Video Game / Infinity Wars

Infinity Wars is a "digital collectible card game" developed by Australian developers Lightmare Studios. It launched on Steam after an open beta period.

A millennia ago, "The Calamity" consumed the Old World, destroying almost everything. The world was split into multiple realities (potentially infinite ones, hence the title), populated by all sorts of different peoples and races. The world of Talich is home to the knights of the Order of the Flame Dawn and the highly advanced Genesis Industries, the plane of Reisch is fought over by the Descendants of the Dragon, the sorcerers of the Cult of Verore and the renegade Exiles of the Wastes and the New World is occupied by the beasts of the Warpath. Worst of all, though, is the plane of Avarrach, once a prosperous world now completely consumed by a horrific nano-virus that turned every living thing on it into a horde of cybernetic zombies—the Sleepers of Avarrach. Now rifts are opening between the planes and conflict is breaking out, especially as the Sleepers begin to spread across the multiverse. The Overseers of Solace entered the fray to stamp out the Undead threat in the Ascension update. (A more detailed summary of the lore can be found here)

The game takes full advantage of its digital status to incorporate mechanics that are impossible (or at least ridiculously difficult) to implement in hard-copy CCGs, such as tracking the permanent buffs on multiple creatures, and most notably, simultaneous turn system. Additionally, all the cards are animated- the characters depicted on them live and breathe (or don't in the case of the undead Sleepers and the Genesis robots) and action cards often depict full-blown action scenes. Additionally, there are 2 main ways to eliminate your opponent: by reducing his life (or stronghold strength in this case) from 100 to 0, or reducing his morale from 100 to 0 instead (morale loss is most commonly caused by having your creatures destroyed, punishing you for taking a cavalier approach to their welfare). Since all decisions in a turn have to be made before you can see what your opponent is going to do, there is a heavy emphasis on accurately predicting the enemy's actions in advance and moving to counter them, resulting in games often descending into Xanatos Speed Chess.

As well as the 2013 base set, 6 expansions have already been released: 'Rise' which introduced the corrupted Exiles faction, 'Infestation' which focused on the spread of the Virus across the multiverse (resulting in a large focus on the Sleepers of Avarrach) and introduced dual faction cards to the game, 'Ascension' which introduced gun–toting angels, the Overseers of Solace, 'Order' which dealt with the aftermath of the Sleeper war (seeing the Sleepers phased out of the game, receiving only a single card), 'Oppression' which starts the next story arc (with the Sleepers defeated by the Overseers, the new threat to humanity seems to be the Overseers) and 'Rebellion', with the mortal races and a number of angelic defectors fighting back against the callous Overseers. Additionally, Lightmare have also released a special set of cards based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which are playable in normal games but not in ranked matches.

Development of the game was discontinued, with Lightmare announcing the development of Infinity Wars 2. The servers were suspended at the end of March 2020 so resources could be redirected towards the sequel, with the intention of bringing the game back online later. This was later realised with the release of Infinity Wars: Classic, a ground-up remaster of the original game running on a newer engine, with saw the release of the 7th expansion, "Intrigue" and later the 8th, "Revelations".

Not to be confused with The 1992 Marvel Comics crossover event The Infinity War or the 2018 crossover event Infinity Wars. Also not to be confused with the film adaptation, Avengers: Infinity War.

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Infinity Wars provides examples of the following tropes:

