Video Game / They Always Run

They Always Run is a Science Fiction Action Game by Alawar Premium.

Aidan is a three-armed bounty hunter who must hunt down the most dangerous and elusive cutthroats in the galaxy. Some bounties are rewarded with money, others with valuable information that Aidan can use to find the people who set him on this path – all while getting embroiled in a galaxy-wide conspiracy.

Tropes:

• Action Girl: Haze, a three-armed Bounty Hunter much like Aidan, who mainly fights to support and protect the destitute three-arm community in Gigapolis' underhive.
• The Artful Dodger: Basim Salamander is the best pickpocket on Serena, and the locals hired Aidan to chase him for sport, expecting him to elude the hunter. Unfortunately for him, Aidan corners him in a dead end and he surrenders, after which you can take him in alive, or dead. Coincidentally, this was also how Aidan and Dan reunited after not hearing from each other for five years.
• Artificial Limbs: Widespread throughout the galaxy, and the first criminal you face, The Rat, has one with a retractable claw he can launch at Aidan. Aidan's third arm is also this, as he is not actually Aidan but rather Dan, who is a regular human masquerading as a three-arm.
• Back from the Dead: Aidan was executed by the Black Marshal's henchman, Billy, many years ago, but has since come back to hunt down those responsible. Subverted in that Aidan is really dead and the player is actually controlling Aidan's old acquaintance, Dan, who took up his identity to take revenge and find out what his friend was caught up in.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Black Marshal leads the operation, while Baron Geneville leads the three-armed slave trade and Colonel Mueller breaks them with torture. They are The Remnant of the Empire seeking to finish what its Emperor had started, which will allow the Black Marshal to take over the galaxy and become its new Emperor.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Played for Laughs when an interdimensional merchant attempts to sell Aiden a shotgun after teleporting into his ship, addressing the player instead of Aidan and demanding to be paid in "real money". After Aidan shoots the merchant in annoyance, another merchant shows up to retrieve the weapon as Aidan violated interdimensional trade conventions. When Aidan gripes that the shotgun doesn't work anyway, the merchant clarifies that it's only supposed to stop working after a few weeks and he simply didn't turn the safety off. He gets a shotgun blast to the face for his trouble.
• City Planet: Gigapolis, located in the Core Sector, is one such planet with a Layered Metropolis, where social status is equivalent to which level you live on. Hunters like Aidan have access to the middle levels, while the lowest levels (which the police refuses to touch) are slums inhabited by criminals and destitute three-armed people, living in perpetual poverty and being constantly hunted by ex-imperial slavers.
• Cliffhanger: Combined with Sequel Hook, Aidan, actually Dan, is defeated by the Black Marshal, whose plan to control technomagic is nearing fruition, plunging over half the galaxy into chaos. However, Dan is seemingly rescued by his crew after unlocking the use of a disembodied third arm not unlike the Black Marshal's, meaning the battle against the Black Marshal is far from over. Baron Geneville, one of the Black Marshal's associates who Sam and Haze want to take down, is also still at large.
• Defector from Decadence: Sam used to be an Imperial mechanic who defected after his commander razed his entire village to set an example to the rebels. Before he left, he sabotaged his unit's mechs, causing them to explode and wiping them out completely.
• Double Jump: In the form of a pair of jet boots Sam salvages for Aidan in order to infiltrate The Anvil and arrest its leader.
• Energy Beings: Aidan must capture a Spectral known as Genie to gain access to The Suit's services. Being highly radioactive, spectrals must wear a protective spacesuit while working with other races for their protection (the other races' that is), thus Aidan has to force Genie out of his spacesuit for Haze to capture him with an electromagnetic trap.
• Eternal Engine: The Anvil is a massive factory planet once belonging to The Empire that manufactures weapons, but they managed to stay in business after the Empire's fall by financing all sorts of terrorists and criminals.
• Fantastic Racism: Many species are hostile to former imperials after the fall of the Empire, extending to the three-arms even though they were mostly slaves.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Haze was initially introduced as an aloof rival hunter who inadvertently sabotaged Aidan's quest, but mutual goals and circumstances brought them together as a team, becoming more respectful of each other as they complete missions together.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Colonel Mueller doesn't need weapons to beat down Aidan, using Super-Reflexes to dodge bullets and lightning-fast martial arts in his bossfight. However, he can also electrify the floor, which is extremely difficult to avoid before a plot-specific upgrade and making his first encounter a Hopeless Bossfight.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: In one of his missions, Aidan will find a grappling hook module which he can use to pull himself to certain ledges, and later another upgrade allows him to pull apart certain walls and platforms with it. He can also buy skills for it to pull distant enemies in for a free attack or pull himself to a latched enemy.
• Ground Pound: A purchasable upgrade allowing Aidan to slam the ground at any height greater than 2 jumps, knocking back enemies on impact.
