History HarsherInHindsight / Videogames

* The promotional iPad game for ''The Smiler'' roller coaster at Ride/AltonTowers has you tilt the device in order to stabilize the train, or else the train derails. After ''seven accidents'', the most recent causing two riders to ''be amputated,'' the app was taken down from the app store.

* The obscure, mediocre Taito shmup ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Weapon Master of Weapon]]'' not only states in the opening crawl that it is set on "September 11, 199X", but, more eerily, features several couples of skyscrapers that can be shot and will crumble in a cloud of dust.

* Every single joke made in ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow]]'' about how Soma and Mina are obviously an item [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend at their expense]] come across far more darker in the wake of the bad ending. Let's just say that a Soma without Mina is [[FromNobodyToNightmare not a happy Soma]]...

* WWE games:
** The ''WWF Raw'' video game for the SNES and UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis (among others) allows wrestlers to perform over-the-top "mega moves" in order to finish a match. The video game guide demonstrates Diesel's mega move, in which he tosses his opponent fifty feet in the air and lets them crash back down onto the mat, by having him do it to Owen Hart, who would wind up dying at the WWF's ''Over the Edge'' event five years later by falling fifty feet and crashing onto the mat due to a malfunctioned harness.
** Wrestling/TheUndertaker's ''[=SmackDown=] vs. Raw'' curse:
*** A storyline of the story mode in ''WWE [=SmackDown!=] vs. Raw 2006'' ends with Wrestling/EddieGuerrero landing in a casket during a feud with The Undertaker; soon after the release of the game, Guerrero died.
*** In ''[=SmackDown=] vs. Raw 2007'', a storyline has dialogue where The Undertaker tells Wrestling/ChrisBenoit, who he's feuding with, that his grieving family will have no one to blame but himself; months later, the real Benoit kills his wife, his son, and himself.
** In ''WWE '13'', if you are having a match with Eve Torres, you'll occasionally hear Jerry Lawler make a comment about needing an EMT at ringside because his "heart skipped a beat." It's fairly cringeworthy when you remember that Lawler had a major heart attack on live TV in September 2012 that nearly killed him.[[note]]In THQ's defense, the audio commentary had been done for awhile at that point and Lawler himself has already made these kinds of jokes following his return.[[/note]]

** The Kanto region also features an abandoned and ruined power plant, in about the same spot where the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant exists in RealLife. ''Tokai was one of the plants which faced meltdown after the 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami.'' Since Pokémon is implied to occur in a parallel universe, It makes one wonder where Pokémon [[AfterTheEnd really]] [[ILoveNuclearPower came]] [[FridgeHorror from]], [[RagnarokProofing and how long the ruins have been there]]...

* One of the first pieces of promotional material for ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' reveals that "EVERYONE IS HERE!", i.e. in addition to adding new characters, it brought back every single character from past ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games, including characters who appeared in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee'' and ''Videogame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'' but [[PutOnABus disappeared in subsequent games]]. Many hailed ''Ultimate'' as topping ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' as "[[MemeticMutation the most ambitious crossover in history]]." Then came the trailer for the ''World of Light'' adventure mode and ''Ultimate'' topped ''Infinity War'' on this claim in a way that was ''not'' happy. [[spoiler:Thanos destroying half of the universe's life with a fingersnap]] at the end of ''Infinity War''? Try [[spoiler:Galeem killing ''[[KillEmAll everyone]]'' except for Kirby in one fell swoop]], and as part of the game's ''[[DownerBeginning intro]]'' no less!

* ''VideoGame/{{Vampyr}}'' takes place in London during the Spanish Flu outbreak. Much of the plot is given to citizens coping with the pandemic, and the main character is a doctor who is investigating the disease. The game came out two years before the COVID-19 outbreak, the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu 100 years earlier. The game was released free to PS Plus members in October, 2020, in the midst of the new pandemic. This harshness is only double underlined by the late game reveal [[spoiler:the cause of the more aggressive variants of the virus that seem to plaguing London and twisting the citizenship into monsters are actually the work of a vampire goddess, who comes out every few centuries years or so to "play" against her son, to stop her disease. Meaning in the timeline the world was potentially expected to have an outbreak in the exact time frame of the Covid pandemic]].

