Killzone

The last guy he pointed at died.
"[...] Though they sweep over our lands like the sands of winter, never again will we bow before them; never again endure their oppression; never again endure their tyranny. We will strike without warning and without mercy; fighting as one hand, one heart, one soul. We will shatter their dreams and haunt their nightmares, drenching our ancestors' graves with their blood. And as our last breath tears at their lungs, as we rise again from the ruins of our cities... they will know, Helghan belongs to the Helghast."
—Scolar Visari's second Rousing Speech.

Killzone is a series of first-person shooters exclusive to the PlayStation consoles, developed by Netherlands-based Guerrilla Games.

The first game is set in an era of space colonization where the Helghast Empire has recovered from its defeat in the First Helghan War and launched a blitzkrieg against the outer Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (I.S.A.) colony planet Vekta. Vekta's orbital Strategic Defense platforms failed during the initial assault, allowing the Helghast to land swarms of soldiers onto the surface and making it all the more difficult for the outnumbered ISA forces.

You take the role of either Jan Templar, Shadow Marshall Luger, Rico Velasquez or Gregor Hakha to stop the Helghast from taking over, as well as uncover the plot that threatens to destroy the ISA from within.

About two months after the events of the first game, the Helghast have been dealt a hefty blow, but the war is far from over. The enemy still controls large parts of the planet Vekta, and though the ISA armies are fighting hard, they are losing ground. The rules of war have been cast aside with the sadistic Helghast General, Armin Metrac, employed by the Helghast Emperor Scolar Visari to use brutal measures in order to seize the initiative and strengthen his position further. Returning as Jan Templar, players will be sent on a covert operation to save hostages captured by Metrac, while ISA troops continue the fight for liberty.

Two years after the Helghast assault on Vekta, the ISA has launched an assault on the enemy's homeworld of Helghan. The ISA goal is to capture the Helghast leader, Scolar Visari, and bring the Helghast war machine to a halt. Players assume the role of Sergeant Tomas "Sev" Sevchenko, a battle-hardened veteran of the special forces unit Alpha Team, who go on a mission to take out the Helghast threat.

During the invasion of Helghan, Sev's unit is deployed behind enemy lines to assist the main invasion force. Tasked with securing the enemy capital of Pyrrhus, the team quickly discovers that the Helghast are a more formidable enemy on their home planet. Not only have they adjusted to Helghan's hostile conditions, they have also harnessed the power of the freakish lightning storms that always occur on Helghan which they can now use against the ISA. A barren, unforgiving world, Helghan provides a ready defense with thick, acidic air, dust clouds, violent lightning storms and electric spiders. Sev discovers his squad is not just fighting enemy forces; their fiercest opponent may be the planet itself.

Killzone 3 begins exactly where the previous game left off, and is spent surviving long enough to find a way off of the damn planet. While Killzone: Shadow Fall takes place on Vekta 20-30 years after those events, where the ISA and the surviving, relocated Helghast are forced in a tense co-existence following the seeming destruction of Helghan itself at the end of Killzone 3.

So far the series includes:

Tropes used in Killzone include:
  • Absent Aliens - No extraterrestrials here, despite being halfway through the millennium. The Helghast themselves are just descendants of a group/corporation of Vektan colonists, who rebelled against the Earth government with the intention to declare independence and keep the colonial property for themselves. For this, they were banished for their crimes to the neighboring Death World planet of Helghan. There they underwent a bit of Hollywood Evolution due to the extreme climate and biochemical conditions of the atmosphere and became an offshoot/subspecies of regular humans. Helghan itself does have a variety of native Flora and Fauna, none of which is sapient.
  • Aerith and Bob - While the ISA all have regular names not out of place in modern-day America, the Helghast tend to have more exotic, vaguely Eastern European ones like Visari, Stahl and Radec.
  • All There in the Manual - The game's official website has a section detailing the backstory of the Helghast and the ISA. In fact, said backstory can even lead to...
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different - From Templar to Sev. (Of course, with Templar's importance, he wouldn't exactly be on the field.)
  • Anyone Can Die - Made prevalent in Killzone 2 when the plot calls for it.
  • Asskicking Equals Authority - Being a militant culture, Helghast promotion seems to be based significantly on personal martial skill (although ideological loyalty seems to be an even more important factor). On the ISA side, Captain Templar ends up being promoted to Colonel as well as Fleet Commander due to the copious amounts of asskicking he performs in the original Killzone and Killzone: Liberation.
  • Attack Drone - The Helghast love these.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking - Colonel Cobar, General Metrac, and Colonel Radec.
  • Awesome Yet Practical - The Lightning Gun. While it has moderate range, it is sure to hit enemies even when they're behind cover or your aim is off-center, it arcs between enemies, works great on those damn drones, has infinite ammo (just a short recharge) and is fun to use when you're feeling particularly sadistic.
    • The StA3 LMG is this in 3, being an all-round useful gun whose only drawback is its accuracy (which has actually improved from the previous game), although you wouldn't really be concerning yourself with accuracy in the situations you use it in.
  • Badass Normal - ISA soldiers Jan Templar and especially Tomas "Sev" Sevchenko.
  • Bad Boss - Colonel Radec. If you stop to listen in to his soldiers talking:

Helghast 1: "Did you hear? Two grunts from our unit got executed by Radec?"
Helghast 2: "No shit? What for? Cowardice? Defeatism?"
Helghast 1: "Uniform violations. I shit you not."
Helghast 2: "'The Dress Code is the foundation of discipline...'"

