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Samus

2021-03-16T03:39:33Z

2601:4C1:C400:4050:84B5:FE2F:A520:FBC6: /* Non-Standard Suits */

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[[File:1297484139104.png|300px|thumb|right|Samus Aran, destroyer of worlds, terror of the space pirates, the hunter, killing one eldritch abomination at a time.]]
'''Samus''' is a [[/v/|vidya gaem]] [[Female Space Marines|Female Space Marine]], not to be confused with the [[Samus#In_Warhammer_40,000|spooky scary daemon in the ''Horus Heresy'' series]], who wouldn't really be that notable on [[/tg/]] except for the fact that pretty much everything she does or sees in the games she stars in (the ''Metroid'' Series) is basically tailor-made to insert into a [[Dark Heresy]] or [[Star Frontiers]] game. The sheer volume of stuff about her and her universe that [[/tg/]] [[/tg/ gets shit done|has found a way to integrate]] is something to behold, and has led to a lot of [[awesome]] and [[neckbeard]]ery, all at once. She's also a stupidly hot (she's nearly always in top 10 hottest video game girls lists, what with her slender [[-4 STR|and sometimes buff]] body, 6'3" height, golden blonde hair and blue/green eyes) and highly intelligent asskicking woman with no social skills, a [[neckbeard]]'s wet dream come true.

Her ''modus operandi'' is to [[Dungeon|enter a planet's cave system, explore it, and find upgrades hidden throughout]], which then open up new areas to explore, using weapons, armor, and other upgrades in lieu of finding keys in chests, ''Legend-of-Zelda''-style. Note that if you're not in the ''Prime'' subseries, the planets she lands on have [[Exterminatus|a habit of exploding]]. Yet even then those planets that survived her visits had massive damage equal to that of a Imperium high ordnance orbital bombardment done to enemy controlled sectors, buildings, and ground forces.

Also paid a visit to a [[Mission_to_OR-42|Necron-infested shithole]].

==Games in Which Samus Stars==
* The original NES ''Metroid'', released in '86. This game was one of the first nonlinear platformers, and was incredibly influential, kicking off an entire subgenre. Sadly, it hasn't aged well; the large game world has no map if you don't make one yourself or have a guide, and the save system consists of a twenty-four-character password. In '03, it received a GBA re-imagining called ''Metroid: Zero Mission'' that implemented elements from later titles of the series.
* ''Metroid II: Return of Samus'', for the original grey-brick Game Boy. This one is sort of a black sheep in the franchise and isn't normally thought too highly of, but it has its fans. The AM2R remake has been extremely well received and is frankly a joy to play. Too bad Nintendo brought the hammer down a day or two after it was released, but its on the internet now, ha ha ha. Also getting an ''official'' remake in the form of ''Metroid: Samus Returns'' for the 3DS, which probably explains why Nintendo came down so hard on AM2R.
* ''Super Metroid'', released in '94. This one is easily the best and most influential of the bunch. The reasons why it's awesome are too long to list here, so let's just say it's [[Awesome|really fucking badass]] and leave it at that. It's notable for formally introducing the notion of "sequence breaking", where the ostensibly linear game is only made so through the implementation of obstacles that can, with practice, be surmounted prematurely. This is very much by design; the game even features tutorials to teach you some basic sequence breaking techniques (the wall jump and the super jump/shinespark), neither of which is required to complete the game.
* ''Metroid Fusion'', released in '02. This one is a lot [[Tl;dr|wordier]] than previous games, [[Railroading|and also a lot more linear]], sort of running in the face of the "free-form exploration platformer" design principles the series had demonstrated up to that point. [[Skub|This, naturally, caused flame wars]], though it speaks volumes for the series as a whole that you can ''still'' get genuinely lost while searching for hidden powerups. It is the latest chronologically in the timeline. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXqyCamxx-Q| A very good game, all said an done, look at it.]],
* [[Monty Python|And now for something completely different]]: ''Metroid Prime'' and its sequels. These games keep the exploration premise, but change the skin from that of an action platformer to a first-person-shooter. These were actually made by American developers, which makes sense, given Japan's general distaste for the camera angle - and Metroid was never particularly popular in Japan anyway, which is why Nintendo was more willing to let someone else handle it, which is something they very rarely do with their big franchises. They were generally pretty well-liked in the West, but not so much in Japan. While nowhere near as linear as Fusion, the Prime Trilogy is quite a bit stricter than most Metroid games in terms of exploration. The devs even removed exploits in updated versions to remove sequence breaking opportunities. One thing that is inarguable is that the Metroid Prime trilogy has some of the best music ever composed for video games. The soundtrack is incredibly unique, with very little else like it in video game history, and is one of the only soundtracks that can pull off unironic/100% serious Theremin usage and make it sound amazing. Rock/Metal, Industrial, Electronica, Chiptunes, and Orchestral music are everywhere in games, but the trilogy's soundtrack not only stands out with uniqueness, it's just really beautiful and its great for setting the atmosphere for your games.
** The Prime series also includes two spin offs on the DS. Metroid Prime Pinball, surprisingly for a pinball spin off, is actually very solidly made and seamlessly blends in iconic gameplay elements from the series with excellent pinballage. Metroid Prime Hunters is usually regarded as a rather solid, if short, entry into the series that was one of the first really multiplayer-friendly games on the DS. Pinball is for understandable reasons, not really canon (it is a retelling of Metroid Prime 1), while Hunters neatly stuffs itself in the in-universe two year gap between Prime 1 and 2. Hunters, like the Prime series, added quite a bit of detail to the background of the Metroid universe without explaining too much in depth, maintaining the nebulous mystery that the Metroid setting is known for.
* ''[[Fail|Metroid: Other M]]'', released in '10. [[Skub|It's best not to discuss this one]], as a combination of badly written dialogue, a simplistic yet somehow convoluted story that contradicts itself and prior entries in the series, and a decent gameplay system held back from its full potential by a flawed execution resulted in an even wordier and railroadier game than ''Fusion'' that messed with Samus's characterization and [[Rage|continues to cause flamewars on /v/ to this very day]]. In a series known for its gorgeous and memorable music, Other M also switched to an ''incredibly'' generic orchestral soundtrack. It's not poorly done, the composer did a perfectly competent job - it's just a disappointingly generic addition to the discography of the series. It's like going from excellent home or restaurant cooked meals to ready-to-eat dinners; it's technically competent but it's nothing new or interesting.
* ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force''. This "continuation" of the Prime series features no Samus, no Metroids, no proper exploration, absolutely no shared art style with super-deformed chibi characters, space soccer, a crude attempt to chase the co-op multiplayer shooter train on foot years after it left the station ''for a handheld console rather than the PC'', [[Skub|and one of the most lopsided dislike to like ratios of any video game revealed in E3]]. Five years of frustration and annoyance erupted in a spectacular fashion at its reveal... and it didn't stop there.
**[http://nintendoenthusiast.com/review/metroid-prime-federation-force-review-for-3ds/ Fed Force was confirmed for hardcore suckage] almost immediately upon release, containing stupidity such as "Master Brain", a plot that's little more than another generic "stop the death star knock off" story, 'wat'-worthy moments like [[Derp|Samus being mind controlled by the space pirates]], and slow-as-shit and dreadfully boring gunplay. The game has driven the fandom into despair and rage to degrees that only Command and Conquer fans and [[Tyranid]] players can truly understand. It's like if EA wasn't content with just one lore breaking character defiling series mechanics defying game and instead made another one with an awful art style on top of that. And unlike C&C, Metroid fans don't have mods and fan games to content themselves with as Nintendo is anal retentive to absurd degrees regarding fangames. tl;dr FedForce was a terrible idea that's going to be shat on by the entire fandom and even casuals bewildered that Nintendo would yank the fandom's chains in such a way.
* During an interview in 2015 Tanabe spoke of plans for a second Metroid Prime trilogy where the unifying antagonist would be perhaps the biggest dark horse of the entire series: Sylux (referred to exclusively as male this time), done in the same way Phazon was for the first trilogy. However, he said that these wouldn't be realized until the NX comes out. In the interview it was confirmed that the cliff hanger at the end of Metroid Prime 3 was supposed to show Sylux's ship, the Delano 7, apparently modified from its debut in Hunters, and shot down the rival theory that Dark Samus somehow impossibly survived her final defeat in Metroid Prime 3 (which as of the time of this writing, is nearly ten years old, funny how time flies). However, as this was revealed as part of damage control to respond to Federation Force's... less than enthusiastic reception, this news hasn't lifted many people's hopes for the future of the series.
* Now during the 2017 E3 Nintendo Direct main event '''Nintendo has also revealed ''Metroid Prime 4'''''!
** ... Well, the logo at least.
* ''Metroid: Samus Returns''. Revealed in the Nintendo Treehouse portion of E3 2017, The aforementioned Return of Samus remake is 3DS only-with new 2.5 D graphics and added content it is a full reimaging of the series' least played entree. Reviews are coming out pretty positive alongside of fan option so it looks like there may be hope yet that Nintendo as more then a passing interest in the series now. Just like the Prime sub series. Samus Returns was made by a Western Studio with minimal involvement from Sakamoto. This time by a studio in Spain. Reception of the game was much better than both Other M and Federation Force. Proving fan statements that "dark" in the current Japanese entertainment environment means pandering to Otakus with Waifu-bait. While those outside of a tiny island can properly portray a bad ass women from the future. With a very small handful of exceptions. It also introduces a rouge evil faction of Chozo. Making them the Dark Mechanicus to the Chozos' Adeptus Mechanicus. Whether if something comes from this remains to be seen. Since another studio is handling the next game we won't know until before or after Prime 4 released. It is also the first time Samus's primary rival Ridley is the final boss. With three phases. Hope you like his theme because you'll be listening to all three variants for a good while.

==Characterization And Shit==

Samus Aran is the protagonist from the Metroid video game series. When she was three years old, Space Pirates attacked her homeworld, a small out of the way mining colony called K-2L because of the presence of a crystal called Aflorite which could be used to fuel space ships. At first, they just demand Rodney Aran (Samus's father, leader of the colony) to hand all mined supply over to them while their ships blockading all travel to and from the colony, but when he refused they quickly sent in troops to destroy all shield generators and communications before bombing the majority of the colony then going in and killing everyone except for Samus in a horrifically violent manner, because from what little we've seen of Space Pirate culture [[Dark Eldar|they glorify sadism and bullying the weak]]. Oh and their leader, a sadistic space dragon called Ridley, tried to kill lil' Samus for trying to befriend him, but her mom pushed little Samus out of the way and was charred to death and promptly eaten in front of her, and her father snuck aboard their ship before using a repurposed damaged blowtorch to blow up all the stolen crystals (and himself) to destroy the Space Pirate's main supply ship.

Samus was left for dead, but for the grace of the Chozo, [[Eldar|an ancient, long-lived, highly advanced, psychic, slowly aging and dying out]] bird-like species of aliens. Their lowering numbers were due to spending a little too much time reaching enlightenment and not enough time making eggs; that and a run of severely shitty luck for the last century or so, what with evil glowing space rocks, their own creations turning on them, and the pirates thinking that their homeworlds are a cool place to kick it whittled them down quite a bit.

At any rate, they rescued her, raised her, enhanced her with the best parts of their genes so she could survive on their homeworld of Zebes, and trained her in the art of combat, giving her a suit of [[powered armor]] to fight the Space Pirates. After reaching <s>adulthood</s> the age of ''fourteen'' according to the manga that functions as her origin story (apparently the Chozo didn't know that much about human growth cycles), Samus went to work for the Galactic Federation for a while, and then left to work on her own as a bounty hunter. Nobody that worked on Metroid realized what exactly a bounty hunter ''is'' until Metroid Prime's american developers explained it. While that's technically her title, she's more like a freelance soldier on retainer with the Galactic Federation. Or something.

She soon came into conflict with the Space Pirates again; they had seized her adoptive homeworld, killed off most of what little remained of the Chozo with maybe one or two dozen of the old bird people remaining (who all promptly fucked off into isolation), and were attempting to weaponize dangerous creatures known as Metroids, hovering jellyfish-things that drained life-force. She fought them, and came face-to-face with Ridley, the space dragon who had killed Samus' mother right before her eyes and boasted about eating her parents' corpses in front of her. She defeated him as well, and then destroyed the Mother Brain, triggering the Space Pirate base's self-destruct sequence.

The Space Pirates tried several more times to weaponize the Metroids, using a substance called Phazon to mutate them (and mutate themselves, for that matter); Samus defeated them time and again, even coming face-to-face with an evil, Phazon-born twin of herself. She also squared off against Ridley time and again, as the Pirates resurrected him in increasingly-creative ways, first cyborgizing him, then upgrading his cybernetics, then upgrading his cybernetics and then mutating him with Phazon.

After making a costly but devastating assault on the Space Pirate Homeworld, the Galactic Federation decided that it would be cheapest to send Samus to destroy the Metroids once and for all, rather than having to pay her to deal with each new iteration of the Metroid threat. Even this plan was of limited success, because no matter how many Metroids Samus killed, there always seemed to be more (and this also seemed to be true of the Space Pirates themselves); even when the galactic population had been reduced to one Metroid, the Pirates managed to steal it, but finally, they were exterminated once and for all.

Unfortunately, the Metroids were needed to keep a population of dangerous, adaptible, mind-controlling parasites in check, and without the Metroids, the parasites were able to reproduce without limit. After getting almost killed by one of these creatures, only to have her life saved by an emergency injection of Metroid DNA, Samus wiped them all out, but given the number of times that the Metroids and Space Pirates have supposedly been "exterminated without a trace" and come back, the so-called "X parasites" won't be gone for long, especially as the Federation has already tried cloning Metroids and Space Pirates before. Samus put a stop to those efforts as well, but she earned the enmity of the Federation in the process; at the moment, it seems that she's on the run. At this point, all we can do is wait for her next mission.

As for Ridley, his history with Samus after she stopped being afraid of him goes like this:

* Blown up with missiles. (Metroid)
* Brought back as a Cyborg and blown up again. (Zero Mission)
* Knocked off a cliff with lasers and then exploding. (Prime)
* Brought back again as an improved cyborg, shot in the mouth, fell down an impossibly deep geothermal shaft, and then blew up. (Prime 3: Corruption)
* Brought back as an even more improved cyborg except mutated with Phazon, shot repeatedly in vital organs, overloaded with more Phazon, and then blown up so spectacularly he disintegrated into little blue particles. (Prime 3: Corruption ''again'')
* Comes back as a partially regenerated Cyborg again to try and steal the infant metroid on SR388 with fewer metal parts than last time. Is shot to hell and back and repeatedly attacked by a metroid before having to abandon much of his cyborg parts due to heavy damage and get the hell off the planet. It could also be because his lost body parts eventually healed back though. His next appearance had a fully organic body with no cybernetics or missing limbs (Metroid: Return of Samus)
* Manages to successfully steal the infant Metroid in the Ceres station because this time Samus just had her basic power suit and power beam. Is then chased down and blasted apart with missile and beam fire some hours later as Samus conducts a one woman exterminatus. And then the entire planet he was on blew up so fiercely it could be seen for light years. Safe to assume even he couldn't survive that. (Super Metroid)
* Cloned off of the little bits of him remaining on Samus' suit (by ''the Federation''), shot repeatedly in the head and mouth (a couple of times -- he didn't stick around to let Samus finish him off). Finally, he got all the life energy sucked out of him by a queen metroid and left as a mummified corpse. (Other M)
* Said corpse was hauled out of Bottle Ship into BSL and stuffed in a freezer where it shattered, but was cloned by the X-parasites. Samus blew that up, too, and absorbed the remnants to get her Screw Attack back. Then she crashed the station into the planet that it was orbiting, destroying them both. This time he might actually be dead for real given the unlikeliness that any of his genetic material is left (except ironically, the part of his code that Samus consumed when she absorbed his X-parasite form) to clone from. But it's easier to kill ten Necron lychguards with a resurrection orb and Orikan nearby with nothing but grots than it is to keep this fucking dragon dead so who knows? For all we know, he’ll be back later that day or week.(Fusion)

Which is still a better track record than [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]], because Ridley is costing the Federation assets that it cannot easily replace.

Ridley is highly competent and experienced at his role of being both muscle and a general, and is incredibly sadistic and ruthless. When not faced with Samus, he can deal extreme damage and devastation and was a scourge on Federal society for years. The problem of course is that he is faced with a protagonist equipped with the war gear of the most advanced factions to have ever been seen in the galaxy whose suit can plug and play any piece of tech (or even someone's superpowers) like they're god damn USB sticks who has made it her life's goal to make him pay. So his constant, increasingly over the top defeats aren't completely without excuse.

Personality-wise, there's not much to say about her - she never speaks in the majority of the games and serves primarily as a silent protagonist for the player to identify themselves with. Fusion had some brief snippets of inter-monologue, some short conversations, and even some mentions of Samus's life before she was a bounty hunter, usually relating to her former CO, Adam. Other M attempted to expand on the relationship between Samus and Adam, but it [[Fail|backfired spectacularly]] to say the least.

:: In Metroid Prime, scanning the various logs of Space Pirates would reveal that the pirates refer to Samus as [[Awesome|"The Hunter of Our Kind"]], always in the reverential form, always scared shitless of every mention. Essentially she's shown there to be a completely ruthless hunter that will ALWAYS catch space pirates eventually, to such an extent that they can never escape her once she's on the trail. The pirates on that Frigate mention in their logs that they've pretty much lost all hope as soon as they discovered that Samus was tailing them. At the same time, we ''do'' still get little snippets of characterization here and there, with her mourning a little when finding brave Federation Marines dead at the hands of the Ing in ''2'', and frustration and grief at the corruption of her fellow Hunters in the finale.

Pre-Other M material (i.e. a number of manga, Fusion, and the handful of notes she makes to her logbook, as well as some scenes in Metroid Prime) paint her as a noble soul, [[Space Wolves|much more concerned with doing what is right than what is technically the letter of the law]] and [[Salamanders|deeply passionate about protecting those who cannot protect themselves with a noted soft spot for children.]] When Retro wanted to implement a bounty hunting mechanic into Metroid Prime 3 and explained the concept to Nintendo, Nintendo adamantly refused and clarified that "Bounty Hunter" was actually a mistranslation and she wouldn't stoop to murdering and capturing other sapient beings for pay, with Retro describing that it was revealed that she was more of a "Pro Bono" Hunter, who does the public good without expectation of recompense. She was also something of a fiery tempered hot-head who'd disregard regulations and plans to go off and do her own thing in her youth but mellowed out once she came of age. She seems to be an introspective and somewhat introverted person with at least something of a scientific streak as well as a pretty nifty hand at engineering, having designed her own ship.

tl;dr Like most Nintendo protagonists, Samus is very much an incorruptible spark of nobility in an often very dark universe (with Metroid perhaps being the grimmest with the relentlessly cruel space pirates, a deeply corrupt federation, the all corruptive phazon, the demon-esque Ing, the "zombie virus cranked up to fucking eleventy one" X-parasites, the "Xenomorphs on radioactive steroids" Metroids, and the Lovecraftian God-like Gorea just to name a few issues), an ever dependable hero who will go alone and smite the hordes of evil no matter the odds and come out victorious in the end even at personal loss to herself. So very much a [[Nobledark]] sort of hero. She's more of a Knight Errant in space than she is a proper bounty hunter. Indeed if you take a look at her, you'll see knight tropes ''everywhere''. A warrior who came from a child orphaned by a dragon and lawbreakers, raised by monks to be a hero of prophecy destined to wield an incomparable weapon to smite the darkness wherever it may be by traveling the lands, or stars in this case.

==Wargear==

As would be expected of the inheritor of one of her galaxy's most advanced civilizations, Samus has ready access to some of the most overpowered weapons and armor in existence. Even weapons and tech not created by the Chozo can still borderline effortlessly be integrated into her power armor for use at her leisure. Unfortunately for Samus, despite becoming a force no natural disaster could ever compete with by the end of every game, some unprecedented event or catastrophe resets her suit to a much more basic form at the beginning/near beginning of almost every single main-stream sequel that follows. While the obvious, practical reason this happens is entirely to make the game an actual ''game'', the fluff reasons tend to be pretty hit-or-miss (if there even is a reason) These include:
* Getting shot down while leaving Zebes, which also somehow completely destroyed Samus' power suit. This resulted in Samus having to infiltrate a Space Pirate-occupied Chozo temple in order to get a completely new Power Suit. While actually occuring rather far into the game, it does completely negate literally every weapon, armor and utility upgrade Samus collected until then. (Zero Mission)
* Getting caught in a chain reaction of explosions while investigating a derelict Space Pirate Frigate. The damage causes her suit to malfunction and reboot in the most basic loadout (Prime)
* While investigating the planet Aether for a Federation Patrol that went MIA, Samus entered a portal to an alternate version of the planet. She was promptly mugged by the resident Ing, each of which stole a piece of tech that Samus had to hunt down and pry from their cold, dead claws to retrieve. In another instance of post-game downgrading, despite acquiring weapons [[Warp Weapons|capable of sending their targets into alternate dimensions]], Samus voluntarily reverts her suit and weapons to their pre-Aether adventure state and returns the tech to the Luminoth before departing. (Prime 2)
* While mounting a defense against a Space Pirate invasion of Norion, Samus was ultimately corrupted by Phazon. While this didn't necessarily remove many abilities, it did require a refit of her Power Suit to keep her from turning into ''another'' Dark Samus. (Prime 3)
* While there was no explanation, Samus began her Metroid-Extermination mission on SR-388 and her second raid on Zebes in her basic Power Suit. Possibly to avoid losing some of the fancy toys she picked up between the first Metroid game and now? (Metroid II and Super Metroid, respectively)
* In a rather unusual turn of events, Samus retained most of her armor abilities from the beginning of Other M, but [[wat|lacked the clearance]] to use them initially. In a way, this does kind of make sense, as flying around in a giant energy death ball while dropping bombs that atomize borderline anything with a pulse doesn't exactly create an environment conducive for allied Federation forces. That said, it's safe to say [[Marines Malevolent | Samus isn't retarded enough to indiscriminately nuke friend and foe alike]], so it's kind of a hollow excuse. (Other M)
* While escorting a research team on the recently de-Metroided SR-388, Samus is infected by an X-Parasite. Shortly afterwards, Samus narrowly escaped death when she lost consciousness and her ship ejected her before it crashed into an asteroid belt. Scientists had to surgically strip Samus' still-active power suit down in order to operate, with the infected parts consequently becoming a murderous clone of Samus at the peak of her power. Samus, on the otherhand, was left with a watered down power suit that actually rendered her genetically incompatible with several of her former abilities while making her cripplingly weak to anything cold. (Fusion)

Ultimately all these increasingly dramatic incidents prove to be minor inconveniences at best, as even when completely stripped of her fancy toys and tools, Samus still reclaims most if not all the lost equipment in short order. More often than not, she even picks up yet more powerful goodies along the way too.

===Standard Suits===
These suits often have some incarnation or another in most Metroid titles, with Samus usually starting in either the Power or Varia suit, depending on how bad her suit got scratched that day.

'''Power Suit:''' The base and vanilla form of Samus' power armor, the power suit was tailor-made specifically for Samus by her adoptive Chozo parents. Able to be summoned and dismissed at will, the power suit provides basic protection against hostile environments and any local fauna that might be feeling extra frisky. Ultimately, the basic power suit is actually rather fragile and is probably comparable to Eldar mesh armor for all the protection it provides, of course ignoring the shields that make up her actual defence. While a number of games start Samus off in this, several others go ahead and just have Samus keep the more advanced Varia suit instead.

'''Varia Suit:''' The iconic suit Samus is most often portrayed in, the Varia suit is a stark upgrade over the Power Suit in every way. In addition to a much improved defense, the Varia suit provides incomplete protection from high temperature environments (unsurprisingly, substances like lava still severely damage the suit) and is often acquired relatively early on in most games. It's also the first suit that gives Samus unyieldingly massive pauldrons. Its durability would probably compare to Space Marine power armor, while sacrificing none of her insane mobility (in fact, she often gets far more potent mobility enhancing upgrades ''after'' this armor upgrade). It also provides complete immunity to acid in Zero Mission, though apparently Zebesian acid isn't anywhere near as strong as Pirate Homeworld Acid or Fuel Gel given that those can still damage the shielding of the suit.

'''Gravity Suit:''' Often the last or second to last suit upgrade acquired, the Gravity Suit offers complete immunity to high temperature environments, yet higher defensive capabilities, and allows Samus to operate in both underwater and underlava environments completely unrestricted. While Samus still retains her super-olympian maneuverability, this thing is probably comparable to Tartaros-Pattern Terminator armor for all the punishment it can take.

===Non-Standard Suits===
These suits are all unconventional, one-off suits Samus acquires either through circumstance or being "gifted" to her.

'''Phazon Suit:''' An unintended "upgrade", this is actually a corrupted version of Samus' Gravity Suit that was created when a giant, Phazon-enhanced Space Pirate fell on top of her and melted. While no negative traits manifested, it provided Samus with immunity to most forms of Phazon and the ability to channel it into a highly destructive beam of energy (in the right circumstance). Samus loses it when Metroid Prime attacks her in a last ditch effort to save itself. This sort of works; though Samus walks away unharmed, Metroid Prime is able to use the Phazon Suit to reconstitute itself into Dark Samus. (Prime)

'''Dark Suit:''' A piece of Luminoth technology, the Dark Suit was created to provide some protection from the lethal atmosphere of Dark Aether. This suit falls roughly in between the Varia/Gravity suit in that an upgrade confers the unrestricted movement underwater the Gravity Suit is capable of, but lacks the physical and environmental protection it has. It also has a very noticeable different design from most of Samus' suits, due to its Luminoth heritage. (Prime 2)

'''Light Suit:''' A fuck-awesome suit that seamlessly merges Luminoth and Chozo tech into one of the sleekest looking suits Samus has ever worn. In addition to the complete immunity to the toxic atmosphere and water of Dark Aether, it confers Samus with the ability to ride through the shafts of light spread across Aether, allowing instantaneous travel between the major regions of the planet. Unlike almost every other suit downgrade Samus goes through, Samus voluntarily returns the Light Suit tech (and presumably all other related weapons and armor upgrades) to the Luminoth after she destroyed Dark Aether. (Prime 2)

'''PED Suit:''' A Federation-modified version of Samus' Varia suit that, while intended to contain and harness Samus' Phazon corruption, actually made her more susceptible to said corruption. This suit allows Samus to tap into the Phazon she naturally generates post-corruption and use it to empower her attacks and defense dramatically. The cost, however, is that should she engage this mode and not vent or maintain this rapidly-generating energy for too long, it will result in her transforming into a second Dark Samus. Upon destroying the sentient planet Phaaze (and thus the source of all Phazon), Samus reverts back to her Varia suit. (Prime 3)

'''Hazard Shield:''' While not called a suit upgrade outright, this metroid prime 3 only upgrade serves the gameplay purpose that a new suit upgrade does. Though the changes it makes to the suit are fairly low key, making Samus' pauldrons shaped like D12 dice instead of the usual spheres, by the time you get them Samus' phazon corruption has already progressed far enough to give most of her suit; particularly her limb armour, a purple hue that's a fairly deliberate visual reference to the Gravity Suit. This upgrade makes Samus immune to the very worst of corrosive chemical agents that can damage even the normally acid immune Varia Suit's shielding; letting her take a dip in fuel gel or take a stroll outdoors in the space pirate homeworld [[Forgeworld|where centuries of pollution from unclean industrial technology have fucked up the atmosphere so hard that the raindrops there are some of the most destructive chemical agents in the universe.]]

'''Fusion Suit:''' A watered down power suit that was created as a result of Samus' Metroid hybridization. Due to inheriting the genetics of the Metroids, Samus gains the ability to consume X-Parasites simply through contact, but gained a crippling weakness to cold environments and weaponry. As far as the timeline is concerned, while Samus no longer has that weakness, she is still utilizing a variant of the Fusion Suit. Perhaps if Nintendo could get around to advancing the timeline, we could see if this is in fact the case or not. Also can be accessed with Prime if you link fusion from the Gameboy to you gamecube. (Fusion) Since her suit had the full set of upgrades, it might be a variant of either the Varia or Gravity Suit. It even looks like the former.

===Standard Arm Cannon Loadouts===
Another feature synonymous with Samus' Power Suit is the highly advanced multi-purpose gun that always comprises her suit's right arm. Her armament varies between games; some versions simply stack beam upgrades while other beams are mutually exclusive selections. That said, there is always a golden standard readily available to her.

'''Power Beam:''' Just as the Power Suit forms the foundation for all of Samus' other suits, so too does the Power Beam for almost all of Samus' weapons. In all cases, the Power Beam is a relatively weak energy weapon that makes up for its minimal damage output with an absurdly high rate of fire and unlimited ammunition. In almost all circumstances, the Power Beam is rendered obsolete by all other beam technologies, if it's not outright upgraded into them. In the first game and zero mission, it requires the Long Beam to be able to shoot across the entire screen which also gives it a bit of a damage boost but in every other game the Power Beam seems to have the long range function by default.

'''Missile:''' One of the few weapons Samus regularly uses that requires ammunition, Missiles are often utilized against moderately armored foes and to destroy various pieces of terrain or barriers barring Samus' path. In the Prime series of games, Missles are able to lock onto and track targets. This makes them modestly useful against fast and/or airborne targets. Additionally, an upgrade in Prime 2 and 3 allows Samus to fire up to 5 of them simultaneously, either in a spread, tracking up to 5 separate targets, or all 5 locked onto one single target.

'''Super Missile:''' Another ammunition reliant weapon, the Super Missile is a high-powered projectile that deals heavy damage to most targets. While in most traditional games it uses an entirely separate ammo, the Prime games simply utilize 5 standard missiles in conjunction with a charged beam to fire. In the first two prime games, every Beam type has a Super-Missile variant, with the form, function and ammo cost changing based on the beam. Each is still usually a powerful blast that can hit multiple enemies with one shot, however several of these variants have limited or situational uses compared to the standard Super Missile.

'''Charge Beam:''' Not necessarily a beam in its own right, this upgrade adds the functionality to focus any beam's energy into a single charged shot (as the name fucking implies). While dramatically reducing the rate of fire, the resulting charged beam is often many times more powerful than the standard shot and usually amplifies the secondary effects the beam might cause. In Fusion, it also upgrades the base beam, making it fire crescent wave shots that do more damage and can potentially hit more than one target at a time.

'''Ice Beam:''' Occasionally a direct upgrade, occasionally an alternate beam altogether, the Ice Beam is a low-to-non damaging weapon that is primarily used to immobilize hostile targets to use as either parkour platforms, or to shatter through judicious use of missiles. The Prime variant of the Ice-Beam is notable for having a Super-Missile variant called the Ice Spreader, which fires a medium-sized sheet of freezing energy over an area. The most prominent targets for this beam are the namesake Metroids Samus often finds herself hunting, with almost all sub-breeds and evolutions having a horrible weakness to it.

'''Wave Beam:''' Often a direct upgrade of the Power Beam, most incarnations of the Wave Beam increase the damage of Samus' primary energy projectiles while allowing them to completely phase through most terrain and structures. In most cases, there is no additional effects tied to the beam itself, though being able to kill someone through multiple layers of rock or metal is hardly arguable. Interestingly, the Prime version of this weapon is drastically different. With a slightly slower rate of fire than the Power Beam, and not retaining the wall penetrating aspects all other versions have, the Wave Beam is an electric-based energy weapon that will moderately track targets that Samus locks onto. Additionally, many targets hit by the charged shot are stunned for several seconds, allowing Samus to swiftly dispatch them in the interim. The Super-Missile variant unleashes a devastating torrent of energy that latches onto targets, it depletes missiles at a rapid rate in order to fuel. Also kinda gives off ghostbuster vibes while channeling it. While generally not amazingly useful for most situations, the Wavebuster combo makes an invisible drone that serves as the boss guarding the power bombs a complete joke since it automatically tracks the fucker and stunlocks it to death, sparing you from what is otherwise a difficult fight with an enemy that hits like a truck and can only be manually targeted.

'''Plasma Beam:''' Usually a near-endgame upgrade, the Plasma beam dramatically increases the damage of Samus' base projectiles. In most cases, the Plasma beam also penetrates targets, allowing Samus to slaughter multiple enemies with only a few well-aimed shots. Similarly to the Wave beam, the Plasma Beam is considerably different in its Prime incarnation. With a shorter range, but same rate of fire as the Power Beam, the Plasma Beam is the strongest conventional weapon available to Samus, with the Charged shot being slightly stronger than a super-missile. Additionally, the few creatures not outright disintegrated by a charged shot are usually set ablaze afterwards. If Samus is feeling a bit like a Salamander or Sister of Battle, she can use the Super Missile variant of the Plasma beam to channel a high-powered flamethrower to roast whatever moronic creature pissed her off.

'''Spazer Beam:''' Alternatively known as the Wide Beam in Fusion, this direct upgrade splits Samus' projectiles into three separate shots, without sacrificing rate of fire or beam strength. It allows Samus to hit multiple targets simultaneously, or simply broaden just how much space she can fill with overpowered dakka.