** In Case 2, Pearl jokes that Phoenix will one day grow famous enough to have imitators. [[spoiler:In Case 3, Tigre gets Maggey thrown in jail by impersonating Phoenix and doing a deliberately awful defense at her trial.]]
** One of the most gut-wrenching is [[spoiler:this quote from Diego Armando/Godot when he is describing Maggey Byrde's supposed guilt: "Using the dark, aromatic depths of coffee to conceal the poison...classy lady!"]] It really hits home when you find out [[spoiler:[[DarkAndTroubledPast Armando]] himself was poisoned by the murderous Dahlia Hathorne and fell into a five-year coma, during which time Mia Fey, the love of his life, was murdered. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy really had in rough...]]]]
** Mia's reaction to [[spoiler:Phoenix eating the pendant bottle in Case 1]] is mildly amusing at the time, but if you consider the events of Case 4 it's no longer funny: [[spoiler:it was not her first time seeing her client swallow poison in court to cover for his lover]].
** Godot's line, "by the way, I've tried salt in my coffee. It tastes terrible," Take a look at the end of Flashback case 3-4, [[spoiler:Mia is crying that Terry Fawles commits suicide, Dahlia got away with that murder and Diego says "relax, kitten, your tears are getting my coffee salty."]] This ultimately implies how Godot is still alive and why he is addicted to coffee.
** There's a power outage during the earlier cases where the only visible objects on screen are Phoenix's eyes and Godot's visor, a moment clearly played for laughs given the visuals. [[spoiler:Fast forward to the final case, and one of the logical conclusions Phoenix points out is why Maya is so certain of Godot being there, and he demands the court turn out the lights... and guess what lights up the darkness in a much more serious shot than before.]]

** In ''Trials and Tribulations'' Case 2, Pearl jokes that Phoenix will one day grow famous enough to have imitators. [[spoiler:In Case 3, Tigre gets Maggey thrown in jail by impersonating Phoenix and doing a deliberately awful defense at her trial.]]

** ''Dual Destinies'':

** Edgeworth's phobia of [[spoiler:earthquakes]] is hilarious when triggered for the first time, with Maya finding him curling on the floor of all things and definitely not coming to his senses anytime soon. It gets kind of sad and creepy when you find out about the circumstances that caused the phobia in the first place, as lampshaded by Phoenix.
** ''Investigations 2'' introduces Sebastian Debeste, a rather incompetent prosecutor who gets made fun of by everybody for being an idiot. [[spoiler:The last two cases of the game explain that Sebastian's abusive father likes to berate him for being an idiot, and that he paid Sebastian's teachers to give him good grades without telling him. When Sebastian finds out about this, he starts to think that he really ''is'' an idiot and almost has a mental and emotional breakdown.]]
** One of the most gut-wrenching is [[spoiler:this quote from Diego Armando/Godot when he is describing Maggey Byrde's supposed guilt: "Using the dark, aromatic depths of coffee to conceal the poison...classy lady!"]] It really hits home when you find out [[spoiler:[[DarkAndTroubledPast Armando]] himself was poisoned by the murderous Dahlia Hathorne and fell into a five-year coma, during which time Mia Fey, the love of his life, was murdered. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy really had in rough...]]]]
** In ''Investigations 2'', it's a RunningGag for everyone to call Sebastian an idiot, including Larry, the resident dumbass. This loses all the fun when case 4 showcases that [[spoiler:calling him an idiot is the main form of abuse he suffers from his [[AbusiveParents father]]. At the climax of the case, his father gladly tells the whole room about how he bribed Sebastian's teachers and judges to give him good grades and that he is an idiot who is unworthy of being his son. Sebastian runs out of the room crying, and in case 5, he sinks into a pit of self-loathing and [[HeroicBSOD almost has a mental breakdown]] due to these events.]]
** Another example comes in ''Rise from the Ashes'' in [[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney the first game]]. Phoenix being accused of [[spoiler:illegally withholding a piece of crucial evidence and having Gant say his badge will be taken away]] becomes a lot more apparent and foreshadowed when Phoenix is disbarred in the fourth game after he [[spoiler:unknowingly presents forged evidence during a murder trial.]] This could however be a deliberate foreshadowing since ''Rise from the Ashes'' was made and released in the DS port for the first time while [[VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney the fourth game]] was probably already in development.
** ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]'' has a extremely dark example. The first case features a bombing of a courtroom, where the courtroom was cleared in time before the explosion. This was thanks to Ted Tonate alerting everyone to the bomb. Later on, Ted Tonate is fingered by Phoenix as being the real bomber, and that he detonated the bomb to hide a murder, leading the player to conclude that Tonate must have tried to clear the courtroom out on purpose. The fact he killed someone, blew a courtroom up, and risked killing innocent people is bad enough for this to a dark case. But it gets a whole lot worse much later on in the game [[spoiler:when the player learns that the actual bomber wasn't Ted Tonate, but someone else who stole the remote switch and then detonated the bomb with it. In other words, the actual bomber ''did'' mean for everyone to still be in the courtroom when the bomb went off. It was simply by luck that Tonate noticed the bomb was activated and alerted everyone, making the bombing of the courtroom a whole lot harsher ''and'' darker in hindsight.]]

