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War Robots - TV Tropes

  • ️Sun Jan 06 2019

War Robots (Video Game)

War Robots, formerly known as Walking War Robots, is a Humongous Mecha combat MMORPG created by Pixonic, a developer based in Limassol, Cyprus. As the game's title says, it's about robots duking it out on each other or in teams through various stages; you can obtain such by crafting pieces, purchasing them, or from a lottery-based Black Market, fit them with weapons as you see fit, and go to battle through different game modes.

It also has a Spin-Off game titled Little Big Robots, which has the same premise but with Super-Deformed versions of the original game's robots.

As of 2016, Pixonic has been acquired by Dutch publisher/developer My.Games.

This game includes examples of:

  • 20 Minutes into the Future: According to an official blog post, the game is set in the year 2142, after a cataclysm that decimated huge portions of the Earth and left it uninhabitable forced five corporations to colonize other planets.
  • Abnormal Ammo: Scatter, Havoc, and Devastator are special weapons that fire sonic shockwaves. They have the highest burst DPS of all the weapons in the game (excluding Titan weapons) and the damage done by these weapons cannot be repaired. Making these weapons extremely dangerous to face.
  • Action Bomb: The Hellburner is infamous for its Overload ability. For 7 seconds, it will gain massive speed boost after which it will deal damage to anything within 75m radius, including itself. On the bright side, the explosion bypasses barriers, shields and even covers, making the Hellburner deceptively dangerous.
  • Ad Reward: You can watch ads to speed up the crafting/upgrading process of robots and weapons by four hours or get up to four items in the daily roulette. Moreover, the Special Offers items can only be obtained by watching ads. However, there's a limit to how many ads you can watch, only giving you extra chances by participating in PvP battles.
  • Animal-Eared Headband: River Chase, a Legendary Pilot for the Typhon robot, is depicted wearing one in her portrait; her backstory even implies said headband was a hypnotic device that a medic left behind in the operating table, which put her into a trance to kill people.
  • Animal Mecha:
    • Ophion is a serpentine Legendary robot with three slots for Medium-weight weapons and the ability to fly, activate a damage-absorbing barrier along with built-in weaponry capable of wrecking even Titans.
    • The 10.8 update brings us the Bjorn, an ursine Legendary Titan and the main focus of the Biolhalla Event. Its primary ability allows it to turn into a sphere with a speed boost and protection against damage like the Skyros, with the added power to create shockwaves that damage enemies. Its secondary ability only works in Bear form, giving the Bjorn a considerable defense boost while locking it in place. It has two signature weapons named Huginn and Muninn, which have the ability to damage multiple targets via Chain Lightning while immobilizing them.
  • Animal Motifs: Vepkho Lovidze, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Ochokochi, wears a tiger mask and is associated with said animal, with his backstory showing that Leonid, the leader of the Knights who helped him defeat the bandits who held Nestan hostage, remarked that he "fought as fiercely as a tiger" and even put said tiger helmet on him upon completing his training with the Knights, with Lovidze making a vow not to take it off outside of his robot after renouncing Yan-di.
  • Anti-Regeneration: The Rust status effect slows down a robot's repair effectiveness, thus hampering their recovery rate. This effect is stackable up to 30 times and inflicted by weapons like missile-launchers Claw, Jaw, and Talon as well as Tamer, Damper, and Subduer.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack:
    • Flamethrowers and any kind of incendiary-ammo weapon can bypass any enemy robot's shield, but they compensate with short range.
    • Railguns can bypass energy shields, but not physical ones.
  • Artificial Limbs: Vasilisa Maximova, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Revenant, is depicted in her portrait in a Dynamic Akimbo, with a prosthetic left arm. Her backstory narrates that she was left for dead in Earth after the trip back to Mars went awry, with her father Danil mourning her while unaware that she survived.
  • Attack Drone: The ability to buy, upgrade, and use Drones to fight alongside your robots is unlockable by Player Level 27. However, they can only be bought via Microchips and assigned as companions for a robot of your choice in a slot specifically for them.
  • Big Eater: The Flavor Text for Alexander Frost, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Cerberus robot, narrates that his servants hurried to make him chocolate protein cupcakes with a recipe from DSC, but used substitutes since the colonies didn't have real chocolate, only to reveal that he wanted to eat soon before buying a special-edition Leech from an important person.
  • Black Market: This game combines this with Loot Boxes — rather than displaying valuable weapons, robots, as well as Silver, Gold, and Platinum for you to buy, they're given out at random via tiered chests you open in exchange for a determined amount of Keys, which will fill out a gauge at the top of the Black Market screen to open a Super Chest that will give you one of the strongest robots or Titans upon opening. There are daily random events that increase the fill-up rate of the Super Chest Gauge for every Key spent, which can reach up to one-and-a-half or double the rate. So, if you're a free-to-play player, you have to save up on Keys for said events.
  • Boring, but Practical: Some basic weapons and robots are quite popular even in higher leagues. Special mention to the Heavy-slot Gatling cannon, Avenger. It costs relatively cheap amount of Gold to purchase, close-ranged with no bonus effects... and boasting the single highest DPS of any weapon in the game, even when compared to Pay-to-Win ones.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: It is a mobile game. Plenty of things are absolutely overpowered and require extensive farming or lottery luck... or it can be yours with a swipe of a credit card. There are some Boring, but Practical options that can alleviate some of this, but it's ultimately outclassed by the pay-to-win options. Even "low-damage" weapons can become intensely OP when brought to MK II status - and this requires lots of money to upgrade, and lots of Gold (or watching a lot of ads) to make the wait quicker.
  • Chain Lightning: Yan-Di's electric weapons, the Heavy-weight Fengbao, the Medium-weight Leiming and the Light-weight Shifang shoot electric discharges that damage adjacent enemies at once within range.
  • Chicken Walker: Most bipedal robots and Titans, with the exception of Bagliore, Seraph, Nether in the former case and Kid, Bedwyr, and Mauler on the latter case, are designed with backward-bending legs, with the Cossack being the straightest example of this.
