History Main / HideYourChildren

* ''Videogame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' has no real children, with the exception of one quest with an underaged elf who is still over a century old.
%%* ''VideoGame/{{Dubloon}}''. The closest to the child you will get in this game is Riley.

* The Faelands of ''VideoGame/KingdomsOfAmalurReckoning'' are childless.
* Actually becomes a plot point in ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'', where it takes someone pointing out that there are no children in the Junkyard, nor have there ever been, for the protagonists to realize something is very wrong about the setting. [[spoiler: It turns out the Junkyard is a simulation and all its inhabitants are combat AIs in development.]]

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'', which has children down to about the age of twelve, then stops; it's as if a decade ago, everyone decided to stop reproducing. This is due to characters construction using the same system that the player is allowed in CharacterCustomization, and the youngest Arisen possible is that age. This also means that ''every'' young girl is post-pubescent, if ever so slightly, as there is no body for a completely breastless female; there is only a range from A to DD.

* Averted, ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' has a very sickening one. Criminals on drugs (due to the orders of the BigBad) managed to track down his wife and newborn daughter, break in and shoot them dead just as Max Payne arrives too late (You can see the corpse of his daughter in the crib.). He kills them out of self-defense and revenge but it's inadequate justice as it doesn't bring his loved ones back of course. This is his motivation for becoming who he is in the game series: A broken but crime fighting badass!

* The original ''VideoGame/{{Postal}}'' actually toyed with this. The final level of the original release ''did'' feature multiple children in a school backdrop... but the entire level was scripted, as the Dude opens fire on them with his various weapons, hearing their screams - but [[ImprobableInfantSurvival none of them actually get hit]], which causes the Dude to enter a VillainousBSOD, at which point he's finally captured and locked up. [[spoiler:The ''Redux'', however, switches this out for a new finale where the Dude apparently becomes an out-of-body witness to his own funeral; Running With Scissors noted that in the almost 20 years between the original and ''Redux'', school shootings in reality had become [[UnfortunateImplications far too commonplace]] for the original ending level to still have any of its shock value.]]

* Film/JamesBond has talked to exactly one child (a young Thai boy in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'') in almost sixty years worth of movies. Although children are occasionally visible in crowd scenes, they're always mysteriously absent when something violent happens.
** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' averts this ''big time'', and twofold: there's the first part of the [[TheTeaser prologue]] in Madeleine Swann's childhood in which she almost died by the hand of Lyutsifer Safin, and then [[spoiler:Madeleine's daughter Mathilde, who's been fathered by Bond]]. Bond even prepares her something to eat [[spoiler:and goes all PapaWolf to protect her in the climax.]]

* Film/JamesBond has spoken to exactly one child (a young Thai boy in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'') in almost sixty years worth of movies (1962-2021). Although children are occasionally visible in crowd scenes, they're always mysteriously absent when something violent happens.

* Film/JamesBond has spoken to exactly one child (a Thai boy in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'') in almost sixty years worth of movies (1962-2021). Although children are occasionally visible in crowd scenes, they're always mysteriously absent when something violent happens.
** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' averts this ''big time'', and twofold: there's the first part of the [[TheTeaser prologue]] in Madeleine Swann's childhood in which she almost died by the hand of Lyutsifer Safin, and then Madeleine's daughter Mathilde [[spoiler:who's been fathered by Bond]]. Bond even prepares her something to eat [[spoiler:and goes all PapaWolf to protect her in the climax.]]

** Then there's [[BreakTheCutie Gwen]]. At the age of ten, she witnesses searing fire rain from the sky, is orphaned, gets kidnapped by the race who sent the Searing, and spends the next seven years toiling in a slave camp. She escapes only when they attempted to feed her to a giant scorpion. Meanwhile, her mother's ghost is [[AdultFear desperately searching the Underworld for her, having no knowledge of her fate]].
** On a more positive note children are commonplace in areas outside Gwen's devastated homeland, and even there, too, during [[YouMeanXmas Wintersday]], when you can give gifts to the children.