  • Battle Couple - Rico and Jammer in KZ 3 (possibly).
  • Bald of Evil/ Bald of Awesome - The Helghast in general, except for General Metrac and Jorhan Stahl, who have hair. Somewhat justified in that the baldness among the Helghast is a result of the original colonists being forced to adopt to life on Helghan, though there are still those who retain hair.
  • Better to Die Than Be Killed - After being defeated, Colonel Radec and his men commit suicide so as not to become prisoners of the ISA.
  • Bittersweet Ending - The ending of Killzone: Shadow Fall stops short of all-out war between the ISA and Helghast breaking out. On the other hand, the main protagonist for most of the game's killed unceremoniously and Chancellor Visari, implied to have known about the whole affair all along, going off the hook.
  • Bling of War - Colonel Radec
  • But Not Too Foreign - Hakha is half-Vektan, half-Helghast. How that worked is anyone's guess.
    • Well, when two people love each other very much...
    • Helghast are slightly mutated humans, reproduction between them and unchanged humans should still be possible.
      • Or...
    • It's revealed in Killzone: Shadow Fall that Chancellor Visari has a half-Helghast daughter. And she's revealed to be a covert operative going by the name "Echo."
  • The Captain - Captain Jason Narville is a hard ass with a low tolerance for failure, but he never puts his men through things he wouldn't do himself. He also gets such results that earn him respect from both his superiors and his men. In the sequel though, he has shown tendency to make questionable command decisions with his incessant prioritizing of his men above all else, which isn't a bad thing for a superior, but shows that he's not the best overall commander to have.
  • Character Development - Rico in Killzone 3. Despite massively breaking it in the second game and still disobeying Narville's orders from time to time, he does learn to be more responsible in taking care of his men and ends up saving the lives of Jammer, Sev, and Narville (all in the same game!). He also apologizes about killing Visari and is shown to be a very competent leader to his Raiders.
  • Colonel Kilgore/ Sociopathic Soldier - Colonel Cobar
  • Cultured Badass - Gregor Hahka from the original. He is calm, cunning and exceptionally well educated when compared to most Helghast, and his knowledge of the old maxim involving Shakespeare and monkeys is apparently no longer common knowledge in the future.
  • Custom Uniform - Colonel Cobar, Colonel Radec and General Metrac.
  • Daddy's Little Villain - Chancellor Visari of New Helghan in Killzone: Shadow Fall subverts this. She sincerely wants what's best for her people and despite the tense situation, doesn't seek war unless the ISA fires first. On the other hand, she's implied to be secretly allowing Stahl and others to rebuild the Helghast's military might, as well as push through with their own plans as a deterrent to the ISA.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!! - A minor one in Killzone 3. In Killzone 2, when entering cover, you push up on the left analog stick to peek out. Zooming in with the right analog stick will be cancelled the moment you let go of the left analog stick. In Killzone 3, releasing pressure on the left stick does not cancel the zoom, leaving you exposed if you forget to toggle the zoom off.
  • Dead Little Brother - Hakha's brother was executed by General Lente.
  • Deadpan Snarker - Hakha, mostly to Rico.

Rico: "The mighty brain agrees with the grunt, that's a first."
Hakha: "Even a monkey will write Shakespeare given enough time."
Rico: "What the fuck is a Shakespeare?"