===Non-Standard Arm Cannon Loadout===
Similarly to the specialized, one-off suits Samus acquires, there are select beams that only ever see one, maybe two incarnations.

'''Phazon Beam:''' While some variant of this exists in all 3 Prime games, they're all situational, specialized beams that rely on either an external factor or risk. Even though they differ drastically, each is an extremely powerful weapon that does ludicrous amounts of damage to a given target, with most of said targets being impervious or highly resistant to all other weaponry Samus has access too. As stated though, the circumstances that Phazon can be used as a weapon are severely limited and either require an external source of Phazon, or the usage of Samus' own energy to access. (All 3 Prime games). The Phazon beam is quite different in all three games, in the first it only activates when Samus stands in pools of pure Phazon produced by the Metroid Prime and only has an automatic firing mode that spits out a spray of blue laser beams of death that are the only thing that can hurt the true form of the metroid prime, while also one shotting the metroids it spawns. In metroid prime 2 it is gained by using the charge beam to suck up phazon particles Dark Samus vents in her final, phazon overloaded form to cause her hurt and if you hack the game to fire it at anything else it basically one shots them. In Prime 3 it's basically a standard beam whose charge shot function is to very rapidly fire a lot of bursts, the damage is toned down since it's not a final battle supermode, but it is necessary to beat phazon based enemies or enemies engaging hypermode in anything resembling a timely manner.

'''Dark Beam:''' Unusual in that it is a beam that utilizes ammo, the Dark Beam concentrates the energies native to Dark Aether into a relatively slow moving projectile that, when charged, immobilizes targets with tendrils of darkness that sear their bound targets with its malevolent energies. Additionally, the Super-Missile variant [[rape| rips open a portal to an alternate dimension and drags hapless, nearby creatures and humanoids into what is effectively a miniature black hole that tears them apart on the molecular level]]. Unsurprisingly, using this beam on the denizens of Dark Aether is like trying to kill a shark with a water gun, so it is largely useless in that dimension. (Prime 2)

'''Light Beam:''' Like all the other beams in Prime 2 (Power Beam exempted), the Light Beam relies on ammunition to remain effective. Similar to the Plasma beam, the Light Beam fires off rapid fire, short range bursts of focused light energies that burn through Ing and things possessed by them like a hot knife through butter. The charged shot functions like a shotgun, firing a spread of individual shots that ignite targets indiscriminately. Contrarily to the Dark Beam, the Super-Missile variant of the light beam creates what is basically a miniature sun which slowly drifts forward immolating all in its path. Upon striking an enemy or surface, it then explodes in a burst of fire. In other words, it's basically the BFG 9000 but coloured white instead of green. (Prime 2)

'''Annihilator Beam:''' A combination of both the Light and Dark beams, using both of their ammo reserves to function, the Annihilator beam is among the most lethal of all Samus' rather diverse selection of weaponry (seeing as how she had to rip it out of an Ing-possessed robot roughly half-again taller than an Imperial Knight, one would hope it would be respectively powerful). While shot-for-shot not as powerful as using the Light Beam vs. Ing or Dark Beam vs. Non-Ing, its rapid rate of fire, range, generous tracking capabilities and with no enemy resisting it make this beam a potent all around force to be reckoned with. The Super Missile variant of the Annihilator beam, upon firing, instantaneously strikes the first target or surface it was pointed at and creates a sizable rift in space that rips apart everything unfortunate enough to be in the area. This power comes at a heavy price though, consuming both a number of Samus' missiles and a sizable portion of both her Dark and Light beam ammo reserves. (Prime 2)

'''Metroid Prime Hunters Beams:''' Each of the Bounty Hunters introduced in Metroid Prime Hunters had a unique beam that Samus was able to acquire for her personal use over the course of the game. Each of these beams utilized ammo in order to fire, much like the Dark and Light beams from Echoes. While Samus was able to utilize these weapons effectively, they had more powerful effects in the hands of their original hunters.
*''BattleHammer'': Weavel's signature weapon, this rapid-fire beam lobs a steady stream of explosive rounds at medium ranges. This beam has no charged variation and each shot detonates upon contact with any surface. When Weavel uses it, the rate of fire decreases, but the damage and explosion radius of each round increases significantly. Additionally, when Weavel cuts himself in half (his "morph ball"), his legs transform into a stationary turret that lobs BattleHammer shots at nearby foes. The BattleHammer is notably a nuclear weapon, not in the sense that it fires nuclear warheads, but that its shells apparently are so heavy they need a nuclear reaction to launch. Okay then.
*''Imperialist'': Trace's signature weapon is the only instance of a sniper-type weapon introduced in any Metroid game and fires a big red hitscan laser, which unfortunately makes it really easy to track where the shot came from. While it has no charge ability and an incredibly low rate of fire, it has the single longest range of any other weapon available to the hunters (to the degree that it actually has a scope functionality) and can kill any of the Hunters with a headshot. While the weapon itself doesn't change in the hands of Trace, it does cloak him while he stands still with it equipped.
*''Judicator'': Noxus's signature weapon has a slow rate of fire as it shoots forth shards of supercooled plasma chilled to just a smidgen above absolute zero, but deals respectable damage at mid range with the shots ricocheting off of surfaces. When Samus or any other hunter charges the beam, it fires three shots at once in a manner quite similar to a shotgun. Noxus, however, converts it into a short-ranged sheet that instantly freezes any enemies engulfed by it.
*''Magmaul'': Spire's signature weapon is functionally a grenade, launching short-ranged chunks of superheated magma waiting for an excuse to explode into rock vapour that can bounce off surfaces until they either detonate a few seconds later, or on contact with hostile forces. Charging the shot results in a much larger blast radius that does significantly more damage, with Spire's Magmaul igniting enemies engulfed by it for additional damage.
*''Shock Coil'': Sylux's signature weapon is the only sustained fire beam available, launching a short-range arc of "high density neutrinos" (even though the amount of neutrinos you'd need to cause harm to a living being would need so much energy you're better off just using your "lance bombardment ain't shit" levels of energy instead to kill the guy) that latches onto nearby targets automatically and rapidly drains their health. As time progresses, the damage done per second increases to absurd levels and can slaughter enemy hunters in mere moments. Unlike anyone else who uses it, Sylux absorbs all damage done point for point, making him extraordinarily hard to kill in close quarters.
*''Volt Driver'': Kanden's signature weapon operates like a hybrid of the power beam and wave beam (prime 1). Basic shots are for all intents and purposes, just the power beam. Charged shots, however, transform into a slow moving explosive that does significant damage to enemies caught in its blast. Kanden's charge blast homes in on nearby targets and disrupts their visors in a burst of electricity. Said to have "terawatts" of energy in every shot, meaning each impact is comparable to a tactical nuclear warhead or greater than the entirety of the world's energy demands. It is also said to draw this from the planet's magnetosphere which is even sillier as powering even one of these shots would drain an entire thunderstorm dry.
*''Omega Cannon'': The super weapon of the Hunters game, the Omega Cannon is a single shot beam that does massive damage to everything within a massive radius, including the user in the multiplayer mode where it kills literally anyone who can see the blast. In the single player it doesn't do anywhere near as much self damage but you can fire it more than once. Due to the unique nature of this beam, it is only available during the fight against Gorea in the Single Player, or only on one stage in the Multiplayer as a power up.

'''Nova Beam:''' Similar to the traditional Wave beam, the Nova beam has the capacity to ignore and simply pass through surfaces and armor comprised of a material known as Phazite. When used in conjunction with the X-Ray visor, Samus can use it to identify vital organs of certain enemies like Metroids and Space Pirates, and snipe them with a single shot. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs This allows Samus to kill formerly formidable Space Pirate Commandos like they were some backwater Conscript fresh out of boot.] (Prime 3)

'''Hyper Beam:''' An extremely potent weapon, Samus only obtains this weapon from the Sacrifice of the Baby Metroid she rescued. It makes extremely short work of the recently resurrected Mother Brain, and aids in Samus' hasty escape from Zebes as it begins to explode following MB's death. It's not explained if this beam was simply a temporary effect of the Metroid's energy infusion, or if it's a permanent weapon upgrade Samus shelved following the mission. Regardless, it is safe to say Samus no longer possesses it.

'''Diffusion Beam:''' A pretty forgettable beam originating from Other M that is rather uniquely; for Other M that is; acquired the conventional metroid way by destroying a drone miniboss that has the requisite technology that Samus then acquires after defeating it. It doesn't really seem to affect the base beam all that much, but it gives the charge shot a big sparkly area of effect to wipe out large numbers of enemies at a time. It's pretty boring overall though the SFXes it produces are kind of pretty.

===Utilities and other abilities===
In order to progress through otherwise impassable obstacles and terrain, Samus has access to a wide variety of multi-purpose tools that aren't necessarily used strictly to vaporize anything with sharp teeth (that doesn't stop her from using some of these tools to do just that anyways). The recurring ones are as follows:

'''Morph Ball:''' Another iconic ability, and often one of if not the first upgrades acquired (if not already just loaded in by default), this allows Samus to transform into a compact sphere roughly 1 meter in diameter. In addition to allowing her to slip into otherwise tight spaces, it also allows her to activate a good many devices through rather conveniently shaped power conduit sockets. This form has a variety of abilities and weapons exclusive to it as well:
*''Bomb:'' Sometimes included by default, other times a separate upgrade, Samus can use this to lay up to 3 consecutive energy bombs that serve multiple purposes. In addition to being the default manner of attack for the Morph Ball, the bombs are also used to destroy weakened or lightly armored structures, to power on aforementioned power conduits or devices, or to propel Samus into the air in a technique aptly named the "bomb jump". As of Samus Returns, the bomb upgrade now has no limit on the number of bombs it can have on screen at a time as a convenience factor. A rather obscure trick is that in some two dimensional games, if you have a beam charged and enter morph ball mode you'll drop a whole bunch of bombs, not exactly useful as usually the charge shot would do more damage but it is still there all the same.
*''Power Bomb:'' One of the most powerful weapons Samus gets access to, Power Bombs are used to destroy heavily armored structures and terrain while straight up obliterating anything within its rather large blast zone. Unlike the regular bomb, the Power Bomb is reliant on relatively limited ammunition. It has some combos with the beams in Super Metroid but these are obscure tricks the game never tells you about of somewhat questionable utility that have never appeared since Super Metroid. It's also used as fuel for Samus' crystal flash move, another obscure super metroid only manoeuvre that sacrifices Samus' stocks of ammo to restore her shielding to full capacity.
*''Spider Ball:'' The first strictly non-lethal upgrade to the Morph Ball enables Samus to cling to most surfaces and scale them with ease. This ability is somewhat limited in the Prime franchise, as it can only cling to magnetic rails specifically designed for it so as to not trivialise platforming or open Pandora's box of level geometry abuse.
*''Spring Ball:'' Basically it lets her jump in morph ball mode without having to wait for a bomb to detonate. It's mostly a convenience thing and while not initially present in the first two prime games, it's a default ability in prime 3 and was retroactively added to the other two in the re-release. It notably makes the Spider Ball Guardian, perhaps the most frustrating boss in Metroid Prime 2 due to its reliance on extremely exacting morphball platforming puzzles and very limited opportunities to recover shielding, much easier on any difficulty.
*''Boost Ball:'' Exclusive to the Prime games, this allows Samus to charge up her Morph Ball with energy and launch forward at high speeds. In addition to letting her act as a literal cannonball, it is also used to perform sick tricks in half-pipe structures and burst through things like metal grates. Aside from the Speed Boost, this is Samus' fastest "standard" method of travel.

'''Grapple Beam:''' A coherent beam of energy that allows Samus to tether to points either in the environment or on specific creatures. Environmentally, it allows Samus to swing from point to point, crossing otherwise impassable or treacherous crevices and the like. Not usually an offensive weapon, Samus still does use the Grapple Beam to rip off shields and armor of certain enemies in order to promptly execute them. When charged with Phazon, she can also either use it to either sap all the energy/phazon out of a target, or flood it with so much Phazon that it simply explodes in a shower of gore and blue goo.

'''High Jump Boots:''' Like the name implies, this boosts the height and speed of Samus' base jumps. Effectively outmoded the moment she acquires the Space Jump.

'''Space Jump:''' Another common ability, the Space Jump effectively gives Samus the ability to fly by letting her jump repeatedly through the air. As an efficient and expeditious manner of travel, it is admittedly lacking, but as it normally has an unlimited number of uses, it still allows Samus to bypass almost every environmental obstacle not involving water, lava or destructible terrain. Combined with the screw attack however, it lets Samus be a constantly moving whirling buzzsaw of death that's almost impervious to attack while instantly destroying nearly everything it touches. The Prime series limits the Space Jump into a single mid-air jump, though the reasons for this are strictly for the gameplay.

'''Screw Attack:''' An augment of the Space Jump, the Screw Attack envelops Samus in a sheathe of energy that outright evaporates all lesser creatures that come into contact with it and severely injures everything else. As it is activated by jumping through the air, Samus can remain in this state almost indefinitely and can only be knocked out of it by a similarly powerful attack or projectile (like the SA-X who can also use the Screw Attack). In the Prime games, it functions similarly, however it allows Samus to propel herself forward up to 5 times as well as wall jump up specific surfaces.

'''Speed Boost:''' This upgrade allows Samus to run at ludicrous speeds, enveloping herself in a shroud of lethal energy that not only lets her simply charge through anyone foolish enough to stand in her way, but also straight up ram through a variety of terrain that would otherwise block her way. This energy can be temporarily stored by abruptly crouching mid run, then promptly used to propel Samus in a completely different direction, or simply launch herself through the air until she collides with a solid object in a technique called the "Spineshark".

'''Visors:''' Often only playing a role in the Prime series, Samus' visor is surprisingly one of the most useful tools at her disposal. The default mode it is in is simply the Combat Visor, which displays her HUD as well as an advanced targeting system that lets her lock onto opponents or objects should the need arise.
*''Scan Visor:'' Though it wouldn't seem it, the Scan Visor is probably the single most powerful tool Samus has access too. In addition to providing background information on individuals, native flora, fauna, etc., it allows her to quickly translate most alien languages at a glance, identify structural or anatomical weaknesses on a target, hack into computer terminals and remotely activate a great many devices when the need arises. As this is never a function Samus has to acquire from an external source, it's also safe to say it's just a baseline feature of her Power suit.
*''Thermal Visor:'' This gives Samus thermal-based vision. Kind of self explanatory, really. Still relatively useful in low-light or otherwise visually obscured conditions.
*''X-Ray Visor:'' Another relatively straight forward visor, this gives Samus the ability to see through a variety of terrain, structures, enemies, or other miscellaneous objects. In Prime 3, it can be used in conjunction with the Nova Beam to simply snipe the vital organs of a good many foes, killing them with as few as one to two standard shots. This was the first variant visor to appear in the series, as an equivalent called the ''X-Ray Scope'' was an optional power-up hidden in the Brinstar region of Super Metroid.
*''Dark Visor:'' Kind of a hybrid between the Thermal and X-Ray visor, the Dark Visor allows Samus to track cloaked enemies by seeing into other dimensions.
*''Echo Visor:'' This gives Samus the ability to "see" sound, including sounds that are otherwise outside the normal range of hearing. Used in conjunction with the Annihilator beam to interact with sonar-based equipment.
*''Command Visor:'' Essentially a remote control for Samus' ship, this allows her call down bombing runs, use her ship to lift massive objects out of the way, or simply tell it to land in another location. Surprisingly one of the least useful visors Samus uses, as 99% of the time, she's not in a location or position to utilize her ship offensively.

==Allies, Enemies and Misc==
===Allies===
'''Galactic Federation''': Basically the UN in SPESS, the Federation is a relatively benevolent government that governs over its subject worlds in a relatively fair and just manner. Samus often works for or with Federation forces in dealing with Space Pirate incursions and other potential threats to galactic peace. In more recent times however, a darker side seems to be more and more prevalent, with not just one, but two attempts to breed and weaponize Metroids (after they ordered them to be wiped out, mind you) as well as the intention to do the same with the X Parasites. This last endeavor was thwarted by Samus, who is no longer seeing eye-to-eye with the Federation, though whether or not they're now enemies or simply cutting Samus from their payroll is unclear.

*'''Adam (Ship AI)''': The first NPC introduced in a Metroid game, heck the first interactable character other than Samus at all at the time, the AI came with the ship the Federation gave Samus after she survived getting space AIDS as part of the deal. Acts like every other stereotypical AI command center in gaming with a go here, kill this, fix that type deal it till Samus decides to go suicide run the BSL station when she finds out about the hidden program they had running there. After calling out her stupidity and hearing her rant about Adam it apparently uploaded his memories and personality then proposes a better solution and repeats his catchphrase to convince Samus it was him. Whether he was uploaded when she got the ship or the AI uploaded the personality on the fly is unknown.

*'''Adam Malkovich (Human)''': Currently the only relevant GF character, Adam Malkovich served as a commander for GF forces and often as Samus' commanding officer during joint missions together. His relationship with Samus was [[skub | intended to be like that of a surrogate father-figure, though the main source material he's involved tends to cause a lot of debate regarding how well that was portrayed]]. He's also an alleged military genius, though between forcing Samus to shut down most of her gear, splitting up his team (who all together couldn't handle the threats they were fighting initially, much less divided) and [[wat | freezing Samus with an ice beam right in front of a live Metroid]] [[Derp | despite admitting that he didn't know if cold weapons even worked on them]], this also is a hotly debated claim. He later sacrificed himself to blow up said Metroids, though a copy of his personality was uploaded as an AI that acted as a liaison between Samus and the Federation while she was aboard the BSL.

'''Chozo''': Samus' foster parents aren't really around anymore, but they were [[Tau | originally a militant warrior people who prided in scientific progression and enlightening the lesser races]]. However, as they mellowed out in their old age, many of them sought to explore their more spiritual aspects, with many [[Exodite | forsaking their technology to live in harmony with the natural world]]. Between dying out from old age, getting slaughtered by Space Pirates/Ridley, getting nuked by Meteors filled with Phazon and generally fucking off to parts unknown, their ruins and technology are currently the only known remnants of their civilization. However, the Chozo memories in Metroid: Samus Returns strongly implies that some Chozo warriors disagreed with this turn in Chozo society and are still active after having staged a coup to kill the peacenik scientists for unknown reasons.
*'''Grey Voice''': One of the only two named Chozo, Grey Voice was a curmudgeon who initially objected to adopting Samus before relenting with the knowledge that she literally had nowhere and no one else to go to. To help her adapt to Zebes, it was Grey Voice's DNA that was used to genetically enhance Samus into what she is today. While he feigned servitude to Ridley and Mother Brain to avoid getting his people wiped out, he eventually dusted off his old power armor and tried to kill the two of them despite having been genetically engineered to be incapable of violent acts. Ultimately Ridley slaughtered him and most of the remaining Chozo in response.
*'''Old Bird''': The other named Chozo, Old Bird was friendlier than Grey Voice and actually played with toddler Samus a little bit before the Space Pirates raided her colony. He also tried to teach her the lesson that just because someone looks different, you can always find good in them and become friends in the end. [[not as planned | Suffice to say, this advice backfired spectacularly when 3-year old Samus told Ridley this and he responded by incinerating her mother]]. When they returned to investigate the carnage, Old Bird was the one who found her amidst the ruins and basically strong armed Grey Voice into adopting her. After the events on Zebes that decimated the Chozo population and killed Grey Voice, Old Bird led the precious few Chozo who survived into hiding, leaving their ultimate fate unknown.

'''Luminoth''': Giant bipedal moth people, the Luminoth are an elder race much like their Chozo buddies. Unlike the Chozo, the Luminoth are still around and kicking (if only barely. With only a few dozen of them left, they are all but extinct thanks to their war with the Ing). They are known to have met and collaborated with the Chozo on a few projects, as well as assisting the Galactic Federation with cleaning up residual Phazon on their planet, but they have not done much since.
*'''U-Mos''': The last sentinel of the Luminoth, U-Mos was charged with watching over the remainder of his race (who were in stasis at this point) and defending the final remnants of planetary energy remaining on the original Aether. While initially wary of Samus (and despite her initial distrust of him), his heartfelt pleas for her to save his people and planet, as well as the threat the Ing would possess should they escape to the galaxy at large gained Samus' cooperation. To aid in her one-woman war, he eventually gifted her the slick-as-hell Light Suit. Notably considered to be a pretty young man; especially for someone entrusted with the duties of chief guardian and head of state; by the standards of his species at 250 years of age though he mostly got the job because nearly everyone with more experience was dead by the time he was elected. Kind of like a twenty five year old ending up as head of the administratum or Captain General of the Custodes.

'''Alimbics''': Yet another elder race, the Alimbics were insectoid-like beings who, like the other elder races, had a thing for science and technologies of borderline magic. Originally from another galaxy altogether, the Alimbics engaged in some minor trading of tech with a variety of races such as the Chozo, Vhozon, Kriken, etc. Ultimately, a love-craftian horror named Gorea came to their civilization and began assimilating their race to grow stronger. The leaders of their race sacrificed themselves in a process to seal Gorea away in an alternate dimension. The fate of any remaining Alimbics (who weren't assimilated) isn't entirely clear, but they're presumed to be either extinct or in the same plane of existence their leaders went into upon sealing Gorea.

'''Baby Metroid''': The last "natural" Metroid in existence, this infant Metroid hatched right in front of Samus just after she had slain the last Queen Metroid. It immediately imprinted on Samus, who couldn't bring herself to kill a defenseless baby. She quickly took it to a Galactic Federation research lab for safe keeping, only for Ridley to show up, kill everybody on the station and steal the metroid. Samus eventually found the Metroid on Zebes, who had grown to massive proportions of its original size and nearly killed her before recognizing her as her "mother". It slinked off in shame before intervening in Samus' fight against Mother Brain, draining the later's energy and feeding it to Samus. Turns out MB didn't really appreciate this, and so she killed the Metroid before it could attack again. This would have been the end of the story if not for the fact that the Federation would later use what genetic samples they had of this metroid to later save it's mother's life from that X infection.

===Enemies===
'''Ridley''': Sometimes heralded as the leader of the Space Pirates, other times just a high-ranking warlord or an enforcer, Ridley is one of the most evil fucks in the galaxy. Despite being a fully sentient and highly intelligent being, he takes extreme pleasure in the bestial brutality of indiscriminate slaughter of anyone or anything unfortunate enough to be on the same planet as him. [[Grimdark | His sadism even goes so far as to gloat to Samus who was at the time, only a teenager and was caught in her first ever PTSD episode about eating her freshly murdered parents (while mimicking their voices) before promptly killing her adopted chozo-dad]]. What's worse, is that in most cases he kills people just for the shits and giggles (which, by Nintendo's standards, is pretty damn dark) rather than to fulfill some ulterior motive or power play. He joined the space pirates as an enforcer of its mysterious High Command not for any higher goal or even for his own gain, he's only in it because he likes to hurt and kill people and the space pirates were the army that would let him do that the most. As mentioned above, he currently holds the Nintendo record of fastest respawn times (Even Ganon from LoZ usually takes at least a lifetime or longer to reincarnate, Ridley just pops back a week later like it's just another damn day at the office). While most Nintendo villains are evil in a grand, cosmic way; Ridley is mean and cruel in a very personal and ugly way and his opposition to Samus is born entirely out of personal rather than destiny related reasons and ideology is only in play to the extent that "I deserve to have fun by killing and torturing people" versus "That's really fucked up" is an ideological conflict.
*The only major metroid games he hasn't shown up in are Metroid Prime 2 and Hunters, the latter due to the DS' limitations and the former because Metroid Prime 2 had a rather rushed dev cycle and so they had to cut him and the planned conclusion of the Space Pirate subplot in Prime 2 out. This is why the Space Pirates seem to mostly just disappear part way through entering the Sanctuary Fortress after a fair deal of build up with commando attacks and increasingly brazen attacks on Samus before never really showing up again after the second fight with Dark Samus. However they got far enough along to compose a really weird remix of his iconic theme. He used to be absent from Metroid 2 but was retconned into being the final boss in the remake, which is actually the first time he's ever served in such a role. If the original prime trilogy is ever remade, odds are good that he'll be added into Prime 2 as well.
*While the Metroid Prime, Mother Brain, and High Command are all more influential or powerful than he is and he's always operating as someone else's soldier, he's Samus' arch-enemy, not them. As mentioned before, Samus' conflict with him is almost entirely driven by personal reasons and at the same token, he's the only reoccuring villain who definitely opposes her for reasons beyond being an obstacle in his plans. The others are her enemies or villains; only he can genuinely claim to be her Nemesis.

'''Kraid''': A massive, morbidly obese Godzilla that serves as another high-ranking Space Pirate commander. Despite having a position similar to Ridley's, he's not remotely as revered or competent as his draconic counterpart; a detail likely noticed by most of the Space Pirates in charge of rebuilding Ridley every time Samus kicks his ass. To that extent, Kraid has only ever stood in Samus' way twice, both times on the planet Zebes (it's entirely probable that his size prevents most conventional ships from moving him anywhere else anyways). Even if he somehow survived his last encounter with Samus herself, the likelyhood he also somehow miraculously escaped Zebes before it exploded is extraordinarily minuscule. As any "meta" or clone version has yet to appear since, he's likely quite dead now. The principal reason that he hasn't shown up anywhere near as often as Ridley is that his size and lack of flight make it difficult to give convincing reasons for him to appear elsewhere and also give way less freedom for level designers than the more moderately sized flight capable Ridley. He was planned to show up in metroid prime 1 in a deeper section of the Phazon Mines between fighting the Omega Pirate and Meta Ridley in a cyborgised form, but was cut for time reasons.

'''Mother Brain''': A giant, literal brain that functioned as something of an overseer for the Chozo society. Over time, she grew rather sick of cleaning up after Space Pirate raids and the Chozo's new pacifistic outlook on life and began wishing to instill her concept of "order" unto the galaxy. To this end, she conscripted Ridley and the Space Pirates to act as her personal army in a bid to take control of the Galactic Federation to achieve this goal. She also seemed to think that the Metroids are the perfect life form, and sought to evolve them into a fully intelligent race. Suffice to say, between her second death and the extinction of Metroids, the odds of her goal being realized are real fucking slim.

'''Space Pirates''': Arthropods (or Reptoids depending on the game) with an attitude, Space Pirates have been the biggest thorn in the Federation's side since god knows when. The exact nuances of their government and society at large aren't really clear, but they are an extremely militaristic race that tends to have a [[ork | "might is right"]] mentality. Despite this, they are still a fairly advanced race in their own right and have created a fair amount of technology that can rival the Galactic Federation. Unlike the Federation, the Pirates are much less concerned with the safe applications of said technology, so much of their newer or experimental technology tends to be considerably more crude than their GF counterparts. Their tech also tends to suffer from particularly fatal flaws (such as notable vulnerabilities to specific beam weapons, or high equipment temperatures making them liable to explode). The R&D aspect of their technology also tends to have a staggering mortality rate on the personnel testing it, a hilarious example being when they tried (and failed) to copy Samus' Morph Ball.

'''Ing''': When Aether was hit by a Phazon-infused meteor, the impact in tandem with the Phazon reacting with the natural energies of the planet split Aeither between two dimensions of reality. Most of the Phazon and half of this planetary energy shifted over to the half that became known as 'Dark Aether'. This realm became populated by the Ing, literal daemons of darkness who possessed and killed things in the original Aether (not necessarily in that order either) in order to slaughter the Luminoth and steal the remaining energy to stabilize their dimension and erase the original planet. Once Samus drained every bit of planetary energy and murdered their Emperor, the entirety of Dark Aether imploded upon itself, taking the rest of the Ing with it ([[Grimdark|many of whom were so desperate to escape their apocalypse they tried to force themselves through an unstable portal to a realm that's atmosphere would've very likely killed them anyways]]). This is kind of noteworthy, as this is the first instance of complete and utter genocide Samus has committed against a fully sentient (if strictly hierarchical and extremely hostile) race to the point of extinction.
*Metroid Prime 3 gives a hint to their origins with a minor enemy known as the Phaaz-Ing which looks and acts an awful lot like a recoloured version of an Inglet. It's likely that the Ing Horde was birthed from a collection of Phaaz-Ing that hitched a ride on the leviathan heading towards aether and were mutated by the dark dimension when Aether's bizarre energies sent the meteor into another dimension.

'''Dark Samus''': The first of Samus' doppelgangers, Dark Samus is an ''extremely'' mutated Metroid that utilized the Phazon Suit it stole from Samus to effectively turn into a deranged murder-clone of her. While she was relatively directionless on Aether, she eventually became obsessed with spreading Phazon corruption to every known planet of importance. Due to being almost pure Phazon, Dark Samus' personality is twisted and manic. The Space Pirates corrupted by her came to see her as something of a prophet or harbinger, with many all but worshiping her. Her final death came with the destruction of the planet Phaaze, which effectively cause all Phazon to become inert and fade away.

'''SA-X''': The Samus Aran X-Parasite was created shortly after a Federation sponsored visit to the recently de-Metroided SR-388 when one of the little STD blobs crawled into Samus' suit. After promptly infecting and copying her at the height of her power, it began wreaking havoc on the Space Station it was contained in. By the time Samus was strong enough to face off against it, it had asexually reproduced into no less than 10 copies of a fully powered Samus. All these copies are presumed to be destroyed along with the entirety of SR-388 and the Space Station they were held on. Unlike Dark Samus, this thing might have copied some of the original's personality, though mostly it seemed to imitate just the part that was obsessed with murdering metroids. And even that might just be the X-Parasite trying to kill off its greatest threat.

===Bounty Hunters===
While all of them were or are enemies of Samus, a few of them were allies for a short time, or would otherwise be likely to ally with her in normal circumstances. Their motivations also continue to prove that Nintendo still only has a tenuous understanding of what a bounty hunter actually is.

'''Sylux''': A "Bounty Hunter" who apparently has a hate-boner for the Federation. All that's really known about him is that he's native to the planet of Cylosis, he stole his power suit and the Shock Coil weapon from the Federation and when he's not spending his time killing their outlying forces, he's stalking Samus across the Galaxy. Unlike the other hunters introduced in his debut game, it seems that Nintendo has actual plans for him. Plans big enough to build an entire trilogy around him as either an antagonist or Deuteragonist. (Hunters, likely Prime 4 as well)

'''Rundas''': An alien bounty hunter with cryokinetic powers, Rundas was initially employed alongside several other hunters to work with Samus on Norion. He had your typical cool-guy type attitude with an arrogant flair, but was at least competent enough at his job to justify ''part'' of it. Following his corruption and deployment to a planet called Bryyo, he lost his mind and was enthralled to Dark Samus. After being defeated by Samus, he regained his sanity, though either upon realizing what he'd done or possibly Dark Samus' overriding his will, he killed himself with his own ice powers before having his essence absorbed by Dark Samus. Visually, he kinda looks like a Wraithlord from 40k. (Prime 3)

'''Ghor''': A cyborg bounty hunter who [[This guy | would often donate his rewards to the victims of his marks]], Ghor utilized his space ship as a mech suit to murder the hell out of any Space Pirates in his way. He has a weird sort of split personality thing where out of his mech suit he's like a kindly robo-grandpa, but when he's in the suit he becomes EXTREMELY ANGRY AT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. He's also something of a tech expert (being a cyborg, this is unsurprising), and is able to remotely access computers and networks with a flick of a hand. Despite falling to corruption much like his bounty hunter colleagues, Ghor regained enough mental clarity to tell Samus how to repair the damage he inflicted on an orbital station and its resident AI overseer before retreating to attack her ship. Much like Rundas, he too was consumed by Dark Samus upon his defeat at Samus' hands. (Prime 3)

'''Gandrayda''': A Shape-Shifter who can copy the appearance and some abilities of other people/races, Gandrayda was an arrogant show-off bitch who was skilled at infiltration (a shape-shifter who specializes in infiltration, shocking, I know) and liked to toy with her targets before killing them, usually as one of their supposed "allies". Unlike the other two bounty hunters who were corrupted, Gandrayda actually seemed to embrace her new powers and role under Dark Samus and above her Space Pirate legions. Just like the two hunters before her, however, she was defeated and ultimately slain by Samus and Dark Samus, respectively. (Prime 3)

'''Weavel''': The only other named Space Pirate. During one of her raids, Samus wasn't as thorough as she thought she was and didn't quite kill Weavel, just horribly maim him. Thankfully, some of his chaps had enough tech that all they really needed was his brain and spinal column and shoved that into a robotic shell that could split in half and turn its legs into a battle turret. Since then, he's been a bounty hunter for the space pirates, causing chaos wherever he can. An interesting note is that his anatomy is practically human in design when most Space Pirates are digitgrade insectoids with crab-claw hands. Possibly was an attempt to replicate Samus' power suit, since it'd hardly be the first time they've tried. (Hunters)

'''Kanden''': An individual from a race called "Enoema" who was used as an experiment to create an ideal super-soldier. The process worked, physically speaking, though Kanden's mind couldn't handle whatever the hell they did to him and caused him to go insane. Evidently, he now has the single-minded goal to become the single greatest bounty hunter in existence, and is willing to kill anyone or anything to prove it. He uses his Volt Driver and the electromagnetic field he emits to disrupt enemy suit systems. (Hunters)

'''Trace''': A member of the insect like Kriken, Trace is currently undergoing the rite of passage for his people: to find a suitable planet to conquer or to claim powerful technologies to help the Kriken Empire become stronger than the Galactic Federation or any force of Space Pirates. He happened to decide that the Super Weapon all the other hunters were also seeking happened to be the perfect prize, and so joins the rat race for it. He fights primarily by sniping at long range, or by cloaking himself and ambushing his prey. (Hunters)

'''Noxus''': One of the few bounty hunters on this list that actually has some sense of morality, Noxus is a Vhozon who uses his position as a "bounty hunter" to basically be Batman without the whole "no guns" policy. His conflicts with Samus were primarily because he believed she was just as unworthy as all the other hunters who were looking for the super weapon mcguffin featured in Hunters, or simply because he only trusted himself to keep it out of the wrong hands. Any other day of the week, it's likely that he and Samus would probably get along just fine. Has a notably goofy alt-mode in that he literally just hugs his legs to his chest and spins around on his tip toes like a top and attacks by sticking his arm out to hit things. (Hunters)

'''Spire''': A morally neutral dude who's the last surviving member of the Diamont race, all he wants to do is find out what the hell happened to his people (who mysteriously vanished without a trace). Evidently his job as a "bounty hunter" helps him get around or access any information he seems to deem important for that cause. Likely the only reason he had any beef with Samus is because he thought that the Super Weapon everyone and their dog was looking for could give him answers to what happened to the Diamonts and he didn't want to risk losing the opportunity to someone else. (Hunters).

