The X-Files: Resist or Serve is a 2004 survival horror game developed by Black Ops Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is based on the television series The X-Files (1993–2002), and is the third game based on the series, after The X-Files: Unrestricted Access (1997) and The X-Files Game (1998). The game is set during the seventh season of the television series, and the story is presented as three new "episodes" in which FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate mysterious deaths in Colorado, where they learn about an alien artifact used to resurrect deceased people. The agents' investigation ultimately leads them to Tunguska, Russia, where they discover a spaceship that crashed there nearly 100 years earlier.
The game was announced in December 2002, with its release initially scheduled for the second quarter of 2003, to coincide with the DVD release of the seventh season. Thomas Schnauz, who wrote two episodes of the series, was hired to write the script for the game. Characters from the series who are featured in the game were portrayed by their original actors through voice acting. Music from the series, composed by Mark Snow, was also used in the game. In North America, Vivendi Universal Games published the game for the PlayStation 2 in March 2004 and later released the game in Europe two months later. An Xbox version had initially been planned, but was later cancelled.
The game was advertised as being three lost episodes from the series' seventh season, and received mixed and average reviews. Critics compared The X-Files: Resist or Serve to the Resident Evil game series for using similar gameplay. The game received praise for its story and writing, as well as its voice acting and music. However, criticism was received for the game's graphics, poor controls, and problematic fixed-camera angles, which change with each new area that the player enters.
Plot
The game is set during the television series' seventh season, after the season's second episode, "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati". The game is divided across three levels, which are presented as new "episodes" titled "Renascence", "Resonance", and "Reckoning". Each level begins with the series' opening credits sequence.
"Renascence" A spacecraft crashes in Tunguska, Russia on June 30, 1908, resulting in the release of the "black oil" alien virus. The crash kills a Russian couple, and the virus infects their baby. In the present day, 15-year-old twin sisters Katlyn and Mandy Winslow have disappeared from their hometown of Red Falls, Colorado, but they reappear two weeks later, coinciding with three mysterious deaths that are believed to have been committed by a man who died in a drunk-driving crash 24 hours prior to the murders. Most of the residents believe that the girls, who are practitioners of witchcraft, revived the murder suspect so he could commit the killings.
FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (voiced by David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (voiced by Gillian Anderson) are sent to Red Falls to investigate the murders. The agents split up upon their arrival and encounter zombies. Mulder eventually finds the body of Mandy Winslow, hung in the town center. The agents reunite, and Mulder is later bitten by a zombie. Scully, who is also a medical doctor, performs an autopsy on the zombie and creates an antidote to save Mulder from the effects of the bite wound. The agents locate Katlyn Winslow, who subsequently flees from them and is later found dead.
The agents infiltrate the nearby Briar Lake mental institution, where they discover vials of black oil and learn that the Winslows were the subject of science experiments due to the fact that they shared a psychic connection. They also discover clones of the Winslow girls, and encounter Alex Krycek (voiced by Nicholas Lea), who tells them that the clones are using powers to release an alien artifact. Krycek escapes, and the artifact is taken by a ghostly entity, while Mulder and Scully are forced by soldiers to evacuate the city on board a helicopter. The soldiers decline to specify who sent them. From the air, the agents notice Red Falls is now in fiery ruins as part of a cover-up. Mulder is dissatisfied with the lack of evidence to present for the investigation, but Scully reveals that she obtained an optical disc from Briar Lake, which she hopes will provide further information.