    • Shadow Marshal Luger's training did this to her.
  • Death World - Helghan. Not the most horrible example of the trope, but it is still an incredibly harsh landscape that forced its colonists to pretty much evolve into another subspecies of human being to survive. Also, giant fucking spiders (which are the source of the Petrucite the Helghast use as for very high end weaponry/fossil fuel), exploding mushrooms, and man-made hazards such as irradiated Petrucite everywhere.
    • Don't forget the plants which look like praying mantis blades which will strike out at you when you get too close to one of them.
    • It's even more of a Death World in Killzone: Shadow Fall thanks to the ending of Killzone 3.
  • Defiant to the End - "Without Authorisation from high command, those codes are going nowhere."
    • And then after he gets shot 3 times at point blank, Templar crawls to the main console, and shuts off the New Sun's altitude control thrusters, sending the ship diving into Tharsis refinery.
  • Downer Ending/ Shaggy Dog Story - Killzone 2, oh so very much.
    • Killzone 3 for the entire population of the planet Helghan. First they suffered for years under a inhumane regime before being hit by a weapon designed to wipe out a planets population.
    • Doubles as a Bittersweet Ending for the ISA. Though they finally won the war they'd spent seven months fighting, they lost a substantial amount of their own forces in the process. Even worse, they're likely to receive a less-than-warm welcome from their own people on Vekta.
  • The Dragon - Cobar to Metrac, Radec to Visari.
  • Dragon Their Feet - For whatever reason, Visari chose to keep the bulk of his forces in reserve until after he was dead.
    • It's revealed that Stahl and his dead father resented Visari in private even while feigning to support his rule in public. Though Stahl himself, ironically proves himself to be even more extreme than Visari.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome - Templar is killed by Colonel Radec on the bridge of the New Sun, but before he dies he successfully crashes the New Sun into Tharsis Refinery, cutting off power in Pyrrhus and the arc tower there.
    • A Villain version comes from Visari in Killzone 2. The ending makes it pretty clear that his death only made matters worse.Thanks a lot Rico.
  • Earthshattering Kaboom: Sort of, with Killzone 3's ending, which, while not ending with the outright destruction of Helghan itself, ends with Stahl's own weapon being used on it, which is heavily implied to have wiped out virtually everyone on the planet.
  • Emotionless Girl - Luger. With some exceptions.
  • Emotions vs. Stoicism - The dynamic of the main characters for the first game.
    • Shadow Marshal Luger used to be the love interest of Templar, before she underwent SM training. Hakha lampshades this, explaining it to Rico with amusement.
  • The Empire
  • Enemy Civil War - With Visari dead at the end of Killzone 2, in Killzone 3, Stahl and Orlock are fighting each other in order to become the new leader of the Helghast empire, which is a good thing for the protagonists (who just want to get off from planet Helghan) since the Helghast are just as busy killing each other as they are killing the ISA remnants.
  • Enforced Cold War - By Killzone: Shadow Fall, this has been the status quo on Vekta for the past decades. A large Wall separates the prosperous, ISA-run portion of the planet from "New Helghan," which was given to the relocated Helghast remnants. The breakdown of this cold war drives the plot of the game.
  • Escape From the Crazy Place - The plot for Killzone 3.
  • Evil Brit - The Helghast have British Accents while the ISA have American Accents.
  • Exact Words - Chancellor Visari in Killzone: Shadow Fall won't hesitate to defend her people and crush the opposition if the ISA strikes first. That doesn't stop her from supporting "deterrents" that would make that more likely.
  • Expy - Radec's and Metrac's uniforms in particular seem to have taken some inspiration from the Imperium in the 41st Millenium.
    • Plus there's the Helghast battle cries of "For the emperor!", coincidence?
      • Along with there being a very big weapon called the Boltgun, the ammunition of which explodes after embedding themselves in a target (and flinging them across the room).
    • And of course, the Helghast resemble, and are likely inspired by, the Protect Gears from Mamoru Oshii's Kerberos Saga. And the heavies in the second game seem a little familiar.
    • Scolar Visari was inspired by Adolf Hitler, with a dash of Vladimir Harkonnen.
      • To elaborate: he's an exceedingly charismatic leader who comes to power after a singularly devastating and disastrous war for his nation, rules like a dictator (see what happens to "pro-human" dissidents) even though he is so popular he probably doesn't need to, who spends a decade or so building the nation back up into a militarist superpower with an exceedingly racist (or Xenophobic) objective, who then starts a new war based on somewhat justifiable territorial claims. He certainly isn't a clear copy of Hitler (in many ways, Visari actually is what Hitler's followers thought/hoped he would be). However, another historical copy is perhaps (somewhat strangely) a darker copy of the American Revolution (perhaps Washington, Jefferson, etc get replaced by Lindenburg, Nye, etc)...
      • However, he doesn't suck militarily like Hitler did, actually letting his military officers do their job without leashing them to his moods and whims. Compare Hitler's treatment of Alfred Jodl and Heinz Guderian to Visari's treatment of Radec and Metrac.