===Misc===
'''Phazon''': An organic, highly radioactive substance that can be utilized as an extremely high-yield energy source, but is likewise extremely toxic to almost all organic life exposed to it. This semi-sentient substance, when left to its own devices, perpetuates itself by corrupting any nearby matter (organic or no) and converting it into yet more Phazon. Unrefined, Phazon often takes shape as lightning blue and black tendrils or actual physical crystals. Refined or pure Phazon takes the form of a gel-like fluid, and as can be expected, is considerably more potent in both energy yield and in its mutagenic effects on lifeforms. Exposure to Phazon, even briefly, can have severe detrimental effects on the physical and mental well-being of anything that comes into contact with it. In the "best" case scenario, individuals corrupted by this substance gain powerful new abilities and become stronger and more resilient, but they often become psychotic, erratic and extraordinarily hostile towards anything and anyone else. In most cases, creatures or individuals will die horrible, painful deaths caused by unstable, uncontrollable mutations. Select few creatures can ever find a "happy medium", but the few who survive are often still very unhinged and often have dramatically reduced life spans from the prolonged exposure. Was ripped off in the expanse by the proto-molecule

'''Metroid''': The eponymous creature for which the franchise is named, Metroids are artificial creatures created by the Chozo specifically to combat the X-Parasite they discovered on SR-388. The initial form resembles a floating jellyfish with two sets of fangs instead of tentacles, however many different evolutions and sub-breeds spawned depending on what forms of energy they have consumed or been exposed to. On this note, Metroids derive sustenance entirely from energy; primarily by rapidly draining the life force out of any living creature (and any powered armors they also may be wearing) until it turns into a withered husk and crumbles to dust. This, combined with their surprising resilience to most conventional weaponry makes them extremely dangerous and apparently prime candidates for weaponization through both the Space Pirates and Galactic Federation. That said, they do have a notable vulnerability to extreme cold and ''can'' still be killed by sustained, concentrated fire. Eventually, the Galactic Federation officially recognized the danger they possessed to the galaxy at large (while being completely unaware of the X-Parasite that was being kept in check by them), and ordered Samus to commit full-scale genocide on them.
*Fun Fact: Apparently the creation of the Metroid was not a unanimous or fully supported decision by the Chozo government; evidence suggests that most of the Chozo responsible were slaughtered by their kin either because the Metroids were not fully endorsed, or due to the Metroids eventually growing beyond their control and rapidly evolving into giant, life-force devouring dinosaurs that threatened literally everything in the galaxy. Depictions of these events are limited to log entries in Metroid II: Samus Returns, so exact details are unclear.

'''X-Parasite''': The "original" life consuming entity on SR-388 (seriously, that place could put many-a death world to shame with the kind of fauna regularly growing there), X-Parasites are roughly basketball sized yellow blobs that infect organic creatures, consume them from the inside while propagating rapidly, then ultimately kill their original host and shape-shift into near perfect copies of them. They also assimilate the host's memories in order to properly mimic the creature, and can utilize that knowledge for their own gain (An X-Parasite that infected a BSL Scientist utilized its host's knowledge to destabilize the station's reactor cooling systems in an attempt to destroy the station to stop Samus once it recognized the danger she possessed to its kind on SR388. Later on they realized Samus's weakness to cold and bred a sub-breed designed to freeze her to death by absorption). They're immune to almost all known weaponry and are able to infect people or creatures even through vacuum-sealed power armor, which arguably makes them more dangerous than the Metroids created specifically to kill them. This is especially true when they copy individuals such as Ridley or Samus, when they have access to their full complement of abilities and equipment complete with the full knowledge on how to use said powers and gear. Despite the Galactic Federations intentions to the contrary, Samus has likely ensured their total extinction when she blew up the lab they were contained in alongside SR-388.

TLDR: What the monster from The Thing 1982 would become if it landed on a zoo space station and not a area of barren inhabitable tundra were all it had were humans and dogs to consume.

==In Warhammer 40,000==
===Daemon===
[[File:Samus.jpg|thumb|The ''other'' Samus that you probably aren't here for.]]
Near the end of the [[Great Crusade]], the Luna Wolves pacified a planet catalogued as 63-19, known to its inhabitants as Terra. In the final stages of compliance, a Luna Wolves speartip went into the Whisperhead Mountains to eliminate a rogue force loyal to the planet's slain emperor. During the descent, the drop ships picked up a transmission that appeared intended to scare them, a repeating whisper of ''"Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. Samus. It means the end and the death. Samus. I am Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw on your bones. Look out! Samus is here."'' The Legionary Xayver Jubal succumbed to Samus's corruption and it possessed him, using him to attack the speartip. After a concerted effort, Garviel Loken killed the mutated Jubal and had his warped body destroyed. [[Horus]] ordered the suppression of the records of the encounter, especially Jubal's corruption, and denied that "Samus" was anything supernatural. {{BLAM|Horus is a traitor to mankind, and any reports of the Adeptus Astartes succumbing to Chaos are clearly lies and propaganda. --Commissar Rosethorn}}

Samus becomes a recurring character in the ''Horus Heresy'' series, where it is summoned by traitor forces during key battles into various corpses and proceeds to die in every one of its appearances. Forge World gave him a model called "[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Samus-Daemon-Prince-of-the-Ruinstorm Samus, Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm]." Apparently he is a daemon prince of the Ruinstorm and would have killed Dorn had the duel continued any longer

Upon attempting to fight Metroid's Samus for the right to be the one true Samus, the Daemon Prince was promptly pile driven and then drop kicked so hard he has yet to do anything of importance since the Horus Heresy.

{{Daemons-Characters}}

===Samus Aran===
The hunter Samus Aran is indoctrinated by the Chozo (and then given Chozo genes at the age of three, and given that she lacks feathers, a beak, or talons they probably gave her the "latent psychic and superhumanly strong and fast" genes and not the "bird people" ones.) and (as of Metroid Fusion) part-Metroid, which does not endear her to Imperial authorities, but her power suit has massive [[pauldrons]] that demand respect, and would put a [[Space Marine]] to shame. For this reason, not to mention her status as a one-woman [[Exterminatus]], Samus is sometimes portrayed as a [[Primarch]] of a legion of [[Female Space Marines]]. It's said that the Space Pirate xenos describe the hunter Samus Aran to each other with the same chant as the aforementioned warp-entity: "Samus; it means the end and the death. Samus is all around you. Samus will gnaw on your bones..." She also possesses a righteous hatred for the space pirates, who are responsible for her orphaning and loss of a homeworld, twice, once for her birthworld and parents on K-2L, and again for her adoptive Chozo parents and world on Zebes. The pirates even fear to mention her name just calling her the Hunter, treating her as if she were some kind of supernatural spirit of vengeance more than a person.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Unknown Primarchs]]

Doom

2021-03-16T03:18:50Z

2601:4C1:C400:4050:84B5:FE2F:A520:FBC6: /* Trivia */

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[[File:Doom cover poster.jpeg|thumb|If you don't already have the first level's music in your head, you may be on the wrong site.]]
{{topquote|Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...|[[Discworld|Terry Pratchett]]}}

The father of the first-person shooter, the original ass-kicking demon-slaying 3D slaughter-fest, '''''Doom''''' is a franchise that demands respect even in the hallowed halls of /tg/. It was actually inspired by a [[Dungeons & Dragons]] campaign played by the founders of id Software; John Romero had given a demon lord the key to overrunning the material plane in exchange for a magic [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana]] because he's an edgy little bitch like that, and John Carmack (the DM and one of the many forms of Tzeentch) decided it made a good premise for their new 3D game. The katana in question would later be used in Romero's game ''Daikatana'', which was a total failure for reasons that aren't important enough to go over right now.

The plot? In an FPS? Here's your plot: you are a Space Marine (no, not the 40K guy, a jumped-up soldier who is sent to fight on other planets, so closer to the [[Imperial Guard]]...though considering recent events he may be the equivalent of a standard Astartes, just much shorter.) stationed on Phobos. Somehow, demons broke through into our reality and slaughter everyone else. Your job? Fight your way to where, you hope, there's a ride off of this rock, and make bloody mincemeat out of everything standing between you and salvation. Standing in your way are armies of zombified fellow marines and eggheads, fireball-tossing imps, hulking flesh-eating demons, cyborg-demon monstrosities, and various other hell-spawned nasties who want to kill you horribly. Good luck. You'll need it...

Although not the very ''first'' of the FPS genre (even its predecessor, [[Wolfenstein]] 3D, wasn't the first, as the history of the genre goes back all the way into the '70s), Doom was definitive to the genre, so much so that "Doom Clone" was the standard nickname for many years afterwards. People are still playing it and making it even more awesome with [[Homebrew|their own custom modifications]] 24 years later, which isn't something you hear that often outside of /tg/; this is one of the main reasons why the franchise is so well-respected.

Fun fact: that iconic Doom monster, the Cacodemon, was actually inspired by the artwork for an Astral Dreadnought on the cover of the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition [[Manual of the Planes]] splatbook. Also relevant to /tg/ is that Sandy Petersen, co-designer of [[Ghostbusters RPG]], creator of [[Call of Cthulhu]], and author of some [[RuneQuest]] stuff, worked on the game. He designed some levels (more in the sequel) and made some contributions to the monster design.

==Classic DOOM (aka The Good Shit)==
{{topquote|Welcome to DOOM, a lightning-fast virtual reality adventure where you're the toughest space trooper ever to suck vacuum. Your mission is to shoot your way through a monster-infested holocaust. Living to tell the tale if possible.|README.TXT, Doom 1.8 shareware}}
The original Doom was fast-paced and bloody compared to what came before but wasn't afraid to vary the pace with more labyrinthine levels or make you shit your pants by dropping you into a crowd of demons when you least expected it. (Fun fact No. 2: The extra levels included in the physical version of Doom (henceforth called ''Ultimate Doom'') were built by the same guy who wrote [[Call of Cthulhu]] in just 10 weeks.) Doom II on the other hand was a circle-strafing explosion-rich gorefest and is what basically everyone thinks of when they think of both Doom and 90s FPS gameplay in general. The plot was bare-minimum: Demons took over Phobos and ate Deimos, kill them all. Or, in Doom 2's case, Demons are trying to infest Earth in revenge, kill them all AGAIN. But this time, ''it's personal''. (No, seriously, they killed your pet bunny Daisy.) The Doom engine is extremely mod-friendly for a 90's game (as both Carmack and Romero had been big into software tinkering in their day) and the modding community is still very present and perhaps even more prolific than it was back in the day. In fact, id Software actually paid some modding groups for the right to sell their works as retail (Final Doom and the Master Levels for Doom 2). Also relevant is SIGIL, John Romero's own 25th-anniversary level-pack and unofficial Episode 5 for Doom 1 that he released to the public for free (unless you wanted the special Buckethead soundtrack for [[Edgy|$6.66 USD]]).

Slightly more obscure but still relevant is Doom 64, which replaced the high-speed Explode-o-Rama with a stronger horror theme and more deliberate pace.

id Software then for a time turned toward more multiplayer-oriented games with the ''Quake'' franchise and gave Doom a well-earned rest.

===The Doom Comic===
{{topquote|'''DYNAMITE! I'M COOKING WITH GAS! I'VE GOTTA HANDFUL OF VERTEBRAE AND A HEADFUL OF MAD! YEAH, THAT'S YOUR SPINAL CORD, BABY! DIG IT!'''|You, the moment you read that heading}}
The origin of [[Rip and Tear]]. Possibly the most ridiculously, amazingly, stupidly 90's thing that has ever been put to paper with the possible exception of Image Comics. It has to be read to be believed. [https://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/ So go read it.]

===Monsters===
[[File:Reaperminis.jpg|thumb|right|Limited-edition monster minis from [[Reaper Miniatures]]. Admit it, you want <s>that Cyberdemon</s> all of them for your Daemons of Chaos army.]]
These are the monsters you'll encounter in Doom 1, Doom 2 and their spinoffs.
*'''[[Zombie|Former human]]''': Wet toilet paper. Only dangerous until you get a shotgun.
**'''Former Sergeant''': Still wet toilet paper, but full of broken glass; if one of these assholes gets behind you before you find armor you're probably dead. Likely to be your first source for shotguns.
**'''Former Commando''': Unlike the other formers, this guy is no joke: he's durable enough to not die when breathed on and his hitscan chaingun is almost as powerful as yours. Using hordes of these guys in an open arena with no cover is the pinnacle of dick moves in Doom mapping.
*'''Imp''': The first true demon you encounter with an easy-to-dodge projectile and more health than the formers. The first meaningful enemy you meet, and runner-up for most iconic non-boss monster.
*'''Demon''': Otherwise known as '''Pinkies'''. Giant hairless gorilla with a mouth that could give a [[squig]] lessons in eating. [[Derp|They can't walk and bite at the same time]] so you can just step out of their way, but they tend to come in large groups and dance around like spastic toddlers (which makes them harder to shoot) as they run up to you.
**'''Spectre''': Demon with Predator-style optic camo. An absolute bitch to deal with in dark environments, which is naturally where you find them.
*'''Cacodemon''': Mr. [[Astral Dreadnought]] Head. These fuckers can fly and you can't look up, so have fun fighting them in close quarters where they can float out of your field of view. Dangerous, but get a rapid-fire weapon and they become a joke as you stunlock them until they are all dead. ''The'' most iconic non-boss monster, partially because of its sheer WTFery but mostly because of how easy it is to chibi/make plushies out of.
**'''Pain Elemental''': [[Meme|Meatball demon.]] Like a cacodemon, but instead of shooting fireballs, it shoots Lost Souls. Has the opposite problem to the pinkies in that [[Derp|you can stand in front of its face]] and prevent the lost souls from spawning.
*'''Lost Soul''': Floating flaming skulls that fly at you at approximately SANIC miles per hour. Fairly weak, but very fast and has a habit of nibbling at you while you focus on something more dangerous.
*'''Revenant''': [[Meme|Agitating skeleton aka '''DOOT'''.]] One of the few monsters that moves anywhere near as fast as you do, plus he runs up and tries to punch your head off if you move inside the minimum range of the homing rockets he shoots. It is a fact that any given Doom map is automatically casuals-only unless the mapper adds at least 100 revenants.
*'''Mancubus''': [[Festus the Leechlord|HELLO I'M FUCKING FAT.]] Slow, but very tanky, and he has dual [[Flamer|heavy flamers]] for arms that hurt like hell. Fortunately, this also applies to any nearby demons, so you can make them kill each other for your amusement just by standing between a mancubus and another monster.
*'''Arch-vile''': One of the few monsters that that's faster than the player at a full run. Sets you on fire [[Psyker|with its mind]] and revives any monsters it comes across so you have to kill them all over again. Meeting one of these guys in a slaughtermap will make you [[Khorne|hate everything forever.]]
*'''Hell Knight''': Now we're talking. [[Space Marine]] sized and equipped with a punch and moderate projectile attacks (fireballs). Shooting him in the face with a shotgun will kill him pretty quickly.
**'''Baron of Hell''': Super hell knight with double the health. Big and equipped with nasty melee and projectile attacks. Shooting ''him'' in the face with a shotgun just '''pisses him off'''. Super shotguns will work though. Probably the best-known Barons are the "Bruiser Bros", the pair of Barons you fight as the bosses of the first episode.
*'''Cyberdemon''': [[Rip and tear|Is huge, and therefore has huge guts.]] Basically a (Chaos possessed?) Carnifex with a rocket launcher for an arm, and significantly faster than he looks. Without a doubt the fuckingest monster in the classic game, and practically tailor-made for soaking up BFG shots.
*'''Spider Mastermind''': Doom 1’s final boss, [[Derp|despite being inferior in almost every way to the Cyberdemon you fight earlier.]] Go figure. Even more XBOX HUEG than the Cyberdemon, but has a super-chaingun instead of a rocket launcher and refuses to let up until either you or it are dead. Has the critical weakness of BFG shots up the ass due to the way its hugeness interacts with the mechanics of the classic BFG.
**'''Arachnotron''': Babby Masterminds that go fast and shit plasma at you.
*'''The Icon of Sin''': Doom 2's final boss. [[FAIL|A wall with a demon face on it]] and a hole in its forehead that serves as its weak point. Spawns monsters to attack you, but dies pretty quickly from a few well-aimed rockets... though, you need good timing to shoot them through the hole in its head. You probably know this, but the entity that takes damage is John Romero's severed head on a pole.

===Weapons===
{{topquote|I do need a gun. I need a big gun. I need a really big gun...|Doomguy, Doom comic}}
Doomguy himself has about as much personality as your average [[Adventurer|Murderhobo]], so the game's real main characters are the weapons.
*'''Fists''': Only good at punching through the above-mentioned wet toilet paper, and complete suicide to use on anything stronger than an Imp. [[Rip and tear|Should you find a Berserk pack, though...]]
**'''[[Chain Weapon|Chainsaw]]''': [[Meme|The great communicator.]] Stronger than your fists and capable of tearing through Cacodemons and below without much problem.
*'''Pistol''': You start the game with this and 50 bullets. Gets overshadowed by every single other weapon.
*'''Shotgun''': Now we're talking. The first gun you get that can actually kill stuff in a decent amount of time.
**'''Super Shotgun''': A double-barrelled version of the original. A complete [[rape]] machine at close range, delivering about as much damage per hit as a rocket, but falls off greatly at longer distances.
*'''Chaingun''': [[Dakka|WAAAAAAAAAAGH!]] Great at stunlocking enemies, especially the aforementioned Cacodemons.
*'''Rocket Launcher''': Capable of [[Khorne|reducing enemies to puddles of blood]] from a safe distance. Also capable of reducing ''you'' to a puddle of blood if used from an unsafe distance.
*'''Plasma Rifle''': Fires a stream of plasma balls that hit hard, move fast, and won't hurt you at close range. Unfortunately, it shares its ammo count with...
*'''BFG''': The most beautiful sight any soldier can behold, at least according to the Doom comic. ''The'' gun. The '''big''' gun. Anything it's fired at is [[Anal circumference|in for a bad time]], especially at close range.

==Doom 3==
In the early 2000s, Doom 3 came along. It blows chunks compared to the classics, but since the classics are so damn good it ends up being pretty good anyway. Since Valve had made "story-driven" shooters and "realistic" scripted encounters the in thing, id decided to rip off Half-Life, grafting on elements of the original Doom that had been scrapped at the concept stage. Unfortunately, the gameplay was too slow and similar to the rest of the genre, the scripting and story interludes just made the gameplay even clunkier and the big technological gimmick (per-pixel lighting) meant you had to choose between seeing what you're supposed to shoot with a crappy little flashlight and actually being able to shoot it. Supposedly the lighting effects were resource-intense during development and this was the "solution" (of course we know better that they wanted to make it a quasi survival horror). Naturally, the first mod for the game was duct tape so you can use the flashlight and a gun at the same time. This mod would eventually become official when the BFG Edition re-release came around about a decade later.

The plot itself is essentially a reboot - You are a generic marine who just transferred to Mars and after pissing around with all your co-workers whom you will never see in one piece again, an experiment involving a portal to Hell (This time with no reason besides the head researcher being kinda absolutely evil) goes horribly awry and now the facility is completely fucked. Your task then devolves into simply surviving, as you're cut off from any command and have to make your way to various checkpoints. Along the way, you come across an ancient artifact made by the original denizens of Mars, who made it in order to kill all the demons, and so the demons sealed it away in Hell. After a couple of trips in and out of hell, you manage to understand how the artifact works (by feeding off the souls of slain demons) and use it to kill the Cyberdemon, their greatest champion, and bail home. You'd think this is the end...except the mad scientist responsible for this is revealed to have turned into a full-blown demon.

===Resurrection of Evil===
An expansion to Doom 3, this game takes the original game and puts a few nifty spins to make it feel unique like the gravity gun (because Half-Life 2 did it too). Instead of the classic plot, you are now a nameless space engineer who comes across a different and wholly demonic artifact called the Hell Heart. This makes you more of a target compared to before, as Hell sends out three special hunters to reclaim the heart, each of whom give it a special ability for you to abuse once you kill them.

==Doom 4 (aka DOOM aka DOOD aka Brutal Doom HD)==
{{topquote|They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you? You will be '''worse'''. [[Rip and Tear]], until it is '''DONE'''.|A direct order from what is either [[God-Emperor of Mankind|God's]] [[Living Saint|seraphs]] or [[Khorne]] himself. Do you really need more of a mission briefing?}}

Listen to it here[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpllUQ38CKY]

Then the latest Doom came out in May 2016. This rendition can basically be described as "3d Brutal Doom II" only sexier, with features like [[Rip and tear|ripping enemies apart with your bare hands]] and having to stay on the move to avoid being torn to shreds. The plot is also as bare minimum as the original (albeit with a surprising amount of lore hidden away in the Codex...that makes one feel it’s set in the 40k verse), kicking the player straight into the action with waking up on Mars, immediately [[Rip and tear|smashing a zombie’s skull]], and basically being told: “demonic invasion, go kill everything.” Starts with corporate big wig trying to talk you into being on his side and [[Awesome|your answer is a solid ''"FUCK YOU" fist]]. Also, the player this time around is someone the demons call the “Doom Slayer", who has traveled through “Worlds and Time” (hinting that the Doom Slayer could very well be the original Doomguy from the first two games, having also survived Doom 64 and has been traveling Hell since, later all but confirmed in the sequel), and millennia ago [[Awesome|kicked Hell’s ass so hard that the best the demons could do is seal him away so that he wouldn’t destroy Hell]].
The Slayers testament tells in sparse detail but leaves enough imagination to realise what the Legions of Hell were up against. A near-immortal being of pure hate, blessed by the Seraphims (or Khorne...which would make this a suicide attempt), capable of standing against Legions of Demons completely alone and harnessing their power as he slaughters them. THEN he fought a [[Titan (D&D)|Titan]] of "immeasurable Power and Ferocity" with only his Sword (it was a laser sword though so there's that), killing and absorbing its power to turn them on the Demons. Desperate now, the highest [[Daemon Prince|Archdevils]] realized nothing short of a God will stop the Slayer (fitting since a god summoned it in the first place), so they prepared an elaborate Trap involving what may have been a Blackstone Sarcophagus.
It speaks for itself, of what the Bait, which lured the slayer to the temple of the Blood Keep, must have been made of... or was.
Now at the peak of his might, with sword and shield of "adamantine strength", he stood before [[Chaos|the Horde]], and [[rip and tear|split heads open, punched, maimed, killed, burnt]] until finally the whole temple collapsed on him and he was sealed in the Cursed Sarcophagus.
Millennia passed until the UAC decided to deal with an Energy Crisis by quite literally [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|slamming an Oil Derrick on a Hell Portal to siphon off Hell Energy for power]], and just for giggles starts tomb raiding Hell for artifacts and treasures as well, ultimately running off with the Doomguy's sarcophagus. The demons see that the Doomguy’s prison/tomb is empty, and the subsequent invasion is actually a panicked attempt to stop the Doomguy from being woken up. Obviously, they fail and he butchers every last one of them.

Samuel Hayden is the guy in charge of the UAC, a cyborg the size of a 40k [[Space Marine]]. He and Vega, the Mars UAC AI, basically are quest givers for the most part. His subordinate Olivia Pierce pretty much ran a cult while Hayden was pillaging artifacts from Hell, [[Grimdark|being the only one to make it back from the expeditions]]. When shit hits the fan he decides to wake the Doom Slayer up with the hopes that this wild card could help take control of the facility without causing too much damage. Of course, once awake, he goes on a rampage and busts the UAC's shit, as Hayden's disregard for human life is too far for even Doomguy to take, expressing his outrage without the need for a voice actor.

So now it's up to the Doom Slayer in awesome power armor to [[Rip and Tear|rip and tear]] and dakka every demon he comes across to stop Olivia while wrecking the UAC's energy production. After going to Hell at least once due to Olivia breaking an Argent Accumulator and making it back to Mars, then after Hayden installs a "tether" to him, Hayden sends Doomguy on a quest to find the Helix Stone, picking up the most powerful version of the BFG 9000 yet on the way (more on that below). Once he reaches the Helix Stone it directs Doomguy to acquire the Crucible, a relic in the Titan's Realm. So Doomguy has to kill the Cyberdemon to get back to hell, make a long trek and fight the three Hell Guardians who guard the Crucible and returns to Mars again. To finally stop Olivia, Hayden, being the bastard that he is, even sacrifices his old creation Vega, though unlike everyone else, at least our player character is nice enough to make a backup without anyone even bothering to ask. The Doom Slayer uses the Crucible to shutdown Hell's energy wells and releases the spirits of his old friends, the Night Sentinels.

Once Olivia is found once again, she transforms into the Spider Mastermind. If you've been collecting all the stuff as you should have, she can easily be (along with the other game other bosses in the game) cheesed by the best weapons even on the highest difficulty, with the [[Cheese|Rich get Richer]] Rune fully upgraded. Once she's dead it's the final cutscene, where Hayden steals the "Crucible" which turns out to be an energy blade that makes a [[Lightsaber]] look like a toothpick, then sends the Doom Slayer off to who knows where with the tether he installed into the Praetor Suit earlier, disposing of a potential threat before it decides to become one. After this, you experience one of the best credit sequences made for a video game in over a decade.

Mick Gordon's soundtrack gives the game the best metal music ever. BFG Division being the standout in the soundtrack. Used for two whole levels and the final boss music is a Glitch remix of it. There is also some inspiration from RPG style FPS a la Metro 2033 and [[Samus|Metroid Prime]]. As collecting Argent Energy, weapon mods, elite guard tokens, and Runes allow them to upgrade the Praetor Suit and weapons to their preferred play style. The engine allows the Doom Slayer a wide range of first-person animations, as his destruction of UAC property and actions portrays an "I'm too old for this shit" attitude; having to fight demons for centuries doesn't make for a happy camper.

The damage of the BFG 9000 itself is notable. This thing instantly vaporizes every non-boss enemy on-screen! (and them too if you exploit a glitch. However what a player does that the devs didn't intend is dubious canon.) You read that correctly, you don't have to aim it directly at your targets to kill them. You just have to find the right opening to make it kill every demon you can. As the Plasma Bolt throws out lightning or much more likely, solar flares. That would mean the Plasma the BFG fires is likely firing a fucking miniature star with each shot! The F in BFG may stand for Fermentation, Grimdark! with science!. We can wait while you Google it.

Don't be impressed just yet. A Baron of Hell is 2000 pounds and because the BFG's ordinance turns everything it comes in contact with into gibs, that means it has to have 7 Gigajoules of energy and would have to be heated up to over 100,000 degrees Celsius! [[Anal_Circumference|A temperature range which is only seen in small stars and nebula!]] That's not just [[GrimDark]], that's just fucking cold in the most brutal way possible and speaks to the insanity of the UAC for building this thing. Are we sure somebody didn't screw up the name? Though Brown Dwarf Gun 9000 doesn't sound as cool. (Though why is it green? Because it's blue-green! As blue in space equals very fucking hot! Red Giant/Supergiants/Hyper-giants are (relatively) cold because they are old, a young blue star, giant or not, is insanely hot. Red Dwarfs are insanely long-lived because they are cold and slow-burning) In all possibility, if the Doom Slayer didn't wear his Praetor Suit, firing the weapon would instantly annihilate him too! (since Photons are their own particle and antiparticle the word is valid) No apologies for the science jokes. They are necessary evils in explaining how the BFG 9000 works.

It also says a lot of the bosses as a direct hit will merely stun them (without using the weapon wheel glitch) while shaving off large portions of their health. So you need either a very advanced suit of Powered Armor or a significant amount of mass to survive a direct hit from the plasma bolt and its flares. The only real con to using the BFG 9000 is it's limited ammo of four shots. Though a good player can get around that if they set up their Runes correctly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_gQAITzIk| Science and math mostly explained in this Youtube video ]. So yeah, the BFG 9000 shoots miniature stars.

===DOOM Eternal===
{{topquote|Against all the evil that hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send up to them, only you. Rip and Tear until it is done!|King Novik of the Night Sentinels}}

Doom Eternal was announced at E3 and a gameplay reveal was shown at Quakecon 2018. To say that its awesome is an understatement.
[[File:Slayer on corpses.png|400px|thumb|right|"The only thing they fear... is YOU!"
If the whole Warp, set for Khorne, actively shits their pants when the Slayer comes, you're in for [[Rip_and_tear|FUN]].]]
We are introduced to the Maykrs of Urdak, an elder race with a techno-angelic motif that serves as the Sentinels' patron. One of them was the so-called Seraphim that empowered the Doomguy even further, turning him into the nigh-godlike and unstoppable avatar of sheer [[Awesome]] that is the Doom Slayer (seriously, the Doom Slayer is compared to a [[Titan]] on the level of the Icon of Sin). They may actually be a group of [[C'tan]], but we are not sure.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. The Sentinels were betrayed from within, the Doom Slayer banished to Hell ''again'' (eventually leading to him being entombed before the events of '''Doom 2016''') and what's worse, it turns out the Maykrs were only using the Sentinels to further their own race's objectives. What's more, the current invasion of Earth was the result of one of their long-term plans, with humanity as simply one more race that was to receive "penitence" in their place (read: the Maykrs are using Hell energy to prolong their lives, and willingly let Demons eat entire worlds to that end). Yet more evidence that these guys are C’tan.

The game picks up a few months after the end of the previous game with Samuel Hayden returning to Earth after the destruction of the Argent Tower on Mars that was the only way of getting free, unlimited energy out of Hell. But, he has the Crucible (confiscated from the Doom Slayer in the ending of 2016) with which he starts developing a synthesized form of Argent energy while the UAC begins to completely fall under the control of their leaders, the Hell Priests who entombed the Slayer so long ago. They start sacrificing humans left and right to start a ritual that will allow the demons to consume Earth, terraform the land to living flesh and molten lava, kill all that resist, transport their souls to Hell and refine them to pure Argent Energy while the impure Souls are made into new demons! A full-scale demonic incursion is now underway on Earth, with billions of dead, over two-thirds of Earth consumed while half of the UAC has gone full Quisling to the invaders, with the other half putting up a token [[Planetary Defense Force| resistance as the Armoured Response Coalition (ARC)]]. All hope seems lost...

"...We watched as the horde overwhelmed the very best and most advanced machinery and weapons technology that we could muster against the opposition. It was useless, they moved too quickly, they cared not for themselves, only sought out the blood of humanity. They were willing to sacrifice their own to get to the heart of our world. We slaughtered thousands and millions more followed, but then HE came - he cut through them like a sickle through a field - his fury surpassing their own. He is faster - more relentless - unyielding. I believe him now to be more than just a man - he is...DOOM." --Dr. Elena Richardson.

Equipped with his new Predator suit (3 guesses why it is called that, the first two don't count), he seeks his prey from his orbital fortress monastery (fittingly called the Fortress of DOOM), strikes with merciless fury surpassing the Death Company, Flesh tearers, World Eaters (primarch included) and Skarbrand '''Combined''', and he will stop at nothing to destroy the demonic hordes. Read: Personally [[Rip_and_tear|kill. Every. Single. Demon. With extreme prejudice.]]

Immediately after defeating the Hell Priest Deag Nilox's guardian off screen locating his whereabouts on Earth, the Slayer teleports onto his barge, kicks all doors in and vice grips the head off of the Priest, reducing the consumption of the Earth by 36.8%.

