Alternate Universe Fic in Video Games.
Crossovers
- One Valkyria Chronicles/ Real Life double AU, Battlefield Gallia, is set early in the war (November 1940, Operation Sea Lion); but World War II as we know it will take place in some shape, albeit in really mutated form. As of yet, Gallia mostly resembles Poland, and we all know who won there.
- Harbinger, by Peptuck, fuses the Mass Effect setting with FEAR, hinting at the ramifications of a Mass Effect setting where organics begin manifesting a wide range of Psychic Powers and sanity is an optional part of such abilities.
- Hotspring Souls! is a Soulsborne (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, and Bloodborne) crossover comedy fic that plays with the idea of the games' protagonists having a weekend vacation at an inn/hotspring in the countryside.
- Mass Effect: Human Revolution. Any real detail would go deep into spoiler territory, but suffice to say that the history of the galaxy is a vastly, vastly different one from canon even before the Deus Ex-derived bits come in via Humanity entering the galactic scene.
- Ordinary Human Spectre is a crossover AU between Touhou Project and Mass Effect, revolving around replacing Commander Shepard with Marisa Kirisame, and integrating the Touhou universe into the Mass Effect one (Gensokyo is an Alliance military base, Youkai are genetically modified humans, Patchouli Knowledge works for the Shadow Broker, etc.). It goes Off the Rails pretty quickly.
- Renegade is a crossover fic that explores how differently the Mass Effect universe would be if elements of the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series universe were worked into the continuity, notably being that GDI replaces the Systems Alliance and has enough military prowess to remain independent of the Citadel.
- Dante being Nero's father in Like Father, Like Son
(Which was jossed when Devil May Cry 5 confirmed Vergil as Nero's father.). Sink or Swim Fatherhood hijinks ensue.
- Wolf in the Streets, Sardine in the Sheets reimagines the Disgaea casts as humans living in a city where the more run-down and crime-riddled areas are known as the 'netherworld'. Most of the gangs are named after various types of monsters, while Valvatorez runs a rehabilitation home where he dresses his charges like penguins and calls them his 'prinnies'.
- Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium is a straight retelling of Dragon Age: Inquisition - except that the Inquisitor is Bethany Hawke, and the story is told from Varric's point of view.
- Coffee, Black is a Dragon Age II fanfic which takes place in modern America. It is written through Garrett Hawke's point of view, while he works in a coffee shop and is practically hypnotized by a mysterious tattoo-covered hipster named Fen. It can be read here. (Warning: as it was originally inspired by a prompt from a Kink Meme, it gets VERY steamy later.)
- The Twice Upon an Age series is a retelling of Dragon Age: Inquisition in which both male Lavellan and female Trevelyan ended up with the Anchor and must share the duties of being the Herald of Andraste. As a result (direct or otherwise) of this aberration from canon, a number of other things end up being quite different. Among the changes: the Inquisition is able to recruit both the mages and the Templars, resulting in both Samson and Calpernia leading forces against them in the name of the Elder One. Samson and Calpernia are not working together, however; rather, they're rivals for the Elder One's favor, and he plays them against each other. Other changes include the ball in Halamshiral being resolved in a way not technically possible in the game, and the Inquisition's inner circle receiving an additional member late in the first story of the series, when Bethany Hawke comes to Skyhold.
- New Vegas: Sheason's Story a retelling/novelization AU of Fallout: New Vegas where the Sheason Fisher is the Courier and must survive long enough to take revenge on the man who shot him and left him for dead. This is Sheason's story.
- Haunted House is an AU of Final Fantasy VII, in which Sephiroth, Zack, and Cloud decide to explore the abandoned Shinra Mansion in Neibelheim the night before they're supposed to investigate the Mako reactor. They find the coffin containing Vincent Valentine and rescue him. He manages to help prevent Sephiroth's canonical Start of Darkness, and from their the story follows Sephiroth, Zack, Cloud, and Vincent as they begin to investigate all of Shinra's dirty secrets, paving the way for an all out civil war within Shinra.
