Video Game / Phantom Doctrine

Phantom Doctrine is a Turn-Based Tactics game developed by CreativeForge Games, published by Good Shepherd Entertainment, and released for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 14, 2018.

An espionage thriller set in an Alternate History 1980s during the Cold War, where mind control programs such as MKUltra were much more advanced and dangerous. Players take control of a rogue cell codenamed Cabal and must unravel an international conspiracy involving world governments, their leaders, and the invisible puppeteers controlling them all.

The game includes squad and base management, and a strategic world map for controlling agents. Tactical missions are turn-based, with hand-crafted maps, random enemy placements and varying objectives.

A trailer can be viewed here.

Galaktus Games launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2020 for Phantom Doctrine - Espionage Board Game.

The game is due to be followed by a sequel, Phantom Doctrine The Cabal, which was announced in July 2020 by publisher PlayWay. Announcement trailer.

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Phantom Doctrine contains examples of the following tropes:

• '80s Hair: The primary antagonist, Valhalla, has amazing hair. And of course, you can customize your agents with some era-appropriate hair styles as well, such as huge bangs on your female agents.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: A generous amount of startup cash is provided, but everything costs money: hiring new agents, base upgrades, crafting items, creating new identities. Passive income is relatively low, and the only option to generate extra income early on is forging cash - which requires an initial investment to set up the forger facility and then assigning agents to print money. Once you start replacing weapons with higher tier versions, selling weapons and gear becomes much more lucrative.
• A.K.A.-47: Many guns don't use their real names. The M1911 is just called .45, The Python is called Cobra (Not to be confused with the actual Colt Cobra), SVD is called SV-63, the Uzi is called Gal, etc. Many still use their real names however.
• all lowercase letters: Code names of people and places and organisations that you find when reviewing intel are usually in this format. E.g. "I went to lake house and met eel monitor, who claimed to represent obsidian eyes."
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: If you have your danger level in the red, you risk the enemy raiding your HQ so you better evacuate to a new HQ. Failure to do so results in a loss of cash and potentially a number of agents will go missing in action.
• Always Night: All missions in the game take place during a rainy night no matter what location or time zone the mission takes place. The only exceptions are the final missions in both normal and extended campaigns. The assault on Project Iceberg base took place indoors but it is implied that the mission happened concurrent with the US invasion of Grenada which is most likely taking place during daytime, while the assault on Tai-Pan's restaurant is explicitly shown to be taking place during the day (although the evac vehicle cutscenes are still shown in a rainy night atmosphere for some reason).
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The tutorial mission in East Berlin has the player controlling a Beholder Initiative operative codenamed Kingfish. Cabal agents are not featured, though the main character (whether it's Deadpan, Kodiak, or Hemlock is mentioned in dialogue. All campaigns have a mission that has the Cabal track Kingfish to Glasgow to recover a stolen shipment.
• Another Side, Another Story:
  • There are three separate campaigns with unique opening chapters and story missions, though the storylines converge from chapter two onwards. Two options are available initially: the CIA and KGB. Completing a playthrough as one of these factions unlocks a third, more difficult campaign featuring Mossad.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Luck is much less of a factor in Phantom Doctrine than other turn-based strategy games. Tactics play a much greater role, such as cover always reducing damage unless special abilities are used. Whether a target can dodge or receive reduced damage depends on awareness. There are some random elements which can play an important part - such as placement of enemy operatives on a map.
  • One random element that's gone is hit chance - you (and enemies) are guaranteed to hit, with damage acting as the variable.
  • In infiltration mode players can see the patrol routes of visible units and restricted areas are clearly marked. This makes it easier to maintain stealth and determine the best strategy.
  • A warning icon appears next to actions that will break stealth, but only if your agents are aware that it will break stealth. You still need line of sight on any civilian, guard, or camera that will observe the illegal action otherwise the warning won't appear.
  • You keep base upgrades even if you move hideouts.
  • Any agent not already on a mission or in transit can be sent on an assault mission - even from the other side of the world. This is true even if the Beholder agents are close to completing their task. This makes logistics a little easier, though any agent who survives is relocated to the headquarters on completion. Too bad if you're short staffed elsewhere.
  • Opening and closing doors from a static position is a free action, which allows to check inside a closed room even if the agent used all their action points.
  • As long as the option is available, disposing of bodies works absolutely everywhere, regardless of whereas the area contains spots where bodies could realistically be hidden.
  • Agents are psychologically tough and won't panic no matter how sticky things get.
  • Every non-equipped item is stored in a shared stash immediately accessible from any location, which allows to change the loadout of a team to fit your needs right before the start of any tactical mission.
  • The MK-ULTRA facility has tons of drawbacks, but operating with it doesn't require to assign your own agents to it, you only need to select the Beholder agent you want to interrogate/brainwash/execute..
  • Your agents have a Limited Loadout, but there is no limit to the amount of loot that they can pick up on missions. They cannot equip it, though.
• Arms Dealer: The player can be this. One of the best ways to make money in the game is by selling unwanted weapons and equipment you acquire on the black market.
• Artificial Brilliance: Most enemy guards aren't so smart, but enemy agents are a different matter; they'll see through your disguises, and if too many guards fail to report back, they'll start patrolling the level actively looking for you while destroying loot/intel. (On the other hand, you can use this to deliberately draw out an agent from a guarded room...)
• Artificial Stupidity: Closed doors block AI line of sight, even when someone goes normally through them (while the game plays an animation of the door being opened then immediately closed). If one of your agents enters a restricted area (or leaves one), mooks located outside of said restricted area won't react, even if the door itself is in their visual field, as long as the agents remained unseen while inside the restricted area. This is averted with glass doors (or doors with small windows on them), though. AI line of sight still go through glass doors like any normal window, so take great care when setting your agents next to glass doors like these as the AI can still see them with their line of sight.
• Artistic License – History: Your handler was rescued from a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp in both the CIA and KGB campaigns. The Soviet Union supported North Vietnam, so a Russian in a Northern POW camp is about as likely as an American in a Southern POW camp. A handwave is provided for why he was rescued, but not for why he was in there in the first place.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • Random generation of hired agents can result in results which were impossible in the setting, like female operatives being former Navy SEALs.
  • The "Vietnam Veteran" perk can be taken by agents of any nationality, even those from nations that did not have any involvement in the Vietnam War. Unless you assume they served with the French Foreign Legion.
• Auto-Save: The game is generous with auto saves.
  • It keeps auto saves of the last three combat turns, for your Save Scumming pleasure.
  • It also keeps auto saves of the last three game days on the world map.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: An option for agents' appearance. Some disguises also have agents dress up in formal wear or The Men in Black.
