History StepfordSmiler / VideoGames

* Atoli in ''VideoGame/DotHackGUGames'' is cheerful and bubbly, [[LoveFreak wants everyone to get along, and wants to be loved]]...[[spoiler: and then you find out she's like that only because her total lack of self-esteem in real life, due to lifelong emotional abuse by her parents ("Girls should be quiet and unnoticeable!!"} and bullying by her schoolmates led her to browsing '''suicide websites''' where she met and found comfort in the player behind Sakaki, who was really only using her in order to assume control of Atoli's Epitaph, Innis the Mirage of Deceit]].

* Litchi Faye-Ling from ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' is Depressed. On the outside and towards the people of Orient Town, she is highly sociable, kind, compassionate and caring doctor who is idolized by pretty much everyone, and it might not be a lie at all, she's deep down kind hearted. However, she never told anyone about her own problems, that being a desperate lover with GuiltComplex, especially for letting her lover turn into an EldritchAbomination, injects herself with the same corruption which granted her power and looking for a cure and in the same time rotting her body away, and she'd rather bear the burden herself than worrying those she cared about with it. [[spoiler:Hazama managed to find out her face behind her smiler face and used that to manipulate her to get her ForcedIntoEvil under the guise of eventual survival from the escalating corruption and the chance to cure that lover]]. Which in turn, made her pull a new mask in front of Rachel: She pretends that only her lover needs help and she's the only one who can, while in truth, she also needs help as well when the other source of help (Kokonoe) flat out refused to help. Unfortunately, Rachel bought that mask and dismisses her as an obsessed idiot who chose the wrong side.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'', Millium Orion is perhaps this to some degree, of the Empty variety. If you see her bonding scene with Rean, she reveals that it isn't all fun and games. She's presented as a GenkiGirl with a [[GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals love of stuffed animals]] and seemingly boundless energy, but she's also a government agent and everything that comes with it, and sometimes she feels like there's two of her. She never even got to attend Sunday School. To at least some degree, the whole perky happy-go-lucky girl thing is an act. In the sequel, it also revealed her origin is unnatural and despite feeling fondness for certain people, she had never felt sadness or cried until story events happen. It is implied that time with peers has increased her emotional range.
* Several examples certainly exist in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'':
** Luxanna 'Lux' Crownguard is a seemingly chipper girl-next-door prodigious mage in service of Demacia and seems content in serving the nation (considering it also has her brother Garen). During 'League Judgment', a test to see if a candidate's worthy of being a champion for the League of Legends, it's revealed that Lux actually joins the League because she feels empty, being dragged into military service against her will, dragged away from home in tears, completely exhausted Lux's mentality and at this point, joining the League is all she had in life. This creates an eerie dissonance with her laugh that players tends to abuse, because it can be easily misinterpreted with Lux snapping and LaughingMad.
** Sona Buvelle is at first an innocent, gentle-hearted and sweet CuteMute musician, always trying to keep her fans content with her music. There's just one thing the fans didn't know and also revealed in her League Judgment: Her musical instrument, Etwahl, just refused to be separated from Sona, and the last time her beloved stepmother Lestarra tried to claim it... the instrument ''killed'' Lestarra with Sona unable to do anything because she's mute. She claims that she's trying to discover the extent of the instrument's power, but it's quite clear that Lestarra's death continued to haunt Sona despite her usual gentle demeanor.

* Rada Nataste of ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' tries to seem like a ditzy socialite, flirtatiously dancing with player characters and rattling off [[PathOfInspiration Morninglight]] propaganda, even after most of her fellow cultists have been eaten by vampires or scattered across the Carpathian Mountains. It's not until you see Rada [[DomesticAbuse being threatened by her boyfriend/handler]] in the mission intros - and later being drugged to prevent her from just admitting everything - that you realize just how terrified she is under the bubbly exterior.
* The titular character of ''VideoGame/{{Wadanohara}}'' is the Depressed type. When something in the game upsets her, she puts on a fake smile and grows quiet, although other characters are able to see through her and realize something is wrong.

** Hope is implied to be Depressed in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2''. When Serah and Noel first meet him, he mentions that everyone he was friends with disappeared from his life immediately after the fall of Cocoon. [[spoiler: Becomes more explicit in Academia 4XX - Hope sends himself on a one-way trip 400 years into the future because his father had died and there was nothing left for him in his own time]].