• Aerith and Bob: The three neutral angels in the game—Radariah, Jubaliah and Cheryl. Their respective titles may provide a secondary example as well—the Untouchable, the Messenger and the Forward Scout.
• Alternate Self: There are a few characters that exist in all realities, or at least all the ones we see. Aleta is an immortal who apparently survived the Calamity, while Agent Coyle's presence is as yet unexplained (though the fact that all versions of him can turn into a dragon raises some questions).
  • It's implied that there's only ONE Coyle and he's a time traveller, with all the different versions representing him at different stages of his existence. Infinity Wars Classic, with its far more in-depth flavour text for each card, clarified that there are actually two Coyles- Coyle Prime (who went through all the good factions, ending with the Overseers and wants to protect the multiverse) and the younger Coyle Alpha One (the one who became a Zomborg then was corrupted into a Demon, and consequently wants to destroy the multiverse). The two of them eventually clashed in a final duel to the death (seen on the card Single Combat) that resulted in them merging into a single beiong, "Agent Coyle Divinedemonic".
• Alternate Universe: The game is based around them. There were only four when the game began: Talich (the Dawn and Genesis), Reisch (the Descendants, the Cult, and the Exiles), the New World (Warpath), and Avarrach (the Sleepers). A fifth has already been added (Solace, home to the Overseers), and references to the Old World (the Factionless cards) are constant.
• Apocalypse How: The Calamity was apparently at least Class 6, although its exact nature is vague. Not only did it wipe out the population of the Old World, it also split it into multiple realities. Aleta and (possibly) Agent Coyle were involved somehow and the only survivors, and now they exist in all worlds.
  After the Calamity not a single mortal human was left alive in the Old World.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: The Flame Dawn's hat; they have a monopoly on characters with Charge (causes them to deploy to the Assault zone rather than the Support zone) including their unlimited creature and fulfil the 'rush/swarm' role in the metagame.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Ultra-Unit, which requires you to sacrifice all three of the Genesis Mega Units. Even its flavour text acknowledges the fact that the card is not only almost unplayable but complete overkill if you could play it.
  "While incredibly cool, this creation will certainly never see the light of day. Any one Mega Unit can reshape the battlefield. Assembling all three together would be overkill."
• Beast Man: Many of the beasts of the Untamed World, guided by the hands of Aleta, Immortal Caretaker, evolved into these, who are the founders and leaders of the Warpath. They're mostly Cat Folk or Wolf Men.
• Big Bad: Sol, the Tyrant of Solace, who overthrows the Council that leads the Overseers to take single control and enforce his own dictatorial vision on the Infinite Worlds.
• Blood Knight: The society of the Order of the Flame Dawn revolves completely around martial valour and requires endless warfare to fuel it.
• Body of Bodies: The Zombie Abomination.
• Butt-Monkey: Apparently Yobo, Who Nobody Likes, the only character in the game who actually GIVES you morale when he dies rather than making you lose it. Somewhat of a Unpopular Popular Character among the fanbase.
  • When he dies, he doesn't even enter the Graveyard, he just leaves the game. Even the Graveyard doesn't like him!^note Actually it's just to keep you from repeatedly reviving him for easy morale recovery, but you can believe whatever's funnier if you like.
• Defector from Decadence: In Rebellion, several of the Overseers' new allies and even a few of the Overseers themselves turn against Sol's forces because of his callous indifference to the lives of mortals, including Lucca (who surgically removes the wings she'd been granted in the card 'Defiance' to become 'Lucca, Rebellion Leader'), and Lilariah (who becomes 'Lilariah, the Rebel').
• Early-Installment Weirdness: With the release of the Overseers, the first two angels have become something of an anomaly. Jubalia dresses completely differently from the Overseers, but at least has the halo and pistols. Radariah, on the other hand, bears almost NO resemblance to them whatsoever- as well as lacking a halo, she's also the only angel to fight with a sword. Cheryl, on the other hand, is clearly one of the Overseers, despite still being Neutral.
  • Jubalia has returned in Order as an Overseers character (Jubalia, the Valiant), still wearing the minidress. Cheryl also received an Overseers update (Agent Cheryl, the Last to Leave), strangely now wearing some kind of overcoat on top of her bodysuit. Radariah, the first angel ever released, has been forgotten.
• Enemy Civil War: After Aleta is taken prisoner by the freed Vasir, the Cult of Verore falls into in-fighting, with Aleta's two lieutenants literally at each others' throats, as portrayed on the card 'Struggle For Power'. It's resolved in the card 'The Price of Fame', with Rita killing Candit with a knife to the back.