• Base on Wheels: The lowest-budget version: your hideout is mobile, since it's mostly run out of a bunch of portable equipment that can be boxed up and shipped at a moment's notice if the heat is on. This is the only way to stay ahead of the Beholder Initiative when it's hunting down your cabal.
• Big Bad: Valhalla, the lead agent of the Beholder Initiative. He turns out to be weaker than most mooks and has less HP than early game enemy agents. Possibly justified given the final dialogue - for the non-extended campaign at least - implies Valhalla is not the true mastermind.
• Big Good: In the KGB campaign, Yuri Andropov himself authorizes the creation of the Cabal in order to combat Beholder Initiative.
• Bio-Augmentation: A 1980s variant. Cabal agents only improve their stats slightly via levelling up. Major improvements are done through the injection of chemicals that confer bonuses, once the relevant facility has been unlocked. Some chemicals prohibit the use of others and the most powerful don't become available until late in the game. Achieving the best results requires experimentation, though an option to "remove all" chemicals is provided roughly half way through.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Beholder Initiative is working on a dangerous plan to extend the Cold War indefinitely by heating it up, but the Cabal isn't much better. Beholder will employ brainwashing, torture and murder to achieve their ends, but so will you. The only real difference between the Cabal and Beholder is the endgoal. Reading between the lines makes it clear that other agencies (CIA, FBI, Mossad, KGB, etc) aren't even sure that the Cabal and Beholder aren't the same group, and regard both as dangerous entities.
• Black Site: A recurring theme.
  • As might be expected, the Cabal works out of a secret base. Depending on what actions the player takes, it may become necessary to relocate to a different city if the danger level becomes too high. The surrounding environment (cover buildings) and layout of base facilities varies by location.
  • Beholder cells tend to be based above ground in areas such as docks and construction sites, with plenty of innocent civilians / workers walking around in addition to enemy agents and guards.
• Blinded by the Light:
  • Flashbang grenades substantially reduce enemy awareness. Affected units are less likely to dodge incoming shots and can't use certain abilities.
  • The blinding laser ability removes overwatch and prevents the targeted enemy firing in the next turn.
• Boom, Headshot!: An ability which ignores cover and deals massive damage, though drains the agent's focus. Undodgeable if done in point blank range.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Enemy units have 'realistic' line of sight and can see Cabal agents across the map. One useful tactic if an alarm has been raised is to close doors (a free action) to restrict firing opportunities.
  • Every base upgrade which increases your income and reduces your costs.
• Bottomless Magazines: Agents carry an unlimited number of spare ammo for their guns, though if you're playing properly, you'll rarely need to reload.
• Brainwashed: An option once the MK Ultra facility is unlocked. This removes Beholder programming from agents on your roster, at the risk of losing abilities.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: The "Brainwashing" option in the MK Ultra facility (likely your first) is more technically brain-cleansing, as it removes all hidden control phrases from an agent, at the risk of destroying some of their perks. Later on, when you do get the control phrase technology from Beholder, the first target the main character decides to use it on is Tai-Pan, just so he'll be more likely to tell you the truth and less likely to stab you in the back (again).
• But Thou Must!:
  • You must kill Aguirre - the game does allow you to use a takedown on him (normally nonlethal on Agents), but you do not have the interrogation room unlocked at this point and you are not allowed to retrieve his body.
  • Later in the game one of your agents turns out to be Undertow, a mole for Beholder. At that point you must kill him/her to progress the story.
• Classified Information: Important documents can be found during tactical missions, often from high security areas. Outside of missions, partially redacted documents can be reviewed to identify key words and phrases and form intelligence links.
• Cleanup Crew: One of the first unlockable support options is a cleaner team that reduces agent heat from a "noisy" mission.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Male agents with the "Profane" voice type swear nearly every time that you select them.
• Code Name:
  • As might be expected given the setting, there are lots of codenames in use. These include Cabal and enemy operatives, shadowy organisations, and the sinister Project Iceberg.
  • On more than one occasion an unknown person is referred to by their codename, and your task is to discover their identity.
• Combination Attack: The 'breach' action which involves two or more operatives entering via separate access points and gunning down opposing forces. This does not necessarily break stealth - if successful and silenced weapons are used.
• Commonplace Rare: The US M16 rifle is a very common gun in real life, but is a very rare drop in-game, and some people have completed a playthrough without finding one. If you buy one on the black market, it is a mid tier gun at a mid tier price.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Once the alarm has been sounded, every enemy on the map becomes instantly aware of the locations of all your agents. But the only enemies who are visible to the player are those within the line of sight of player-controlled agents. It's quite likely you'll stumble into an ambush while you're trying to get your agents to the evacuation area.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: One of the possible options for agent attire, together with matching hats if so desired.
• Cut and Paste Environments:
  • There are a limited number of hand crafted maps used for missions, and players are likely to see some of them quite a few times in a given playthrough. Variety comes from random agent and loot placement (which reset upon restarting), and different objectives depending on the mission. This leads to most settings seeming American in nature independent of where the action takes place - the only cosmetic changes between maps in different nations are Soviet flags and propaganda posters plastered all over "Eastern Bloc" nations, and gangland-style graffiti being sprayed on some "lower class" maps in first world nations.
  • It also leads to the strange situation of several sequential missions being set during torrential downpours...in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, or other desert areas.
  • Averted with the main story missions, which tend to take place on unique maps.
• Death from Above: Occasionally, Beholder Initiative will call air strikes on your agents during the alert phases. They're siccing attack helicopters or jet fighters on your few agents on the ground just to make sure that you're certainly, most definitely dead.
• Destroy the Evidence: If agents become suspicious, they will search the area and destroy any classified documents they come across. They can also reactivate security cameras.
• Dirty Cop:
  • It's implied the Beholders bribe local cops and security forces given how they protect Beholder agents and cells.
  • There's also Agent Aquirre, a DIA agent on the Beholder's payroll.
  • Agent Snowcat is a GRU agent who's also being bribed by Beholder (and in his case, going behind the Soviet government's back to fulfill the Beholder Initiative's agenda.)
  • One of the mission maps is a police station. It seems some cops are even happy to let Beholder operate a cell from their precinct. And police officers / soldiers feature as enemies in almost every mission from the very start.
• Disposing of a Body: In infiltration mode, enemy personnel or civilians will raise the alarm if they discover an unconscious or dead person. One option (unless playing on hard difficulty) is to 'dispose' of the body by hiding it where it will never be found. This leads to a fade-to-black animation and the body disappearing from the game.
• Distant Finale: The final mission of the extended campaign takes 8 years after the events of the rest of the game, when the Cabal has finally tracked down Tai-Pan, and storms in to kill him in revenge for being his Unwitting Pawn in usurping Valhalla from power.
