History Main / ArtifactMook

** Feral Ghouls, basically [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]] created by the degenerative effects of FEV and radiation on prewar humans, are unusually common in the subway tunnels. You kill about 30 in one specific sidequest (Tenpenny Towers) alone, and the antagonist of that sidequest ''still'' has a small army of them to unleash if you side with him at the end instead of killing him and his two (sapient) followers. How so many people in the subways ended up infested with FEV, and how exactly they've been surviving for the past 200 years in an area with no food, is never explained. ''New Vegas'' averts this: Feral Ghouls only show up at the Repconn Test Site (having been brought there by Jason Bright's group) and Camp Searchlight (which was very recently dirty bombed).

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'' has a very noteworthy atmosphere, every enemies live in specific areas with explanations for their presence. However the Trial of the Fool is a survival challenge where the player has to fight waves of ennemies from various areas and who don't fit alongside eachothers.

* This applies to a lot of the gangs in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series. The story missions could have you killing hundreds of their members, murdering all of their bosses and destroying all of their businesses, but they'll still be walking around the map ready to come after you if you cross their paths. The exceptions to this are the Ballas and Vegos in ''San Andreas'', who will stop spawning if you take over all of their territories, and the Purple Nines in ''III'', who through a glitch are hit so hard that they stop spawning even in a new save file if you don't take the right precautions.
** A big mention goes to the altruist cult, who are only found in the Chiliad Mountain State Wilderness.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKniight'' has a very noteworthy atmosphere, every enemies live in specific areas with explanations for their presence. However the Trial of the Fool is a survival challenge where the player has to fight waves of ennemies from various areas and who don't fit alongside eachothers.

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* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart'' has Monty Moles leaping out of the water in the Special Cup's first track. They probably didn't have enough processing power to use a more fitting enemy like a Cheep Cheep, so they had to reuse the Monty Moles you already find on-road.

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* ''Videogame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Rockflayers are creatures natives of Draenor, but somehow, they can also be found in Deepholm, the ElementalPlane of another world. In a bizarre reversal of this trope, they can't be found on past/alternate timeline Draenor players can visit, only on the present day/main timeline world of Outland. The game even pokes fun at this discrepancy with a Garrison Mission to Rockflayer Island. All your followers find is a rock.

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* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', Goombas, as per the norm, are the [[TheGoomba earliest and weakest enemies in the game]]. Yet for some reason, they reappear in Riverside Station, a late-game dungeon. This is purely a game play instance, as there isn't really any reason in the story for them not to be around.

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', Headcrabs appear at first mostly in places where the Combine have specifically used them as a biological weapon, and they're usually accompanied by the remains of their artillery shell cages. After the Ravenholm level however, they become more-or-less just GoddamnedBats ready to pop out of any vaguely abandoned area.

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* This applies to a lot of the gangs in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series. The story missions could have you killing hundreds of their members, murdering all of their bosses and destroying all of their businesses, but they'll still be walking around the map ready to come after you if you cross their paths. The exceptions to this are the Ballas and Vegos in ''San Andreas'', who will stop spawning if you take over all of their territories, and the Purple Nines in ''III'' (Though a glitch about that will prevent them from spawning in future games if you don't take the right precautions).

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' - seemingly misplaced cold-based X start showing up ''before'' you reach the icy area they're native to... because Samus is now part-Metroid and the X are migrating in an attempt to exploit her vulnerability to freezing. Their behaviour changes once Samus acquires temperature shielding and is able to absorb them safely.

** [[KillItWithFire Fire]] [[BigCreepyCrawlies ants]] will show up at Eldorado Dry Lake in New Vegas. In Fallout 3 they were only found at Grayditch and Marigold Metro Station, where a MadScientist had accidentally created them while tinkering with FEV, but there is no explanation for why Fire Ants showed up on the opposite side of the continent in Nevada.

** Feral Ghouls, basically [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies]] created by the degenerative effects of FEV and radiation on prewar humans, are unusually common in the subway tunnels. You kill about 30 in one specific sidequest (Tenpenny Towers) alone, and the antagonist of that sidequest ''still'' has a small army of them to unleash if you side with him at the end instead of killing him and his two (sapient) followers. How so many people in the subways ended up infested with FEV, and how exactly they've been surviving for the past 200 years in an area with no food, is never explained.

* VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda has the Outlaws, one of the three main enemy factions along with the [[MechaMooks Remnant]] and [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Kett]]. While the latter two factions having nigh-infinite numbers is more than justified, the Outlaws (an umbrella term for a bunch of different criminal gangs) really don't. To wit, there were only 20,000 people on the Nexus, many of whom died during the Nexus Uprising and the subsequent Kett attacks; a ''small minority'' of the survivors then fanned out to become the Outlaws. So, presumably, there can't be more than a few thousand of them at the absolute most. These numbers make sense just sticking to the main story and bigger side missions, as you and your team only kill a few hundred there, but thanks to infinite spawn points in the overworld single player and the ZergRush of repeatable multiplayer games, the player can easily kill more Outlaws than ever should have existed before they're even finished with the first playthrough.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' has Super Mutants, which appear far more numerous than their origins would suggest. [[MoreCriminalsThanTargets Likewise, Raiders often seem to outnumber townspeople and wastelanders]]. Enclave Soldiers can also be encountered before they officially enter the plot, and after their bases are wiped out in ''Broken Steel''. Aliens sometimes respawn on Mothership Zeta if you return, even though you cleared out the ship.
** In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', Fiends and Powder Gangers continue to randomly spawn after you have killed their leaders and exterminated their strongholds. And even if you've killed Caesar, Vulpes, and the rest of his fort, and driven the Legion from their strongholds on the west side of the Colorado, leaving only the Legate's camp on the opposite end of Hoover Dam, Legionary Assassins keep spawning throughout the Wasteland every few days.

** Pyramid Head is explicitly made from part of James' damaged psyche. Doesn't stop him from showing up in later games that have absolutely nothing to do with James.
** The Abstract Daddy is sprung from Angela's psyche. When it reappears as a DegradedBoss, Angela is nowhere to be found.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' revolves around Mario dreaming of Subcon. Some of the enemies he and his friends face there are described in relation to the dream's nature (Ninjis are devils that haunt the dreams of NES players, Snifits shoot projectiles that have concentrated nightmarish energy); yet they appeared in later ''Mario'' games (in fact, Snifits can be found in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'', which chronologically takes place before ''all'' other games in the ''Mario'' series, including ''[=SMB2=]'').

** The Mole Playing Rough. They first appear in the Lilliput Steps, an underground cave, where they're a decent foe (oh, and the boss there is a giant mole, so there's a mole theme in that cave). However, for same reason, the designers put some specific points (to be exact, in the Dusty Dunes Desert, Summers Beach and the Deep Darkness) around the game where one of them always spawns if you walk around there. Not only are they incredibly weak by that point, but those are places you wouldn't expect to find a mole. It has been [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nwQmwT1ULMU suggested]] that these three moles were intentionally put there by the developers in order to ensure that overworked status effects are enabled again after earlier being disabled.

** The Mole Playing Rough. They first appear in the Lilliput Steps, an underground cave, where they're a decent foe (oh, and the boss there is a giant mole, so there's a mole theme in that cave). However, for same reason, the designers put some specific points (to be exact, in the Dusty Dunes Desert, Summers Beach and the Deep Darkness) around the game where one of them always spawns if you walk around there. Not only are they incredibly weak by that point, but those are places you wouldn't expect to find a mole.

* Can happen in ''[[VideoGame/MonsterHunter Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate]]''. Each area has their own monsters, and variants made to fit other areas, and otherwise the areas they appear in fit their habitat. Later in the game however, almost every enemy can appear on the tropical Deserted Island though free hunting at night, even if it doesn't make sense. One example would be Brachydios, a volcanic monster who typically avoids water since it dilutes its blast slime walking around near the beach, which makes it easy to get rid of Blastblight by rolling around in water, something that normally can't be done in the areas you normally fight him in.