  • Classy Cat-Burglar: Sati "Cat" Felidae, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Lynx, is implied to be one as her portrait depicts her with a necktie brooch and belt buckle in the shape of a cat, as well as a stuffed cat hanging from a belt-loop strap and her backstory provides nothing but her crimes of using unauthorized teechnology, major theft, stealing and damaging police equipment, and other illegal activities; it helps that her Flavor Text is formatted to read like a "Wanted!" Poster, complete with a 100,000 Gold reward for her capture.
  • Close-Range Combatant:
    • The Lancelot is a heavy knight-like robot whose special ability, Rush, gives it a 66% speed boost, which along with its three-parted physical shield and initial weapon configuration of 1x Thunder/2x Tulumbas makes it better-suited to attack enemies up close.
    • The special abilities of Shenlou, Scorpion, and Revenant make them better-suited for close-range surprise attacks despite their frail structures.
  • Coat Cape: Livia Borgia, a Legendary Pilot for the Condor robot, is portrayed with her longcoat draped on her shoulders, and she was an ace pilot alongside her deceased brother Dante before he died from his escape capsule being shot down.
  • Cool Mask: Legendary Pilot Vepkho Lovidze wears a face-covering tiger-mask helmet and he's the son of a family that manages a military-factory from Yan-Di.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive:
    • Anna Basarab, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Mars, is a Vampire Vannabe businesswoman and the head of Basarab's Art and Mechanics, a company that specializes in customizing pilots' cockpits with luxury objects, with her Flavor Text revealing she has a total lack of scruples.
    • Stefan Benson, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Ophion, is an entrepreneur, scientist, and filmmaker who sold atypìcal technologies to sell to other corporations, even going as far as to build up a personal army of mercenaries to take out small-time treasure hunters and even investing a great deal of his fortune in inhumane experiments, getting away with it by bribing powerful people into looking the other way.
    • Gina Bertini, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Raptor, is implied to be one judging by her Flavor Text that starts off listing how to make tea and ending in "observing the pathetic intrigues of enemies from the top of the corporate ladder".
  • Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Nina Kessler, a Legendary Pilot for the Mauler Titan, is stated in her backstory to have developed a fear of implants ever since her father slowly transformed into a cyborg from his "long business trips", which drove her to defy this trope by using outdated interfaces unlike her implant-using peers, becoming a social pariah despite her excellent academic performance and becoming the first un-augmented elite Pilot in Icarus. However, it was all for naught when a freak accident with a reactor caused her critical injuries and she had to be augmented much to her dismay. While Nina accepted her new condition and developed a split-arm cybernetic as seen in her portrait, it's implied she had her own plans for the Mauler.
  • Cyber Ninja: Ishikawa Saizou's spacesuit, a high-tech ninjatō, a headdress with energy oni horns, and his animated portrait's pose brings forth a futuristic ninja, which reflects how he became a ruthless assassin who works for whoever pays him the most.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: The Deathmark status effect causes the affected robot to receive increased damage from any source of enemy fire. It can be inflicted by any robot with equipped with the Death Mark active module, the Kestrel Drone, and Legendary Titans Mauler and Bedwyr.
  • Death from Above: The Noricum is a Light-weight rocket launcher that launches upward strafes of rockets that rain down on a targeted enemy within a 300—1,100m radius, acting as a mortar. That said, the weapon becomes useless when foes breach the 300m radius.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Dagon has six Light-weight hardpoints and nothing else, but this and its built-in Aegis Shield allow it to overwhelm an opponent by sheer attrition with the right configuration.
  • Deflector Shields: The Ancile and built-in Aegis Shields protect a robot from the fire of kinetic weapons, but are useless against incendiary and energy weapons.
  • Detachment Combat: The latest addition for the Seollal Event 2025 is a robot named Samjok, a floating robot created by Icarus with the ability to detach its cockpit from its main body, gaining the PhaseShift status in the process while the main body deploys a turret that deals heavy damage and inflicts Rust and Crumble, thus hampering the recovery rate of both green and grey Durability, respectively.
  • Double Jump: The Raven has a special ability aptly-called "Double Jump", which not only allows it to jump a second time while in the air, but also gives the robot a damage-dealing boost until it lands.
  • Draw Aggro: Duel, the primary ability of Legendary Titan Bedwyr, inflicts Deathmark and Taunt on a targeted enemy for nine seconds, drawing enemy fire away from allies while making them easier to destroy.
  • Energy Absorption: Some robots come with built-in Absorber Shields, which as their name indicates, not only protect them from enemy fire, but absorb the potential damage to power up the robots' weaponry. Said shields are colored purple to diferentiate them from the yellow Aegis Shields and the blue Ancile shields, which only protect from damage.
  • Fauns and Satyrs: The Ochokochi's design calls to mind a satyr, what with long goat horns coming from the cockpit and reaching to its back and its feet being cloven hooves. However, the robot is based around a creature of the same name in Colchian and Mingrelian folklore, which is similar to a satyr in appearance but differs in having a violent temper and having a horn-like protrusion coming out of its chest with which it kills people by tackling and embracing them. While the robot's special ability doesn't involve the ochokochi's killer hug, it still reflects the violent temper of one.
  • Fiendish Fish: Cruel Angler, a limited-edition version of the Angler with 10% more Durability, is designed to look reminiscent of an anglerfish by installing an extra appendage holding a lantern in front of the cockpit on top of its rudimentary-looking design. However, the lamp is purely cosmetic.
  • Fire-Breathing Weapon:
    • EvoLife's Blaze (Light), Igniter (Medium), and Ember (Heavy) are a family of flamethrowers.
    • DSC's Scald (Light), Scorcher (Medium), and Incinerator (Heavy) and all their variants are missile-launcher-and-flamethrower hybrids that shoot flaming projectiles that inflict the Blastcharge status effect.
    • Ao Jun has a built-in incendiary weapon activated only while using its Dragon Breath special ability, which can also inflict Damage Over Time.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Your starting Titan is named Kid. While it doesn't sound intimidating, this Titan can be a terror in the battlefield with the right upgrades if you have enough Platinum to spend.
  • Freeze Ray: The EvoLife corporation specializes in these.
