No Campaign for the Wicked: Difference between revisions

* The first two ''Brothers in Arms'' games, also set during the Normandy campaign, feature campaign play solely from the perspective of U.S. paratroopers, while including single scenarios that can be played as the Germans.

* In ''Rome: [[Total War]]'', you can play as any faction in the skirmish mode, but only the Romans are available for the campaign at the start of the game. After playing with the Romans for a bit you can start to unlock other factions for the main campaign, but still only about half of them. This is mainly practical: the other factions either stand no chance of winning (small, insignificant nations), exist only for the sake of storytelling (the Senate has no territory and apparently infinite population) or don't make any sense (''all'' nonaligned towns and armies are considered by the game to belong to the "slave" faction - it will honestly try to make this work for you if you unlock it with cheats, but running an ''absence of a government'' misses the point a bit, and you don't count as having any territory or population because everyone in your faction is not aligned with you... wait, what?).

** This, of course, has no effect on the players and DMs, who create all-evil campaigns frequently and with panache.

** Averted in the [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] sourcebooks, that provide in-depth details for evil classes, and even how to play Skaven, not only [[Chaotic Evil]] but also [[You Dirty Rat|not even human]].

* In the popular ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' video games, most of the campaigns are played in the Davion/pro Davion POV. In ''Mechcommander 2'', Liao and Steiner is seen as cruel tyrants ruling Carver V with an iron fist and Davion wants Carver V to be independent (read: Client state), in a galaxy where morality is grey and black, Davions tends to be portrayed in a good way here. The Steiner ending in ''[[Mechwarrior]] 4: Mercenaries'' is seen as bittersweet as the character abandons his company to become a Clan warrior and is the only time his operator doesn't agree with him. If not, then you are a Davion pilot.

** There is also another ending in which you STAY with your Merc group and set up a base somewhere in the Chaos March, and remain neutral from then on. You DO have to be pro-Steiner for the game to get there, but it isn't bittersweet, ALL endings conclude with a mention of the Word of Blake jihad, and FYI: The [[Mechwarrior]] games take their canon from the [[BattleTech]] books, so you kinda can't fault the games for making Davion win even if you're with Steiner.

** It is more about how Microsoft painted the Davions in a much more white portrayal than Steiner or the other houses. It was subverted in Black Knight where you are a Steiner pilot in a what-if Ian chose to find weapons rather than saving his sister.

** Also true of two early [[BattleTech]] strategy games, the Crescent Hawk duology. In ''Crescent Hawk's Inception'', you play as Steiner pilot Jason Youngblood, and much of the story mode takes place against the Draconis Combine. In ''Crescent Hawk's Revenge'', you again play against the Combine {{spoiler|and later the Clans}}.

** ''[[Mechwarrior]] 2'' and its sequels have toyed with this trope. The original game has campaigns for both of the central warring factions, Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon. The first sequel, ''Ghost Bear's Legacy,'' firmly puts the player on the side of Clan Ghost Bear, but the player's enemies are numerous and varied instead of simply the same faction as per the original game. In the final member of the trilogy, ''Mercenaries,'' the player is a mercenary who may elect to take missions for whatever factions offer them. The Federated Commonwealth, Draconis Combine, Free Rasalhague Republic, and even independent factions like corporations and Comstar offered contracts. It was not uncommon for players to spend a few months shooting up Draconis Mechs, then turning around and raiding a Fed-Com chemical plant. {{spoiler|When the Clans show up, though, everyone [[Enemy Mine|bands together against them]] and you ultimately [[Hold the Line|fight to save the Draconis Combine capital world of Luthien]].}}

** [[Fridge Logic|But wouldn't the Rebel Alliance be Imperial traitors by default?]]

* Taken to an extreme in ''[[America's Army]]'': although the multiplayer element features Americans versus an enemy force, '''every''' player is portrayed as American in first-person, with the role of the enemy taken up superficially by whichever side is "not yours". This creates some interesting fractures where, for instance, the "American" player armed with his M-16 appears to opposing players as an "OpFor" with an AK-47.

* In ''[[Brutal Legend]]'' you only play as the Ironheade in campaign mode. The Tainted Coil don't even have a proper battle against you to demonstrate their army's mechanics, but simply spawn basic units directly onto the battlefield. All three factions are playable in multiplayer, however.