* ''Videogame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Rockflayers are creatures natives of Draenor, but somehow, they can also be found in Deepholm, the ElementalPlane of another world.
** In a bizarre reversal of this trope, they can't be found on past/alternate timeline Draenor players can visit, only on the present day/main timeline world of Outland. The game even pokes fun at this discrepancy with a Garrison Mission to Rockflayer Island. All your followers find is a rock.
*** Though this could have to do with Neltharion the Earth-Warder, who is connected to both. Neltharion's flight from Deepholm Outland in the old/regular timeline would have potentially brought rock flayers with him, but in the new timeline Neltharion never visited Draenor and thus would not bring rock flayers with him.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' revolves around Mario dreaming of Subcon. Some of the enemies he and his friends face there are described in relation to the dream's nature (Ninjis are devils that haunt the dreams of NES players, Snifits shoot projectiles that have concentrated nightmarish energy); yet they appeared in later ''Mario'' games (in fact, Snifits can be found in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'', which chronologically takes place before ''all'' other games in the ''Mario'' series).

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' revolves around Mario dreaming of Subcon. Some of the enemies he faces there are described in relation to the dream's nature (Ninjis are devils that haunt the dreams of NES players, Snifits shoot projectiles that have concentrated nightmarish energy); yet they appeared in later ''Mario'' games (in fact, Snifits can be found in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld2YoshisIsland'', which chronologically takes place before ''all'' other games in the ''Mario'' series.

* Subverted in the Rainbow Shell quest in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. It seems really strange to be fighting Naga-ettes and Gnashers, enemies that appeared in the 600 A.D. Cathedral at the very beginning of the game. [[spoiler:That is until you fight the boss, Yakra XIII, who is the descendant of the boss of the Cathedral.]]
** There's also the enemies on the way ''to'' the Rainbow Shell. The area is filled with stronger palate-swapped versions of enemies you fought in the prehistoric era. Like above, this is justified by the area, Giant's Claw, actually being the millions years old ruins of the prehistoric Tyrano Lair.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', the castle guards appear as enemies and are mentioned as having been brainwashed by the EvilChancellor. In several other games, their presence as enemies is {{handwave}}d or not explained at all.
*** Downplayed in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures'' where easily missed lines mention they have been brainwashed. Still no one seems at all concerned about the fate of the guards, even in the ending.
*** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds'' the guards appear as enemies despite regular Hyrule Guards existing and wearing a completely different uniform. There is a {{Handwave}} that the guards are [[ArtAttacker living paintings]] created by a magician from another world, but it isn't explained why the Magician created monsters based on the Hyrule Guards of the past. In a non Soldier example, ''A Link to the Past'' established the Boss character, ''Blind the Thief'' was a human who had been turned into a monster under the Dark World's curse. In Lorule's MirrorUniverse, Blind's counterpart is not only a monster, but a [[DemBones living skeleton]], despite no such curse existing in Lorule.
*** The Soldiers appear as enemies in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTriForceHeroes'' without any sort of explanation at all. Crossover into WhatMeasureIsAMook territory when [[spoiler: Couture ensures the BigBad survives, but no one seems to have any issue with the equally human guards [[DefeatEqualsExplosion being hit until they explode.]]]]

* Viruses in the entire ''Videogame/SuperMarioBros'' series. In their first appearance they appear as enemies in ''VideoGame/DrMario'', which makes sense. In ''Videogame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'', they appear in an abandoned university laboratory, which makes sense. In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam''? They appear EVERYWHERE. Deserts, the beach, caves, in town, on an icy mountain... And in groups of 16 at a time to boot (now granted, viruses are technically omnipresent in nature, but still...).

* ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', in its earlier chapters, puts Pit against a specific faction, fighting enemies that belong to that faction. Then it plays with this trope by justifying returning enemies in increasingly unlikely ways: first by [[spoiler:introducing an invasion of aliens that make enemies in the likeness of the ones from the enemy factions (while looking slightly different)]], then following that up with [[spoiler:the Chaos Kin who is able to make exact copies of past enemies]]. By the time [[spoiler:Dyntos is testing Pit's worthiness and decides to do so using the same enemies already encountered]], this trope is pretty much being played straight.