The introduction to the game that plays right after selecting the game's difficulty level. It appears to be a marine contemplating the mysteries of outer space, but in a Mood Whiplash, they slowly rotate towards the camera revealing that they're dead and floating along with their comrades in space. Raven Software helps avert A Million Is a Statistic by showing that people really are dying in this war.
In the story, Raven wasn't afraid to employ Anyone Can Die either, as key characters end up dead or captured leading to a Darkest Hour for the marines and Matthew Kane's Stroggification being the Trojan Horse the Humans desperately need to win the war.
The game takes a sad turn at the Nexus Hub chapter. Sergeant Bidwell has been killed after a Harvester destroyed Rhino's EMP bomb and impaled him with their leg, and Kane must team up with Strauss to go directly to the Nexus Hub and sabotage the coolant system. However, Kane is captured after a new Makron launches a surprise attack on the coolant room and Kane is forced into a Hopeless Boss Fight. The game doesn't explore this, but Rhino Squad must be horrified/devastated to hear (even worse if they heard his screams over the radio) that Kane has been captured/killed and Rhino now has to retreat from the Nexus Tunnels.
Fortunately, Rhino launches a raid on the Strogg Medical Facilities and find Kane in his new mechanical Strogg body just before he is about to have his neurocyte enabled. They must be overjoyed to find Kane, yet still sad that Kane's had more that half his body replaced with Strogg machinery.
The end of the Strogg Medical Facilities act ends with a Downer Ending as Lieutenant Voss was captured earlier and Stroggified into a Humongous Mecha and Kane is forced to battle him to the death as Voss had his neurocyte enabled. Voss has lost his composure, pleading for Kane to escape but Kane chooses to stay and fight to presumably end his torment at the very least.