- A New Hope is a drama fic which places the main characters of Final Fantasy VII into the real world, and completely changes the relationships, personalities, and backstories of the main characters. Namely, Cloud is forced to participate in an arena after his father Sephiroth (yes, you got that right) kidnaps him after killing his mother; Aerith is Squall/Leon's younger sister; Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo own and operate an orphanage; and Zack is a sexual predator that tried to rape Aerith on two separate occasions.
- Fire Emblem Awakening: Invisible Ties is described by its author as a "hybrid" between an AU and adaptation of Fire Emblem: Awakening.
- Living at Freddy's is a fic in which Mike, instead of dying after being caught by the animatronics, is forced to live with them.
- Something Always Remains explores what happens if Springtrap is found, empty, during Mike Schmidt’s tenure. Other events from other games end differently, such as the kid from Five Nights at Freddy's 4 surviving the Bite of '83 and Springtrap being haunted by Jeremy Fitzgerald instead of William Afton.
- Kingdom Hearts: The Third Epic, which begins about a year after KH2 and follows the KH crew on a Darker and Edgier journey to defeat the Dark Empire, an enemy much more powerful than the Heartless or Nobodies. Also counts as a Crossover due to the high number of anime that get their own worlds/realms.
- Runaway Wind, which diverges from canon in the first game when Sora releases his heart to save Kairi and unwittingly releases Ventus as well, leading him to wake up early and escape from Castle Oblivion with Naminé.
- Second Chance, in which Sora grows up able to communicate with Ventus's heart, learning about other worlds and the Keyblade years ahead of canon.
- The Warrior Princess Series, in which Kairi receives the Destiny's Embrace keyblade during the first game and escapes the Destiny Islands with Sora, who does not get his keyblade (yet).
- The Legend of Cynder Series is based off the simple question 'what if Ignitus had grabbed Cynder's egg during the raid instead of Spyro's?', in addition to generally expanding upon the universe of The Legend of Spyro. It also asks the question 'What if the apes had grabbed Spyro's egg instead of Cynder's?'
- Offspring is a The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild fic where Mipha proposed to Link early and he accepted. The two were married in secret and had children together. After the amnesiac Link wakes up, he's surprised to find out he has now-adult children.
- Bloom makes two major alterations to canon: Max is a Transgender trans girl and the game's Big Bad, Mark Jefferson, is Adapted Out. This second change has a lot of effects, most notably that Rachel Amber is alive.
- And the Meek Shall Inherit the Galaxy: Instead of turians, humanity meets the quarians first, with the entire Mass Effect Universe drastically altering as a result.
- For Tomorrow We Die is an Alternate Continuity fic for Mass Effect which picks up immediately at the conclusion of Mass Effect 2. Written well before the release of Mass Effect 3, the events of the story prevent the events of the third game from happening at all.
- Renegade Reinterpretations is set in a Mass Effect universe where the batarians found humanity first and the latter didn't have the lightning-fast tech advancement of canon. The result is a much less nice humanity.
- Uplifted is set in a universe where a desperate quarian fleet decided to uplift humanity circa 1942 in order to utilize them as foot soldiers and retake Rannoch. However, contrary to what most people would expect, they choose to ally themselves with the fascists. The choice is logical given what the quarians intentions for humanity. The epilogue strongly implies the war results in a stalemate. The author is planning a trilogy. A fair warning though: the main characters are Nazis, and the author has no problem displaying their attitudes. Unique in that it avoids depicting all Nazis as evil mass murderers, but makes clear how reprehensible the regime is, as the quarians slowly realize just who their allies are. The author certainly doesn't downplay how reprehensible the quarians find their erstwhile allies' actions.
- Mega Man Reawakened is in a separate universe from the games and animated adaptations.
- The OMARI AU, shown in fics like OMARI, explores a world where Mari is the protagonist instead of Omori/Sunny and it was Mari who pushed Sunny down the stairs.
- The Evil Queen is set where Makoto Niijima is the first Palace Ruler instead of Kamoshida. Using Blackmail, Makoto became the de facto ruler of the school and sees the boy with a criminal record as a threat to her intended utopia. There are far greater changes than on the surface, however...
- One Year on Probation removes all of the supernatural elements from the original story, so those who would have become the Phantom Thieves instead how to use investigation skills in the real world to expose corruption and bring down the wicked.
