Syndicate (2012 video game)

A reboot of the Syndicate series, released in February 2012, an action RPG/FPS hybrid written by Richard K. Morgan. You play as Miles Kilo, a new Agent under Eurocorp implanted with a prototype DART chip which grant him cutting-edge hacking abilities. The game is linear with Kilo a silent protagonist and most of the story coming through cut-scenes or the environment.

A four-player co-op mode is also included, where you play as one of four Agents under upstart rival syndicate Wulf Western going against other syndicates, including Eurocorp. A demo for co-op was released 1 February 2012 for Xbox 360 and Play Station 3, showcasing the Western Europe level.

The most commonly referenced game element is "breaching" — real-time hacking of not only your environment, but your enemies. Persuading has been subsumed under this function, along with the ability to make enemies "Suicide" by holding a grenade or making their weapons explode. Everything Is Online, and the adrenaline surge of killing mooks translates into processing cycles, and thus more "breaches".

Tropes used in Syndicate include:

All Asians Are Alike: Aspari is a merger of the Triads and Yakuza, employing both Chinese and Japanese.
Always Someone Better: Eurocorp is this to Wulf Western. Many of the Wulf Western equipment tooltips describe them as imperfect replications of Eurocorp stuff.
Authority Equals Asskicking: Sergeants are Elite Mooks, the Lieutenants may be minibosses and the Colonel in co-op demo is a boss. The "end boss" for co-op, found in New England, is a General; he's basically an Agent armed with a minigun and backed up by 3 other Agents.
Awesome but Impractical: The COIL laser. It's a laser so it's awesome by default, but the primary fire only hurts a little more than an assault rifle; the secondary fire is absolutely devastating, but eats ammo so fast every clip only has four uses, and you usually only get two clips total.
Badass Longcoat: All Syndicate Agents wear one. A collectible text message reveals they're actually advanced body armor imbedded with a number of electronic combat systems, and are incredibly expensive (as mentioned by an armory supervisor chewing out a subordinate suspected of stealing one to take pictures of himself wearing it).
Better to Die Than Be Killed: The way in which Jack Denham in the final mission chooses to die, by throwing himself in a gap in his damaged tower to the ground far below. Also counts for Logos, though his is more of a Taking You with Me kind.
Bling Bling Bang: A preorder bonus for the co-op.
Breaking the Bonds: You do this at the start.
Bullet Time: One of the primary effects of the DART Overlay ability is this. It's pretty much mandatory to survive the game, especially in the insane boss fights.
But Not Too Evil: Inverted. Reviewers called out Starbreeze for throwing in a Heel Face Turn instead of letting you fully embrace the Villain Protagonist role of the originals.
But Thou Must!: About 3/4ths of the way through the game, Miles Kilo is ordered to kill Lily Drawl, who is secretly working against EuroCorp for the Resistance. This results in a quicktime event which ends with Kilo putting a gun to Lily's head, with a button prompt appearing to pull the trigger. The player can ignore the prompt and after several seconds Miles will lower the gun, the Syndicate will freak out, and Lily will be impressed that Kilo still has some humanity in him. If you chose to press the button prompt to blow Lily's brains out, an override she put in Kilo's chip will prevent him from pulling the trigger, and she'll kick his ass. Ultimately, both actions have the exact same outcome (Lily survives, Kilo passes out, and Merit shows up to capture both Lily and Kilo). Later, at the end of the game an almost identical situation arises with the player being given a quicktime prompt to execute Agent Merit. This time, there is no alternative option. You have to kill him (even though he's apparently gone comatose) in order to progress to the ending.
Call Back: The Leonardo Device, now called Vitruvian Machine, returns in this game. No, it doesn't cut your legs off.
Call Forward: The reboot's co-op levels to the original.
Combat Medic: One of the co-op only Breaches is the ability to heal your teammates.
Crapsack World: Just like the original
Cyberpunk is Dubstep: The 2012 remake's soundtrack features songs by Skrillex.
Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The control scheme has enough similarities to fellow published-by-EA Crysis 2, including the sprint-into-slide and automatic ledgegrabbing, that you might be confused when it isn't. L1/LB is Breach, not Maximum Armour; R1/RB is DART Overlay rather than Cloak. The real kicker, though, is when you double-tap Y/Triangle to get your 'nades out and wonder why they don't show up. It's hold Y/Triangle here.
Deflector Shields: Enemy UAVs, all 3 variants of Syndicate Elite Mooks, and the final boss(es) all have these. You need to breach them before you can even harm the shielded enemy. A regenerating player version is available as a purchaseable upgrade; it functions similar to the shield from Halo and various other similar shooters.