        • Hitler's military merits have been disputed for as long as he was alive, but Hitler was not as utterly incompetent as most of the OKW made him out to be after the fact, and indeed his daring approach sometimes paid spectacular dividends (as it did in 1940). It was after HIS plan in the USSR started to go for pot that he really started to go crazy militarily. Visari only really breaks from Hitler in KZ 2, where he allows his officers to plan the defense of Helghan without really breathing down their necks or getting in their way.
    • The Helghast submachine gun is an Uzi receiver with the magazine, grip and stock of a PP-19 Bizon.
      • On a simliar note, the ISA silenced smg in KZ 3 is a MP-7.
      • And the ISA M82 assault rifle is clearly based off the British SA 80 series, with an EoTech holographic sight (albeit with a green dot instead of a red reticule).
    • Orlock is an Expy of Ludendorff. Yeah, he guy that commanded the German army in World War I. Find a picture in the other wiki, and you will be struck by the similar look.
    • Rico Velasquez, at least in the first game, is an expy of Vasquez from Aliens. An Ambiguously Brown, foul mouthed tough soldier who wields a huge machine assisted minigun? The only difference is gender.
    • The Enforced Cold War between the ISA and New Helghan on Vekta in Killzone: Shadow Fall has more than a few parallels to the historic Cold War. Not only is there a planetary Wall separating the two camps, but befitting the analogy, the Helghast increasingly resemble East Germany in contrast to the more obvious Nazi influences in previous games.
  • Eye Scream: A recent trailer for Killzone 3 shows a Helghast having a knife jammed in his eye. This is apparently a part of the new melee system, which means you may get to do that in game
    • Another preview has Sev shoving his thumbs into two Helghast eyesockets. Yes, he broke the goggles to shove them in.
  • Fantastic Racism - Between the humans and the Helghast.
    • Averted in one situation in the sequel. Despite how much he hated them, Rico spared the life of a Helghast engineer, although this might be because he was a civilian.
    • Also averted in Radec's case as he doesn't care about conquest or Helghast claims of human inferiority. And strangely, Visari has a couple of aversions by having Metrac and Radec as senior officers despite their "Shortcomings" (like Metrac looking almost human, and Radec's aforementioned lack of zeal for Visari's fascist ideology).
      • This could all hint towards Visari not really believing in his ideology. His daughter, which is briefly seen in the KZ 3 intro looks completely human, having no Helghast features at all.
    • Rico nearly kills Hakha, a half-Helghan spy in the first game, due to this. While unarmed and left for dead after the Helghast found out he was a mole.
  • A Father to His Men - Captain Narville in Killzone 3 has this in spades. Unfortunately for him, Rico's Omniscient Morality License means that his gung-ho "do the hell whatever" approach always ends up being proven right, while Narville's much more conservative "follow orders" approach just keeps making him look bad.
  • Flat Character - Colonel Radec is a strange case of this. The Killzone Wiki has this to say about him: "It is almost as if he has willingly burned out any personality, education or characteristics that do not contribute in the swift and resolute execution of his duties."
    • Natko, whose only purpose in the story is to curse all the time.
  • Five-Man Band: In Kilzone 3:
  • For Massive Damage - The Killzone 2 Heavies have a oxygen cylinder than you have to riddle with holes in order to kill them, but to shoot THAT, first you have to hit them in the head to make them turn around.
    • Knife strikes (either by you or against you) generally mean instant death, as do melee attacks in general and straying within a sniper's sights for a fraction too long.
    • Played with during the battle with the MAWLR in 3. The objective of the fight is to shoot some incredibly obvious heatsinks that expose themselves every time it fires its main gun. After blowing them up, the MAWLR collapses. Here, you'd expect it magically explode from overheating. It only gets up and keeps firing while covered in flames. In the end, you resort to jumping onto a gunship and firing on everything you can see, including the bridge. Afterwards, the MAWLR collapses under literal massive damage.
  • Gaiden Game - Killzone: Liberation - a top-down shooter for the PSP.
  • Gas Mask Mooks - Coupled with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
  • Generation Xerox - Scolar Visari's daughter, who's seen in passing at the intro to Killzone 3, is the formal leader of New Helghan in Killzone: Shadow Fall. Unlike her father however, she's more willing to compromise with the ISA if it means securing peace for the surviving Helghast and won't wage war unless the ISA attack first. It's implied however that she's in on the plans being spearhead by Stahl on reignite the war, so long as it's a deterrent.
  • Genre Savvy - Chairman Stahl definitely has his moments, including outsmarting Autarch Orlock and "give me that! Stop broadcasting on an open channel!". He also gets a couple Idiot Ball moments to balance it out, though. Killzone: Shadow Fall reveals however that he's not only been instrumental in rebuilding the Helghast's military strength, but has hidden a bulk of that on the husks of Helghan, until the time's right to launch it on the ISA.
  • Godzilla Threshold - In Killzone 2 (and in the intro to Killzone 3), Visari resorts to detonating a stolen ISA nuke to stop the invading forces.
  • Good Colors, Evil Colors - The ISA wear light blue radios around their uniforms while the Helghast (of course) wear dark black masks with piercing red eyes.
  • Green Rocks - Petrucite, a literal glowing green rock native to Helgan. In Killzone 2 it's used to power Arc lightning cannons. It plays a fairly central role in Killzone 3's plot, while Stahl having weaponized it into beam weapons capable of making people explode into Ludicrous Gibs and super-nuclear warheads capable of one-shotting heavy cruisers.
