History VideoGame / SlaveZero

A side-scrolling action prequel developed by Poppy Works, titled ''VideoGame/SlaveZeroX'', was announced June 15th, 2022 by Ziggurat Interactive, who have become the series' new owners. It's set to release on February 21st, 2024. Additionally, ''Slave Zero X'' has a prequel ''itself'' in ''[[Recap/QuakeSlaveZeroXEpisodeEnyo Episode Enyo]]'', a short first-person shooter campaign following one of the game's antagonists that released on January 16th, 2024. Mind you, this is a campaign made for ''VideoGame/QuakeI''.

* ArtEvolution: If you compare ''X'' to the original game, the former's Slave designs have realistic proportions and look downright monstrous (which is what Ken Capelli originally envisioned when designing them).

* {{BFS}}: Shou and X's preferred weapon. It's unclear whether it's a man-made sword or if X ''produced it''.
* BioArmor: Slaves in general. X is unique in that she's a self-aware individual with thoughts and feelings of her own. [[spoiler: This becomes a sticking point between her and Shou, her pilot, ''the guy wearing and controlling her'', later in their story.]]
* BioPunk: The original game had a touch of this, what with the giant biological mecha and all, but it's in ''full'' force in ''X'', where the Slave Unit you in is a monstrous suit of BioArmor a la ''Manga/{{Guyver}}'', Megacity has a grotesque H.R. Giger skyline, and OrganicTechnology and Organic-''shaped'' technology are the rule of the day.
* BloodierAndGorier: ''X'', which throws buckets of HighPressureBlood and {{gorn}} with each and every onscreen kill.

* CyberNinja: Shou, the protagonist of ''X'' is a Biopunk take on this trope. Imagine if [[VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance Raiden]] was in a Guyver suit. A ''fully sentient'' Guyver Suit that talks to him and slowly learns from being attached to him.

* {{Eagleland}}: General Hercules J. Thorman, one of The Five Calamities faced by Shou in ''Slave Zero X'', is a textbook example of 'Murica the Boorish who ''thinks'' he's representing America the Beautiful. Thorman is a LargeHam GeneralRipper who [[WearingAFlagOnYourHead wears an American flag for a cape]] and blows a lot of hot air about "liberty," "justice" and "freedom" [[{{Hypocrite}} while serving as one of the top enforcers of a fascist police state]]. He also seems to have a [[FutureImperfect rather skewed idea]] of what America actually ''was''; while his statements about the glory days of "the American Empire" ''might'' be true in the context of the setting, his belief that he's descended from a long line of mighty American warriors [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball known as "quarterbacks"]] probably isn't. Further emphasizing his hypocrisy, the end of his boss battle reveals that [[spoiler:1) inside his mechanized muscle-suit, Thorman is actually a shriveled, decrepit old man; and 2) he's also a DirtyCoward, frantically offering to abandon the ideals he'd so vocally defended and sell out his former comrades [[VillainsWantMercy in exchange for Shou sparing his life]]. Shou is understandably not interested and swiftly decapitates him]].

* TheGoomba: ''X'' features human security guards armed with maces. They are the weakest enemy, going down in just one hit.
* GunNut: Enyo, to a fetishistic degree. One of the [=SovKhan=]'s Five Calamities in ''Slave Zero X'', "Beloved by the Bullet," she's single-mindedly obsessed with guns, bullets, killing, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs killing people with bullets shot from guns]].

* HomingLasers: Booth Sangiunar and Sovkhan are capable of delivering these and usually signifies an instant game over if you let them catch you. To avoid the former you have to keep shooting him and make him fall before he can make the attack (since his arena offers no place to hide) and for the later you just have put some obstacle between you and it.

* NotDrawnToScale: In the original game, the Slaves are a 2-story tall beings and the cars and tanks look like toys to them. The Slaves in ''X'' are only larger than humans (just compare the height of an average human security guard to a Slave next to him). [[spoiler: This is because the Slaves in ''X'' are from an earlier, smaller line of Slaves. The [=SovKhan=]'s forces developing the giant Slaves of ''Zero'' is a critical plot point.]]