** The plot point where [[spoiler: the Urzikstan rebels are declared as a terrorist organization and have their support cut off, allowing an ascendant Al-Qatala to seize power in the resulting vacuum,]] comes off this way as the game was released soon after the US government withdrew support to the Syrian Democratic Forces, causing a surge in the conflict that led to ISIS cells re-establishing themselves in the chaos.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Lula3D}}: There's a chapter where you end up on a western movie set and one of the actors accidentally shoots a bird in the opening cutscene, it's mentioned by others that the gun safety on the set isn't great(with Lula joking that she hopes the actors have good insurance)with there being confusion if there are live rounds being used or just blanks and the director insists the prop guns are "under lock and key" and at one point the actress that fired the guns mentions how the director wanted her to shoot directly at the camera. All of this stuff became downright eerie in light of the tragedy on the set of the western movie "Rust" in October 2021 where Creator/AlecBaldwin was using a gun during filming and it accidentally went off and hit and killed a crew member and there was a lot of controversy and questioning over the handling of the prop guns on the set with questions of how live ammo got into the gun to begin with, and the scene in which the crew member was shot had Baldwin scripted to shoot his gun directly at the camera.

* Part of the plot of ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' is how the villains are distributing illegal [[GRatedDrug spices]] that, when eaten, drive the eater into horrible rages [[spoiler: in order to manufacture a HatePlague to [[ThePowerOfHate fuel]] the parts of Clockwerk]]. The use of literal spices was done in order to mask the usage of drugs in the game. Unfortunately, about a decade after the game's original release people have been selling "legal highs" of synthetic cannabis which has become a serious issue is several countries, with a popular brand of these legal highs being called Spice.

* ''VideoGame/{{Vampyr}}'' takes place in London during the Spanish Flu outbreak. Much of the plot is given to citizens coping with the pandemic, and the main character is a doctor who is investigating the disease. The game came out two years before the COVID-19 outbreak, the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu 100 years earlier. The game was released free to PS Plus members in October, 2020, in the midst of the new pandemic. This harshness is only double underlined by the late game reveal [[spoiler: the cause of the more aggressive variants of the virus that seem to plaguing London and twisting the citizenship into monsters are actually the work of a vampire goddess,who comes out every few centuries years or so to "play" against her son, to stop her disease. Meaning in the timeline the world was potentially expected to have an outbreak in the exactly time frame of the covid pandemic.]]

* The front cover of the ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'' video game has a shot of [[spoiler: Tony and Michelle]] diving for cover from an explosion. [[spoiler:Michelle is killed by a car bomb at the start of Season 5.]]

** Related to this, many characters, including Maya Fey, Ema and Lana Skye and Detective Gumshoe have joked about [[spoiler: Phoenix giving up or even losing his badge.]] It was funny during the first three games, since the players reaction was guaranteed to be "Yeah, like that'd ever happen!"... Then, ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' came along and the jokes turned into nightmarish {{Foreshadowing}} instead, with the only ray of hope resting in Apollo and his new law firm.
** It is worth nothing though, that both examples above have since been reverted by the time of the sixth game (Phoenix was reinstated as a lawyer who is considered legendary among people, and Ema became a succesful forensic investigator who also got to keep her detective job), effectively subverting this trope.

** Mia's reaction to [[spoiler: Phoenix eating the pendant bottle in Case 1]] is mildly amusing at the time, but if you consider the events of Case 4 it's no longer funny: [[spoiler: it was not her first time seeing her client swallow poison in court to cover for his lover.]]

*** There's a RunningGag throughout the game of the convict prosecutor Simon Blackquil being tasered by his detective handler Bobby Fullbright to keep him in line. Come TheReveal in Case 5 that [[spoiler: Bobby Fullbright ''is'' said terrorist mentioned above, and Simon was falsely convicted for a murder ''he committed'']], and this becomes a ''lot'' less funny on replays. In fact [[spoiler: almost every comedic moment involving Bobby Fullbright]] comes off as deeply disturbing after TheReveal, such as [[spoiler: Jinxie calling him a ghost in Case 2, as the real Bobby Fullbright has been dead for a long time.]]

** ''Investigations 2'' introduces Sebastian Debeste, a rather incompetent prosecutor who gets made fun of by everybody for being an idiot. [[spoiler: The last two cases of the game explain that Sebastian's abusive father likes to berate him for being an idiot, and that he paid Sebastian's teachers to give him good grades without telling him. When Sebastian finds out about this, he starts to think that he really ''is'' an idiot and almost has a mental and emotional breakdown.]]
** One of the most gut-wrenching is [[spoiler:this quote from Diego Armando/Godot when he is describing Maggey Byrde's supposed guilt: "Using the dark, aromatic depths of coffee to conceal the poison...classy lady!"]] It really hits home when you find out [[spoiler: [[DarkAndTroubledPast Armando]] himself was poisoned by the murderous Dahlia Hathorne and fell into a five-year coma, during which time Mia Fey, the love of his life, was murdered. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy really had in rough...]]]]

