Exophobia is a Retraux First-Person Shooter with a Metroidvania structure developed by Zarc Attack and published by PM Studios, released on July 23, 2024.
A human spaceship crash-lands on an alien planet and finds itself under attack by the native armada. You play as a featureless soldier who comes to after a near-death experience on the ship, donning a nearby battle suit and searching for a way to escape while fending off the hostile invaders, territorial wildlife, and berserk security system.
Tropes present in Exophobia:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: The first encounter with the giant worm has it completely invincible as it chases down the player, requiring them to run away while opening up a path for them to escape the worm.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The ship's AI systems treat the player as a hostile, necessitating that the player destroy the AI's core in order to explore the top level of the ship. This may be an aversion, however, as no logs imply that the Zarks have hijacked it or that it's functioning abnormally, implying the player may not be human.
- Apocalyptic Log: CDs are one of the game's collectibles, detailing what happened to the ship, how the various alien soldiers and robots act, and why the aliens are so cross to begin with.
- Bittersweet Ending: The good ending sees the King defeated and the surviving crew able to escape from Zarkon, and the General and Scientist can no longer foul things up for everyone, but a lot of people who didn't particularly deserve to die were caught up in the crossfire and the King might still be out there, still lusting for revenge.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: The Helmet power-up can absorb two hits. This includes explosions, which normally deal 4 damage, but will only take off one pip of the helmet's armor. Just don't think too hard about how you can pick up a helmet to use as armor when you're already wearing a helmet...
- Breakable Power-Up: The Jetpack and Drone power-ups are lost upon death, while the Helmet breaks after absorbing two hits.
- Charged Attack: A hold-type charge attack is the first upgrade the player receives, with later upgrades adding a chargeable shockwave and the ability to detonate charged shots. The charge shot has two levels of power, with a full shot being enough to insta-kill most basic enemies and defeat most bosses in three hits.
- Cthulhumanoid: The Zarkonians are red-skinned humanoids with squid tentacles on their faces, forming a sort of "beard".
- Determinator: Even when missing a sword, visibly bleeding heavily, and being partially digested by a giant worm, The Hunter refuses to give up on claiming the player's bounty.
- Featureless Protagonist: Your player character is never shown, even in the ending. There's an implication that the player might be the Alien Prince, but nothing is outright confirmed.
- Glass Cannon: Most of the bosses go down in just three charge shots, but they have complex attack patterns that necessitate careful dodging.
- The Good King: The Alien King is stated to be genuinely well-respected by his subjects and is known for his kindness to the Zarkonians. That kindness, however, does not extend to the humans who he holds responsible for grievously wounding his son. Later gets subverted in that the Prince is fighting against his own father to stop the hunting of humans, believing him to be going too far, and the King ruthlessly has his loyalists execute the Prince's troops.
- Heart Container: Each floor has two Improver Stations that add a pip to the player's health bar and give a full heal.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Zarkonians were benevolent to the humans, but the expedition's head scientist instigated a terrorist attack that nearly killed the King's son, resulting in the events of the game, and was previously experimenting on Zarkonian newborns at the orders of the ship's general. The captain's inability to admit her own screw-ups when it comes to piloting is also what leads to the crew believing the Zarkonians shot them down intentionally. That said, the rest of the crew aren't as monstrous as these two, and the Prince tried to protect them for as long as he could with his own forces.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The fireball turrets on the fourth level are completely indestructible, even with the blast upgrade's explosion.
- Mirror Boss: The Alien King is wearing the same battle suit as you, complete with the same gun.
- Multiple Endings: Depending on whether or not the player picks up all four alien gems, they'll receive a bad ending, or a good ending with a fight against the Alien King.
- Recurring Boss: The Hunter, a unique alien bounty hunter, fights the player four times throughout the game (including as the Final Boss) and pulling out new tricks for every battle.
- Retraux: The game uses a simplistic retro aesthetic with pixel art reminescent of the NES/Game Boy era, utilizes a 3D environment similar to Wolfenstein 3-D and games using Wolf3D's engine like Blake Stone, and uses a limited color palette of 8-10 shades of red and teal.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Zarkonians are hunting the humans to avenge the Prince who was wounded by the crew's main scientist.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Alien Snipers carry a shield with them, as do their upgraded Bomber variant. Alien Knights also possess a shield unlike their Melee base variant.
- Speed Echoes: The Hunter's "clones" are explained in the travel logs to be his afterimages.
- Static Stun Gun: The shockwave upgrade for the player's gun projects a non-damaging shockwave that stuns most enemies, but obliterates the "nature" enemies (wasps, worms, and plants). Alien Shockers and Divers are armed with electrical weapons and can do the same stunning to the player.
- Taking You with Me: Alien Pyros, when sufficiently damaged, will run at the player flailing around in flames before their fuel tank explodes.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Alien Bombers use grenades liberally and drop a few of them on death, and The Hunter adds grenades to his arsenal in later fights alongside proximity mines.