    • Morana (Light), Chione (Medium), and Jotunn (Heavy), are a set of weapons that shoot freezing two-missile salvos at targets and inflict the FreezeBlast effect, which causes the enemy to explode into a targeted snowstorm that will freeze other robots within its range.
    • Rime (Light), Cryo (Medium), and Glacier (Heavy) are missile launchers that shoot short-range freezing projectiles with high rate of fire.
    • Snaer (Light), Skadi (Medium), and Hel (Heavy) are straighter examples of this trope as though they shoot a beam of lightning, it will freeze the opponent over time.
    • DSC's Siren has a special ability called Snowstorm which not only sets up a trans-locator to teleport back to before taking off and receiving a reflector shield, but allows it to shoot a special rocket that inflicts Freeze on enemies inside the blast radius while in mid-air.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The name for the In-Universe rock band WARP, debuting in the 11.0 update, stands for "We Are Robot Pilots", according to Sigrid Solmer's Flavor Text, with prominent members being Cliff Debusse and Dexter Crowe, who are Legendary Pilots for Ravager and Rayker, respectively.
  • Future Spandex: The lore is set in Year 2143 and most of the human characters shown, specifically the Pilots, all wear form-fitting, armored spacesuits, which is noticeable in female Pilots. Moreover, there are also Pilots wearing ordinary articles of clothing over their spacesuits.
  • Gatling Good: The Punisher family of weapons, with maximum range of 500 m. Notably, the Heaviest version, the Avenger, boasts the highest damage output of any weapon in the game, and continues to be a endgame weapon.
  • Glass Cannon:
    • Heavy robots in general. They possess awesome firepower thanks to their L weapons, but many of them lack barriers or shields and can be taken down with impunity if caught off-guard, not helped by their larger hitbox. As such they're often played as Snipers despite their bulk.
    • Light-to-Medium mechs with speed boosts meant for capping, such as the Kumiho, are biased towards high-damage rocket launchers that dump their payloads at once and can shred enemies in seconds - but can't handle what they dole out.
  • Gravity Master: Mauler, a Legendary Titan created by Icarus, has the power to control gravity via its Dark Light primary ability, which creates a radioactive field of dark light with increased gravity, inflicting Slowdown and Deathmark on enemies within a radius of 175m.
  • Hazard Attack:
    • Weapons that inflict Status Effects like FreezeBlast, Blastcharge, and Resonance after a determined number of impacts will detonate an explosion on the targeted robot, inflicting area damage to its allies (Team Deathmatch) or other robots (Free-For-All) that stand within or enter the blast radius. In the case of the former, they will be frozen over time, while in the case of the latter, it's a sonic blast will inflict irreparable damage.
    • The Angler and all its variants have the ability Electric Shift, which not only bestows it with the PhaseShift status effect while removing all negative status effects inflicted on it and boosting its speed but also creates an electric vortex around the robot that damages enemy robots within a radius of 50m and inflicts Blindcharge on them once the effect wears off, disabling their aiming systems.
  • Heal Thyself: Any robot with Repair Unit/Advanced Repair Unit gains a Skill that repairs a part of your robot's Durability. However, getting attacked while using the skill will interrupt your repairs.
  • Help, I'm Stuck!: The backstory for Skyros' Legendary Pilot, Roberto Baros, tells that his ejection capsule got stuck inside the one he piloted while he futilely waited for help only for his distress call to be ignored. However, he is found by a group of scavengers when they were about to pick apart the Skyros he piloted.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack:
    • Shifang, Leiming, and Fengbao are a family of signature weapons for the Shenlou robot that fire close-range electric blasts that can damage groups of tightly-packed enemies.
    • EvoLife's Shocktrain is a medium-range energy weapon that shoots blasts that rebound from enemy to enemy, with its overall damage decreasing with each bounce.
    • Huginn and Muninn, the signature weapons for the Legendary Titan Bjorn, shoot a powerful beam that deals massive damage on a single enemy and jumps into adjacent ones with lessened damage.
  • High-Class Fan: Legendary Bedwyr Pilot Toshiro Kurosawa's animated portrait, shows him with a regal pose and a fan in his hand, which he opens to ventilate himself, reflecting he has become an ace pilot.
  • High-Tech Hexagons: The ULTIMATE tier consists entirely of drastically-upgraded versions of existing robots and weapons from Tier I to III, which are plated black with hexagonal-patterned designs to reflect how powerful their upgrades are.
  • Homing Projectile:
    • Missile launchers like Spiral, Aphid, Hydra, Vortex and Dune launch missiles that home in on targeted foes on launch.
    • Downplayed with kinetic weapons like Smuta (Heavy), Razdor (Medium) and Kramola (Light), which fire projectiles that will home in on a target-locked enemy robot after flying a determined distance.
  • Intangibility: Any robot with the Phase Shift module or a special ability that bestows the PhaseShift state can become impervious to any kind of damage or negative effects as enemy projectiles phase through them. However, you will be unable to inflict damage or use repair skills as long as the effect is active.
  • Intrepid Merchant: Harold Han, a Legendary Pilot whose special ability is to delay the overheating of Taeja, Yeoje, and Hwangje, is a merchant whose family lived in the outskirts of Shenzhen before the Cataclysm, with a respectable reputation by the standards of year 2143. The backstory tells that in his little shop founded by his great-grandfather, he bought useful junk from scavengers and sold them supplies in exchange.
  • Invisibility Flicker: The Curie has a translucent exoskeleton that flickers on-and-off, which is also the armor this robot summons in battle whenever it uses its Blink Support ability.
  • Jaded Professional: The backstory for Legendary Pilot Bai "WhiteStar" Xing is that she became tired of not only playing in robot fights, but of livestreaming herself with a Genki Girl gimmick. Moreover, she also resents that her streaming business is slowly failing.
  • Jiggle Physics: The portrait for Sigrid Solmer, the Legendary Pilot for the Bjorn Titan, is animated in 3D and shows her breasts bouncing slightly as she leans backwards.
  • Kill Streak: The game rewards you with how many consecutive kills you score, with the typical Kill, Double Kill, and Triple Kill announcements, followed by Wrampage (4), Godlike (5), Beyond Godlike (6), and Living Legend (7), thus giving you a handsome amount of Silver, EXP, and Gold if you keep up the streak after the match ends.
