Video Game / TRON: Catalyst

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TRON: Catalyst is a hack-and-slash action game made by Bithell Games for PC and Switch, and the sequel to the 2023 game TRON: Identity. Like the previous game, it takes place on the Arq Grid, a backup server created by Kevin Flynn to safeguard ISO refugees from CLU prior to the events of TRON: Legacy. He has not returned since, and in his absence the ISOs have created their own society.

Since Identity, the end of the Grid that Cass warned about is coming to pass in the form of an unstable glitch storm slowly spreading from the Outlands.The repressive faction Core have demolished the Repository the last game took place in, and they've taken control of the Arq Grid. Curtailing individual freedoms in the name of order, they've begun to advance their agenda of the strong superseding the weak. Opposing them are Reset, a group of rogues living in the Outlands on the edges of the glitch storm. Automata, a faction of ISOs who do not believe in the Users, have built an embassy in the city of Vertical Slice on the former site of the Repository in an attempt to coexist with Core, though their chances of accomplishing this look slim.

Exo, a courier, is unwittingly transporting a piece of the glitch in one of her packages when it explodes, giving her the power to loop through time and drawing the attention of Core. They capture her and throw her into the Games to fight to the death. Using her newfound powers, she escapes, searches for answers on what's happened to her, and eventually becomes the hero the Arq Grid needs.

TRON: Catalyst contains examples of:

• Actionized Sequel: Where the previous game was in a visual novel format, Catalyst is an action game with combat and vehicle mechanics.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Tacitus’ stronghold is a flying fortress with its own landing platform for lightjets. Core are the only faction with any flying vehicles, making access or escape by anyone else near-impossible.
• Artificial Stupidity: In-universe. Some low-ranking Core soldiers have this in-universe. Exo is able to blend in as one of them just by turning her light orange. It’s explained as them being mass-produced clones.
• Bringing Back Proof: When Exo is trying to infiltrate Core, she gets tasked with derezzing Vega because he's been drawing graffiti all over the city. Instead of killing him, she takes a glove offered by Vega as 'proof' to fool them. It's the glove he used to draw the graffiti, likely a similar glove used by Rasket in Uprising.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: When Exo goes asking after the program who's been drawing graffiti everywhere, Vega compliments 'whoever did it' as having 'a good eye'.
• Checkpoint Bluff: The entry into Vertical Slice is blocked by a Core guard who scans the discs of anyone entering the city. Exo is identified as an escaped prisoner, and must get the help of Query to disguise her memories and fool the guards on future loops.
• Cool Bike: The iconic lightcycle. They're banned for everyone except Core, but that hasn't stopped others from getting them. Exo steals one from Conn at the end of the prologue, Reset have some with their own unique design, and Vertical Slice has rooftop lightcycle black markets.
• Cool Plane: Lightjets also make a return. They're also banned for the public, and weren't even supposed to exist on the Arq Grid until Core rediscovered them. Exo steals one to escape Tacitus' Stronghold. Unfortunately, Exo doesn't get to keep this one; after a short flying section it crashes and becomes unusable.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Applies to the factions. Core is orange, Reset is green and Automata are pink. Unaffiliated programs are cyan.
• Continuity Nod: The game contains several callbacks to previous instalments.
  • The lightjet section takes place in Yori Valley.
  • Null Refinery has two minor NPCs named Hopper and Bartik. Chances are low that these are the same characters; it’s possible these programs have somehow heard of the original Hopper and Bartik and named themselves after them. Or it could just be a coincidence.
  • The mission title Bodhi’s Legacy.
  • The Arq Grid has its own replica of Flynn’s arcade like the one on the Legacy Grid. Somehow, there are arcade machines on which the programs can play games such as Space Paranoids.
  • Lines from the first movie, 'end of line' and 'finish the game', are dropped at multiple points.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Downplayed. The game is for the most part vague about the events of Identity, leaving room for any of the several outcomes to be canon. However, Cass is alive and on good terms with Query, where it is possible to get them killed or betray them in Identity.
• Damage Over Time: The Outlands is plagued by a glitch storm, which gradually damages and kills anyone not resistant to it.
• Dressing as the Enemy: In Tacitus' Stronghold, Exo exploits the colour-coding of Core by turning orange so she can pass as one of the guards.
• Dying Vocal Change: Seen during the ending. Conn continues to rant at Exo while being slowly torn apart by the glitch storm, with subtitles indicating his speech is being distorted.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: Exhibited by the training arena software after it's hacked by Vega's code. Conn also develops glitching speech when he's dying during the climax.
• Evil Is Bigger: Conn, the main antagonist, has the largest overworld model out of any of the characters.
• Evil Twin: Tacitus, who tortures and experiments on prisoners, is revealed to have a 'twin', Moto, who is on the side of good and tries to heal people. It's said to be a coincidence that they spawned with the same face, but this drew them together, and they consider each other brothers.
• Expecting Someone Taller: This is the first thing Tacitus says to Exo on meeting her, having heard about her apparent greatness from Conn. She retorts that she expected Tacitus to be more intimidating.
• Future Spandex: Averted as often as it’s played straight. Many characters like Exo have the classic form-fitting outfit, but some characters have outfits resembling human clothes, or even flowing cloth.
• Graffiti of the Resistance: Reset, particularly Vega, are fond of tagging the walls with green graffiti. In the Outlands, they paint green hexagons on the ground to mark the trail to their settlements.
• Great Offscreen War: The war alluded to in the previous game, the Adjunct war, is expanded on slightly more in background materials, in that one of the factions was Core attempting to take control of Grid facilities and being fought back by rebels.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Exo is able to restart from the beginning of a centicycle (roughly equivalent to a day) at will, with her memories and certain upgrades intact. Eventually this escalates into being able to jump into different periods within the same time loop, and taking information from the future into the past.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: Exhibited by Spectre to a degree, who thinks Reset are safe from Core in the Outlands, and that the way to fight Core's expansion is to wait for them to weaken. This comes back to bite her when Conn ambushes her.
• High-Tech Hexagons: Like in Legacy and Uprising, the roads are made from hexagonal tiles.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: The Arq Grid has many program variations on human expressions.
  • Godspeed -> Userspeed
  • God Above! -> Flynn Outside!
  • Cool your jets -> Lower your voltage
  • Spouse -> Parallel
  • Frag is used as a curse word
  • Back of my hand -> scratches on my disc
  • It makes my blood boil -> It makes my light boil
• Hostile Weather: The glitch storm plaguing the Outlands damages anyone who ventures outside without some kind of protection.
• Joe Sent Me: Horii, having once been a Core honour guard, still has some clout despite being a prisoner, so he lets Exo drop his name to get her into the training room. It works.
• Justified Tutorial: Exo, being a courier, has no combat experience. The sequence in the training dojo where she learns to fight doubles as a tutorial for the player to learn the combat mechanics.
• Language Barrier: In the Null Refinery, there is a shipping container with a file path written on its side. The characters are confused about what could be in it, because they can’t read English. Automata also have their own written language that Exo only partially understands.
• Lore Codex: The game has a codex containing background information on characters, items, concepts and locations.
• Mix-and-Match Man: Tacitus is fond of derezzing programs 'lucky' enough to impress him and creating elite soldiers out of their combined code.
• Neon City: The city of Vertical Slice.
• No Man Should Have This Power: Kevin Flynn banned the use of flying vehicles on the Arq Grid, fearing that they would lead to one faction gaining dominance. This didn’t last; Core somehow rediscovered Recognisers and Lightjets, and their monopoly on them has let them take control of the Grid, exactly as Flynn feared.
• Police State: The Arq Grid used to be some kind of democracy, before Core sought more control over the population, demolishing the Repository and its records of history as well as throwing enemies of the state into the arena to fight to the death.
• The Power of Friendship: How Conn is eventually defeated in the climax. The first time Exo and Conn fight, Exo loses because she's alone. After she wakes up at the beginning of the game, she gathers allies from across the Grid to defeat him.
• Pre-Ending Credits: The game has a nasty fake-out ending. When Exo finally reaches the Outlands, Conn catches up to her, kills her, and the credits roll… Only for her to start back at the very beginning of the game.
• Press X to Die: In Tacitus’ stronghold, Exo is herded to an Induction Chamber, an ominous-looking orange column. Choosing to enter it causes her to be instantly killed. Later on, she has to download unstable code and enter the machine to destroy it.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Query, the player character of TRON: Identity, appears as a friendly NPC who becomes an ally to Exo.
• Prison Ship: Tacitus’ stronghold, where he keeps prisoners of Core/his test subjects.
• Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything: Sierra accuses Reset of being this. Spectre believes her group should wait for Core to weaken before trying to topple them, while Sierra thinks they should act now.
• Save Point: Entanglers are this for Exo in-universe, allowing her to restart the timeloop from that position.
• Save the Villain: Exo attempts this on Conn during the climax, when he's being torn apart by the glitch storm. It doesn't work. He refuses help, fighting Exo to the bitter end.
• Sequel Hook: While the game ends on a high note, there is still a lot more to be done. Exo has brought together a group of allies for the fight against Core. They succeed at taking down Conn and his minions, but the rest of Core will not be happy about it and it's a long fight ahead to break their grip on society. Oh, and the Grid's still ending.
• Stumbled Into the Plot: Anyone could have gained the power to loop through time; Exo just happened to be the courier assigned to deliver the package containing the glitch catalyst. Conn believed she was special, and takes a while to realise she's not.
• Thank the Maker: As in other TRON properties, most programs on the Arq Grid view the Users as deities, in particular Kevin Flynn. As in the original movie, there are also programs who do not believe in their existence, given it's been so long since any have logged onto the system. The nonbelievers aren't evil this time around; the Automata just want to live in peace, though their philosophy is quite controversial. Most of Core does believe in the Users, and this is one of the reasons they dislike the Automata so much.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The game can stray into this in the later hours. Essentially, after looping back to the start, Oracle is able to manifest as a projection in the past, and when Exo accomplishes something in the future, Oracle 'locks' the event so that it always happens. This is never quite explained, and even when this isn't explicitly done, sidequests done in a time period somehow stay done even if Exo restarts the loop or goes back to the past.
• Trust Password: Reset have one: 'Artemis'. Exo uses it to prove she's an ally to some of their members.
• You Can See Me?: Uttered verbatim by Oracle when she meets Cass. She's projecting herself back in time as a mirage to join Exo, and is invisible to most others, but Cass' abilities let them see her.
• Your Size May Vary: Sierra has notably shrunk since the last game, going from twice the height of Query to being a similar height to most of the other characters. It's possible he changed his size on purpose, but this is never addressed.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Spectre and Sierra meet in the Outlands to discuss how their respective factions should deal with the problems of the Grid. Sierra chastises Spectre for her inaction against Core, and Spectre hits back when Sierra wants to deal with Core first, glitch storm later, seeing that as abandoning Reset to the storm.
• Win Your Freedom: The Games appear to be a case of this, with winners getting VIP perks, fans, and eventually release. It’s a lie. Those who perform best in the Games are taken to Tacitus to be part of his experiments. Many are taken apart and reforged into composite minions.