Batman Gambits in Video Games.
- Generally speaking, in competitive multiplayer games, players have to be able to make accurate predictions on what their opponents are going to do, in order to outsmart them, and take them out when they least expect it.
- In the final SP Mission for Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, when the ballast tanks on the Alicorn are destroyed, Matias Torres proceeds to fake a surrender, knowing that the Oseans would argue among themselves, with some wanting to just sink him, with the others not wanting to violate international laws and lose their careers. It almost works, as it buys Torres time to line up a shot towards Oured, but David North, the analyst who had been assisting the LRSSG with hunting down Torres, sees through his ruse, and after he fails to talk him out of it, warns the LRSSG of Torres’ true intentions, and Trigger disobeys orders to strike the Alicorn, throwing off its shot, forcing Torres to try again, while the LRSSG decide that they’re done trying to negotiate with him and proceed to sink him to the bottom of the ocean.
- In the horror game Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, one of these is actually pulled on the player. Early on, the player finds themselves in an office and seemingly a dead end — as well as a gun hanging on the wall. The Amnesia series became famous because the player was never able to arm up to face monsters, and so naturally, most players try to grab the gun. Interacting with it reveals that it's actually a lever and opens up a secret passage out of the office.
- Assassin's Creed:
- The entirety of Assassin's Creed is actually two giant Batman Gambits. The first, planned by Robert de Sable, involves using the Assassins' killing of his lieutenants, all of whom are important members of Saladin and Richard the Lionheart's respective support networks, to unite the Saracen and Crusader armies to crush the Assassins. The second is planned out by Al-Mualim, who plans to have Altair kill all of the Templars who knew about the Piece of Eden, because he himself is a Templar plotting to take over the Holy Land for himself.
- And all that was planned by Abstergo to have Desmond reveal the locations of the Pieces of Eden. By then the entire plot becomes one huge Mind Screw: Abstergo are the Knights Templar who secretly are behind every technological innovation EVER, the Assassins still exist and try to stop them, Lucy might or might not be one of them (it turns out she used to be an Assassin before becoming a Templar mole), and then there's the scribbling on the wall...
- And in Assassin's Creed II, it goes meta. The entire Diabolus ex Machina of Ezio's life turned out to be a gambit to get him into a secret vault inside the Vatican so he can receive a message he can't even understand, just so his descendant can retrieve the message from Genetic Memory centuries later. The message-giver even knew that descendant's name. Hey, its easier than walking into the Vatican nowadays - and that very security preserved the message.
- Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag takes it to another level entirely. Past and present incarnations of Roberts are manipulating Templars and Assassins on behalf of a third group, whose purpose is to get the present-day protagonist in a position where their body can be taken over by Juno. It only fails because Juno isn't quite powerful enough yet to do it.
- Turns out the plot of Borderlands and half of Borderlands 2 was one huge Batman Gambit. The Vault Hunters of the original game were tricked into opening the vault by Angel - the Mysterious face and voice that communicates with the party - so that Handsome Jack could take over Hyperion and rule the planet. The same thing happens to the Vault Hunters in Borderlands 2. They're tricked by Angel into destroying the defensive shields of the rebel group headquarters for Handsome Jack. Angel by the way is a Siren pretending to be a sentient AI and Handsome Jack's daughter.
- The entirety of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one giant gambit courtesy of Shepherd. No, it's sure as hell not for a heroic cause.
- Some details make this a noteworthy example: short of magically discovering that the gambit exists, none of the Unwitting Pawns are even in a position to make it fail, and in fact, when one of them throws a Spanner in the Works that Shepherd is clearly not expecting or planning for, it actually ends up helping him anyway. This makes it seem like a Xanatos Gambit on the surface, but there is a failure condition that Shepherd would have no way of recovering from, and that's if the Russian's war against the United States had succeeded instead of being turned back.
- A few examples in the Castlevania series:
- Isaac pulls this on both Hector and Trevor in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. He lures Hector (to whom he serves as a worthy opponent) along with the promise of eventually facing him in battle, and at the same time draws Trevor's attention. When he slips into the Infinite Corridor, Trevor is forced to let Hector into it... which leads to Hector accidentally breaking the seal on Dracula's Castle, Isaac's goal the entire time.
- Of course, ultimately, we learn who the real wirepuller is. It's Dracula, of course; he'd be playing Gambit Roulette if he didn't already have his hooks deep into Hector and Isaac's psyches and thus a much greater chance of success than the average Yagami. The entire game is triggered by Dracula's effort to resurrect himself, to wit — raise the castle with Isaac's yanking of Hector and Trevor, have Isaac stab that damn Belmont, then possess Hector when Hector finally gets sick of this nonsense and kills Isaac, thus sealing the curse. Alas, he wasn't counting on Julia being the only one in the game with a clue.
- Also, in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Mathias Cronqvist used Leon Belmont to kill Walter Bernhard to absorb his soul. At the end, Mathias slaps you in the face with the knowledge that he will become Dracula, Lord of the Vampires... The entire plot was designed so that he could become Dracula.
- The entirety of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is one massive one run by Alucard and Dracula. Satan and Zobek were too afraid to come out while Dracula was in the fullness of his power. So Alucard nearly kills Dracula, both fully aware that the centuries spent recovering his powers would fragment Dracula's mind, concealing the gambit from his enemies, and allowing Zobek to believe he could dupe Dracula into killing Satan and/or vice versa, allowing Zobek to clean up the survivor, when in actuality, leaving both Satan and Zobek vulnerable to Alucard and Dracula working together.