  • Knockback: Legendary robot Ochokochi has a special ability called Stampede, which not only gives it a tremendous speed boost, but also generates a magnetic field around it that pummels and sends flying any enemy robot in its way, with the additional advantage of turning all damage received into Damage Over Time with a reduced rate to last longer in the battlefield. However, the burst of speed makes the Ochokochi harder to control, and it can still be affected by weapons that inflict the Lock-Down, Rust, or EMP effects.
  • Letters 2 Numbers: 3V3R3TT, the Legendary Pilot for the Nether, has his name written like this for being the virtual clone of a pilot named Everett.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Robots with barriers (in-built or through Ancille) with speed boost abilities are these.
  • Life Drain:
    • SpaceTech's Athos (Heavy), Porthos (Medium), and Aramis (Light) are a family of magnetic blasters said to rip microbots and pieces from enemy robots to repair your robot by 30% of the damage it inflicts.
    • Downplayed with Seven, one of two Legendary Pilots for Ochokochi — her special ability, Seven's Friend, allows the robot to restore 15% of its Durability once Stampede ends and an additional 10% from the damage dealt to enemies while the ability was active.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Ecu shield is an equippable shield that protects your robot from harm as long as it faces the enemy gunfire. The "Knights of Camelot" robots, such as Gareth, Galahad, Lancelot, and the Titan Arthur come with built-in shields that can be held at the side or to the front. They're immune to energy blasts and must be destroyed with ballistic weaponry to get to the mech behind them.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Loading your robot with variety of rockets will allow you to pull this off. They're often nicknamed 'Russian Death Button'.
  • Made of Iron: The Falcon has in-built 60% damage resistance, which can be disabled temporarily to bring bear its full armament of 3 Heavy weapons. Taking the Traditionalist skill disables this ability but giving the Falcon additional 50% hp. While this means the Falcon will only ever get to use a single weapon, it can have an effective health of up to 849,375, which is the by far the highest in the game. And this is before taking additional skills and abilities that boost damage resistance further or granting regeneration...
  • Master Swordsman: The backstory for Michelle Dubois, a Legendary Pilot for the Raven robot, narrates that she learned fencing to imitate heroes from swashbuckler stories back in Earth. Her portrait even depicts her in a futuristic rendition of a fencer attire from those times and a sheathed smallsword strapped to her belt.
  • Maximum HP Reduction: While any type of damage can become irrepairable (represented by a grey space expanding from the right of your robot's HP gauge) if hit steadily enough, sonic weapons specialize in this regard, shaving off as much Grey Durability as the damage they deal.
  • MegaCorp: This game is set in a futuristic Earth ruled by five corporations named DSC (Defense and Security Conglomerate), Icarus Technologies, SpaceTech, Yan-Di Ventures, and EvoLife, all specialized in creating war robots to not only fight one another over control of Earth but to colonize space.
  • Melting-Pot Nomenclature: Most pilots have names from one ethnicity and surnames from another, with the most glaring examples being "Kaito Randell", "Ji-min Smith", and "Takeshi Goldhirsch". This is justified as the game is set in a future in which humans colonized other planets after a cataclysm decimated most of the Earth, so there could be people of many ethnicities and races mingling with one another.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • The Vityaz is tough for a Tier 1 robot because of its impressive HP and weapon configuration (1 Heavy, 2 Light) that allows it to be used as a brawler (short-range weapons) or sniper when in early-game, but it's also slow to compensate with its durability.
    • The Natasha is a bulky Tier 2 robot with high HP and slow speed whose weapon configuration (2 Heavy, 2 Light) makes it either suitable to be a brawler or a sniper. However, the aforementioned HP and slow speed drives players to use it in the latter role.
    • Fury is a bulky robot with three spaces for Heavy weapons and nothing else, which makes it suitable for trashing enemies from mid-range. However, the placement of its weapons and slow speed makes it vulnerable to brawler robots.
    • While Titans are stronger and slower than regular robots, the Rook is a notorious example of this trope. It's basically a walking fortress with how slow it moves, but it has space for two Beta and one Alpha weapons, which allows it to rain heavy fire with the right configuration. Moreover, it also has the ability to regenerate its built-in shields in case they're destroyed and also can take off into the air to crash into foes, inflicting knockback and Suppression in the process.
  • More Dakka:
    • The Molot family of weapons, with maximum range of 800 m. The Punisher family also overlaps with Gatling Good.
    • Many robots have built-in weapons to supplement their standard mounted weapons. Special mention goes to the Ares which not only has two light and two medium weapon slots, but also has four additional built in energy weapons.
  • Mundane Utility: The intial startup screen during the Christmas event 2024 depicts several pilots hanging out at a bar, which has a big neon sign reading, "Under Ancile", which not only implies it's the bar's name, but that the Ancile shield itself is also used to protect civilian venues.
  • Nitro Boost: Some robots come with abilities that give them speed boosts by activating their propellers or using magnetic fields.
  • Noah's Story Arc: The backstory for Peregrin Raine, a Legendary Pilot whose special ability boosts Scald, Scorcher, and Incinerator into ignoring enemies' defense systems, parallels Noah's Ark in the near future. Peregrin's grandfather was a laughingstock for predicting that the five corporations' decadent behavior would lead to the Cataclysm, even as he built a bunker and bought advanced crop technology from EvoLife, high-quality elecricity generators, and the best medicine from SpaceTech. Come year 2080, an explosion happened in South America, but the populace kept laughing at Grandpa Raine until they found out the explosion was devastating enough to drive the corporations to make Arks en route to Mars. At that point, they tried too late to get in the bunker, but it was futile.
  • Nonstandard Character Design: Nova Light, a Legendary Pilot for the Bagliore, is the only Pilot designed like an anime character, contrasting with the rest of them who are rendered in 3D with a realistic design. However, this is justified as the backstory and the flickers of her design both imply she's a computer virus who simply manifests as the hologram of an anime girl.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Marksmen skirmish mode assigns all players on both teams with five MK3 Stalkers each, which in turn have 1 HP and equipped with a single Kang Dae sniper rifle each. The goal of this mode is to wipe out all rivals as everyone has to avoid being one-shotted.
