It is about Nora Harwood, a security specialist of the Everreach corporation. She was dispatched along with 2 other operatives to the planet Eden to investigate the loss of communications from the colony. Upon arriving on the planet, Nora's team is shot down by anti-air defenses, and she finds that the colony's main outpost, Eclipse, has gone rogue and started attacking the other outposts. Teaming up with the survivors at Nova outpost, Nora sets out to unravel the mystery of Eden and stop Eclipse.
The voice cast notably includes Jon Bailey (the "Honest Trailers" guy) as Julian the reporter, and D.C. Douglas (best known as the voice of Albert Wesker) as soldiers and various characters.
See Decay of Logos for another late 2019 game from a small studio that attempted to emulate a prominent AAA series, with similarly mixed results.
Tropes present in this game:
- Action Girl: Nora Harwood is a capable fighter who combats dozens of Eclipse troops and drones on her own.
- A.I. Breaker: If you peak around a right corner, due to the position of your body and rifle, you can shoot at enemies but they can't shoot at you. This technique can effectively carry you through most of the game.
- Artificial Stupidity: The enemies may fail to notice Nora even as she is already shooting at them (though they may just as well detect her through seemingly solid obstacles). They'll also often ignore cover and just try to close the distance while firing their weapons. Though, since they possess more HP than Nora and deal more damage, this actually works to their benefit more often than not. However, some objects may still throw off their aim to the extent they'll stand still and keep shooting at the object instead of moving slightly to reach Nora, all while she can easily target them from the same position.
- Attack Drone: As Eclipse is supposedly 40-50 people (and you kill over half that number in your first mission), their forces are heavily supplemented by UAV attack drones.
- Beehive Barrier: Both the default shields around the character that only become visible when they stop a projectile, and the explicit barriers you must generate have a strict honeycomb structure.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Eclipse and other outposts like Aurora have all been indoctrinated by an alien signal from the alien obelisks Everreach corporation discovered on the planet. Eclipse was the first affected due to their proximity to the obelisks, while Nova outpost avoided this fate due to being located near a ferromagnetic mineral deposit which blocks the signal.
- Combat Stilettos: The female Eclipse soldiers have platform heels boots on their black latex uniforms. Granted, the male Eclipse soldiers are wearing what look like ski boots which aren't that much more practical. Also, this shows that the female Eclipse soldiers aren't just using a palette swap of Nora's character model (as you might expect given the game's budget), as she has normal sci-fi boots.
- Crate Expectations: There are plenty of crates around containg the crafting resources needed for upgrades. Some of them can only be unlocked by hacking their security: in some cases, failing the hack will render them permanently locked. The contents of the crates is randomized, and locked crates have only slightly better loot than regular ones, so it's not a huge loss.
- Cyber Cyclops: Both Nora's drone and those of the enemies are designed with a single glowing "eye" in the centre.
- Destructive Saviour: The game mentions the colony's population is 200 workers. Nora ends up personally killing a little over half that number through the course of the game.
- Dialogue Tree: Nora Harwood converses with the other characters in this manner. Most choices are between being an empathetic human or a cold soldier.
- Funny Robot: 73-Q, Nora's technician bot companion given to her by Nova outpost, has an incorrectly installed personality model, causing her to make quirky and inappropriate comments for the situation at hand.
- Hacking Minigame: These are mainly used to bypass the security systems on crates. One is about dodging falling blocks as another block for a certain period of time, and it can be retried if failed. The other is about connecting lines on a grid during a fixed period of time, and it locks the crate forever if failed.
- Hard Light: One of the abilities is to generate a barrier of blue light that will deter the enemies' projectiles, though it only lasts for a brief period of time.
- Homing Projectile: The shots from the Zeus hoverbike's cannon will home in onto the enemies, but only if they are robots.
- Hover Bike: There are regular sections where Nora rides a Zeus hoverbike. However, they suffer from a range of bugs, and will at times feature flying dropships attacking Nora with no way to return fire, and so are generally more difficult and frustrating than the standard gameplay.
- Lighter and Softer: The writing is much less serious than that of its primary inspirations.
- MegaCorp: Everreach, which is large enough to maintain entire outposts on a distant planet, all on its own.
- Mooks, but no Bosses: The game has no boss fights, just Eclipse soldiers and drones. The closest thing are the heavy drones you fight towards the end in the desert and the Eclipse HQ, and a Cutscene Boss confrontation at the end with Jay, who's been exposed to the signal long enough to be half-indoctrinated. Your dialogue choices with him throughout the game determine whether or not he can still be reasoned with or whether Nora is forced to kill him.
- Multiple Endings: There's a Last-Second Ending Choice in which you decide whether to allow the Dark One children in stasis to escape, or to blow them all up alongside the obelisks, though both have the same outcome of the brainwashing signal being shut down. Your conversation choices with Jay throughout the game also determine whether or not you're forced to kill him in the final confrontation. Treating him kindly will reveal he's Nora's childhood friend and she'll be able to snap him out of the brainwashing by reminding him of their connection. Treating him coldly like a soldier will have the opposite effect.
- Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future: All of the gun models have a pure rectangular shape with a lot of glowing blue lights and with handles attached to them.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Eclipse personnel wear black armor with red highlights, and this is also seen on some of their equipment such as the anti-air batteries that shot down Nora's team.
- Robot Buddy: Nora always has a floating spherical drone by her side.
- Sprint Meter: Played straight, and it recharges rather slowly.