• Double Agent:
  • As demonstrated in the tutorial, it's possible to turn opposing agents to your side through use of a code phrase implanted using the MK Ultra facility. This improves stealth options as these personnel will not arouse suspicion even in restricted areas - essentially working as a disguise. However, enemy agents will raise the alarm if they spot the controlled agent outside their designated patrol area.
  • Cabal agents may themselves be sleepers. This will result on them defecting to the enemy side in a combat situation. The MK Ultra facility allows you to create sleeper Cabal agents through the Mason Gambit option.
• Dragon Ascendant: Tai-Pan usurps Valhalla's position in the extended campaign, playing off Valhalla's arguements with the Komplex to assume his position upon Valhalla's assassination by the Cabal. He too is weaker that most mooks, but this is justified in-game that he's a Puppetmaster, and a Dirty Coward to boot, as he locked himself in a freezer that you'll need to hit a switch to open.
• Dynamic Entry: The "Breach" option allows two or more agents to simultaneously enter a room and open fire on the enemies within, dealing more damage than they would with regular attacks. If all of the agents involved have suppressors on their weapons this action will not raise the alarm. It's a great way to kill enemy agents if unarmed takedowns can't be performed due to the enemy having higher health than the Cabal agents.
• Early Game Hell: The initial portion of the game can be somewhat difficult.
  • There are no silenced weapons available, so the only option for stealth is to use takedowns. This means getting up close and potentially being spotted by a patrolling guard, camera or civilian. And the weapons you do have consist of small SMGs and, more commonly, a pistol that's the very definition of a Little Useless Gun. It's telling when a snubnose revolver, usually at best a Ranged Emergency Weapon, is a pretty big step up.
  • Your gear is also incredibly limited: you have to manufacture lockpicks for a pretty extreme cost, and other than weapons, you're limited to health kits for support gear.
  • Taking down enemy units silently by melee combat requires the attacker to have higher HP. Unless an agent "gets lucky" and acquires the HP increasing survivor perk, it is unlikely this silent option for dealing with agents will be available in the early game. (Easy difficulty removes the HP requirement, providing the single biggest change to the difficulty curve in the game)
  • The only support option is a spotter - of limited use in a firefight.
  • Hiring new agents increases the danger level. Early on it only takes a few to put the hideout under threat. Later in the game options appear to reduce the danger hiring cost and maximum danger limit, but the early game can be very punishing.
  • Agents incur heat relatively quickly and are typically compromised after two non-stealthy missions. This increases travel time and the risk of ambush. Heat will decrease over time - unless the agent is compromised, in which case the only way to remove this status is by forging a new identity...which costs money.
  • The biggest roadblock to the early game is money: you start off with limited cash reserves ($15,000 on Easy, $10,000 on Normal, and $5,000 on Hard), and only earn $40 per hour. A set of lockpicks, the most basic piece of gear you can initially manufacture, costs $600. Forging a new identity for a compromised agent? $500. Recruiting a new agent? $1,000-$1,500. Base upgrades are extremely useful... and start at $1,000 minimum. The best upgrade you can get early on? The cash forging upgrade that, when staffed (tying up a valuable agent) gives you an additional $50 per hour. Even on Easy, you can burn through your cash reserves almost immediately just trying to get the things you'll need to survive in the short term. Once you've finished the second chapter and start seeing second-tier weapons, you can become a gunrunner by selling your unused, mostly useless weapons for cold, hard cash, and start to stabilize, but then a whole new set of upgrades appear, and they're even more expensive!
• Elaborate Underground Base: The final mission in the regular (non-extended) campaign has the Cabal raiding a high-tech underground bunker on the island of Grenada to put a stop to Project Iceberg and kill Valhalla. In fact, the US invasion of Grenada was an elaborate cover for this operation.
• Elite Mooks:
  • Enemy agents are more dangerous than standard guards and soldiers.
    • They have more health, which makes them harder to take down without weapons as the knockout ability can only be used on a target with less HP.
    • Guards have zero awareness in infiltration mode, but agents begin at full awareness. This makes them more likely to dodge incoming shots or take reduced damage.
    • Agents can detect disguises. Unless the Cabal operative has the actor perk and doesn't go too close to the agent.
    • If enough guards are taken out, agents become suspicious and start searching the area. Conversely, if agents are taken out first, normal guards don't seem to notice if their colleagues or civilians go missing.
  • The various PMC guards are tougher versions of the policemen and SEC guards you meet most of the time. They are often armored. While your agents can knock them out as easily as other guards during infiltration, they can prove to be a challenge once they get alerted. One mission even pits you against the Navy Seals.
• Enemy Civil War: The opening cutscene starts with Valhalla and his right-hand woman Cardinal usurping the control of Beholder Initiative by killing its previous CEO. Later dossiers in the extended campaign also revealed that Beholder Initiative under Valhalla's leadership is a Renegade Splinter Faction of the Komplex, who's using the Cabal as pawns to eliminate Valhalla for them while they watched from the shadows. And then there's Tai-Pan who's been orchestrating everything that leads to Valhalla's downfall so he can usurp his position.
• Escort Mission: Subverted with informant rescue operations. Once freed informants become a controllable agent equipped with weapons, although they are classed as 'openly hostile' and will trigger an alarm if spotted by enemy units or civilians. If successfully extracted the agent joins the Cabal for free without incurring the usual danger penalty.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Gameplay hint number 22: "Don't rely on using cars for cover too much. They tend to explode under fire."
• Executive Suite Fight: Beholder Initiative has a hidden suite located in the Sears Tower in Chicago, which in 1983 was the tallest building in the world.
• Foregone Conclusion: One of the missions is to prevent the shoot down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. We know from history the Cabal won't succeed.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The tutorial mission contains a few to the CIA campaign. Kingfish refers to Deadpan as a "CIA wash-out", alluding to Deadpan turning rogue after being betrayed. He also steals documents locating Beholder Initiative goods seized by the British, and once he evacuates the map he states he's going straight to Glasgow; a story mission for all campaigns is set in Glasgow, which consists in looking for this very cargo, and Kingfish himself is present onsite as a hostile agent.
  • When you examine Tai-Pan's dossier, the cover says "Tai-Pan appears to be a small time gangster and information broker from Hong Kong. However, the extent of his operations and allies surprises us at every step." He is revealed to be The Man Behind the Man in the unlockable extended campaign.