* By the epilogue of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel II'', Rean becomes this trope after the CivilWar and his participation in the annexation of Crossbell. Towa has to call him out on it before he finally breaks down.

* Nearly the entire population of the world in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' is this way due to the CrapsackWorld setting. Sin, a whale monster that is size of a city, roams around the world and destroys everything in its path. The populace is lead to believe from the Church of Yevon that if everyone atones for their sins, then the Sin monster will go away for good. Despite people trying to do this for 1000 years, Sin still exists and you can see people trying not to crack as they keep insisting that things will be ok if they keep atoning for their sins, despite the fact that they know things have not changed for so long. You eventually find people that finally break out of their stepford smiler state and wonder if things are just hopeless.

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfFinalFantasy'', even in the good / true ending, none of the characters are entirely happy about how things have turned out. [[spoiler:Reynn and Lann's parents, Lusse and Rorrik are dead and defeating the evil beings that had possessed their spirits only bought a bit of time for their spirit forms to bid good-bye to their children. Furthermore, Reynn and Lann have to leave Grymoire. But Lusse tells Reynn to not be sad and to "turn those corners up," then Reynn later says the same thing to the Champions of Grymoire as she and Lann are about to leave.]]
* [[NoNameGiven Phone Guy]] from ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' is this (or as much as a character we never see can be) in all three games. He's remarkably calm for someone explaining the horrible aspects of his job to his successor. Even on [[FourIsDeath Night 4]], when he's [[spoiler:attacked and killed by what sounds like all of the animatronics]], he asks if you could "[[spoiler:check inside of those suits in the back room?" and says he's "[[FaceDeathWithDignity gonna try to hold out until someone checks... Maybe it won't be so bad]]]]." before giving a simple "[[DullSurprise Oh no...]]" The [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness only time]] we hear anything resembling distress in his voice is on Night 6 of the second game, when he asks why you're at work on that day and explains that "[[spoiler: someone used one of the suits... we had a spare in the back - a yellow one - [[WouldHurtAChild someone used it]]...]]"

* This is the philosophy of several lawyers in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' games. It's a repeated mantra for the protagonists in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'', "The hardest times are when lawyers need to force their biggest smiles." They have to be optimistic and upbeat for the sake of their clients even in the face of a possible guilty verdict.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' Space Stage, empires of the fun-loving Bard archetype turn out to be this when you look at the despairing nihilism in the synopses given of the Blocks of Chance, the ancient writings that outline their philosophy.
* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'':
** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' is full of this, as befitting its central theme of facing the truth:
*** Most of the game's examples would fit in the Depressed category; Kou keeps up a cheery facade to hide his fear that his adopted family doesn't love him, Yosuke acts the clown to hide his insecurities, Rise's bubbly "Risette" stage persona [[spoiler:was originally constructed as a way to make friends due to her past as a bully magnet]], and Nanako tries to be a CheerfulChild but is clearly struggling to cope with her mother's death and her father's prolonged work-related absences.
*** The true culprit, [[spoiler:Adachi]], is an Unstable example who hides his sociopathy under a mask of cheerful idiocy.
*** [[spoiler:Teddie]] starts off as an Empty example who's hiding his fears about living a hollow and meaninglessness existence [[spoiler:as a Shadow]]. He gets better, with his flirty cheerfulness become genuine.
** ''VideoGame/Persona5'': This trope is in play for all of the party members to a degree, but it affects [[spoiler:Goro Akechi]] the most. [[spoiler:His facade - handsome, charismatic, charming, and an ace detective - hides ''a lot'' of misery, loneliness, and anger stemmed from being a friendless bastard child who has been abused by the system for years. How did he get there? His father abandoned him and his mother, who was said father's mistress, and said mother eventually committed suicide out of shame because she gave birth to Goro. The abuse eventually makes him unstable and misanthropic, reaching to the point that he becomes his father's (a prominent, power-hungry politician) ''personal assassin,'' solely for the purpose of eventually revealing the truth about his parentage and causing societal upheaval. Yikes.]]
* In ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'', Wataru, Kanata, and Leo all act perpetually eccentric and carefree, but all nurse deep scars due to attacks against them during the War the previous year. Chiaki is something of a downplayed example, as he genuinely is a very energetic and optimistic person, but he rarely lets on how much he worries about being able to take care of Ryuuseitai or how regretful he feels that he failed to protect Kanata. Subaru is an interesting example: he ''himself'' didn't realise he was doing this, as he struggles to understand emotions, so even when awful stuff started going down the previous year, he thought all everyone wanted was to do was laugh and have fun to take their minds off it. Only later did he realise that he was actually upset too, but had no way of dealing with it, and he still struggles with processing and expressing negative emotions. Eichi is also a PerpetualSmiler who rarely speaks up about his regret, and wears his illness on his sleeve, blithely joking about his probably not-far-off death, but is naturally more scared about it than he lets on.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'':
** [[spoiler: The fake Rao/Nintetails]] is revealed to be this as they are actually a demon lord in disguise and want to destroy all of Ryoshima Coast.
** Much of Waka's breezy, carefree and smug behavior seems to be an attempt to hide the fact that [[spoiler: he is actually drowning in guilt and sorrow due to being indirectly responsible for the massacre of the Celestial Beings.]]