He then gatecrashes the nearby Citadel, interrupting the ritual of the Priests with Nilox's severed head, before being interrupted by the Khan Maykr. The C'tan by any other name tells him even he goes too far this time, before teleporting the Priests out of the Slayer's reach. Since the Hell Priests classify as Alpha Plus Psykers, (the first one being able to command his own legion of Titans AND shield himself from even nuclear bombardment) they can be found with a Celestial Locator. To construct a Locator, the Slayer goes to Exultia (an Argenta city) to retrieve the Celestial Casing, only to be scolded by the late King Novik for killing the Priests and that Humanity is no longer his people to be saved. Realizing that no ordinary individual will help him, the Slayer enters [[Warp|Hell]], and it's even more magnificent than Doom 2016, with gigantic walls and corridors made of flesh, abandoned [[Warlord_Battle_Titan| Sentinel Mechs]] and the remains of the Titan Demons that were killed by them, and near everything you could think of, even the Tower Of Babel in the background. Here the Slayer finds Valen, known by most as the Betrayer, repenting in his exile. After telling the Slayer that saving humanity will only make his burden worse, the Betrayer nevertheless installs the Celestial Power Core for the Slayer, as well as giving him a dagger he may need later.

Now able to locate the other Priests, the Slayer goes to Deag Ranak's UAC Cultist base in the Arctic, wrecking its operations before moving onto the neighboring Doom Hunter base. As yet more proof the Maykrs are [[C'tan]], the priest recovered an extinct race of demons once bred to destroy the Slayer (take a wild guess why exactly they went extinct) and, with nothing better to do, turned these things into [[Necron Destroyer|Semi-Organic Necron Destroyers]], labeling them “Doom hunters”, and calling you a heretic...which is [[HERESY|{{BLAM|'''''BLASTPHAMY'''''}}]]. After [[Rip and tear|losing]] them and complaining about it, the Priest, in the face of his impending DOOM, tries to bribe the Slayer, which [[Fail|literally costs him his head]].

Now furious, the Khan Makyr leads the last Priest to safety, while demonic activity on Earth skyrockets. Realizing Earth needs immediate backup at the Super Gore Nest in Europe after a failed attack from the [[Imperial_Guard|Earth Forces]] (with a casualty rate of over 87%), the Slayer arrives at what can only be described as a border between Slaanesh's and Nurgle's Domains. Every building in the vicinity has grown flesh, teeth and openings that look like both mouths and birth canals, the air is filled with toxicity, tentacles sprouted everywhere. But after a nuclear meltdown of the local reactor which conveniently houses the heart of the Gore Nest, the problem is quickly taken care of.

Back to searching and destroying the last Priest, VEGA is sure that Samuel Hayden would be able to locate him immediately. However, a combined Demon attack on his headquarters, the ARC Complex, left him badly wounded. Just as the Slayer gets to him and is about to teleport back to his fortress, the Earth beneath him quakes and a red portal opens up, and from it emerges the Marauder. Imagine a heretic [[Adeptus_Custodes|Custodes]] empowered by Khorne but with battle tactics from Tzeentch, the endurance of Nurgle and the speed of Slaanesh. These guys are absolutely no joke (yes, there are more of them) and if you haven't been playing like your life depended on it, prepare to be absolutely [[Anal_Circumference|curbstomped]].

Meanwhile, its clear that Samuel Hayden knows *way* more about the Slayer, Hell, and the Maykrs than he let on in the last game, strongly hinting that Samuel may in fact be a Maykr himself (which begs the question of what he was up to if he understood just how dangerous Hell was and how Argent Energy was made). He tells us that the last Priest hides in the Arena of Sentinel Prime, the Capital of the Night Sentinels and the only way to gain access is hidden in the core of [[Mars|Mars]]. But instead of calling the [[Adeptus_Mechanicus|Mechanicus]] to help, the Slayer enters the Moon of Phobos, where the battleship-sized BFG 10,000 is stationed, takes the gun over, targets Mars and [[Exterminatus|blasts the Core open]]... despite Samuel’s protests. He then proceeds to hop into a giant mass driver and blast himself to his next destination, [[Angry_Marines|streaking across the ruined Martian sky like a rage-fueled missile]].

Now on Sentinel Prime, the game goes into who the Doom Slayer really is. It turns out the Doom Slayer really ''is'' the classic [[Doomguy]] from Doom 1, 2, and 64, who after staying behind in <s>the warp</s> Hell he is eventually spat out, [[Gotrek_%26_Felix#Gotrek_in_the_Age_of_Sigmar|half-delirious and nuts from his experience of fighting off its hordes for an eternity]], unto the world of Argent D'Nur, where he is found by the ''Night Sentinels'', [[Grey Knights|an order of techno-knights dedicated to fighting demons]]. He is nursed back to sanity, and joins their order, eventually rising through their ranks due the sheer [[Rip and Tear]] he was capable of.

The final Priest, hiding in the Colosseum, is confident that the Slayer would never kill him in the arena, as it is against holy law of the Sentinels to spill Priest blood, especially in such a sacred place. He sends out his Gladiator, a being that even if its flesh is destroyed, its soul would prevail until its body is reformed. But the Soul resides in the gigantic shield it uses, so the Slayer destroys the shield first and then the face of the gladiator, and despite the warning shoots the final Priest to death. And by "shoot to death", we mean blow his head clean off with the Super Shotgun as he smugly declares how he can't be killed. The Khan Maykr is rather pissed about this.

As soon as he gets back home, she manages to hack into the Fortress of Doom, turning off the power and flooding the bridge with Demons. The attack obviously fails like so many other attempts. Hayden mocking her as the Slayer restores power with Hayden's own Crucible. Now the plans of the Khan Maykr are ruined, as there are no more priests to maintain the Hell gates, so if the Earth Forces kill all the demons, they would prevail. As a desperate last resort, the Khan Maykr wants to resurrect the Icon of Sin to eradicate all life on Earth. Of course, the prospect of seeing ''another'' Earth brought to ruin has made the Doom Slayer rightly [[Rage|pissed]], and suffice to say, [[Not As Planned|the Maykrs have no idea what they've just unleashed]].
So it's time for the Doomslayer to recover his own Crucible in Taras Nabad. Which was stuck into the skull of a Titan and breaks off the hilt to prevent its resurrection. Now it needs to be recharged. Once finished the Demons attack to give players an opportunity to test the new weapon. The Crucible is a one-hit kill on all but the strongest of enemies and there are respawning charges that only appear at this location. Use this for practice time before moving forward because the OHKO drops health picks faster than normal glory kills.

To reach the Khan Maykr, Doomguy now teleports to Nekravol, the City of the Damned. It's a [[Grimdark|place of biblical torment, fire and brimstone, cages bursting with humans piled up like livestock]], [[Commorragh| a place where human souls are "tenderized" and tortured until all hope is broken and every sense but the pain is gone.]] Only then can their souls be extracted and converted to pure Argent energy, which will be sent to the Khan Maykr in the City of Urdak (Heaven), while the empty shells of the humans are sent to the blood swamps to transform into more Demons. A process which every [[Haemonculus]] pays respect to. As it is, things that are worthy of being called "holy" are often more horrendous than the horrors of Hell itself.

The Slayer rips and tears through all of that mercilessly, and finally destroys the transmitter tower. Its destruction resulted in the Slayer being transported straight to "Heaven", a completely unnatural location in true H.R. Giger aesthetic, littered with white and gold colours and blood-red trees. In true Doomguy fashion, he interrupts the ritual that will resurrect the Icon of Sin by stabbing its heart with the dagger he got from the Betrayer. [[Not_as_planned|The Icon wakes up, corrupts the entire realm, and invites all sorts of demons to ravage Urdak]] before leaving to Earth.

Doomguy immediately follows but is interrupted by the Khan Maykr herself. In true Eldar fashion, she accuses Doomguy of all the bad things that HE did which broke the seal to Urdak, and that the use of thousand other species as Argent Energy for her race is justified in her traditions. Doomguy then slaps the shit out of her, and even in her final moments, she tells us that we have doomed all of creation. It’s likely she’s lying to hide the fact that she’s a C’tan.

Back on Earth, the final fight against the Icon of Sin begins. Now with a full-body, it is no longer a static boss fight but a semi-static. You blow parts from the Icon, until you finish it with your Crucible, by [[Awesome|slamming it into its forehead]]

===DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods===
{{Template:Spoilers}}
A two parts stand-alone DLC for Doom Eternal: The Icon may be dead, but now that the demons have free reign over Urdak and have initiated a second invasion of Earth, its up to Doomguy to clean up the mess he left behind. This Cleanup begins on an UAC oilrig platform, where the remaining conciousness of the Seraphim is hidden, as Samuel informs the Slayer that only he can give us an answer for a long term solution to the demons (besides killing them all) After aquiring orb with the Seraphim in it, the Facility AI self destructs the whole Rig to prevent the Slayer from leaving, but just mildly annoys him. Now traveling to the bottom of the Ocean with only his pure rage against the pressure and fighting in a Kill Room with TWO Marauders, he reaches a Room with a Maykr in it. Big surprise; they confirm Hayden is the Seraphim and VEGA as the Father aka the creator of the Universe, but as Hayden fractured in his Life sphere and conciousness. The life sphere rests atop the Ingmur Sanctom of the Blodswamps in Hell. While this sounds incredible stupid to put the mightiest being directly in the most corrupted Part of Hell, francly speaking Nurgles private Garden, the sanctum itself is protected to only let the one who passes the Trial of Malligog through, Malligog beeing an extremly enormous Titan, ranging in size of 2-3 Kilometers.
Doomguy however has other plans; he betrays the Seraphim and destroys the Father's life sphere, then steals the Dark Lord's life sphere so he can summon him and face him mano-a-mano. But the biggest surprise of all is that the Dark Lord takes the form of the Doomguy himself! Dun Dun DUUUUUUUN!

Bad News: Mick Gordon isn't coming back this time around (due to some internal issues, he was let go). Good News: Andrew Hulshult, another rather well-known composer who's helped compose for some other shooters (Dusk, Amid Evil, Rise of the Triad 2013) is coming to take his place. While it's clear Hulshult might not be able to imitate Gordon, it's obvious he didn't disappoint.

===Demons===
Doom 2016 by itself has more demons than the classic games do, even though not all of them return from those games. Doom Eternal ups the count even more, although not all demons from 2016 return. Some demons are upgraded versions of a base model; they are sorted as such.

*'''The Possessed/Zombies''': In 2016, Possessed were humans that underwent horrific mutations due to the Lazarus Wave released by Olivia Pierce on the Mars Outpost. In Eternal, Zombies are the emaciated husks of humans stripped of their soul and mutated by demonic corruption. In both cases: wet toilet paper. They are some of the weakest enemies in the games and can easily be dispatched. 2016's Possessed are cheap glory kill fodder, while Eternal's Zombies are classified under the Fodder demon class, i.e. one of the chief targets of your Glory Kills, Chainsaw, Flame Belch, ice bomb and all other ways with which to keep your health, armour and ammo stocked up.
**'''Possessed Engineers/Cueballs''': Little more than walking bombs. Either shoot them to detonate them or melee them to launch them and have them detonate on impact. Returning as Cueballs in Eternal, these Ambient-class demons replace the "walking" part with "standing gormlessly in one spot, ignorant of any fighting going on around them". This allows the Slayer to use them as flying, explosive barrels if shot at the right angle.
**'''Possessed Soldiers/Blaster Zombie Soldiers''': Unlike their gormless lesser brethren, Possessed Soldiers move faster and with more tact, are hardier and can use a plasma gun fused to their arm to lay down suppressive fire. They're still not much of a threat. Eternal's Blaster Zombies are little more than Possessed Soldiers with a Classic Doom zombieman coat of paint, so make sure to keep some distance.
**'''Possessed Security/Shield Zombie Soldiers''': Wet toilet paper with shards of glass. Equipped with shields and shotguns, these can really ruin your day if you let them. The most effective strategy against them in 2016 is either to chainsaw them or use the Plasma Rifle's stun bomb to disable their shields. While Eternals Shield Zombies still hit just as hard, their threat level dropped off the abyss thanks to their energy shields ''violently exploding'' in response to absorbing too many Plasma Rifle bolts.
**'''Hell Razer''': 2016 exclusive, Hell Razers fight at a distance with arm-mounted laser cannons, which are actually parasites converting a human into a Hell Razer. Fire slowly and have distinct tells to their attacks. Don't pose too much of a threat: dodge their attack, get close and shotgun them.
**'''Mecha Zombie''': New in Eternal, these gore-covered terminator knockoffs are armed with metal claws, a plasma gun and a flamethrower, the latter of which they will flail about in order to hit you. Still fairly ineffectual.
*'''Imps''': The fodder from the original game, now quick as a hiccup. They jump all over the place, pelting you with fireballs and clawing at you if you get too close. Because they're one of the first enemies you face they don't pose much of a threat; your Combat Shotgun makes quick work of them (especially with the Explosive Shot/Sticky Bomb mod), and they gain an explicit weakness to bullet weapons (Heavy Cannon and Chaingun) in Eternal. Eternal also classifies them under Fodder demons, meaning that they make for great resource piñatas.
**'''Gargoyles''': Added in Eternal. Pretty much Imps with wings and [[Tyranid|scything talons]], they jump around and spit acid at you. They'll occasionally hover in place to fire off an acid volley, causing them to become instantly staggered for a Glory Kill when hit during this attack, so take your opportunity. Also classified as Fodder demons.
**'''Prowlers''': Originally added in 2016's multiplayer, they were promoted to regular enemies in Eternal. They function the same as Imps but with more health and they can teleport, often right behind you to claw at you. Classified as a Heavy Demon, meaning they require more Chainsaw fuel to mow down compared to Imps.
*'''Carcasses''': Debuting as Heavy demons in Doom Eternal, the Carcass' attacks are not that powerful and they don't have a lot of health. What they do have is the ability to summon energy barriers, blocking your ability to move around freely, home in on them, glory kill other demons and use explosive weapons safely. Your primary target in an encounter because eliminating them makes a fight a lot easier. Thankfully, these barriers share the same explosive vulnerability to plasma fire as the Shield Zombies' Shields.
*'''Pinkies''': Ol' faithful is now covered in armour, turning them into living battering rams. They (still) roar and charge in on you, dealing significant damage upon impact. The armour soaks most damage they take from the front, so circle them and [[Meme|attack their weak point for massive damage]]. In Eternal, they gain the Heavy demon classification and a crippling weakness to the Blood Punch, being the only attack that can kill them without deliberately striking their weak point.
**'''Spectres''': As the Pinky, but invisible. A bit harder to deal with because of this, but thankfully a lot less common and lack the armour plating.
*'''Cacodemons''': [[Star Wars|They fly now!]] Their spit attacks slow and disorient you, and their bite attack does a lot of damage. But because they fly now you can easily pick them off with your rocket launcher or gauss cannon. As Heavy demons in Eternal, they decided to min-max; their bite takes off a surprisingly large chunk of your health and is often paired with an aggressively distant lunge, while their shock-balls can be fired in a multi-shot volley. But it comes with devastating weakness: a single Combat Shotgun Sticky Bomb or Equipment Cannon Frag Grenade into their mouths causes them to swallow it, instantly staggering them for an easy glory kill. As an airborne demon, they also gain a weakness to Ballista attacks, dying in one Arbalest bolt.
**'''Pain Elementals''': Returning in Doom Eternal as Heavy demons, they endlessly summon chuck the homing suicide bomber Lost Souls at you. While they don't swallow any grenades like their Cacodemon compatriots, they ''do'' share the innate weakness of all airborne demons against the Ballista. Despite this, they are still more of threat that their short-limbed buddies could ever be.
*'''Lost Souls''': Horned, burning skulls that scream, fling themselves at you and explode for an annoying amount of damage. At least in 2016; in Eternal, they also appear when summoned by a Pain Elemental which is when they function more or less the same.
*'''Revenants''': [[Meme|DOOT]]. Made from humans in a gruesome process, the Revenants have jetpacks that let them fly around to put themselves in the perfect possession to launch barrages of missiles at you. They can also claw at you for significant damage, so keep your distance and take them out. In Eternal, you become able to shoot off their shoulder cannons, permanently grounding them restricting their melee attacks to the easily-evaded claw swipes. Classified under the Heavy class and, surprisingly, as airborne demons, making them into potent Ballista chow. Their meme potential is so great that a trumpet-equipped Revenant is a skin included in the pre-order edition of Doom Eternal.
*'''Summoners''': Only appearing in 2016, Summoners are pared-down versions of the Archvile. They possess lithe bodies that let them easily zip around and set up a summon circle away from your location, allowing them to call in aid. Sustained fire from just about any weapon will take them down.
**'''Spirits''': Doom Eternal DLC. While they look like the ghastly Remains of the Summoner, the Spirit will possess other Demons, taking their Fear and ability to feel Pain, while making them faster and more resilient. But even an upgraded body will give in with enough Dakka. Destroy the Spirit with the microwave mod of the Plasma cannon. OR kill everything living and watch the spirit, unable to manifest itself in Realspace anymore, fade out of existence.
**'''Harvesters''': Unique to 2016's multiplayer, the only demon to be so. Harvesters move around and instead of summoning other demons will shoot balls of plasma and drain life from other players, allowing them to supercharge their regular attacks.
*'''Arachnotrons''': Back in Doom Eternal, the Arachnotrons are walking gun platforms that can cling to ceilings to get a better vantage point to shoot at you. Their plasma turrets are mounted on an exposed, scorpion-like tail, which can be destroyed to limited their attacks to the more manageable and telegraphed bomb volley. Their resemblance to the Spider Mastermind from 2016 is intentional: the UAC cloned them using the Spider Mastermind's genetic material. [[Looted|and when the demonic invasion began, the automated facility making them was taken over by the possesed]]...[[Just As Planned|Which was planned]]
*'''Whiplashes''': The first all-female demons introduced in Doom Eternal resembling [[lamia]]e, but don't expect any monster girls. They are as nasty as any Heavy demon in Doom, and they use their great speed to slither in and around the battlefield, dodging heavy-hitting weapons before hacking away at your health from a distance with a pair of chained whips. Difficult to hit, but once you start hitting them they'll go down eventually. That, or use a Lock-On Burst from the Rocket Launcher to delete them.
*'''Mancubi''': Big fat bastards equipped with heavy cannons to blast you with fireballs and flamethrowers to keep you at a distance. They're big, slow targets with slow attacks so if you can keep your distance they're not too big a threat. In Eternal, these Heavy demons got faster (and fatter) but you can blast their flamethrowers off, severely nerfing their damage output. After that, sustained Chain gun fire or a few missiles/Super Shotgun blasts will easily take them out.
**'''Cyber Mancubi''': Heavily armoured versions of the Mancubus. They fire globs of acid that linger on terrain for a bit, limiting your movement options, but lack the flamethrower attack. In 2016 you just pour more damage into them to take them out. In Eternal, their armour is destructible and can be stripped instantly with a single Blood Punch, making it easier for you to deal with them. But because their cannons are armoured you can't blast them off like you can with the regular Mancubi.
*'''Archviles''': Oh HELL no. The Summoner on crack, an Archvile can put up barriers of fire to keep you away while they Summon more demons. If you don't interrupt them you'll be facing a more difficult fight, especially if they summon a MOTHERFUCKING MARAUDER. Even when not summoning they are tough and can dish out a lot of damage, setting the ground beneath you aflame or sweeping fire waves in your direction, while any friends they successfully summon receives a buff that lasts until the Archvile's death. In short, after taking out all Carcasses in an area, they are your next target if you want to win a fight.
*'''Hell Knights''': [[World Eaters|Big dudes who revel in wrecking your shit]]. They are fast, closing the distance to pummel you or to perform a leaping ground slam for a short-ranged area of effect attack. Keep your distance and pump them full of lead to take them down quickly if you don't want to be taken out yourself. In Eternal, they gain the Heavy demon classification and a crippling weakness to Chaingun fire.
**'''Dread Knights''': Cybernetically enhanced Hell Knights constantly pumped full of adrenaline and dopamine for every kill they make. Appearing only in Eternal as Heavy demons, their most prominent feature are a pair of energy blades, which considerably extends their melee range and causes their ground slams to leave a lingering, damaging pool of energy for a bit. Can fire lasers from their blades at you, and shares a weakness to the Chaingun, as with other Hell Nobles.
**'''Barons of Hell''': [[Bloodthirster|Big red bastards]] who are the toughest regular enemies in 2016. They hit like trucks and can blast you with powerful balls of green fire. The best way to deal with them is a heavily upgraded chainsaw or the BFG to not deal with their bullshit. In Eternal, they return as the Fireborne Barons; a Super-Heavy class demon that is immune to the chainsaw and cannot be one-shot by the BFG, so you'll have your work cut out for you. Befitting their name, Firebone Barons are also [[Salamanders_(Chapter)|coated in flames with obsidian skin]] and have burning blades coming from their lower arms, which fits given how much more dangerous they are.
*'''Tyrants''': Pretty much downgraded Cyberdemons (Looking more like the classic Cyber rather than 2016's beefy Balgaar monstrosity) and one of the most powerful common enemies in the game. Packing a powerful laser cannon, a laser blade and the ability to fire missile barrages, paired with a MASSIVE pool of health, these Super-Heavies should be eliminated as fast as you can so that you can deal with the rest of the demons. The fastest way to do so is with the Crucible, which will hack a Tyrant up in no time. [[FAIL|Just make sure that you actually hit the Tyrant itself and not the fodder running around it]]. Otherwise, just exploit its slow turning speed to dedicate as much ammunition you have on-hand to shooting at it until it dies.
*'''Makyr Drones''': The generic rank-and-file of the Maykrs. Annoyingly resilient for Fodder demons and armed with rapid-fire laser turrets, headshotting them with (almost) any weapon is a guaranteed insta-kill that provides ammo as well.
*'''Blood Maykrs''': Definitly not [[Blood Angels]]. The normal Maykr population after getting corrupted by Hell. They shield themselves with a golden aura that negates all damage, and attack with slow energy balls. Once they notice that such things would never work, they will lower their shield to start a Powerful Argent energy attack. A Headshot instakills them like a drone while sustained Fire on their body works too.
*'''Doom Hunters''': Introduced as a boss and later reused as rare Super-Heavy demons. A species of demons driven to extinction by the Doom Slayer and brought back by the Hell Priest Deag Ranak, the Doom Hunters resemble [[Necron Destroyer]]s with a cannon and a chainsaw for arms and missiles that can be fired from its hover sled. They have an energy shield that you need to deplete to be able to damage them directly, though it's possible to attack their Blood-Punch-vulnerable hover sled directly first to disconnect the main body from it. Infamous for being a boss that is lazily reused during the course of the game, as early as [[Rage|THE VERY NEXT COMBAT ARENA AFTER FIGHTING THE FIRST ONE]]. However, the mook versions don't have immunity to Ice Grenades.
*'''Marauders''': [[Chaos_Space_Marine|Former Night Sentinels corrupted by Hell]], the Marauders are fast, deadly and a pain to kill. They possess energy shields that block all incoming damage, including the BFG, Crucible, and Unmakyr (though not splash damage from explosives), can pelt energy beams from long-range, blast you with their own ''Super Shotgun'' at close range, and can summon spirit wolves to hunt you down if you shoot their shield too often. If baited into sprinting at you and brought into mid-range, their eyes will flash green as they swing their axe at you: use this as an opening to blast them with your Super Shotgun or Ballista, then quickly switch between the two until their stagger expires. Repeat this, rip and tear, done.
*'''The Gladiator''': [[Skub|The Last Living Hell Knight of DOOM II]] and, unlike the Doom Hunter, has survived the extinction event that is the Slayer. Armed with a gargantuan soul-vessel shield that blocks all incoming damage, and a flail with a retractable chain for close and distant attacks. Like the Marauder, if his eyes blink green you have an opening to shoot him with any weapon (though Ballista or Super Shotgun are still preferable). A headshot will stagger him for a glory kill, but the Slayer will simply beat the shit out of him. Phase 1 ends with the destruction of the shield, and now the Gladiator goes ballistic with TWO flails. The best approach now is to shoot at it until it dies (when it isn't spinning its flail to reflect attacks back at you).
*'''The Icon of Sin''': A legendary titan, resurrected into the body of the Son of the Betrayer, [[Chaos_Spawn|deformed and warped beyond recognition]], his very existence in Realspace causing destruction and madness. Its described that, if left unchecked, it will drag the entire dimension to Hell through a supermassive black hole - so basically if one of the Chaos Gods themselves manifested in Realspace. The Khan Maykr thought It could be controlled using the Soul of the Betrayer's Son, putting it into [[Power_Armour|Power Armour]] for insurance. But then, the Doom Slayer stabbed the heart containing the son's soul with a dagger provided by the Betrayer ([[Matt_Ward|though without carving the Name of the Betrayer into it]]), setting the soul free and, with it, the beast from Maykr control over. The battle itself is, on paper, pretty easy: eight pieces of the Icon's armour must be destroyed (head, both upper arms, both forearms, both pectorals and abdomen) using your whole arsenal. While doing so, lesser demons will try to harass you and distract you from the Icon. With the armour's destruction, the whole process starts again in the second phase, but this time, you chip away at the flesh and bone of those same regions until the Icon collapses, giving you time to ram your Crucible into Its Brain.
*'''The Original Dark Lord/ Davoth''': The original Dark Lord created by the Father as a Primeval, one of the first gods. Doomguy's equal. Designed to truly care about his People, he spiraled out of control in search for eternal life, to save his people from death. Formerly a caring guardian, he tortured everyone who slightly deviated from this goal. After Davoth got imprisoned in his soul sphere by the Father, demons apparently fought one other to claim his title while he still whispered his influence to them. The Dark Lord of the First Age after Davoth made the deal with the Khan Maykr and the most recent one, the Dark Lord of the Fourth Age, is implied to have been the Spider Mastermind that possessed Olivia Pierce before getting her head blown off by BFG-9000. Davoth himself apparently prevented anyone from becoming Dark Lord of the Fifth Age as he was released from his soul sphere several months later. Currently only seen in one cutscene after his soul sphere was unlocked and everyone hopes the final fight will be the same as a Unreal Tournament/ Quake Deathmatch.

===Trivia===
*The Fortress of Doom is the personal fortress-monastery/mancave of the Slayer, once used for the Galaxy spanning Crusade of The Night Sentinels. Features a Teleportarium with an absurd range (teleporting the Slayer from Earth's orbit to the Hell-absorbed Argent D'nur, which is on a completely different dimensional plane to the Sol system), a Hangar bay with a Sentinel "Atlan" Mech, and a prison named the "Ripatorium", filled with Demons the Slayer undoubtedly abducted, to slaughter them for sport.
**On at least one occasion, the Slayer seems to have fought against Noise Marines, as his personal quarters feature a guitar made of flesh.
**The Fortress has a shit-ton of easteer eggs and even a few unlockable weapons. Such as a redesigned Unmaykr (unlockable) froom Doom 64 and the Soul Cube of Doom 3(just a prop). You'll want the Unmaykr whither you want to slaughter demons or a completionist. The Slayers own room also displays all the weapons and toys players have collected over the game. There is a bookshelf that references other franchises, a cage for his dead rabbit Daisy and even a painting of said pet and the Slayer.
*It is said, the "Wretch" who gave the Slayer an adamantine armour, forged from the Fires of Hell, was in fact Khorne Himself. Even if he can´t corrupt the Slayer, He doesn’t need to. the carnage he brings upon demons is the equivalent of centuries of war.
**Doomguy and Khorne may have flat-out '''teamed up''' as Doomguy wants to kill demons (Khorne technically isn’t) and Khorne wants to take over Hell. The two of them have become fire-forged friends since then, to such a degree that, according to a legend passed down among demons, Khorne has a stasis pod containing the Doomguy stored deep in the heart of his personal fortress. Possibly underneath the skull throne itself.
***Khorne is Doomguys equal. In the ancient Gods DLC the life essence of the true Ruler of Hell gets resurrected, and he takes on the form of Doomguy. The Dark Lord of Hell is the leader of Hell`s armies. Not a King, but a warrior of the Dark Realm. The fiercest among all, as only the strongest could rule. He is you. Wait a minute [[Samus|that sounds familiar]], Hey if your going to steal, you may as well do it from the best.
*Since the Night Sentinels went to war against the Demons, they are effectively the first Space Marine Chapter (preceding even the Thunder Warriors), since they are to an extent Psykers, deploy with Argent (warp) using Weapons, have their own Titan Legion, Use a Space fleet of Flying Castles, have an Arena for duels to the Death, and only The Strongest among them can become King, they even had a mini civil war. the only thing they are missing is DNA from the God-Emperor...and even then, Doomguy may have it.
**The Sentinel Titans are called "Atlans" and are the Ultimate Example of a [[Invictor Tactical Warsuit|Babycarrier]] done right. Armed with one or two shoulder-mounted Giant [[Plasma Annihilators|Plasma_Annihilator]], the Palms of the Hands featuring the same sort of plasma weapon but weaker. The Melee Weapon being an ECKS BAKS HUEG Energy Spear for impaling equally huge Titans.
*The Makyrs in Doom Eternal bare a surprising resemblance to the [[C'tan]] (even being unable to show their true forms outside of Urdak). They also possess a sort of metal skin on all castes of there race, resembling necrodermis.
*Sometime between the events of Doom 64 and Doom (2016), the Slayer was subjected to something called the "Divinity Machine," given his new abilities from that point forward, it's possible he had a fragment of <s>the Warp</s> hell itself imbued within him, thereby making him a man uplifted with <s>psyker</s> argent powers. This might make him this dimension's equivalent of [[The God-Emperor of Mankind|The Emperor]]... if this is a separate dimension.
*In Doom Eternal, the Slayers new armour is not fully sealed, giving a look Upon His Arms, like a certain [[Kharn the Betrayer|Swell Guy]].
*Said Swell Guy <s>may or may have not been</s> probably is a Descendant of The Slayer's "friend," Valen the previous holder of the title of "Betrayer". The best guess would be that the Emperor used his Genetic Code for The Basics of Angron, and later the World Eaters Legion.
*The Crucible uses pure Argent energy to create its blade. This means it's soul-powered and therefore, since the Doom Slayer absorbs the power of the demons (giving them a true death), [[Grimdark|uses the life essence of demons to kill more demons]].
**because the Doom Slayer does give true death to deamons, this may mean he can do what every single eldar, necron, and psychically adept human thought was impossible...actually '''kill''' the chaos gods, he would probably choose [[Slaanesh]] first
*The forces of Hell seem to be a serious threat even judging from the absurd standard of 40k. Samuel Hayden gave the surviving humans insane technology (full functioning AI battlesuits for infantry, and colossal Titan mechs, Dark Age Technology so to speak) and still couldn't get the upper hand. The only viable solution to gain ground seemed to be [[Exterminatus|total nuclear annihilation.]]
**This seemed to be simply because of Hells literally [[Orks|infinite]] [[tyranids|numbers]] since they multiply by both ordinary breeding and turning the aforementioned bodies of the mulched human souls into demons. Even if they took out one thousand demons, one billion would take their place. It seems this was the only reason for their defeat since, once all of the avenues for invasion are cut off, the remainder are mopped up without much fanfare. One wonders if all of the priests were on Sentinel Prime how things would go since there would be no cut off for the entering demons.

==Doom: The Board Game==
Yes, there is a Board Game - made by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] no less - giving the vague '/tg/ related' qualifications this site uses.
It was released around the time Doom 3 was released, though it wasn't that remarkable and is pretty hard to find nowadays.

One guy plays the baddies, the other 1-4 players play a band of unfortunate marines. The heroes start with 2-3 powerup cards, and the baddies get 5 cards from his own deck and during the game, he gets to draw more (the rate of which is equal to how many marines there are) and if his deck is empty, he gets to insta-kill one of the Marines. His guys are more varied in their movement but they can only shoot once.

The marines have three options: move 8 spaces without shooting, move 4 spaces and shoot once, or shoot twice without movement. They need to explore the board, find computers and other events as the board provides. The baddies, meanwhile, can either upgrade his monsters or bring more to the board.
Either way, his goal is to score 6 kills on the Marines.

A new board game got released shortly after May 2016 Doom, which, to my understanding, is basically just the same shit as before with a new coat of paint.
* It's different, but not too different. Similar in concept and design, with the main differences seeming to be in how the Marines play, and victory conditions for certain scenarios. Absolutely beautiful models, however, and incredibly fun. Highly recommended.

==Movie==
Also (roughly) around the same time as Doom 3 was a movie starring Karl Urban and former WWE superstar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It pretty much replaced the whole Hell plot with some genetic experimentation to give people superpowers that only succeeds in creating hyper-aggressive mutants, and a squad of Marines sent to investigate the mayhem. It wasn't that good, with the only really 'good' scene being this one scene where it's all FPS-style like the original games and has monster killing.

Another movie was released in 2019, named ''Doom: Annihilation.'' When asked what they thought about this, id Software simply replied: "We are not involved in the movie." But the last five minutes of CGI demons was fucking phenomenal.

==TLDR==
{{blam|Rip and Tear Motherfucker!}}
==External Links==
*[https://doomwiki.org/ Doom Wiki] for all your Doom-related needs
*[https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/ /idgames/], the home of pretty much every Doom mod worth playing (and pretty much every Doom mod that isn't worth playing) since 1994.

