History Main / UnitsNotToScale

* ''VideoGame/TransformersForgedToFight'' has all the bots being roughly the same size, which works across all versions of them, from Gen One to "[[Film/{{Transformers}} Bayformers]]". Unfortunately, it also works with ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' Transformers, which are multiple times shown to be only a fraction of the size of Gen One Transformers (being their smaller, more efficient, descendants). So Rhinox is still the same size as Optimus Prime.

*** The Mammoth MKII in Tiberian Sun goes even. In actual gameplay, it doesn't appear much bigger than, say, two [=APCs=] stacked, but in two FMVs featuring it, living up to its name, it's fucking gigantic. It's well over a hundred feet tall, in terms of width is nearly as big as a construction yard (which is much larger than it is in gameplay).

** TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}} and Dungeons and Dragons justify it as the scale of a creature determines how much space it occupies and controls on the map as it is moving, not an absolute indicator of its size. A medium (like normal humans) creature typically fills up a 5' x 5' section of the map. Humans generally can pack in closer than that, of course; most of us do not occupy 25 square feet of space! However, when moving around and fighting with a weapon in a chaotic skirmish, things are a little different.

* The Terran Science Vessel in ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft|I}}'' is a medium sized unit, but one level of the Zerg campaign is set inside one such vessel, which features several spaces in which it seems one could fit buildings that are much larger than the unit is. (With some creative use of cheat codes, or the map editor, it would indeed be possible to insert well over a hundred Science Vessels unit into the Science Vessel map.)

*** And then in a cutscene in ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'', a battleship makes a crash landing in Korhal, and it seems to be about half as big as the city it lands on. Even at the angle it impacts it still extends past the clouds (admittedly, that scene was AllJustADream, so proportions might have been distorted).
** Adding to scale oddities, from what can be determined from the game's FMVs, the Battlecrusier's are actually smaller than the science vessels. However, in the BoardGame, the Science Vessel is smaller than Marines and Zerglings.
** Most of the other units have identical scaling to each other as they did in ''VideoGame/StarCraft'', excepting the Ultralisk, which is the size of a Thor now.

** And in ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'', it gets even worse: the Thor is a Terran HumongousMecha that looks appropriately huge compared to a Marine. When airlifted by a Medivac dropship, the ship can only carry one at a time, as they are fixed underneath the ship like a helicopter carrying a container twice its size. Some playing around in the editor reveals that dropships are about twice the size of a bus compared to a Marine. And then there's the Odin, which in-game is slightly bigger than the Thor, but is too big to be carried by a huge-ass cargo that can carry ''three Thors''.

* ''VideoGame/ForgedBattalion'' by Command and Conquer Westwood veterans Petroglyph averts this by having all infantry in exoskeleton suits and all aircraft are unmanned drones.

* In ''VideoGame/UNSquadron'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/CarrierAirwing'', many bosses and minibosses are real-world planes that are inexplicably several times their real-world size.

* In ''VideoGame/UNSquadron'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/CarrierAirwing'', many bosses and minibosses are real-world planes that are inexplicably several times their real-world size.

See also VideoGameTime, which is improperly scaled time. Compare ActuallyFourMooks, ClownCar and ClownCarBase, BiggerOnTheInside, SpaceCompression, ThrivingGhostTown, PerspectiveMagic, and LargeAndInCharge. BonsaiForest is a {{subtrope}}.

*** The [[EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs Prehistoric skins]] for Anivia, Cho'Gath, and Renekton, as part of the Prehistoric Hunters skin line, completely dwarf normal humans in size, in-game, they're much smaller.

* Since Banjo, an adult ''bear'', is established to be fairly tall, many of the [=NPCs=] in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' and ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'' can ''probably'' be assumed to have been scaled up for the sake of making interaction with them easier.

** Also, the Polaris Striker and Dragon share the same in-universe length (50 meters) yet the sprite clearly shows the dragon being longer. (This is possibly a mistake by the developers.)

