... [[YouHaveFailedMe Fear my wrath if you fail me]]!"''

[[caption-width-right:350:[[BestLevelEver And you get to kick the asses of each and every last dang one of them.]][[note]][[WhatCouldHaveBeen Except for those two Behemoths]].[[/note]]]]

* The ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank'' series has featured them starting with the third game. They were mostly optional in that one, but Tools of Destruction featured several plot-relevant examples. (Where you had the support of two crotchety old war bots, who provided entertaining commentary.) One towards the end of ''A Crack In Time'' really stands out though: [[spoiler: You travel back in time to a famous battle, and [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome your presence changes the historical outcome!]]]]

** The infamous Nuts.wad takes the trope UpToEleven and beyond, having the player square off against over 10,000 enemies. The real kicker is that, while most of the above examples split up their fights into segments, ''Nuts'' has you facing the vast majority of these enemies ''in one room!''

->''"Hear me, my hordes! The spell is nearly complete! Until then, you WILL keep that whelp from interfering with my ritual. [[WeHaveReserves I don't care if the whole lot of you get lodged on the end of his blade]]. You will buy me the time I need! Do not fear him... [[YouHaveFailedMe Fear my wrath if you fail me]]!"''

* ''{{Lunia}}'', an {{MMORPG}}, does this often. The first one happens in History Stage 1-2, where you were forced to defend a village from an oncoming orc siege. Since the game's management changed to Ijji, they changed the stage to make it much easier (as in, removing about a hundred orcs or so), and removing the whole "Defend-This-Spot-For-3-Minutes" objective, but the hard-mode version of this stage, Legend 1-2, is similar to the old version.

* ''{{Gauntlet}}''. Since basically every enemy is produced by {{Mook Maker}}s, you'll butcher thousands of enemies in each level.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', you run through the entrance hall of a large castle, where many armored guards are frozen in time, like statues. When you leave, however, they all have come back to life and you have to kill them all before you can proceed. There were only about twenty of them, but they were the strongest enemy in the game.

** Also in ''The Wind Waker'', the lower levels of the Savage Labyrinth contains large groups of generic enemies.
** Again, also in ''The Wind Waker'', the secret grotto on Shark Island has a particularly long battle sequence against a horde of various enemies.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'' the prelude to the Arbiter's Grounds dungeon is a one-man assault against an army occupying fortified positions. There's also a horseback fight against an infinite number of boar-riding moblins and finally you go sniper-style to take out the moblin home base.

** ''SkywardSword'' has this as part of [[spoiler:the finale with {{Zerg Rush}}ing {{Mook}}s, ending with the final fight against Ghirahim]]. It's also a direct nod to the [[ReferenceOverdosed the above two games]].

* The final battle in the C route of ''BlazeUnion'' is like this, with enemy soldiers taking up around 80% of the available squares. This is a strategy game that only lets you attack five enemies at once. ''It's ThatOneLevel.''

->''"Hear me my hordes! The spell is nearly complete! Until then, you WILL keep that whelp from interfering with my ritual. [[WeHaveReserves I don't care if the whole lot of you get lodged on the end of his blade]]. You will buy me the time I need! Do not fear him... [[YouHaveFailedMe Fear my wrath if you fail me]]!"''

* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' has the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, where you'll either be fighting for NCR, Caesar's Legion or alongside the former for an Independent Vegas. Depending on how you've dealt with other factions you'll be supported by either the [[MadBomber Boomers]] providing air support from their bombers, the Great Khans or even [[spoiler:TheRemnant of the Enclave]].

* Several of the late-game areas with the Flood in the original ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' had them coming in infinite waves, as well as the final run to escape. The Library somewhat approached this but did not fully qualify. Likewise, there are also a couple areas in ''Halo 2'' which provide an effectively unlimited amount of enemies to shoot down. Brought to full in ''Halo 3 ODST'' there is match option called firefight which is this. waves upon waves of enemies to shoot down. no goal, just survive as long as possible. Halo Reach continues firefight mode, and in fact overlaps it a lot with campaign (all the original FF maps were places where massive battles occurred in campaign), and in one cutscene there's a big advance of UNSC forces that the covenant meet head-on.

* Near the end of ''{{Planescape}}: Torment'' the players get embroiled in a battle of the Blood War with both sides constantly respawning their troops. The [=PCs=] can get involved, or simply stand to one side and watch. Since it never stops, theoretically thousands upon thousands of enemies could be killed in this one battle. However, in an unusually-for-Black Isle linear and tightly-scripted game, this is one of the few areas where you have total freedom to earn large amounts of EXP, so throwing yourself into the free-for-all with wild abandon could be a good idea as well as fun. Expecially if you still have the [[GameBreaker game-breaking]] AoE spells you can gain [[DiscOneNuke ridiculously early in the game]] up your sleeve.

* ''Left4Dead'' has triggers in the game that need to be tripped to advance, which do things like open gates or topple bridges to create ramps. These (extremely noisy) events summon hordes of fast, angry zombies to attack the group in a miniature war sequence (miniature because only 30 zombies appear at any one time, though it certainly feels like more and there may be multiple waves). The in-game AI Director [[strike:can]] ''will'' also throw these hordes at you after a Boomer (a special zombie) attack, when the group loiters too long in one place, or whenever it damn well pleases.

* ''FireEmblem: Radiant Dawn''. While the most of the FE series and indeed most tactical [=RPGs=] are nothing ''but'' war sequences, things truly get out of hand at the end of part 3 of this game, when almost every important character in the game (including a good number of peace lovers) clash with each other.

This trope is named for the informally titled "Battle of 1000 [[TheHeartless Heartless]]" in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' where the player must single-handedly mow down a crowd of 1000 enemies. (Which is both easier and a lot more fun than it sounds.)

** The official Doom games have a couple slaughter maps as well, the most infamous being Final Doom's Go 2 It, a secret stage with 200+ enemies, including 19 Arch-Viles and 13 Cyberdemons.

* ''KingdomOfLoathing'' has you start and finish a war between Orcish Frat Boys and Hippies. You get a special reward if you manage to wipe out both sides of the conflict.

* Several adventures in ''DungeonsAndDragonsOnline'' can easily become this, almost always referred to as "Assault" in the quest title. The first one involves 200 kobolds attacking a Stormreach outpost; a later has nearly 300 goblinoids of all types descending upon the same one. Others still have even more enemies.

* Several of the late-game areas with the Flood in the original ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' had them coming in infinite waves, as well as the final run to escape. The Library somewhat approached this but did not fully qualify. Likewise, there are also a couple areas in ''Halo 2'' which provide an effectively unlimited amount of enemies to shoot down. Brought to full in Halo ODST there is match option called firefight which is this. waves upon waves of enemies to shoot down. no goal, just survive as long as possible. Halo Reach continues firefight mode, and in fact overlaps it a lot with campaign (all the original FF maps were places where massive battles occurred in campaign), and in one cutscene there's a big advance of UNSC forces that the covenant meet head-on.