* Both Alicia and Felicity in ''VideoGame/GrowingUp'' put on fake smiles due to the pressure they get from her parents and school, respectively. If you befriend them well enough, you'll realize that they have a lot more going on than just trying to be happy for happiness' sake.

** Prince Sidon in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' is a NiceGuy example. While his cheerful and outgoing personality is genuine, it's also hiding his feelings he's been keeping in check. He feels like he was rude and pushy for asking Link to help them appease Divine Beast Vah Ruta while also feeling like he's being unreliable. He is surprised by his father's praise in the battle against Ruta since he feels like Link did all the work. Lastly, [[spoiler:if you talk to him while he quietly mourns over his sister by the statue, he apologizes for showing weakness]].

* ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'': Implied with [[DemBones Dapper Bones]]. He is generally silly and quite friendly, if easily offended when something doesn't fit his [[TheFashionista fashion standards]], but most things related to his past and romantic life show a sadder side of his character. He has a lover who he hasn't seen in a long time and wants to reunite with, threw away a gift from said lover, feeling he no longer deserved it and got rid of his photos from when he was alive, because he considers the memories attached to them to be too painful.
* Zelos from ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is a StepfordSmiler, as he struggles to hide a truly twisted past [[ObfuscatingStupidity behind a mask of frivolity and promiscuity]]. At certain points of the story he offhandedly hints about his past, before laughing whatever he said off as lies or changing the subject. Whether he's lying or telling the truth is left to the viewer, unless they go out of their way to see a cutscene where he openly reveals his past to the main protagonist.

* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': Koishi Komeiji is a cheerful child outside, but she's as hollow as possible inside due to closing her third eye; everything she does is out of the unconscious. According to the local Buddhist nun Byakuren, she's close to the state of "no-mind", which is one of the steps of enlightenment.

* ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'' cast series regular [[CrazyAwesome Goro Majima]] in a new light that had only been somewhat hinted at before, making it clear that he's adopted a facade of cheerful, over-the-top insanity to mask that he's actually incredibly depressed and riddled with [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]].

* In ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', [[spoiler:Sayori looks like a typical GenkiGirl childhood friend.]] She has many character traits that look harmless -[[TheKlutz clumsiness,]] [[BigEater overeating,]] oversleeping, and being TheDitz. [[spoiler:But these are actually symptoms of depression.]] [[spoiler:Monika]] also counts as one. Even though she's hiding instability and [[spoiler:a huge existential crisis over the fact that she's in a video game,]] she never stops smiling.

* There are a few in the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series.

** Generally subverted with Nowi from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''. She chooses to spend her days being happy rather than being depressed by the fact that she will outlive all of her friends, but despite how she hurts over the eternal life deal (due to her manakete dragon blood), she never really hides her pain.
** Peri from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' is a mix of 1 and 3, being mentally disturbed due to having her mother murdered by a servant when she was still a child, and seems as happy as possible during fights to distract herself from her sadness.
** Claude in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' is a [[TheChessmaster manipulative]] AntiHero (yet is still the least morally ambiguous of the three House leaders), and [[PlayerCharacter Byleth]]'s very first impression of him is that the smile he always wears doesn't reach his eyes. Later on in his support with Hilda she calls him out on this, saying that the only times his smiles are genuine are [[FireForgedFriends when he's with Byleth]].

