We ARE Struggling Together!/Video Games

Examples of We ARE Struggling Together! in Video Games include:

• The hatred between the human and servile rebels in Geneforge is matched by the hatred between the drayks and drakons, but each pair is held together by a greater hatred for the other pair, and all of them are forced to work together against the Shapers. In the fifth game, the four allies finally split off, with the humans and serviles allying with the Trakovites and the drayks and drakons forming the Ghaldring faction.
• Command & Conquer's Brotherhood of Nod is unified in that they need to defeat GDI. That is the only thing they are unified on, and usually when Kane isn't around, they voice their disagreements with laser beams and fire. And when Kane is around, they still formally lodge their complaints with laser beams and fire...in the back. As for humanity as a whole, the war between GDI and Nod is so bitter that an alien invasion doesn't do much more than make them pause....for a couple of hours. Then they go back to blasting each other.
• In Wrath of the Lich King, the Horde and Alliance agree on one thing: We need to destroy the Lich King. That doesn't stop them from insulting each other, stealing supplies from each other, and it certainly doesn't stop the war that they have been fighting. Actually, they manage to restart their own war while The Scourge is still up there trying to wipe them out. If not for the Ashen Verdict, which is comprised of Death Knights and the Argent Crusade, you would be dead. That's right, you're killing your allies, while the Ashen Verdict is saving the world and actually doing what you guys came up here to do in the first place.
  • And the moment the Lich King bites it the war becomes more prevalent. Even the giant dragon ripping out from the core of Azeroth while setting half of the land on fire isn't going to stop them.
• Fridge Logic has this being the only plausible outcome after the end of Red Faction: Guerrilla. The Marauders and Red Faction unified in the name of defeating the Earth Defense Forces and shoving a gigantic torpedo with a Nanite Disassembler Swarm warhead down the throat of a huge warship capable of annihilating all life on Mars (and Earth, for that matter,) but what comes afterwards? The Marauders are the xenophobic, murderous descendants of Ultor scientists who survived after the EDF came down like a ton of bricks on Ultor and restored order to Mars (the first time around.) Red Faction are the spiritual successors of the original Red Faction, the miners who revolted against Ultor's brutal conditions. The Marauders have been for the last fifty years or so killing anyone they see, whether EDF or civilian. It can't end well.
  • Bonus suck is awarded for the fact that the only primary character other than the player who survives from start to finish, Samanya, the Wrench Wench Sledgehammer Ninja (as revealed in the DLC bonus campaign, Demons of Mariner Valley,) is a Marauder by birth, but wound up joining Red Faction when she risked life and alienation from her people to rescue Kepler and Hugo Davies (better known as RF Commander) from an EDF internment camp before a gigantic Marauder offensive wiped the captive civilians out along with their captors. She's going to be caught between both sides of the coming war.
  • Red Faction: Armageddon seems to show the two sides ended up agreeing to leave each other alone for the most part. There are definite tensions between the two camps, but they band together once again fairly quickly once the aliens show up to threaten the human populace.
• The Hua Lian Rebels in the People's Republic of Da Han Zhong in Front Mission 3 suffered from this, especially after they were about to win the revolution, leading to a crushing defeat of the whole rebellion.
• In the Mass Effect 'verse, several factions are vehemently still locked in some kind of conflict despite the looming Reaper threat. Partially justified by the fact that many people don't believe Shepard's Cassandra Truth about the Reapers. Most notable is the quarian Migrant Fleet, whose Admiralty Board is considering an almost-suicidal attack on the geth.
  • In Mass Effect 3, getting the races to co-operate is the main objective, with even those who are not actually at war with each other proving to be very unhelpful. In the most extreme case, the quarians have launched their attack on the geth, despite the Reapers actually starting their invasion in other parts of the galaxy. Unless Shepard has done literally everything right with regards to both species, the genocide of one of them is inevitable, despite the geth having actually wanted peace for the past several centuries.
    • This trope is also very much in evidence with the Illusive Man, who spends a lot of effort and resources openly opposing the Alliance and Council rather than joining them, partially explained by his being indoctrinated, (the DLC Prothean character, Javik, says that this happened during his cycle too, suggesting that divide and conquer is one of the Reapers main tactics). In fact, one of the few powerful characters who does recognise that personal goals need to be put on hold for now is the ruthless crime lord Aria T'Loak, who gives Shepard genuinely useful advice and prioritises the overall war effort above her own short-term gains.
• In World of Warcraft, earlier examples of Enemy Mine between the Horde and Alliance worked out rather well, but this all changed in Wrath of the Lich King. Soon after a Cavalry Betrayal, the two factions went to war while in the middle of dealing with the undead Scourge; the Horde even attacked the Alliance from behind a one point, trapping them between its own army and an army of zombies. As of Cataclysm, they're still going at it even when the world is falling apart, a giant dragon made of lava and metal is flying around, and the Old Gods are about to break free.

---

Back to We ARE Struggling Together!