• He Knows Too Much: Suggested to be the reason why Aidan was killed by the Black Marshal, leading Dan to assume his identity and pick up his trail.
• Information Broker: The Suit is the best one around, but only offers his information to prestigious clients, forcing Aiden to go after some high profile criminals on Sam's advice to raise his reputation among the city's hunters.
• Landfill Beyond the Stars: Aidan goes to the planet Rust to find an alleged war criminal known as Dodger. Once a starship recycling planet, it was since obsoleted by Weeping Crystals and is now a junkyard inhabited by scavengers and marauders.
• Le Parkour: Several platforming sequences such as the chase against Basim Salamander through a desert town. Aidan also breaks long falls with a roll.
• Limit Break: One of the final suit upgrades allows Aidan to kill every enemy on the screen after a gauge is filled.
• Phantom Thief: Glitch is an Attention Whore and a Motor Mouth of a thief who operates in the upper levels of Gigapolis, managing to outsmart The Suit, Aidan and Haze twice.
• The Messiah: The three-arms begin seeing Aidan as the Chosen One from an ancient prophecy, much to Aiden's chagrin. Haze also has a role in the same prophecy as The Chooser of the One, and begins to recognize that Aidan is really the one she should choose.
• Mission Control: Jonathan, who is really a Voice with an Internet Connection operating off Taar Station and not an AI as mistaken by others.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The three-armed mutants are capable of putting their third arm to good use in combat, as Aidan demonstrates with three armed swordplay and gunslinging.
• The Musketeer: Aidan fights with a set of three retractable swords, and after the first mission, can purchase a set of three pistols which he can use to shoot multiple enemies at once.
• Nanomachines: What the Weeping Crystals really are; a terraforming tool created by a race of pacifistic Precursors, who are also the only ones capable of programming and safely using them.
• One-Hit Polykill: Aidan's pistols can be upgraded to pierce through an enemy to hit another behind, and later another upgrade lets it pierce up to two enemies, potentially killing 3 enemies at once. His shotgun can also blow away multiple enemies if they are close enough to each other.
• Parrying Bullets: One upgrade allows Aidan to parry energy bolts from ranged enemies, reflecting it back towards the shooter, killing them instantly.
• Path of Inspiration: The technomages appear to be a cult looking to unlock something called "technomagic" through gestures and imagery, though they insist their doctrine to be more akin to performing scientific research instead. They are really just an Unwitting Pawn in the Black Marshal's scheme, turning into murderous maniacs on his command in order to destabilize the galaxy.
• Powered Armor: Aidan's cybersuit is what actually allows him to perform all his superhuman stunts and Le Parkour, where most new abilities are suit upgrades you can find during missions or buy from the shop.
• Revenge: Sam joins Aidan's quest as he believes the Hunter can help him get revenge on his old commander from his Imperial days, for genociding his hometown while he was Forced to Watch. Aidan himself or rather Dan is also looking for the Black Marshal to avenge the real Aidan, who was executed on his orders.
• Scenery Porn: Expect to run past many stunning, hand drawn vistas across multiple biomes, from ancient alien ruins to megacityscapes to ice caves to underground bases.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Aidan gains a shotgun later in the game after stealing it from interdimensional merchants, which can take out most enemies in a single shot.
• Space Police: There's a generically named one which Hunters turn in criminals to, awarding a bounty for any criminal sent to them, alive or dead.
• Space Western: Has shades of it, from dry desert settlements in frontier worlds to Aidan's general appearance, wearing a poncho (primarily to conceal his third arm) and gunslinging.
• Slave Race: The three-arms were mutants created by The Empire to mine a resource known as Weeping Crystals. Or that's the official story, as they are actually the progeny of the Precursors who made the Weeping Crystals, Made a Slave by the imperials in order to manipulate the Weeping Crystals.
• State Sec: The Black Marshals were the personal task force of the Emperor, committing heinous acts such as genocide on a regular basis. The Black Marshal that Aidan hunts was one of their number, taking his title from them.
• Talking Animal: Smiley is a giant hammerhead shark who lives in a fish tank, while The Director is a Catarian, an alien race that happens to look just like domestic cats. Aidan manages to piss off both by calling them a fish and a cat respectively.
• Teleportation with Drawbacks: Galactic Police are testing a new teleportation technology with a 50/50 odds of turning someone inside out by using it to send criminals straight to jail via teleportation, as nobody will care if anything bad happens to a wanted criminal. Aidan later uses it in order to escape Colonel Mueller, teleporting himself into a jail cell and being fortunate enough to suffer nothing worse than some Teleportation Sickness.
• Title Drop: Aidan says this while chasing the Rat after defeating Rex.
  "Why do they always run?"
• Torture Technician: Colonel Mueller 'trains' three-arms for use in mining Weeping Crystals in his secret base, and thinks nothing more of Aidan than a prime specimen to be processed than a sentient being.
• Translator Microbes: Smiley needs a translator to communicate with other species, which causes some issues after Aiden breaks it. However, his old buddy Sam can understand him without a translator.
• The Unfought: The Black Marshal isn't actually fought when Aidan confronts him, only several waves of Mooks.