* [[spoiler:Forde]] from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones''. He states in one of his supports that he acts cheerful and relaxed mostly to keep his friends and companions happy in the middle of the war.
* Henry from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''. It's readily apparent that he's not quite right in the head due to the fact that he's ''always'' smiling, even when talking about morbid subjects like torture.
** His type of Stepford Smiling actually depends: the Japanese version he's a straight Depressive pretending to be Unstable. The English version is rather unclear on the issue, though it seems to lean more toward Henry genuinely being exactly as cheerful as he says he is with a side order of crazy along for the ride.

** [[spoiler:[[TheSlacker Laid-back]] and [[PungeonMaster pun-loving]] Sans is also revealed to be this during a "No Mercy" playthrough; he realized long ago that his life is determined entirely by the whim of somebody else (namely, the player) and can be [[SaveScumming reset]] without warning at any moment. He admits that it makes finding motivation to do anything difficult, and that at this point, even making it to the surface world (which is what all monsters want and the main goal of the "Pacifist" route) doesn't appeal to him anymore because it would feel like a set up for a HopeSpot.]] Exactly how depressed he truly is depends partially on player interpretation, and on how the player decides to progress through the game. He's a more literal example of this trope, as he [[PerpetualSmiler doesn't crack a frown once the entire game]], even managing an extremely BrokenSmile if [[GoOutWithASmile you kill him]].

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'', Millium Orion is perhaps this to some degree. If you see her bonding scene with Rean, she reveals that it isn't all fun and games. She's presented as a GenkiGirl with a [[GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals love of stuffed animals]] and seemingly boundless energy, but she's also a government agent and everything that comes with it, and sometimes she feels like there's two of her. She never even got to attend Sunday School. To at least some degree, the whole perky happy-go-lucky girl thing is an act.

** In ''[[Videogame/FireEmblemElibe Fire Emblem 7]]'', the [[WhiteMage Cleric]] Serra is a mix of GenkiGirl and RichBitch who [[WellExcuseMePrincess acts like a princess]]... [[spoiler:but truly is an orphan dropped at a small, miserable Ostian convent by an Etrurian clan in danger of being wiped away. Her parents never came back for her and she was badly traumatised by their abandonment]]. Get her to support with people like Hector or Lucius to get more details.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': Koishi Komeiji is a cheerful child outside, but she's as hollow as possible inside due to closing her third eye; everything she does is out of the unconscious. According to the local Buddhist nun Byakuren, she's close to the state of "no-mind", which is one of the steps of enlightenment.

* Ayano Aishi, or {{Yandere}}-Chan of the indie game "VideoGame/{{Yandere Simulator}}": LoveSick is an Empty Stepford Smiler, since she doesn't feel any emotion, with some traits of the Unstable type, considering that her lack of emotion and empathy comes from what is strongly implied to be some sort of mental illness and she isn't afraid to kill. At first sight, you see [[BrokenSmile a normal, albeit introverted schoolgirl]]- that is, until you touch her [[SempaiKohai Senpai]], and find yourself on the [[SerialKiller wrong end of her knife]]...

* Shade in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}: Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty'', is [[BlatantLies most definitely not the only living person in Oasis]]! He's rigged up the bodies of a few people with crutches and speakers, posing them in "lifelike" positions and using pre-recorded ECHO tapes to create the illusion that they are still alive and capable of meaningful social interactions (he's either not aware of or willingly ignores tape malfunctions). He even went to the trouble of recording a rejection to a marriage proposal. He doesn't want the Vault Hunter to leave so soon, before they've gotten to know each other, but he can't really stop them (both because he's a dehydrated, delirious civilian compared to an armed and armored Vault Hunter and he's a quest-giving NPC so he can't leave his booth). Upon learning that there was an underwater cavern filled with water directly under Oasis, he descends into [[LaughingMad tragic laughter]].

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4''

* ''VideoGame/Fallout3''

* The backstory for the Pleasant family in ''VideoGame/TheSims 2'' is scripted like this: MarySue and Daniel have a perfect suburban life. He's shtupping the maid, she's about to get fired, and their daughters hate each other.