- City of Heroes : Big Bad, Lord Recluse is made of these. He became the undisputed leader of a nation of supervillains because he counts on others to be as self-serving and opportunistic as possible - a tactic he repeatedly displays with Villain Players by counting on you to be a Spanner in the Works while working for his Starscream.
- Clive Barker's Undying: Jeremiah already became an undead years ago, and only called upon Patrick so he could kill off his siblings and Keisinger so nothing could stand in his way for his double-cross. Said double-cross is followed by an Idiot Ball and a "Shaggy Dog" Story when it turns out that (A) Patrick CAN kill Jeremiah in one hit, which he does with glee, and (B) Jeremiah's ultimate goal, the power of the Celtic's Undead King, was a Barrier Maiden to an Eldritch Abomination that threatens both living and undead.
- Cortex's entire plan in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back hinged on Crash believing his story about needing the crystals to save the planet from a cataclysm, rather than trying to find a way out of the location that Cortex had brought him at the start of the game. Of course, Crash isn't particularly bright.
- Neo-Geo game Cyber-Lip plays a Batman Gambit on the player. The game makes you think you're fighting against an alien threat, when you're actually helping the aliens by destroying the last human resistance, as the twist ending makes clear.
- In Densetsu no Stafy 4, Akureima pulls a layered one off on the heroes in Cupid Village; he first kidnaps Ruby and hides her in the area, disguising himself as her, knowing that once the heroes see through his disguise they'll go and find her. Once they return, Akureima declares that he was just distracting them so that he can steal the Cupid Bow. Anju is sure that the bow is well-guarded, but agrees to let Starfy and Starly retrieve it to make sure it hasn't been stolen. They successfully bring back the bow, only for Akureima to appear and take it from them, having counted on them to get it to save him the trouble of stealing it himself.
- In Diablo II, the fallen archangel Izual reveals that the Dark Exile, the capturing of the Prime Evils in soulstones, and the plot of first Diablo was a Batman Gambit planned by the Prime Evils and himself. This is no doubt a retcon, though.
- This is taken to a whole new level in Diablo III, where the retcon goes a step further, revealing that even the defeat of the Lesser Evils and the Prime Evils in the previous game were all part of the plan to unite the collective power of all the Lords of Hell into one singular Soulstone as the "true Prime Evil", with Diablo's soul in control. And who was there to ensure it all went according to plan? Adria the Witch, an NPC from the first game. Retconning at its finest, turning the entire trilogy into one huge Batman Gambit
- Laharl uses one in Episode 6 of Disgaea to lure all of his competitors for the Overlord's throne into Blair Forest, set up as a contest to wrest the "Deed to the Title of Overlord" from him. There is, of course, no deed, and after a mild hiccup in the form of a Hopeless Boss Fight, Laharl and co. defeat their enemies, and he gets to claim what (he thinks) is rightfully his.
- Also used a chapter earlier by his vassal Etna, who was supposedly the mole working for another deamon trying to overthrow Larhal. Only when he finally calls her onto the carpet she reveals that not only has she been expecting him to betray her, she's hired his own underlings out from under him, and set things up so that Laharl would be more than eager to help her take out Maderas.
- Also in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the entire game is a Batman gambit on the part of King Krichevskoy and Seraph Lamington, using Larharl and Flonne to unite the netherworlds, and even using Volcanus' traitorous nature.
- Mao's father (now a ghost) pulls off one of these in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice by manipulating the Evil Plan of Big Bad Aurum against him. The gambit worked by utilizing Almaz and Raspberyl's good hearts to get Mao to open up his own heart. To help further that along, his hidden right hand man Champloo (he reveals his true allegiances and how he manages to be so good at investigation at the end of the game) to guide Almaz to be a proper hero.
- Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening sees Arkham play a brilliant one on Dante, Vergil, and his daughter Lady. Arkham's goal is to break the seal on the evil Temen-ni-gru tower, allowing him to seize the power of Sparda. Breaking the seal requires 3 keys: the two halves of the Perfect Amulet, the blood of Sparta, and the blood of the priestess sacrificed to seal the tower. Arkham begins his plan by convincing Vergil to aid him, knowing how much Vergil clings to Sparda's legacy and his desire to surpass his father. He then lures in Dante by, under the guise of Jester, offering him a chance to challenge his older brother in battle by going to the Temen-ni-gru. As for Lady, she was already hunting Arkham, wanting revenge for her mother's murder, so he knew she'd come soon. When Lady confronts him, Arkham tricks her into believing that Vergil possessed him and made him evil, playing on the lingering familial bond she still had for him despite what he had done. When Dante arrives, Arkham, as Jester, guides Dante up the tower until he reaches the seal, where he finds Vergil, who's already trying to break it. Predictably, the two fight once more. This put 2 of the keys already in place (Vergil stole Dante's half of the Perfect Amulet to use with his own after the first boss fight with him, and the two of them, in fighting, shed a lot of blood, the blood of Sparda, as they were his sons). Finally, Lady shows up, intent on killing Vergil, and engages in battle with both Dante and Vergil. Once all 3 of them have weakened one another, Arkham ambushes them, wounding Lady to shed her blood and acquire the final key, as Lady was descended from the priestess sacrificed to seal the tower. With that, Arkham's plan succeeds, and the seal is broken.