[[Category:Video Games]][[Category:Awesome]]

Doom

2021-03-16T03:18:34Z

2601:4C1:C400:4050:84B5:FE2F:A520:FBC6: /* Trivia */

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[[File:Doom cover poster.jpeg|thumb|If you don't already have the first level's music in your head, you may be on the wrong site.]]
{{topquote|Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...|[[Discworld|Terry Pratchett]]}}

The father of the first-person shooter, the original ass-kicking demon-slaying 3D slaughter-fest, '''''Doom''''' is a franchise that demands respect even in the hallowed halls of /tg/. It was actually inspired by a [[Dungeons & Dragons]] campaign played by the founders of id Software; John Romero had given a demon lord the key to overrunning the material plane in exchange for a magic [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana]] because he's an edgy little bitch like that, and John Carmack (the DM and one of the many forms of Tzeentch) decided it made a good premise for their new 3D game. The katana in question would later be used in Romero's game ''Daikatana'', which was a total failure for reasons that aren't important enough to go over right now.

The plot? In an FPS? Here's your plot: you are a Space Marine (no, not the 40K guy, a jumped-up soldier who is sent to fight on other planets, so closer to the [[Imperial Guard]]...though considering recent events he may be the equivalent of a standard Astartes, just much shorter.) stationed on Phobos. Somehow, demons broke through into our reality and slaughter everyone else. Your job? Fight your way to where, you hope, there's a ride off of this rock, and make bloody mincemeat out of everything standing between you and salvation. Standing in your way are armies of zombified fellow marines and eggheads, fireball-tossing imps, hulking flesh-eating demons, cyborg-demon monstrosities, and various other hell-spawned nasties who want to kill you horribly. Good luck. You'll need it...

Although not the very ''first'' of the FPS genre (even its predecessor, [[Wolfenstein]] 3D, wasn't the first, as the history of the genre goes back all the way into the '70s), Doom was definitive to the genre, so much so that "Doom Clone" was the standard nickname for many years afterwards. People are still playing it and making it even more awesome with [[Homebrew|their own custom modifications]] 24 years later, which isn't something you hear that often outside of /tg/; this is one of the main reasons why the franchise is so well-respected.

Fun fact: that iconic Doom monster, the Cacodemon, was actually inspired by the artwork for an Astral Dreadnought on the cover of the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] 1st edition [[Manual of the Planes]] splatbook. Also relevant to /tg/ is that Sandy Petersen, co-designer of [[Ghostbusters RPG]], creator of [[Call of Cthulhu]], and author of some [[RuneQuest]] stuff, worked on the game. He designed some levels (more in the sequel) and made some contributions to the monster design.

==Classic DOOM (aka The Good Shit)==
{{topquote|Welcome to DOOM, a lightning-fast virtual reality adventure where you're the toughest space trooper ever to suck vacuum. Your mission is to shoot your way through a monster-infested holocaust. Living to tell the tale if possible.|README.TXT, Doom 1.8 shareware}}
The original Doom was fast-paced and bloody compared to what came before but wasn't afraid to vary the pace with more labyrinthine levels or make you shit your pants by dropping you into a crowd of demons when you least expected it. (Fun fact No. 2: The extra levels included in the physical version of Doom (henceforth called ''Ultimate Doom'') were built by the same guy who wrote [[Call of Cthulhu]] in just 10 weeks.) Doom II on the other hand was a circle-strafing explosion-rich gorefest and is what basically everyone thinks of when they think of both Doom and 90s FPS gameplay in general. The plot was bare-minimum: Demons took over Phobos and ate Deimos, kill them all. Or, in Doom 2's case, Demons are trying to infest Earth in revenge, kill them all AGAIN. But this time, ''it's personal''. (No, seriously, they killed your pet bunny Daisy.) The Doom engine is extremely mod-friendly for a 90's game (as both Carmack and Romero had been big into software tinkering in their day) and the modding community is still very present and perhaps even more prolific than it was back in the day. In fact, id Software actually paid some modding groups for the right to sell their works as retail (Final Doom and the Master Levels for Doom 2). Also relevant is SIGIL, John Romero's own 25th-anniversary level-pack and unofficial Episode 5 for Doom 1 that he released to the public for free (unless you wanted the special Buckethead soundtrack for [[Edgy|$6.66 USD]]).

Slightly more obscure but still relevant is Doom 64, which replaced the high-speed Explode-o-Rama with a stronger horror theme and more deliberate pace.

id Software then for a time turned toward more multiplayer-oriented games with the ''Quake'' franchise and gave Doom a well-earned rest.

===The Doom Comic===
{{topquote|'''DYNAMITE! I'M COOKING WITH GAS! I'VE GOTTA HANDFUL OF VERTEBRAE AND A HEADFUL OF MAD! YEAH, THAT'S YOUR SPINAL CORD, BABY! DIG IT!'''|You, the moment you read that heading}}
The origin of [[Rip and Tear]]. Possibly the most ridiculously, amazingly, stupidly 90's thing that has ever been put to paper with the possible exception of Image Comics. It has to be read to be believed. [https://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/ So go read it.]

===Monsters===
[[File:Reaperminis.jpg|thumb|right|Limited-edition monster minis from [[Reaper Miniatures]]. Admit it, you want <s>that Cyberdemon</s> all of them for your Daemons of Chaos army.]]
These are the monsters you'll encounter in Doom 1, Doom 2 and their spinoffs.
*'''[[Zombie|Former human]]''': Wet toilet paper. Only dangerous until you get a shotgun.
**'''Former Sergeant''': Still wet toilet paper, but full of broken glass; if one of these assholes gets behind you before you find armor you're probably dead. Likely to be your first source for shotguns.
**'''Former Commando''': Unlike the other formers, this guy is no joke: he's durable enough to not die when breathed on and his hitscan chaingun is almost as powerful as yours. Using hordes of these guys in an open arena with no cover is the pinnacle of dick moves in Doom mapping.
*'''Imp''': The first true demon you encounter with an easy-to-dodge projectile and more health than the formers. The first meaningful enemy you meet, and runner-up for most iconic non-boss monster.
*'''Demon''': Otherwise known as '''Pinkies'''. Giant hairless gorilla with a mouth that could give a [[squig]] lessons in eating. [[Derp|They can't walk and bite at the same time]] so you can just step out of their way, but they tend to come in large groups and dance around like spastic toddlers (which makes them harder to shoot) as they run up to you.
**'''Spectre''': Demon with Predator-style optic camo. An absolute bitch to deal with in dark environments, which is naturally where you find them.
*'''Cacodemon''': Mr. [[Astral Dreadnought]] Head. These fuckers can fly and you can't look up, so have fun fighting them in close quarters where they can float out of your field of view. Dangerous, but get a rapid-fire weapon and they become a joke as you stunlock them until they are all dead. ''The'' most iconic non-boss monster, partially because of its sheer WTFery but mostly because of how easy it is to chibi/make plushies out of.
**'''Pain Elemental''': [[Meme|Meatball demon.]] Like a cacodemon, but instead of shooting fireballs, it shoots Lost Souls. Has the opposite problem to the pinkies in that [[Derp|you can stand in front of its face]] and prevent the lost souls from spawning.
*'''Lost Soul''': Floating flaming skulls that fly at you at approximately SANIC miles per hour. Fairly weak, but very fast and has a habit of nibbling at you while you focus on something more dangerous.
*'''Revenant''': [[Meme|Agitating skeleton aka '''DOOT'''.]] One of the few monsters that moves anywhere near as fast as you do, plus he runs up and tries to punch your head off if you move inside the minimum range of the homing rockets he shoots. It is a fact that any given Doom map is automatically casuals-only unless the mapper adds at least 100 revenants.
*'''Mancubus''': [[Festus the Leechlord|HELLO I'M FUCKING FAT.]] Slow, but very tanky, and he has dual [[Flamer|heavy flamers]] for arms that hurt like hell. Fortunately, this also applies to any nearby demons, so you can make them kill each other for your amusement just by standing between a mancubus and another monster.
*'''Arch-vile''': One of the few monsters that that's faster than the player at a full run. Sets you on fire [[Psyker|with its mind]] and revives any monsters it comes across so you have to kill them all over again. Meeting one of these guys in a slaughtermap will make you [[Khorne|hate everything forever.]]
*'''Hell Knight''': Now we're talking. [[Space Marine]] sized and equipped with a punch and moderate projectile attacks (fireballs). Shooting him in the face with a shotgun will kill him pretty quickly.
**'''Baron of Hell''': Super hell knight with double the health. Big and equipped with nasty melee and projectile attacks. Shooting ''him'' in the face with a shotgun just '''pisses him off'''. Super shotguns will work though. Probably the best-known Barons are the "Bruiser Bros", the pair of Barons you fight as the bosses of the first episode.
*'''Cyberdemon''': [[Rip and tear|Is huge, and therefore has huge guts.]] Basically a (Chaos possessed?) Carnifex with a rocket launcher for an arm, and significantly faster than he looks. Without a doubt the fuckingest monster in the classic game, and practically tailor-made for soaking up BFG shots.
*'''Spider Mastermind''': Doom 1’s final boss, [[Derp|despite being inferior in almost every way to the Cyberdemon you fight earlier.]] Go figure. Even more XBOX HUEG than the Cyberdemon, but has a super-chaingun instead of a rocket launcher and refuses to let up until either you or it are dead. Has the critical weakness of BFG shots up the ass due to the way its hugeness interacts with the mechanics of the classic BFG.
**'''Arachnotron''': Babby Masterminds that go fast and shit plasma at you.
*'''The Icon of Sin''': Doom 2's final boss. [[FAIL|A wall with a demon face on it]] and a hole in its forehead that serves as its weak point. Spawns monsters to attack you, but dies pretty quickly from a few well-aimed rockets... though, you need good timing to shoot them through the hole in its head. You probably know this, but the entity that takes damage is John Romero's severed head on a pole.

===Weapons===
{{topquote|I do need a gun. I need a big gun. I need a really big gun...|Doomguy, Doom comic}}
Doomguy himself has about as much personality as your average [[Adventurer|Murderhobo]], so the game's real main characters are the weapons.
*'''Fists''': Only good at punching through the above-mentioned wet toilet paper, and complete suicide to use on anything stronger than an Imp. [[Rip and tear|Should you find a Berserk pack, though...]]
**'''[[Chain Weapon|Chainsaw]]''': [[Meme|The great communicator.]] Stronger than your fists and capable of tearing through Cacodemons and below without much problem.
*'''Pistol''': You start the game with this and 50 bullets. Gets overshadowed by every single other weapon.
*'''Shotgun''': Now we're talking. The first gun you get that can actually kill stuff in a decent amount of time.
**'''Super Shotgun''': A double-barrelled version of the original. A complete [[rape]] machine at close range, delivering about as much damage per hit as a rocket, but falls off greatly at longer distances.
*'''Chaingun''': [[Dakka|WAAAAAAAAAAGH!]] Great at stunlocking enemies, especially the aforementioned Cacodemons.
*'''Rocket Launcher''': Capable of [[Khorne|reducing enemies to puddles of blood]] from a safe distance. Also capable of reducing ''you'' to a puddle of blood if used from an unsafe distance.
*'''Plasma Rifle''': Fires a stream of plasma balls that hit hard, move fast, and won't hurt you at close range. Unfortunately, it shares its ammo count with...
*'''BFG''': The most beautiful sight any soldier can behold, at least according to the Doom comic. ''The'' gun. The '''big''' gun. Anything it's fired at is [[Anal circumference|in for a bad time]], especially at close range.

==Doom 3==
In the early 2000s, Doom 3 came along. It blows chunks compared to the classics, but since the classics are so damn good it ends up being pretty good anyway. Since Valve had made "story-driven" shooters and "realistic" scripted encounters the in thing, id decided to rip off Half-Life, grafting on elements of the original Doom that had been scrapped at the concept stage. Unfortunately, the gameplay was too slow and similar to the rest of the genre, the scripting and story interludes just made the gameplay even clunkier and the big technological gimmick (per-pixel lighting) meant you had to choose between seeing what you're supposed to shoot with a crappy little flashlight and actually being able to shoot it. Supposedly the lighting effects were resource-intense during development and this was the "solution" (of course we know better that they wanted to make it a quasi survival horror). Naturally, the first mod for the game was duct tape so you can use the flashlight and a gun at the same time. This mod would eventually become official when the BFG Edition re-release came around about a decade later.

The plot itself is essentially a reboot - You are a generic marine who just transferred to Mars and after pissing around with all your co-workers whom you will never see in one piece again, an experiment involving a portal to Hell (This time with no reason besides the head researcher being kinda absolutely evil) goes horribly awry and now the facility is completely fucked. Your task then devolves into simply surviving, as you're cut off from any command and have to make your way to various checkpoints. Along the way, you come across an ancient artifact made by the original denizens of Mars, who made it in order to kill all the demons, and so the demons sealed it away in Hell. After a couple of trips in and out of hell, you manage to understand how the artifact works (by feeding off the souls of slain demons) and use it to kill the Cyberdemon, their greatest champion, and bail home. You'd think this is the end...except the mad scientist responsible for this is revealed to have turned into a full-blown demon.

===Resurrection of Evil===
An expansion to Doom 3, this game takes the original game and puts a few nifty spins to make it feel unique like the gravity gun (because Half-Life 2 did it too). Instead of the classic plot, you are now a nameless space engineer who comes across a different and wholly demonic artifact called the Hell Heart. This makes you more of a target compared to before, as Hell sends out three special hunters to reclaim the heart, each of whom give it a special ability for you to abuse once you kill them.

==Doom 4 (aka DOOM aka DOOD aka Brutal Doom HD)==
{{topquote|They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you? You will be '''worse'''. [[Rip and Tear]], until it is '''DONE'''.|A direct order from what is either [[God-Emperor of Mankind|God's]] [[Living Saint|seraphs]] or [[Khorne]] himself. Do you really need more of a mission briefing?}}

Listen to it here[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpllUQ38CKY]

Then the latest Doom came out in May 2016. This rendition can basically be described as "3d Brutal Doom II" only sexier, with features like [[Rip and tear|ripping enemies apart with your bare hands]] and having to stay on the move to avoid being torn to shreds. The plot is also as bare minimum as the original (albeit with a surprising amount of lore hidden away in the Codex...that makes one feel it’s set in the 40k verse), kicking the player straight into the action with waking up on Mars, immediately [[Rip and tear|smashing a zombie’s skull]], and basically being told: “demonic invasion, go kill everything.” Starts with corporate big wig trying to talk you into being on his side and [[Awesome|your answer is a solid ''"FUCK YOU" fist]]. Also, the player this time around is someone the demons call the “Doom Slayer", who has traveled through “Worlds and Time” (hinting that the Doom Slayer could very well be the original Doomguy from the first two games, having also survived Doom 64 and has been traveling Hell since, later all but confirmed in the sequel), and millennia ago [[Awesome|kicked Hell’s ass so hard that the best the demons could do is seal him away so that he wouldn’t destroy Hell]].
The Slayers testament tells in sparse detail but leaves enough imagination to realise what the Legions of Hell were up against. A near-immortal being of pure hate, blessed by the Seraphims (or Khorne...which would make this a suicide attempt), capable of standing against Legions of Demons completely alone and harnessing their power as he slaughters them. THEN he fought a [[Titan (D&D)|Titan]] of "immeasurable Power and Ferocity" with only his Sword (it was a laser sword though so there's that), killing and absorbing its power to turn them on the Demons. Desperate now, the highest [[Daemon Prince|Archdevils]] realized nothing short of a God will stop the Slayer (fitting since a god summoned it in the first place), so they prepared an elaborate Trap involving what may have been a Blackstone Sarcophagus.
It speaks for itself, of what the Bait, which lured the slayer to the temple of the Blood Keep, must have been made of... or was.
Now at the peak of his might, with sword and shield of "adamantine strength", he stood before [[Chaos|the Horde]], and [[rip and tear|split heads open, punched, maimed, killed, burnt]] until finally the whole temple collapsed on him and he was sealed in the Cursed Sarcophagus.
Millennia passed until the UAC decided to deal with an Energy Crisis by quite literally [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|slamming an Oil Derrick on a Hell Portal to siphon off Hell Energy for power]], and just for giggles starts tomb raiding Hell for artifacts and treasures as well, ultimately running off with the Doomguy's sarcophagus. The demons see that the Doomguy’s prison/tomb is empty, and the subsequent invasion is actually a panicked attempt to stop the Doomguy from being woken up. Obviously, they fail and he butchers every last one of them.

Samuel Hayden is the guy in charge of the UAC, a cyborg the size of a 40k [[Space Marine]]. He and Vega, the Mars UAC AI, basically are quest givers for the most part. His subordinate Olivia Pierce pretty much ran a cult while Hayden was pillaging artifacts from Hell, [[Grimdark|being the only one to make it back from the expeditions]]. When shit hits the fan he decides to wake the Doom Slayer up with the hopes that this wild card could help take control of the facility without causing too much damage. Of course, once awake, he goes on a rampage and busts the UAC's shit, as Hayden's disregard for human life is too far for even Doomguy to take, expressing his outrage without the need for a voice actor.

So now it's up to the Doom Slayer in awesome power armor to [[Rip and Tear|rip and tear]] and dakka every demon he comes across to stop Olivia while wrecking the UAC's energy production. After going to Hell at least once due to Olivia breaking an Argent Accumulator and making it back to Mars, then after Hayden installs a "tether" to him, Hayden sends Doomguy on a quest to find the Helix Stone, picking up the most powerful version of the BFG 9000 yet on the way (more on that below). Once he reaches the Helix Stone it directs Doomguy to acquire the Crucible, a relic in the Titan's Realm. So Doomguy has to kill the Cyberdemon to get back to hell, make a long trek and fight the three Hell Guardians who guard the Crucible and returns to Mars again. To finally stop Olivia, Hayden, being the bastard that he is, even sacrifices his old creation Vega, though unlike everyone else, at least our player character is nice enough to make a backup without anyone even bothering to ask. The Doom Slayer uses the Crucible to shutdown Hell's energy wells and releases the spirits of his old friends, the Night Sentinels.

Once Olivia is found once again, she transforms into the Spider Mastermind. If you've been collecting all the stuff as you should have, she can easily be (along with the other game other bosses in the game) cheesed by the best weapons even on the highest difficulty, with the [[Cheese|Rich get Richer]] Rune fully upgraded. Once she's dead it's the final cutscene, where Hayden steals the "Crucible" which turns out to be an energy blade that makes a [[Lightsaber]] look like a toothpick, then sends the Doom Slayer off to who knows where with the tether he installed into the Praetor Suit earlier, disposing of a potential threat before it decides to become one. After this, you experience one of the best credit sequences made for a video game in over a decade.

Mick Gordon's soundtrack gives the game the best metal music ever. BFG Division being the standout in the soundtrack. Used for two whole levels and the final boss music is a Glitch remix of it. There is also some inspiration from RPG style FPS a la Metro 2033 and [[Samus|Metroid Prime]]. As collecting Argent Energy, weapon mods, elite guard tokens, and Runes allow them to upgrade the Praetor Suit and weapons to their preferred play style. The engine allows the Doom Slayer a wide range of first-person animations, as his destruction of UAC property and actions portrays an "I'm too old for this shit" attitude; having to fight demons for centuries doesn't make for a happy camper.

The damage of the BFG 9000 itself is notable. This thing instantly vaporizes every non-boss enemy on-screen! (and them too if you exploit a glitch. However what a player does that the devs didn't intend is dubious canon.) You read that correctly, you don't have to aim it directly at your targets to kill them. You just have to find the right opening to make it kill every demon you can. As the Plasma Bolt throws out lightning or much more likely, solar flares. That would mean the Plasma the BFG fires is likely firing a fucking miniature star with each shot! The F in BFG may stand for Fermentation, Grimdark! with science!. We can wait while you Google it.

Don't be impressed just yet. A Baron of Hell is 2000 pounds and because the BFG's ordinance turns everything it comes in contact with into gibs, that means it has to have 7 Gigajoules of energy and would have to be heated up to over 100,000 degrees Celsius! [[Anal_Circumference|A temperature range which is only seen in small stars and nebula!]] That's not just [[GrimDark]], that's just fucking cold in the most brutal way possible and speaks to the insanity of the UAC for building this thing. Are we sure somebody didn't screw up the name? Though Brown Dwarf Gun 9000 doesn't sound as cool. (Though why is it green? Because it's blue-green! As blue in space equals very fucking hot! Red Giant/Supergiants/Hyper-giants are (relatively) cold because they are old, a young blue star, giant or not, is insanely hot. Red Dwarfs are insanely long-lived because they are cold and slow-burning) In all possibility, if the Doom Slayer didn't wear his Praetor Suit, firing the weapon would instantly annihilate him too! (since Photons are their own particle and antiparticle the word is valid) No apologies for the science jokes. They are necessary evils in explaining how the BFG 9000 works.

It also says a lot of the bosses as a direct hit will merely stun them (without using the weapon wheel glitch) while shaving off large portions of their health. So you need either a very advanced suit of Powered Armor or a significant amount of mass to survive a direct hit from the plasma bolt and its flares. The only real con to using the BFG 9000 is it's limited ammo of four shots. Though a good player can get around that if they set up their Runes correctly.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_gQAITzIk| Science and math mostly explained in this Youtube video ]. So yeah, the BFG 9000 shoots miniature stars.

===DOOM Eternal===
{{topquote|Against all the evil that hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send up to them, only you. Rip and Tear until it is done!|King Novik of the Night Sentinels}}

Doom Eternal was announced at E3 and a gameplay reveal was shown at Quakecon 2018. To say that its awesome is an understatement.
[[File:Slayer on corpses.png|400px|thumb|right|"The only thing they fear... is YOU!"
If the whole Warp, set for Khorne, actively shits their pants when the Slayer comes, you're in for [[Rip_and_tear|FUN]].]]
We are introduced to the Maykrs of Urdak, an elder race with a techno-angelic motif that serves as the Sentinels' patron. One of them was the so-called Seraphim that empowered the Doomguy even further, turning him into the nigh-godlike and unstoppable avatar of sheer [[Awesome]] that is the Doom Slayer (seriously, the Doom Slayer is compared to a [[Titan]] on the level of the Icon of Sin). They may actually be a group of [[C'tan]], but we are not sure.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. The Sentinels were betrayed from within, the Doom Slayer banished to Hell ''again'' (eventually leading to him being entombed before the events of '''Doom 2016''') and what's worse, it turns out the Maykrs were only using the Sentinels to further their own race's objectives. What's more, the current invasion of Earth was the result of one of their long-term plans, with humanity as simply one more race that was to receive "penitence" in their place (read: the Maykrs are using Hell energy to prolong their lives, and willingly let Demons eat entire worlds to that end). Yet more evidence that these guys are C’tan.

The game picks up a few months after the end of the previous game with Samuel Hayden returning to Earth after the destruction of the Argent Tower on Mars that was the only way of getting free, unlimited energy out of Hell. But, he has the Crucible (confiscated from the Doom Slayer in the ending of 2016) with which he starts developing a synthesized form of Argent energy while the UAC begins to completely fall under the control of their leaders, the Hell Priests who entombed the Slayer so long ago. They start sacrificing humans left and right to start a ritual that will allow the demons to consume Earth, terraform the land to living flesh and molten lava, kill all that resist, transport their souls to Hell and refine them to pure Argent Energy while the impure Souls are made into new demons! A full-scale demonic incursion is now underway on Earth, with billions of dead, over two-thirds of Earth consumed while half of the UAC has gone full Quisling to the invaders, with the other half putting up a token [[Planetary Defense Force| resistance as the Armoured Response Coalition (ARC)]]. All hope seems lost...

"...We watched as the horde overwhelmed the very best and most advanced machinery and weapons technology that we could muster against the opposition. It was useless, they moved too quickly, they cared not for themselves, only sought out the blood of humanity. They were willing to sacrifice their own to get to the heart of our world. We slaughtered thousands and millions more followed, but then HE came - he cut through them like a sickle through a field - his fury surpassing their own. He is faster - more relentless - unyielding. I believe him now to be more than just a man - he is...DOOM." --Dr. Elena Richardson.

Equipped with his new Predator suit (3 guesses why it is called that, the first two don't count), he seeks his prey from his orbital fortress monastery (fittingly called the Fortress of DOOM), strikes with merciless fury surpassing the Death Company, Flesh tearers, World Eaters (primarch included) and Skarbrand '''Combined''', and he will stop at nothing to destroy the demonic hordes. Read: Personally [[Rip_and_tear|kill. Every. Single. Demon. With extreme prejudice.]]

Immediately after defeating the Hell Priest Deag Nilox's guardian off screen locating his whereabouts on Earth, the Slayer teleports onto his barge, kicks all doors in and vice grips the head off of the Priest, reducing the consumption of the Earth by 36.8%.

He then gatecrashes the nearby Citadel, interrupting the ritual of the Priests with Nilox's severed head, before being interrupted by the Khan Maykr. The C'tan by any other name tells him even he goes too far this time, before teleporting the Priests out of the Slayer's reach. Since the Hell Priests classify as Alpha Plus Psykers, (the first one being able to command his own legion of Titans AND shield himself from even nuclear bombardment) they can be found with a Celestial Locator. To construct a Locator, the Slayer goes to Exultia (an Argenta city) to retrieve the Celestial Casing, only to be scolded by the late King Novik for killing the Priests and that Humanity is no longer his people to be saved. Realizing that no ordinary individual will help him, the Slayer enters [[Warp|Hell]], and it's even more magnificent than Doom 2016, with gigantic walls and corridors made of flesh, abandoned [[Warlord_Battle_Titan| Sentinel Mechs]] and the remains of the Titan Demons that were killed by them, and near everything you could think of, even the Tower Of Babel in the background. Here the Slayer finds Valen, known by most as the Betrayer, repenting in his exile. After telling the Slayer that saving humanity will only make his burden worse, the Betrayer nevertheless installs the Celestial Power Core for the Slayer, as well as giving him a dagger he may need later.

Now able to locate the other Priests, the Slayer goes to Deag Ranak's UAC Cultist base in the Arctic, wrecking its operations before moving onto the neighboring Doom Hunter base. As yet more proof the Maykrs are [[C'tan]], the priest recovered an extinct race of demons once bred to destroy the Slayer (take a wild guess why exactly they went extinct) and, with nothing better to do, turned these things into [[Necron Destroyer|Semi-Organic Necron Destroyers]], labeling them “Doom hunters”, and calling you a heretic...which is [[HERESY|{{BLAM|'''''BLASTPHAMY'''''}}]]. After [[Rip and tear|losing]] them and complaining about it, the Priest, in the face of his impending DOOM, tries to bribe the Slayer, which [[Fail|literally costs him his head]].

Now furious, the Khan Makyr leads the last Priest to safety, while demonic activity on Earth skyrockets. Realizing Earth needs immediate backup at the Super Gore Nest in Europe after a failed attack from the [[Imperial_Guard|Earth Forces]] (with a casualty rate of over 87%), the Slayer arrives at what can only be described as a border between Slaanesh's and Nurgle's Domains. Every building in the vicinity has grown flesh, teeth and openings that look like both mouths and birth canals, the air is filled with toxicity, tentacles sprouted everywhere. But after a nuclear meltdown of the local reactor which conveniently houses the heart of the Gore Nest, the problem is quickly taken care of.

Back to searching and destroying the last Priest, VEGA is sure that Samuel Hayden would be able to locate him immediately. However, a combined Demon attack on his headquarters, the ARC Complex, left him badly wounded. Just as the Slayer gets to him and is about to teleport back to his fortress, the Earth beneath him quakes and a red portal opens up, and from it emerges the Marauder. Imagine a heretic [[Adeptus_Custodes|Custodes]] empowered by Khorne but with battle tactics from Tzeentch, the endurance of Nurgle and the speed of Slaanesh. These guys are absolutely no joke (yes, there are more of them) and if you haven't been playing like your life depended on it, prepare to be absolutely [[Anal_Circumference|curbstomped]].

Meanwhile, its clear that Samuel Hayden knows *way* more about the Slayer, Hell, and the Maykrs than he let on in the last game, strongly hinting that Samuel may in fact be a Maykr himself (which begs the question of what he was up to if he understood just how dangerous Hell was and how Argent Energy was made). He tells us that the last Priest hides in the Arena of Sentinel Prime, the Capital of the Night Sentinels and the only way to gain access is hidden in the core of [[Mars|Mars]]. But instead of calling the [[Adeptus_Mechanicus|Mechanicus]] to help, the Slayer enters the Moon of Phobos, where the battleship-sized BFG 10,000 is stationed, takes the gun over, targets Mars and [[Exterminatus|blasts the Core open]]... despite Samuel’s protests. He then proceeds to hop into a giant mass driver and blast himself to his next destination, [[Angry_Marines|streaking across the ruined Martian sky like a rage-fueled missile]].

Now on Sentinel Prime, the game goes into who the Doom Slayer really is. It turns out the Doom Slayer really ''is'' the classic [[Doomguy]] from Doom 1, 2, and 64, who after staying behind in <s>the warp</s> Hell he is eventually spat out, [[Gotrek_%26_Felix#Gotrek_in_the_Age_of_Sigmar|half-delirious and nuts from his experience of fighting off its hordes for an eternity]], unto the world of Argent D'Nur, where he is found by the ''Night Sentinels'', [[Grey Knights|an order of techno-knights dedicated to fighting demons]]. He is nursed back to sanity, and joins their order, eventually rising through their ranks due the sheer [[Rip and Tear]] he was capable of.

The final Priest, hiding in the Colosseum, is confident that the Slayer would never kill him in the arena, as it is against holy law of the Sentinels to spill Priest blood, especially in such a sacred place. He sends out his Gladiator, a being that even if its flesh is destroyed, its soul would prevail until its body is reformed. But the Soul resides in the gigantic shield it uses, so the Slayer destroys the shield first and then the face of the gladiator, and despite the warning shoots the final Priest to death. And by "shoot to death", we mean blow his head clean off with the Super Shotgun as he smugly declares how he can't be killed. The Khan Maykr is rather pissed about this.

As soon as he gets back home, she manages to hack into the Fortress of Doom, turning off the power and flooding the bridge with Demons. The attack obviously fails like so many other attempts. Hayden mocking her as the Slayer restores power with Hayden's own Crucible. Now the plans of the Khan Maykr are ruined, as there are no more priests to maintain the Hell gates, so if the Earth Forces kill all the demons, they would prevail. As a desperate last resort, the Khan Maykr wants to resurrect the Icon of Sin to eradicate all life on Earth. Of course, the prospect of seeing ''another'' Earth brought to ruin has made the Doom Slayer rightly [[Rage|pissed]], and suffice to say, [[Not As Planned|the Maykrs have no idea what they've just unleashed]].
So it's time for the Doomslayer to recover his own Crucible in Taras Nabad. Which was stuck into the skull of a Titan and breaks off the hilt to prevent its resurrection. Now it needs to be recharged. Once finished the Demons attack to give players an opportunity to test the new weapon. The Crucible is a one-hit kill on all but the strongest of enemies and there are respawning charges that only appear at this location. Use this for practice time before moving forward because the OHKO drops health picks faster than normal glory kills.

To reach the Khan Maykr, Doomguy now teleports to Nekravol, the City of the Damned. It's a [[Grimdark|place of biblical torment, fire and brimstone, cages bursting with humans piled up like livestock]], [[Commorragh| a place where human souls are "tenderized" and tortured until all hope is broken and every sense but the pain is gone.]] Only then can their souls be extracted and converted to pure Argent energy, which will be sent to the Khan Maykr in the City of Urdak (Heaven), while the empty shells of the humans are sent to the blood swamps to transform into more Demons. A process which every [[Haemonculus]] pays respect to. As it is, things that are worthy of being called "holy" are often more horrendous than the horrors of Hell itself.

The Slayer rips and tears through all of that mercilessly, and finally destroys the transmitter tower. Its destruction resulted in the Slayer being transported straight to "Heaven", a completely unnatural location in true H.R. Giger aesthetic, littered with white and gold colours and blood-red trees. In true Doomguy fashion, he interrupts the ritual that will resurrect the Icon of Sin by stabbing its heart with the dagger he got from the Betrayer. [[Not_as_planned|The Icon wakes up, corrupts the entire realm, and invites all sorts of demons to ravage Urdak]] before leaving to Earth.

Doomguy immediately follows but is interrupted by the Khan Maykr herself. In true Eldar fashion, she accuses Doomguy of all the bad things that HE did which broke the seal to Urdak, and that the use of thousand other species as Argent Energy for her race is justified in her traditions. Doomguy then slaps the shit out of her, and even in her final moments, she tells us that we have doomed all of creation. It’s likely she’s lying to hide the fact that she’s a C’tan.