  • Grimdark - Killzone 2, oh god Killzone 2!
    • Killzone 3 topped it. Especially with its ending.
    • Killzone: Shadow Fall seems to subvert this at first. Only to play it completely straight.
  • Hand Cannon - In addition to the huge revolvers the ISA carry as sidearms, 3 adds a tri-barreled shotgun pistol.
  • Heavyworlder - The Helghast, technically, but they don't seem that much stronger than normal humans judging by how both Templar and Sev are still able to crack their bald skulls in with a well-aimed rifle butt.
    • but then again, consider that the Petrucite they use to power everything is harvested from giant exploding spiders.
    • The Helghast are just humans who have adapted to Helghan's harsh environment not too long ago. While they were able to quickly adapt to be able to breathe there, increased strength as one would expect from a Heavyworlder would take some more time.
      • Which leads to a case of fridgelogic, as player character you can remove gattling guns and use them on foot. The only Helghast you will ever see doing something similar is the Heavy with his Chaingun, a man in a powered armor who is pumped full with drugs. All that despite the fact that Vekta has a lower gravitation than Helghast.
  • A House Divided - A major reason why the Helghast struggle to finish off the ISA forces on Helghan once and for all thanks to Visari being dead. Especially highlighted by the power struggle between Orlock and Stahl.
  • Humongous Multi-legged Battleship - The MAWLR in Killzone 3 is so huge, it takes several levels, and a whole lot of dakka missiles to kill it.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice/ Blown Across the Room/ Made of Explodium - The rounds fired from the Boltgun in Killzone 2 impale your target, flinging them a huge distance away with sheer force alone or sticking them onto whatever is behind them, and then explode.
  • Inferred Holocaust: Killzone 3's ending. Stahl's own superweapon is used by the player's forces on Helghan, and in the aftermath, Jammer notes that the entire planet has fallen silent. How a hinted-at Killzone 4 will be made with the Helghast presumably annihilated remains to be seen.
    • A scene shown during the credits implies that a few Helghast managed to survived.
  • Informed Attribute - We're told that the player character in Killzone 2 is "an imperfect soldier in a perfect army." This is not exactly an accurate way to describe Vektan task-force, which at one point simply watches an unknown weapon deploying without even attempting to do anything to stop it.
    • Similarly, a big deal is made of Radec's sense of honor, but this really just amounts to his objecting to the things he has to do and then doing them regardless.
      • The environment on Helghan is supposed to be hazardous to human health, right? Well, at no point in any of the Killzone games do the ISA characters suffer from any ill-effects of the planet's conditions. Hell, in Killzone 3, the ISA troops are stranded on the planet for six months, and none of them develop as much as a cough from the supposedly toxic atmosphere. Nor is any mention made of them receiving any drug treatments to combat such problems, it's apparently not an issue whatsoever.
      • The Helghast have been on the planet a long time. They probably terraformed it to suit the atmosphere at one point. They only wear the gas masks now as a symbol of pride, not because they need them anymore.
  • It Got Worse - Killzone 2's ending. Oooh, boy, does it get worse.
    • Yes, play Killzone 3 and watch THAT ending.
    • Killzone: Shadow Fall reveals that not only is the tense, decades-long standoff between the ISA and "New Helghan" on Vekta on the brink of war but the Helghast have been keeping the main bulk of their military might hidden on Helghan, thanks to Stahl, waiting to exact their vengeance.
  • It Has Been an Honour - Templar's speech over the intercom when the New Sun has been boarded, slightly foreshadows what happens next.
  • Jet Pack - The jet pack troops in Liberation look to make a reappearance in Killzone 3, also offering the player the chance to go toe-to-toe with them whenever you find jet packs to do it with.
  • Keystone Army - Averted. Killing Visari does nothing to stop the Helghast war machine. Though it's somewhat subverted in Killzone 3 given that there's an internal power struggle as a result of Visari's death.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence - Visari, in the middle of another epic speech at the end of Killzone 2.
  • Kill Sat - The SD Platform in the first game, the ISA cruisers in Killzone 2 are pseudo versions of these. The SD platform does jack.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better
  • Large Ham - Scolar Visari, voiced by Brian Cox, gives such scenery-chewing speeches that have inspired many players to fight for the Helghast cause.
    • Colonel Hakha to a minor extent.
      • With the third game you may be wondering how they'll find anyone capable of topping a scenery chewer like Brian Cox. Ray Winstone and Malcolm McDowell, that's who.
  • Lampshade Hanging : Combined with an injoke, In the Killzone 2 intro, look closely at the new ticker. One says: "Helmets. Are they really necessary?" Most likely referencing to the fact that non of the heroes ever wear helmets and seem to be no worse without them.
  • Lean and Mean Jorhan Stahl.
  • Lighter and Softer - Word of God has gone on record saying that the third game will not be as bleak and hopeless as the second.
    • While not as bleak for the protagonist, non of Killzone 3 can be really considered better or hopeful than Killzone 2. The game even ends with the possible death of the majority of people on Helghan including what could be left of the ISA there.
  • Love Hurts - Templar and Luger's relationship in the first game. Hakha summed it up thusly:

"A special forces captain falls in love, he promises her the world, but she has other plans. Nine months later they meet again, except now the brave captain's sweetheart is a cold assassin; trained to kill, trained to think not feel, act not reflect."

  • Made of Explodium - Petrucite is described as "Highly Unstable" and as such anything containing or made of the stuff tends to explode when shot at.
  • Made of Iron - Every major enemy leader is able to absorb significantly more bullets than the regular grunts, even in cases where it really doesn't make any sense for them to be able to do so (such as Admiral Adams or even General Lente). General Metrac and Colonel Radec both take the cake, though, both being able to absorb more damage than an actual tank.
  • Magical Defibrillator - In 2 the player carries one and can use it to revive downed squadmates so they can get themselves shot again. It fires a beam of electricity, and, amusingly, if you just ignore an injured NPC they'll get up by themselves when the current engagement ends, despite the manual saying they won't.
  • Mauve Shirt - There's an ISA soldier named Hooper in Killzone 3 who appears in several cutscenes, acting as Captain Narville's aide-de-camp, being the engineer trying to deactivate the Petrucite grid, and saving Jammer from a Helghast soldier. Despite having quite a bit of screentime, he only has a couple lines and gets virtually no characterization.
  • Master of Unlocking - Garza's special ability.
  • Meaningful Name: The Helghast capital is named Pyrrhus, which is doubly fitting considering that the ISA loses most of their troops getting Visari and that Visari ends up nuking the city to get rid of the ISA. Neither tactic ends well.
  • Mini-Mecha - The EXO in Killzone 2 certainly fills the role, and is gangs of fun.
  • Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness - Notable for taking a more hard sci-fi approach to its setting and the depiction of a futuristic war.
    • However, there are many points where it regularly breaks into something much softer in one aspect or another. It's perhaps harder than most current scifi media
  • More Dakka - Other than the to factions' own LMG models which you get to make great use of, there are removable miniguns and vehicle-mounted machine guns you get to use a lot.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name - The Helghast in general are basically Space Nazis descended from disgraced colonists who rebelled against Earth. Even without Scolar Visari, their tendencies still manage to shine through. By Killzone: Shadow Fall, however, they more resemble a futuristic East Germany thanks to their predicament on Vekta.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero / Leeroy Jenkins - Rico, twice in the sequel. He didn't follow Sev's ambush plan on Radec around mid-game, resulting in Garza's death. He then killed Visari despite their mission being to arrest him and Visari's warnings of what would happen if they killed him, bringing a Helghast fleet down on the ISA remnants.
    • Rico's Leeroy Jenkins tendencies continue on in the sequel, mixed in with Attack! Attack! Attack!, as that's what he primarily has his Raiders do even when it seems like a bad idea. Somehow, it works, despite the fact that they should've all died after what he put them through. He is called on killing Visari early on.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: At the end of Killzone 3 Admiral Orlock tries to pull a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Chairman Stahl. How does Stahl respond? By using his advanced technology to destroy the entire Helghast fleet ! To top it off, during the final battle the heroes use one of Stahl's own Petrucite warheads against his supercarrier while in Helgan's atmosphere. The resulting explosion consumes the entire surface of the planet! So, in a few hours Stahl pretty much accomplishes what the ISA spent years failing to do; the near total annihilation of the Helghast. Gee, thanks, you crazy Omnicidal Maniac you.
  • Nintendo Hard - The games can and will try your patience, especially Liberation which was actually criticised in reviews for being really damn hard. The main games don't play around either, you're going to find lots of trial and error gameplay in certain levels. It's still noticeably easier and less cheap than, say, Resistance 2.
  • Not So Different - Chairman Stahl, like his dead father, resented Visari's rule. Unlike his dead father, Stahl shares many of Visari's ideals but takes them to their logical conclusion.
    • Averted however with Visari's own daughter in Killzone: Shadow Fall
  • Odd Couple - Rico and Hakha, who get better as the game progressed. In the sequel, Garza and Natko.
  • Oh Crap - What the ISA are thinking when the Helghast fleet arrives over Pyrrhus.
    • Initial ISA response when the Platform Defense weapons failed.
    • The reaction of any player when on the receiving end of a Helghast rocket launcher in the first game's multiplayer, especially when in an enclosed room.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Stahl's reasoning is that Helghan's safety will be ensured once he wipes all of its enemies (including any Helghast he doesn't agree with) out of existence. It's interesting to contrast Visari's goal, which was to conquer the other colonial worlds, with Stahl's goal, which was to wipe out the entire population of Earth.
  • Overheating - The second game's mounted MG and quad AA guns both suffer from this, with the barrels glowing to indicate when they're hot.
  • Paper Tiger - The Helghast military in Killzone: Shadow Fall, though more reliant on robotics and more disciplined, seems to be this trope, given how they're seen by the ISA as a cut down force largely reduced to defensive and police actions. Averted however, given that they're more or less what the Helghast want the ISA to see, their real might hidden away in Helghan.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner - Radec: "Haven't I killed all of you yet?!"
  • Putting on the Reich - The Helghast live and breathe this trope...
  • Pyrrhic Victory - The ending of the second game. The Imperial Palace belongs to the ISA, but, counterpoint to their objective, Scolar Visari is dead, causing the Helghast to reveal all of the soldiers and weapons they'd been hiding to rip the ISA fleet apart. This leaves the ISA ground troops vulnerable, and the game ends with them preparing for what looks like a last stand as the Helghast ships rip the remnants of the ISA fleet apart. Ironically Fittingly, the enemy's capital is named Pyrrhus.
  • Real Is Brown - In this case it's more real is a sickly green or yellow or orange, or grey or red, depending on which level you're on. The first game was criticized for looking washed-out, so the second game has real is deliberately oversaturated brown instead.
    • You know it's bad when one of the selling points for the sequel is "It won't be completely brown."
    • Averted by Killzone 3 and Killzone: Shadow Fall, which feature a considerably more varied palette that isn't just brown.
  • Redshirt Army - Oh boy, the poor ISA can never seem to catch a break.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better - The ISA get highly accurate, highly damaging revolvers for the sequel. Although many players are quick to discard it in favor of the Helghast pistol, mostly due to ammo and fire rate issues. The background fluff states that the revolver was originally only for ceremonial purposes but the ISA had to switch from the semi-auto pistol back to the revolver due to the protacted Helghast blockade leading to equipment shortages.
    • They're useless in higher difficulties, taking anywhere from three to twelve shots (hope you like reloading) to kill a standard infantryman, while your opponent is quickly filling you with lead. The zoom-in feature is pretty short, so you have to have a big screen to snipe properly.
  • Ripped from the Headlines - Filler material on The Killzone website states the intentions of the ISA invasion of Helghan in the second game were to: "Remove the Helghast as a military threat. Capture Autarch Visari for a public trial. Establish a more easily controlled regime on Helghan that avoids the oppression that sparked this conflict." Switch three words in that quote and you have the Iraq War.
  • Sawed-Off Shotgun: The VC8 Shotgun Pistol from Killzone 3 is essentially this.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Sev in Killzone 3. He's generally a balancing factor to Rico and has no problem following Narville's orders, even if they seem counter-intuitive. Until the end, when he's fed-up with Narville's attitude towards orders and saving his own men.
  • Secondary Fire - The first game had these: The ISA assault rifle had a grenade launcher, the Helghast assault rifle had an underbarrel shotgun, the anti-tank gun in the multiplayer had double-tap, etc. Lost in the sequel to make way for an iron sight button; the shotgun still has an alt-fire flashlight, though, since for some reason it entirely lacks a sight. The ISA rifle's grenade launcher becomes a flashlight [which doesn't actually do anything] and the Helghast rifle has its shotgun replaced with an enlarged handgrip under the barrel. They also switch from respectively having a circular reflex sight and a G36-style carry handle / sight combo [both unusable] to a real-life EOTech reflex sight and illuminated iron sight.
    • The coolest was probably the chain gun, which had an underslung rocket launcher.
    • And the Helghast rocket launcher's alt fire, which consisted of it firing all three tubes at once, For Massive Damage.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: In Killzone 3, you can survive noticeably less damage than in Killzone 2. This is balanced out by having your squadmates being able to revive you from "last stand" a total of 3 times before you die for real. However, being downed still counts as a death as far as the game's stat counter is concerned (not to mention being a blow to your ego), so your campaign stats will show a lot more deaths in Killzone 3 than Killzone 2.
  • Shock and Awe
  • Shout-Out - Templar sometimes quotes Dirty Harry and The A-Team during battle.
  • Shut UP, Hannibal - Colonel Hakha does this to General Lente with a shotgun shell.

