Advertised Extra / Video Games

• Phillipe Loren in Saints Row: The Third was advertised as the game's Big Bad. He's killed at the end of the first act.
• BioShock:
  • While Big Daddy is a big part of BioShock, the "Bouncer" one with that adorns the cover is not as present as it seems: it is only encountered in 5 areas out of 14 in the game, only in the black look with a drill in three (the others having the "Elite" version that is both white and dons a harpoon), and in the opening level it only appears in cutscenes. Also, only twice it is a mandatory battle - the first and last Big Daddies you fight in the game.
  • The Handymen from BioShock Infinite were heavily present in trailers for the game, being presented as the game counterpart for Big Daddies. In reality, only four of them appear, and they're just Elite Mooks with none of the story relevance of the Big Daddies.
• Out of 6 characters from Death Come True poster, Nene Kurushima and Kenichi Mino have no real role in the story and appear in specific routes.
• The cover, advertising and loading screens of Grand Theft Auto V all feature an attractive blonde in a skimpy bikini. Some people think that this is supposed to be the minor character of Tracey De Santa, making it this trope. The other possibility is that she is just a Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game.
• God of War Ragnarök: In the previous game, the figure of Tyr was discussed at length as a Foil to Kratos, but never appeared due to being presumed dead; trailers and promotional material for this game made quite a big deal out of the revelation he was alive, and the quest to find him, with quite a bit of material dedicated to it. In the actual game, Tyr is found early on, and revealed to be so mentally broken by his torture at Odin's hands that he refuses to be of much help, and spends most of the game after sitting around Sindri and Brok's home. What's more, this isn't Tyr at all. It's Odin in disguise to manipulate the heroes. You can find the real Tyr, but only in the post-game, when Odin has already been defeated, and it only amounts to a few brief conversation in various realms, and he never directly interacts with either Kratos or Atreus in any meaningful way.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Metal Gear Solid's sequel's marketing became infamous for frontlining series protagonist Solid Snake on every single piece of promotional material avaliable, not only is he on every trailer, the cover also shows a giant close-up of his face, this even being the only thing in the European/American covers. The game's intro also heavily features Snake, having him through most of the footage and showing his new design in detail as well. All this titanic build-up is resolved by Solid Snake not actually being playable for most of the game, being relegated to the 20-minute long prologue and spending the rest of the story-line as a secondary character with a fake name and a different outfit. All the while the game's actual protagonist, Raiden was merely shown for about 5 seconds during the whole intro, and an illustration on the Japanese version of the game's cover. An expanded version of the game was released a year later and due to the massively negative reception this changed caused (Given Solid Snake's popularity at the time) this re-release included an entire new campaign, without spoken dialogue where the player has to actually go through most of the gameplay sections of the game using Solid Snake with his various new outfits.
• In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Shantotto and Gabranth were secret characters with no real effect on the storyline, only showing up in flashbacks. In the prequel, they're much easier to unlock, appear on the cover and are shown standing side-by-side with the other characters in the opening FMV...but they still have no role in the main story.
• The advertisement for Jump Force heavily featured Light Yagami overseeing battles, alluding to the idea he would be a major villain in the game. In the actual game itself, he contributes very little to the story mode and his arc is unresolved, instead ending on a blatant Sequel Hook.
• In Tales of Zestiria, Alisha was heavily advertised alongside Sorey in just about every piece of promotional material prior to the game's release, even having a DLC Mystic Arte as a preorder bonus, leading many to reasonably believe that she was the female lead. When the game was released, however, Alisha turns out to only be playable for a short while early on, the rest of the party seems to very swiftly forget all about her not long after she leaves, and she's not even so much as mentioned for a very long time, with the real female lead turning out to be Rose. This lead to many fans being upset about being misled. Bandai-Namco attempted to make up for this by releasing an additional story taking place after the end of the main game featuring Alisha as the main character as DLC, but due the story being very short and linear, as well as having rather poor writing, it didn't help much, and for some it just twisted the knife further due to Rose being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad within the story itself.
• Your avatar in White Knight Chronicles. Despite the trailers and the back of the box, Leonard is the main character of the game, and the character that you put all the effort into creating will be quickly relegated to standing in the background of cutscenes, nodding dumbly along with whatever Leo is saying, with no one bothering to even interact with him or her most of the time — if your avatar even appears in the cutscene to begin with. You're not even required to have yourself in the party, whereas the game forces Leo in at various story points.