** An in story example for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations''. On the final mission Ezio goes into the library in Masyaf, there are absolutely no books or anything at all, save a ring of chairs with only one occupant: [[spoiler: the skeleton of Altair.]] You then have an Altair Memory, of him dousing all of the torches in the hall to the library (mirroring Ezio relighting them as he goes into it) and then hiding the Apple of Eden behind a wall. The final mission statement? [[TearJerker Take a seat and rest for a bit.]]
** Comes again in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'', when you realize that he had lost another loved one in the city he lived in and watched helplessly as his father and brothers were executed. He had every reason to brutally execute Savonarola for the death of [[spoiler: Cristina]]. It took a lot of self control to not give him the same fate he had given [[spoiler: Vieri and Uberto]].

*** In addition, there's [[spoiler: Batman briefly getting infected by the TITAN formula himself near the end of ''Asylum'', but is able to successfully overcome the effects. He wouldn't be as lucky the second time around, this time getting infected with the tainted batch of it mixed with Joker's blood, leading to far more devastating effects on his body]].

* Try playing the other ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' games after finding out in ''Shattered Soldier'' that [[spoiler: the aliens invaded Earth because [[WellIntentionedExtremist the Triumvirate had secretly stolen a sacred relic from them]], and that Lance Bean became a WellIntentionedExtremist himself by trying to overthrow the Triumvirate.]] And try playing ''Shattered Soldier'' after [[spoiler: seeing Lucia become one of the members of the QuirkyMinibossSquad that must be defeated.]]

** If you play a City Elf, when you talk to your cousin Soris, he'll say that his [[ArrangedMarriage bride-to-be]] sounds like a dying mouse, to which you can respond (paraphrased) 'maybe I should get you a cage for your wedding gift'. Considerably less funny later on when [[spoiler: she and a few other female wedding guests are imprisoned in a human noble's mansion so that he can rape and kill them one at a time]].
** There's banter between Alistair and [[TheAlcoholic Oghren]] where Alistair asks how Oghren is so drunk all the time - "Do we even have that much alcohol with us? I wish I could be drunk all the time!" [[spoiler: If you recruit Loghain into your party and you either don't make Alistair king or haven't hardened him, Alistair ends up becoming a drunken vagrant out of despair.]]

** In a similar vein, Varric also has a few banters with [[{{Fangirl}} Cassandra]] where they talk about his books. In one such banters, he explains how he likes to [[spoiler: make his characters suffer, and even "throw in a [[HeroicSacrifice heroic death]]"]].
** Later in the game, if female Lavellan is in a romantic relationship with Solas, [[spoiler: Sera will snark about Levallan and Solas "rebuilding the Elvhen empire" in the bedroom. Later, it turns out that Solas is indeed trying to rebuild the ancient empire of the Elves...just in a more apocalyptic fashion.]]

* On the way to meet with Page to sneak into Reaver's masquerade in ''VideoGame/FableIII'', at the entrance of her base, you pass by Captain Swift, who's off to stir up further support for the uprising among the soldiers at Castle Bowerstone - before leaving, when Page refuses to let him come with the two of you, Ben half-jokingly whines that he should've just gone with Swift (who is for the record essentially the [[TheMentor Walter]] to Ben's "you"). [[spoiler: The next and last time he sees him is at his public execution. It's also a little of a downer on a replay that one of the promises you make to your supporters for when you're on the throne is to put Swift in charge of your army]].
* A possible moment can happen in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. In Old World Blues, the [[OmnicidalManiac toaster]] says that "Soon the world will burn in nuclear fire, [[AfterTheEnd again]]!" You can't help but laugh as the Toaster is AxCrazy yet [[HarmlessVillain harmless]] (because he is a toaster). Then, [[spoiler: Lonesome Road comes along, and the BigBad try to launch nuclear missiles at the NCR/Legion/general Mojave depending on your relations with all the factions in the Mojave, and you get to pick if and where they're launched.]]

** In ''VideoGame/Halo4'' Cortana saying "I'm not doing this for mankind" revealed how much she cared for Master Chief. In ''[[VideoGame/Halo5Guardians Halo 5]]'' [[spoiler: this takes on a much darker light when it's revealed how callous she can be to humans who aren't John.]]

* In ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'', all of [[PrivateDetective Scott Shelby's]] interactions with the parents of the [[SerialKiller Origami Killer's]] victims, which seem genuinely kind and caring at the time, become this when it's revealed that [[spoiler: Shelby is the killer, and is just using them to get his hands on any evidence that might implicate him.]]