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is full of this, as befitting its central theme of facing the truth:

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'': This trope is in play for all of the party members to a degree, but it affects [[spoiler:Goro Akechi]] the most. [[spoiler:His facade - handsome, charismatic, charming, and an ace detective - hides ''a lot'' of misery, loneliness, and anger stemmed from being a friendless bastard child who has been abused by the system for years. How did he get there? His father abandoned him and his mother, who was said father's mistress, and said mother eventually committed suicide out of shame because she gave birth to Goro. The abuse eventually makes him unstable and misanthropic, reaching to the point that he becomes his father's (a prominent, power-hungry politician) ''personal assassin,'' solely for the purpose of eventually revealing the truth about his parentage and causing societal upheaval. Yikes.]]

* In ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'', Wataru, Kanata, and Leo all act perpetually eccentric and carefree, but all nurse deep scars due to attacks against them during the War the previous year. Chiaki is something of a downplayed example, as he genuinely is a very energetic and optimistic person, but he rarely lets on how much he worries about being able to take care of Ryuuseitai or how regretful he feels that he failed to protect Kanata. Subaru is an interesting example: he ''himself'' didn't realise he was doing this, as he struggles to understand emotions, so even when awful stuff started going down the previous year, he thought all everyone wanted was to do was laugh and have fun to take their minds off it. Only later did he realise that he was actually upset too, but had no way of dealing with it, and he still struggles with processing and expressing negative emotions. Eichi is also a PerpetualSmiler who rarely speaks up about his regret, and wears his illness on his sleeve, blithely joking about his probably not-far-off death, but is naturally more scared about it than he lets on.

* ''VideoGame/Persona5Royal'' has Kasumi Yoshizawa, which appears as a cheerful and friendly gymnast who excels in gymnastics, although deep down, she feels "down" for unknown reasons to her, as well as being impacted by Shujin trying to revoke her scholarship for a 3rd runner up. It turns out that this is [[spoiler:{{Subverted}}, as this is actually Kasumi's younger sister '''Sumire Yoshizawa''', who has been suffering from an unholy combination of delusional thoughts, SuccessfulSiblingSyndrome and suicidal depression, forming a delusional thought that if she weren't Kasumi, she should probably just...'''die'''. The tragedy where she led Kasumi into taking her place of being ran over by traffic simply made it so bad that if Maruki didn't make her think that she is Kasumi, she would had been committed suicide quite quickly.]]

* PlayedWith in ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', where your player character's face is fixed in a tortured, smug grin that his internal monologue refers to as ''The Expression'' and which apparently started as an attempt at doing this (and maybe even worked at some point in the past). When seeing it for the first time, he reacts with disgust and horror, and most other player characters find it as repulsive as he does, but (due to it being walled off behind a difficult check) he is unable to make his face stop making ''The Expression'', despite noting himself that it no longer does anything except draw attention to the fact that he's a pathetic, suicidal, alcoholic wreck who has nothing to smile about. The player can pass a different difficult check to determine the source of the expression - it was borrowed from [[IWasQuiteAFashionVictim a disco star of yesteryear]] and, apparently, has not looked cool on anyone since the disco era.

* In an IGN ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' video, which has Handsome Jack's assistant Meg asking him viewer-submitted questions about himself, when she asks him, "Is Handsome Jack happy?" he tells her that he smiles a lot but is actually dead inside.

* In an IGN ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' video, which has Handsome Jack's assistant Meg asking him viewer-submitted questions about himself, when she asks him, "Is Handsome Jack happy?" he says that he smiles a lot but is actually dead inside.

* ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]]'':

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}''

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''

** There's a woman in the small town of Arefu who seems to have gone completely delusional and pretends that she is living in a beautiful pre-war suburb. She hands the player rusty tin cans, proclaiming they're her prized batches of chocolate chip cookies. Ironically, she's never even experienced life before the war.

* Pretty much ''everyone'' in the town of Wellington Wells in ''VideoGame/WeHappyFew'' is [[GovernmentDrugEnforcement blissed out on Joy]] in order to forget [[NoodleIncident the Very Bad Thing]] ever happened. Except for the Downers, that is, but the people of Wellington Wells [[TorchesAndPitchforks don't like Downers]]...