  • The CIA campaign has a subtle one in the mission dialogue. Your handler, Fender, often has an uncomfortable, stuttering cadence when speaking his lines. It later turns out the conspiracy tortured him years ago, damaging his mind and indoctrinating him with a secret Trigger Phrase that forces him to switch sides.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many details of level design and decoration can only be seen if you zoom in, and the only way to zoom in is to prepare an attack on someone who happens to be standing in the right spot. These sorts of things are mostly posters, but you can also find an executive toy swinging away on a desk.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Forging fake IDs always resets an agent's heat meter, even if the new ID still has the same name, same country, and same ID photograph.
  • ID photographs, fake citizenships, and agents' appearance customization are purely cosmetic and haven't any effect on the agent's heat. Things that would be highly suspicious in real life (ethnicity which would be very rare or nonexistent in their country^note e.g. a black person pretending to be Japanese or Soviet, face which doesn't look like the ID photograph at all, ID photograph and in-game model having a different ethnicity, etc.) are completely ignored by the AI. Likewise, some weird customization options (non black men with an Afro haircut, eyepatches, pink sunglasses, bald women, jeans and a suit jacket worn together, female agents wearing a hijab in missions set in a place with no Muslim population, the customization options added by the free Halloween-themed DLC, etc.) have no effect in-game, while doing so in real life would make the agents more noticeable.
  • The intermission dialog which follows the story mission inside Beirut's morgue states that a firefight happened inside, even if the mission has been completed without breaking stealth.
  • In the first chapter of the CIA campaign, once Deadpan is considered as a traitor by the CIA, you gain a story mission which consists in entering the hideout in Beirut to take the documents still inside. The game already allows to change hideout before this sequence; not only dialogs sound like Beirut is the hideout until this moment, but it also adds a plot hole: did Deadpan evacuated the previous hideout while leaving sensitive data onsite?
  • As dictated by history, key events will occur on certain dates regardless of how many days have passed on the world map.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Komplex (i.e. the Military-Industrial Complex), who want to create proxy wars so that they keep getting rich on selling weapons to all sides, and were the ones backing Valhalla and the Beholder Initiative in order to do so. In both campaigns, the Komplex at large doesn't have its members brought to justice by the Cabal, with the closest to comeuppance they get is being duped into putting Tai-Pan into Valhalla's position.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Played with. If you haven't sounded the alarm, guards have rather short view range^note six tiles ahead, eight tiles for agents implying they are not paying so much attention. There's also several actions which aren't considered suspicious by the AI (jumping through windows, opening-closing doors leading to restricted areas, following people, being seen leaving a restricted area, etc.) as long as agents are spotted doing them in unrestricted areas. Once they get alerted however, they can see your agents as far as your agents can see them.
• Gun Accessories: Weapons can be modded with suppressors, expanded magazines, different barrels, Abnormal Ammo, etc. However, for an agent to be able to do so, they have to be proficient in that particular weapon and all accessories are removed from the weapon when unequipped, so one agent can't mod, say a .45 to give to another agent.
• Gun Porn: The game has loads of Cold War era guns for agents to use with a couple of rare guns, such as the H&K CAWS, for good measure.
• Gunship Rescue: On both sides.
  • In addition to personnel, armed helicopters and fighter jets are often called in to provide enemy support. These will target Cabal agents who aren't indoors.
  • At the end of the first CIA mission Cabal agents are extracted by helicopter. And using a helicopter instead of the standard van is an extraction option later in the game.
• Grenade Launcher: Available as a support ability. Using the grenade launcher, a variety of grenades can be launched, such as smoke, poison gas, or good old fashioned frag grenades. They are loud, so it's advisable to hold off firing one off until your agents are in a position to get away or you're already in combat.
• Guide Dang It!: It is common for perk descriptions to say that they raise or lower a stat, but without saying how much.
• The Handler: In the CIA campaign your handler is Fender, in the KGB campaign your handler is Cyclone, in the Mossad campaign your handler is Delilah. All three of the handlers turn out to be traitors who were brainwashed in the 1970s at an MKULTRA black site.
• Hazmat Suit: The first CIA mission involves Cabal agent using these as a disguise.
• Heavily Armored Mook: You will encounter these guys later on in the game. They are immune to knockdown and the only reliable way to kill them silently is by headshot with a powerful suppressed handgun or breaching with suppressed weapons.
• Hero Must Survive: If the main character dies on a mission, the game is over.
• Hollywood Silencer: Enemies and civilians will never hear a silenced weapon no matter how close the Cabal agent is. They do come with the Necessary Drawback of reducing a weapon's stopping power (there are suppressors that can be fitted to any weapon and don't reduce damage, but they are rare and don't show up until very late in the campaign). There's even an achievement for fitting a silencer to a shotgun.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: It is unknown how your agents hide big weapons like assault rifles and machine guns without a bag. However, disguised agents cannot carry anything bigger than submachine guns.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Because of the game mechanics most shots will find their target - even from great distance. This applies to both Cabal and enemy units. If awareness is high enough, the shot will be dodged. Otherwise the amount of cover and protective gear determines damage reduction.
• Improperly Placed Firearms:
  • The CIA campaign has French soldiers in 1983 Beirut armed with AKs instead of the FAMAS.
  • Local police during tactical missions are always armed, even in countries where police don't carry firearms.
• The Informant: Exploring suspicious activity on the world map can reveal informants who provide rewards after a time limit expires, such as additional agents or crafting blueprints. Enemy forces don't take kindly to this, so informers can become assassination targets.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence:
  • Agents will occasionally refuse to jump through windows.
  • Agents can vault over desks, but not chairs or potted plants.
• Item Crafting: The Cabal base has a workshop where agents can be assigned to create mission equipment such as flashbang grenades and lockpicks. More options are unlocked as the game progresses, and some items are only available through crafting.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Available once you obtain the MKULTRA facility. Interrogating your own agents who have hidden perks will reveal whether or not they are double agents working for Beholder.
• Jack of All Stats: Rifles and sub machine guns. Rifles are second best at everything, other guns are better than rifles at one thing, but much weaker elsewhere. SMGs are a bit less powerful than rifles, but can be carried by Disguised characters, unlike rifles.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Takedowns won't work on characters with higher hit points than the agent attempting to perform it, except on easy difficulty. Heavily Armored Mooks can't be hit with a takedown either, for obvious reasons.
• Leaked Experience: Averted. Only agents who go on a mission get the base experience for that mission, and only agents who make kills and takedowns get extra experience for those.
• Limited Loadout: Agents can carry two guns, wear one set of body armour, and have two support items, such as grenades or medkits.
• Little Useless Gun: The French DAO is one of your starting weapons. It's also pathetically underpowered, being only a .25 calibre pistol. Oddly enough, the training to become proficient with the DAO is not immediately available: by the time you can become proficient with it and silence it, it will be completely outclassed by more powerful weapons whose proficiencies have been available for some time (such as the .45 and the B76).