- The Phantom Queen is a setting inspired by The Silver Age of Comic Books with Makoto Niijima set as the Phantom Queen, an Expy of Batman with various other characters as allies or super villains.
- Boundaries is a Pokemon story that takes place in the US Midwest of all places.
- Chrysanthemums is a Pokémon Dark Fic where the Shadow Triad are the Striation Trio. There are various little differences, such as the brothers only becoming gym leaders after Ghetsis is arrested.
- OverUsed is set after the events of the Pokemon games, and involves an OC veteran trainer and his adventure after meeting a mysterious girl with a Mew companion. It changes several rules of the world and follows different battle tactics compared to the anime or video games.
- Subverted in Pokémon Strangled Red. The Pokémon Strangled Red game is initially presented as this in-universe, with Steven seeming to be a cooler version of Red, the protagonist of Pokémon Red and Blue. However, when Steven talks to Red's mother, the narrator realizes that this hacked game takes place in the same universe as Pokémon Red and Blue, only a year earlier, with Red looking up to Steven in a big way.
- Welcome To The World Of Pokemon is a collection of Alternate Continuity fics for the main series Pokémon games. The story follows the main heroes, giving them character traits, changing elements of the original story, changes the heroes' path through the game, or a mixture of the three, depending on which story is being considered.
- Bonds Left Unbroken is based in an AU where Desmond and Hershel are adopted together, rather than being separated.
- Later, Traitor is a story where Raz's older sister Frazie ends up going to Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp instead of him.
- Always Having Juice is an Alternate Universe Fic for Sonic the Hedgehog, with every single character given a design overhaul, the world being a strange recipe of every other iteration of the Sonic Canon you can think of off the top of your head, all put through the lens of one troper.
- The Heart Of A Monster is a comic based on Sonic Unleashed. In it, Knuckles, Tails, and Shadow help Sonic on his adventure.
- How Do I Admit I'm Falling Apart is set in a world where Sonic was born female-assigned-at-birth and began transitioning between Sonic CD and Sonic 3.
- A very different Contextual Reassignment fanfic is found in Prison Island Break The entire story not only takes place in a high-security prison, but almost all of the characters (from a wide range of Sonic continuities) are convicted criminals. Their goal to escape prison is neither noble nor heroic since there is no doubt that they are guilty, and most of them are unrepentant. Despite this, the story is popular for keeping all of them in-character, and even their very different criminal backstories still seem to suit their original characters.
- Some of SilverAndKaylee15's Sonic the Hedgehog Script Fics, Past Forgotten and Full of Regrets, take place in a timeline where Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) did happen, which means Mephiles is the main antagonist, Blaze is Iblis' host, and the future is ruined. For the other stories, like in the canon, the '06 timeline got erased.
- SONIC is a Sonic the Hedgehog AU which is described by the writer as 50% Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), 20% Sonic the Comic, 10% Sonic X, 10% Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), and 10% original spin.
- Sonic Comics Rewrite: One Change can mean a new chance is a rewrite of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) where Snively (or Colin, as he is called in the story) was abandoned by his family when he was two, then adopted and raised by Sir Charles Hedgehog, making him a Freedom Fighter from the very beginning.
- Pearl and Marina's backstories and musical talents in I've Got Your Back don't match up with those related through Splatoon 2 or its Octo Expansion. Pearl lives on her own in a one-bedroom apartment, and Marina starts out as a homeless street musician, and Pearl plays a cajón while Marina plays a guitar.
- Bait and Switch (STO) is based on the pre-season 8 version of Star Trek Online's Federation storyline, but changes the Borg attack at Vega IX to happen in 2407 to allow for a slightly more realistic promotion rate for Captain Kanril Eleya. Later stories in the continuity diverge further (The Wrong Reflection is an Adaptation Expansion of the now-removed mission "The Other Side", moved to 2410 and taking place after the Undine attack on Earth), largely due to author frustration at the official storyline (which came to a head at the Iconian War, with the authors dumping the Time Travel angle and ending the war wildly differently).