  • Only in It for the Money: The backstory for Ishikawa Saizou, a Legendary Pilot for the Bersagliere Titan, always preferred monetary gain above all else, refusing to defer to DSC despite being born in one of their colonies. This became the most defining trait for his character as he got a contract on the life of an Icarus commander whom he worked for, making betrayal part of his nature as he became a ruthless mercenary.
  • Our Gargoyles Rock: Gothic Mars, the limited-edition version of Mars, is designed after a gargoyle to complement its gothic-architecture theme. Not only does it have gargoyle wings on the sides from which the joints for its weapons come out, but its turret is also designed after said creature.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: Oona Glow, a Legendary Pilot for the Minos Titan, is a futuristic rendition of a fairy, what with her pointy ears, antennae, and high-tech butterfly wings. Knowing that some other Pilots have Little Bit Beastly traits as a result of augmentation, it's implied she's a human who got fairy-like augmentations.
  • Our Minotaurs Are Different: Tier III Titan Minos is designed after a minotaur, complete with horns and legs shaped like bull hooves. Its primary ability, Charge, gives it a tremendous speed boost and an electromagnetic field that knocks back enemies in its way.
  • The Paralyzer: The Yan-Di corporation has series of weapons specializing in inflicting the Lock-Down effect to immobilize enemy robots, such as Magnetar and Pulsar, Halo and Shredder, and lately, the short-range Shifang, Leiming, and Fengbao series. Icarus also has one in the Puncher machinegun.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse:
    • Just because a robot is Light or small doesn't mean they cannot be dangerous. The Pursuer can have up to 3 Gusts and its stealth capabilities allow it to wail and wreck a much bigger robot within seconds. Hellburners are classed as small mechs, but their power makes them extremely capable suicide/scout mechs dealing tons of damage.
  • Pirate Girl: Kate O'Donnell, a Legendary Pilot whose special ability boosts Lock-Down-inflicting weapons, is a female pirate and her backstory states that she became a crewmate of the Griffin's Rage since she met them.
  • Player Versus Environment: Extermination is a PvE mode in which you fight off droves of arachnid-based enemy robots controlled by the CPU throughout five stages, giving you bonus items like Keys, Gold, Silver, and Platinum depending on your performance.
  • Playful Hacker: The backstory for Jude Pryce, a Legendary Pilot for the Newton Titan, narrates that she loved computers and programming since she was a child. However, her father later sent her to martial-arts classes for fear she would be bullied for her unusual hobbies, which paid off as it became another of her passions. Moreover, her three special skills are themed after hacking.
  • Poison Is Corrosive: Bane, Toxin, and Venom are a family of weapons that are stated to shoot corrosive projectiles that cause Damage Over Time as a result.
  • Pretty in Mink: Sigrid Solmer's portrait shows her wearing a fur coat over her tight-fitting spacesuit, and she's not only a Legendary Pilot for the Bjorn Titan, but also the manager of an In-Universe rock band called WARP.
  • Professional Gambler: The backstory for Gintare Kairyte, Crisis's Legendary Pilot, is that she not only betted on the number zero despite the odds, but spent all her savings to open a casino near the Under Ancile bar, which became famous after she won her latest number-zero bet.
  • Psychic Powers: The backstory for Seven, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Ochokochi, implies she has these kind of powers as she narrates about "caring people in white coats" ask her to see the future or heal someone's disease until she had enough and used her powers to remotely control said robot, with her portrait showing she has prosthetics coming out of her head.
  • Real-Place Background: Some stages used as the robots' fight arenas are based in real-world places, such as Yamantau, Rome, and Shenzhen.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
    • DSC (Defense and Security Conglomerate):
      • Siren and Harpy are named after the female avian monsters from Greek mythology, with their respective special abilities consisting in setting up trans-locators before taking off and gaining a Reflector Shield, with a second activation teleporting them back to the locator while being able to launch a special missile from midair that inflicts status effects on detonation. However, the difference is that Siren's missile inflicts Freeze while Harpy's inflicts Blast.
      • Gareth, Galahad, Lancelot, and the Titan Arthur are knight-themed robots with built-in physical shields and are named after characters from Arthurian legend.
    • Icarus Technologies' Kumiho, Haechi, Bulgasari, Imugi, and Samjok are named after creatures from Korean mythology.
    • SpaceTech's Ao Qin, Ao Guang, Ao Jun, and their Titan Ao Ming are a family of flying robots which are collectively named the "Chinese Dragon" series as the former two are named after Dragon Kings from Chinese mythology.
    • Yan-Di Ventures' Ravana and the Indra Titan are based off figures from Hindu Mythology — the demon king of Lanka and antagonist of Ramayana, and the Top God of the Vedic religion, respectively.
    • EvoLife:
      • Snaer, Skadi, and Hel are a family of Freeze Ray weapons and therefore are named after the ancient-Norse word for "winter", the Norse goddess of winter, and the Norse queen of the Underworld, respectively.
      • Morana, Chione, and Jotunn are a series of cryogenic-missile-launching weapons named after beings of ice from different mythologies, with the first one being a Slavic goddess of winter and death, the second one a Greek snow nymph, and the last one being the frost giants from Norse mythos.
      • Loki, Tyr, Fafnir, and Fenrir robots are named after gods and monsters from Norse mythology. Spider Tanks Fujin and Raijin, on the other hand, are named after Japanese gods.
      • Huginn and Muninn, the signature weapons for the Bjorn Titan, are named after the crows that accompany Odin.
  • Rich Boredom: The backstory for Tobias Mwangi, Legendary Pilot for the Bulwark robot, narrates that despite being the third son of a Yan-Di council member and therefore a noble by default, he felt his life was senseless and boring as he sought happiness. When a war broke out, he wanted to know what happened, and therefore bought a Bulwark and hired a Pilot instructor despite his parents' opposition.
  • Rollerblade Good: The Lynx is the only robot with wheels instead of feet, as it's designed with a specialty in stealth and assassination capabilities.