* PreAsskickingOneLiner: ''Slave Zero X'' have plenty of moments like these. Here's only one from the demo:
-->"Pathetic, I'll wear ''your'' skin for my next promotion!" [''cue boss fight'']

* TraintopBattle: ''Slave Zero X'' have a stage set atop a subway train going through the city, with you fighting enemies while standing atop.
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: Shou and X at the end of ''Slave Zero X''. After fighting their way through the [=SovKhan=]'s forces inside his fortress and defeating him, Shou and X have potentially permanently fused their minds and suffered critical injuries. Though they manage to capture the last of the Zero Slave embryos and make their escape, the game ends before we can learn of their fate.]]

* {{Eagleland}}: General Hercules J. Thorman, one of The Five Calamities faced by Shou in ''Slave Zero X'', is a textbook example of 'Murica the Boorish who ''thinks'' he's representing America the Beautiful. Thorman is a LargeHam GeneralRipper who [[WearingAFlagOnYourHead wears an American flag for a cape]] and blows a lot of hot air about "liberty," "justice" and "freedom" [[{{Hypocrite}} while serving as one of the top enforcers of a fascist police state]]. He also seems to have a [[FutureImperfect rather skewed]] idea of what America actually ''was''; while his statements about the glory days of "the American Empire" ''might'' be true in the context of the setting, his belief that he's descended from a long line of mighty American warriors [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball known as "quarterbacks"]] probably isn't. Further emphasizing his hypocrisy, the end of his boss battle reveals that [[spoiler:1) inside his mechanized muscle-suit, Thorman is actually a shriveled, decrepit old man; and 2) he's also a DirtyCoward, frantically offering to abandon the ideals he'd so vocally defended and sell out his former comrades [[VillainsWantMercy in exchange for Shou sparing his life]]. Shou is understandably not interested and swiftly decapitates him]].

* BFS: Shou and X's preferred weapon. It's unclear whether it's a man-made sword or if X ''produced it''.

* NotDrawnToScale: In the original game, the Slaves are a 2-story tall beings and the cars and tanks look like toys to them. The Slaves in ''X'' are only larger than humans (just compare the height of an average human security guard to a Slave next to him). [[spoiler: This is because the Slaves in ''X'' are from an earlier line of Slaves. The [=SovKhan=]'s forces developing the giant Slaves of ''Zero'' is a critical plot point.]]

* NotDrawnToScale: In the original game, the Slaves are a 2-story tall beings and the cars and tanks look like toys to them. The Slaves in ''X'' are only larger than humans (just compare the height of an average human security guard to a Slave next to him).

* GunNut: Enyo, to a fetishistic degree. One of the {{SovKhan}}'s Five Calamities in ''Slave Zero X'', "Beloved by the Bullet," she's single-mindedly obsessed with guns, bullets, killing, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs killing people with bullets shot from guns]].

* GunNut: Enyo, to a fetishistic degree. One of the {{SovKhan's}} Five Calamities in ''Slave Zero X'', "Beloved by the Bullet," she's single-mindedly obsessed with guns, bullets, killing, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs killing people with bullets shot from guns]].

* GunNut: Enyo, to a fetishistic degree. One of the SovKhan's Five Calamities in ''Slave Zero X'', "Beloved by the Bullet," she's single-mindedly obsessed with guns, bullets, killing, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs killing people with bullets shot from guns]].

* BioPunk: The original game had a touch of this, what with the giant biological mecha and all, but it's in ''full'' force in ''X'', where the Slave Unit you in is a monstrous suit of BioArmor a la ''Manga/Guyver'', Megacity has a grotesque H.R. Giger skyline, and OrganicTechnology and Organic-''shaped'' technology are the rule of the day.

