No Campaign for the Wicked: Difference between revisions

** 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.

** The Inner Sphere as whole gets this in ''[[Mechwarrior]] 3'', where the Star League-aligned commando team operates against Clan Smoke Jaguar--easily painted as an evil faction after their [[Moral Event Horizon|massacre of over a million civilians at Turtle Bay]]. No Clan campaign for [[Mechwarrior]] 3 exists. Subverted with the sequel, Pirate's Moon, where you may elect to play as Susie Ryan's pirate team. As might be expected, the pirates are full of rebellious loudmouths and violent thugs.

** ''[[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]].}}

* ''[[X Wing]]'' was naturally about the exploits of the heroic [[La Résistance|Rebel Alliance]], and as such featured no campaign for the bad guys. The sequel ''[[TIE Fighter]]'', reversed the situation, with a campaign for [[The Empire]] and none for the good guys. Most of the time, however, you were actually fighting Imperial traitors, not the Rebel Alliance.

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

** Which (probably unintentionally) underlines the fact that no-one is evil or unjust in their own eyes, and is also alarmingly reminiscent of the ''[[Outer Limits]]'' episode "Hearts And Minds".

* ''[[Halo]] 2'' has you playing as a Covenant Elite for 1/2 the levels, but you notably never fight against the Humans at all. Every Covenant level involves [[Enemy Civil War|combat against Covenant rebels]], [[Cosmic Horror|the Flood]], and ultimately the Covenant itself after your character undergoes a [[Heel Face Turn]]. Technically they (the Covenant) were the ones to [[Heel Face Turn]] them.

* In the ''[[Homeworld]]'' franchise you only get to play the Exiles/Hiigarans in single player, but you get to play either side in multiplayer. The first game had an interesting take on this, as you ''could'' play as the canonically evil race - but doing so simply made both sides swap roles, so you experienced the exact same story with defence frigates instead of drones.

* In ''[[Killzone]]'', you can play as the Helghast only in multiplayer, [[Rooting for the Empire|much to the disappointment of many]], although some are holding out hope that they become playable in ''Killzone 3''.

** Seven years later, there is still no campaign for [[The Villain Makes the Plot|the most interesting faction of the two]].

* In Bungee's RTS series ''[[Myth]]'', the player can only play as the Human faction in the single-player campaign mode.

** Rooting around in the game files shows audio files containing briefings for Yuri missions, including one where you play Yuri during one of the missions undertaken in the Allied campaign. There's not enough to warrant a full campaign though, suggesting they ran out of time.

* ''[[Ground Control]]'' and ''[[Ground Control]] 2'' both let you control two different factions, in two different campaigns, where one campaign follows on from the other. However, in both games, you are still always the good guys - in the first game, both sides are revealed to be evil (with the exception of the two protagonists and their forces). In the second, the NSA and the Virons are good guys, and hence controllable, while the Imperials are never controllable at any point in the game. Worse, this actually extends to skirmish and multiplayer.

* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's Portable: The Battle of Aces'' does not have a Story Mode for the three [[Evil Twin|Evil Twins]].

* ''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.

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=== Aversions: ===

* 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.}}

* Averted throughout most of the ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]'' series. In the first game, there are four available lords to choose from, two of which the game identifies as 'evil' and two which are identified as 'good', though given that the campaigns are ''identical'' except for lacking the scenario that is about conquering the lord you play as there isn't much to indicate their actual morals (except for the canonical victor, the Knight Lord Ironfist, which the manual paints in an ambigious light). In the second game you can play as [[Big Bad|Archibald Ironfist's]] top general [[No Canon for the Wicked|though it's a non-canon path]]. The third game and its expansions have quite a few campaigns that let you play around with the evil armies (and those ''are'' canon). Mostly played straight in the fourth game; the most "evil" main characters are a half-dead [[Anti-Hero]] necromancer {{spoiler|who saves the world from a death god}}, and a pirate who spends most of her campaign [[Evil Versus Evil|fighting even worse pirates and sea monsters]]. The fifth game and its expansions has only one campaign with an evil main character. It makes up for it by making said character ''[[Complete Monster|the most evil person in the entire franchise]]''.

* The [[World War Two]] combat flight sim series ''[[Il-2 Sturmovik]]'' and its sequels/expansions allow you to fly not only for Germany and Japan, but also for the minor Axis air forces of Finland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Nearly all countries that participated in aerial combat during the war are present in the games, in one way or another.