  • Set Bonus: While Rare (blue), Epic (purple), and Legendary (orange) Pilots work with any type of robot, the latter tier of Pilots have special skills that can only be activated by piloting a specific robot. For example, both Bai "WhiteStar" Xing and Hugo Booker can only activate their special skills when piloting Shenlou.
  • Situational Damage Attack:
    • Icarus' multi-laser weapons, Taeja (Light), Yeoje (Medium), and Hwangje (Heavy) have three additional beams around its main one, which shoot all at once. However, the three lasers will deactivate in sequence as the weapon starts to overheat, with the overall damage decreasing by a grand total of 75% until it stops firing and cools off.
    • SpaceTech's Blight (Light), Hazard (Medium), and Decay (Heavy), and all its variations shoot short three-shot strafes, with every shot following the first dealing 200% damage.
    • Spark, Scourge, and Calamity are a family of electric weapons that fire an electrical arc that deals damage inversely proportional to the distance between you and the enemy (the closer you are, the more damage they deal).
    • The homing machinegun family, comprised by Kramola, Razdor, and Smuta, not only shoots rounds that home in on locked-on enemy robots after flying a certain distance, but their rate of fire increases by 30% when firing continuously for a long time, thus dealing more damage and overwhelming robots with shields/barriers.
    • DSC's Fainter not only inflicts Lock-Down on enemies after a certain number of hits, but it can deal mid-reload reduced damage after emptying its full clip.
  • Shockwave Stomp: Some Legendary Titans can inflict this by taking off and landing on enemies.
    • Rook has a primary ability called Castling, which causes it to take off for a few hundred meters before hurling itself into an enemy to crash into them feet-first, creating a shockwave that causes considerable damage and inflicts Suppression.
    • Luchador has a primary ability called Frog Splash, which causes it to jump and can land by either gliding or hurling itself downward, creating a shockwave that damages enemies in a total radius of 150m, inflicts 20% Suppression on them, and gives the Titan a Reflector shield — those within a 50m radius the wave will receive up to 70% more damage than those outside of it but within the 100m radius.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better:
    • Thunder, Gust, and Storm are Tier 1 shotguns that deal high damage at close quarters.
    • Icarus' Gangil, Mogwan, and Kirin are futuristic shotguns that shoot balls of lightning at enemies within a radius of 350m.
  • Skill Gate Characters:
    • At first, it was robots with in-built barrier and lack of mobility. Absolutely wrecks lower leagues due to rarity of energy weapons at that level, but becomes fodder at higher ranks. The Fujin is this incarnate; its inbuilt barrier is better than the Ancille but its health is mediocre at best and it has to become immobile to activate its barrier. If the enemy possess energy weapons, the Fujin will be dead in very short order. Lancelots and Bulgasaris were also infamous for a long time.
    • It then became robots with Stealth built in. Without a module that's only made to defeat stealth modes, you're a sitting duck, especially against high-level mechs with high-level weapons. At first, it was Inquisitor and Pursuer mechs, but with the introduction of the Chinese Dragon series that deploy built-in weapons and flying modes when stealthed, Ao Juns dominate the meta.
    • Finally, mechs whose specials are invulnerable shields. At first mostly ignored, they were buffed, and much like the Stealth mechs, players without a specific mech are unable to do damage to these shields - worse, attacking the shield makes their built-in lasers stronger.
  • Sniper Rifle: Kinetic weapons like Yan-Di's Kang Dae and Nashorn, and railguns like EvoLife's Gauss and Icarus' Trebuchet act like this by shooting a single projectile that causes great damage at greater distances, taking a long time to reload.
  • Sonic Stunner: The game has an array of sonic weapons such as Scatter, Havoc, and Devastator/Growler, Howler, and Screamer, which cause irrepairable damage to enemy robots.
  • Space Pirate: Captain Clyde, the Legendary Pilot for the Mars robot, is one, complete with cape, a clawed prosthetic arm in the shape of a hook, and a pistol. His backstory being that he pilots a ship named Griffin's Rage and always told wildly different stories of how he became a pirate, but the most consistent accounts was that he was the apprentice of an old pilot named Mr. Stross before then.
  • Spider Tank: has incorportated several of these in later updates, each one with different capabilities.
    • Most of the enemies in the Extermination game mode are spider-like mechs with area-damage abilities that can chip your robots. While Ticks are the weakest and unable to attack, Wanderers have shotguns to chip you up close. Tarantulas and Karakurts can shoot projectilea that can immobilize and freeze your robot, respectively.
    • Rayker is a light-weight robot with four thin long legs and two slots for Light weapons, thus making it suitable as a support robot. Its special ability, Glance, allows it to fire five red beams from its built-in weapon that inflict Suppression on targets for five seconds, essentially weakening them.
    • Invader is a four-legged mech which like the one mentioned above has two spaces for Light weapons, but it not only differs for being heavier, but its special ability, Incursion, allows it to leap into the air and gain 33% damage reduction during the jump and five seconds afterwards. Moreover, it can perform a body slam mid-jump to inflict low damage based on Invader's level and Suppression on enemy robots.
    • Fujin and Raijin are both heavy four-legged robots whose respective abilities, Sentry Mode and Bastion Mode, allow them to elevate their torsos for a larger field of view. However, Sentry Mode gives Fujin an energy shield while allowing it to move freely while Bastion Mode raises physical barriers to protect the Raijin while disabling its ability to move its legs.
    • Weyland is a four-legged support mech that specializes in repairing other robots with its special ability, Repair Mode, which creates a healing area around the robot that repairs allies within a radius of 80m and bestows them with a 32% damage-reduction buff in exchange for reduced speed.
    • Skyros and Freedom Skyros are four-legged mechs both built to look like a giant mechanical tick; it has a built-in Aegis Shield that protects it from incoming damage (except railguns) and its Metamorphosis special ability allows it to curl itself into a ball to regenerate it.
    • Imugi and Ardent Imugi are four-legged mechs whose Battle Breach ability allows it to transform into a flying vehicle and become undetectable to enemies, on top of creating wormholes in both takeoff and landing points upon landing.