* An in-universe example in ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaV''. Plutia mistaking a CPU Memory for candy? Amusing. [[spoiler: Blanc, Peashy, and Rei all making similar mistakes? One tragedy after the next.]] The world sucking outside of Lowee until Planeptune and Lastation came along? Interesting take on how things played out in real life. [[spoiler: That's not [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 the only thing]] taken from real life.]]

** During the years between the release of the demo and the full game coming out, an ''enormous'' amount of the Hanako-centered fanfics followed the formula of "[character] comforts Hanako, protecting her, cuddling her and tells her she's beautiful, and Hanako falls in love with them forever." Cue Hanako's route from the game, which revolves around [[spoiler: an absolute deconstruction of that very same idea, showing that this type of behavior would cause terrible emotional damage to both parties involved.]]

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series: Whenever he is in [[Film/{{Tron}} Space Paranoids]], Sora will wear [[TwentyFourHourArmor armor]] with TronLines that'll change color depending on what Drive Form he enters. Seeing him in [[MagicKnight Master Form]] in that world, which results in the lines turning yellow, looked cool until late 2010, when ''[[Film/TronLegacy Tron: Legacy]]'' was released, in which its BigBad, Clu, also has yellow lines. Considering how cruel he is, especially what he did to the [=ISOs=], [[spoiler: Tron]] and to '''his own creator''', this really brings a bitter aftertaste to players. What tops this off is that Sora gets Master Form '''DURING''' the first trip to Space Paranoids; not only that, using the form consumes both party members (temporary, fortunately), and Tron is a party member in Space Paranoids...

** Demyx's [[ThatOneBoss infamous sudden compotence as a boss fight]] along with the very uncharacteristic "silence, traitor" line before said fight is a lot harsher now that we know [[spoiler:Xehanort was using Organization XIII as vessels in a GrandTheftMe plan. It's likely Demyx, who was later confirmed to be a Dandelion, was mostly assimilated by Xehanort by then]]. Though by ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', [[spoiler:Xehanort opted to "bench" Demyx for his incompetence, triggering Demyx to defect and help [[TheMole Vexen]] rescue Ansem the Wise.]]
** Every time Ansem, Seeker of Darkness is fought, he's accompanied by his Guardian, a Heartless-like bodyguard creature. ''Kingdom Hearts III'' reveals that [[spoiler: Terra's heart was trapped inside it the whole time]], which makes every fight infinitely worse on replays of the earlier games. [[spoiler: [[AndIMustScream Terra was forced to be a living shield for the man who stole his body and ruined his life for years.]]]] Ansem's "Submit!" [[CallingYourAttacks attack call]] suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' has a bucketful if you've played ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic''. That HopeSpot (and lightside boost) on Taris with those Outcasts? Yeah, instead of a quick death by orbital bombardment, you instead condemned the lot to be picked off by disease, rakghouls, starvation, and finished off with toxic waste. Playing the "canonical" option as a Light Side Male with a Bastila romance? Well, your character [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy knocks Bastila up]], has a Force vision about the HumanoidAbomination Sith Emperor, and runs off to try and stop it, leaving their friends and loved ones behind ''without so much as a holocron warning them about the threat or telling them why you had to leave.'' They spend the rest of their lives waiting and you never return. Even worse is if you go canon with the sequel, which is already running on this Trope. Exile hooks up with Revan, they try to take on the Emperor. [[KarmaHoudini Lord Scourge]] literally stabs Exile InTheBack, Revan ends up with the same fate Malak put all those Jedi in, then goes insane and tries to commit genocide of anyone with a ''trace'' of Sith blood before the ''Imperials'' save the galaxy by putting him out of his misery. Canderous's people become vassals of the Sith again (with those who followed his teachings hunted down by the Imperials), and the Sith charge in and lay waste to half the Republic anyway -- so everything in both games turned out to be near-completely pointless. [[spoiler: And Revan's final fate is to become a crazed cult leader trying to ''resurrect'' the aforementioned Emperor, and is finally put down like a rabid mutt by an EnemyMine coalition of characters from both factions -- including, for irony's sake, ''two'' of his descendants.]]
* In one of the early traffic cases in ''VideoGame/LANoire'', Bekowsky jokes about how Phelps was a OneManArmy during his time in World War II, greatly exaggerating his accomplishments while Phelps dismisses them since he doesn't like to brag about what he did when he served. [[spoiler: It becomes a lot harsher when you learn that Phelps was a [[TheNeidermeyer terrible marine]] whose orders and GloryHound tendencies gotten all of his men killed as well as a group of Japanese civilians and children all being burned alive. It's no wonder that Phelps refuses to talk about his past in the war.]]

