Resistance is a series of first-person shooter and third-person shooter video games developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita video game consoles. The series takes place in an alternate history 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 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 and St. Louis, Missouri. 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 PlayStation Vita 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 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 game Astro's Playroom.
Setting
The alternate history of the Resistance series diverges from current history primarily at the end of World War I, leading to the formation of the European Trade Organization, a continental peacekeeping alliance, and worldwide peace, preventing the Great Depression, the rise of the Nazi Germany, and World War II, but also leading to Franklin Delano Roosevelt losing the 1940 presidential election to Montana Senator Noah Grace who leads the U.S into a semi-totalitarian isolationist state, as well as the rise of an isolationist Russian Empire, as before his abdication, Nicholas II appointed his youngest brother Grand Duke Mikhail as Tsar, who crushed the Russian Revolution.