''Resistance'' is a series of

first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...

and third-person shooter

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s developed by Insomniac Games and published by

Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American video game and digital entertainment company that is a major subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation. It primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game co ...

for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

and

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, then in other international territories on February 22, 2012, and was produced ...

video game consoles. The series takes place in an

alternate history Alternate history (also referred to as alternative history, allohistory, althist, or simply A.H.) is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As ...

1950s, in which an alien civilization known as the Chimera have invaded and conquered Earth, expanding their armies by capturing humans and transforming them into monster-like super soldiers to fight for them. The player takes the role of one of the remaining human armed forces as they fight against the Chimera invasion. The series is noted for its use of both conventional and futuristic weaponry, reflecting Insomniac's previous work on the ''Ratchet & Clank'' series.

Games

Main series

''Resistance: Fall of Man'' (2006)

''Resistance: Fall of Man'' is the first installment in the ''Resistance'' trilogy and was released on the PlayStation 3 in 2006 as a launch title for the system. The game is about the Americans and the British who join forces to stop an extraterrestrial species known as the Chimera from taking over the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in 1951.

''Resistance 2'' (2008)

''Resistance 2'' is the second installment in the ''Resistance'' trilogy and was released on the PlayStation 3 in November 2008. The game's protagonist is Nathan Hale. It is set in 1953, shortly after the events of the first game. The Chimera have managed to cross over into North America and threaten to take over the continent.

''Resistance 3'' (2011)

''Resistance 3'' is the third and final installment in the ''Resistance'' trilogy and was released on the PlayStation 3 on September 6, 2011. The protagonist is Joseph Capelli, a character that was introduced in the previous game. It is set in 1957 and again takes place in the United States in cities like

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. It also drops the military aspect of the previous games and is post-apocalyptic instead. This is also the last ''Resistance'' game to be made by Insomniac Games, as confirmed by its CEO Ted Price.

Other games

''Resistance: Retribution'' (2009)

''Resistance: Retribution'' was released on the PlayStation Portable on March 17, 2009. Set after the events of ''Fall of Man'', the game follows James Grayson, a British Royal Marine first mentioned in ''Resistance 2'', as he helps the human resistance force in Europe to retake the continent from the Chimera in 1951.

''Resistance: Burning Skies'' (2012)

''Resistance: Burning Skies'' was released on the

on May 29, 2012. The game follows the story of Tom Riley, a firefighter who sets out to find his family while fighting the Chimera, who have now taken over the American east coast.

Future

According to ''Resistance 3'' creative director Marcus Smith, the studio has a number of franchises it wants to pursue and that ''Resistance'' is not one of them. Insomniac CEO Ted Price said that Insomniac "won't be making any more ''Resistance'' games". All online features of the ''Resistance'' games have been discontinued in March 2014. In August 2018, Insomniac's community director James Stevenson called chances of a ''Resistance 4'' "a longshot" revealing that neither the developer, nor Sony who owns the IP, were talking about a sequel. In June 2021, game developer and former

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

PlayStation editor Colin Moriarty revealed his contacts at Insomniac had pitched a sequel to Sony, but it was rejected due to the number of post-apocalyptic games in development, including '' The Last of Us'' and '' Days Gone''. The series was celebrated with numerous other PlayStation franchises in the

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...

game '' Astro's Playroom''.

Setting

The

of the ''Resistance'' series diverges from current history primarily at the end of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, leading to the formation of the European Trade Organization, a continental peacekeeping alliance, and worldwide peace, preventing the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, the rise of the

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, and

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, but also leading to

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

losing the 1940 presidential election to

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

Senator Noah Grace who leads the U.S into a semi-

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...

isolationist state, as well as the rise of an isolationist

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, as before his abdication, Nicholas II appointed his youngest brother Grand Duke Mikhail as

Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

, who crushed the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

.Oddly, although the game is set in a Europe whose borders are similar to that at the start of the Second World War (save for the independence of the

Baltic States The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

), a trailer showing the map of Europe enveloped by the Chimera displays borders close to their modern-day equivalents (such as a divided