Back on Earth, the final fight against the Icon of Sin begins. Now with a full-body, it is no longer a static boss fight but a semi-static. You blow parts from the Icon, until you finish it with your Crucible, by [[Awesome|slamming it into its forehead]]

===DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods===
{{Template:Spoilers}}
A two parts stand-alone DLC for Doom Eternal: The Icon may be dead, but now that the demons have free reign over Urdak and have initiated a second invasion of Earth, its up to Doomguy to clean up the mess he left behind. This Cleanup begins on an UAC oilrig platform, where the remaining conciousness of the Seraphim is hidden, as Samuel informs the Slayer that only he can give us an answer for a long term solution to the demons (besides killing them all) After aquiring orb with the Seraphim in it, the Facility AI self destructs the whole Rig to prevent the Slayer from leaving, but just mildly annoys him. Now traveling to the bottom of the Ocean with only his pure rage against the pressure and fighting in a Kill Room with TWO Marauders, he reaches a Room with a Maykr in it. Big surprise; they confirm Hayden is the Seraphim and VEGA as the Father aka the creator of the Universe, but as Hayden fractured in his Life sphere and conciousness. The life sphere rests atop the Ingmur Sanctom of the Blodswamps in Hell. While this sounds incredible stupid to put the mightiest being directly in the most corrupted Part of Hell, francly speaking Nurgles private Garden, the sanctum itself is protected to only let the one who passes the Trial of Malligog through, Malligog beeing an extremly enormous Titan, ranging in size of 2-3 Kilometers.
Doomguy however has other plans; he betrays the Seraphim and destroys the Father's life sphere, then steals the Dark Lord's life sphere so he can summon him and face him mano-a-mano. But the biggest surprise of all is that the Dark Lord takes the form of the Doomguy himself! Dun Dun DUUUUUUUN!

Bad News: Mick Gordon isn't coming back this time around (due to some internal issues, he was let go). Good News: Andrew Hulshult, another rather well-known composer who's helped compose for some other shooters (Dusk, Amid Evil, Rise of the Triad 2013) is coming to take his place. While it's clear Hulshult might not be able to imitate Gordon, it's obvious he didn't disappoint.

===Demons===
Doom 2016 by itself has more demons than the classic games do, even though not all of them return from those games. Doom Eternal ups the count even more, although not all demons from 2016 return. Some demons are upgraded versions of a base model; they are sorted as such.

*'''The Possessed/Zombies''': In 2016, Possessed were humans that underwent horrific mutations due to the Lazarus Wave released by Olivia Pierce on the Mars Outpost. In Eternal, Zombies are the emaciated husks of humans stripped of their soul and mutated by demonic corruption. In both cases: wet toilet paper. They are some of the weakest enemies in the games and can easily be dispatched. 2016's Possessed are cheap glory kill fodder, while Eternal's Zombies are classified under the Fodder demon class, i.e. one of the chief targets of your Glory Kills, Chainsaw, Flame Belch, ice bomb and all other ways with which to keep your health, armour and ammo stocked up.
**'''Possessed Engineers/Cueballs''': Little more than walking bombs. Either shoot them to detonate them or melee them to launch them and have them detonate on impact. Returning as Cueballs in Eternal, these Ambient-class demons replace the "walking" part with "standing gormlessly in one spot, ignorant of any fighting going on around them". This allows the Slayer to use them as flying, explosive barrels if shot at the right angle.
**'''Possessed Soldiers/Blaster Zombie Soldiers''': Unlike their gormless lesser brethren, Possessed Soldiers move faster and with more tact, are hardier and can use a plasma gun fused to their arm to lay down suppressive fire. They're still not much of a threat. Eternal's Blaster Zombies are little more than Possessed Soldiers with a Classic Doom zombieman coat of paint, so make sure to keep some distance.
**'''Possessed Security/Shield Zombie Soldiers''': Wet toilet paper with shards of glass. Equipped with shields and shotguns, these can really ruin your day if you let them. The most effective strategy against them in 2016 is either to chainsaw them or use the Plasma Rifle's stun bomb to disable their shields. While Eternals Shield Zombies still hit just as hard, their threat level dropped off the abyss thanks to their energy shields ''violently exploding'' in response to absorbing too many Plasma Rifle bolts.
**'''Hell Razer''': 2016 exclusive, Hell Razers fight at a distance with arm-mounted laser cannons, which are actually parasites converting a human into a Hell Razer. Fire slowly and have distinct tells to their attacks. Don't pose too much of a threat: dodge their attack, get close and shotgun them.
**'''Mecha Zombie''': New in Eternal, these gore-covered terminator knockoffs are armed with metal claws, a plasma gun and a flamethrower, the latter of which they will flail about in order to hit you. Still fairly ineffectual.
*'''Imps''': The fodder from the original game, now quick as a hiccup. They jump all over the place, pelting you with fireballs and clawing at you if you get too close. Because they're one of the first enemies you face they don't pose much of a threat; your Combat Shotgun makes quick work of them (especially with the Explosive Shot/Sticky Bomb mod), and they gain an explicit weakness to bullet weapons (Heavy Cannon and Chaingun) in Eternal. Eternal also classifies them under Fodder demons, meaning that they make for great resource piñatas.
**'''Gargoyles''': Added in Eternal. Pretty much Imps with wings and [[Tyranid|scything talons]], they jump around and spit acid at you. They'll occasionally hover in place to fire off an acid volley, causing them to become instantly staggered for a Glory Kill when hit during this attack, so take your opportunity. Also classified as Fodder demons.
**'''Prowlers''': Originally added in 2016's multiplayer, they were promoted to regular enemies in Eternal. They function the same as Imps but with more health and they can teleport, often right behind you to claw at you. Classified as a Heavy Demon, meaning they require more Chainsaw fuel to mow down compared to Imps.
*'''Carcasses''': Debuting as Heavy demons in Doom Eternal, the Carcass' attacks are not that powerful and they don't have a lot of health. What they do have is the ability to summon energy barriers, blocking your ability to move around freely, home in on them, glory kill other demons and use explosive weapons safely. Your primary target in an encounter because eliminating them makes a fight a lot easier. Thankfully, these barriers share the same explosive vulnerability to plasma fire as the Shield Zombies' Shields.
*'''Pinkies''': Ol' faithful is now covered in armour, turning them into living battering rams. They (still) roar and charge in on you, dealing significant damage upon impact. The armour soaks most damage they take from the front, so circle them and [[Meme|attack their weak point for massive damage]]. In Eternal, they gain the Heavy demon classification and a crippling weakness to the Blood Punch, being the only attack that can kill them without deliberately striking their weak point.
**'''Spectres''': As the Pinky, but invisible. A bit harder to deal with because of this, but thankfully a lot less common and lack the armour plating.
*'''Cacodemons''': [[Star Wars|They fly now!]] Their spit attacks slow and disorient you, and their bite attack does a lot of damage. But because they fly now you can easily pick them off with your rocket launcher or gauss cannon. As Heavy demons in Eternal, they decided to min-max; their bite takes off a surprisingly large chunk of your health and is often paired with an aggressively distant lunge, while their shock-balls can be fired in a multi-shot volley. But it comes with devastating weakness: a single Combat Shotgun Sticky Bomb or Equipment Cannon Frag Grenade into their mouths causes them to swallow it, instantly staggering them for an easy glory kill. As an airborne demon, they also gain a weakness to Ballista attacks, dying in one Arbalest bolt.
**'''Pain Elementals''': Returning in Doom Eternal as Heavy demons, they endlessly summon chuck the homing suicide bomber Lost Souls at you. While they don't swallow any grenades like their Cacodemon compatriots, they ''do'' share the innate weakness of all airborne demons against the Ballista. Despite this, they are still more of threat that their short-limbed buddies could ever be.
*'''Lost Souls''': Horned, burning skulls that scream, fling themselves at you and explode for an annoying amount of damage. At least in 2016; in Eternal, they also appear when summoned by a Pain Elemental which is when they function more or less the same.
*'''Revenants''': [[Meme|DOOT]]. Made from humans in a gruesome process, the Revenants have jetpacks that let them fly around to put themselves in the perfect possession to launch barrages of missiles at you. They can also claw at you for significant damage, so keep your distance and take them out. In Eternal, you become able to shoot off their shoulder cannons, permanently grounding them restricting their melee attacks to the easily-evaded claw swipes. Classified under the Heavy class and, surprisingly, as airborne demons, making them into potent Ballista chow. Their meme potential is so great that a trumpet-equipped Revenant is a skin included in the pre-order edition of Doom Eternal.
*'''Summoners''': Only appearing in 2016, Summoners are pared-down versions of the Archvile. They possess lithe bodies that let them easily zip around and set up a summon circle away from your location, allowing them to call in aid. Sustained fire from just about any weapon will take them down.
**'''Spirits''': Doom Eternal DLC. While they look like the ghastly Remains of the Summoner, the Spirit will possess other Demons, taking their Fear and ability to feel Pain, while making them faster and more resilient. But even an upgraded body will give in with enough Dakka. Destroy the Spirit with the microwave mod of the Plasma cannon. OR kill everything living and watch the spirit, unable to manifest itself in Realspace anymore, fade out of existence.
**'''Harvesters''': Unique to 2016's multiplayer, the only demon to be so. Harvesters move around and instead of summoning other demons will shoot balls of plasma and drain life from other players, allowing them to supercharge their regular attacks.
*'''Arachnotrons''': Back in Doom Eternal, the Arachnotrons are walking gun platforms that can cling to ceilings to get a better vantage point to shoot at you. Their plasma turrets are mounted on an exposed, scorpion-like tail, which can be destroyed to limited their attacks to the more manageable and telegraphed bomb volley. Their resemblance to the Spider Mastermind from 2016 is intentional: the UAC cloned them using the Spider Mastermind's genetic material. [[Looted|and when the demonic invasion began, the automated facility making them was taken over by the possesed]]...[[Just As Planned|Which was planned]]
*'''Whiplashes''': The first all-female demons introduced in Doom Eternal resembling [[lamia]]e, but don't expect any monster girls. They are as nasty as any Heavy demon in Doom, and they use their great speed to slither in and around the battlefield, dodging heavy-hitting weapons before hacking away at your health from a distance with a pair of chained whips. Difficult to hit, but once you start hitting them they'll go down eventually. That, or use a Lock-On Burst from the Rocket Launcher to delete them.
*'''Mancubi''': Big fat bastards equipped with heavy cannons to blast you with fireballs and flamethrowers to keep you at a distance. They're big, slow targets with slow attacks so if you can keep your distance they're not too big a threat. In Eternal, these Heavy demons got faster (and fatter) but you can blast their flamethrowers off, severely nerfing their damage output. After that, sustained Chain gun fire or a few missiles/Super Shotgun blasts will easily take them out.
**'''Cyber Mancubi''': Heavily armoured versions of the Mancubus. They fire globs of acid that linger on terrain for a bit, limiting your movement options, but lack the flamethrower attack. In 2016 you just pour more damage into them to take them out. In Eternal, their armour is destructible and can be stripped instantly with a single Blood Punch, making it easier for you to deal with them. But because their cannons are armoured you can't blast them off like you can with the regular Mancubi.
*'''Archviles''': Oh HELL no. The Summoner on crack, an Archvile can put up barriers of fire to keep you away while they Summon more demons. If you don't interrupt them you'll be facing a more difficult fight, especially if they summon a MOTHERFUCKING MARAUDER. Even when not summoning they are tough and can dish out a lot of damage, setting the ground beneath you aflame or sweeping fire waves in your direction, while any friends they successfully summon receives a buff that lasts until the Archvile's death. In short, after taking out all Carcasses in an area, they are your next target if you want to win a fight.
*'''Hell Knights''': [[World Eaters|Big dudes who revel in wrecking your shit]]. They are fast, closing the distance to pummel you or to perform a leaping ground slam for a short-ranged area of effect attack. Keep your distance and pump them full of lead to take them down quickly if you don't want to be taken out yourself. In Eternal, they gain the Heavy demon classification and a crippling weakness to Chaingun fire.
**'''Dread Knights''': Cybernetically enhanced Hell Knights constantly pumped full of adrenaline and dopamine for every kill they make. Appearing only in Eternal as Heavy demons, their most prominent feature are a pair of energy blades, which considerably extends their melee range and causes their ground slams to leave a lingering, damaging pool of energy for a bit. Can fire lasers from their blades at you, and shares a weakness to the Chaingun, as with other Hell Nobles.
**'''Barons of Hell''': [[Bloodthirster|Big red bastards]] who are the toughest regular enemies in 2016. They hit like trucks and can blast you with powerful balls of green fire. The best way to deal with them is a heavily upgraded chainsaw or the BFG to not deal with their bullshit. In Eternal, they return as the Fireborne Barons; a Super-Heavy class demon that is immune to the chainsaw and cannot be one-shot by the BFG, so you'll have your work cut out for you. Befitting their name, Firebone Barons are also [[Salamanders_(Chapter)|coated in flames with obsidian skin]] and have burning blades coming from their lower arms, which fits given how much more dangerous they are.
*'''Tyrants''': Pretty much downgraded Cyberdemons (Looking more like the classic Cyber rather than 2016's beefy Balgaar monstrosity) and one of the most powerful common enemies in the game. Packing a powerful laser cannon, a laser blade and the ability to fire missile barrages, paired with a MASSIVE pool of health, these Super-Heavies should be eliminated as fast as you can so that you can deal with the rest of the demons. The fastest way to do so is with the Crucible, which will hack a Tyrant up in no time. [[FAIL|Just make sure that you actually hit the Tyrant itself and not the fodder running around it]]. Otherwise, just exploit its slow turning speed to dedicate as much ammunition you have on-hand to shooting at it until it dies.
*'''Makyr Drones''': The generic rank-and-file of the Maykrs. Annoyingly resilient for Fodder demons and armed with rapid-fire laser turrets, headshotting them with (almost) any weapon is a guaranteed insta-kill that provides ammo as well.
*'''Blood Maykrs''': Definitly not [[Blood Angels]]. The normal Maykr population after getting corrupted by Hell. They shield themselves with a golden aura that negates all damage, and attack with slow energy balls. Once they notice that such things would never work, they will lower their shield to start a Powerful Argent energy attack. A Headshot instakills them like a drone while sustained Fire on their body works too.
*'''Doom Hunters''': Introduced as a boss and later reused as rare Super-Heavy demons. A species of demons driven to extinction by the Doom Slayer and brought back by the Hell Priest Deag Ranak, the Doom Hunters resemble [[Necron Destroyer]]s with a cannon and a chainsaw for arms and missiles that can be fired from its hover sled. They have an energy shield that you need to deplete to be able to damage them directly, though it's possible to attack their Blood-Punch-vulnerable hover sled directly first to disconnect the main body from it. Infamous for being a boss that is lazily reused during the course of the game, as early as [[Rage|THE VERY NEXT COMBAT ARENA AFTER FIGHTING THE FIRST ONE]]. However, the mook versions don't have immunity to Ice Grenades.
*'''Marauders''': [[Chaos_Space_Marine|Former Night Sentinels corrupted by Hell]], the Marauders are fast, deadly and a pain to kill. They possess energy shields that block all incoming damage, including the BFG, Crucible, and Unmakyr (though not splash damage from explosives), can pelt energy beams from long-range, blast you with their own ''Super Shotgun'' at close range, and can summon spirit wolves to hunt you down if you shoot their shield too often. If baited into sprinting at you and brought into mid-range, their eyes will flash green as they swing their axe at you: use this as an opening to blast them with your Super Shotgun or Ballista, then quickly switch between the two until their stagger expires. Repeat this, rip and tear, done.
*'''The Gladiator''': [[Skub|The Last Living Hell Knight of DOOM II]] and, unlike the Doom Hunter, has survived the extinction event that is the Slayer. Armed with a gargantuan soul-vessel shield that blocks all incoming damage, and a flail with a retractable chain for close and distant attacks. Like the Marauder, if his eyes blink green you have an opening to shoot him with any weapon (though Ballista or Super Shotgun are still preferable). A headshot will stagger him for a glory kill, but the Slayer will simply beat the shit out of him. Phase 1 ends with the destruction of the shield, and now the Gladiator goes ballistic with TWO flails. The best approach now is to shoot at it until it dies (when it isn't spinning its flail to reflect attacks back at you).
*'''The Icon of Sin''': A legendary titan, resurrected into the body of the Son of the Betrayer, [[Chaos_Spawn|deformed and warped beyond recognition]], his very existence in Realspace causing destruction and madness. Its described that, if left unchecked, it will drag the entire dimension to Hell through a supermassive black hole - so basically if one of the Chaos Gods themselves manifested in Realspace. The Khan Maykr thought It could be controlled using the Soul of the Betrayer's Son, putting it into [[Power_Armour|Power Armour]] for insurance. But then, the Doom Slayer stabbed the heart containing the son's soul with a dagger provided by the Betrayer ([[Matt_Ward|though without carving the Name of the Betrayer into it]]), setting the soul free and, with it, the beast from Maykr control over. The battle itself is, on paper, pretty easy: eight pieces of the Icon's armour must be destroyed (head, both upper arms, both forearms, both pectorals and abdomen) using your whole arsenal. While doing so, lesser demons will try to harass you and distract you from the Icon. With the armour's destruction, the whole process starts again in the second phase, but this time, you chip away at the flesh and bone of those same regions until the Icon collapses, giving you time to ram your Crucible into Its Brain.
*'''The Original Dark Lord/ Davoth''': The original Dark Lord created by the Father as a Primeval, one of the first gods. Doomguy's equal. Designed to truly care about his People, he spiraled out of control in search for eternal life, to save his people from death. Formerly a caring guardian, he tortured everyone who slightly deviated from this goal. After Davoth got imprisoned in his soul sphere by the Father, demons apparently fought one other to claim his title while he still whispered his influence to them. The Dark Lord of the First Age after Davoth made the deal with the Khan Maykr and the most recent one, the Dark Lord of the Fourth Age, is implied to have been the Spider Mastermind that possessed Olivia Pierce before getting her head blown off by BFG-9000. Davoth himself apparently prevented anyone from becoming Dark Lord of the Fifth Age as he was released from his soul sphere several months later. Currently only seen in one cutscene after his soul sphere was unlocked and everyone hopes the final fight will be the same as a Unreal Tournament/ Quake Deathmatch.

===Trivia===
*The Fortress of Doom is the personal fortress-monastery/mancave of the Slayer, once used for the Galaxy spanning Crusade of The Night Sentinels. Features a Teleportarium with an absurd range (teleporting the Slayer from Earth's orbit to the Hell-absorbed Argent D'nur, which is on a completely different dimensional plane to the Sol system), a Hangar bay with a Sentinel "Atlan" Mech, and a prison named the "Ripatorium", filled with Demons the Slayer undoubtedly abducted, to slaughter them for sport.
**On at least one occasion, the Slayer seems to have fought against Noise Marines, as his personal quarters feature a guitar made of flesh.
**The Fortress has shitton of easteer eggs and even a few unlockable weapons. Such as a redesigned Unmaykr (unlockable) froom Doom 64 and the Soul Cube of Doom 3(just a prop). You'll want the Unmaykr whither you want to slaughter demons or a completionist. The Slayers own room also displays all the weapons and toys players have collected over the game. There is a bookshelf that references other franchises, a cage for his dead rabbit Daisy and even a painting of said pet and the Slayer.
*It is said, the "Wretch" who gave the Slayer an adamantine armour, forged from the Fires of Hell, was in fact Khorne Himself. Even if he can´t corrupt the Slayer, He doesn’t need to. the carnage he brings upon demons is the equivalent of centuries of war.
**Doomguy and Khorne may have flat-out '''teamed up''' as Doomguy wants to kill demons (Khorne technically isn’t) and Khorne wants to take over Hell. The two of them have become fire-forged friends since then, to such a degree that, according to a legend passed down among demons, Khorne has a stasis pod containing the Doomguy stored deep in the heart of his personal fortress. Possibly underneath the skull throne itself.
***Khorne is Doomguys equal. In the ancient Gods DLC the life essence of the true Ruler of Hell gets resurrected, and he takes on the form of Doomguy. The Dark Lord of Hell is the leader of Hell`s armies. Not a King, but a warrior of the Dark Realm. The fiercest among all, as only the strongest could rule. He is you. Wait a minute [[Samus|that sounds familiar]], Hey if your going to steal, you may as well do it from the best.
*Since the Night Sentinels went to war against the Demons, they are effectively the first Space Marine Chapter (preceding even the Thunder Warriors), since they are to an extent Psykers, deploy with Argent (warp) using Weapons, have their own Titan Legion, Use a Space fleet of Flying Castles, have an Arena for duels to the Death, and only The Strongest among them can become King, they even had a mini civil war. the only thing they are missing is DNA from the God-Emperor...and even then, Doomguy may have it.
**The Sentinel Titans are called "Atlans" and are the Ultimate Example of a [[Invictor Tactical Warsuit|Babycarrier]] done right. Armed with one or two shoulder-mounted Giant [[Plasma Annihilators|Plasma_Annihilator]], the Palms of the Hands featuring the same sort of plasma weapon but weaker. The Melee Weapon being an ECKS BAKS HUEG Energy Spear for impaling equally huge Titans.
*The Makyrs in Doom Eternal bare a surprising resemblance to the [[C'tan]] (even being unable to show their true forms outside of Urdak). They also possess a sort of metal skin on all castes of there race, resembling necrodermis.
*Sometime between the events of Doom 64 and Doom (2016), the Slayer was subjected to something called the "Divinity Machine," given his new abilities from that point forward, it's possible he had a fragment of <s>the Warp</s> hell itself imbued within him, thereby making him a man uplifted with <s>psyker</s> argent powers. This might make him this dimension's equivalent of [[The God-Emperor of Mankind|The Emperor]]... if this is a separate dimension.
*In Doom Eternal, the Slayers new armour is not fully sealed, giving a look Upon His Arms, like a certain [[Kharn the Betrayer|Swell Guy]].
*Said Swell Guy <s>may or may have not been</s> probably is a Descendant of The Slayer's "friend," Valen the previous holder of the title of "Betrayer". The best guess would be that the Emperor used his Genetic Code for The Basics of Angron, and later the World Eaters Legion.
*The Crucible uses pure Argent energy to create its blade. This means it's soul-powered and therefore, since the Doom Slayer absorbs the power of the demons (giving them a true death), [[Grimdark|uses the life essence of demons to kill more demons]].
**because the Doom Slayer does give true death to deamons, this may mean he can do what every single eldar, necron, and psychically adept human thought was impossible...actually '''kill''' the chaos gods, he would probably choose [[Slaanesh]] first
*The forces of Hell seem to be a serious threat even judging from the absurd standard of 40k. Samuel Hayden gave the surviving humans insane technology (full functioning AI battlesuits for infantry, and colossal Titan mechs, Dark Age Technology so to speak) and still couldn't get the upper hand. The only viable solution to gain ground seemed to be [[Exterminatus|total nuclear annihilation.]]
**This seemed to be simply because of Hells literally [[Orks|infinite]] [[tyranids|numbers]] since they multiply by both ordinary breeding and turning the aforementioned bodies of the mulched human souls into demons. Even if they took out one thousand demons, one billion would take their place. It seems this was the only reason for their defeat since, once all of the avenues for invasion are cut off, the remainder are mopped up without much fanfare. One wonders if all of the priests were on Sentinel Prime how things would go since there would be no cut off for the entering demons.

==Doom: The Board Game==
Yes, there is a Board Game - made by [[Fantasy Flight Games]] no less - giving the vague '/tg/ related' qualifications this site uses.
It was released around the time Doom 3 was released, though it wasn't that remarkable and is pretty hard to find nowadays.

One guy plays the baddies, the other 1-4 players play a band of unfortunate marines. The heroes start with 2-3 powerup cards, and the baddies get 5 cards from his own deck and during the game, he gets to draw more (the rate of which is equal to how many marines there are) and if his deck is empty, he gets to insta-kill one of the Marines. His guys are more varied in their movement but they can only shoot once.

The marines have three options: move 8 spaces without shooting, move 4 spaces and shoot once, or shoot twice without movement. They need to explore the board, find computers and other events as the board provides. The baddies, meanwhile, can either upgrade his monsters or bring more to the board.
Either way, his goal is to score 6 kills on the Marines.

A new board game got released shortly after May 2016 Doom, which, to my understanding, is basically just the same shit as before with a new coat of paint.
* It's different, but not too different. Similar in concept and design, with the main differences seeming to be in how the Marines play, and victory conditions for certain scenarios. Absolutely beautiful models, however, and incredibly fun. Highly recommended.

==Movie==
Also (roughly) around the same time as Doom 3 was a movie starring Karl Urban and former WWE superstar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It pretty much replaced the whole Hell plot with some genetic experimentation to give people superpowers that only succeeds in creating hyper-aggressive mutants, and a squad of Marines sent to investigate the mayhem. It wasn't that good, with the only really 'good' scene being this one scene where it's all FPS-style like the original games and has monster killing.

Another movie was released in 2019, named ''Doom: Annihilation.'' When asked what they thought about this, id Software simply replied: "We are not involved in the movie." But the last five minutes of CGI demons was fucking phenomenal.

==TLDR==
{{blam|Rip and Tear Motherfucker!}}
==External Links==
*[https://doomwiki.org/ Doom Wiki] for all your Doom-related needs
*[https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/ /idgames/], the home of pretty much every Doom mod worth playing (and pretty much every Doom mod that isn't worth playing) since 1994.

[[Category:Video Games]][[Category:Awesome]]

Samus

2021-03-16T01:47:34Z

2601:4C1:C400:4050:84B5:FE2F:A520:FBC6: /* Games in Which Samus Stars */

{{/vg/}}
[[File:1297484139104.png|300px|thumb|right|Samus Aran, destroyer of worlds, terror of the space pirates, the hunter, killing one eldritch abomination at a time.]]
'''Samus''' is a [[/v/|vidya gaem]] [[Female Space Marines|Female Space Marine]], not to be confused with the [[Samus#In_Warhammer_40,000|spooky scary daemon in the ''Horus Heresy'' series]], who wouldn't really be that notable on [[/tg/]] except for the fact that pretty much everything she does or sees in the games she stars in (the ''Metroid'' Series) is basically tailor-made to insert into a [[Dark Heresy]] or [[Star Frontiers]] game. The sheer volume of stuff about her and her universe that [[/tg/]] [[/tg/ gets shit done|has found a way to integrate]] is something to behold, and has led to a lot of [[awesome]] and [[neckbeard]]ery, all at once. She's also a stupidly hot (she's nearly always in top 10 hottest video game girls lists, what with her slender [[-4 STR|and sometimes buff]] body, 6'3" height, golden blonde hair and blue/green eyes) and highly intelligent asskicking woman with no social skills, a [[neckbeard]]'s wet dream come true.

Her ''modus operandi'' is to [[Dungeon|enter a planet's cave system, explore it, and find upgrades hidden throughout]], which then open up new areas to explore, using weapons, armor, and other upgrades in lieu of finding keys in chests, ''Legend-of-Zelda''-style. Note that if you're not in the ''Prime'' subseries, the planets she lands on have [[Exterminatus|a habit of exploding]]. Yet even then those planets that survived her visits had massive damage equal to that of a Imperium high ordnance orbital bombardment done to enemy controlled sectors, buildings, and ground forces.

Also paid a visit to a [[Mission_to_OR-42|Necron-infested shithole]].

==Games in Which Samus Stars==
* The original NES ''Metroid'', released in '86. This game was one of the first nonlinear platformers, and was incredibly influential, kicking off an entire subgenre. Sadly, it hasn't aged well; the large game world has no map if you don't make one yourself or have a guide, and the save system consists of a twenty-four-character password. In '03, it received a GBA re-imagining called ''Metroid: Zero Mission'' that implemented elements from later titles of the series.
* ''Metroid II: Return of Samus'', for the original grey-brick Game Boy. This one is sort of a black sheep in the franchise and isn't normally thought too highly of, but it has its fans. The AM2R remake has been extremely well received and is frankly a joy to play. Too bad Nintendo brought the hammer down a day or two after it was released, but its on the internet now, ha ha ha. Also getting an ''official'' remake in the form of ''Metroid: Samus Returns'' for the 3DS, which probably explains why Nintendo came down so hard on AM2R.
* ''Super Metroid'', released in '94. This one is easily the best and most influential of the bunch. The reasons why it's awesome are too long to list here, so let's just say it's [[Awesome|really fucking badass]] and leave it at that. It's notable for formally introducing the notion of "sequence breaking", where the ostensibly linear game is only made so through the implementation of obstacles that can, with practice, be surmounted prematurely. This is very much by design; the game even features tutorials to teach you some basic sequence breaking techniques (the wall jump and the super jump/shinespark), neither of which is required to complete the game.
* ''Metroid Fusion'', released in '02. This one is a lot [[Tl;dr|wordier]] than previous games, [[Railroading|and also a lot more linear]], sort of running in the face of the "free-form exploration platformer" design principles the series had demonstrated up to that point. [[Skub|This, naturally, caused flame wars]], though it speaks volumes for the series as a whole that you can ''still'' get genuinely lost while searching for hidden powerups. It is the latest chronologically in the timeline. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXqyCamxx-Q| A very good game, all said an done, look at it.]],
* [[Monty Python|And now for something completely different]]: ''Metroid Prime'' and its sequels. These games keep the exploration premise, but change the skin from that of an action platformer to a first-person-shooter. These were actually made by American developers, which makes sense, given Japan's general distaste for the camera angle - and Metroid was never particularly popular in Japan anyway, which is why Nintendo was more willing to let someone else handle it, which is something they very rarely do with their big franchises. They were generally pretty well-liked in the West, but not so much in Japan. While nowhere near as linear as Fusion, the Prime Trilogy is quite a bit stricter than most Metroid games in terms of exploration. The devs even removed exploits in updated versions to remove sequence breaking opportunities. One thing that is inarguable is that the Metroid Prime trilogy has some of the best music ever composed for video games. The soundtrack is incredibly unique, with very little else like it in video game history, and is one of the only soundtracks that can pull off unironic/100% serious Theremin usage and make it sound amazing. Rock/Metal, Industrial, Electronica, Chiptunes, and Orchestral music are everywhere in games, but the trilogy's soundtrack not only stands out with uniqueness, it's just really beautiful and its great for setting the atmosphere for your games.
** The Prime series also includes two spin offs on the DS. Metroid Prime Pinball, surprisingly for a pinball spin off, is actually very solidly made and seamlessly blends in iconic gameplay elements from the series with excellent pinballage. Metroid Prime Hunters is usually regarded as a rather solid, if short, entry into the series that was one of the first really multiplayer-friendly games on the DS. Pinball is for understandable reasons, not really canon (it is a retelling of Metroid Prime 1), while Hunters neatly stuffs itself in the in-universe two year gap between Prime 1 and 2. Hunters, like the Prime series, added quite a bit of detail to the background of the Metroid universe without explaining too much in depth, maintaining the nebulous mystery that the Metroid setting is known for.
* ''[[Fail|Metroid: Other M]]'', released in '10. [[Skub|It's best not to discuss this one]], as a combination of badly written dialogue, a simplistic yet somehow convoluted story that contradicts itself and prior entries in the series, and a decent gameplay system held back from its full potential by a flawed execution resulted in an even wordier and railroadier game than ''Fusion'' that messed with Samus's characterization and [[Rage|continues to cause flamewars on /v/ to this very day]]. In a series known for its gorgeous and memorable music, Other M also switched to an ''incredibly'' generic orchestral soundtrack. It's not poorly done, the composer did a perfectly competent job - it's just a disappointingly generic addition to the discography of the series. It's like going from excellent home or restaurant cooked meals to ready-to-eat dinners; it's technically competent but it's nothing new or interesting.
* ''Metroid Prime: Federation Force''. This "continuation" of the Prime series features no Samus, no Metroids, no proper exploration, absolutely no shared art style with super-deformed chibi characters, space soccer, a crude attempt to chase the co-op multiplayer shooter train on foot years after it left the station ''for a handheld console rather than the PC'', [[Skub|and one of the most lopsided dislike to like ratios of any video game revealed in E3]]. Five years of frustration and annoyance erupted in a spectacular fashion at its reveal... and it didn't stop there.
**[http://nintendoenthusiast.com/review/metroid-prime-federation-force-review-for-3ds/ Fed Force was confirmed for hardcore suckage] almost immediately upon release, containing stupidity such as "Master Brain", a plot that's little more than another generic "stop the death star knock off" story, 'wat'-worthy moments like [[Derp|Samus being mind controlled by the space pirates]], and slow-as-shit and dreadfully boring gunplay. The game has driven the fandom into despair and rage to degrees that only Command and Conquer fans and [[Tyranid]] players can truly understand. It's like if EA wasn't content with just one lore breaking character defiling series mechanics defying game and instead made another one with an awful art style on top of that. And unlike C&C, Metroid fans don't have mods and fan games to content themselves with as Nintendo is anal retentive to absurd degrees regarding fangames. tl;dr FedForce was a terrible idea that's going to be shat on by the entire fandom and even casuals bewildered that Nintendo would yank the fandom's chains in such a way.
* During an interview in 2015 Tanabe spoke of plans for a second Metroid Prime trilogy where the unifying antagonist would be perhaps the biggest dark horse of the entire series: Sylux (referred to exclusively as male this time), done in the same way Phazon was for the first trilogy. However, he said that these wouldn't be realized until the NX comes out. In the interview it was confirmed that the cliff hanger at the end of Metroid Prime 3 was supposed to show Sylux's ship, the Delano 7, apparently modified from its debut in Hunters, and shot down the rival theory that Dark Samus somehow impossibly survived her final defeat in Metroid Prime 3 (which as of the time of this writing, is nearly ten years old, funny how time flies). However, as this was revealed as part of damage control to respond to Federation Force's... less than enthusiastic reception, this news hasn't lifted many people's hopes for the future of the series.
* Now during the 2017 E3 Nintendo Direct main event '''Nintendo has also revealed ''Metroid Prime 4'''''!
** ... Well, the logo at least.
* ''Metroid: Samus Returns''. Revealed in the Nintendo Treehouse portion of E3 2017, The aforementioned Return of Samus remake is 3DS only-with new 2.5 D graphics and added content it is a full reimaging of the series' least played entree. Reviews are coming out pretty positive alongside of fan option so it looks like there may be hope yet that Nintendo as more then a passing interest in the series now. Just like the Prime sub series. Samus Returns was made by a Western Studio with minimal involvement from Sakamoto. This time by a studio in Spain. Reception of the game was much better than both Other M and Federation Force. Proving fan statements that "dark" in the current Japanese entertainment environment means pandering to Otakus with Waifu-bait. While those outside of a tiny island can properly portray a bad ass women from the future. With a very small handful of exceptions. It also introduces a rouge evil faction of Chozo. Making them the Dark Mechanicus to the Chozos' Adeptus Mechanicus. Whether if something comes from this remains to be seen. Since another studio is handling the next game we won't know until before or after Prime 4 released. It is also the first time Samus's primary rival Ridley is the final boss. With three phases. Hope you like his theme because you'll be listening to all three variants for a good while.