- In DmC: Devil May Cry, Vergil reveals in the end that he was using both Dante and his human assistant and friend Kat to overthrow Mundus so he can take over and rule the human race in his place.
- Anders's plan at the end of Dragon Age II is basically to provoke the Templars into discrediting themselves by blowing up the Chantry, after which Meredith orders the entire Circle of Magi executed for a crime they didn't commit. Anders makes no effort to defend himself and will even let Hawke kill him, but Meredith loses any interest in him once she has an "excuse" to wipe out the Circle. She'll even let him fight with the Templars if Hawke's maxed out his Rivalry. When word of this spreads beyond Kirkwall, it prompts a full-scale Civil War.
- DuckTales Remastered reveals that the entire treasure hunting adventure was a plot by Magica DeSpell in order to obtain the pieces needed to resurrect Dracula Duck. She knew Scrooge McDuck would buy the portrait of Dracula Duck for an incredibly cheap price, discover the map and go hunting down the treasures.
- The Elder Scrolls
- Sheogorath is the Daedric Prince of Madness. Despite this status and his insistence that it's impossible to tell exactly what any and all beings will do, he's pretty good at the Batman Gambit. The 16 Accords of Madness volumes VI, IX and XII involve the humiliation of his fellow Daedric Princes Hircine, Vaermina, and Malacath, respectively. In each of the stories, he basically has the other Princes defeat themselves. It's even brought up in volume IX, when Vaermina accuses him of doing nothing.
- The recurring in-game book A Game At Dinner has Hlaalu Helseth, eventual King of Morrowind, pulling one of these to root out a spy. Combining it with Bluffing the Murderer while Subverting Carrying the Antidote, Helseth implies to his assembled dinner guests that he put poison on the cutlery of someone spying against him, then invites any spies present to take a dose of the antidote, kept in a tureen at the center of the table. One of the spies loses his nerve and drinks, only for Helseth to reveal that no-one's cutlery was poisoned. The poison was, in fact, the 'antidote' the spy was just bluffed into drinking.
- In Morrowind, Vivec's plan to defeat Dagoth Ur banks on on Dagoth Ur not figuring out until it is too late that the Nerevarine is there to free the Heart of Lorkhan from the enchantments binding it, thus cutting off Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal from its power, rather than to use the heart him/herself to become a god.
- In the Skyrim total conversion mod Enderal, the High Ones pull a Batman Gambit on the whole of humanity. Their plan to kill all humans comes down to sending Signs of the End Times, counting on humans to try to save themselves by building a device that can kill them, which they themselves have provided, knowing that humans, by their very nature, will screw up and use it to kill themselves instead.
- In Eternal Darkness, the 100% twist ending reveals that the entire game was just an absolute brilliant gambit run by the guardian god Mantorok so that it could eliminate the Eldritch Abominations it was tasked with sealing before it died.
- Fallout:
- In Fallout 2 Louis Salvatore of the Salvatore crime family pulls one on two of his rivals at once. He poisons the Jet of one of the sons of the Wright crime family, and correctly assumed that his father would blame the Mordino family, who supplied all the Jet in the Wasteland at the time. His plan was for them to wipe each other out and take control of the resulting power vacuum, but if the player doesn't solve the murder only the Wrights really suffer as they get wiped out by the Mordinos in the epilogue.
- Fallout 4 has one, where Father uses Synth!Shaun to implant a memory into Kellogg, knowing that the Sole Survivor would be looking for a way into the Institute and would have revenge on the mind after coming out of the Vault.
- Let's not overlook the hostage rescue mission which inverts this trope in Far Cry 3 where the protagonist helps the Rakyat warriors to ambush a slave trade convoy in Church Town, pursues the prisoner transport away from his fellow warriors, and catches up to the APC only to discover the first act's Big Bad waiting for him with a surprise knockout. Vaas relies on Jason Brody's newfound heroism to bring him out of safety where he can predictably be captured, just because Jason caught wind of people who needed help.
- In Final Fantasy XV, particularly in Kinsglaive, Niflheim's conquest of Insomnia invariably depended on a complex chain of events that ultimately leave the king and crystal unguarded, that could have gone wrong at any point. The fact that they have numerous moles in Insomnia and among the Glaives helped.
- A rather skillful one in Fire Emblem: Awakening: The Evil Overlord Gangrel has taken the Exalt of Ylisse prisoner, and publicly announces that she will be executed, knowing her brother, Chrom, will rush to the rescue without thinking it through, so he can set up a Hostage for MacGuffin to get the Fire Emblem. Aversa adds her own gambit to the mix, knowing that the Ylissean Pegasus Knights would show up, she has a group of Risen archers ready to take advantage of the weakness of Pegasus Knights to bow attacks. Both gambits, however, come to naught when Emmeryn ruins the Hostage for MacGuffin by taking the choice out of Chrom's hands.
- In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Clair does this with Delthea. Throughout Clair and Delthea's support, Delthea has been badmouthing her older brother Luthier, and in the A rank event, Clair pretends to agree. Delthea is offended, and defends her brother, at which point Clair reveals that she tricked Delthea to get her to admit to loving her brother.