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

), though only a few of the Central Asian Soviet republics are displayed as independent. See, for example, Russia-CIA WFB Map--Tunguska

A new menace arises from

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, with the epicenter corresponding to the time and location of the

Tunguska Event The Tunguska event was a large explosion of between 3 and 50 TNT equivalent, megatons that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908. The explosion over ...

of 1908. In 1921, Russia initiated a communications blackout with the rest of the world and built a wall against its European border called the "Red Curtain." Word spreads of small towns, villages, and eventually cities in Russia and Eastern Europe that are destroyed within a single night. A strange

cold front A cold front is the leading edge of a cooler mass of air at ground level that replaces a warmer mass of air and lies within a pronounced surface Trough (meteorology), trough of Low-pressure area, low pressure. It often forms behind an extratropica ...

also develops over Russia and spreads outwards. European intelligence agencies attempt to listen in on Russian radio stations, only to hear a single message repeated over and over: "''Brotherhood, Strength, and Fortitude ... in the face of the angry night''". In December 1949, the Red Curtain is suddenly breached by numerous Chimeran forces. The Chimera overrun continental Europe in just two months, leaving very few survivors. The Chimera then proceed to dig underneath the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

, invading Britain in late 1950. The bulk of the British forces is wiped out, with the rest fleeing to scattered bases in the northern parts of England. Sometime after the invasion of England, the SRPA (Special Research Projects Administration) begins experimenting with the virus, supposedly to find a cure. It is never revealed whether they are attempting to find a cure for the virus or simply attempting to create a group of superhumans. This project is known as Project Abraham. There are only two known locations where Project Abraham took place. One was an unspecified military facility in Alaska, and another in Bryce Canyon, Utah. Out of the viral website, it is known that the only survivors are Joseph Capelli and Nathan Hale, and they are both later transferred to Sentinel Squad Echo. After the events of Project Abraham, the soldiers who were infected with the Chimeran virus were formed into an elite squad known as Sentinels.

Gameplay

The ''Resistance'' games play similarly to most

s, and feature a variety of weapons. The weapons include both conventional weapons for the setting of the game, weapons created by the Chimera that possess unique features, and human weapons that have been modified to take advantage of the Chimera technology. Each weapon features two modes of fire which work in conjunction with each other. The human assault rifles include grenade launchers, while the Chimera "Bullseye" has a secondary mode that fires a marker, such that all bullets shot in the primary mode will strike the marked target for a short time. The main trilogy on PlayStation 3 featured large-scale multiplayer modes with support for up to 60 players in ''Resistance 2'' and up to 40 players in ''Resistance: Fall of Man''. Gameplay was reduced to smaller matches in ''Resistance 3''. All three console games offer extensive stat tracking for online combat, and ''Resistance 2'' even requires online play to unlock some of its trophies.

Other media

''Resistance: The Gathering Storm'', a novel by William C. Dietz, was released in April 2009. It details what happened to Nathan Hale during the two years between the events that unfolded in Iceland, after his extraction from Great Britain, and later in San Francisco and where the Chimera launch the invasion of the United States. ''Resistance: A Hole in the Sky'', an indirect sequel to ''The Gathering Storm'', was written by William C. Dietz. It is set before the events of ''Resistance 3''. ''Resistance'', a six-issue

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

limited series, began in January 2009. The first issue, "Resistance #0" (which was available as part of the ''Resistance 2 Collector's Edition''), details the early history of Private Jordan Adam Shepherd, the seemingly innocent soldier who volunteered to be a test subject in Project Abraham, and, due to the machinations of Doctor Fyodor Malikov, would transform into "Daedalus", the Leader of the Chimera. Another comic issue released was called "Metastasis", telling the tale of a Nathan Hale mission and how he is to retrieve an antidote to the chimera virus.

References

External links

Insomniac Games website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Resistance (Series) Military science fiction video games Sony Interactive Entertainment franchises Video game franchises Video game franchises introduced in 2006 Video games adapted into comics First-person shooters Third-person shooters American alternate history works