[[folder:Toys]]
* The ''Franchise/{{Zoids}}'' anime has an interesting inversion. While the toyline clearly shows its scale with cockpits and pilot figurines, the Anime takes certain Zoids (notably the Ultrasaurus and Death Saurer) and makes them ''bigger'', often by a few orders of magnitude.
* Toys/RobotSpirits, Soul Of Chogokin and other toylines featuring HumongousMecha from multiple series usually have this problem by necessity due to the wildly varying sizes of different Super Robots. For example, while Anime/MazingerZ and Anime/{{Daitarn 3}}'s SOC toys are about the same size, in "real life", Mazinger is 18 meters tall while Daitarn is ''160''.
** Chogokin Classic Getter, Shin Getter, and the 2019 release of the Getter Emperor are most decidedly not to scale. Well, Classic and Shin are roughly well-proportioned in comparison to each other, but the Emperor at its smallest was roughly the size of Jupiter and only got larger over time, so its Chogokin figure's scale is much more extreme than the other Getters.
** The real winner, though, would have to be Revoltech's ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' action figures. Original GL is about the same size as Tengen Toppa GL. Anybody who is at all familiar with the series should see the problem here.
*** Let's face it. It's impossible to scale ''those'' mechs properly. Even if Original was the size of a flea, and TTGL was somehow the size of Jupiter, that wouldn't come close.
* Franchise/{{Transformers}} has this in multiple places (A more comprehensive exploration of this can be found at the [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Scale TFwiki's page on Scale]]):
** The toylines have several different "size" scales (Legends, Scouts, Deluxe, Voyagers, Leaders, Supremes, and so on). This can result in a Scout-class freight truck Transformer looking positively tiny next to a Voyager-class sports car (like Bumblebee). In particular, the Animated toyline has amusing size mismatches involving Prowl, in particular his Deluxe-class form wherein the motorcycle he transforms into is ''larger'' than Deluxe-sized Bumblebee's hatchback car!
** Combiner Scales: First, Combiners can be portrayed being of inconsistent size to their component robots (Menasor, who is made of sports cars and a truck, can nearly match Bruticus, who is made of military vehicles, in size; The exception is Superion, who ''would'' really be the size of a large building due to being made of several aircraft including a Concorde). Second, component robots in a combiner might be out-of-scale with each other (Landcross from the Victory toyline, who is made of a speedboat, a Space Shuttle, a jet fighter, two different classes of trucks, and a sports car). Third, Combiners are shown to be inconsistently large or small in portrayl (Constructicons who are smaller than Megatron combine to form a Devastator more than quadruple the Decepticon Commander's height).
** Transformer subclass scale: Micromasters and Minicons are sometimes portrayed with very inconsistent scale to regular Transformers (Some Minicons are shown to become human-scale hoverboards and motorcycles, yet their human-sized robot modes are the same size as Minicons that become small trucks, and ''both'' of them are portrayed as being smaller than Armada Optimus Prime ''or'' Armada Megatron's forearms!).
** ''Planet'' and ''City'' sized Transformers - Metroplex's massive toy is about the size of a large building or city block, but only in scale with Legends-class Transformers, and he is still out-of-scale with some of them. Unicron and Primus (as well as the guest-star Death Star/Darth Vader figure from the Star Wars Transformers crossover toyline, whose interior is completely out of scale with interior shots of the real Death Star in the films) are completely undersized compared to ''any'' transformer toy in production - the biggest indicator of this is that several named cities, like Iacon and Kaon, are actually modeled on Primus's body, as he turned himself into the planet Cybertron as part of his backstory, and any Transformer in scale with ''those'' cities as depicted would only be readily visible with a magnifying glass or microscope.
* Fans and collectors of Literature/AmericanGirl dolls would occasionally notice this in some of their toys, namely the [[http://www.americangirl.com/shop/julie-accessories/julies-car-wash-set-f0443 VW Beetle playset]] for Julie, and [[http://www.americangirl.com/shop/beforever-accessories/maryellen-jukebox-cmc59 Maryellen's jukebox]], the latter of which is a glorified external speaker for an iPod or a smartphone. It's somewhat justified as any bigger would be unwieldy to ship and thus even more [[CrackIsCheaper ridiculously expensive]], though fans still feel that it could've been better proportioned.
* ''Franchise/{{LEGO}}'' produces a number of licensed sets, the most famous of which is their Franchise/StarWars line. Small fighters like the X-wing or TIE Fighter are built roughly to the same scale to the pilot minifig as the movies, while larger ships are built to wildly different scales; the Millenium Falcon is slightly smaller than it should be, while the Star Destroyer and especially the [[MileLongShip Super Star Destroyer]] are built to ''much'' smaller scales. This is to maintain sanity, as a to-scale SSD would be the length of an Olympic swimming pool.
* The world of scale model building is one where issues of scale ''absolutely'' matter. Manufacturers are frequently called out on scale discrepancies within their kits and ranges by modellers who insist on something pretty close to perfection. It doesn't help that within the two principal modelling bands, there are anomolies which hang over from the days when different manufacturers had different ideas of what would be popular. 1:32 scale models are still there, for instance, even though the accepted standard in this range for practically all kit manufacturers and fans is 1:35. Classic kit manufacturer Airfix, in the smaller scale band, still produces a hodgepodge of kits and figures in HO/00 (approximate 1:87 scale, designed to go with model railway layouts), as well as slightly larger scales. The accepted industry yardstick here is less clearcut: it is tending now to 1:72, but many kits are still made in 1:76. Does it matter? well, yes. Take a model of the same subject in, say, 1:32 and stand it next to one in 1:35. There will be a visible scale difference. The same applies to 1:76 versus 1:72. And 1:87 is ''definitely'' smaller. Within each scale, however, there is generally consistency. [[note]]Talking to a clued-up modeller about, say, the Airfix model of the Crusader Tank and how its dimemsions are way out of scale even within itself, and you will get a far longer and more detailed answer than it might strictly need.[[/note]]. It's also interesting how, even in a well-scaled model, it's often bloody hard to get a pilot figure in an aircraft, or a driver/crew figure in a vehicle, to fit the given space convincingly - even though the crew space is to scale and a figure in the same scale should fit naturally!
** In car models both 1:24 and 1:25 are commonly seen. Generally speaking, American companies favored 1:25 while European and Japanese ones went with 1:24 although exceptions exist (anything tooled by Monogram before 1990 is 1:24). "Box scale" is rife - at one time GM insisted all its' passenger-car promotional models fit a standard box sized for a 1:25 full-size Chevrolet, so Cadillacs are frequently underscale while 1:27 is becoming almost a standard for diecast pickup trucks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Non Video Game Examples:]]
* Played for laughs in the youtube series [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh3GZAoX3lQ&list=PLqJ5dzgeUcLhCNWL3YJP7GsWlT1pnoVwc&index=4 1/1 Heroine]], the premise is that a JRPG protagonist is actually as big as she looks on the world map.