• Fire Emblem:
  • The cover for Fire Emblem Gaiden features Alm, Celica and Valbar. While Alm and Celica are the game's two protagonists, Valbar is just a knight Celica can save during her journey to the Zofian mainland who doesn't appear in the story after you save him. He was seemingly placed there to fill in the space.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Hinoka easily has the least presence in the story of all the siblings from both sides. Unlike all the other siblings, she has barely, if any, impact or presence in the story besides her scenes in the pre-route split chapters and her recruitment chapters in Birthright and Revelation, meaning that virtually all her screentime is limited to supports and My Castle skits. Hell, it has actually been discovered that she has more story lines in Conquest than in Birthright, her own route! Possibly justified as she was added to the game fairly late into its development, after much of the story had already been finalized.
  • The Avatar from Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem is similar. Despite being promoted by trailers as a major mechanic (create your own Fire Emblem character), the Avatar has very little role in the plot past the Prologue, only existing as a Satellite Character others can provide exposition to, and aren't even required to be in the party for most of the game. The masked assassin Legion is another example: being featured very prominently in promotional materials and being one of the few new characters to get official art. In the game proper, he's easily the least developed of the Quirky Miniboss Squad, and why he has an army of clones of himself is never explained.
  • To promote Fire Emblem: Three Houses, seven characters were added to Fire Emblem Heroes: the male and female versions of Byleth, the player character; Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard, the leaders of the three houses; Sothis, the mysterious "Girl on the Throne"; and Kronya, one of the villains. Of all of them, Kronya has the least amount of screen time, showing up in one chapter to kill an important character, before being killed herself in the next chapter, and having almost nothing to do with the overall storyline. It seems like she was only added to Heroes because of her distinct appearance.
  • Fire Emblem Engage
    • Like before, characters from Engage were added to Fire Emblem Heroes before the game's launch. Of these heroes, Lumera was added as a Grand Hero Battle unit, similar to Kronya. And just like Kronya, Lumera appears early in the game, and is killed only a few chapters later.
    • Engage also has Céline, the princess of Firene. Despite being prominently featured in various pre-release material, as well as appearing on the cover of the Divine Edition release of Engage and having a special countdown illustration posted by Mika Pikazo on Twitter, which all suggest she has a larger role in the game, Céline falls off of the main plot immediately within two chapters, thus giving her the least amount of screentime out of all of the younger royal siblings in the game.
    • Timerra has her own spot on the game's box art, she appears during the pre-title screen intro cutscene, she appears again during the prologue introduction cutscene that shows Alear, Marth, and all the royals and their Emblems, she has a high-quality cutscene to introduce her properly when she first appears, and she has numerous pieces of official art, suggesting she'll be an important character in the story. In truth, she has the smallest role of the royal heirs, not appearing until roughly halfway into the story (Alfred, Diamant, and Ivy all appear before the first part of the story is over) and losing all major plot importance within two chapters of her introduction. From chapter 16 onward Timerra continues to appear, but her role in the story is relegated to giving sporadic and often singular bits of dialogue in cutscenes.
• Tentomon and Gomamon appear on the PAL boxart for Digimon World, alongside the playable Agumon, Biyomon, Gabumon, Palmon and Patamon, who in total make up the original lineup of main characters from the anime, of which this game is not an adaptation. Tentomon is only a common enemy in-game, with only his evolved form, Kabuterimon, available to the player character, so he is at least featured. Gomamon and all of his associated forms are entirely absent from the game.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's marketing campaign heavily advertised the fact that Patrick Stewart would be playing the voice of the series' perennial Big Good, Emperor Uriel Septim VII. In the actual game, he only has a few brief lines of dialogue before he gets killed during the tutorial mission.
• Promotional art for Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords heavily features Jedi Master Atris, portraying her as a kind of light side counterpart to Sith Lord Darth Nihilus. However, while she is important to the game's backstory, her involvement in the actual game is much smaller than it should have been; she was originally supposed to be a party member and, in an alternate ending, replace Kreia as the Big Bad, but, like many other features, it was cut short by rushed development.
  • The same goes for Nihilus, who was also featured prominently in advertisements but had a diminished role in the actual game. Doubles as Covers Always Lie, thanks to a piece of promotional art which showed Atris and Nihilus in a lightsaber duel. They're never in the same place at the same time.