• Logo Joke: The logos cutscene consists of the camera zooming in a corkboard with items linked by strings, including the names of the developer studio and the publisher.
• Luck-Based Mission: Generally averted, as luck is as a factor is reduced compared to similar games. However, one thing that luck does factor in is the backgrounds of potential recruits for the Cabal, especially if the player is gunning for the "Cold Truce" achievement, mostly because finding SB agents is a far more rare occurrence than CIA, KGB, Mossad, or even Stasi agents.
• Mana Meter: Agents have a limited amount of awareness. This is required to perform certain abilities and allows agents to dodge potentially fatal shots during gunfights. A portion of awareness is restored each turn. Agents can also use the focus ability to quickly restore awareness once every three turns.
• Manchurian Agent: Beware of brainwashed agents who will turn on you once combat starts. Of course it is possible to reverse brainwash them. Fender, Cyclone, and Delilah are these type of agents, having been brainwashed by the Beholder Initiative.
• Mauve Shirt: Agents are always valuable resources (assuming they aren't secretly brainwashed time bombs) and losing one is always possible, but avoidable.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Mostly averted.
  • Agents - both the Cabal and opposing factions - have females in their ranks. The player can even create an Amazon Brigade if they so wish.
  • Female mook types are common among the Private Military Contractors the Cabal go up against.
  • Played straight with police officers and soldiers, who are always male.
• The Men in Black:
  • The Cabal can deliberately invoke this image after the forgery is unlocked. Most customization averts this, which is Truth in Television. If you can see a CIA agent or Secret Service official in a sharp black suit, there's almost certainly four or five of his coworkers dressed more like you than him.
  • Rumoured activities of the Private Military Contractors Artemis International include
    acting as the notorious "men in black" for various government agencies … a black suit and sunglasses are the usual attire of the Artemis operative.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Deadpan's CIA mentor, codenamed Leslie, gets killed in the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing to prevent him from informing Deadpan about Project Iceberg.
• Mercy Rewarded:
  • Inverted in the early game. While capturing enemy agents might give you a little extra intel, it also generates danger for as long as you are holding them (until you get Faraday Cages). Because of this, early on it's usually better to just kill enemy agents rather than capture them.
  • Completely averted in the very early game, specifically before you unlock the MK-ULTRA facility: captured agents are interrogated for intel and then summarily executed with no cost. This takes away a Beholder agent, gives you intel, and doesn't cost anything. Once you get the MK-ULTRA facility, interrogating an agent costs money, as does executing them. It can therefore feel like a step backwards once you've built the MK-ULTRA facility and it starts draining your limited funds (or driving up your danger level). This is balanced by the fact that MK-ULTRA interrogations bring more bountiful rewards.
• Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: In the mission where you go to the warehouse in Glasgow that supposedly contained the MacGuffin you wanted, it turns out to be an ambush set by your handler (Fender/Cyclone/Delilah) who's a Beholder Initiative sleeper agent, who then cuts transmission with you, injuring Omikron and other agents at the base before making their escape.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: If you abuse your agents via plot choices, they might just defect to the Beholder Initiative.
• The Mole:
  • Capturing enemy agents allows you to turn them into unwitting moles by brainwashing them. Doing so allows you to sabotage Beholder cells from the inside or have the enemy agent join your side during combat. Watch out, because if the Beholders capture your agent, they can do the same to you. In the story, Fender, Cyclone, and Delilah were all brainwashed after being captured in Vietnam.
  • A subplot revolves around a mole in the Cabal named Undertow and the subsequent hunt for them. This includes Story Branching scenarios for a number of agents.
  • Beholder also have a mole in their ranks. Using the codename Cardinal the mysterious insider feeds valuable information to the Cabal. This turns out to be Valhalla's right hand woman from the opening cutscene.
• Multinational Team:
  • Every agent speaks one or more languages. This is not simply cosmetic: if an agent is fluent in the local language, they gain the distract ability and can talk to guards to make them look in a different direction.
  • Each agent has a different background, which gives them proficiencies in certain weapons. There's even an achievement for starting a tactical mission with agents from the CIA, KGB, Mossad, Stasi, and SB in a single team.
• Multiple Identity IDs: As the game progresses agents can become 'exposed' which results in higher risk of discovery if sent on missions. To remove this negative status, it's possible (via use of a forgery facility) to create a new identity. This includes a passport with customisable name, nationality and photograph. Agents other than the main character can also change their codename.
• Nebulous Evil Organisation: The Beholder Initiative - a sinister group of agents the Cabal come into conflict with. Their logo, as seen in the introductory cutscene, is a triangle with an eye, suspiciously similar to The Illuminati. No surprise that their reach is global.
• Necessary Drawback: Most of the available equipment has some sort of downside to counterbalance its benefits:
  • The usual semi-auto pistol versus revolvers scenario occurs with revolvers having greater stopping power balance out by their inferior ammo capacity and lower number of weapon mods' slots.
  • Full body armour gives greater damage resistance compared to armoured vests, but wearing heavier armour reduces mobility and makes your agents conspicuous, so they will be instantly spotted even if not trespassing.
  • Disguises allow agents to enter areas where they would normally be trespassing without being spotted by guard, civilians, or cameras, though enemy agents can spot them. However, wearing a disguise limits the equipment the agent can carry to pistols, revolvers, and submachine guns and does not allow the wearing of armour or the carrying of supplemental equipment.
  • Machine guns cause massive damage and suppress enemies at the cost of being unable to move and fire in the same turn (at first).
  • Suppressors silence weapons but also reduce the damage they do. This also extends to the sniper support ability with the options of quiet and loud, with the loud version doing more damage.
  • Sniper Rifles have great range, but their minimum damage is low and their shots are easier to dodge.
  • Assault rifles and sub-machine guns are very similar weapons in that they are both Jack of All Stats and offer selective firing modes. Assault rifles have better range, while SMGs are the only automatic weapons that can be carried while disguised.
• Nerf: The actor perk initially made enemy agents completely unable to spot Cabal operatives who have it. The 1.0.5 patch make Cabal agents still noticeable by Beholder agents, but only if they are close to the agent.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Civilians will alert enemy forces to you if they catch you doing something illegal, but shooting them or blowing them up results in a Danger penalty, so a non-lethal takedown is recommended by the game mechanics (if not the morality of the main character).
  Mission Control: And don't kill any civilians!
  Deadpan: ...unless it's absolutely necessary.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It's implied that, when the Cabal sabotaged the communications array to prevent the Soviet jets from shooting down South Korean flight 007, they only ensured the jets would shoot it down as a last-minute order to not attack was not received by the jet pilots.