* Unlike the previous games, ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' contains no children in-game. However, you can see silhouettes of children in some of the capsule rooms in Alice Garden Ponds. You can't interact with them in any way, though.

* Averted in ''Website/{{Lioden}}'' and sister site ''Website/{{Wolvden}}''. Cubs have a chance of dying on each rollover if not sufficiently protected, and they can also die of illness or birth defects. In ''Lioden'', [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you can even kill cubs yourself. Both games also encounters with other baby animals that give you the option to kill them]].

* Averted in ''Website/{{Lioden}}'' and sister site ''Website/{{Wolvden}}''. Cubs have a chance of dying on each rollover if not sufficiently protected, and they can also die of illness or birth defects. In ''Lioden'', [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you can even kill cubs yourself]].

* Averted in ''Website/{{Lioden}} and sister site ''Website/{{Wolvden}}''. Cubs have a chance of dying on each rollover if not sufficiently protected, and they can also die of illness or birth defects. In ''Lioden'', [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you can even kill cubs yourself]].

Note that if the child character is the ''[[KidHero protagonist]]'', all bets are off: brutal acts carried out upon children are perfectly fine as long as the child is the player's character. And of course, games with more stylized or cartoony graphics and no blood or gore are usually allowed to get away with letting you hurt kids.

Note that if the child character is the ''[[KidHero protagonist]]'', all bets are off: brutal acts carried out upon children are perfectly fine as long as the child is the player's character.

* Placed straight through most of the ''Franchise/ShiningSeries'', but averted in ''VideoGame/ShiningForceIII'', where in one level you have to save a group of refuges, three of which are children. Because of the way the game prioritizes attacking units with low health, and the children have the lowest health of any character in the game, enemies will [[KickTheDog go out of their way to kill kids]].

** The first boss, a baby, was born as a ghost.

* VideoGame/{{Littlewood}}: While children are established to exist and everyone has had a childhood, none of the locations the PlayerCharacter can visit contains any children. However, with the exception of Deluca, all said locations are places where children would have no business being: a newly rebuilt town entirely populated by people who have yet to start their own families, two dungeon-type locations, a library with a dangerous tree in its yard, an UltimateForge and the edge of the FloatingContinent.

* ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'' has children down to about the age of twelve, then stops; it's as if a decade ago, everyone decided to stop reproducing. This is due to characters construction using the same system that the player is allowed in CharacterCustomization, and the youngest Arisen possible is that age. This also means that ''every'' young girl is post-pubescent, if ever so slightly, as there is no body for a completely breastless female; there is only a range from A to DD.

* Film/JamesBond has spoken to exactly one child in more than a half-century's worth of movies. (The conversation happened in 1975.) Although children are occasionally visible in crowd scenes, they're always mysteriously absent when something violent happens.

** This trope is [[InvertedTrope horribly, horribly inverted]] in the first game. First off, there is a stage in Leonard's side-story in which you are forced to fight the child-soldiers of the Empire, who are [[MindControl brainwashed as the rest of the Empire's soldiers are]]. As you are [[KillEmAll slaughtering them all]], Leonard cries out, "But Caim, they're just children!" Your dragon then loudly declares "Soldiers are soldiers!" and ''encourages'' you to carry on. [[spoiler:Leonard's major regret (before you even meet him) is that he was unable to prevent the slaughter of the child soldiers under his command... because he was off in the woods having sex with one. Even with his, Leonard is one of the most sympathetic characters in the game.]] The world of Drakengard is not a happy one.

* ''VideoGame/{{Elona}}'' allows you to kill children just like any other [=NPC=]. Because most children in the game are nameless NPCs, you won't even suffer any sort of karma penalty for killing most of them.