    • Dagon is a rare floating variant; it's a six-legged mech with spaces for six Light-weight weapons and a built-in Aegis shield. Its special ability, Shield Surge, drastically increases both its movement speed and Aegis Shield regeneration rate.
    • Dux is an interesting example because of its inverted body (as in, head peeking from the underside of its body) and a passive ability that allows it to be accompanied by three small bots with their own weapons that shoot alongside it. Its special ability, Mastermind, increases the damage dealt by its equipped weapons by 60% and adds Defense Mitigation effect by 100%. During the ability's activation time, the defense bot will boost Dux's speed and grant it an Aegis Shield while the repairing bot will gradually restore its Durability.
    • Ravager is a six-legged tank with five slots for Medium-weight weapons. Its special ability, Veil allows it to turn its legs into wheels, giving it a high speed boost while putting it in Stealth mode and removing status effects like Rust, Blind, Suppression, and Slowdown before giving it five-second immunity to said effects. Moreover, ending this ability will not only change Ravager back to its legged form, but give a temporary damage boost by 15%.
  • Surfer Dude: Legendary Pilot Eddie Noll is a futuristic version of one — he's depicted as tanned and with long blond hair, holding a surfboard with SpaceTech's logo on it, and wears a Hawaiian T-shirt over his spacesuit. Moreover, he even has an ability named "Ride the Waves", which increases the rate of fire of shotguns.
  • Status Effects: Being a game about robots fighting each other and gaining experience, it has pretty unique status effects and even shows the exact time these will last once inflicted.
    • Freeze will slow down the affected robot and make it more vulnerable to all damage.
    • FreezeBlast detonates a freezing explosion on the affected robot once inflicted, freezing any of its allies within a radius of 120m.
    • Lock-Down is an effect that locks the affected robot's legs, essentially rendering them immobile save for using weapons.
    • EMP, short for Electro-Magnetic Pulse, will shut down the affected robot's active abilities and modules.
    • Suppression reduces the damage output of all of the affected robot's weapons by a fixed percentage, no matter if these are equippable, built-in, Drones, or even motherships.
    • Rust slows down the affected robot's repair effectiveness (ie. healing rate), and the fact that's stackable up to 30 times can severely cripple an enemy robot's ability to be healed.
    • DoT (Damage Over Time) is exactly as it sounds; it will inflict continuous damage on the affected robot even when not shot at.
    • Blindcharge affects the target's aiming system, rendering it unable to lock down on enemies for a short period of time.
    • Taunt renders the target unable to aim and lock target on any enemy that isn't the one who inflicted it.
    • Blastcharge detonates an explosion on the targeted robot, dealing severe area damage on other enemy robots within a radius of 50m from the explosion. It is represented by an orange flame emerging from the affected robot.
    • Resonance detonates a sonic explosion on the targeted robot once inflicted, dealing gray (irrepairable) area damage to other enemy robots within a radius of 50m from the explosion. It is represented by a blue circle with white circular particles on the affected robot.
  • The Straight and Arrow Path: Legendary Titan Bersagliere has a bow as its built-in weapon, which can only be activated by using its Fatigue Shot primary ability.
  • Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors:
    • Energy Weapons bypass energy barriers, but otherwise don't do anything extra against physical shields. Robots with physical shields can safely tank energy blasts with impunity.
    • Explosive rockets and missiles bypass physical shields, but blocked by energy barriers. To a robot equipped with the latter, Explosive weapons tend to be like mosquitoes. That being said, beware a swarm of mosquitoes.
    • Kinetic weapons are Jack of All Stats. While Energy and Explosive weapons tend to go for burst, Kinetics are often about sustained damage and although they bypass neither shields nor barriers, they deal extra damage against physical shields and their sheer volume of fire can quickly deplete energy barriers. They also have a variant for each engagement range; Shotguns and Rotary cannons for close range, Autocannons for medium-long range, and BFG cannons for long-range engagements.
  • Take Cover!: Because barriers, shields and your robot's health can only help so much. Some robots have asymmetrical hardpoint placement, allowing them to shoot from behind covers.
  • Tea Is Classy: Legendary Pilot Gina Bertini's portrait shows her drinking tea, with her Flavor Text describing how she makes the tea before ending with "watching the pathetic machinations of enemies from the top of the corporate ladder", giving the implication she's from one of the richest families.
  • Teleport Spam: The Shenlou has a special ability called Chain Blink which not only allows it to teleport behind a targeted enemy within a radius of 350m, but can be used in chain to teleport behind the same target or another one within the same radius until time runs out and the robot teleports back to its initial spot, stacking energy shields in the process.
  • Theme Naming: Most of the robots in the game follow a theme, be it mythology, occupation, or even people.
    • Repair-focused robots and Titans (with the exception of Weyland and Sirius) are named after gods and concepts of healing — Khepri (Egyptian sun god that symbolizes creation and life), Demeter (Greek goddess of agriculture and fertility), Nightingale (named after Florence Nightingale), Nodens (a Celtic god of healing, sea, and dogs).
    • DSC (Defense and Security Conglomerate):
      • Jesse, Doc, and Butch are a set of robots named after Wild West gunmen Jesse James, Doc Holliday, and Butch Cassidy, respectively. This also reflects the robots' gunslinger theme as each one of them has four slots for a specific weapon weight but can only use two weapons at a time, with their Quick Draw ability allowing them to switch between sets.
      • Scald, Scorcher, and Incinerator are a family of incendiary rocket launchers whose names share a theme of burning things to the ground.
    • SpaceTech:
      • Gust, Storm, and Thunder are a series of basic shotguns named after metereological events.
      • Kramola, Razdor, and Smuta, a family of Homing Projectile machineguns, are named around a theme of resistance and civil unrest, as they're Russian words for "sedition", "discord", and "turmoil" respectively.
      • Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, a series of Life Drain energy weapons, are named after the title characters from The Three Musketeers.
      • Scatter, Havoc, and Devastator are a family of high-damage sonic weapons, all named after a theme of disturbance owing to shooting focused sonic blasts.
      • Blight, Hazard, and Decay, a family of weapons that shoot strafes of three blasts with the second and third ones dealing increased damage of up to 200%, is named after concepts of deterioration and harm.