- The Cassette Man pulls off one of these in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator. The whole game was a trap to lure Springtrap, Scrap Baby, Molten Freddy, and Lefty to a fake pizzeria and burn it down, finally ending the horror of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise and putting the souls of the children murdered by the Purple Man to rest.
- The AI of Galactic Civilizations is smart enough to pull these on the player as shown in this after-action report.
- The entire plot of Ghost Trick hinges on a Batman Gambit set by Ray, a.k.a Missile from an alternate timeline to point Sissel in the right direction. Everything turns out according to plan, because he needed Sissel's Ghost Tricks and his ability to travel through phone lines; Missile-Prime couldn't prevent any of the deaths with his Ghost Swap power, nor could he travel through phones.
- God of War III revealed that the entire series (or at least what happened in that game because the corruption from Pandora's Box (and dying) screwed with Athena's mind) was a Batman Gambit designed by Athena so that she could gain the power of hope that she stored in Pandora's Box along with The Corruption, while helping Kratos kill all the other gods and destroy the world, knowing that he would be capable of killing Zeus with the box's powers, but would not have the wisdom or ambition to reconsider his actions or rule over the remaining ashes, allowing her to take over as the Top God while her one remaining threat threw himself over a cliff again. This plan was derailed at the end because against all logic, Kratos absorbed the power of hope when he first opened the box (which doesn't make sense because he was Driven to Suicide soon after), and after realizing it brought him to this point, he decided to give it to the surviving mortals before he died.
- In .hack//G.U. In what is possibly the longest to ever occur in gaming, Ovan uses a Batman Gambit that spans three games in order to make Haseo become strong enough to destroy him.
- If you count the anime — .hack//ROOTS — then it takes even longer. And Ovan has to step in at one point to make corrections to Haseo's development.
- In Half-Life 2 and especially Episode 2, it turns out that the G Man set up about everything that happened since the beginning of the first game. We still don't know what is hoped to be achieved with all this, though.
- He appears to be operating by this scheme. He doesn't even hide the fact that he manipulates people into doing his dirty work for him but simply puts them into places and situations in which their personal goals will also help his plan along.
- In Jade Empire, the entire game is one of these. He's called the Glorious Strategist for a very good reason... However, it is actually a double Batman Gambit; The Water Dragon helps his plan, needing it to free herself from the Emperor, creating the conditions, including your Master killing you, whereby she can fully free herself.
- The big bad's plan in Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star revolves around him getting Kirby to stop a fight, only to use the reward he gets for his own want. To be specific, Marx gets the sun and moon to fight and has Kirby put the wish-granting comet Nova back together to stop the fight. Once Kirby puts it back together, Marx uses Kirby's wish to become the ruler of Popstar.
- In Last Scenario, Hilbert, of all people, manages to pull one on Big Bad, by playing on his Pride and one-sided rivalry. Granted, Hilbert had underwent some serious Character Development, but still...
- The Legend of Zelda franchise:
- In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the main villain Ganondorf pulls one on Link when he spots the young hero just after chasing Princess Zelda out of her own castle. He pursues Zelda, only to quickly turn right around and follow Link into the Temple of Time, figuring that he would open the Door of Time and reveal the Triforce. It works like a charm, allowing Ganondorf to rise to power, Link to be sealed away for seven years, and for Zelda to go into hiding as Sheik.
- Zelda, or technically her past self Hylia, pulls one on Link in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword by using herself as bait, knowing Link's feelings for her would drive him to enter the surface world and go through all the challenges necessary to truly defeat the Big Bad of the game. Said Big Bad's Dragon Ghirahim performs one of his own by doing what Ganondorf does in Ocarina; wait for Link to do the necessary steps to open the Gate of Time so Ghirahim can resurrect his master in the past, as Link has at that point destroyed his master in the present.
- The whole modern day plot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is Zelda & to a lesser extent her father, pulling off an elaborate one on Ganon & Link. 100 years ago when Ganon struck, Zelda put one into action by having Link sealed away in the Shrine of Resurrection, giving several people orders to follow when he woke up and knowing that Link would come for her. During that time she held Ganon from achieving his goal of forming a new human looking body from inside him, knowing he would not (or possibly could not) kill her. King Rhoam plays the role of preparing a revived Link by acting as a Trickster Mentor to get him back up to speed before revealing the truth of their roles. Only because Link acts as the Hero they knew him as, frees the four Divine Beasts and comes to kill Ganon does their plan work. Ganon meanwhile doesn't act directly against Link during the whole plot after the attack 100 years ago, seemingly not realizing what Zelda, Rhoam and Link are up to or believes it's a fool's errand.
- In Luigi's Mansion 3, King Boo chooses to guard Peach's painting and allow Hellen to guard Mario's painting instead, as he had lost confidence with Hellen at that point and was well aware that as long as he had Peach, both Mario brothers would come after him and this allowed him to set up another trap on the floor.
- In Lunar: The Silver Star, Ghaleon's irrationally good public image allows him to manipulate the heroes' altruistic tendencies over and over again. This results in the hero giving him everything he needs to implement his plan to take over the world.
- The story mode of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite has Dante pulling off an impressive one by just giving one of the Infinity Stones, the Soul Stone, to Ultron-Sigma and make him more powerful! Except in reality, the Soul Stone only works to the most noble of souls and because Ultron-Sigma is just a machine, it backfires big time.