* A number of fans were hoping that ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' would include a story mode for the villains, but it was not to be. You can however play as the villains for the side storylines, Distant Glory and Inward Chaos, but the character you play as has no impact on the plot. The announcement that the sequel would change this caused [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|much rejoicing]]... except that it didn't and 012 still had no villain campaign.

* ''Vietcong'' has only an American campaign following a single character. The sequel has a short Vietcong campaign though.

* Literally played straight in ''[[Left Behind]]: Eternal Forces.'' The player can only play the Antichrist's Global Community Peacekeepers in multiplayer. But given its intended audience (and [[So Bad It's Good|its quality]]), who would want to do that?

* In ''Battlezone,'' the American forces get a full-fledged campaign. The Soviet forces just get a bunch of unconnected missions.

* ''[[Aztec Wars]]'' has only a campaign for the Russians. None for the villainous Aztecs or the uneasy allies, the Chinese.

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* Averted in ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War|Deus Ex Invisible War]]'' as you can chose to assist any of the power players presented without exception.

* Averted in tank simulations as a whole since there is something alluring about German armour blitzing though enemy lines.

* Averted in ''[[Star Wars]]: Empire At War''. You get to play as the Empire, though [[No Canon for the Wicked|the ending is non-canon]]. The expansion, ''Forces of Corruption'', has the Zann Consortium as the only faction available in Story mode.

** The whole thing gets taken to the next level in ''Warcraft III'', where no matter which race's campaign you get to play in you get to kill at least once race that you were so happily guiding to victory before, with the Night Elves campaign allowing the player to dabble in killing some of all three other major races present in WC III, and then some.

* Averted HARD in ''Battlestations: Pacific''. Not only is there a full Japanese campaign, but it takes a complete [[Alternate History]] approach where they go on to win the war. {{spoiler|Including an ending where the Americans sign the instrument of surrender on board the battleship Yamato in San Francisco Bay.}}

* The base ''[[Company of Heroes]]'' game is a straight example; it contains an American campaign, but not one for the German Wehrmacht. The aversion is in the expansions. Both of the new factions in Opposing Fronts (British for the Allies and Panzer Elite for the Axis) get campaigns, but the Wehrmacht is still left out. The Panzer Elite campaign sticks to history by being set during Operation Market Garden, a historical short-term win for the Axis. In the tank-centered hero campaign in Tales of Valor, the central cast is of course a German Panzer crew (in fact, the same commander from the PE campaign, earlier in his career.)

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* In ''[[Silent Storm]]'' you have both Alles and Axis to play for but the story has little to do with the mainstream of WWII and instead focuses on investigating and eventually fighting {{spoiler|a clandestine terrorist organisation bent on world domination.}}

* The ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' and ''[[Samurai Warriors]]'' series allows you to play either side of any (or just about any) battle in Free Mode, but this may be due to the fact that you actually do play with one particular side as the "protagonists" during the Story Mode.

** However, the Crossover series ''[[Warriors Orochi]]'' doesn't have a campaign for Orochi's side until the sequel.

** The ''Dark Crusade'' and ''Soulstorm'' expansions averted this, allowing one to play the [[Risk-Style Map]] as any of the factions involved in the war.

** ''Dawn of War II'' goes full circle, as the campaign is Space Marines only.

* You can can play as hero and villain alike in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' outside of the 'Destiny Odyssey' and 'Shade Impulse' story modes, but only the protagonists have playable roles in those modes.

* Double averted in [[Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds]]. Not only are you allowed to play as the alien invaders, said invaders [[White and Grey Morality|aren't really evil]]. The martians only went to war with Earth because Mars was dying and all efforts to maintain their biosphere had failed.

* [[Double Subverted]] in ''[[Vanguard Bandits]]''. You can stay with [[The Kingdom]], join up with [[The Empire]] or [[Omnicidal Neutral|decide to take power for yourself]], but as [[Grey and Gray Morality|there are heroes on both sides]], you end up joining the good guys in whatever faction you join, and you're always fighting against [[Big Bad]] Faulkner (the de facto leader of [[The Empire]]).

* Averted in Panzer Elite Action: Fields of Glory and Panzer Elite Action: Dunes of War. These are action shoot'em'up games (fairly similar to the tank driving stages in the Call of Duty series), and part of the single player mode are German missions. It's interesting that the briefings and the constant dialogue between the tank crew members paints the German soldiers as normal guys that do their duty, just like those heard in the Allied missions.

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]

[[Category:No Campaign for the Wicked]]