    • EvoLife:
      • Claw, Jaw, and Talon are a family of close-range missile launchers designed to weaken enemy robots and hamper their recovery, and are named after appendages that predatory animals use to attack and cripple prey.
      • Volt, Weber, and Gauss are part of a series of railguns reaching up to a 800m radius, named after electricity-measurement units.
      • Tamer, Damper, and Subduer are a family of quick-shot energy weapons that inflict Rust on enemies and are named after concepts of subjugation and repression.
      • Bane, Toxin, and Venom are weapons that shoot corrosive liquid at targets and therefore their names share a poison/dangerous-chemical theme.
    • Yan-Di Ventures:
      • Shifang, Leiming, and Fengbao, are named after the concept of thunderstorms; they're Chinese for "discharge", "thunder rolls", and "storm", respectively.
      • Needle, Spike, and Stake are named after pointy objects to reflect they're a rare family of melee weapons that deploy harpoons that pierce enemy energy-shields.
      • Howler, Growler, and Screamer are a family of low-damage yet Resonance-inflicting sonic weapons whose names share a theme of animal noises.
      • Sting, Wasp, and Hornet are named after venomous appendages/insects and are a family of kinetic weapons that inflict Damage Over Time on enemies and thus their names share a theme of venom injection.
      • Cestus, Ksiphos, and Labrys is named after ancient-Greek weapons with symbolic meanings and are a family of medium-range grenade launchers that inflict AoE damage and inflict the Blast status effect with enough impacts.
      • Halo, Corona, and Glory are named after phenomenons related to sunlight, yet they shoot horizontal arcs of energy that can immobilize groups of enemies at close range.
      • Marquess, Hussar, and Dragoon, a family of highly-accurate automatic weapons, is named after old European ranks of war.
    • Icarus Technologies:
      • Quarker, Atomizer, and Nucleon are named after nuclear-physics terms and are a family of energy machineguns with unlimited ammo and high accuracy that overheat when firing for too long.
      • Arbalest, Balista, and Trebuchet are part of a series of energy railguns reaching up to a 1100m radius and are named after catapult-type weapons to match.
      • Cudgel, Mace, and Hammer are a family of shotguns with a maximum radius of 500m that are more effective at 200m or less and are named after blunt weapons to reflect that.
      • Taeja, Yeoje, and Hwangje, a family of multi-laser weapons, are all named after royalty; they're Korean words for "crown prince", "empress", and "emperor", respectively.
  • Thrill Seeker: James Velocci, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Condor robot, is said in his backstory to be bored from trying to test his robots in junkyard for possible flaws, leading him to find a clandestine club in which pilots had fun competing in dangerous terrain at high velocity.
  • Transforming Mecha:
    • The Skyros and all its variants' special ability, Metamorphose, allows them to transform from a quadrupedal robot into a ball and move by rolling. While it can replenish its shield meter while in ball mode, said shield is only usable in its quadrupedal walker form, so you should be sure there's no enemies around before transforming.
    • The Imugi and all its variants have the ability Battle Breach, which allows them to temporarily transform into a flying vehicle by folding its legs and expanding its wings. While in flight mode, Imugi obtains the STEALTH effect, allowing it to avoid damage from most weapons and create a bidirectional teleporter between its takeoff and landing points, repairing any robot that passes through it while giving them a Resistance bonus.
  • The Turret Master: DSC's Mars has a built-in incendiary turret on its top that auto-fires at targeted enemies. Its special ability, Remote Assault, allows it to launch said turret at high distances to shoot enemies with a higher rate of fire while giving the robot a speed boost.
  • Vampire Vannabe: Anna Basarab, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Mars robot, is depicted as a pale woman in a futuristic rendition of a Victorian-style a red-and-black dress that evokes a vampire — which fits with her backstory of claiming to be a descendant of ancient vampire Vlad Basarab (the setting's name for Dracula). However, her Flavor Text implies there's rumors about her being really a vampire after a former employee of hers called her a "blood-sucking leech".
  • Variable Player Goals: The Cat & Mice Skirmish mode is a 1v4 Beacon Rush match in which one player will be assigned the role of the Cat and borrow MK3 Legendary robots to hunt down the other four, who as the Mice will be assigned three weaponless Cossacks each. While the two sides have the same goal of controlling the most beacons in the stage, the Cat player also wins if they wipe out all the Mice, whose only goal to win is to hold out and survive until time runs out or the Cat runs out of points.
  • Walking Tank: While most of these robots resemble mechas as they normally have weapons mounted where their arms would be, some of them, like Schutze and Gepard are tanks with legs instead of treads.
  • Wave-Motion Gun:
    • Trebuchet (and its derivatives) is a long-range weapon with Charged Attack functionality. Once charged to its maximum capacity, it will become this.
    • The Anti-Titan robot, Hawk. While it looks like a normal robot on the ground, it's special ability temporarily transforms it into a flying energy cannon. This cannon deals enormous damage and bypasses damage resistance of enemies, making it extremely effective against Titans. Not only that, Hawk is also protected by a damage-reflecting shield when flying, making it nigh-impossible to kill a Hawk when it's in the air.
  • White-Collar Crime: The backstory for Elizabeth Green, a Legendary Pilot for the Ophion robot, narrates that her father started off as an engineer working for DSC, but he was an underhanded man who accepted bribes and sold the department's latest innovations to other factions and people. While he toned it down when he married a teacher in the Academy and thus Elizabeth was born, the man's crimes caught up with him as DSC's special service agents took the girl's mother away for interrogation, thus ruining the Greens' life after he was judged.
  • Wolverine Claws: Vepkho Lovidze, one of two Legendary Pilots for the Ochokochi robot, is shown with claws emerging from the knuckles of his gloves.
  • Zerg Rush: The Ticks from the Extermination game mode are minuscule enemies whose only weapon is a device that inflicts slow AoE damage, and they go down in less than a second. However, they're a threat in groups as they can converge their AoE weapons on you for increased damage, especially when accompanying stronger enemies like Tarantulas, Recluses, Wanderers, or Karakurts.