• Nintendo Hard: The unlockable Mossad campaign tackled on hard is essentially extreme mode. The very first mission pits the Cabal rookies against a small army of poison equipped Fang Tarantulas - who aren't normally encountered until mid-game - on a fully restricted map. With the same starting equipment and loot as the CIA and KGB storylines. Most of the guns your team have aren't even powerful enough to one shot them when unaware. And throughout the rest of the game, you are initially held off from many tech unlockables (at least until much later in the game than the other campaigns), and the story missions also have more enemies armed with tougher weapons than in the story missions for the other campaigns.
• Notice This: Objects containing loot such as cabinets, safes and briefcases glow periodically. The same applies to intelligence documents.
• Numbers Stations: Your team find out that Beholder are using a numbers station to coordinate European terror groups.
• Numerical Hard: Other than removing the option to dispose of bodies on hard mode, most difficulty changes are numeric. There is no discernible change to enemy abilities or AI. The higher the difficulty:
  • The amount of starting cash decreases, while the cost of forging new identities increases.
  • Enemies have higher HP and appear in greater numbers - making a stealthy approach more difficult. On hard mode in particular, many enemy and civilian patrol paths overlap and completing objectives can be quite challenging even with agents in disguise. Also, more enemies spawn in reinforcement waves.
  • Most danger incurring events - compromised evac, agents left behind, killed civilians, hiring new Cabal agents - result in a larger increase. As does capturing enemy agents for MK Ultra treatment.
  • Evac vehicles take more turns to arrive and become compromised after fewer turns.
  • More enemy activity in general on the world map. On hard difficulty it's not uncommon for Beholder to run multiple recon missions at the same time, and informant assassination attempts are also more common.
• Optional Stealth: Most missions start in infiltration mode. During this phase enemy forces and civilians will not react to Cabal agents unless they enter restricted areas, perform suspicious actions or wear conspicuous clothes. If discovered, an alarm is activated, and the enemy will continually send in reinforcements. It's therefore highly advantageous to remain in stealth as long as possible, and a good idea to spend time scouting an area first.
• Over-the-Top Secret: The first chapter of the KGB campaign is called "Above Top Secret." You are ordered to "create an above top secret espionage unit to track down and dismantle the conspiracy."
• Pacifist Run: There is an achievement for completing a tactical mission without killing anyone, without setting off an alarm, and without using any takedown.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The String Theory minigame has you match codenames with real people, organizations or locations found in secret documents throughout the game. These codenames are randomly picked by the game from a finite and somewhat short list. While piecing together completely different cases, you'll find that the various organizations the files belong to keep reusing codenames like "Monoxides" or "Odd tesseracts", while referring to completely different entities.
• Permadeath:
  • Subverted with Cabal agents. Provided they don't bleed out before the mission ends, they are considered "captured" and return after a period of absence or rescue from a Beholder cell. They only have 1 HP so require extensive healing in the infirmary and - unless their loyalty has been earned - have possibly been programmed as Beholder sleeper agents and will turn on the player in combat.
  • Played straight with agents that aren't evacuated or stabilised before they bleed out.
  • As a Final Death Mode, the game includes an ironman option.
• Permanently Missable Content: To a degree. Recovered loot is chosen from a random set of items that changes as the game progresses. Not really a problem with weapons which get better over time, but some potentially useful weapon mods such as pistol suppressors and compact followers (which increase ammo capacity) are replaced with other items. Eventually trade contacts become available so most items can be purchased, but they are no longer obtainable for free.
• Pocket Rocket Launcher: A gyrojet pistol is the most powerful handgun available in the game, available only after the agents have completed Black Ops Firearms Drill training. The game's version of the Gyrojet accepts a wide variety of modifications, including (oddly enough) silencers (which is weird because the real gyrojet was silent already, you see).
• Post-End Game Content: Completing a playthrough as either the CIA or KGB unlocks a third playable faction the Mossad and the option to play an extended version of the game with more complex narrative. While the missions are essentially the same, there are additional secret files in the extended game that shed light on the internal rift in the Beholder Initiative.
• Power-Up Letdown: Before building the the MK-ULTRA facility, captured enemy agents are instantly interrogated and executed, for free. Once you build it, interrogation takes time, execution costs money, and each captured enemy agent kept in the hideout constantly increases the danger meter.^note  The advantage of the MK-ULTRA facility interrogation is that you get two bits of info guaranteed from an interrogation, whereas you get one and rarely two from other interrogations Later in the game, more useful options are unlocked such as programming enemy agents to reveal or destroy cells, join your side when a firefight starts or implant a control phrase. All of these can change the outcome of a mission from failure to success - particularly an ambush - but initially the upgrade can seem underwhelming.
• Private Military Contractors: The preferred mooks of Beholder. Which makes sense, seeing as they get more contracts from Beholder's plans coming to fruition.
• Properly Paranoid: Yes, as a matter of fact, anyone and anything could be working against you.
  • Agents you hire might be Beholder moles.
  • Agents you lose track of for any period of time might become Beholder moles.
  • Agents sent on missions that don't involve combat don't need weapons, right? Too bad, they've just been ambushed and have to fight their way out with inferior (or worse, no) weapons.
  • You've just discovered a weak-point in Beholder's conspiracy. It was a weak-point they let you discover, to try to trap you.
  • You've managed to outmaneuver a Beholder trap after recovering valuable information. They let you escape with the information and anticipated what you're going to do next, so you're actually going to do their job for them.
• Punch-Packing Pistol: Hand guns have higher Maximum Damage than rifles of the same tier when firing single shots, and can also perform headshots, which do even more damage and ignore cover. However, rifles have much higher Minimum Damage when firing bursts, and there are times when an extra 60 minimum damage is much more useful than an extra 10 maximum.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The player character can be male or female - there are no differences in stats or abilities. This also applies to Cabal operatives and enemy units.
• Race Against the Clock: Played with.
  • Usually there is no time limit for completing story missions, which allows the player to perform other tasks until they feel ready.
  • During missions there is no time limit in infiltration mode, and it often pays to do nothing until the right moment if opting for the stealthy approach. Things get more hectic in combat though, with continual reinforcements and air strikes.
  • Some chapters and missions do have a doom counter though, which increases if enemy agents complete missions.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The available recruits have backgrounds in various special forces units, intelligence services, terrorist groups, gangs, and freelancers. Note that all origins are available regardless of the campaign, thus CIA agent Deadpan can recruit former Yakuza or Red Army Faction^note Western Germany communist terrorist group members, former Spetsnaz^note Soviet special forces and Navy SEALs operatives, former Stasi and MSS^note respectively, intelligence services of Eastern Germany and People Republic of China, along MI6, Mossad, or BND^note Western Germany intelligence service, etc. There's an achievement earned by starting a tactical mission which agents from CIA, KGB, Mossad, Stasi, and SB^note Poland intelligence service in the team.