• Hotline Miami features a nameless bum. He is present in many promotional artworks and Steam emoticons and even serves as the narrator for the tutorial of the game. However, his actual canon-role to the story is to simply get killed in the first level, right after being introduced.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The cover of Kingdom Hearts III features many of the important characters over the series, though some only showing up during the final battle (Terra, Roxas and Xion) with special mention towards Namine who only appears in an optional missable scene in "The Final World" and in the game's ending cutscene. The former scene is so easy to miss that several fans were surprised when her name showed up in the credits. Similarly is the Darkling from Union X on the cover who doesn't even appear in the game at all.
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: Mickey Mouse is featured on the cover alongside the main characters, but he only shows up in one scene of the story.
  • Several trailers for Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] featured a scene with Vanitas standing beside Young Xehanort and speaking to Sora. As it turned out, that scene was Vanitas's only appearance in the entire game, and to add to that the line he says in the trailers is his only line in the whole game.
• You'd think with a name like Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, that famed PlayStation mascot Spyro the Dragon would be the main character, right? Wrong. Spyro's name was slapped on for being recognizable. In reality, Spyro's role in the game is no bigger than any of the other plastic toys. He isn't even the central character on the box art, that role belonging to Stealth Elf. As the series has grown in popularity, Spyro has only been pushed further away from the spotlight. He's still around, but it really doesn't matter if he's in the game or not at this point.
• In Shin Megami Tensei II, five characters (Aleph, Beth, Daleth, Gimmel, and Zayin) are generally prominently shown. Beth dies early on, Daleth drops out of the plot soon after, and Gimmel's importance is only revealed in a short sidequest in which you kill him. In the end, only Aleph and Zayin maintain prominence, with Hiroko and Lucifer being the other actual main characters.
• In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the European box art prominently shows Dante from Devil May Cry on the cover, implying he is a major character. In the actual game, he only antagonizes the Player Character once or twice, past the first time you have to go out of your way to encounter him, and he has no meaningful impact on the story.
• In Shin Megami Tensei IV, Navarre is often advertised alongside the rest of the player's group of Samurai. However, while they are all important characters, Navarre bows out of the story after the first dungeon and is never mentioned again save for one unimportant sidequest. Apocalypse, on the other hand, makes him a full-blown party member, subverting the trope.
• The marketing for Shin Megami Tensei V prominently featured Khonsu, Odin, Zeus and Vasuki, the heads of international Bethel branches, implying they would play a major role in the story. The latter three aren't much more than boss fights for the final area, their scenes in the trailer being their only screentime in the main plot, while Khonsu is only relevant to a late-game sidequest.
• New Legends advertises your Dark Action Girl ally, Mai Khan, on the covers and posters, despite her extremely minor role. She appears early on to help you escape the labor camp, shows up occasionally between levels for exposition, and was unceremoniously written out when she gets injured and left out after uncovering the villains' Forbidden City hideout to the point where she's absent in the final stages. Meanwhile your closest allies, Boo the demon-human hybrid and Zhang the Old Retainer who sticks around in several levels until his death barely gets any promotion.
• Perish have it's first boss, Katharao, a horned eyeless monster who is fought early on and returns in the final stage degraded as a one-shot enemy. Somehow it dominates most of the cover art and promotional materials, and even has plenty of merchandise dedicated to it.
• In Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, one of the In-Universe movie Labyrinths known as Junessic Land hypes up mighty carnivorous dinosaurs as the Big Bad and the weak Herbivore Dinosaurs as protagonists. In reality, the carnivorous dinosaurs are nothing other than FOEs patrolling the upper floors and the Herbivore Dinosaurs are revealed to be Greater Scope Villains who refused to confront any carnivorous dinosaurs at all and ostracized anyone who doesn't follow the decision made by the majority of herbivores.
• Kasumi/Sumire Yoshizawa got an especially large amount of focus in advertising for Persona 5 Royal to the point of frequently appearing alongside Joker himself, implying she'll be an important member of the Phantom Thieves. While her storyline does get some focus and development during the Royal-exclusive third semester, she spends most of the game as a plot-irrelevant NPC, and is only directly playable in a handful of battles throughout the story before finally joining the thieves in Maruki's Palace during the True Ending route. If you fail to max out Maruki's confidant in time (locking you into the ending route from the vanilla game), it's possible to go through the entire story without unlocking Kasumi as a playable party member.