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: In the new voice-acted campaign, Priestess Rita of the Cult of Verore had a strong (yet inexplicable) French accent. At least until her lines were rerecorded when the campaign was updated again, possibly because Lightmare thought it was too out-of-place.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Aleta, the Immortal Tinkerer (the Aleta of Talich) became Aleta, the Immortal Searcher when she travelled to Averrach in the hopes of finding a cure for the Virus. Her discovery of Aleta, Immortal Sufferer disturbs her greatly.
• Evil Twin: Aleta, Immortal Sorceress and Aleta, Immortal Sufferer to the rest of the Aletas. One's a Lady of Black Magic who enslaved a powerful demon prince to power the life-devouring sorceries of the Cult of Verore, the other is a tormented, insane and utterly corrupted cyborg who cannot die like the rest of the population of Avarrach due to her immortality. While the Sufferer isn't necessarily evil as such, she IS part of the undead faction.
• Fate Worse than Death: The fate of Aleta, Immortal Sufferer, cursed to wander eternally among the dead of Averrach, unable to die and constantly struggling against the Virus that attempts to take her over. She's not happy.
  • She appears to finally have found salvation, however, in the 'Oppression' expansion, with the card Reborn showing her admiring her new cybernetic body, apparently freed from the infestation, thanks to Genesis Industries and their version of Aleta. "Intrigue" saw the release of her new version as "Aleta, the Cured Immortal", who now has the ability to raise allies from the dead but removing the Undead keyword if they have it.
• Female Angel, Male Demon: So far played mostly straight- the three angels included in the game so far (Radariah, Jubaliah and Cheryl) are all women, while the demons controlled by the Cult of Verore are all masculine (or at least bestial enough that gender is indeterminate). While there ARE some female demons visible among the Exiles (Princess Hinekri and the demon girl in the background of the Demonic Mercenary) it's unknown how many of them are REAL demons and how many are corrupted humans.
  • Subverted when the Ascension update introduced male angels.
• Female Monster Surprise: The "surprise" was largely because it was a blatant Retcon ("he" was changed to "she" on the card itself) but it turns out that Shikana, Who Demands Tribute is actually a female monster. She looks like this. ^note This is a pre-retcon image of the card which still refers to her as "he".
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The proud and warlike Aberion, leader of the Flame Dawn, was reduced to a dispirited, overweight, drunken wreck by the time of "Intrigue" following the death of his good friend Bromich, as seen on his new card "Aberion, Fallen From Glory". He can be restored to his original form if you pay 4.
• Humongous Mecha: Mega Units 01, 02 and 03, some of the biggest characters available to Genesis Industries. They can be 'sacrificed' to form an even more powerful mecha, the Ultra–Unit.
• I Know You Know I Know: An essential part of the gameplay; if you telegraph your moves too obviously, your opponent can punish you severely. On the most basic level, if you have a huge character ready to attack, you might choose not to attack with it and leave it in your Support Zone, causing your opponent's Death Ray (which will kill any unit, but only if it's on the Battlefield) to fizzle without effect. Bluff and counter-bluff are a HUGE part of the game.
• Impossibly-Low Neckline: Candit, Head Researcher of the Cult of Verore, is nearly falling out of her clothes. The Verore Death Worshipper and the Aether Acolyte wear quite revealing tops as well.
• The Juggernaut: Aberion, the Hammer of Dawn, the leader of the Order of the Flame Dawn. As long as he remains in the assault zone he's literally Indestructible.
  • Also any REALLY big creature with Unstoppable: whenever their attack kills a defender they carry on to attack the next one. The Dragons which Agent Coyle evolves into are the most notable examples.
• Jungle Princess: Aleta, Immortal Caretaker/Aleta, Immortal Survivor.
• Kaiju: The biggest Warpath creatures, Hidden By Clouds and Titan of the New World, are absolutely colossal (Skraar is pretty big too, although not to quite the same scale). Some of the larger demons (such as the Hungry Abomination or Nysrugh the Hungry) also border on this, as is the Zombie Abomination.
• Killed Off for Real: Orion, killed by Sol during the Flame Dawn/Overseers attack on Genesis Industries. His public memorial is an artifact in Order.
  • Candit, Head Researcher of the Cult of Verore, is killed off by Rita the Shadow Priestess at the end of their struggle to gain control of the cult in Aleta's absence. Subverted when she would reemerge in "Intrigue" as "Candit, the Demonic", who is almost impossible to actually kill.
  • Xi is apparently dead as well, judging from the fact that her 4th (and presumably final) incarnation is 'Xi, Martyr of Peace'.
• Knight Templar: The Overseers. Arrogant, mostly unconcerned with the lives of those beneath them and willing to go to any lengths to annihilate the Virus of Avarrach. When Genesis Industries think they might be able to find a cure for the Virus, the Overseers (and the Flame Dawn) try to stop them because they don't want the infected cured, they want them annihilated (and because they don't believe Genesis can be trusted not to weaponise the Virus). Then again, they're right to suspect that.