* PowerupLetDown: The fourth-tier Energy Weapon fires a continuous laser beam that eats through your entire ammo store in seconds and does far less than its predecessor, a powerful sniper rifle that can two-shot a [[GiantMook Titan-class Sentinel]] while using hardly any ammo at all [[spoiler:and is also the only weapon capable of reliable damaging the final boss]]. Similarly, the third-tier Machine Gun does heavy damage, but rapidly chews through your ammo. And its ''fourth'' tier (siege cannon) is a single-shot cannon that, while doing descent damage, fires in an arc, making incredibly difficult to hit distant targets.

* SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity: All bosses are preceded with a whole bunch of of ammo pickups and health packs. Sovkhan also has a small armory prior to him allowing you to choose whatever weapon you prefer to fight him with.

It's 500 years in the future, and the world is ruled by [=SovKhan=], whose base of operations is in the vast city complex known as Megacity S1-9. Out to stop his tyrannical rule is a group of resistance warriors descended from an ancient group of warriors called the Guardians. This fight seems rather one-sided, since [=SovKhan=]'s forces are bolstered heavily by the use of 60-foot tall biomechanical [[HumongousMecha Humongous Mechas]] known as [[{{Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion}} Evangeli-]] sorry, [[AMechByAnyOtherName "Slaves"]], grown from cybernetic embryos and a piece of AppliedPhlebotinum known as [=NTR95879=], or "dark matter". However, hope arrives to the guardians by way of a captured Slave unit called "Slave Zero", who is not only the original Slave that all the other slaves have been cloned from, but has also had a resistance member's mind permanently uploaded into its brain.

The PC version of the game has since been released on [[{{Website/GOGDotCom}} GoG]] by Tommo, Inc., and on Steam by Night Dive Studios.

A side-scrolling action prequel developed by Poppy Works, titled ''VideoGame/SlaveZeroX'', was announced June 15th, 2022 by Ziggurat Interactive, who have become the series' new owners. It's set to release on February 21st, 2024. Additionally, ''Slave Zero X'' has a prequel ''itself'' in ''Episode Enyo'', a short first-person shooter campaign following one of the game's antagonists that released on January 16th, 2024. Mind you, this is a campaign made for ''VideoGame/QuakeI''.

* GameBreakingBug: Like several other games in this era, the initial release was hard-coded to assume that D: was the optical drive used to install the game, and would give a "no disc" error if the drive had any other letter. Fortunately, this was corrected in a patch, and it's naturally a non-issue with the [=GoG=] version.

* PowerupLetDown: The fourth-tier Energy Weapon fires a continuous laser beam that eats through your entire ammo store in seconds and does far less than its predecessor, a powerful sniper rifle that can two-shot a [[GiantMook Titan-class Sentinel]] while using hardly any ammo at all [[spoiler: and is also the only weapon capable of reliable damaging the final boss]]. Similarly, the third-tier Machine Gun does heavy damage, but rapidly chews through your ammo. And its ''fourth'' tier (siege cannon) is a single-shot cannon that, while doing descent damage, fires in an arc, making incredibly difficult to hit distant targets.

--> "Pathetic, I'll wear ''your'' skin for my next promotion!" [''cue boss fight'']

* ObviousBeta: [[PortingDisaster The Dreamcast port.]] All of the in-game music is removed with only the intro and ending themes remaining, the menus in languages other than English are glitched and not fully translated, the framerate is far lower than the PC version and dips inexplicably during the cutscenes and the game is filled with all manner of bizarre bugs, such as falling infinitely off a bottomless pit or getting killed by the checkpoint transition and becoming invincible as a result. The existence of other far superior PC-to-Dreamcast ports showed that Infogrames plainly didn't care and rushed the Dreamcast port to get a quick buck.

* BloodierAndGorier: ''X'', which throws buckets of HighPressureblood and {{gorn}} with each and every onscreen kill.