- In the Mass Effect series:
- The Reapers incorporate a galactic-scale Batman Gambit into their life-cycle. They leave highly advanced technology around the galaxy (as well as the Citadel, the largest, most advanced space station in existence to ensure that races develop along technological and cultural paths they desire, especially with regards to the Citadel, which invariably becomes the cultural center of any empire. Then, possessing the technology to counter what they left behind, they quickly eliminate all life in the galaxy and melt down several million members of any species they find to make more Reapers. One could say that the Reapers are the living embodiment of the Batman Gambit. It's telling that all of their major defeats come about because somebody didn't follow the script.
- In the first game, the Systems Alliance pulls one on the player. The side-mission "The Negociation" is only aviable if the player has enough Renegade points, and involves Shepard being sent to negociate and apprehend a particularly unpleasant criminal who knows some unsavory Alliance secrets. If the easily-angered, violence-prone Spectre happens to fail to talk the criminal down and has to shoot the individual dead to defend themselves, well the Alliance did not technically order an assasination. You get the option to call out Hackett on this after the mission, accusing him of knowing perfectly well what would happen when they sent you into this situation, but Hackett says he had no idea what you are talking about.
- In Mass Effect 2, the whole game is a Batman Gambit on the part of the Illusive Man who acts reasonably and is declares he was oblivious to some of the more atrocious Cerberus activities, gives Shepard a crew of Cerberus personnel who have had understandable reasons why they'd work for the organization but had no role or knowledge (except possibly Miranda) in the more nefarious operations, puts Shepard in contact with former allies, and lets Shepard get on with saving the galaxy, all in order to gain access to more Reaper Tech and find a way to control them. Depending on the exact ending choices, and assuming a completely successful rescue during the Suicide Mission, this backfires entirely when the entire crew, including Shepard's supposed minder Miranda and the Normandy's AI, make the decision to side with Shepard and destroy the Collector Base.
- In between Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, the Illusive Man pulls off numerous Batman Gambits to either cripple or wipe out anyone who can stand against him, including The Shadow Broker, with the original killed and Liara's network being greatly harmed and Aria T'Loak. This is to allow him to focus all his energy on his primary Batman Gambit: to take control of the Reapers ensuring human dominance. The first goes off magnificently. The second fails because, as magnificent as his mind was, it was still a human mind going against Eldritch Abominations that have been doing this for billions of years. He ends up indoctrinated and becoming their Unwitting Pawn. It's revealed by Javik that this is itself a Batman Gambit by the Reapers- in every Cycle there's a group that wants to control the Reapers rather than destroy them, inevitably leading to infighting that weakens the species as a whole and makes it easier for the Reapers to destroy them.
- Sigma's plans in Mega Man X4 and X5 rely on the personalities of General, X, Zero and Maverick Hunter policy. Proto Man pulls off some impressive ones in Mega Man Megamix, too.
- Metal Gear is absolutely crackers about these, as befitting a series created by Hideo Kojima.
- Metal Gear Solid features a hastily improvised Gambit (developed by the bad guys' resident psychic, sensibly enough) which revolves around a single-use keycard which will toggle a nuclear weapon from "active" to "inactive" or vice-versa. The bad guys seem to accept that facing off against the hero is a suicidal masquerade to set up deathbed conversions and make the plan convincing.
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty goes into a full-blown Gambit Roulette to underscore the power of the Government Conspiracy. Or sentient assemblage of constitutional amendments, or AIs, or whatever the hell they are.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater's tragic denouement reveals a Gambit (authored by an earlier iteration of the aforementioned conspiracy) which went right up to the pseudovillain's own demise at the hands of the hero.
- And Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is basically a Gambit Pileup, so let's not get started....
- In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Monsoon and Jetstream Sam try to break Raiden's mind by counting on his reaction to their taunting. It works, but in the worst way possible. This ends up being their undoing...
- Mortal Kombat 11 has a particularly devastating one in play throughout the Aftermath expansion story. Shang Tsung seeks to revive Sindel as an anti-Cetrion weapon in his bid to secure Kronika's Crown, but has to ally with Fujin and Nightwolf in order to achieve his aims; once he thinks the Forces of Light have done enough, he betrays literally everyone he ever made contact with, stealing souls left and right until he finally reaps Kronika herself and gets the Hourglass under his command. That's not this trope, and yet it is at the same time. In reality, Fire God Liu Kang flawlessly anticipated Shang Tsung would backstab everyone in arm's reach in pursuit of ultimate power, and lied about needing to stay with the Hourglass in order to get Shang Tsung to secure the Crown; he then arrived at the last moment, once Tsung was the very last piece on the board, and challenged him to one last fight for ownership of the Crown. The only entity other than the Fire God who was not an Unwitting Pawn in this massive scheme was Fujin, who was informed in advance that he would likely have to die for the chance to eliminate Shang Tsung for good.
- In Odin Sphere, Odin has two intertwining ones going on at the same time with Oswald and Gwendolyn. He promises the latter as a bride to the former while claiming to both that Gwendolyn is under a spell forcing her to love her new husband, despite no such spell even existing. He correctly predicts that Oswald, being smitten with Gwendolyn, will give her the ring Titrel and that Gwendolyn, being the Well Done Daughter Girl she is, will pass it along to her father. Unfortunately for him, he failed to account for Gwendolyn actually falling in love down the line and taking it back.
