Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005)
Genres:Shooter
Themes:Open world, Action, Stealth, Sandbox
Game modes:Single player
Story:During the last years of his reign, the North Korean president Choi Kim attempted a reconciliation with the country's southern neighbor, with the ultimate goal of reunification. However, his son, General Choi Song, and the military clique under his leadership, strongly disagreed with the old man's views. Eventually, Choi Song orchestrated his own father's assassination, took control of North Korea, and severed ties with the outside world.
Eventually, plans of a nuclear reactor construction began to surface. China, South Korea, the Allied Nations and even the Russian Mafia sent troops to North Korea, competing for power in the troubled region. A bounty of a hundred million dollars for General Song was declared. This is where the mercenaries enter the playfield.
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is a free-roaming war action and driving game with open-ended gameplay in a large world. The player can choose to control any of the three mercenary protagonists, each with their own strengths: North American Chris Jacobs can sustain higher damage; Jennifer Mui from Hong-Kong is proficient in stealth; Mattias Nilsson from Sweden can run faster than the others. Each of the mercenary also speaks different languages, which makes him or her more or less suitable for work with particular factions.
Players have free reign of a massive landscape to take bounties on the "Deck of 52", a list of most wanted criminals in North Korea, as well as a number of factions. Four factions have moved in to take advantage of the coup for personal gains; each faction will offer the player resources such as vehicles and supplies, as well as missions that the player can use to make money off of. If the player makes a faction happy, they will offer intel on the locations of various bounties from the deck.
Players have a vast array of resources available to them to get the job done. It is possible to commandeer tanks, choppers and and any other military hardware to blow up the game's destructible landscape across the North Korean countryside. Helping out various factions provides access to numerous vehicle drops, supply drops, and air strikes.Show more
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.746
How is this not upvoted more?! Mercenaries was a game made by the legendary Pandemic Studios, which was responsible for the Destroy All Humans series and, of course, Star Wars: Battlefront I & II. It was even published by LucasArts! The premise and execution felt like a forerunner to the Just Cause series, which prioritized giving you a sandbox in which you could just go wild and destroy everything. One of the main claims to fame for Mercenaries, however, was that eventually you could just flat out destroy whole buildings with increasingly powerful weaponry. My friends had a blast (literally!) calling in airstrikes on random buildings. One of the great games to come out of Pandemic, and would be super-appealing to fans of Just Cause or Red Faction: Guerrilla. Never got to play the sequel, so I wouldn't mind both games coming to GOG one day!
@ChibaTriv basically said all there needs to be said. Absolute banger of early open world sand-box game design that crawled so Just Cause could fly (with a grappling hook and parachute).
I’ve played Mercenaries since it came out, spending hundreds if not thousands of hours as a kid exploring the world, messing around, finding every fun little detail and generally causing chaos.
I’ve never since played a game where you could load up a vehicle with random allies, drive to an existing battle and help them completely turn the tide just for the hell of it, or where you can use a helicopter which to send vehicles flying, and have them actually explode on impact like you’d expect, let alone have an ingame minigame dedicated to it.
Want to attach a random civilian’s car to a crane 70 meters in the air? Go for it, driver and all!
Carpet bomb an enemy encampment? Watch as everything is reduced to rubble.
Role play saving the downed pilots on the enemy’s island used for chemical weapon testing, spending ages stealing a hardened vehicle with enough carrying capacity as you scout the whole island to find and save every last one, and then conveniently look away as the cutscene plays of you getting on the evacuation helicopter and leaving without them? Oddly specific but by god can you do it.
Returning to the game years later, I was able to find a community of fans who loved it just as much as I did, and over the years helped grow that community by orders of magnitude, even introducing new people to the series who’ve fallen in love with it.
We’ve even done a Q&A with the devs to learn more about the development process of Mercenaries and the love they poured into it.
This is a game that deserves to be preserved on GOG. It’s an opportunity for people who haven’t played it since their childhood to rediscover it, and for people who never got a chance to play it in the first place to finally find and experience it.
I used to play it when I was a kid, when I still bought video game magazines. One day I saw a picture of this game on the cover and the destructible environment. I fell in love and in the meantime I recovered the first chapter, definitively falling in love with the saga.
One of the best open world desrtuction games ever made. I literally would do anything to have this remastered in 4k and able to share with my friends. PLEASEEEEEE
This game pissed off the despotic dynasty terrorising North Korea for over half a century. Let's get this game a remaster to give them the finger once again.
Fully destructable enviroments.
Open world.
Call in air strikes, weapon drops or just have an atttack helicoptor, APC or tank dropped.
Need to balance faction reputation to get access to all missions and equipment.
Mercenaries is perhaps one of the most atmospheric and best sandbox-driven open world games from the 6th generation console era with unparalelled destruction for the time; there is nothing else like it. Mercenaries features extremely unique and satisfying gameplay systems all backed by a phenomenal soundtrack by Chris Tilton and Michael Giacchino.
Mercenaries is a game I always find myself coming back to even after nearly 20 years accompanied by a lot of fond memories from my childhood and I would love nothing more to see it properly preserved on PC.