• Lady of Black Magic: Aleta, Immortal Sorceress.
• Last of His Kind: The Last Sleeper, the only Sleepers of Avarrach card released in the Order expansion. Subverted when the "Intrigue" expansion introduced a new set of Sleepers cards, Lightmare having apparently changed their minds about phasing the faction out.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Unintentionally; the Virus of Avarrach was created by a man who fell in love with that plane's incarnation of the immortal Aleta, who was trying to find a way to avoid a Mayfly–December Romance with her by making himself as immortal as her. Instead, he created a nano-virus that decided that the only way the man's body could survive eternally was to convert all of his organs to cybernetics. He was Patient Zero.
• Matriarchy: The Cult of Verore.
• Nano Machines: The nature of the Virus of Avarrach.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Warpath prophetess Karani sacrificed her life performing a ritual to open a portal to Solace, allowing the Overseers to come through to the infinite worlds to fight the spread of the Sleepers. Unfortunately, the Overseers care nothing for the beasts of the Warpath, so they all but annihilate their world and nearly wipe out the Warpath altogether in an attempt to purge the Sleepers.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Sleepers of Avarrach are literal Zombie Robots (or cyborgs at least).
• Our Angels Are Different: Humanoids in skintight latex who fight with pistols and apparently draw their power from the consciousness of humans on all the planes (but not the Beasts of the Untamed World, hence their willingness to commit genocide on them to stop the spread of the Virus). They don't necessarily begin with wings, or may even have only one, requiring them to 'ascend' to earn their wings.
• Our Demons Are Different: The "demons" are the monstrous counterparts of the angels of Solace, who entered the infinite worlds through the Hellmouth on Reisch and are mostly summoned and controlled by the Cult of Verore. They're distinct from the "devils", the corrupted humans that make up the bulk of the Exiles faction. Their level of monstrosity varies, as can be easily seen if you compare their two leaders, the gigantic man-eating abomination Nysrugh the Hungry, and the sexy Cute Monster Girl Princess Hinekri.
• Patient Zero: An actual card; he can kill anything in a combat zone with a touch and resurrect it on your side as an undead.
• Revenge: Aleta, Immortal Survivor swears revenge against the Overseers for their near-genocide of the Warpath.
• Running Gag: "Specimen <number> is easily identifiable by being <really non-technical description>. Fleeing in panic is advised" - Genesis Industries Field Operations Manual.
• Schizo Tech: Technology levels vary between the worlds. The beasts of the Warpath eschew technology almost completely, getting by on shamanism and their natural brutality. The inhabitants of Reisch rely more on magic and seem to be at roughly a medieval or Renaissance level. On Talich, the Flame Dawn seem to be at a high level of Steampunk (they have Jet Packs, guns and tanks, but still wear metal armour and fight with swords) while Genesis Industries are effectively space-aged (they have a sub-orbital ion canon as well as highly advanced robots and lasers). Avarrach may have been the most advanced of all - which ironically led to its downfall when their nanotechnology created The Virus.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Aleta, Immortal Sorceress imprisoned Vasir the demon prince below Veroria, using him as the key to controlling the demons. You would not believe how much trouble she's in now he's escaped and captured her for revenge. In-game Vasir, the Chained Prince can't do anything until your opponent stops paying a large amount of resource every turn to keep him chained but once they let him become unchained they're in for a world of hurt.
• Sensual Spandex: What some of the Overseers' Latex Space Suits come off as, especially Lilariah and the Consecrating Angel
• Shout-Out: A lot of the original on-card flavour text^note no longer included on the new cards in Infinity Wars Classic in favour of more in-depth paragraphs of lore:
  • Agent Coyle, Alpha One: "I HAVE THE POWER!"
  • Cartographer: With dust in throat I crave/The knowledge I will save
  • Pras, the Traitor of Dawn: "Et tu, Brute?"
  • Vengeful Warrior: Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
  • Lucca, Combat Mechanic is named after (and even somewhat resembles) the character of the same name from Chrono Trigger.
  • The Hellmouth (appearance of text is delayed): "From beneath you, it devours."
  • Cowmmando: "You can't milk those!"
• Stripperiffic: Many members of the Cult of Verore, most notably its leaders Aleta, Rita and Candit.
• The Virus: The Virus of Avarrach, obviously. Played With, as the Virus is cybernetic in nature, thus giving infected organisms the ability to replace lost body parts with mechanical ones. The in-game universe's people call the Sleepers of Avarrach 'Zomborgs'.
• We Have Reserves: Usually averted; while you CAN play your deck like this if you've built it appropriately, the morale mechanic punishes you for taking needless losses.
• Wrench Wench: Aleta, Immortal Tinkerer and Lucca, Combat Mechanic.
• Zombie Apocalypse: What destroyed Avarrach and is now threatening to spread to other worlds.