General Adams: "There is never any pity, no mercy, for the traitor."
Colonel Hakha: "You try to compare us?... You made a choice, General, based on your own goals and morals. As did I. We may both seem traitors by our outside appearance, but that is where our common ground ends."

    • Also Rico to Visari in Killzone 2. Sev later admits he would have done the same with his fist if Visari wouldn't have shut up.
  • Smug Snake - General Adams, who is also The Mole.
    • Jorhan Stahl takes this Up to Eleven in Killzone 3, but unlike Adams is actually intimidating.
  • The Smurfette Principle - Other than Luger and Evelyn, the games are devoid of women.
    • The third game has Jammer, the only woman in the entire game besides Visari's daughter, who only appears in the game's opening cinematic.
    • There is that female comms officer who Sev talks to when he and Rico kill Argus 2 and take their place to infiltrate Stahl's facility.
    • You can also hear a female Helghast comm officer abord the Dropship after Sev got captured.
  • Sobriquet - Colonel Cobar and Colonel Radec are known as the "White Death" and the "Hound of Visari", respectively.
  • Sophisticated As Hell - The Helghast tend to act like this. Their battle cries include both verbose threats like "I'll rip the skin from your bones!" and lines like "Oh, FUCK me!"
  • The Squad - The main characters in the first game and Alpha Squad from the sequel.
  • The Stinger: Halfway through the credits of Killzone 3, a small contingent of Helghast soldiers are seen patrolling some ruins when they stumble upon an escape pod, presumably piloted by Stahl, implying that a small number of Helghast may have survived their homeworld's destruction.
  • Storming the Castle - Done by both sides in Killzone 2. First by the Helghast against your flagship, the New Sun and the second time by you, when after calling an orbital bombardment on the lightning tower air defences, you storm Visari's palace, going through line after line of sandbag defences, emplacements, and artillery strikes (and this is just the palace courtyard) after rounding up all what remains of the ISA forces. And both levels are also insanely awesome.
    • You do it again in 3 when you attack the orbital elevator that gets you to the station closest to the Helghast fleet. It is also awesome.
  • Stylish Protection Gear - The Helghast uniform in the first game, they needed the gas masks and goggles as they were not used to the atmosphere on Vekta. But in the second game it's been upgraded into a symbol of pride as they used it as their military uniform in their home planet even though technically they wouldn't need it.
  • Suicide by Cop - Some theorize that Visari was coaxing Sev and Rico to kill him to spur the Helghast into crushing the ISA.
  • Tainted Veins - All Helghans. Showed up on the first human colonists.
  • Take Cover - The second and third games have a stick-to-cover mechanic, which form a core aspect of the gameplay.
  • Tank Goodness - Colonel Cobar uses a tank against you in Liberation.
    • You even get to use tanks in 2.
      • The thing you get to use is an IFV.
  • Thanatos Gambit - Visari
  • This Is Sparta - You get one in 2 and 3.
    • Killzone 2: "Go! Find! NARVILLE!!"- Rico
    • Killzone 3: "This! is! an OUTRAGE!!"- Admiral Orlock
  • This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman - Garza's amazing power of opening doors. To quote him, you "open the panel and pull all the wires out."
    • Debatable, since looking at him while he does it shows him tinkering with it rather than doing what he told Natko to do. It's probably more complex than that, but with the bleeding to death from his neck, he just gave the simplest trick and hoped the door's locks fail.
  • Time Skip - Killzone: Shadow Fall takes place 20-30 years after the events of the previous Killzone games.
  • Tranquil Fury - If Luger lowers her voice, make sure that a) you're not within 50 feet of her, and b) you're not the object of her ire.
    • Also, Colonel Radec.

