- 9th November 1989, 8:12pm
Berlin, Germany.
Our central processing unit, ATLAS, is out of control. I just discovered parts of it all over our servers...
INDUSTRIA is a First-Person Shooter video game developed by Bleakmill, inspired by Half-Life series. It was released on September 30, 2021, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
The game is set in an alternate history version of Germany during the Cold War era. Nora Solheim, a scientist and researcher behind something called the ATLAS Project, is searching for her boyfriend Walter who went missing after reporting to her about ATLAS' malfunctioning and telling her "he needs to stop it" months ago. Deciding to follow Walter's trail alone, Nora enters the laboratory housing the ATLAS project alone and was unexpectedly warped into a dark void...
After getting knocked unconscious in a bumpy elevator ride and waking up in an abandoned underground facility, regaining her bearings Nora finds out she's somehow transported to a city in an Alternate Universe, Hakavik, seemingly devoid of life. Turns out Hakavik was zero point for Project ATLAS' activation 20 years ago, which somehow leads to the city's current, deserted state, and a mysterious voice is guiding her along the way. Also, the streets of Hakavik are revealed to be full of hostile robots who intends to eliminate all organic life-forms on sight.
A sequel, INDUSTRIA II, was announced
and is scheduled for release in 2025 for PC.
A Tangent Resonance... it's not usually like that...
- Action Bomb: The spherical robot enemies' sole attack is to get close enough to Nora and detonate themselves. Their blast radius is huge and takes out quite a chunk of Nora's health, though if Nora guns them down they'll simply deactivate without detonating.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Project ATLAS, which messes up royally and wipes out all life in the German city of Hakavik, filling it's population with robots and machines.
- Alternate Universe: The city of Hakavik is definitely in a different universe from the one Walter and Nora come from. It's implied Walter deliberately let ATLAS loose here to protect Nora and their universe from it, making this trope double as Expendable Alternate Universe.
- Badass Bookworm: You'd expect Nora, a scientist, researcher and generally a non-combatant to be quite helpless once she's stranded alone in Hakavik. But the moment she gets hold of a pick and firearms, she easily takes down one robot after another without too much effort.
- Blackout Basement: From literal basements to dimly-lit, abandoned research facilities, where Nora can only navigate her way across through her flashlight.
- Cliffhanger: The game ends with Nora managing to find Walt (or, rather, his comatose or dead body), only to end on a bizarre dream sequence with the whole "ATLAS taking over the world" situation left unresolved).
- Cyber Cyclops: A few of the robots in Hakavik don't have any discernible facial features, the only organ they have being a single red eye.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Nora's flashback in-between levels and her scenes with Walter are in grayscale.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Pressing the "fire" button while reloading will interrupt the reload animation, making you start over. A lovely combination, especially when facing fast enemies later on.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: If anything in Hakavik is capable of moving about, it will attack Nora on sight. Her only ally in-game is Brent, and even then he can only be heard.
- Falling Damage: Nora can suffer health loss if she falls from a drop too high. The screen would momentarily flash red when that happens.
- Handicapped Badass: In his brief physical appearance, Brent is shown to be a wheelchair-bound older man. His disability in no way prevents him from gunning down a pair of robots to save Nora, as well as surviving in the robot infested Hakavik for ten years.
- Hellevator: The elevator attached to ATLAS' core doesn't lead to hell, but it does lead to Hakavik - an empty, devoid city in a world where ATLAS' robots have taken over most life-forms.
- I Warned You: Brent told Nora the "don't say I didn't warn you" variant when she insists on looking for Walter halfway into the game.
- Mecha-Mooks: Owing to ATLAS malfunctioning in the past, Hakavik is now occupied entirely by it's robots, with every onscreen mook Nora destroys being mechanical.
- Mind Screw: The ending becomes increasingly surreal and dream-like, with objects from your life in East Germany randomly turning up in the outskirts of Hakavik, a disembodied Walter lecturing you as you float down a shaft of visions, and finally being on the theater stage from the dream sequences when the curtain falls.
- Mooks, but no Bosses: Plenty of hostile robots for Nora to battle, but not a single boss fight.
- Nice Guy: Despite his initial confusion at her presence, Brent is nothing but kind and helpful to Nora, guiding her to where she needs to go and encouraging her to go find Walter once she's leaving the city.
- One-Word Title: Industria is an annual festival that previously took place in the city where the entire game is set.
- Powerful Pick: Nora's first pickup upon arrival in Hakavik and the sole melee weapon she can use. It takes down most robot enemies in just a handful of swings, too.
- Ragnarök Proofing: The firearms and ammunition Nora picks up throughout Hakavik is somehow still in working condition, despite being unused for 20 years.
- Robot Dog: One of the robotic enemy variants, who appears to be based on BigDog as designed by Boston Dynamics.
- Robot War: What supposedly happened in Hakavik years ago, though it's more of a Great Offscreen War with Nora arriving in time to realize the place is deserted.
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Nora spends the whole game looking for Walter, who disappeared after crossing the dimensional portal to Hakavik some unspecified time ago only to discover the whole city is deserted. After a lengthy search, she found Walter in the final scene, as a corpse (or a comatose body). But then Walter's voice is heard on a nearby radio...
- Shrine to Self: Nora discovers how much influence Walter has to the entirety of the ATLAS project when coming across a building-sized statue of Walter in the middle of Hakavik.
- Sniper Rifle: Nora can obtain one while exploring Hakavik to snipe enemy robots from a distance. In a few stages it also doubles as a telescope.
- Unexpectedly Abandoned: Hakavik, a city seemingly devoid of life, because the robots have taken over everything.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Once in a while, you can see gigantic humanoid machines walking in the far distance. Despite towering over the city proper, Nora never once comments on them, nor does she ask Brent about them.
- The Voice: Save for a brief appearance at the beginning where he saves Nora from some robots, Brent spends the entirety of the game speaking over the radio.
- Wham Shot: Combined with Wham Line, but as Nora comes across a courtyard, Brent plays a recording of their king Rosendal, the combination of the voice and the statue in the courtyard reveals to both Brent and Nora that Walter is Rosendal.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: From all indications, Nora entered the interdimensional portal only a few minutes after Walter, yet when she emerges, it's eventually revealed that she arrived in Hakavik 20 years after Walter did.