• Random Number God: Averted. The results of actions are based on a formula with no chance element involved. Damage is based on the amount of awareness a target has and other factors such as cover. This applies in reverse: there is no chance for a player to get lucky in a bad situation, which can make firefights brutal.
• Real Event, Fictional Cause: A number of real historical events from 1983 feature in the game, with the Beholder conspiracy involved in some way.
  • The CIA campaign incorporates the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut.
  • In the KGB storyline, one mission has your team sabotage the doomed K-429 submarine.
  • The Mossad campaign links the conspiracy to the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic.
  • All campaigns feature Soviet fighters shooting down South Korean flight 007 and the US invasion of Grenada.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Some of the potential recruitable agents' backgrounds are The Mafia, Yakuza, and Triads.
• Required Party Member: Story missions requires the player's avatar to be present.
• Rogue Soldier: Some of the enemies in the various campaigns are soldiers paid off by the Beholder Initiative.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: When the player discovers that Project Iceberg is located in a bunker on the island of Grenada, Cardinal remarks that President Ronald Reagan owes her a favor and that she'll convince him to authorize a full military invasion of Grenada. Talk about having friends in high places!
• Semper Fi: One possible background for agents from the United States is that they'll be a former Marine, which gives them the "Sure Shot" ability as well as proficiency with the M16 assault rifle.
• Shout-Out:
  • Predictably, several to James Bond:
    • The difficulty setting option is represented by a tuxedo-clad man holding a gun. In the easiest setting, the man holds a compact pistol exactly like the classical Bond pose. The icon for medium difficulty is a mashup of two posters for Quantum of Solace (the assault rifle pose◊ and the suit◊.) And the hard difficulty icon resembles the end of the Bond gun barrel opening, complete with dripping blood.
    • The "Lootcrates are Forever" and "Licence to Kill" achievements.
    • The Walther PPK is available as a weapon within the game, as is the Gyrojet pistol.
  • Brainwashing enemy agents to turn on them once combat starts is called Mason Gambit. Likewise, the heaviest type of armor in the game is called the Juggernaut Armor which makes your agents looks like the Juggernauts when wearing them.
  • If enemy agents detect a security breach they might say "I sense something. A presence I've not felt since..."
  • The Takedown animation is the Judo Chop.
  • There is a small chance of finding a Beholder cell in Rapture, which is in the North Atlantic. Disappointingly, this turns out to be a regular ground-level map and not a custom underwater map.
• Skill Scores and Perks: The levelling up process is relatively original.
  • As agents gain experience and level up, statistics improve. This is more limited than in most role playing and strategy games - the main way to improve stats is through the body engineering facility.
  • At reaching certain levels the player has a choice of perks (from four chosen randomly) that confer benefits such as immunity to suppression or regenerating extra awareness per turn.
  • Agents can undertake training that confer new abilities and/or weapon proficiencies (that allow modification and faster reload times). One slot is available initially, so training in a different skill will overwrite the current one. At later levels more slots are unlocked.
• Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: All classes of weapons are available from the start, and you get new gear as loot on missions. The quality of loot that you pick up steadily increases over the game, with the relative power of the guns only coincidentally matching their real-world equivalents (most notably, the last 9mm sub machine gun that you find is twice as powerful as the first).
• Spies In a Van: When required, the Cabal operatives call in a van for extraction.
• The Spymaster: The non-mission portion of the game has elements of this, with the player moving Cabal agents around cities on a global map.
• Starter Villain:
  • Aguirre, a corrupt DIA agent running a smuggling ring, for the CIA campaign. He's identified after some investigation during chapter one, then killed during chapter one's second story mission.
  • Snowcat, a GRU Agent betraying the Soviet Union, for the KGB campaign. He replaces Aguirre as the villain you need to investigate and take care of in the opening chapter, and also in intelligence on the investigation board.
  • Komodo, a former Nazi prison guard who's taken up bio-terrorism, for the Mossad campaign, who is also the villain to investigate and take care of in the opening chapter.
• Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly:
  • Quite a lot of missions go this way. Particularly true on hard mode where the option to hide bodies is disabled and suspicious agents will eventually discover one (unless you can stealthily take them out of the equation first).
  • In some missions this is guaranteed to occur, as completing a certain objective triggers an alert by "Force Majeure". Even if all enemies have been taken out stealthily before that, reinforcements will be called in. Whenever you think you're getting ahead of Beholder, the mission will be a trap, and you'll set off the alarm because Beholder knew you were coming.
• Story Branching: Similar to Hard West, the player is sometimes presented with a situation and given several options to choose from. These typically involve Cabal agents and personal agendas. Consequences can be positive or negative, and are not immediately clear. Choose right, and the agent will become loyal and immune to enemy influence. Play it wrong and they will leave the Cabal and become a Beholder agent. The results of given choices appear to remain the same with no randomisation. Since there are limited scenarios, this is an easy way to gain loyal agents.
• String Theory: A key element of the strategy portion is finding keywords from non-redacted intelligence and linking them up. For authenticity this is done via an old fashioned pins and strings approach on a corkboard. There are red herrings and dead ends for every file, which means you can potentially solve a file without all the relevant intel documents if you get lucky. If the mess gets too confusing or you just don't feel like it, you can assign agents to solve it for you over time - though there is an achievement for analysing all the files yourself.
• Super-Soldier: Or rather, Super Spy. If you know how to take full advantage of the Body Engineering facility (which is very complex and will require a guide unless you want to spend hours experimenting with the various chemical compounds), you can create agents who have ridiculously high stats and abilities, such as having 4 movement points and 2 fire points every turn.
• Take Your Time: For the most part, you're never in a hurry to move forward with the plot. Especially at the beginning of the game, enemy agents are far more concerned with locating your headquarters or killing informants (both of which are annoying but not dangerously so) than they are with furthering their own goals. As a result, you can build up your resources, whether by forging cash or by running tactical operations, until you're ready to move on.
  • The downside is that you'll continue to get new documents for your String Theory board, along with clues that, when solved, only give you access to new agents to recruit. Given the amount of effort required to complete a single String Theory board, it's extremely disappointing when the reward isn't a new weapon contact, new Super-Soldier drug, or spotter gear.
• Tap on the Head: Takedowns essentially involve the old Judo Chop which counts as a fatality on guards and will cause agents to die within five turns. On civilians it is considered a harmless "put 'em to sleep" action.