Doom Troops: Almost all the mooks, but especially the Elite Mooks.
Doppelganger Spin: Done by the Agent Tatsuo.
Dual Boss: The first phase of the final boss fight has you fighting a pair of twin EuroCorp Agents, while Merit harrasses you with minigun fire from an inaccessible higher ledge.
Dynamic Entry: Agent Tatsuo makes his appearance teleporting in and giving Miles a Boot to the Head. There are also several opportunities for Miles himself to do this.
Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: One of the Most... Guilty... Ever!!!! The levels are noticeably more challenging than most other FPS games, but are manageable once you get the hang of the gameplay mechanics. However, most of the bosses are completely insane, even on the "Normal" difficulty setting. The final boss in particular is on par with the likes of General RAAM in terms of player frustration. That is not a compliment, Starbreeze.
Elite Mooks: Cayman Global's liquid soldiers and the active camouflage-wearing Subverters would both count. Cayman Global's reactive soldiers and EuroCorp's electro-armor soldiers are outright Boss in Mook Clothing or mini-bosses.
Eye Scream: One of the chip extractions is done via a stab in the eye.
Evil Versus Evil: Eurocorp and Aspari. They fight against one another, but both of them show callous disregard for the lives of their customers and personnel. This is also implied to be the case with the other corporations.
Face Heel Turn: Entire Euro Corp including Denham and Merit if you count Euro Corp as evil.
The Faceless: You. NOT. After you defeat Merit.
Foreshadowing: There are several conversations and text collectibles setting up the Church of the New Epoch (the antagonists of Syndicate Wars) as potential villains in a sequel.
Guttural Growler: Agent Merit.
Hand Cannon: All the handguns, but especially the Bullhammer Mk II, a revolver firing .600. One upgrade option for that is the Magnetic Acceleration Rail, which gives it an impact profile, to directly quote the fluff, "such that it's often mistaken for cannon or explosive blasts in police investigations."
Heroic BSOD: Miles Kilo has one just after the final boss fight, immediately after beating Merit to death with his bare fists. It's noticeable because Miles is otherwise an ice-cold S.O.B., as revealed by his thought comments on the level select screen.
Heroic Mime: Miles Kilo, to underline his lack of agency. The co-op characters, by contrast, are very chatty, and will even celebrate their kills.
Hey, It's That Voice!: This game has Scolar Visari, The Prophet of Truth, and Rosario Dawson as the 3 main characters. Also, Kath Soucie voices your CHIP. Not her first time playing a computer either.
Hoist by His Own Petard: To defeat Agent Ramon, you must Breach his missiles and turn them against him.
Hyperspace Arsenal: Averted where the game makes you conform to the now-standard two gun setup.
Heel Face Turn: YOU after you have a flashback of your memory and Lily Drawl, depends if you count Euro Corp as evil side.
Ironic Echo: Jack Denham remarks that it's "such a shame" when telling Miles that Lily may have to be liquidated. At the end of the game, he says the exact same thing just before killing himself to avoid being killed by Miles.
It's Up to You: You only get help from a friendly ally on two seperate occasions in the entire game, and both times they're very little use. Merit is largely absent during your assault on Aspari, and when you finally do meet up with him near the end of the mission, he gets K.O.ed by an enemy Agent after only taking out a couple of Mooks. Lily helps you fight through EuroCorp H.Q. towards the end of the game, and surprisingly can often take out Mooks with one shot (amusingly making her more useful than Merit was), but is fairly unaggressive in combat and gets separated from you pretty quickly anyway.
Internet Backlash: Hoo boy. As soon as the announcement video for the reboot came out, many people complained that the game was: A) going to be a bad remake of a good game, B) just going to be another generic FPS because the devs wouldn't use the isometric style from the previous games, and C) a copy of Deus Ex Human Revolution.
Invisibility Cloak: Present for some mooks, but neither Miles nor the co-op characters have one.
Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Boss enemies are initially immune to Breaches and must be softened up first.
- Subverters are immune to breaching, because they don't have any chips for you to hack. Their weapons can still be hacked, though.
Last Ditch Move: Electro and reactive armours have these. You get achievements for using them to kill other mooks.
Lightning Bruiser: All enemy Syndicate Agents are insanely fast, and can survive more damage than most FPS Powered Armor suits while tearing you a new one equally fast.
Lightning Gun: The Electron Mace.
Limit Break: DART Overlay. It make surroundings looks slowed down to you and show enemies that hide behind cover. Mandatory in some boss fight.