- In Overlord I, the game turns out to be a Batman Gambit designed to allow the previous Overlord to easily return to his place in case he was "defeated", by taking over the body of the Wizard who helped slay him, manipulating one of the heroes who defeated him into becoming his temporary successor, and corrupting the other heroes so the new Overlord would be forced to eliminate them.
- In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, at least part of Ghestis' plan is a Batman Gambit. At first, it seem like he is content to use Kyurem's power to freeze Unova and force the population into submission. However, at the climax, when his son N (revealed to be the leader of Team Plasma's repentant splinter group that is opposing him) flies in to rescue the player on his Legendary Pokemon (either Zekrom or Reshiram, depending on the version) it is clear that not only did Ghestis expect this, he wanted it. He is then able to combine Kyurem and N's Pokemon into an even stronger version of Kyurem. Unfortunately, this plan is utterly ruined when Kyurem is defeated by the hero; while Ghestis is clearly the strongest boss up to this point, his sole reason for attacking the player is out of revenge.
- Wheatley, of all people, pulls this off in Portal 2 by extensively explaining his four-part plan to defeat Chell just before the Final Boss battle and trusting both her and GLaDOS to assume to that he's so stupid that he wouldn't have a hidden fifth part to his plan as a contingency.
- Shantae:
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: Risky Boots asks for Shantae's help in defeating the Pirate Master. find all of the corrupted Tinkerbats and collect the dark magic that they release upon being defeated. Of course, Shantae suffers from Chronic Hero Syndrome, so when told release it to the Pirate Master in exchange for Risky's life, she does just that. If Shantae finds them all, the good ending shows that the dark magic was actually Shantae's own lost magic. Risky knew that the half-genie's All-Loving Hero nature would quietly mutate it back to normal while in her possession, preventing the Pirate Master from using it and instead returning Shantae to full power, allowing her to beat him.
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: The entire plot is playing into Risky's gambit. She attacked Scuttle Town and "lost" to Shantae, dropping Uncle Mimic's blueprints, after which Shantae spends to rest of the game constructing the device laid out. Except Risky purposefully did this. She secretly swapped the blueprints for Uncle Mimic's Dynamo with her Doomsday Device, realizing that it would be far more convenient to have Shantae to do the grunt work, before coming back to steal the completed machine.
- Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Risky attempts this, but it ultimately ends up being a Gambit Roulette... and one that fails at that. She correctly figured out that the Empress Siren would probably betray her, and so planned on keeping Shantae in reserve as a counter to that, but her inability to predict things like Rottytops' half-genie disguise and even the depths of Shantae's heroic nature meant that everything could have easily ended with the siren army conquering the world. And while that bad ending is avoided, the airship that Risky caused this entire mess for got destroyed in the process.
- Shin Megami Tensei:
- In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the Labyrinth of Amala subquest has you tasked with defeating the ten Fiends and returning the Candelabrum they had stolen to Amala. If you complete the Labyrinth of Amala (it is optional) then the whole thing is revealed to be a Batman Gambit orchestrated by none other than Lucifer himself. The Fiends had never stolen the candelabrum; the entire thing was set up as a training exercise to create a new demon that would be strong enough to lead the armies of Deep Amala in an war against God Himself, as well as a test to see if you had the fortitude to fully embrace your demonic side and become Deep Amala's champion.
- Persona:
- In Persona 4, prodigy detective Naoto Shirogane devises a plan to confirm his or rather her suspicions that the police caught a copycat killer, not the real killer. She sets herself up as bait for the kidnapper, confident that the Investigation Team will rescue her. The instant the Investigation Team figures this out, they come to the conclusion that Naoto is a complete idiot for trying it, although they later accept that it helped reveal the real culprit was at large. Still doesn't calm down Kanji, who lets Naoto have it, pointing out that if they hadn't actually gotten there, Naoto would have died.
- Student Council President Makoto Niijima uses a plan largely similar to Naoto's in Persona 5 by making herself bait so the Phantom Thieves can find the Yakuza boss terrorizing Shujin and Shibuya. It worked and the Phantom Thieves were allowed entry to Kaneshiro's Palace to steal his heart. Again, the Phantom Thieves quickly call her out on the foolishness of the plan, even if it did work, and Makoto herself apologizes when they end up in shit thanks to getting the Yakuza boss Kaneshiro's attention.
- All of the events within the Shinobi (2002) turn out to be one big Batman Gambit orchestrated by the Final Boss Hiruko: He manipulated Hotsuma into defeating Yatsurao so that the villain could absorb the countless number of souls that were subsequently released from the fallen giant. And he intended from the very beginning for Hotsuma to gather all of the souls of each foe he had sent to take him out, at which point he'd defeat Hotsuma and take all those souls for himself.
- In Skylanders: Trap Team, the villainous Doom Raiders need to travel to the future in order to secure a power source for their ultimate weapon. But to do that, they need a Portal Master, and the only one left in Skylands is the series' Big Bad Kaos, who is currently working with the Skylanders to take down the Doom Raiders. So they organize a plan that involves Dr. Krankcase taking over and reopening one of Kaos' old Wilikin factories and then sending an invite to Kaos in the hopes that he would come, especially out of spite for them. When the Skylander confront Dr. Krankcase in the factory, he reveals that he has captured Kaos. After a while, Wolfgang appears, but rather than helping his teammate defeat the Skylander, he takes Kaos for himself to Time Town (where he reveals that he plans to take over Skylands for himself in the future), leaving Dr. Krankcase to be defeated and captured by the Skylanders. So while the plan worked, it's also what led to Krankcase's defeat.