• Similarly to the White Knight Chronicles example above, your created character in Xenoblade Chronicles X has almost no influence on the story, and might as well not even exist. They're not alone in this though. Every party member in this game except for Elma and Lin seems to exist solely so that you have more than two party members to use.^*(Not that story missions even let you use any of them the vast majority of the time though.) This is especially jarring considering that this is a sequel to a game with a very well-developed and lovable cast of characters who all had their turn in the spotlight.
• Throughout the history of Puyo Puyo, the character Suketoudara would play a prominent role in advertisments, ranging from multiple commercials to appearing at events as a costume mascot, almost being on par with the series mascot Carbuncle. In the games themselves though, he's a pretty minor character, typically appearing as a generic opponent that is disconnected from any conflict.
• Sega's Rent A Hero No. 1 for Dreamcast, the remake of the Genesis title Rent A Hero, featured in each and every piece of promotional material Rent A Hiroko, the titular character's Distaff Counterpart. In the actual game, though, her presence is somewhat limited and, while the ending sort of implies that she would have had a much bigger part in the sequel, no further games were ever made, thus making players wonder what all the fuss about her was about.
• Pulp Adventures main menu screen is an artwork featuring several of the campaign's party members. While most of them are plot-critical protagonists directly involved in the plot, some others are much less prominent. Conan, Zorro, and the Lone Ranger are special characters only playable in their own level (said levels represent the protagonists of the main timeline reading books). Also, the Spirit is available as a regular party member but he is completely optional (he must be bought with Prestige Points instead of being obtained for free when the plot proceeds).
• Pokémon:
  • Poliwhirl was ubiquitous in early Pokémon merchandise, despite being almost completely ignored in the games (it's the middle stage in an evolutionary line), and never having more than a cameo role in the anime's first two seasons. This may have been due to it being a personal favorite of Satoshi Tajiri, or possibly just the fact that its simple shape made it an easy merch target.
  • With the start of a new generation, a Mythical Pokémon is generally revealed either first or very early on. As the name implies, Mythical Pokémon are unobtainable in a normal playthrough outside of limited-time events, and as such a player is likely never going to even hear of them, much less fight/catch them.
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver were the first games to feature unique Olympus Mons for each game, but Lugia and Ho-Oh weren't important to the plot at all. In fact, you could beat the True Final Boss without ever fighting them. The remakes fixed this by making them required encounters.
  • Most of the 100 new Pokemon in Gold and Silver fall into this. They are largely relegated to the endgame, where they're already outclassed and therefore useless, or the methods for obtaining them are Guide Dang It!. A large number of them aren't used by any trainers either. The vast majority of the Pokemon that appear throughout the Gen 2 games are from the original 151.
  • Pokémon Black and White had Zorua and Zoroark as some of the first new Pokémon to be revealed. However, neither can be encountered in normal gameplay; they could only be accessed with event Pokémon (the events required to get either of them are long past) and aren't used by any Trainer aside from N in his final battle. This is cited as one reason why Zoroark failed to follow in the footsteps of resident Breakout Character Lucario, leading to Zorua and Zoroark becoming common in later games.
  • Promotional art and trailers for Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia made a great showoff about surfing on an Empoleon's back as one of the main things in the game. How many times it happens? Once. Two or three if you want to go for 100% Completion.
  • Advertisements for Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon featured Latios and Latias among several Legendary and Mythical Pokémon that would play a major role in the story or a boss battle. They appear towards the second half of the game, only to have a few lines before turning to stone for the rest of the story (they are recruitable during the post-game).
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon:
    • The game's trailers revealed Zygarde's new formes, which made it appear as if it would have a big role in the plot (particularly since, unlike Rayquaza, Giratina and Kyurem, it never got an Updated Re-release or sequels focusing on it). In-game, Zygarde is nothing more than a Collection Sidequest with no plot significance.
    • The Ultra Beasts were hyped up as having a big role, while in the actual game only UB-01 Symbiont/Nihilego has any role in the main plot, with the rest being shunted off to postgame status.
