History ManBehindTheMan / VideoGames

** CABAL is actually patterned on Kane himself in ''''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun: Firestorm''

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of the real BigBad [[Spoiler:Fomortiis]]. Fomortiis either [[TheCorrupter manipulates]] or [[DemonicPossession possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of [[Spoiler:Fomortiis, the Demon King]]. Fomortiis either [[TheCorrupter manipulates]] or [[DemonicPossession possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of [[Spoiler Fomortiis, the Demon King]]. Fomortiis either [[TheCorrupter manipulates]] or [[DemonicPossession possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of [[Spoiler:Fomortiis, the Demon King]]. Fomortiis either [[TheCorrupter manipulates]] or [[DemonicPossession possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of [[Spoiler:Fomortiis, the Demon King]]. Fomortiis either [[TheCorrupter: manipulates]] or [[DemonicPossession: possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of [[Spoiler:Fomortiis, the Demon King]]. Fomortiis either [[The Corrupter: manipulates]] or [[Demonic Possession: possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of [[Spoiler:Fomortiis, the Demon King]]. Fomortiis either [[The Corrupter:manipulates]] or [[Demonic Possession:possesses Lyon]] depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of Fomortiis, the Demon King. Fomortiis either manipulates or possesses Lyon depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse. He then uses the young Prince to control Vigarde, to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away. Thus allowing him to be restored to full power, in a bid to take over the world.

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'': Wandering around the Diabolic Hall before the conference that launches the attack on Mamon Mine will reveal a secret conversation about Aamon (or Radimvice for NES players) loyalists whispering about a potential coup; near the end of the game, Aamon himself will claim to have arranged for Rose's kidnap, and by implication her murder. The original doesn't particularly delve into his intentions, but the implication is that monster-kind isn't particularly thrilled with Psaro's broken heart and simply want a master who will run roughshod over humanity; the remake goes into much more detail.

** Similarly, Baramos of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' is played up as the villain of the game, and you spend about 80% of the game -- or what would feel like a normal full RPG of the time -- hunting him down, only to have Baramos's boss, Zoma, call you out out of the blue after starting the victory party.

* In ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans Path of the Furon'', there is a long, confusing, GambitRoulette example. The Master. Crypto believes his ememy is Curt Calvin, supposedly another Furon DNA gatherer. Then, after meeting the Master, Crypto believes his enemy is really Saxon, who supposedly used Calvin to try and destroy Crypto. It then turns out that Saxon was under the employ of Francodyne CEO Henri Crousteau. It is then revealed that Saxon and Crousteau were both part of Emperor Meningitis's operation to manufacture Synthetic DNA. Then after killing Meningitis, the Master appears and reveals that he was the actual conspirator all along, using all of them, including Crypto, in order to usurp the Furon throne.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'': Due to everything above, the entire franchise's plot turns out to be a giant war proxy war between Naked Snake, aka Big Boss, against the Patriots, with Snake and Ocelot in this game being one giant smokescreen to distract the AIs from Big Boss' final move.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidV'': Skull Face is responsible for corrupting The Patriots and the Patriot AIs by developing the prototypes of the nanomachines (the parasites), and nearly assassinating Zero, thus putting him in a vegetative state, which mutates The A.I.s' objective to regulate and control the world into a psychotic obsession with brainwashing humanity to fight a ForeverWar.

* The ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' series enjoys this one.
** In the original ''Advance Wars'', Olaf and Eagle were deceived by Sturm into attacking Orange Star via a clone of the Orange Star CO, Andy, whom Sturm used to frame the real Andy for numerous war crimes.
** In ''Days Of Ruin'', Caulder is the man behind just about everybody, using people like Admiral Greyfield and the Beast to test his weapons and conducts experiments. Though Caulder appears early on, his influence isn't revealed until later in the game.