You have to remember how long ago this was. 2005.
Yet this game had freedom, building destruction, stealth and superb action elements. It's like GTA, but with a hard focus on destruction and it was so incredibly fun playing this. It was novel too, being able to play as a young female Chinese operative or even a Swedish mercenary. I would adore having access to this game again, as it's really really underserved.
I never understood why Mercenaries wasn't more popular. It was fun picking up VIPs, knocking out guards and just feeling FREE to do things. Features such as being able to order airstrikes and all kinds of vehicles, wasn't even very common in games back then, if memory serves. But look now at the latest Metal Gear Solid game for example, where such features are a mainstay. What more could you want in a 2005 game? It really WAS a Playground of Destruction!
It's still one of the best games of all time for me, I don't think there's anything else like it, there's games that come close, but no cigar. Even the Sequel failed to capture the magic of the first game. I'd love to see them polish this game and re-release it. Hell I'd love Mercenaries 3. Pandemic was a top tier Studio.
Condemned: Criminal OriginsInvestigate crime scenes, collect evidence, and bring to light the murderers terrorizing the city as Detective Ethan Thomas. With danger lurking around every corner, you’ll need whatever weapons you can find to stay alive.
What twists the mind of an ordinary human into a serial killer? Assigned to the Serial Crimes Unit, Agent Ethan Thomas must answer this question, and bring the worst of society to justice. His solve rate is the best in the bureau....perhaps too good.Action Horror Survival Mystery
Grand Theft Auto 2Grand Theft Auto 2 is an open world action-adventure video game. It is the sequel to Grand Theft Auto, part of the Grand Theft Auto series. The open world design lets players freely roam Anywhere City, the setting of the game.Open world Action
The DarknessThe Darkness features a distinct blend of dark modern crime drama and supernatural horror with intense first person non-linear gameplay. The game is a dynamic first person shooter that allows players to call upon the forces of the evil underworld as they fight in gritty, urban environments.Action Horror
Contra ReBirthContra ReBirth is the ReBirth series of Contra. It is the 12th installment of Contra.Action Science fiction
Turning Point: Fall of LibertyTurning Point: Fall of Liberty is a first-person shooter video game.
The game takes place in an alternate history in which Winston Churchill dies in 1931, eight years before the start of World War II, presenting the possibility of what could have happened to Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world without his leadership.Action Fantasy Historical
The Darkness II: Limited EditionThe Darkness II is an intense first person shooter that delivers a twisted and gripping narrative of tragedy, modern crime drama, and supernatural horror. Players will be taken down the brutal and personal path of Jackie Estacado, head of a New York crime family and wielder of an ancient and ruthless force of chaos and destruction known as The Darkness.Action
PeripeteiaPeripeteia is a first-person game mixing shooter, stealth and RPG mechanics, placing it within the elusive and ephemeral "immersive sim" genre, heavily inspired by the greats such as Deus Ex, it expands upon the formula with original ideas and an unexplored alternative history post-soviet setting.Action Science fiction Stealth
Mass EffectWhat starts as a routine mission to an agrarian outpost quickly becomes the opening salvo in an epic war. As the newly appointed Executive Officer of the SSV Normandy, you'll assemble and lead an elite squad of heroes into battle after heart-pounding battle. Each decision you make will impact not only your fate, but the destiny of the entire galaxy in the Mass Effect trilogy.
Key Features:
Incredible, interactive storytelling. Create and customize your own character, from Commander Shepard's appearance and skills to a personalized arsenal. Unleash devastating abilities as you command and train. Your decisions will control the outcome of each mission, your relationships with your crew and ultimately the entire war.
An amazing universe to explore. From the massive Citadel to the harsh, radioactive landscape of the Krogan home world – the incredible breadth of the Mass Effect universe will blow you away. Travel to the farthest outposts aboard the SSV Normandy, the most technologically advanced ship in the galaxy. You'll follow the clues left by ancient civilizations, discover hidden bases with fantastic new tech and lead your hand-picked crew into explosive alien battles.
Edge-of-your-seat excitement meets strategic combat. Find the perfect combination of squad-mates and weapons for each battle if you want to lead them to victory. Sun-Tzu's advice remains as pertinent in 2183 as it is today – know your enemy. You'll need different tactics for a squad of enemies with devastating biotic attacks than a heavily armored Geth Colossus so choose your teams wisely.Action Science fiction Romance
Mass Effect Legendary EditionOne person is all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat it’s ever faced. Relive the legend of Commander Shepard in the highly acclaimed Mass Effect trilogy with the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Includes single-player base content and over 40 DLCs from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 games, including promo weapons, armors and packs. Experience an amazingly rich and detailed universe where your decisions have profound consequences on the action and the outcome.Open world Action Science fiction Drama
PreyPrey tells the story of Tommy, a Cherokee garage mechanic stuck on a reservation going nowhere. Abducted along with his people to a menacing mothership orbiting Earth, he sets out to save himself and his girlfriend and eventually his planet.Our Pick Top Trending Action Science fiction