==Characterization And Shit==

Samus Aran is the protagonist from the Metroid video game series. When she was three years old, Space Pirates attacked her homeworld, a small out of the way mining colony called K-2L because of the presence of a crystal called Aflorite which could be used to fuel space ships. At first, they just demand Rodney Aran (Samus's father, leader of the colony) to hand all mined supply over to them while their ships blockading all travel to and from the colony, but when he refused they quickly sent in troops to destroy all shield generators and communications before bombing the majority of the colony then going in and killing everyone except for Samus in a horrifically violent manner, because from what little we've seen of Space Pirate culture [[Dark Eldar|they glorify sadism and bullying the weak]]. Oh and their leader, a sadistic space dragon called Ridley, tried to kill lil' Samus for trying to befriend him, but her mom pushed little Samus out of the way and was charred to death and promptly eaten in front of her, and her father snuck aboard their ship before using a repurposed damaged blowtorch to blow up all the stolen crystals (and himself) to destroy the Space Pirate's main supply ship.

Samus was left for dead, but for the grace of the Chozo, [[Eldar|an ancient, long-lived, highly advanced, psychic, slowly aging and dying out]] bird-like species of aliens. Their lowering numbers were due to spending a little too much time reaching enlightenment and not enough time making eggs; that and a run of severely shitty luck for the last century or so, what with evil glowing space rocks, their own creations turning on them, and the pirates thinking that their homeworlds are a cool place to kick it whittled them down quite a bit.

At any rate, they rescued her, raised her, enhanced her with the best parts of their genes so she could survive on their homeworld of Zebes, and trained her in the art of combat, giving her a suit of [[powered armor]] to fight the Space Pirates. After reaching <s>adulthood</s> the age of ''fourteen'' according to the manga that functions as her origin story (apparently the Chozo didn't know that much about human growth cycles), Samus went to work for the Galactic Federation for a while, and then left to work on her own as a bounty hunter. Nobody that worked on Metroid realized what exactly a bounty hunter ''is'' until Metroid Prime's american developers explained it. While that's technically her title, she's more like a freelance soldier on retainer with the Galactic Federation. Or something.

She soon came into conflict with the Space Pirates again; they had seized her adoptive homeworld, killed off most of what little remained of the Chozo with maybe one or two dozen of the old bird people remaining (who all promptly fucked off into isolation), and were attempting to weaponize dangerous creatures known as Metroids, hovering jellyfish-things that drained life-force. She fought them, and came face-to-face with Ridley, the space dragon who had killed Samus' mother right before her eyes and boasted about eating her parents' corpses in front of her. She defeated him as well, and then destroyed the Mother Brain, triggering the Space Pirate base's self-destruct sequence.

The Space Pirates tried several more times to weaponize the Metroids, using a substance called Phazon to mutate them (and mutate themselves, for that matter); Samus defeated them time and again, even coming face-to-face with an evil, Phazon-born twin of herself. She also squared off against Ridley time and again, as the Pirates resurrected him in increasingly-creative ways, first cyborgizing him, then upgrading his cybernetics, then upgrading his cybernetics and then mutating him with Phazon.

After making a costly but devastating assault on the Space Pirate Homeworld, the Galactic Federation decided that it would be cheapest to send Samus to destroy the Metroids once and for all, rather than having to pay her to deal with each new iteration of the Metroid threat. Even this plan was of limited success, because no matter how many Metroids Samus killed, there always seemed to be more (and this also seemed to be true of the Space Pirates themselves); even when the galactic population had been reduced to one Metroid, the Pirates managed to steal it, but finally, they were exterminated once and for all.

Unfortunately, the Metroids were needed to keep a population of dangerous, adaptible, mind-controlling parasites in check, and without the Metroids, the parasites were able to reproduce without limit. After getting almost killed by one of these creatures, only to have her life saved by an emergency injection of Metroid DNA, Samus wiped them all out, but given the number of times that the Metroids and Space Pirates have supposedly been "exterminated without a trace" and come back, the so-called "X parasites" won't be gone for long, especially as the Federation has already tried cloning Metroids and Space Pirates before. Samus put a stop to those efforts as well, but she earned the enmity of the Federation in the process; at the moment, it seems that she's on the run. At this point, all we can do is wait for her next mission.

As for Ridley, his history with Samus after she stopped being afraid of him goes like this:

* Blown up with missiles. (Metroid)
* Brought back as a Cyborg and blown up again. (Zero Mission)
* Knocked off a cliff with lasers and then exploding. (Prime)
* Brought back again as an improved cyborg, shot in the mouth, fell down an impossibly deep geothermal shaft, and then blew up. (Prime 3: Corruption)
* Brought back as an even more improved cyborg except mutated with Phazon, shot repeatedly in vital organs, overloaded with more Phazon, and then blown up so spectacularly he disintegrated into little blue particles. (Prime 3: Corruption ''again'')
* Comes back as a partially regenerated Cyborg again to try and steal the infant metroid on SR388 with fewer metal parts than last time. Is shot to hell and back and repeatedly attacked by a metroid before having to abandon much of his cyborg parts due to heavy damage and get the hell off the planet. It could also be because his lost body parts eventually healed back though. His next appearance had a fully organic body with no cybernetics or missing limbs (Metroid: Return of Samus)
* Manages to successfully steal the infant Metroid in the Ceres station because this time Samus just had her basic power suit and power beam. Is then chased down and blasted apart with missile and beam fire some hours later as Samus conducts a one woman exterminatus. And then the entire planet he was on blew up so fiercely it could be seen for light years. Safe to assume even he couldn't survive that. (Super Metroid)
* Cloned off of the little bits of him remaining on Samus' suit (by ''the Federation''), shot repeatedly in the head and mouth (a couple of times -- he didn't stick around to let Samus finish him off). Finally, he got all the life energy sucked out of him by a queen metroid and left as a mummified corpse. (Other M)
* Said corpse was hauled out of Bottle Ship into BSL and stuffed in a freezer where it shattered, but was cloned by the X-parasites. Samus blew that up, too, and absorbed the remnants to get her Screw Attack back. Then she crashed the station into the planet that it was orbiting, destroying them both. This time he might actually be dead for real given the unlikeliness that any of his genetic material is left (except ironically, the part of his code that Samus consumed when she absorbed his X-parasite form) to clone from. But it's easier to kill ten Necron lychguards with a resurrection orb and Orikan nearby with nothing but grots than it is to keep this fucking dragon dead so who knows? For all we know, he’ll be back later that day or week.(Fusion)

Which is still a better track record than [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]], because Ridley is costing the Federation assets that it cannot easily replace.

Ridley is highly competent and experienced at his role of being both muscle and a general, and is incredibly sadistic and ruthless. When not faced with Samus, he can deal extreme damage and devastation and was a scourge on Federal society for years. The problem of course is that he is faced with a protagonist equipped with the war gear of the most advanced factions to have ever been seen in the galaxy whose suit can plug and play any piece of tech (or even someone's superpowers) like they're god damn USB sticks who has made it her life's goal to make him pay. So his constant, increasingly over the top defeats aren't completely without excuse.

Personality-wise, there's not much to say about her - she never speaks in the majority of the games and serves primarily as a silent protagonist for the player to identify themselves with. Fusion had some brief snippets of inter-monologue, some short conversations, and even some mentions of Samus's life before she was a bounty hunter, usually relating to her former CO, Adam. Other M attempted to expand on the relationship between Samus and Adam, but it [[Fail|backfired spectacularly]] to say the least.

:: In Metroid Prime, scanning the various logs of Space Pirates would reveal that the pirates refer to Samus as [[Awesome|"The Hunter of Our Kind"]], always in the reverential form, always scared shitless of every mention. Essentially she's shown there to be a completely ruthless hunter that will ALWAYS catch space pirates eventually, to such an extent that they can never escape her once she's on the trail. The pirates on that Frigate mention in their logs that they've pretty much lost all hope as soon as they discovered that Samus was tailing them. At the same time, we ''do'' still get little snippets of characterization here and there, with her mourning a little when finding brave Federation Marines dead at the hands of the Ing in ''2'', and frustration and grief at the corruption of her fellow Hunters in the finale.

Pre-Other M material (i.e. a number of manga, Fusion, and the handful of notes she makes to her logbook, as well as some scenes in Metroid Prime) paint her as a noble soul, [[Space Wolves|much more concerned with doing what is right than what is technically the letter of the law]] and [[Salamanders|deeply passionate about protecting those who cannot protect themselves with a noted soft spot for children.]] When Retro wanted to implement a bounty hunting mechanic into Metroid Prime 3 and explained the concept to Nintendo, Nintendo adamantly refused and clarified that "Bounty Hunter" was actually a mistranslation and she wouldn't stoop to murdering and capturing other sapient beings for pay, with Retro describing that it was revealed that she was more of a "Pro Bono" Hunter, who does the public good without expectation of recompense. She was also something of a fiery tempered hot-head who'd disregard regulations and plans to go off and do her own thing in her youth but mellowed out once she came of age. She seems to be an introspective and somewhat introverted person with at least something of a scientific streak as well as a pretty nifty hand at engineering, having designed her own ship.

tl;dr Like most Nintendo protagonists, Samus is very much an incorruptible spark of nobility in an often very dark universe (with Metroid perhaps being the grimmest with the relentlessly cruel space pirates, a deeply corrupt federation, the all corruptive phazon, the demon-esque Ing, the "zombie virus cranked up to fucking eleventy one" X-parasites, the "Xenomorphs on radioactive steroids" Metroids, and the Lovecraftian God-like Gorea just to name a few issues), an ever dependable hero who will go alone and smite the hordes of evil no matter the odds and come out victorious in the end even at personal loss to herself. So very much a [[Nobledark]] sort of hero. She's more of a Knight Errant in space than she is a proper bounty hunter. Indeed if you take a look at her, you'll see knight tropes ''everywhere''. A warrior who came from a child orphaned by a dragon and lawbreakers, raised by monks to be a hero of prophecy destined to wield an incomparable weapon to smite the darkness wherever it may be by traveling the lands, or stars in this case.

==Wargear==

As would be expected of the inheritor of one of her galaxy's most advanced civilizations, Samus has ready access to some of the most overpowered weapons and armor in existence. Even weapons and tech not created by the Chozo can still borderline effortlessly be integrated into her power armor for use at her leisure. Unfortunately for Samus, despite becoming a force no natural disaster could ever compete with by the end of every game, some unprecedented event or catastrophe resets her suit to a much more basic form at the beginning/near beginning of almost every single main-stream sequel that follows. While the obvious, practical reason this happens is entirely to make the game an actual ''game'', the fluff reasons tend to be pretty hit-or-miss (if there even is a reason) These include:
* Getting shot down while leaving Zebes, which also somehow completely destroyed Samus' power suit. This resulted in Samus having to infiltrate a Space Pirate-occupied Chozo temple in order to get a completely new Power Suit. While actually occuring rather far into the game, it does completely negate literally every weapon, armor and utility upgrade Samus collected until then. (Zero Mission)
* Getting caught in a chain reaction of explosions while investigating a derelict Space Pirate Frigate. The damage causes her suit to malfunction and reboot in the most basic loadout (Prime)
* While investigating the planet Aether for a Federation Patrol that went MIA, Samus entered a portal to an alternate version of the planet. She was promptly mugged by the resident Ing, each of which stole a piece of tech that Samus had to hunt down and pry from their cold, dead claws to retrieve. In another instance of post-game downgrading, despite acquiring weapons [[Warp Weapons|capable of sending their targets into alternate dimensions]], Samus voluntarily reverts her suit and weapons to their pre-Aether adventure state and returns the tech to the Luminoth before departing. (Prime 2)
* While mounting a defense against a Space Pirate invasion of Norion, Samus was ultimately corrupted by Phazon. While this didn't necessarily remove many abilities, it did require a refit of her Power Suit to keep her from turning into ''another'' Dark Samus. (Prime 3)
* While there was no explanation, Samus began her Metroid-Extermination mission on SR-388 and her second raid on Zebes in her basic Power Suit. Possibly to avoid losing some of the fancy toys she picked up between the first Metroid game and now? (Metroid II and Super Metroid, respectively)
* In a rather unusual turn of events, Samus retained most of her armor abilities from the beginning of Other M, but [[wat|lacked the clearance]] to use them initially. In a way, this does kind of make sense, as flying around in a giant energy death ball while dropping bombs that atomize borderline anything with a pulse doesn't exactly create an environment conducive for allied Federation forces. That said, it's safe to say [[Marines Malevolent | Samus isn't retarded enough to indiscriminately nuke friend and foe alike]], so it's kind of a hollow excuse. (Other M)
* While escorting a research team on the recently de-Metroided SR-388, Samus is infected by an X-Parasite. Shortly afterwards, Samus narrowly escaped death when she lost consciousness and her ship ejected her before it crashed into an asteroid belt. Scientists had to surgically strip Samus' still-active power suit down in order to operate, with the infected parts consequently becoming a murderous clone of Samus at the peak of her power. Samus, on the otherhand, was left with a watered down power suit that actually rendered her genetically incompatible with several of her former abilities while making her cripplingly weak to anything cold. (Fusion)

Ultimately all these increasingly dramatic incidents prove to be minor inconveniences at best, as even when completely stripped of her fancy toys and tools, Samus still reclaims most if not all the lost equipment in short order. More often than not, she even picks up yet more powerful goodies along the way too.

===Standard Suits===
These suits often have some incarnation or another in most Metroid titles, with Samus usually starting in either the Power or Varia suit, depending on how bad her suit got scratched that day.

'''Power Suit:''' The base and vanilla form of Samus' power armor, the power suit was tailor-made specifically for Samus by her adoptive Chozo parents. Able to be summoned and dismissed at will, the power suit provides basic protection against hostile environments and any local fauna that might be feeling extra frisky. Ultimately, the basic power suit is actually rather fragile and is probably comparable to Eldar mesh armor for all the protection it provides, of course ignoring the shields that make up her actual defence. While a number of games start Samus off in this, several others go ahead and just have Samus keep the more advanced Varia suit instead.

'''Varia Suit:''' The iconic suit Samus is most often portrayed in, the Varia suit is a stark upgrade over the Power Suit in every way. In addition to a much improved defense, the Varia suit provides incomplete protection from high temperature environments (unsurprisingly, substances like lava still severely damage the suit) and is often acquired relatively early on in most games. It's also the first suit that gives Samus unyieldingly massive pauldrons. Its durability would probably compare to Space Marine power armor, while sacrificing none of her insane mobility (in fact, she often gets far more potent mobility enhancing upgrades ''after'' this armor upgrade). It also provides complete immunity to acid in Zero Mission, though apparently Zebesian acid isn't anywhere near as strong as Pirate Homeworld Acid or Fuel Gel given that those can still damage the shielding of the suit.

'''Gravity Suit:''' Often the last or second to last suit upgrade acquired, the Gravity Suit offers complete immunity to high temperature environments, yet higher defensive capabilities, and allows Samus to operate in both underwater and underlava environments completely unrestricted. While Samus still retains her super-olympian maneuverability, this thing is probably comparable to Tartaros-Pattern Terminator armor for all the punishment it can take.

===Non-Standard Suits===
These suits are all unconventional, one-off suits Samus acquires either through circumstance or being "gifted" to her.

'''Phazon Suit:''' An unintended "upgrade", this is actually a corrupted version of Samus' Gravity Suit that was created when a giant, Phazon-enhanced Space Pirate fell on top of her and melted. While no negative traits manifested, it provided Samus with immunity to most forms of Phazon and the ability to channel it into a highly destructive beam of energy (in the right circumstance). Samus loses it when Metroid Prime attacks her in a last ditch effort to save itself. This sort of works; though Samus walks away unharmed, Metroid Prime is able to use the Phazon Suit to reconstitute itself into Dark Samus. (Prime)

'''Dark Suit:''' A piece of Luminoth technology, the Dark Suit was created to provide some protection from the lethal atmosphere of Dark Aether. This suit falls roughly in between the Varia/Gravity suit in that an upgrade confers the unrestricted movement underwater the Gravity Suit is capable of, but lacks the physical and environmental protection it has. It also has a very noticeable different design from most of Samus' suits, due to its Luminoth heritage. (Prime 2)

'''Light Suit:''' A fuck-awesome suit that seamlessly merges Luminoth and Chozo tech into one of the sleekest looking suits Samus has ever worn. In addition to the complete immunity to the toxic atmosphere and water of Dark Aether, it confers Samus with the ability to ride through the shafts of light spread across Aether, allowing instantaneous travel between the major regions of the planet. Unlike almost every other suit downgrade Samus goes through, Samus voluntarily returns the Light Suit tech (and presumably all other related weapons and armor upgrades) to the Luminoth after she destroyed Dark Aether. (Prime 2)

'''PED Suit:''' A Federation-modified version of Samus' Varia suit that, while intended to contain and harness Samus' Phazon corruption, actually made her more susceptible to said corruption. This suit allows Samus to tap into the Phazon she naturally generates post-corruption and use it to empower her attacks and defense dramatically. The cost, however, is that should she engage this mode and not vent or maintain this rapidly-generating energy for too long, it will result in her transforming into a second Dark Samus. Upon destroying the sentient planet Phaaze (and thus the source of all Phazon), Samus reverts back to her Varia suit. (Prime 3)

'''Hazard Shield:''' While not called a suit upgrade outright, this metroid prime 3 only upgrade serves the gameplay purpose that a new suit upgrade does. Though the changes it makes to the suit are fairly low key, making Samus' pauldrons shaped like D12 dice instead of the usual spheres, by the time you get them Samus' phazon corruption has already progressed far enough to give most of her suit; particularly her limb armour, a purple hue that's a fairly deliberate visual reference to the Gravity Suit. This upgrade makes Samus immune to the very worst of corrosive chemical agents that can damage even the normally acid immune Varia Suit's shielding; letting her take a dip in fuel gel or take a stroll outdoors in the space pirate homeworld [[Forgeworld|where centuries of pollution from unclean industrial technology have fucked up the atmosphere so hard that the raindrops there are some of the most destructive chemical agents in the universe.]]

'''Fusion Suit:''' A watered down power suit that was created as a result of Samus' Metroid hybridization. Due to inheriting the genetics of the Metroids, Samus gains the ability to consume X-Parasites simply through contact, but gained a crippling weakness to cold environments and weaponry. As far as the timeline is concerned, while Samus no longer has that weakness, she is still utilizing a variant of the Fusion Suit. Perhaps if Nintendo could get around to advancing the timeline, we could see if this is in fact the case or not. Also can be accessed with Prime if you link fusion from the Gameboy to you gamecube. (Fusion)

===Standard Arm Cannon Loadouts===
Another feature synonymous with Samus' Power Suit is the highly advanced multi-purpose gun that always comprises her suit's right arm. Her armament varies between games; some versions simply stack beam upgrades while other beams are mutually exclusive selections. That said, there is always a golden standard readily available to her.

'''Power Beam:''' Just as the Power Suit forms the foundation for all of Samus' other suits, so too does the Power Beam for almost all of Samus' weapons. In all cases, the Power Beam is a relatively weak energy weapon that makes up for its minimal damage output with an absurdly high rate of fire and unlimited ammunition. In almost all circumstances, the Power Beam is rendered obsolete by all other beam technologies, if it's not outright upgraded into them. In the first game and zero mission, it requires the Long Beam to be able to shoot across the entire screen which also gives it a bit of a damage boost but in every other game the Power Beam seems to have the long range function by default.

'''Missile:''' One of the few weapons Samus regularly uses that requires ammunition, Missiles are often utilized against moderately armored foes and to destroy various pieces of terrain or barriers barring Samus' path. In the Prime series of games, Missles are able to lock onto and track targets. This makes them modestly useful against fast and/or airborne targets. Additionally, an upgrade in Prime 2 and 3 allows Samus to fire up to 5 of them simultaneously, either in a spread, tracking up to 5 separate targets, or all 5 locked onto one single target.

'''Super Missile:''' Another ammunition reliant weapon, the Super Missile is a high-powered projectile that deals heavy damage to most targets. While in most traditional games it uses an entirely separate ammo, the Prime games simply utilize 5 standard missiles in conjunction with a charged beam to fire. In the first two prime games, every Beam type has a Super-Missile variant, with the form, function and ammo cost changing based on the beam. Each is still usually a powerful blast that can hit multiple enemies with one shot, however several of these variants have limited or situational uses compared to the standard Super Missile.

'''Charge Beam:''' Not necessarily a beam in its own right, this upgrade adds the functionality to focus any beam's energy into a single charged shot (as the name fucking implies). While dramatically reducing the rate of fire, the resulting charged beam is often many times more powerful than the standard shot and usually amplifies the secondary effects the beam might cause. In Fusion, it also upgrades the base beam, making it fire crescent wave shots that do more damage and can potentially hit more than one target at a time.

'''Ice Beam:''' Occasionally a direct upgrade, occasionally an alternate beam altogether, the Ice Beam is a low-to-non damaging weapon that is primarily used to immobilize hostile targets to use as either parkour platforms, or to shatter through judicious use of missiles. The Prime variant of the Ice-Beam is notable for having a Super-Missile variant called the Ice Spreader, which fires a medium-sized sheet of freezing energy over an area. The most prominent targets for this beam are the namesake Metroids Samus often finds herself hunting, with almost all sub-breeds and evolutions having a horrible weakness to it.

'''Wave Beam:''' Often a direct upgrade of the Power Beam, most incarnations of the Wave Beam increase the damage of Samus' primary energy projectiles while allowing them to completely phase through most terrain and structures. In most cases, there is no additional effects tied to the beam itself, though being able to kill someone through multiple layers of rock or metal is hardly arguable. Interestingly, the Prime version of this weapon is drastically different. With a slightly slower rate of fire than the Power Beam, and not retaining the wall penetrating aspects all other versions have, the Wave Beam is an electric-based energy weapon that will moderately track targets that Samus locks onto. Additionally, many targets hit by the charged shot are stunned for several seconds, allowing Samus to swiftly dispatch them in the interim. The Super-Missile variant unleashes a devastating torrent of energy that latches onto targets, it depletes missiles at a rapid rate in order to fuel. Also kinda gives off ghostbuster vibes while channeling it. While generally not amazingly useful for most situations, the Wavebuster combo makes an invisible drone that serves as the boss guarding the power bombs a complete joke since it automatically tracks the fucker and stunlocks it to death, sparing you from what is otherwise a difficult fight with an enemy that hits like a truck and can only be manually targeted.

'''Plasma Beam:''' Usually a near-endgame upgrade, the Plasma beam dramatically increases the damage of Samus' base projectiles. In most cases, the Plasma beam also penetrates targets, allowing Samus to slaughter multiple enemies with only a few well-aimed shots. Similarly to the Wave beam, the Plasma Beam is considerably different in its Prime incarnation. With a shorter range, but same rate of fire as the Power Beam, the Plasma Beam is the strongest conventional weapon available to Samus, with the Charged shot being slightly stronger than a super-missile. Additionally, the few creatures not outright disintegrated by a charged shot are usually set ablaze afterwards. If Samus is feeling a bit like a Salamander or Sister of Battle, she can use the Super Missile variant of the Plasma beam to channel a high-powered flamethrower to roast whatever moronic creature pissed her off.

'''Spazer Beam:''' Alternatively known as the Wide Beam in Fusion, this direct upgrade splits Samus' projectiles into three separate shots, without sacrificing rate of fire or beam strength. It allows Samus to hit multiple targets simultaneously, or simply broaden just how much space she can fill with overpowered dakka.

===Non-Standard Arm Cannon Loadout===
Similarly to the specialized, one-off suits Samus acquires, there are select beams that only ever see one, maybe two incarnations.

'''Phazon Beam:''' While some variant of this exists in all 3 Prime games, they're all situational, specialized beams that rely on either an external factor or risk. Even though they differ drastically, each is an extremely powerful weapon that does ludicrous amounts of damage to a given target, with most of said targets being impervious or highly resistant to all other weaponry Samus has access too. As stated though, the circumstances that Phazon can be used as a weapon are severely limited and either require an external source of Phazon, or the usage of Samus' own energy to access. (All 3 Prime games). The Phazon beam is quite different in all three games, in the first it only activates when Samus stands in pools of pure Phazon produced by the Metroid Prime and only has an automatic firing mode that spits out a spray of blue laser beams of death that are the only thing that can hurt the true form of the metroid prime, while also one shotting the metroids it spawns. In metroid prime 2 it is gained by using the charge beam to suck up phazon particles Dark Samus vents in her final, phazon overloaded form to cause her hurt and if you hack the game to fire it at anything else it basically one shots them. In Prime 3 it's basically a standard beam whose charge shot function is to very rapidly fire a lot of bursts, the damage is toned down since it's not a final battle supermode, but it is necessary to beat phazon based enemies or enemies engaging hypermode in anything resembling a timely manner.

'''Dark Beam:''' Unusual in that it is a beam that utilizes ammo, the Dark Beam concentrates the energies native to Dark Aether into a relatively slow moving projectile that, when charged, immobilizes targets with tendrils of darkness that sear their bound targets with its malevolent energies. Additionally, the Super-Missile variant [[rape| rips open a portal to an alternate dimension and drags hapless, nearby creatures and humanoids into what is effectively a miniature black hole that tears them apart on the molecular level]]. Unsurprisingly, using this beam on the denizens of Dark Aether is like trying to kill a shark with a water gun, so it is largely useless in that dimension. (Prime 2)

'''Light Beam:''' Like all the other beams in Prime 2 (Power Beam exempted), the Light Beam relies on ammunition to remain effective. Similar to the Plasma beam, the Light Beam fires off rapid fire, short range bursts of focused light energies that burn through Ing and things possessed by them like a hot knife through butter. The charged shot functions like a shotgun, firing a spread of individual shots that ignite targets indiscriminately. Contrarily to the Dark Beam, the Super-Missile variant of the light beam creates what is basically a miniature sun which slowly drifts forward immolating all in its path. Upon striking an enemy or surface, it then explodes in a burst of fire. In other words, it's basically the BFG 9000 but coloured white instead of green. (Prime 2)

'''Annihilator Beam:''' A combination of both the Light and Dark beams, using both of their ammo reserves to function, the Annihilator beam is among the most lethal of all Samus' rather diverse selection of weaponry (seeing as how she had to rip it out of an Ing-possessed robot roughly half-again taller than an Imperial Knight, one would hope it would be respectively powerful). While shot-for-shot not as powerful as using the Light Beam vs. Ing or Dark Beam vs. Non-Ing, its rapid rate of fire, range, generous tracking capabilities and with no enemy resisting it make this beam a potent all around force to be reckoned with. The Super Missile variant of the Annihilator beam, upon firing, instantaneously strikes the first target or surface it was pointed at and creates a sizable rift in space that rips apart everything unfortunate enough to be in the area. This power comes at a heavy price though, consuming both a number of Samus' missiles and a sizable portion of both her Dark and Light beam ammo reserves. (Prime 2)

'''Metroid Prime Hunters Beams:''' Each of the Bounty Hunters introduced in Metroid Prime Hunters had a unique beam that Samus was able to acquire for her personal use over the course of the game. Each of these beams utilized ammo in order to fire, much like the Dark and Light beams from Echoes. While Samus was able to utilize these weapons effectively, they had more powerful effects in the hands of their original hunters.
*''BattleHammer'': Weavel's signature weapon, this rapid-fire beam lobs a steady stream of explosive rounds at medium ranges. This beam has no charged variation and each shot detonates upon contact with any surface. When Weavel uses it, the rate of fire decreases, but the damage and explosion radius of each round increases significantly. Additionally, when Weavel cuts himself in half (his "morph ball"), his legs transform into a stationary turret that lobs BattleHammer shots at nearby foes. The BattleHammer is notably a nuclear weapon, not in the sense that it fires nuclear warheads, but that its shells apparently are so heavy they need a nuclear reaction to launch. Okay then.
*''Imperialist'': Trace's signature weapon is the only instance of a sniper-type weapon introduced in any Metroid game and fires a big red hitscan laser, which unfortunately makes it really easy to track where the shot came from. While it has no charge ability and an incredibly low rate of fire, it has the single longest range of any other weapon available to the hunters (to the degree that it actually has a scope functionality) and can kill any of the Hunters with a headshot. While the weapon itself doesn't change in the hands of Trace, it does cloak him while he stands still with it equipped.
*''Judicator'': Noxus's signature weapon has a slow rate of fire as it shoots forth shards of supercooled plasma chilled to just a smidgen above absolute zero, but deals respectable damage at mid range with the shots ricocheting off of surfaces. When Samus or any other hunter charges the beam, it fires three shots at once in a manner quite similar to a shotgun. Noxus, however, converts it into a short-ranged sheet that instantly freezes any enemies engulfed by it.
*''Magmaul'': Spire's signature weapon is functionally a grenade, launching short-ranged chunks of superheated magma waiting for an excuse to explode into rock vapour that can bounce off surfaces until they either detonate a few seconds later, or on contact with hostile forces. Charging the shot results in a much larger blast radius that does significantly more damage, with Spire's Magmaul igniting enemies engulfed by it for additional damage.
*''Shock Coil'': Sylux's signature weapon is the only sustained fire beam available, launching a short-range arc of "high density neutrinos" (even though the amount of neutrinos you'd need to cause harm to a living being would need so much energy you're better off just using your "lance bombardment ain't shit" levels of energy instead to kill the guy) that latches onto nearby targets automatically and rapidly drains their health. As time progresses, the damage done per second increases to absurd levels and can slaughter enemy hunters in mere moments. Unlike anyone else who uses it, Sylux absorbs all damage done point for point, making him extraordinarily hard to kill in close quarters.
*''Volt Driver'': Kanden's signature weapon operates like a hybrid of the power beam and wave beam (prime 1). Basic shots are for all intents and purposes, just the power beam. Charged shots, however, transform into a slow moving explosive that does significant damage to enemies caught in its blast. Kanden's charge blast homes in on nearby targets and disrupts their visors in a burst of electricity. Said to have "terawatts" of energy in every shot, meaning each impact is comparable to a tactical nuclear warhead or greater than the entirety of the world's energy demands. It is also said to draw this from the planet's magnetosphere which is even sillier as powering even one of these shots would drain an entire thunderstorm dry.
*''Omega Cannon'': The super weapon of the Hunters game, the Omega Cannon is a single shot beam that does massive damage to everything within a massive radius, including the user in the multiplayer mode where it kills literally anyone who can see the blast. In the single player it doesn't do anywhere near as much self damage but you can fire it more than once. Due to the unique nature of this beam, it is only available during the fight against Gorea in the Single Player, or only on one stage in the Multiplayer as a power up.

'''Nova Beam:''' Similar to the traditional Wave beam, the Nova beam has the capacity to ignore and simply pass through surfaces and armor comprised of a material known as Phazite. When used in conjunction with the X-Ray visor, Samus can use it to identify vital organs of certain enemies like Metroids and Space Pirates, and snipe them with a single shot. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs This allows Samus to kill formerly formidable Space Pirate Commandos like they were some backwater Conscript fresh out of boot.] (Prime 3)

'''Hyper Beam:''' An extremely potent weapon, Samus only obtains this weapon from the Sacrifice of the Baby Metroid she rescued. It makes extremely short work of the recently resurrected Mother Brain, and aids in Samus' hasty escape from Zebes as it begins to explode following MB's death. It's not explained if this beam was simply a temporary effect of the Metroid's energy infusion, or if it's a permanent weapon upgrade Samus shelved following the mission. Regardless, it is safe to say Samus no longer possesses it.

'''Diffusion Beam:''' A pretty forgettable beam originating from Other M that is rather uniquely; for Other M that is; acquired the conventional metroid way by destroying a drone miniboss that has the requisite technology that Samus then acquires after defeating it. It doesn't really seem to affect the base beam all that much, but it gives the charge shot a big sparkly area of effect to wipe out large numbers of enemies at a time. It's pretty boring overall though the SFXes it produces are kind of pretty.