** Also, in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', if you bring up his past hobby as an actor, Mordin will sing a modified version of the MajorGeneralSong to the amusement of both the players and Shepard. The moment becomes really depressing in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', if [[spoiler: Mordin sacrifices his life in order to cure the Genophage, as he quietly sings it (if he sang it in the second game) as the building collapses and explodes around him in one of the biggest [[TearJerker tear jerkers]] in whole game serie.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Mordin''': I..am..the very..model of - ''([[KilledMidSentence BOOM]])'' ]]
** The NoodleIncident involving farming equipment is much less funny when you realized [[spoiler: He was forced to savagely kill a Krogan sentry in cold blood, not only brutally injuring himself but also that all of the defenders at the camp were female Krogan makes the incident less funny.]]

* Shooting down the Gesselschaft, the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Bonne's flagship]] in ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' is pretty satisfying because it's easily [[ThatOneBoss the most difficult battle in the game]]... unless you play the prequel game ''The Misadventures Of Tron Bonne'' where you learn not only did Tiesel almost ''die'' for them to acquire the ship, but the family inadvertenly saved the entire world from Lex Loathe in their efforts to save him.

** Way back in the first game, released in the ''late Eighties'', Snake must reach Metal Gear by crossing an electric floor. All the other electric floors in the game have had panels which can be shot with missiles in order to prevent Snake getting zapped; this one had no such thing. In order to reach Metal Gear, Snake has to eat Rations to regain his draining health meter while he blinks in eight-bit damage. If you have played ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', this simple gameplay puzzle will likely bring you to tears, for its similarity to the [[spoiler: microwave tunnel scene]]. Only there, Snake can't restore his health with rations. This becomes even closer to BookEnds if you've played the NES ReformulatedGame which replaced Metal Gear with 'the supercomputer' -- in which case both ''Metal Gear'' and ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' end with a forced walk through a corridor that causes pain and Snake destroying a computer.

** [[{{Squick}} The fewer details given, the better]], but one of Meryl's lines, [[spoiler:[[VictoriasSecretCompartment ("Women have more hiding places than men")]]]] becomes a ''lot'' harsher with ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVGroundZeroes Ground Zeroes]]''. [[spoiler: In this case, the woman in question [[BodyHorror had one of her "hiding places"]] [[RapeAsDrama used against her will]] to [[WhyAmITicking hide a bomb meant to blow up Big Boss]].]]

*** The intended joke is probably this too, as Otacon is basically chiding Snake for polluting the Hudson. FlashForward to the Plant Chapter, and it turns out the Tanker Snake scuttled led to a ''lot'' worse pollution than that. [[spoiler: Or rather, so [[PropagandaMachine The Patriots]] would have us believe.]]

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'' managed to do this to a lot of ''Metal Gear Solid 3'': bad enough that Naked Snake ends up becoming [[spoiler:Big Boss, the villain of the first two ''Metal Gear'' games]], but ''[=MGS4=]'' reveals that the rest of your team - Sigint, Para-Medic and the all-important Major Zero - went on [[spoiler:with EVA and Ocelot to found the Patriots, the organization which eventually became the shadow government of the United States, and that Big Boss - originally one of the group - [[StartOfDarkness set off the Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land incidents]] in order to throw off their control]]. Furthermore, it's revealed that both Sigint and Para-Medic, a.k.a. [=DARPA=] Chief Donald Anderson, who probably indirectly created the [=AIs=], and Dr. Clark, the creator of the Les Enfants Terribles project and the person who turned Frank Jaeger into the Cyborg Ninja, were [[spoiler:both killed; Dr. Clark shortly before the events of the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', and Sigint/Ocelot were aware of their true allegiances when Ocelot killed Sigint;]] by the end of ''[=MGS4=]'', none of the original members are left, though it's a surprise as to which one is ''really'' the last to die. [[spoiler: It's actually Big Boss, who survived ''Metal Gear 2'' and was in a coma until saved by Ocelot and EVA.]]

* In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', many characters will talk about future plans they want the main character to be a part of, and how their lives have changed for the better [[spoiler: ...and then the main character dies at the end of the game.]]

* ''VideoGame/RecordOfAgarestWar2'' has it, of all the events that you can find in the game, in the [[spoiler: third generation HotSpringsEpisode. Normally a HotSpringsEpisode is pretty funny in this series until Jude just had to say (in a joking manner at that point) that his father Jainus who's in heaven be at peace while Jainus tells him that [[ImStandingRightHere he heard that and point out that he's not dead.]] This is just before Jainus' HeroicSacrifice when they get surrounded by monsters who were attracted to Chaos' power leaking out from Grey.]] You can even watch it again at the Event Gallery and it just feels uncomfortable watching that entire scene again and knowing what's about to happen.

** Remember how in I Jack kept angsting over John's constant absence from his life? We get a bit of backstory on this. Supposedly he abandoned Abigail and Jack ''for an entire year'', [[spoiler:and once the Marstons settle down in West Elizabeth, the player no doubt participates in John's disappearings by simply ''playing the game''.]]