- SLAMMED!: JJ eventually reveals that the reason they betrayed you was because they wanted you to get angry, so the two of you could finally have an all-out, guilt-free match.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, Eggman notices Sonic and his friends entering Space Station ARK with two Chaos Emeralds. Having already obtained six of the seven, Eggman assumes that the eighth is a fake designed to stop him from using the Eclipse Cannon. Eggman captures Amy Rose and forces Sonic and Tails to surrender the Chaos Emerald for her safety. As Sonic goes to give Eggman the fake Chaos Emerald, Eggman gloats that Sonic won't be able to fool him with the fake. When Tails asks how he knew, Sonic's incredulous "TAILS!" confirms Eggman's suspicions as he gloats "Because you just told me, fox boy!"
- Mephiles plays this on most of the cast of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), to the point when it becomes Complexity Addiction. Firstly, he brings Silver to the present to try and kill Sonic, knowing Silver would do without questioning due to his nativity and desperation. And even when Silver does see through Mephiles' lies, he focuses on saving the future instead of stopping Mephiles. Meanwhile, Shadow and Eggman are on a wild goose chase for him, which again is slowed down by Silver getting in the way of Shadow at Radical Train and Eggman having other priorities, and Sonic and Elise are left alone so they can bond. When they do bond, Mephiles kills Sonic to make Elise cry and release Iblis, thus becoming Solaris again. Phew.
- In Soul Nomad & the World Eaters Rakasha travels with you, confident you will be able to defeat the other World Eaters (who he views as rivals), then waits until you are trapped and helpless before striking
- Starcraft: Kerrigan from suffers from a Batman Gambit when Tassadar tricks her into a fake fight with an illusion of him, enough to divert her attention while the dark templar Zeratul sneaked in to kill a cerebrate.Tassadar: So long as you continue to be so predictable, O Queen, I need not face you at all. You are your own worst enemy.
- She then takes the lesson to heart and starts to employ this gambit frequently. She ends up getting the Protoss to work with her even after she's betrayed them repeatedly, mainly by manipulating and eventually abducting their Matriarch. Her trechery is eventually acknowledged and lampshaded:
Kerrigan: I used you to get the job done, and you played along just like I knew you would. You Protoss are all so headstrong and predictable. You are your own worst enemies.Fenix: That's ironic, I can remember Tassadar teaching you a very similar lesson on Char.Kerrigan: I took that lesson to heart, Praetor. Now, are you prepeared to die a second time?- Duran is another user of this, manipulating Du Gaulle into killing his best friend, as well as using Kerrigan herself as an unknowing pawn in his scheme to create a Protos/Zerg hybrid.
- Arcturas Mengsk is yet another possible example of this trope, getting Kerrigan and Jim Raynor to help him out and shelter him both before and after he's betrayed them on an epic scale.
- In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, one can pull this off against the two Sith masters of the Sith enclave on Korriban. When Yuthura comes to Revan to help her betray Uthar, you can agree to help her poison him. Revan can then turn around to Uthar, and tell him of Yuthara's plan. He will give Revan a device to help poison her. But then, the player can turn around and poison BOTH of them. Soon after finding the Star Map both Yuthara and Uthar stand there. After explaining some Sith lore, they suddenly open that they are now going to kill the other with Revan's help. It is then up to the player to decide who he wants to help, or he can even turn on both of them at once. Turning on both actually gives the player the ability to deliver an awesome "The Reason You Suck" Speech, detailing how you used both's ignorance and arrogance on each other to weaken both of them so they'd be easier to kill, and it was all because they had not properly plotted their own plan.
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords not only says this this was Revan's stock-in-trade, but shows you where Revan learned it by saddling you with Revan's former master, Kreia. Kreia openly pulls these on both Atton and Canderous to get them to join the party, and it's arguable she is pulling one on the Player Character as well, so that all of her enemies even the Force itself are left in defeat.
- The King of Town, of all people, manages to pull one off in Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free. The episode starts off with the King of Town placing Strong Bad under house arrest for not paying his new email tax: one Creamy Ding Snack Cake for every email sent or received, effective immediately and retroactively. Once Strong Bad breaks out, he launches into a massive screwball scheme to depose the King of Town, but as it turns out it was all a Batman Gambit the King of Town executed so that he could switch jobs with Strong Bad. The endgame involves turning the tables on the King of Town by levying an obscene tax against his precious snack cakes, inciting the King of Town to revolt against him and take his old job back.
- Tears to Tiara 2: Izebel's plan for the Tartetos campaign. She would send two forces to raze the town of Tamar: Laelius would take her own elite Hispanic contingents. Without informing Laelius, a separate force made of golems and monsters sent as reinforcements from The Empire would take a separate route. Hamil would sally forth from Tartetos in order to save the villagers at Tamar. Already angry at being ordered to massacre innocent civilians, on learning about the second force Laelius would defect to Hamil so that Tamar would quickly be saved. The action at Tamar would leave Tartetos wide open to a naval attack by portage, resulting in a Decisive Battle that would see the imperial army from the empire proper wiped out and she herself die by Hamil's blade. It requires both Hamil and Laelius to act exactly as she planned. And they do, because they both believe very strongly in protecting the innocent. And in the case of Hamil because he told her all his battle plans when he was a young child before he lost his memories.