* Since Banjo, an adult ''bear'', is established to be fairly tall, Many of the [=NPCs=] in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' and ''[[VideoGame/BanjoKazooie Banjo-Tooie]]'' can ''probably'' be assumed to have been scaled up for the sake of making interaction with them easier.

* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' often has champions that are enormous within the canon of the game, but in-game, while they are larger than some other champions, they are nowhere as large in the lore. Examples include Malphite, Galio, and Nautilus.
** The Worldbreaker skin theme which depicts champions as {{Kaiju}}-size, {{Mayincatec}} behemoths in their splash art, but are the same size as their respective champions in the game.

* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'': When ''3'' introduced overworlds, it had almost all enemies take up roughly one tile of map space, making them all look about the same size as each other and human characters on the map. The Dragons and Hydras in particular are usually only seen as floating heads -- although only their heads and necks are visible in-battle (which is lampshaded multiple times in the series). The Neon Valkyrie and Neon Valhalla of ''5'' just do not have overworld sprites at all[[note]]The Neon Valkyrie boss fight is represented as Lance standing next to a Red Drone in the overworld, while only the Neon Valhalla's drills are visible in the room its fought and interacting with any of them starts the fight[[/note]], presumably because scaling down a large tank to be the same size as a human that could ride in it would look weird.

* JustForFun/{{Egregious}} example from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer: Red Alert,'' where infantry are about the same size the light tank or APC (which can, of course, hold five of said infantry). Some levels in the campaign actually take place inside buildings which, if infantry were the same size inside and out, it would be theoretically possible to build an entire base in the ''hallways'' of that building.

** In the newer installments of the Tiberian StoryArc, where infantry units are more or less to scale with vehicles (however, buildings are still ridiculously small when compared to units and terrain: GDI barracks are the size of a large tent, their vehicle factory resembles a tiny car repair shop and the NOD temple is no larger than a one-bedroom home).

** This also carried over to the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' spinoff ''Renegade''. While the buildings are fairly realistic in size in the singleplayer campaign, they are quite tiny in multiplayer (either scaled down 40% or ''to'' 40%), possibly because they would take too much space on the maps otherwise (and be too confusing to navigate inside).

* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'', all units are the same size on the map, and are even animated the same size (human-sized units are sometimes, but not always, an exception), even if some mecha on your force are a mere 10 meters tall and one may be over a kilometer and a half. It's particularly obvious when your entire army launches from a battleship that appears smaller than they are, or when Anime/TekkamanBlade is able to cut the [[Anime/GaoGaiGar Z-Master]] in two.