    • The Tapus, despite being presented as Alola's revered guardian deities, play miniscule roles overall. While Tapu Koko gets decent screentime during the main game, the other three are never seen until the main story's over and are otherwise glossed over, receiving offhand mentions at best.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Terapagos, the eventual mascot for The Indigo Disk DLC, is an important background character in the games prior to said DLC, and is also an important character in Pokémon Horizons: The Series. When Indigo Disk finally came out, Terapagos isn't even addressed until the second half of the plot, and even then, it only serves as Final Boss and plot device for another character's Story Arc, with its involvement in the creation of the Paradox Pokémon becoming an Aborted Arc. This is particularly notable as Ogerpon, the mascot of The Teal Mask DLC which preceded Indigo Disk, received less promotion but is more involved in the plot from start to finish.
• Psychonauts 2: The interns at the Motherlobe end up being this. While they are prominent characters in the first few hours of the game, this prominence drops off around the time the player finishes the casino mission at the Lady Luctopus, relegating them to nothing but fancy-looking NPCs who maybe have a quest for you. They make a triumphant return in the end to help Raz against Maligula, though.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War
  • The Balrog Tar-Goroth was featured heavily in the game's advertisement, indicating he'd be a major antagonist working for Sauron and sent to hunt down Talion and the Wraith. Turns out in the game itself that he is a secondary villain with no direct relation to the plot - he was awakened by an entirely unrelated event and is causing destruction on his own. He appears for only two missions very early in the questline he is involved, and he isn't even the Arc Villain, but rather the necromancer Zog the Eternal (who is trying to bind the Balrog to his service).
  • The Agonizer is a subversion: he got his own trailer, but he follows the exact same rules as every other orc, appears at random, and it's possible to permanently kill him during your first few hours, so he can be made one if the player so chooses.
• Mog in Final Fantasy VI is featured heavily in the English SNES version's advertising, being the only character to appear on the cover, and the only one to appear in the TV commercial and magazine ads. Even so, he's irrelevant to the plot, being an optional character who's easily missed, and his only other appearance is in a brief tutorial sequence near the beginning.
• Final Fantasy IX features five of its party members on the cover. Zidane is The Hero and Garnet, Steiner and Vivi all have major roles in the story and significant Character Development but Amarant is the last to join, and has the least overall role in the game's story.
• Final Fantasy XV: Due to the Development Hell the game experienced during the shift from Versus XIII to XV, some major characters had their roles reduced or outright removed:
  • Lunafreya Nox Fleuret is billed as the game's main heroine, and side materials such as Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV and the Brotherhood anime set her up to be a prominent figure, but she only appears for roughly half an hour of the 30+ hour game, and even then very little of it is spent interacting with the main heroes and/or alive. Especially egregious in the Royal Edition, where she appears on the cover of the game, but her added screentime amounts to a brief cutscene of her spirit appearing to provide a Deus ex Machina to help the heroes get past a magic barrier, with little in the way of new insight on the character.
  • Verstael Besithia appears in only one scene, despite the trailers suggesting that he had as much relevance as the other supporting characters which is a side-effect of the shift from Versus XIII to XV. At least he gets quite a bit more screen time in Episode Prompto and Episode Ardyn.
  • Clarus Amicitia is hinted to be one of the important characters in the 2013 trailer as face^notewhile the man shown in the lineup is unnamed, he's the most likely candidate as his portrait in the official guide is based on this unnamed character. before being redesigned was also shown with the rest of the cast lineup and he appears alongside Regis in promotional posters. In the end, aside from his role in Kingsglaive, he's barely mentioned in-game.
  • Early promotional material suggested that Cor Leonis would be a major supporting character alongside Noctis and his friends. As it turns out, his role in the main game is limited to a brief appearance as a Guest-Star Party Member, and he largely disappears from the plot soon after. Thankfully Episode Gladiolus and the Royal Edition gave him some much-needed screentime and characterization.
• Early posters and promo material for Fate/Grand Order tended to make a big deal out of a gang of Original Generation characters: the opening even shows off one of each class, in the form of Altera, Arjuna, Scathach, Ushiwakamaru, Jekyll, Mephistopheles, and Darius. Saber Artoria Pendragon is also prominent in nearly all early material, if not outright front-and-center. However, while all of them are playable, most of the group aren't particularly plot-relevant; all seven show up in the main plot but only the first four at least have semi-prominent showings in various stories outside of their debut. The last two get hit with the worst of it, being disposable baddies in whatever they appear in. Artoria stands out in particular, because she's only appeared once in the entire main story, in a flashback. Ironically, the game showcases a lot of future versions or past versions or alternate versions of her, some of whom have been extremely prominent and popular... leaving the version of her that shows up in all the advertising in the dust.