** Halfway through ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 4'', its revealed that the Al-Asad, the leader of the generic revolution in [[{{Qurac}} the nameless Middle Eastern country]] has actually been funded and supported by a mad Russian Ultranationalist named Imram Zakaev, who has visions of nuclear detonations dancing in his head. Zakaev also shows up in "The Coup", handing Al-Asad a Desert Eagle which he uses to kill the president. At that point the player has no idea who he is and appears just as a creepy old one armed man in a trenchcoat. Because his appearance is so minor, most people don't notice him at all until they play the campaign again.
** In ''Modern Warfare 3'', it's revealed Makarov was the one who detonated the nuke.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'': The Patriot AIs manipulated everybody, including aforementioned president, aka Solidus Snake, as an experiment to prove themselves capable of ''manipulating the world''.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'': The American branch of the defunct Philosophers succeed in pitting Naked Snake against his mentor and mother figure The Boss to obtain AMacGuffinFullOfMoney, which is used to create the Patriots in the future.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'': Due to everything above, the entire franchise's plot turns out to be a giant war proxy war between Naked Snake, aka Big Boss, against the Patriots, with Snake and Ocelot in this game being one giant smokescreen to distract the AIs from Big Boss' final move.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidV'': Skull Face is responsible for corrupting The Patriots and the Patriot AIs by developing the prototypes of the nanomachines (the parasites), and nearly assassinating Zero, thus putting him in a vegetative state, which mutates The AIs' objective to regulate and control the world into a psychotic obsession with brainwashing humanity to fight a ForeverWar.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile along with Vigarde are both revealed to be pawns of Fomortiis, the Demon King. Fomortiis either manipulates or possesses Lyon depending on the route chosen into resurrecting Lyon as a corpse and using the young Prince to initiate an invasion of the Other Magvel Nations starting with Renais, in order to destroy their Sacred Stones that sealed the rest of his body away, and thus allow him to take over the world.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', Emperor Vigarde appears to be the BigBad or the EvilOverlord, but he is in fact not even in control of his own actions, having died months prior to the first chapter of the game's events and was being animated by Lyon's magic. Lyon meanwhile, can either be overconfident that he is in control of the Demon King or is actually mercilessly possessed by the Demon King, depending on the story route chosen.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' starts with Queen Brahne trying to TakeOverTheWorld with weapons of magic destruction. Halfway through the game, her magic supplier, Kuja, is revealed to be using her for his goals. later it's revealed he's fighting against his former master, Garland, who is engineering a grand plan to destroy Gaia by manipulating it's people into warring with each other. The FinalBoss is the AnthropomorphicPersonification of Death, but he doesn't count as this trope because he wasn't controlling or manipulating anyone, but just [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere shows up due]] to the RuleOfSymbolism.

* Most of the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series follow the pattern of an initial antagonist (often a powerful and ambitious but relatively mundane Evil Empire or Corporation) which is rendered mostly irrelevant halfway through the game by the revelation of the main antagonist. Sometimes, as in the above two examples, the final battle reveals that this antagonist was also just a Dragon for the true BigBad, usually a quasi-divine "source of all evil" in that world.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' plays with this a little. When you defeat The Emperor, about 3/4 into the game, the game makes you think that Leon, who up until this point was serving the empire, is going to be your new BigBad, but then we get a subversion when The Emperor comes back from hell to rule the world.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' starts with Queen Brahne trying to TakeOverTheWorld with weapons of magic destruction. Halfway through the game, her magic supplier, Kuja, kills her. Almost immediately it's revealed he's fighting against his former master, Garland, who is trying to kill everyone on Gaia and replace their souls with the souls of the people of Terra. Near the end of the game, Kuja kills Garland and tries to destroy all existence in a SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum. The FinalBoss is the AnthropomorphicPersonification of Death, but he doesn't count as this trope because he wasn't controlling or manipulating anyone, but just [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere shows up due]] to the RuleOfSymbolism.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' was a hallmark in the series because Kefka, the BigBad, appeared very early on and made appearances through the game. While he was serving an Emperor during his initial appearance, a later plot twist had him kill said leader and [[GodhoodSeeker become a god]].

** In ''VideoGame/TouhouKishinjouDoubleDealingCharacter'', the final boss is Sukuna Shinmyoumaru, an Inchling who wields a mallet that can grant miracles. But she is just a puppet, and the amanojaku anarchist [[BigBad Seija Kijin]] is the one pulling the strings. In a subversion of AuthorityEqualsAsskicking, Seija (stage 5 boss) is actually defeated before Sukuna (stage 6 boss).