* Microsoft's ''Combat Flight Simulator'' trilogy allowed players to fly for the United States, Japan, Britain, and Germany (of course, the actual nations involved in each game differed depending on the game: the first and third games took place in Europe, while the second took place in the Pacific theater). The third game's campaign even allowed players to make changes to history (the campaign starts in March 1943, and it's possible to start an invasion of continental Europe within a few ''weeks'' of starting, or even have Germany invade Britain within a few ''months'', depending on how good the player is).

* ''[[Moe Moe Niji Taisen]]'' allows you to play as both the Axis (minus Italy) and Allied powers (minus France).

* In the first ''[[Panzer General]]'' the campaign mode is available only for Germans. In addition, successful campaign may eventually allow [http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/panzer-general/screenshots/gameShotId,60869/ very, very minor historical revisionism]...

** In ''Panzer General II'', there are campaigns for the German, Soviet and UK/US sides. The last of these has identical scenarios regardless of which country you choose, only the units available to you are different. The German campaign is the most elaborate one, with a historical success enabling an invasion to capture Savannah and culminating in an attack on the Oak Ridge facility to prevent the US from completing the atomic bomb.

** ''Panzer General II'' also reenacts atrocities under your command. For instance, the first mission is helping out Franco's troops in the Spanish Civil War. If you cursor over it, one of the towns you pass through on the way to the objective is [[wikipedia:Bombing of Guernica|Guernica]]. Yeah...

** Same with ''[[Evil Genius (video game)|Evil Genius]]'', of course. The genre seems very conducive for playing the bad guys. Just like ''[[Theme Hospital]]''. Errr, wait...

* Averted in a sense in ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]] Infinity''. The game has multiple alternate continuities you play through, and in one of them you're an agent of the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Phfor]]. You slaughter your former heroic human allies by the dozens.

* ''[[Plants vs. Zombies]]'': The "I, Zombie" minigame lets the player pit zombies against (cardboard cutout) plants.

* The new ''[[Medal of Honor]]'' has been criticized because it will let you play as the Taliban. This is no longer entirely true. The Taliban faction still exists in multiplayer, but it's been renamed "Opposing Force".

=== Played with: ===

* 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.}}

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

* In ''[[Warhammer 40000|Warhammer 40,000]]: [[Dawn of War]]'', you could only play a campaign as the "good" Space Marines, but in the ''Winter Assault'' [[Expansion Pack]], you could play as any of the races ''except'' the Space Marines.

** However, a downloadable expansion featuring a Soviet campaign has been announced for release in autumn 2008.

*** Now that the Campaign is here, the Campaign essentially goes in the same plotline as the events of ''[[World in Conflict]]'' with you in Soviet's POV where the Soviet gains ground in other parts.

** While both ''Red Alert 2'' and its expansion, ''Yuri's Revenge'', allow you to play as the usually-evil Soviets, the expansion doesn't have a campaign for Yuri's own faction, which was created for it and serves as the main villain in both the Allied and Soviet campaigns. This is probably because the faction is horribly broken and was never meant to be played as.

*** And when we say "usually-evil Soviets," it's because in ''Yuri's Revenge'', the Soviets are actually portrayed kind of sympathetically, having gotten their asses kicked by the Allies in the main game and having been betrayed by Yuri.

* Whether or not this applies to the ''Geneforge'' series depends on whether or not there ''are'' any good guys and bad guys. From the first game there's an air of [[Gray and Gray Morality]], and by the fifth [[Team Switzerland]] is arguably as bad or worse than [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]].

* ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]] II'' only has one story mode, for the clone troopers. They stop being the good guys halfway through.

* 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.

* Weakly averted in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]''. The player character can side with any of three major factions (or none), including the obviously evil Caesar's Legion (who favor subjugation, slavery, misogyny, and crucifixion, among other things). However, none of the recruitable NPCs support the Legion, two will leave the player's service if he follows the Legion, and one ''will actively shoot at Legionaries at every opportunity.'' Needless to say, diplomacy is impossible at this point. Furthermore, in the ''Honest Hearts'' DLC, the player has the choice to choose a violent or peaceful ends to two tribes being forced to deal with the White Legs tribe, who seek to join the Legion, yet no option to assist (or even speak with) the White Legs exists. This is especially jarring for characters who wholeheartedly support the Legion.

* The author of a ''Dragon'' article on the "death master", a necromancy-themed character class for 1st Edition AD&D, introduced it by stressing, thusly, that it was designed for NPC villains only:

{{quote|"If I ever run into a player character death master at a gaming convention, I may turn Evil myself."}}