Radec: "Do not... toy with me." BANG!

  • Unique Enemy - In Killzone 2, only a handful of Elite Shock Troopers appear in the entire game, all in a single level. Killzone 3 has the similar in appearance and toughness Capture Troopers, who have a stronger presence throughout the game especially the later levels.
  • The Unfettered - Stahl is not only even more of a fervent Helghast than his own compatriots. But he's willing to go much farther than what even Visari would tolerate to ensure Helghan's superiority. Even going so far as to attempt wiping out Earth.
  • Unorthodox Reload - Helghast weaponry, most especially the pistol. Virtually ever piece of Helghast weaponry uses a drum or a cylinder to hold ammunition.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential - SO much in part 2. You can set Higs ablaze with the Flamethrower, and smile as they shriek in agony. You can pin their heads to the wall with explosive nails. Or, perhaps best of all, you can shock the living shit out of them with the Lightning Gun. The noises they make from THAT will put a dopey grin on your face every time.
  • Waif Fu: Subverted. In Killzone 3 Action Girl Jammer tries to fight a Helghast soldier (and not even an Elite, just a basic Mook) in hand-to-hand with some spin-kicks, and gets pretty much owned. She's only saved by Mauve Shirt Hooper who takes out the Helghast mook with a much more direct rifle bash to the face. Jammer's much better with a gun or behind the wheel.
  • Walk It Off
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Fighting Radec is incredibly difficult... unless you light him on fire with the Flamethrower. Then it's just a matter of switching to your sidearm and popping shots at him while he flails and teleports around. Once the flames go out, repeat.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Shadow Marshal Luger and Colonel Hakha aren't anywhere to be seen in the rest of the Killzone games.
    • Curiously Hahka's actor, Sean Pertwee, portrays Radec in the sequel.
    • Natko, one of the member of The Squad in the second game, is completely absent from Killzone 3, serving only as the skin to the second player in co-op mode.
  • White Haired Ruggedly Handsome Guy - Metrac in Liberation. Stahl in Killzone 3.
  • Worthy Opponent - Captain Narville sees Colonel Radec as one.
    • And Radec might have seen Templar as one if this line is anything to go by.

Radec: "I'd rather we met in combat, like soldiers."

  • You All Look Familiar - A huge criticism of the first game. There were a total of three enemy types - assault rifle, shotgun, and heavy gunner. Except for one level where you catch the Helghans off-guard at a temporary shelter and they're partially out of their combat gear, they're all the same. The sequel makes this better.
  • Your Mom - Natko gives off jokes like these.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters - The Black Hand in Killzone: Shadow Fall. Although they're treated as terrorists even by New Helghan at least on paper they have ties to Stahl and elements in the Helghast military.
  • Zeerust - Killzone 2. Your weapons look like they belong in 2020, not two centuries later, and not even with any fancy attachments, as compared to the first game. There are no drop pods. the helghast switch from hovertanks to conventional ones (which are retrofitted/modified mining vehicles). There are no lasers, except for those in space. There isn't even any "netrocentric" crap, walking mecha suits, or UCAV, except for the Helghasts. This is especially evident in the ISA gear, where what was once heavy body armor and a metallic "collar" are now light vests, PAGST helmets, and an orange sweater.
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