* In ''{{VideoGame/Rumu}}'', at one point [[AllLovingHero Rumu]] has to clean up the house's lab, with the main mess being [[spoiler: a chemical spill. This is made all the more tragic later on, when it's revealed that that same spill was the cause of both David and Cecily's deaths.]]

** During Chapter 1, you can look around the dining room and talk to the guests, as a sort of tutorial for the investigation sequences. One decoration is a tombstone that has the names of all the guests besides Rie(the party host, who made it) and Taiko (the guy Rie likes). The characters don't think too much about the tombstone, although [[ObliviousToLove Taiko doesn't get why he isn't on it]], but it gets less funny by the end, after [[spoiler:Momoko, Hiro and possibly Kotoba]] die.

* Everything involving [[spoiler: Penelope]] in ''VideoGame/Sly3HonorAmongThieves'' becomes really painful after knowing [[spoiler: she does a FaceHeelTurn in ''VideoGame/SlyCooperThievesInTime''.]]

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', has a particularly nasty example, Guy's fear of women. Most of the fellow characters, and even the players snicker at seeing him freak out whenever women get too close to him. Some characters even make fun of it, and the female members may occasionally touch him deliberately in spite of that (like when Tear grabs his hand after he jokes about her having Luke "whipped"). Then you find out his fear stems from [[spoiler: being hidden under the dead bodies of his sister and the maids who sacrificed themselves to save him when Kimlascan soldiers massacred his family. [[HarmfulToMinors When he was around FIVE]]]]. Cue the three female party members feeling like [[JerkAss jerkasses]].
* An in-game example comes from ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia''. Close to the beginning, there is a cutscene about Lloyd's [[OrphansPlotTrinket Exsphere]] in with Genis says something about his mother protecting him through it. It feels way heavier the second time you play it since [[spoiler: you then know that the Desians imprisoned his mother's probably [[AndIMustScream still conscious]] soul in the stone, which gives it its power.]]
* These are everywhere in ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'' because of its prologue structure. Playing the game again and seeing how much everyone changes is one thing, but there's also lots of awful {{Foreshadowing}} around. Probably the worst one is when Asbel tells Hubert that he's pretending Richard is his older brother, and Hubert asks "What about me? Am I still your brother?" Pathetic on its own, but even worse once you know that [[spoiler: Hubert's about to be adopted by the Oswell family, and he makes it very clear in the beginning of the adult arc that because of the adoption, he ''doesn't'' consider Asbel his brother anymore.]]

* Try playing ''[[VideoGame/TimeCrisis Time Crisis II]]'' after finding out about [[spoiler: the plot twist in the fifth game that Robert Baxter, the second player, is now the VSSE traitor and the BigBad of the game.]]

** In ''VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh'', one of the story arcs is finding a "Tron Legacy" code. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, the code is buggy and causes [=Ma3a=] to go AxCrazy and [[KillAllHumans declare all Users must be destroyed]].]] ''VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh'' also has the Sequencer, which allows Jet to split his discs into multiple copies and fight with them. Guess who does that in the sequel? Topping it off is the troubled relationship between Alan and Jet, which is a lot more creepy after you've seen ''WesternAnimation/TronUprising'' and watched the equally rocky relationship between Tron and Beck.

** Tron himself is a party member in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', and develops a strong friendship with [[TheHero Sora]], though he is often prone to be [[DistressedDude in distress]] (especially in the [[Manga/KingdomHeartsII manga adaptation]]), and requires the teenager to save him. Now try and see him captured and fighting for his life in the game grid after seeing the sequel. Or worse, after playing ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'', where [[spoiler: he serves as a boss for Sora]]!

** In the third arc, we learn that Battler made a silly childhood promise 6 years prior to his then crush, Shannon. The promise involved him coming to get her while riding a white horse, adorn with his usual [[GratuitousEnglish Engrish]]. Looking back he finds this extremely embarrassing since he had already forgotten and moved on from such childishness. [[spoiler: Later we find out what the recipient of that promise thought of it. Shannon took it extremely to heart, and waited anxiously for his return. But he didn't. He forgot both the promise and pretty much Shannon for the whole 6 years he was away. Waiting for him and self-consciously berating herself for expecting something of the first person who respected her intellectually breaks her.]]

** Quark gives Sigma a letter about how he met his adoptive grandfather and how he gushed about getting a chance to have root beer float which none of his friends ever had. [[spoiler: This is actually a hint that the world has gone post-apocalypse.]]

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' up to the end of Wrath of the Lich King, Horde players were given quests during the holiday of Hallow's End (the equivalent of Hallowe'en) to bomb the little town of Southshore with stinkbombs. Then the ''Cataclysm'' expansion came out... [[spoiler: and the Forsaken have since bombed the town with [[OhCrap something far less harmless]], the Blight, killing everyone who lived there and polluting the earth itself. The place is now inhabited only by sentient slimes.]]