- In Thief II: The Metal Age, the Big Bad runs a Batman Gambit on the sheriff. The Big Bad of Thief: Deadly Shadows uses a Batman Gambit on the whole Keeper organization.
- In the Thief II fan mission "All Torc" and its sequel "Stones and Glass Houses", the Keepers use a Batman Gambit to ensure that repercussions from one of Garrett's thefts in Thief: The Dark Project are resolved.
- Yukari Yakumo from Touhou pulls one off in Silent Sinner in Blue. First off, she relies on Eirin to relay info back to the moon. Then she relies on Remilia to be greedy and try to take over the moon, distracting one of the two Lunarian princesses. Then she tries to go to the moon, distracting the other princess. All the while Yuyuko and Youmu go through a backdoor she created while everyone with power on the moon is distracted. She then plays on the Lunarian's trust of those who are "pure" to keep Yuyuko and Youmu safe (Yuyuko and Youmu are "pure" due to being dead). During the entire time Yuyuko and Youmu are on the moon she acts like she lost. The end result? A 1000 year old bottle of sake stolen by Yuyuko from under the noses of the princesses. Yukari declares victory afterwards.
- Note that this is actually the FAILURE condition. Besides Remilia not taking the bait, the distraction failing, etc., Yukari had no control over Yuyuko, who was originally supposed to steal something of great value... Sake doesn't QUITE qualify, but Yukari appreciates Yuyuko having stolen a "treasure" that the Lunarians will be unable to get back anyway... and the fact that she emotionally scars Eirin for life by serving her the Lunarian sake, instilling the fear of the unknown in Eirin ultimately having been the point of Yukari's plan all along, completely remidies that minor setback.
- Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon: The purpose of the Ironclads is to attack civilian ships, assuming correctly that the Royal Navy will send most of their ships to the frontier to protect the civilian ships, leaving the Royal Parliment undefended, allowing the Procyon diplomatic fleet able to destroy the Royal Parliament and assassinate the Queen with little to no resistance.
- In Undertale, if you spare Undyne and haven't killed anyone, you can backtrack to her house in Waterfall to hang out with her. She initially balks at the idea of being friends with you, prompting Papyrus to chime in saying he overestimated her and she apparently wasn't really up to the challenge of being friends with you. Undyne immediately does a 180 and becomes determined to be "besties" with you.
- The World Ends with You has a few of these: Kitanji manipulates Neku into spreading his O-pins around the city, which are vital for his Assimilation Plot, Joshua manipulates Neku into becoming the best player and winning his game against Kitanji for him, and Hanekoma manipulates EVERYONE simply by relying on everyone to act according to their nature, teaching Neku about The Power of Friendship, letting the Idiot Hero ruin Konishi's carefully laid plans and giving The Starscream rope to hang himself with.
- Dickson attempts one near the end of Xenoblade Chronicles 1. He assumes that, due to the amount of crap he's put Bionis through, Shulk would kill Egil, which meant that the only major opposition to Zanza would be Meyneth, who wouldn't put up much of a fight anyway. This backfires when Shulk doesn't kill Egil, and although Zanza is released and Shulk and Meyneth are killed, Egil punches a hole in the Bionis which allows the party to enter the Bionis Interior once Shulk comes back.
- In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Ichiban pulls one off in the final chapter with his plan to take down Ryo Aoki. After having his death faked, he reveals himself and approaches Aoki at one of his rallies, where he suggests that there's hard evidence of him ordering around Omi yakuza in the Arakawa Family office. He does this knowing that Aoki will likely realize it's bait, but also that it would sink his political career if it wasn't, and thus would send one of his men (specifically Yosuke Tendo, the only person left that he trusts at this point), to search for the evidence. Knowing this, Ichiban and his party will also head to the Arakawa Family office, defeat Tendo, and then have Mirror Face impersonate Tendo and talk to Aoki. It goes off without a hitch, and the video Saeko records of his and Tendo's conversation goes viral, completely destroying Aoki's public image.
- In a development video for Yandere Simulator, titled "Driving Your Rivals to Murder," the resident Villain Protagonist Yandere-chan pulls one on Kokona Haruka, whose father is in debt. Yan-chan meets with Kokona on the school rooftop and informs her of the loan agency extorting her father and that he has a daughter who goes to school with them; she lays into poor Kokona by telling her (not untruthfully) that the girl in question, named Musume, is a Spoiled Brat who get her father use the money extorted from Kokona's father to buy her luxuries and is completely ungrateful for it, knowing that this revelation will make Kokona very emotionally vulnerable and more likely to comply with her sinister plans. When they later kidnap Musume, Yandere-chan hands Kokona a bat, knowing that Musume will do the rest of the work for her by taunting Kokona about her father's debt problems and means of dealing with them, inadvertently goading her into beating her to death; in the meantime, Yan-chan slinks away with a satisfied grin on her face, having composed an airtight alibi for when she rats out Kokona to the police. And this, combined with the fact that she was wearing gloves (so she doesn't get her fingerprints on the weapon, meaning no evidence), ensures that Yandere-chan can get away with what she had done scot-free, taking her one step closer to having Senpai all to herself.
