Vendetta Online
is a First Person MMO Space Sim developed by Guild Software.
In it, players take the role of a pilot for one of three nations in a far-future setting: the Serco, the Itani, or the Union of Independent Territories. Given a ship and a handful of credits, players are kicked out into the galaxy to make their fortune.
The Backstory for the game, the Chronicles of Exile, details future human history from 2140 to 4432.
Playable since 2002, Vendetta Online was launched in 2004 on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It has since then expanded to Android and iOS platforms, and is notable for being one of the few MMORPGs where mobile and PC players can interact in the same persistent universe.
Vendetta Online provides examples of:
- Absent Aliens: While there is plenty of life other than humans, all of it is genetically engineered from terrestrial life and none of it is sapient.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: There are several "hives" of rogue mining drones that serve as the game's primary form of PvE.
- The Alleged Car: While not exactly bad, the EC-89 starter ship is the least capable ship in the game. Some of its variants, however...
- Ancient Conspiracy: Several followers of Akan made it off of Terra II by hiding out among other Itani refugees. They passed down his teachings over the years, eventually becoming the Akanese. The Akanese are a sore point in modern Serco/Itani relations.
- Asteroid Miner: A common profession for both NPCs and players.
- The Atoner: The Itani, after being driven off of Terra II, completely (well... mostly, see above) turned to pacifism. They don't even so much as look at a weapon again until forced to defend themselves in the Forever War a thousand years later.
- Big Bad: Akan, an ancient Itani leader and Hitler expy. His actions started a bloody world-wide war, led to the deaths of more than a million innocent Serco and the near-extinction of the Itani, and set the stage for the Forever War a thousand years later.
- Blood Knight: The Serco culture places a great deal of importance on one's martial prowess.
- Casual Interstellar Travel: Even the junkers that governments hand out for free can be used to circumnavigate the galaxy in less than an hour.
- Cyborg: Cybernetic augmentation is extremely commonplace among the Serco.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- Corralled Cosmos: The known universe is a closed loop of thirty stars.
- Elves Versus Dwarves: Mystical Pacifist Scholars versus Angry Cybernetic Warriors.
- Fantastic Racism: The Serco hate the Itani. Akanese Itani hate them right back.
- Forever War: The Serco/Itani War has been going on for a couple centuries now.
- Fragile Speedster: The Itani Valkyrie is a lightly-armored fighter that relies on its ability to fly rings around most other ships in the game to stay alive.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: According to the backstory, the Itani possess three enormous cannons in the Deneb system. These are nowhere to be found in-game.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: The Serco want revenge for past wrongs. The Itani want to live in peace. The UIT just want to make a living.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better:
- Railguns deal some of the highest damage-per-shot in the game, though this is balanced by limited ammo.
- Missiles and Flares (unguided rockets) meet or exceed Railguns in damage-dealing.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Serco Prometheus, a heavily-armed, over-engined slab of armor that is more maneuverable than ships half its mass.
- Martial Pacifist: The modern Itani nation is constantly seeking a diplomatic end to the war and hates fighting. Nevertheless, Itani pilots are quite willing to fight when forced to and are very competent at it, enough to win the Sercos' grudging respect.
- Perpetually Static: Played with.
- Played Straight with the galaxy at large.
- Subverted with Deneb. While sectors in the system are constantly changing ownership, this is reset on a weekly basis and Deneb itself always stays Itani.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Possible with "Swarm" Missile launchers, which launch salvos of eight at a time.
- Meat Puppet: "Guises" from the background material are artificially grown, brainless humans used as combat drones.
- Named After Their Planet: Inverted with Serco Prime and Itan, the Serco and Itani homeworlds respectively.
- Nuke 'em: Happens to a Serco space station in the backstory.
- Old-School Dogfighting: Averted. Ships in the game behave (mostly) according to Newtonian Physics, which means that guy you're chasing can flip over and blast you without having to stop. This leads to pilots in dogfights relying heavily on circle-strafing.
- Perfect Pacifist People: The Itani were this for a time, and they still hold it as an ideal.
- Portal Network: Getting between solar systems requires traveling through naturally-occurring wormholes.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
- The Serco went on one of these when Akan tried to wipe them out, nearly wiping out the Itani in return.
- Modern Serco see the current Forever War as this.
- Streaming Stars: Space is full of little bits of gravel, just floating in the void. The game uses these to convey motion.
- Space Friction: Subverted. It's perfectly possible for a ship to drift indefinitely, but the speed a ship can travel is capped, and a ship that stops boosting will slow down to this top speed.
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True Neutral: While individual pilots, or even corporation, can be aligned with the Itani or Serco, the UIT as a whole just prefers to stay out of the war. - Wide-Open Sandbox: Outside of the tutorial, the game is pretty unstructured, allowing players to pursue whatever goals strike their fancy.
