History Main / FeaturelessProtagonist

Often overlaps with AudienceSurrogate.

** Subverted in ''VideoGame/AceCombat3Electrosphere''. The PlayerCharacter turns out to be [[spoiler: an AI, and the entire setting of the game is an in-universe simulation. All those planes you flew? They were never real, and even if they were, they'd be unmanned. The point of the simulation was to see if you would assassinate a particular person regardless of other circumstances, which indeed happens in every route. While hints to this exist in every ending, it's only fully spelled out in the OmegaEnding, just minutes [[SuddenDownerEnding before your "character's" creator deletes you]] and [[AIIsACrapshoot sets out to unleash a fresh copy of your program on the real world.]]]]

** Subverted in ''VideoGame/AceCombat3Electrosphere''. The PlayerCharacter turns out to be [[spoiler: an AI. The planes you were flying the whole time? They were completely unmanned.]]

* In ''[[VideoGame/QuiltsAndCatsOfCalico Quilts & Cats of Calico]]'', the Quilter is never shown onscreen and is represented by their caravan in the overworld map and board game. They're not referred to with any pronouns and is called "my child" towards the end of the game.

* ''VideoGame/NobodySavesTheWorld'': The protagonist's default Form, "Nobody," is a naked white humanoid with an EyelessFace as their only defining feature. They also have [[AmnesiacHero amnesia]], leaving their past a mystery to both themself and the player. [[spoiler:[[EldritchAbomination The Calamity]] stole any defining features from Nostramagus's form along with his memories as part of the ritual to summon it to the material plane.]]

* In ''[[VideoGame/QuiltsAndCatsOfCalico Quilts & Cats of Calico]]'', the Quilter is never shown onscreen and is represented by their caravan in the overworld map and board game.

* In ''[[VideoGame/QuiltsAndCatsOfCalico Quilts & Cats of Calico]]'', the Quilter is never shown onscreen and are represented by their caravan in the board game.

* The ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' series of games, where the player is only ever addressed as "pilot" or by the wing position "Alpha 1". Just like all the other RedShirt wingmen, except the [[RedShirt Red Shirts]] actually talk, so they aren't exactly Featureless Protagonists. The only thing we know is that the PC is Terran ("Terran" being the only name the Vasudans use to address the PC, ever).

* ''VideoGame/StarTrekBridgeCommander'' plays this straight. You are the nameless Captain (or maybe your name is Captain) of a starship, and nowhere, anywhere, can you get a glimpse of yourself. The entire game runs in first person view. However, a Ferengi is outraged that you allow a woman (your First Officer) talk to him. That makes you very likely male.
* In ''VideoGame/RedBaron'' the player character has no real characterization whatsoever beyond the player-input name. It can be reasonably deduced that he's male, but this is due to the fact that, other than nurses, there ''were'' no female personnel in any of the major armed forces during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI ([[SweetPollyOliver officially]]).

* ''VideoGame/{{X}}'':
** ''VideoGame/XBeyondTheFrontier'' through ''X3: Reunion'' do have named protagonists, but for the most part this trope still applies. Kyle Brennan (''X:BTF'' and ''X-Tension'') is expanded on in the TieInNovel ''Farnham's Legend'', while his son Julian Brennan (''X2: The Threat'' and ''[=X3R=]'') gets explained some in the [[AllThereInTheManual encyclopedia packaged with the X-Superbox]].
** ''X3: Terran Conflict'' and ''X3: Albion Prelude'' only ever address the player as "pilot" or "captain". You can rename your PC, but it never has any effect on gameplay.
** ''VideoGame/XRebirth'''s PlayerCharacter Ren Otani has a full story arc and characterization.
* ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'' plays this straight. The developers originally promised that you'll be able to get an idea of what you look like from other players' descriptions, and that you'll be able to help other players you run across figure out what their player-character looks like. However the released game originally had no multiplayer and meeting other people was impossible. Now when you meet other players, they're just floating orbs.
* ''VideoGame/{{Hacknet}}'' implies, like ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'', that the player is the player character.