• Target Spotter: A mission support option - the only one initially available - is to assign an agent as a spotter, thus providing the ability to remove the fog of war around a specified area provided the spotter has line of sight.
• Timed Mission: Suspicious activity can occur in cities on the strategic map, often in many places at once. Some of these are red herrings, but others are ongoing enemy operations that cause negative effects if a tactical mission is not completed within a certain time. How soon they are discovered also plays a role - earlier interventions allow more options such as reconnaissance (which allows the use of support and disguises). A last minute response forces the player to do the mission without these benefits or accept the penalty of non-intervention.
  • In addition, contravening the usual Take Your Time methods of the global map, at certain points in the story, Beholder will actively pursue their agenda. If they manage to complete one of their special missions, the Doomsday Meter will advance, and if it fills up, it's game over. This requires you to send your agents to investigate every lead, and in the worst case scenario, you won't have time to disrupt the job, forcing a dangerous tactical approach. And if you're really unlucky, you won't have time for surveillance either, making an already difficult mission even worse.
• Tinfoil Hat: One of the bits of intel that you recover contains this conversation:
  A: Bad news: [DELETED] has been field testing some CODA equipment, and a bunch of ham radio operators recorded the signal and called the cops.
  B: Why is that a problem?
  A: The police have been looking into the "sidewinders" affair — they might just connect the dots.
  B: Then discredit those radio people in front of the cops — convince them we can control their brains with microwaves.
  A: But that's exactly what we're doing!
  B: Yeah. So exaggerate until it becomes implausible. Tell them a tinfoil hat could protect them or whatever.
  A: Tinfoil hat? They'll never buy it.
• Title Drop: This is part of a letter in the file "Valhalla's Correspondence:"
  Unfortunately for you, your associates at the Komplex, and their pawns at DELETED — your whole idea of sustaining the Cold War indefinitely is a phantom doctrine.
• Trigger Phrase: Used to activate sleeper agents and put them under your control. There's even a specific action command for this. Later in the game there's the option to just convert captured enemies directly, but there's still an advantage for using the Control Phrase; a controlled enemy lets you have more assets on the field during a mission than you usually can deploy (and they count as Disguised, but with full weaponry loadouts).
• Undying Loyalty: If an agent has the "loyal" trait — typically attained by making the right decisions in regards to that agent's personal agenda — they can never be turned into a double agent by Beholder.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: You cannot take enemy weapons, but you can take those from chests and crates.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Depends on the action. Opposing agents and civilians don't seem to mind if Cabal operatives jump through windows or leap off buildings when in infiltration mode, but will immediately raise the alarm if they're seen operating consoles, searching cabinets or photographing intelligence.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • The "Gifted" perk gives you extra XP for missions. This sounds Boring, but Practical, but the game doesn't tell you that it's only 5% extra.
  • You can craft subsonic ammo, which makes your guns silent at the cost of a substantial loss in power. This might look like an acceptable trade off for a game with a lot of sneaking, but suppressors also make your guns silent, are available earlier, and have a much smaller penalty ^note Subsonic ammo has a 20 point penalty to Damage Threshold, suppressors have a six point penalty to damage.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The MK-ULTRA facility serves to interrogate, brainwash, turn into Manchurian Agents, and execute Beholder agents. You can also use it with your own men.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • Knocking civilians out doesn't grant XP. Eliminating too many civilians result in alerting the enemy agents onsite. Dead civilians result in an increase of danger.
  • Knocking police out grants XP, but it's so pathetically little that it's not worth the effort.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • While the game advises to kill (or capture and then kill) enemy agents each time you encounter them, building the the MK-ULTRA facility allows to release agents after interrogation; of course, they go back to their employer. Since Beholder Initiative progressively replaces their losses with unidentified agents, releasing live agents means you're able to keep track of agents' locations and identities longer. There's also the amusing possibility of capturing, interrogating, and releasing the same guy, again and again.
  • Active Beholder cells either reduce your money income, constantly generate danger, or both. Since the income loss is low, and there's a limit to the number of cells active on the same time, it's actually more interesting to not destroy them if they don't generate danger, since destroying a cell which drains money without increasing danger could be replaced by a cell which generates danger (and cell localisation is hard until you're far enough in the game and in the tech tree).
  • Stand in the walk path of an enemy with no immediate alternate routes, and they might outright ignore you as they take an irrationally long detour to get to their destination.
  • There is an Achievement for being betrayed by an enemy mole on a tactical mission. If you want 100% Completion, you have to deliberately put a potential traitor on your team, and hope that they don't cause too much grief when things kick off.
• Virtual Paper Doll: The character creation menu allows to customize your character's appearance, with a couple of body shapes, varying faces, skin and eyes color, a selection of clothes (both casual and formal), haircuts, facial hair, hats, eyeglasses, scars, tattoos, make up, and various accessories. Once you research the Forger upgrade, the same customization menu can be accessed at will to modify the main player character again, or to alter any of the other recruits, for free. Mini cutscenes in missions (e.g. when your team arrives on site or leaves the area in the evac vehicle, when you use a support ability, etc.) are dynamically generated and featured the agents on site with the look you gave them.
• Waistcoat of Style: When creating a custom appearance for an agent, one of the clothing options for male operatives is the "Desk Jockey", consisting in a shirt covered by a waistcoat worn with a striped tie (the waistcoat and tie's color are customizable, the shirt is always white.)
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Valhalla presents himself as one in documents that you find, saying that the Beholder Initiative is a way of stopping the Cold War from becoming hot.
• Why Am I Ticking?: With the MKULTRA facility, it's possible to implant bombs within enemy agents, turning them into unwitting suicide bombers when they return to their home cell.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: If tactical recon is completed prior to a mission, agents can wear disguises. This has drawbacks: weapons are restricted to pistols, revolvers, and sub machine guns, and no support items can be equipped. However, the agent can enter restricted areas without immediately raising the alarm if spotted. Equipping a disguise changes the outfit to something less conspicuous like a construction worker.
• With This Herring: Averted. Your agents all start with automatic weapons. You will find better weapons as the game progresses, but early game weapons will kill early game enemies, no problem.
• You Have Failed Me: This happens in the introductory cutscene. A female agent solves a problem by shooting an incompetent man with a fancy looking gun. The sinister dialogue and lack of blood suggests it's an advanced weapon that induces a heart attack.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Agents need to spend time and money training to gain proficiency with various weapons. Proficiency reduces reload times, which is understandable, but it's also the only way to add attachments to a weapon. Attachments include things like suppressors, extended magazines, and specialist ammunition. Agents need to dedicate a notable amount of game time studying and practicing with a weapon in order to learn how to put different bullets into it.

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