Man in White: The Cayman Global officers have white armour, unlike the black and dark grey of Sergeants or normal grunts. Several boss Agents wear white. Merit also wears a white armour in the final battle.
Mega Corp: Just like in the original, Syndicates act as the sole authority in a region controlling everything from sanitation to law enforcement.
Mind Control Device: The neural chips are as common as cellular phones - anyone with the right chips and programs can "breach" another person's chip and jam its connection to their weapons, make them attack their allies, or even shoot themselves in the head. One of the few people with this capability is the Player Character and co-op characters.
Musical Spoiler: Skrillex remixed the original's for the remake's theme.
Mythology Gag: In the opening sequence of the reboot there is a part where the years tick up to the time the game takes place in. It starts in 1993 when the original came out.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: One of the agents in the Co-Op mode is called Akuma, which roughly translates as "Demon" in Japanese.
Neck Snap: One of the melee attacks in the reboot.
Non-Lethal KO: When you run out of health in the co-op, you have to be rebooted by a teammate.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The player uses this to kill Merit, after being thrown into a sort of air duct. The fact that that Kilo, after the beating, stops and looks at his now bloodied hands suggests this was also a My God, What Have I Done? moment for him.
Overt Operative: The intro mentions that the corporations employ covert agents like yourself. With the liberal amounts of firepower you can access and must use, covert you most certainly are not.
Peace and Love Incorporated: The Syndicates are like a textbook on how to do this. They criticize their competitors for their unethical actions while doing the exact same things, all while caring first and foremost for their "consumers."
Percussive Maintenance: Agent Miles, or atleast the DART 6 system is activated by a Mook punching him repeatedly, it makes some sense as the DART is fueled by adrenaline.
Playing Tennis With the Boss: The fight with Agent Ramon goes like this, as the two of you hack rockets back and forth at each other.
Quick Melee: You can perform a lethal melee takedown. It can also be combined with the Executioner chip upgrade that restores 50% on each kill, and can be used in a combo where it heals you more quickly then enemies that can harm you. Enemy marksmen on high-up ledges, UAVs, and armored Elite Mooks, are resistant to this.
The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Syndicates are unquestionably evil, at least by 20th century standards of morality. However, the Resistance are terrorists who are unable to offer any alternatives other than "kill as many bourgeois as possible" (although it's hinted that a less militant wing of the Resistance, which is not seen in the game, is working on a more scientific solution).
Rock Beats Laser: The LAW-92 is a relatively low-tech unguided missile popular with terrorists because Agents cannot disable them via Breaching.
- The Subverters use crude molotov cocktails instead of electronic frag grenades. They can't be breeched, detonate on impact, and are a one-hit-kill against you even if it's not a direct hit. This can make them Demonic Spiders.
Shout-Out: The Kusanagi brand assault and sniper rifles. While the name is Older Than They Think, in this context it's hard to avoid thinking of a certain Major.
The Sociopath: Agent Merit's dossier remarks that all Agents are expected to be psychopaths, but Merit is psychopathic even by Agent standards. Also, the corporate, ethically bankrupt Syndicate society effectively fosters a general attitude that the lives of others are meaningless except to the extent they can be used to benefit yourself.
Stealth Mook: Specters equipped with "portable diffraction field generators" can turn invisible and sneak up on you.
Take That: Reactive Armour provides protection against "tunneling rounds", which are an upgrade choice in Deus Ex Human Revolution.
Teleport Spam: Aspari Agent Tatsuo.
Training from Hell: Agent training includes taking No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and live-fire courses with gunships.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's possible to slaughter civilians left and right, including inside non-combat storyline areas (which can lead to hilarity in some of the storyline areas). However, it's somewhat discouraged by not giving any Breach energy back when you kill them.
Weak but Skilled: Miles Kilo is this (by Agent standards, anyway. To regular humans he's still a Super Soldier). He lacks any of the really incredible superpowers other enemy Agents have (super-speed, holograms, super-jumping ability, impenetrable shields, cloaking devices, enhanced regeneration, etc.) However, his in-game dossier remarks that he is unusually creative and independent for an Agent, which allows him to come out ahead when faced with better-empowered enemies.
The Wiki Rule: Here ya go.