• The trailers for Hunt Down the Freeman made it appear as though Gordon Freeman (the protagonist of the Half-Life series of games) was the Big Bad of the game. However, he actually only shows up in one scene at the end, and the Big Bad is someone else posing as Freeman.
• In Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, Yang Xiao Long is never fought in any of the game's story modes. In Episode: RWBY, she appears at the beginning, goes off to look for the Keystones and only returns at the end to cover for the injured Ragna while Ruby and Weiss deal with the Big Bad. As a result, she is the only character who never fights in any capacity in the story; other DLC characters appear as opponents in fights and even have prominent story roles. Justified in that, per word of one of the producers, Yang wasn't ready to be included in the game at launch.
• Most, if not all promotional materials for Bloody Spell prominently features the scantiliy clad High Priestess in the front and center. In the game itself she appears in two cutscenes, and then as a boss near the end; meanwhile the actual protagonist, Ye-Jin the heroic swordsman, usually shows up in some scant corner of the poster art.
• The Japanese box art◊ for Super Mario RPG prominently features Yoshi on the cover along with the five party members, suggesting that he's a major character in the game. Yoshi is only prominently featured in one optional area and while he can be summoned into battle with a certain item, he has no involvement in the main story.
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door prominently features Hooktail, a dragon that serves as the boss of Chapter 1, in promotional material, even though Hooktail's role is confined to being a Starter Villain, and she is almost never mentioned outside of the first chapter.
• Paper Mario: The Origami King prominently features Origami Peach in the prerelease trailers and the box art, but in the game proper, she hardly appears at all. She appears in the opening to ask Mario some But Thou Must! questions and then vanishes from the plot until the very end, where she says a few more lines before getting turned into tapestry.
• Waluigi appears in a lot of group art of Super Mario major characters, despite not appearing in any mainline games and only making physical appearances with playable roles in the franchise's spin-offs, like Mario Tennis, Mario Party, and Mario Kart. For example, the picture on this Wiki's character page for the franchise contains Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Bowser, Bowser Jr. (main characters), Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Wario (major supporting characters with their own franchises that behave as sister series to Super Mario), Goomba, Koopa Troopa, Koopa Paratroopa, Boo (recurring Mooks), Birdo (appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2, a main series game), and Waluigi (no notable distinguishers). He also fits the "advertised" part, as he was apparently important enough to get some vector artworks in the style that Nintendo uses for merchandise.
• The Cover and print ads for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines focus on Jeanette Voerman, a minor character who ceases to be plot relevant after the first few missions.
• Darth Vader appears on both the front and back cover of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, and on the front appears as a looming floating head in the sky alongside General Grevious, but given that the game only covers the first two seasons of its source material, before that show even foreshadowed Anakin's dark transformation, Vader is only playable after collecting all the minikits for "Legacy of Terror".
• Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel tends to feature a young girl in a gasmask on most of it's promotional materials. That girl is Emily, a character who appears in person for five minutes in the final cutscene, though she is the reason behind the game's events taking place.
• The box art◊ for Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist said "Meet the great-grear-grandpappy of Leisure Suit Larry" making the game look like a prequel to Leisure Suit Larry. But nope, that's not Freddy, who couldn't differ from Larry more even if he tried. The advertised ancestor is plot-irrelevant Zircon Laffer, who appears in 1 scene with 1 line.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure prominently displays Rixia Mao alongside the main characters in most promotional materials. She doesn't become fully playable until the final chapter, and she isn't very relevant to the story at that point. Later games would make her an Ascended Extra.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, the infamous villain of the Trails Series, the Grandmaster, is the cover of the game. Trailers even show that she's weaving three different lights (representing the three protagonists of the game, Rean, Lloyd, and the brand new character "C") and combining the three lights into one with her hand. In-game however, she only shows up once in a special episode for the future Calvard arc, talking with both McBurn, and the newly elected president of Calvard. Also those three lights? turns out they represent the prequels for what is to come in the Calvard arc.
• The boxart, and indeed name, of Balan Wonderworld might lead you to think that Balan himself is the main/playable character of the game. Instead you control one of two children, Leo or Emma, throughout most of the game while Balan is limited to a couple of quick time events and cutscenes.
• Wandersong prominently features Viola, an NPC that only appears in two chapters, and only sort of drives the events of one, and Eyala, a character that despite appearing semi-frequently, only "starts" the adventure before largely becoming irrelevent to the plot, right next to The Bard. Meanwhile, Miriam, who is the game's Supporting Protagonist, is off to the side and further away.