* Not only included in, but a large part of the gameplay, killing children in ''Videogame/CrusaderKings'' is usually a means to an end to grab new titles, and sometimes it's a great way [[RevengeByProxy to punish those that you don't like]]. You can go so far as to kill your own children if they [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent don't live up to your standards]] (you play as the heir when your current ruler dies), it's almost game-ending for your [[InadequateInheritor kid to be barren]] or to split inheritance because the king couldn't keep it in his pants.
* Children appear in ''Videogame/PoliceQuestSWAT2'' and they can be killed, sometimes in particularly gruseome ways (such as through explosions). The game punishes you for killing children, even when you play as the bad guys.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

** ''[[Videogame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' once again plays it straight in general, having no characters under the age of 15.
** ''[[Videogame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''

* The ''VideoGame/{{Postal}}'' series, especially ''Postal 2'', lacks anyone under adult age, as Vince Desi and the rest of the RWS staff felt it would be crossing a line. Considering that the player can kill, maim, burn and/or urinate on anyone or anything, from civilians, store clerks, priests, police officers, Gary Coleman, Taliban members, Osama Bin Laden and even digital expies of the game company staff, as well as dogs, cattle and cats (the latter of which can be used as makeshift shotgun or rifle silencers, even), the ability to kill children is considered one hell of a big line to cross. Some [=NPCs=] will mention that they have children if they're huddled down, begging not to be killed in the many random acts of violence that seem to infest Paradise. On the other hand, this trope is averted in the Uwe Boll movie adaptation, which features dozens of kids getting hit during a particular firefight, in an attempt to [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line as far as possible]].

* Averted, ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' has a very sickening one. Criminals on drugs (due to the orders of the BigBad) managed to track down his wife and newborn daughter, break in and shoot them dead just as Max Payne arrives too late (You can see the corpse of his daughter in the crib.). He kills them out of self-defense and revenge but it's inadequate justice as it doesn't bring his loved ones back of course. This is his motivation for be coming who he is in the game series: A broken but crime fighting badass!

* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}''

** [[VideoGame/{{Drakengard 2}} The second game]] had a [[spoiler:child (or childlike) character [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever grow to giant size]] in a ''boss battle''. No prizes for guessing what you have to do.]]

* In ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' there are some human children you can find but can't attack, but go to the Grand Tree can you can slay little gnome children galore.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

** ''[[Videogame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'':

** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' makes use of the "present but invincible children" subclause by not allowing the children to die ([[NukeEm by your actions directly]], at least). You can shoot them, stab them, nuke them, burn them, etc. but you can't kill them or splatter their brains all over the pavement. Or maybe just use them as living shields...
*** One of them happens to be ''extremely'' annoying, though, and just screams "Help, they killed everybody! [[Film/{{Troll2}} Now they're coming to kill us!]]"

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' goes back to the ''Arena'' approach of playing it straight, simply having no children present in the game and no reason given as to why.
** ''[[Videogame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'':
*** Once again plays it straight in general, having no characters under the age of 15.

* Despite visiting many colonies and other places where families clearly live, no children are ever seen in the first two ''Franchise/MassEffect'' games. Partially excused by Shepard spending most of his time on military bases or small colonies and research facilities where families wouldn't be living anyway, but it is still a little odd to never see any on the Citadel or Illium... or Horizon, for that matter, especially because children are specifically mentioned in an e-mail received after the Horizon mission.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' both plays this straight and averts this; the T-Virus-stricken town of Raccoon City has zombies galore, but there are no zombified children at all. However, there's a small portion of the game where you play as a young girl named Sherry (the daughter of the main antagonist of the game), and it's possible for her to get killed by zombies and dogs. Since the GameOver animation for ''2'' includes a [[ItsAWonderfulFailure brutal and gory scene of whatever killed you tearing you apart]], it can be nerve-racking to see a twelve-year old girl getting eaten by zombies, moreso than if Leon (a rookie police officer) or Claire (a college-aged student) were to face the same fate.
** Thankfully, the game doesn't allow Sherry to be killed in a gruesome manner. She only falls down unconscious, and you can only do it through zombie puke or dog bites. In fact, having Sherry die is so unlikely, thanks to her extremely high health, that it'll only happen if [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you let it happen]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Elona}}'' allows you to kill children just like any other NPC. Because most children in the game are nameless NPCs, you won't even suffer any sort of karma penalty for killing most of them.