- The War of the Masters is based on Star Trek Online, with canon events spread out over a larger number of years and incorporating new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Powered Armor, and quantum entanglement communication. It also includes a race of Eldritch Abominations and substantial plots that have nothing to do with game canon, such as an arc involving a group of colonies seceding from the Federation due to government corruption and mismanagement.
- In the Harvest Moon DS Cute AU Storm Clouds And Grey Skies, Claire lives in Mineral Town instead of Forget-me-not Valley. She meets Leia in the ocean, not in Darryl's house.
- The infamous Hammer Brother takes place in a Mario AU set on Earth.
- The Super Mario Bros My Pain, My Thrill is an AU where Bowser and Peach were once in a Secret Relationship that resulted in Bowser Jr. Bowser is also the Koopalings' uncle instead of either being their father or being completely unrelated.
- The majority of ''Touhou Project' fanfic falls into this category due to the lack of information from ZUN on just how Gensokyo works. Even fics that apparently take into account all the details released at the time of their writing tend to be Jossed by new canon and deuterocanon. This may be about to change due to the increasing attention given to world building in official material, but then again ZUN has contradicted himself and retconned certain things on more than one occasion.
- One of the perhaps most well known of these is the Days Woven With Illusion series by Gensoukoumuten, detailing an alternate version of Gensoyou where the barrier was never needed, with magic and science evolving side by side.
- Gensokyo, Tokyo sits adjacent to a Modern AU Fic. Its main thrust is to make an Urban Fantasy AU; there’s no barrier separating Gensokyo from the outside world, but instead a loose version of The Masquerade keeps the supernatural hidden all over the world.
- The Red Web of Fate crosses a coffee shop AU, a university AU, and a generic modern AU. Certain minor characters also attend high school.
Undertale has popularized the term "AU fic" with its massive fandom imagining other scenarios for the cast, creating dozens and dozens of permutations of the same characters. Undertale AUs are also often further layered over each other, such as Underfell's morality-inversion being applied to Underswap becoming Fellswap, or elaborated on, such as Flowerfell being Underfell but with Frisk growing more flowers on their body after every reset. Naturally, there is a wiki that lists all AUs with significant amount of fanwork. (Undertale's Fan Works page also has several AUs on it.)
Particularly popular AUs include:
- Storyshift is an AU where characters swap roles but largely retain their personalities.
- Underfell (RynoGG) is an animated interpretation of the very popular Underfell, a Darker and Edgier 'verse in which all characters switch morality: the monsters are out to kill the Fallen Human and Flowey is trying to help them.
- TS!Underswap is a fangame in development based on the very popular Underswap, in which various major and minor character switch personality and position (for example, Papyrus is a slacker while Sans is the enthusiastic one).
- On a meta level, Underverse is what happens when you put almost every AU version of Sans into a single work. Not even any other characters. Just Sans. Among other things, this demonstrates how many AU versions of Sans there are - more than a dozen, by their count.
- Days We've Lost is an AU where while Lee Everett was being transported to prison, the police officer driving him avoids crashing the cop car into a Walker, thus Lee ends up arriving at prison and spending the first few months of the apocalypse safely inside as a prisoner, until Rick Grimes and his friends find the prison while searching for a sanctuary. Other changes also occur that integrate the characters from the Telltale game with the characters from the comics, such as Chuck also being a prisoner and Lee's cellmate, Kenny's group meeting and merging with Rick's, Larry and his daughter Lilly being members of Woodbury
- Horde Champion: The story deviates wildly from canon, starting from Anevay moving to the Undercity and upwards to her relationship with Sylvanas. In a similar vein to The Sith Resurgence, changes occur gradually at first and result in large domino effects over time.
- A Destroyer's Remorse: Unlike most of the author's other work, which can theoretically fit in canon, this one explicitly doesn't. The author says that the premise seems ridiculous, but still wanted to explore the idea of the war turning even a good man into a monster.
- Damona In The Details is set in a world where Nate freed Damona from the Crank-a-Kai (and accidentally became engaged to her).
- Yo-kai Watch: The Rewrite Series is a rewrite of the games where both Nate and Katie find Whisper together and are given Yo-kai Watches.