* In-universe example in ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' ''Xrd''. During a flashback sequence, Sol and Aria are sitting together and Aria talks about wanting to be like a bird, [[CallOfTheWildBlueYonder flying through the sky carefree]], to which Sol responds that he imagines being like a roach, having no natural predators, no concern for socio-political bullshit and being very hard to kill. Of course, this also sums up [[WhoWantsToLiveForever his future life]] as [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie an unwilling]] [[HumanoidAbomination Gear]].

* ''VideoGame/DrawnToLife: The Next Chapter'' was [[OneGameForThePriceOfTwo made for the DS and Wii by two completely different teams.]] [[LighterAndSofter In the DS version]], the character Mike, a random human who is inexplicably stuck in the game world, mentions in random dialogue that the world is very odd and "like a dream." [[DarkerAndEdgier At the end of the Wii version,]] [[spoiler:the world is destroyed in a DreamApocalypse, and it was all created by Mike when he enters a coma.]]

** One of your missions reflects the in-universe gas prices. The gas station in question has something in the lines of $4.50 a gallon (this was back when gas was still under $2/gallon when the game was released in 2000). Now take into consideration that the average price of gas in the U.S. has reached that point. American shows referring to the price of gas are always HarsherInHindsight for British audiences. The price of gas in the UK, as of 2012, is $12/gallon.

* In the opening levels of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', set in NYC, the WTC towers cannot be seen in the distance due to an engine limitation[[note]]basically, the skybox for any given level, rather than showing the full 360 degrees of art, only show 180 degrees of it and then mirror that for the other half; the half that is shown for the NYC levels just so happens to be the half that doesn't include the towers[[/note]]. The in-game explanation? Terrorists.

** Inflation;

* ''VideoGame/{{Vampyr}}'' takes place in London during the Spanish Flu outbreak. Much of the plot is given to citizens coping with the pandemic, and the main character is a doctor who is investigating the disease. The game came out two years before the COVID-19 outbreak, the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu 100 years earlier. The game was released free to PS Plus members in October, 2020, in the midst of the new pandemic.

* In a typical ''VideoGame/PlagueInc'' game, expect borders to close, flights being cancelled, quarantines, mass burning of bodies to stop the disease from spreading. Then COVID-19 happened, and we got to live through a similar government response as the one shown in Plague Inc.

* Way back in 2008, Pandemic Studios releases a game called ''[[VideoGame/{{Mercenaries}} Mercenaries 2: World in Flames]]'', set in Venezuela. Part of the background events is a new regime moving to nationalize the oil rigs and refineries of an American company. [[http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.939483e305b1ba22fc2cd72e1641a9c0.5b1&show_article=1 In 2010, Hugo Chávez prepares to nationalize the oil rigs of an American company]].

* ''[[https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/218789 The Bill Cosby Fun Game]]'' was meant to be a work of BlackComedy referencing the sexual assault lawsuit Creator/BillCosby faced in 2005, with the premise of Cosby going broke after the rape trial and ending up being a SerialKiller for money while evading the police. This doesn't sound funny after the massive wave of 2014 sexual assault allegations and Cosby being convicted of sexual assault, especially with the dedication at the ending:

* Through controversial already since it was based on the film, ''Film/DeathRace2000'', ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}'' had two drivers, one of them called ''Die Anna'', played on to the name Diana. Keep in mind, the PC version, which came first, was released on June 30, 1997. It was altered to a zombie game in order to release in the United Kingdom, since the censors felt that a video game where players can run down human pedestrians was glamorizing vehicular homicide. A month later, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car accident, though at least this likely wasn't a homicide.

* For ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'' fans and non-fans alike, the members of the [[NeoClassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly Second Wave of American Tween Melodic Rap Metalcore]] band Kabbage Boy getting killed at the start of the game is a little harder to accept as a TakeThat to Music/LinkinPark (the band that Kabbage Boy is obviously spoofing) and other bands similar to them thanks to the suicide of Linkin Park's lead singer Chester Bennington, and especially since quite a few of Linkin Park's songs actually might have told Chester's feelings on life and were not the whole "emo" thing the band's hatedom had thought it to be.

* In ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'', during Chapter 1, you can look around the dining room and talk to the guests, as a sort of tutorial for the investigation sequences. One decoration is a tombstone that has the names of all the guests besides Rie(the party host, who made it) and Taiko (the guy Rie likes). The characters don't think too much about the tombstone, although [[ObliviousToLove Taiko doesn't get why he isn't on it]], but it gets less funny by the end, after [[spoiler:Momoko, Hiro and possibly Kotoba]] die.