Overview

This section outlines the story of Darkspy, detailing its structure, major events, and key conflicts. Unlike traditional linear narratives, Darkspy presents its story through a blend of memory recollection, mission-based storytelling, and interactive choices.

Story Summary

The game follows Caine, a covert operative who once worked against Horizon, a trillion-dollar AI conglomerate. Captured and interrogated, he is forced to recall his past missions as part of a US-China task force that sought to contain Horizon’s growing influence. The story unfolds through his memories, spanning three global regions, each containing a crucial piece of "Leviathan"—a super AI project created by Michael Zhang, designed to control the world’s satellites, militaries, food supply, logistics, and information networks. Caine recalls how he destroyed each piece to stop Zhang.

The player doesn't know who has captured him and is interrogating him.

The major plot points are as follows:

• The player (as Caine) recalls his missions in North America, which culminates in infiltrating an underground prison where he learns that Leviathan is created by merging human brains with AI to create a unique form of AI. Caine destroys the first piece of Leviathan but now must find the other 2 in order to stop Leviathan.
• The player recalls his missions in Europe, which culminates in him infiltrating an arctic bunker where he destroys the second piece of Leviathan. However, Caine also discovers that Michael Zhang, the supposed CEO of Horizon, is being stored in cryogenic stasis and his nefarious daughter is actually the one running things. The player transfers Zhang's consciousness to a storage device to talk to later. This is strictly against protocol since Zhang is a designated terrorist.
• The player recalls his missions in Asia, which culminate in him sabotaging the third piece of Leviathan, thus preventing Zhang's daughter from using it.
• At this point, the player is able to have a full conversation with Zhang. Zhang reveals that the original vision of Leviathan was to usher in a utopia. But when he saw governments would use the technology to assert more control, he opposed them. He was then villainized by the US and China who Zhang claims wanted to the use the technology themselves. Zhang was then betrayed by his daughter who intended to use Leviathan to defeat the US and China.
• To prove this, Zhang gives the player a code which allow the player to access a restricted area at the player's HQ. The player would have seen this area before but not been able to enter. Upon entering, the player realizes that the US and China are using same technology that they have outlawed and demonized Horizon for using. The player discovers a group of bodies plugged into a machine. These human brains are what power "CASSY" the player's AI assistant.
• The player is then captured by Task Force personnel and taken to an interrogation room that is in another area of the same headquarters the player has been at.

NOTE: the game could end here but we have an epic finale planned.

• Now the player, in present day is in the interrogation room. The interrogators inform the player that Zhang's daughter is attempting to merge with Leviathan herself to complete it. She is doing this in a Horizon-run Future City (name TBD) in the Middle East. This is a sort of "cloud city" which is a mix of Columbia from Bioshock Infinite, Dubai, the real life Neom project, and a few other influences. This location has been mentioned throughout the story as a Horizon stronghold.
• The interrogators want the player's help in defeating the daughter but had to make sure that he wasn't working with Zhang. Zhang contacts the player but the interrogators can't hear him. Zhang urges the player to stop his daughter but then asks the player to put Zhang's consciousness into Leviathan to complete it.
• The player makes a major choice here which affects how the final mission plays out: (A) they side with Zhang. Zhang kills the power to the building which frees the player and allows them to escape. A pilot loyal to Zhang takes the player to the Future City. Or (B) the player sides with the US-China Task Force and heads to the Future City to stop the daughter. Depending on the player's choice, they are:
  • A) Defending the city from the US-China forces while Zhang's consciousness is uploaded to Leviathan (after defeating his daughter).
  • B) Attacking the city alongside the US-China forces to stop Zhang's daughter who is in the process of uploading her consciousness to Leviathan.
• In either event, there are 3 additional endings available to the player:
  • C) Merge with the AI yourself.
  • D) Unleash the AI (you can "activate" it with no safeguards).
  • E) Negotiate a treaty to prevent anyone from using Leviathan.

Story Flow

The diagram below breaks down the flow of the story.

Note that the sets of missions have their own self-contained vignettes that all connect to each other. These are deliberately being kept more flexible and will mainly be explored through mission briefings, dossiers of NPCs, and collecting audio logs in levels. The focus of this section is on the overarching story about Caine, Zhang, and Leviathan.

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Rogue-Lite Elements

When the player dies, they restart (either at the beginning or at the start of an act).

See the Campaign Loop section for more details on this.

Narratively, death in Darkspy occurs when the player "forgets" what happened (as most of the missions take place inside his memories as he's narrating his missions to his interrogators). This makes it plausible for the player to repeat the same missions but with slight variations as Reactive Resistance resets on death and the levels change.