===Utilities and other abilities===
In order to progress through otherwise impassable obstacles and terrain, Samus has access to a wide variety of multi-purpose tools that aren't necessarily used strictly to vaporize anything with sharp teeth (that doesn't stop her from using some of these tools to do just that anyways). The recurring ones are as follows:

'''Morph Ball:''' Another iconic ability, and often one of if not the first upgrades acquired (if not already just loaded in by default), this allows Samus to transform into a compact sphere roughly 1 meter in diameter. In addition to allowing her to slip into otherwise tight spaces, it also allows her to activate a good many devices through rather conveniently shaped power conduit sockets. This form has a variety of abilities and weapons exclusive to it as well:
*''Bomb:'' Sometimes included by default, other times a separate upgrade, Samus can use this to lay up to 3 consecutive energy bombs that serve multiple purposes. In addition to being the default manner of attack for the Morph Ball, the bombs are also used to destroy weakened or lightly armored structures, to power on aforementioned power conduits or devices, or to propel Samus into the air in a technique aptly named the "bomb jump". As of Samus Returns, the bomb upgrade now has no limit on the number of bombs it can have on screen at a time as a convenience factor. A rather obscure trick is that in some two dimensional games, if you have a beam charged and enter morph ball mode you'll drop a whole bunch of bombs, not exactly useful as usually the charge shot would do more damage but it is still there all the same.
*''Power Bomb:'' One of the most powerful weapons Samus gets access to, Power Bombs are used to destroy heavily armored structures and terrain while straight up obliterating anything within its rather large blast zone. Unlike the regular bomb, the Power Bomb is reliant on relatively limited ammunition. It has some combos with the beams in Super Metroid but these are obscure tricks the game never tells you about of somewhat questionable utility that have never appeared since Super Metroid. It's also used as fuel for Samus' crystal flash move, another obscure super metroid only manoeuvre that sacrifices Samus' stocks of ammo to restore her shielding to full capacity.
*''Spider Ball:'' The first strictly non-lethal upgrade to the Morph Ball enables Samus to cling to most surfaces and scale them with ease. This ability is somewhat limited in the Prime franchise, as it can only cling to magnetic rails specifically designed for it so as to not trivialise platforming or open Pandora's box of level geometry abuse.
*''Spring Ball:'' Basically it lets her jump in morph ball mode without having to wait for a bomb to detonate. It's mostly a convenience thing and while not initially present in the first two prime games, it's a default ability in prime 3 and was retroactively added to the other two in the re-release. It notably makes the Spider Ball Guardian, perhaps the most frustrating boss in Metroid Prime 2 due to its reliance on extremely exacting morphball platforming puzzles and very limited opportunities to recover shielding, much easier on any difficulty.
*''Boost Ball:'' Exclusive to the Prime games, this allows Samus to charge up her Morph Ball with energy and launch forward at high speeds. In addition to letting her act as a literal cannonball, it is also used to perform sick tricks in half-pipe structures and burst through things like metal grates. Aside from the Speed Boost, this is Samus' fastest "standard" method of travel.

'''Grapple Beam:''' A coherent beam of energy that allows Samus to tether to points either in the environment or on specific creatures. Environmentally, it allows Samus to swing from point to point, crossing otherwise impassable or treacherous crevices and the like. Not usually an offensive weapon, Samus still does use the Grapple Beam to rip off shields and armor of certain enemies in order to promptly execute them. When charged with Phazon, she can also either use it to either sap all the energy/phazon out of a target, or flood it with so much Phazon that it simply explodes in a shower of gore and blue goo.

'''High Jump Boots:''' Like the name implies, this boosts the height and speed of Samus' base jumps. Effectively outmoded the moment she acquires the Space Jump.

'''Space Jump:''' Another common ability, the Space Jump effectively gives Samus the ability to fly by letting her jump repeatedly through the air. As an efficient and expeditious manner of travel, it is admittedly lacking, but as it normally has an unlimited number of uses, it still allows Samus to bypass almost every environmental obstacle not involving water, lava or destructible terrain. Combined with the screw attack however, it lets Samus be a constantly moving whirling buzzsaw of death that's almost impervious to attack while instantly destroying nearly everything it touches. The Prime series limits the Space Jump into a single mid-air jump, though the reasons for this are strictly for the gameplay.

'''Screw Attack:''' An augment of the Space Jump, the Screw Attack envelops Samus in a sheathe of energy that outright evaporates all lesser creatures that come into contact with it and severely injures everything else. As it is activated by jumping through the air, Samus can remain in this state almost indefinitely and can only be knocked out of it by a similarly powerful attack or projectile (like the SA-X who can also use the Screw Attack). In the Prime games, it functions similarly, however it allows Samus to propel herself forward up to 5 times as well as wall jump up specific surfaces.

'''Speed Boost:''' This upgrade allows Samus to run at ludicrous speeds, enveloping herself in a shroud of lethal energy that not only lets her simply charge through anyone foolish enough to stand in her way, but also straight up ram through a variety of terrain that would otherwise block her way. This energy can be temporarily stored by abruptly crouching mid run, then promptly used to propel Samus in a completely different direction, or simply launch herself through the air until she collides with a solid object in a technique called the "Spineshark".

'''Visors:''' Often only playing a role in the Prime series, Samus' visor is surprisingly one of the most useful tools at her disposal. The default mode it is in is simply the Combat Visor, which displays her HUD as well as an advanced targeting system that lets her lock onto opponents or objects should the need arise.
*''Scan Visor:'' Though it wouldn't seem it, the Scan Visor is probably the single most powerful tool Samus has access too. In addition to providing background information on individuals, native flora, fauna, etc., it allows her to quickly translate most alien languages at a glance, identify structural or anatomical weaknesses on a target, hack into computer terminals and remotely activate a great many devices when the need arises. As this is never a function Samus has to acquire from an external source, it's also safe to say it's just a baseline feature of her Power suit.
*''Thermal Visor:'' This gives Samus thermal-based vision. Kind of self explanatory, really. Still relatively useful in low-light or otherwise visually obscured conditions.
*''X-Ray Visor:'' Another relatively straight forward visor, this gives Samus the ability to see through a variety of terrain, structures, enemies, or other miscellaneous objects. In Prime 3, it can be used in conjunction with the Nova Beam to simply snipe the vital organs of a good many foes, killing them with as few as one to two standard shots. This was the first variant visor to appear in the series, as an equivalent called the ''X-Ray Scope'' was an optional power-up hidden in the Brinstar region of Super Metroid.
*''Dark Visor:'' Kind of a hybrid between the Thermal and X-Ray visor, the Dark Visor allows Samus to track cloaked enemies by seeing into other dimensions.
*''Echo Visor:'' This gives Samus the ability to "see" sound, including sounds that are otherwise outside the normal range of hearing. Used in conjunction with the Annihilator beam to interact with sonar-based equipment.
*''Command Visor:'' Essentially a remote control for Samus' ship, this allows her call down bombing runs, use her ship to lift massive objects out of the way, or simply tell it to land in another location. Surprisingly one of the least useful visors Samus uses, as 99% of the time, she's not in a location or position to utilize her ship offensively.

==Allies, Enemies and Misc==
===Allies===
'''Galactic Federation''': Basically the UN in SPESS, the Federation is a relatively benevolent government that governs over its subject worlds in a relatively fair and just manner. Samus often works for or with Federation forces in dealing with Space Pirate incursions and other potential threats to galactic peace. In more recent times however, a darker side seems to be more and more prevalent, with not just one, but two attempts to breed and weaponize Metroids (after they ordered them to be wiped out, mind you) as well as the intention to do the same with the X Parasites. This last endeavor was thwarted by Samus, who is no longer seeing eye-to-eye with the Federation, though whether or not they're now enemies or simply cutting Samus from their payroll is unclear.

*'''Adam (Ship AI)''': The first NPC introduced in a Metroid game, heck the first interactable character other than Samus at all at the time, the AI came with the ship the Federation gave Samus after she survived getting space AIDS as part of the deal. Acts like every other stereotypical AI command center in gaming with a go here, kill this, fix that type deal it till Samus decides to go suicide run the BSL station when she finds out about the hidden program they had running there. After calling out her stupidity and hearing her rant about Adam it apparently uploaded his memories and personality then proposes a better solution and repeats his catchphrase to convince Samus it was him. Whether he was uploaded when she got the ship or the AI uploaded the personality on the fly is unknown.

*'''Adam Malkovich (Human)''': Currently the only relevant GF character, Adam Malkovich served as a commander for GF forces and often as Samus' commanding officer during joint missions together. His relationship with Samus was [[skub | intended to be like that of a surrogate father-figure, though the main source material he's involved tends to cause a lot of debate regarding how well that was portrayed]]. He's also an alleged military genius, though between forcing Samus to shut down most of her gear, splitting up his team (who all together couldn't handle the threats they were fighting initially, much less divided) and [[wat | freezing Samus with an ice beam right in front of a live Metroid]] [[Derp | despite admitting that he didn't know if cold weapons even worked on them]], this also is a hotly debated claim. He later sacrificed himself to blow up said Metroids, though a copy of his personality was uploaded as an AI that acted as a liaison between Samus and the Federation while she was aboard the BSL.

'''Chozo''': Samus' foster parents aren't really around anymore, but they were [[Tau | originally a militant warrior people who prided in scientific progression and enlightening the lesser races]]. However, as they mellowed out in their old age, many of them sought to explore their more spiritual aspects, with many [[Exodite | forsaking their technology to live in harmony with the natural world]]. Between dying out from old age, getting slaughtered by Space Pirates/Ridley, getting nuked by Meteors filled with Phazon and generally fucking off to parts unknown, their ruins and technology are currently the only known remnants of their civilization. However, the Chozo memories in Metroid: Samus Returns strongly implies that some Chozo warriors disagreed with this turn in Chozo society and are still active after having staged a coup to kill the peacenik scientists for unknown reasons.
*'''Grey Voice''': One of the only two named Chozo, Grey Voice was a curmudgeon who initially objected to adopting Samus before relenting with the knowledge that she literally had nowhere and no one else to go to. To help her adapt to Zebes, it was Grey Voice's DNA that was used to genetically enhance Samus into what she is today. While he feigned servitude to Ridley and Mother Brain to avoid getting his people wiped out, he eventually dusted off his old power armor and tried to kill the two of them despite having been genetically engineered to be incapable of violent acts. Ultimately Ridley slaughtered him and most of the remaining Chozo in response.
*'''Old Bird''': The other named Chozo, Old Bird was friendlier than Grey Voice and actually played with toddler Samus a little bit before the Space Pirates raided her colony. He also tried to teach her the lesson that just because someone looks different, you can always find good in them and become friends in the end. [[not as planned | Suffice to say, this advice backfired spectacularly when 3-year old Samus told Ridley this and he responded by incinerating her mother]]. When they returned to investigate the carnage, Old Bird was the one who found her amidst the ruins and basically strong armed Grey Voice into adopting her. After the events on Zebes that decimated the Chozo population and killed Grey Voice, Old Bird led the precious few Chozo who survived into hiding, leaving their ultimate fate unknown.

'''Luminoth''': Giant bipedal moth people, the Luminoth are an elder race much like their Chozo buddies. Unlike the Chozo, the Luminoth are still around and kicking (if only barely. With only a few dozen of them left, they are all but extinct thanks to their war with the Ing). They are known to have met and collaborated with the Chozo on a few projects, as well as assisting the Galactic Federation with cleaning up residual Phazon on their planet, but they have not done much since.
*'''U-Mos''': The last sentinel of the Luminoth, U-Mos was charged with watching over the remainder of his race (who were in stasis at this point) and defending the final remnants of planetary energy remaining on the original Aether. While initially wary of Samus (and despite her initial distrust of him), his heartfelt pleas for her to save his people and planet, as well as the threat the Ing would possess should they escape to the galaxy at large gained Samus' cooperation. To aid in her one-woman war, he eventually gifted her the slick-as-hell Light Suit. Notably considered to be a pretty young man; especially for someone entrusted with the duties of chief guardian and head of state; by the standards of his species at 250 years of age though he mostly got the job because nearly everyone with more experience was dead by the time he was elected. Kind of like a twenty five year old ending up as head of the administratum or Captain General of the Custodes.

'''Alimbics''': Yet another elder race, the Alimbics were insectoid-like beings who, like the other elder races, had a thing for science and technologies of borderline magic. Originally from another galaxy altogether, the Alimbics engaged in some minor trading of tech with a variety of races such as the Chozo, Vhozon, Kriken, etc. Ultimately, a love-craftian horror named Gorea came to their civilization and began assimilating their race to grow stronger. The leaders of their race sacrificed themselves in a process to seal Gorea away in an alternate dimension. The fate of any remaining Alimbics (who weren't assimilated) isn't entirely clear, but they're presumed to be either extinct or in the same plane of existence their leaders went into upon sealing Gorea.

'''Baby Metroid''': The last "natural" Metroid in existence, this infant Metroid hatched right in front of Samus just after she had slain the last Queen Metroid. It immediately imprinted on Samus, who couldn't bring herself to kill a defenseless baby. She quickly took it to a Galactic Federation research lab for safe keeping, only for Ridley to show up, kill everybody on the station and steal the metroid. Samus eventually found the Metroid on Zebes, who had grown to massive proportions of its original size and nearly killed her before recognizing her as her "mother". It slinked off in shame before intervening in Samus' fight against Mother Brain, draining the later's energy and feeding it to Samus. Turns out MB didn't really appreciate this, and so she killed the Metroid before it could attack again. This would have been the end of the story if not for the fact that the Federation would later use what genetic samples they had of this metroid to later save it's mother's life from that X infection.

===Enemies===
'''Ridley''': Sometimes heralded as the leader of the Space Pirates, other times just a high-ranking warlord or an enforcer, Ridley is one of the most evil fucks in the galaxy. Despite being a fully sentient and highly intelligent being, he takes extreme pleasure in the bestial brutality of indiscriminate slaughter of anyone or anything unfortunate enough to be on the same planet as him. [[Grimdark | His sadism even goes so far as to gloat to Samus who was at the time, only a teenager and was caught in her first ever PTSD episode about eating her freshly murdered parents (while mimicking their voices) before promptly killing her adopted chozo-dad]]. What's worse, is that in most cases he kills people just for the shits and giggles (which, by Nintendo's standards, is pretty damn dark) rather than to fulfill some ulterior motive or power play. He joined the space pirates as an enforcer of its mysterious High Command not for any higher goal or even for his own gain, he's only in it because he likes to hurt and kill people and the space pirates were the army that would let him do that the most. As mentioned above, he currently holds the Nintendo record of fastest respawn times (Even Ganon from LoZ usually takes at least a lifetime or longer to reincarnate, Ridley just pops back a week later like it's just another damn day at the office). While most Nintendo villains are evil in a grand, cosmic way; Ridley is mean and cruel in a very personal and ugly way and his opposition to Samus is born entirely out of personal rather than destiny related reasons and ideology is only in play to the extent that "I deserve to have fun by killing and torturing people" versus "That's really fucked up" is an ideological conflict.
*The only major metroid games he hasn't shown up in are Metroid Prime 2 and Hunters, the latter due to the DS' limitations and the former because Metroid Prime 2 had a rather rushed dev cycle and so they had to cut him and the planned conclusion of the Space Pirate subplot in Prime 2 out. This is why the Space Pirates seem to mostly just disappear part way through entering the Sanctuary Fortress after a fair deal of build up with commando attacks and increasingly brazen attacks on Samus before never really showing up again after the second fight with Dark Samus. However they got far enough along to compose a really weird remix of his iconic theme. He used to be absent from Metroid 2 but was retconned into being the final boss in the remake, which is actually the first time he's ever served in such a role. If the original prime trilogy is ever remade, odds are good that he'll be added into Prime 2 as well.
*While the Metroid Prime, Mother Brain, and High Command are all more influential or powerful than he is and he's always operating as someone else's soldier, he's Samus' arch-enemy, not them. As mentioned before, Samus' conflict with him is almost entirely driven by personal reasons and at the same token, he's the only reoccuring villain who definitely opposes her for reasons beyond being an obstacle in his plans. The others are her enemies or villains; only he can genuinely claim to be her Nemesis.

'''Kraid''': A massive, morbidly obese Godzilla that serves as another high-ranking Space Pirate commander. Despite having a position similar to Ridley's, he's not remotely as revered or competent as his draconic counterpart; a detail likely noticed by most of the Space Pirates in charge of rebuilding Ridley every time Samus kicks his ass. To that extent, Kraid has only ever stood in Samus' way twice, both times on the planet Zebes (it's entirely probable that his size prevents most conventional ships from moving him anywhere else anyways). Even if he somehow survived his last encounter with Samus herself, the likelyhood he also somehow miraculously escaped Zebes before it exploded is extraordinarily minuscule. As any "meta" or clone version has yet to appear since, he's likely quite dead now. The principal reason that he hasn't shown up anywhere near as often as Ridley is that his size and lack of flight make it difficult to give convincing reasons for him to appear elsewhere and also give way less freedom for level designers than the more moderately sized flight capable Ridley. He was planned to show up in metroid prime 1 in a deeper section of the Phazon Mines between fighting the Omega Pirate and Meta Ridley in a cyborgised form, but was cut for time reasons.

'''Mother Brain''': A giant, literal brain that functioned as something of an overseer for the Chozo society. Over time, she grew rather sick of cleaning up after Space Pirate raids and the Chozo's new pacifistic outlook on life and began wishing to instill her concept of "order" unto the galaxy. To this end, she conscripted Ridley and the Space Pirates to act as her personal army in a bid to take control of the Galactic Federation to achieve this goal. She also seemed to think that the Metroids are the perfect life form, and sought to evolve them into a fully intelligent race. Suffice to say, between her second death and the extinction of Metroids, the odds of her goal being realized are real fucking slim.

'''Space Pirates''': Arthropods (or Reptoids depending on the game) with an attitude, Space Pirates have been the biggest thorn in the Federation's side since god knows when. The exact nuances of their government and society at large aren't really clear, but they are an extremely militaristic race that tends to have a [[ork | "might is right"]] mentality. Despite this, they are still a fairly advanced race in their own right and have created a fair amount of technology that can rival the Galactic Federation. Unlike the Federation, the Pirates are much less concerned with the safe applications of said technology, so much of their newer or experimental technology tends to be considerably more crude than their GF counterparts. Their tech also tends to suffer from particularly fatal flaws (such as notable vulnerabilities to specific beam weapons, or high equipment temperatures making them liable to explode). The R&D aspect of their technology also tends to have a staggering mortality rate on the personnel testing it, a hilarious example being when they tried (and failed) to copy Samus' Morph Ball.

'''Ing''': When Aether was hit by a Phazon-infused meteor, the impact in tandem with the Phazon reacting with the natural energies of the planet split Aeither between two dimensions of reality. Most of the Phazon and half of this planetary energy shifted over to the half that became known as 'Dark Aether'. This realm became populated by the Ing, literal daemons of darkness who possessed and killed things in the original Aether (not necessarily in that order either) in order to slaughter the Luminoth and steal the remaining energy to stabilize their dimension and erase the original planet. Once Samus drained every bit of planetary energy and murdered their Emperor, the entirety of Dark Aether imploded upon itself, taking the rest of the Ing with it ([[Grimdark|many of whom were so desperate to escape their apocalypse they tried to force themselves through an unstable portal to a realm that's atmosphere would've very likely killed them anyways]]). This is kind of noteworthy, as this is the first instance of complete and utter genocide Samus has committed against a fully sentient (if strictly hierarchical and extremely hostile) race to the point of extinction.
*Metroid Prime 3 gives a hint to their origins with a minor enemy known as the Phaaz-Ing which looks and acts an awful lot like a recoloured version of an Inglet. It's likely that the Ing Horde was birthed from a collection of Phaaz-Ing that hitched a ride on the leviathan heading towards aether and were mutated by the dark dimension when Aether's bizarre energies sent the meteor into another dimension.

'''Dark Samus''': The first of Samus' doppelgangers, Dark Samus is an ''extremely'' mutated Metroid that utilized the Phazon Suit it stole from Samus to effectively turn into a deranged murder-clone of her. While she was relatively directionless on Aether, she eventually became obsessed with spreading Phazon corruption to every known planet of importance. Due to being almost pure Phazon, Dark Samus' personality is twisted and manic. The Space Pirates corrupted by her came to see her as something of a prophet or harbinger, with many all but worshiping her. Her final death came with the destruction of the planet Phaaze, which effectively cause all Phazon to become inert and fade away.

'''SA-X''': The Samus Aran X-Parasite was created shortly after a Federation sponsored visit to the recently de-Metroided SR-388 when one of the little STD blobs crawled into Samus' suit. After promptly infecting and copying her at the height of her power, it began wreaking havoc on the Space Station it was contained in. By the time Samus was strong enough to face off against it, it had asexually reproduced into no less than 10 copies of a fully powered Samus. All these copies are presumed to be destroyed along with the entirety of SR-388 and the Space Station they were held on. Unlike Dark Samus, this thing might have copied some of the original's personality, though mostly it seemed to imitate just the part that was obsessed with murdering metroids. And even that might just be the X-Parasite trying to kill off its greatest threat.

===Bounty Hunters===
While all of them were or are enemies of Samus, a few of them were allies for a short time, or would otherwise be likely to ally with her in normal circumstances. Their motivations also continue to prove that Nintendo still only has a tenuous understanding of what a bounty hunter actually is.

'''Sylux''': A "Bounty Hunter" who apparently has a hate-boner for the Federation. All that's really known about him is that he's native to the planet of Cylosis, he stole his power suit and the Shock Coil weapon from the Federation and when he's not spending his time killing their outlying forces, he's stalking Samus across the Galaxy. Unlike the other hunters introduced in his debut game, it seems that Nintendo has actual plans for him. Plans big enough to build an entire trilogy around him as either an antagonist or Deuteragonist. (Hunters, likely Prime 4 as well)

'''Rundas''': An alien bounty hunter with cryokinetic powers, Rundas was initially employed alongside several other hunters to work with Samus on Norion. He had your typical cool-guy type attitude with an arrogant flair, but was at least competent enough at his job to justify ''part'' of it. Following his corruption and deployment to a planet called Bryyo, he lost his mind and was enthralled to Dark Samus. After being defeated by Samus, he regained his sanity, though either upon realizing what he'd done or possibly Dark Samus' overriding his will, he killed himself with his own ice powers before having his essence absorbed by Dark Samus. Visually, he kinda looks like a Wraithlord from 40k. (Prime 3)

'''Ghor''': A cyborg bounty hunter who [[This guy | would often donate his rewards to the victims of his marks]], Ghor utilized his space ship as a mech suit to murder the hell out of any Space Pirates in his way. He has a weird sort of split personality thing where out of his mech suit he's like a kindly robo-grandpa, but when he's in the suit he becomes EXTREMELY ANGRY AT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. He's also something of a tech expert (being a cyborg, this is unsurprising), and is able to remotely access computers and networks with a flick of a hand. Despite falling to corruption much like his bounty hunter colleagues, Ghor regained enough mental clarity to tell Samus how to repair the damage he inflicted on an orbital station and its resident AI overseer before retreating to attack her ship. Much like Rundas, he too was consumed by Dark Samus upon his defeat at Samus' hands. (Prime 3)

'''Gandrayda''': A Shape-Shifter who can copy the appearance and some abilities of other people/races, Gandrayda was an arrogant show-off bitch who was skilled at infiltration (a shape-shifter who specializes in infiltration, shocking, I know) and liked to toy with her targets before killing them, usually as one of their supposed "allies". Unlike the other two bounty hunters who were corrupted, Gandrayda actually seemed to embrace her new powers and role under Dark Samus and above her Space Pirate legions. Just like the two hunters before her, however, she was defeated and ultimately slain by Samus and Dark Samus, respectively. (Prime 3)

'''Weavel''': The only other named Space Pirate. During one of her raids, Samus wasn't as thorough as she thought she was and didn't quite kill Weavel, just horribly maim him. Thankfully, some of his chaps had enough tech that all they really needed was his brain and spinal column and shoved that into a robotic shell that could split in half and turn its legs into a battle turret. Since then, he's been a bounty hunter for the space pirates, causing chaos wherever he can. An interesting note is that his anatomy is practically human in design when most Space Pirates are digitgrade insectoids with crab-claw hands. Possibly was an attempt to replicate Samus' power suit, since it'd hardly be the first time they've tried. (Hunters)

'''Kanden''': An individual from a race called "Enoema" who was used as an experiment to create an ideal super-soldier. The process worked, physically speaking, though Kanden's mind couldn't handle whatever the hell they did to him and caused him to go insane. Evidently, he now has the single-minded goal to become the single greatest bounty hunter in existence, and is willing to kill anyone or anything to prove it. He uses his Volt Driver and the electromagnetic field he emits to disrupt enemy suit systems. (Hunters)

'''Trace''': A member of the insect like Kriken, Trace is currently undergoing the rite of passage for his people: to find a suitable planet to conquer or to claim powerful technologies to help the Kriken Empire become stronger than the Galactic Federation or any force of Space Pirates. He happened to decide that the Super Weapon all the other hunters were also seeking happened to be the perfect prize, and so joins the rat race for it. He fights primarily by sniping at long range, or by cloaking himself and ambushing his prey. (Hunters)

'''Noxus''': One of the few bounty hunters on this list that actually has some sense of morality, Noxus is a Vhozon who uses his position as a "bounty hunter" to basically be Batman without the whole "no guns" policy. His conflicts with Samus were primarily because he believed she was just as unworthy as all the other hunters who were looking for the super weapon mcguffin featured in Hunters, or simply because he only trusted himself to keep it out of the wrong hands. Any other day of the week, it's likely that he and Samus would probably get along just fine. Has a notably goofy alt-mode in that he literally just hugs his legs to his chest and spins around on his tip toes like a top and attacks by sticking his arm out to hit things. (Hunters)

'''Spire''': A morally neutral dude who's the last surviving member of the Diamont race, all he wants to do is find out what the hell happened to his people (who mysteriously vanished without a trace). Evidently his job as a "bounty hunter" helps him get around or access any information he seems to deem important for that cause. Likely the only reason he had any beef with Samus is because he thought that the Super Weapon everyone and their dog was looking for could give him answers to what happened to the Diamonts and he didn't want to risk losing the opportunity to someone else. (Hunters).

===Misc===
'''Phazon''': An organic, highly radioactive substance that can be utilized as an extremely high-yield energy source, but is likewise extremely toxic to almost all organic life exposed to it. This semi-sentient substance, when left to its own devices, perpetuates itself by corrupting any nearby matter (organic or no) and converting it into yet more Phazon. Unrefined, Phazon often takes shape as lightning blue and black tendrils or actual physical crystals. Refined or pure Phazon takes the form of a gel-like fluid, and as can be expected, is considerably more potent in both energy yield and in its mutagenic effects on lifeforms. Exposure to Phazon, even briefly, can have severe detrimental effects on the physical and mental well-being of anything that comes into contact with it. In the "best" case scenario, individuals corrupted by this substance gain powerful new abilities and become stronger and more resilient, but they often become psychotic, erratic and extraordinarily hostile towards anything and anyone else. In most cases, creatures or individuals will die horrible, painful deaths caused by unstable, uncontrollable mutations. Select few creatures can ever find a "happy medium", but the few who survive are often still very unhinged and often have dramatically reduced life spans from the prolonged exposure. Was ripped off in the expanse by the proto-molecule

'''Metroid''': The eponymous creature for which the franchise is named, Metroids are artificial creatures created by the Chozo specifically to combat the X-Parasite they discovered on SR-388. The initial form resembles a floating jellyfish with two sets of fangs instead of tentacles, however many different evolutions and sub-breeds spawned depending on what forms of energy they have consumed or been exposed to. On this note, Metroids derive sustenance entirely from energy; primarily by rapidly draining the life force out of any living creature (and any powered armors they also may be wearing) until it turns into a withered husk and crumbles to dust. This, combined with their surprising resilience to most conventional weaponry makes them extremely dangerous and apparently prime candidates for weaponization through both the Space Pirates and Galactic Federation. That said, they do have a notable vulnerability to extreme cold and ''can'' still be killed by sustained, concentrated fire. Eventually, the Galactic Federation officially recognized the danger they possessed to the galaxy at large (while being completely unaware of the X-Parasite that was being kept in check by them), and ordered Samus to commit full-scale genocide on them.
*Fun Fact: Apparently the creation of the Metroid was not a unanimous or fully supported decision by the Chozo government; evidence suggests that most of the Chozo responsible were slaughtered by their kin either because the Metroids were not fully endorsed, or due to the Metroids eventually growing beyond their control and rapidly evolving into giant, life-force devouring dinosaurs that threatened literally everything in the galaxy. Depictions of these events are limited to log entries in Metroid II: Samus Returns, so exact details are unclear.

'''X-Parasite''': The "original" life consuming entity on SR-388 (seriously, that place could put many-a death world to shame with the kind of fauna regularly growing there), X-Parasites are roughly basketball sized yellow blobs that infect organic creatures, consume them from the inside while propagating rapidly, then ultimately kill their original host and shape-shift into near perfect copies of them. They also assimilate the host's memories in order to properly mimic the creature, and can utilize that knowledge for their own gain (An X-Parasite that infected a BSL Scientist utilized its host's knowledge to destabilize the station's reactor cooling systems in an attempt to destroy the station to stop Samus once it recognized the danger she possessed to its kind on SR388. Later on they realized Samus's weakness to cold and bred a sub-breed designed to freeze her to death by absorption). They're immune to almost all known weaponry and are able to infect people or creatures even through vacuum-sealed power armor, which arguably makes them more dangerous than the Metroids created specifically to kill them. This is especially true when they copy individuals such as Ridley or Samus, when they have access to their full complement of abilities and equipment complete with the full knowledge on how to use said powers and gear. Despite the Galactic Federations intentions to the contrary, Samus has likely ensured their total extinction when she blew up the lab they were contained in alongside SR-388.

TLDR: What the monster from The Thing 1982 would become if it landed on a zoo space station and not a area of barren inhabitable tundra were all it had were humans and dogs to consume.

==In Warhammer 40,000==
===Daemon===
[[File:Samus.jpg|thumb|The ''other'' Samus that you probably aren't here for.]]
Near the end of the [[Great Crusade]], the Luna Wolves pacified a planet catalogued as 63-19, known to its inhabitants as Terra. In the final stages of compliance, a Luna Wolves speartip went into the Whisperhead Mountains to eliminate a rogue force loyal to the planet's slain emperor. During the descent, the drop ships picked up a transmission that appeared intended to scare them, a repeating whisper of ''"Samus. That's the only name you'll hear. Samus. It means the end and the death. Samus. I am Samus. Samus is all around you. Samus is the man beside you. Samus will gnaw on your bones. Look out! Samus is here."'' The Legionary Xayver Jubal succumbed to Samus's corruption and it possessed him, using him to attack the speartip. After a concerted effort, Garviel Loken killed the mutated Jubal and had his warped body destroyed. [[Horus]] ordered the suppression of the records of the encounter, especially Jubal's corruption, and denied that "Samus" was anything supernatural. {{BLAM|Horus is a traitor to mankind, and any reports of the Adeptus Astartes succumbing to Chaos are clearly lies and propaganda. --Commissar Rosethorn}}

Samus becomes a recurring character in the ''Horus Heresy'' series, where it is summoned by traitor forces during key battles into various corpses and proceeds to die in every one of its appearances. Forge World gave him a model called "[https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Samus-Daemon-Prince-of-the-Ruinstorm Samus, Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm]." Apparently he is a daemon prince of the Ruinstorm and would have killed Dorn had the duel continued any longer

Upon attempting to fight Metroid's Samus for the right to be the one true Samus, the Daemon Prince was promptly pile driven and then drop kicked so hard he has yet to do anything of importance since the Horus Heresy.

{{Daemons-Characters}}

===Samus Aran===
The hunter Samus Aran is indoctrinated by the Chozo (and then given Chozo genes at the age of three, and given that she lacks feathers, a beak, or talons they probably gave her the "latent psychic and superhumanly strong and fast" genes and not the "bird people" ones.) and (as of Metroid Fusion) part-Metroid, which does not endear her to Imperial authorities, but her power suit has massive [[pauldrons]] that demand respect, and would put a [[Space Marine]] to shame. For this reason, not to mention her status as a one-woman [[Exterminatus]], Samus is sometimes portrayed as a [[Primarch]] of a legion of [[Female Space Marines]]. It's said that the Space Pirate xenos describe the hunter Samus Aran to each other with the same chant as the aforementioned warp-entity: "Samus; it means the end and the death. Samus is all around you. Samus will gnaw on your bones..." She also possesses a righteous hatred for the space pirates, who are responsible for her orphaning and loss of a homeworld, twice, once for her birthworld and parents on K-2L, and again for her adoptive Chozo parents and world on Zebes. The pirates even fear to mention her name just calling her the Hunter, treating her as if she were some kind of supernatural spirit of vengeance more than a person.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Unknown Primarchs]]