* ''VideoGame/MyChildLebensborn'': The PlayerCharacter, whose age gap with their adoptive child in unclear, is always referred to as the child's "parent". Just about anything else about their personality is determined by the player's parenting choices. Their hand is seen holding the child's at the very end of the game, but all it shows is skin the color one would expect from someone living in a small Norwegian town in the 1950s.

* WordOfGod says this is the reason why the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' [[ASpaceMarineIsYou Marine]] never talks. He was meant to be the player character, and thus was never given an official name and never speaks. Played less straight than other examples -- you do know what he looks like, since his face is plastered over the status bar, and he is given some prior characterization as having ended up on Mars when he attacked a superior officer for ordering him to shoot civilians -- but nevertheless, he was meant to be the player. ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' gets away from this a little by managing to give him a visible personality through body language alone, despite the fact that he never speaks nor shows his face even once, even if that personality can be summed up as "angry as fuck". [[spoiler:''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' shows his face and has him speaking in flashbacks, confirming that he is in fact the same marine from the classic ''Doom'' games.]]

* ''VideoGame/MobileSuitGundamSideStoryTheBlueDestiny'' takes this trope for a ride, as the player character [[TheVoiceless never speaks]] and is even '''named''' "Yuu" (a homophone of "You", [[SpellMyNameWithAnS which is how it's rendered in English sometimes]]). When he started showing up in games like the ''VideoGame/SDGundamGGeneration'' series, he was given a face, personality, and even a voice.

[[folder:First Person Shooter]]

* Since you control a FirstPersonGhost and are responsible for all your own dialogue, ''VideoGame/{{Facade}}'' can involve nothing but this. Trip and Grace will automatically assign you a gender based on the name you pick from the list, but then, you can spend the get-together asserting that you're honestly and truly a woman named [[GenderBlenderName Gonzalo]] and it could be perfectly in-character for that session.

Less common in its extreme form today, as it makes anything like compelling storytelling highly problematic. Much easier to achieve in InteractiveFiction, for the same reason that text is better suited to the TomatoSurprise, and to this day, many text games still take this approach, and enthusiasts have been known to be disappointed if forced to play a character who does not reflect their gender or sexual orientation.

*** That can be chalked up to simply Valve trolling everyone. The Scout clearly says "He's not here is he?" in the video, but the transcript uses both pronouns. [[http://youtu.be/gA_24zLyKdI This video]] from [[WebVideo/GameTheory The Game Theorists]] analyzes the Pyro's character model and other hints, and determined it's [[spoiler:likely a homosexual man]]. [[CatchPhrase But hey, it's just a theory. A Game Theory!]]

* The PlayerCharacter of ''VideoGame/ThePedestrian'' is a black image of a person (who can either be male or female depending on which you choose).

** ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' also use this, but add the option of appearance customization. In the former the character is a person who wanders into Boletaria's fog (for reasons assumed to be exploration, heroism, pillaging, etc) and is referred to by the Maiden in Black as the "Slayer of Demons." In the latter, the character is an Undead who awakens and escapes from the Northern Undead Asylum and is referred to as "The Chosen Undead" by Frampt/Kaathe (of course whether or not this label is accurate depends on how you read the story). The protagonist does not speak other than Yes/No and actions, this actually plays into the games online component where your only method of speech is gestures. The other protagonists are referred to as "The Bearer of the Curse" in ''VideoGame/DarkSouls2'' and "The Ashen One" ''VideoGame/DarkSouls3''.

* TheCaseOfTheGoldenIdol'': It's not entirely clear if who the player is even exists. None of the investigations impact the ongoing plot as other characters are able to clearly lie about circumstances, and there's no clear explanation for how the FreezeFrameBonus style investigations are even plausibly done.

* In the ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' fanfic ''Fanfic/HeroesOfTheDesk'', the "Player" character is this. The only known facts about them are: they play ''Heroes of the Storm'', they own a powerful gaming computer, and they probably [[WeAllLiveInAmerica live in America somewhere]]. The Player has lines (unlike the First-Person Shooter above), but both characters and narration go out of their way to avoid ascribing any definite characteristics to the Player. They don't even have a GenderBlenderName!