• The amount of Resident Evil Village marketing featuring Lady Dimitrescu would make you think she's either the main villain or really important. However, she's merely the first major boss and you beat her early in the game. That being said, this is offset by the fact that her level is the most extensive in the game, and even more is that she's an active obstacle for much of it. Out of all the bosses, she's the one that you'll personally encounter the most.
• The box art◊ for Mass Effect 2 features a potential player party with Shepard (default male appearance), Miranda Lawson, and Thane Krios. While Shepard is the Player Character and Miranda an important character (as well as one of the first party members recruited in the game's first mission), Thane joins the party fairly late in the game and is actually an Optional Party Member: not only the game can still be completed without recruiting him at all (despite each party member's recruitment being part of the main quest according to the quest log), but skipping him has no effect on the plot or the suicide mission's outcome.
• Played Straight, but later subverted with Classic Amy in Sonic Origins, an Updated Re-release of the classic Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games (and CD): the box art, advertising, and cutscenes made it look like she was one of the main characters, with cutscenes even showing her in battle and adventuring alongside Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Initially, she was purely in her Damsel in Distress role in CD, only appearing at the very start and very end of the game, but the Plus DLC update made her a fully-playable character in all four games.
  • When Sonic Forces was coming out, promotional material hyped up Chaos as one of Dr. Eggman's minions. But in the actual game, Chaos plays a minimal role and doesn't even have a boss battle. Classic Sonic manages to defeat him in a single strike during a cutscene.
• The cover of Super Cyborg features the Imeotra Beast peering at your player as a Giant Eye of Doom. In the game itself it's the first Warmup Boss with only one form, and can be defeated in under a minute. And there are at least a dozen other bosses later after it.
• On some of the promo ads for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, Cloud is prominent near the front and center, right behind Mario and Kirby. However, in base game, Cloud and his series barely have any representation. He is only used as the fighter for two spirit battles, has one stage with two songs, no spirits, Mii costumes, items or assist trophies from Final Fantasy VII and he doesn't even have his original artwork image for his fighter spirit, instead using his Ultimate render. While he is a mandatory character recruit in World of Light, he is found much later on in the game and only required as he blocks a main path on the map. You don't even need to play as him after he joins. This would change with Sephiroth's Fighter Pass, which adds a new stage with more songs, spirits and Mii Costumes based on Final Fantasy characters, and notably even changes his Final Smash animation based on what costume he's wearing, putting him on about the same level of representation as other DLC fighters...as long as you've bought the Fighter Pass for Sephiroth.
• The international version of EarthBound (1994) has the Final Starman being front and center for the bulk of the minimalistic box cover, with Ness, the lead character, just having a tiny image of his face reflected in the Starman's visor. Final Starman is actually just a regular (yet powerful) mook only found in the final dungeon. With the enemy placements on the map and how short the dungeon is, it's possible to not even encounter him at all! The player's guide is a bit better, using art of the main characters in various locations like post cards, but the center of the guide has the Starman Deluxe, a late game boss that drops from the story completely after his defeat.
• Wanted: Dead: Cinnamon is featured prominently in the game's marketing, to the point she had an animated music video showcasing her day-to-day life but she's a very minor character that only appears at the intro.
• In true Kodaka fashion, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code features this trope in full force as Zilch, Melami, Zange, Pucci, and Aphex, who all got introduced in trailers for the game and are all on the game's cover, die before Chapter 0 is finished. Heck you don't even get to meet the real Zilch as the one you meet in-game is a hitman disguised as him. Similarly, the Peacekeeper met in that same chapter, Swank, is advertised in the same way, but he only appears in Chapter 0 and never appears again, just like the detectives.
• Splatoon 3: The promotional artwork for the Side Order DLC campaign features a Luciferidae named Cipher next to Acht, giving the impression that this is a new character who will serve as an important figure in the game's story, especially since other pre-release material noted that addition to running a shop in Order Sector, they have taken an interest in Eight. Come release and it turns out that being a shopkeeper NPC that simply trades locker decorations and banners for Prlz is their only role; they don't even appear until after you've completed your first run through the tower and seen the credits.
• Legend of Legaia has a downplayed example, with the game's CD prominently depicting Xain, a minor (but powerful) midgame boss.

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