In Red Faction: Guerrilla, the player takes the role of a guerrilla member, Alec Mason, as he assists the Red Faction to disrupt and overthrow the power of the Earth Defense Force (EDF) on Mars. This is presented to the player in a third person perspective, a departure from the series’ previous two games which were first person shooters, a change that Volition claims to help the player see and appreciate the surroundings as they are destroyed. Much of the game centers around the game’s Geomod 2.0 engine, which allows for buildings and other structures to take damage, fall apart and collapse. In many cases, destroying buildings will leave behind salvage, the game’s form of currency, which can be used along with salvage rewarded by completing missions to unlock new weapons and upgrade existing ones when visiting one of the Red Faction safehouses.

Set 50 years after the climactic events of the original Red Faction, Red Faction: Guerrilla allows players to take the role of an insurgent fighter with the newly re-established Red Faction movement as they battle for liberation from the oppressive Earth Defense Force.

Red Faction: Guerrilla re-defines the limits of destruction-based game-play with a huge open-world, fast-paced guerrilla-style combat, and true physics-based destruction