Big Fancy House / Video Games

• Stauf Manor, the setting of The 7th Guest and its sequel The 11th Hour. Henry Stauf, once he had made his fortune selling his dolls and puzzles, received a vision of the house and had it built on the outskirts of Harley-on-Hudson.
• Petra's stage in Arcana Heart. Justified since she is an Ojou.
• A huge mansion is the backdrop of a field, the Webber Estate, in Backyard Baseball.
• In Battlefield 3, the Russian protagonist storms a mansion positioned on a cliff overlooking an enormous beach and a breathtaking view of the ocean. This mansion has numerous sections that could be considered houses in their own right, lavish gardens, multiple pools, and an entire underground Military facility.
• Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood has the Chateau Colombieres in the level of the same name, which is a mansion that was originally used by German officers as a headquarters before the Allied invasion, after which it was promptly bombed and shelled relentlessly into oblivion.
• The Darkness: Being the head of a mafia crime family, it's not surprising Jackie Estacado lives in a large mansion. What is surprising is that said mansion is located on the top of a skyscraper in New York City.
• Dragon Age:
  • In Dragon Age II the first Act revolves around Hawke trying to gain enough money so he/she can reclaim the Amell estate for his/her mother, Leandra, after her deadbeat brother hid the will that revealed everything was left to his sister, spent the entire family inheritance on himself, and then finally sold the Estate to slavers in order to cover his extensive debts. After Hawke regains the family fortune and estate in Act 2, the uncle is not allowed to live there. While only a fraction of the house is seen in game, just how big is the estate? Its vast cellars are mentioned as extending all the way from Hightown right through to the former mine tunnels that run beneath the city Darktown.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the player character relocates after the first act to Skyhold. This is actually a castle (complete with military fortifications), but is too small and reasonably laid out to qualify for Big Fancy Castle. Throughout the remainder of the main game, the castle is in a constant state of repair and upgrade; it includes an entire wall made of stained glass, a magnificent bedroom for the player character, and a massive round library.
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, most of the houses in Solitude qualify as this - including Proudspire Manor, which is the one the player can buy and the most expensive of the player's options. It would be big and fancy by even modern standards, but even moreso in the context of the setting.
  • Castle Volkihar in the Dawnguard DLC is a huge castle on its own island that is home to over a dozen vampires, including yourself if you choose to join them.
  • The Hearthfire DLC allows you to design and build your own Big Fancy House from the ground up. Once completed, it can house you, your spouse, two children, a steward, a housecarl and a bard. Depending on your preferences, it can have towers, a greenhouse, an armory, a kitchen, trophy room, and/or extra bedrooms.
• In Enter the Matrix you get to explore the left part of the Merovingian's dungeons and depending on who you play as either the library as Niobe or the roof as Ghost, along with a lot of other rooms.
• The Roivas Mansion of Eternal Darkness has existed in Rhode Island since at least the 1700s, an impressive acquisition for a family that had been persecuted for witchcraft since their arrival in America. It also happens to be built over a vast subterranean city called Ehn'gha.
• Fable II and 3 have Fairfax Mansion and Bowerstone Castle respectively. Both are huge, contain any kind of real world room you could want. Both however seem to have large, rather complex escape routes that are actually filled with danger.
• Fallen London has the option to buy a huge mansion for a substantial fee. They can then convert parts of it into either an Orphanage or Salon (and even have the choice about whether it's an Orphanage of Fear or Orphanage of Love)
• The majority of the games in the Fatal Frame series include a sprawling mansion that the player must navigate and escape. The first game centers around trying to explore and escape Himuro Mansion, while the sequels usually involve at least one mansion the player has to enter. All are traditional Japanese manors, in major disrepair.....oh, and filled with cursed spirits that want to kill you.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The Shinra Mansion at Nibelheim in Final Fantasy VII, considered to be the largest house in the game, with 2 wings, 2 floors, and a deep underground basement. Gets further expanded in Crisis Core to have larger rooms, a huge entrance hall, wider corridors, and 2 levels of basements. Funnily enough, for a former scientist's base, the only room to contain anything actually scientific is the deepest, furthest room in the basement.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, the Levellieurs live in an enormous estate that a foreign visitor initially mistakes for the Studium, Sharlayan's equivalent to an Ivy League university. In fact, the estate is so vast that Fourchenault can remain completely Locked Out of the Loop regarding Ameliance's foreign exchange student project. A Hannish girl, Miladeen, can eat meals, sleep, and study at the Levellieur house as well as go to and from school with Fourchenault none the wiser.
• The iDOLM@STER 2 - Takane's has one.
• In The King of Fighters: KYO RPG game, the players get again to see Kyo Kusanagi's home. It's still the same and very big traditional complex from the KOF: KYO manga, shishi-odoshi included.
  • There's also Mai's house aka the Shiranui dojo. It's a just as big Japanese mansion, including a tea ceremony pavillion.
  • The backstory for KOF XIII implies that Chizuru Kagura lives in a similar traditional house, possibly attached to the shrine that she's a Miko for in KOF: KYO.
• Luigi's Mansion. Okay, so it's a bit haunted, but you can literally vacuum money and pearls right out of the furniture! If you get enough money in the course of the game, this also applies to the house Luigi gets after the haunted mansion vanishes.
• Mass Effect 2: Donavan Hock has a ridiculously large house, especially after you get through the large room where the party is held, the balcony, the vault that's large enough that the Statue of Liberty's head is a display on one end, the underground security bunkers, the YMIR mechs, the garage full of tanks and fuel canisters, the secondary landing pad...and that gunship and the rest of the squadron Hock talks about had to have come from somewhere...
• Kanai Tower in Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is the tallest building in the city of Kanai Ward, and Makoto Kagutsuchi's state of residence. The reason he owns the magnificent building is because he's the CEO of Amaterasu Corporation, and so his position is prestigious enough to be able to own such a place for himself.
• In The Matrix: Path of Neo you get to check out the right side of the Merovingian's dungeons, and find out that the house is even bigger due to having it's own Another Dimension with a whole maze inside it.
• Dorne Manor (the Operation Repunzel level) in Medal of Honor: Frontline.
• Yai's house in the Mega Man Battle Network games — though it appears roughly the same size as her neighbors' houses from the outside.
• The world "About the House" in Monkey Shines is set in a big house with moving household objects as enemies.
• The titular mansion in Mystery of Mortlake Mansion, although not all that big, is certainly fancy, even in the run-down state in which it is found.
• A common setting in the Nancy Drew computer games, such as Message in a Haunted Mansion, Curse of Blackmoor Manor and The Ghost of Thornton Hall.
• Phantasmagoria begins with a young couple moving into a gothic castle. It's never explained how they could possibly afford it, or why the original owner's belongings are untouched decades after his death.
• The Shacklethorne Mansion from from PAYDAY 2.
• The Koryuuji estate from Project × Zone is huge.
• The Spencer Mansion in Resident Evil comprises the 'resident' of "Resident Evil." It is massive and lavishly furnished... and full of biological horrors and deathtraps.
  • The Baker Ranch from Resident Evil 7 is the Spiritual Successor to the Spencer Mansion and is likewise impressive, albeit with modern furnishings, two wings, and three stories. But what really makes it big is the size of the grounds, in addition to the main house there's the large guest house, the old house out on the bayou where the Bakers use to live, and the barn which is as big as a warehouse. Played more realistically than other examples, as while the Ranch could be fancy, it appears that even before the Bakers went insane they had trouble maintaining the entire estate by themselves and several parts had fallen into disrepair.
• The Sexy Brutale, the titular casino, which also serves as the home of its owner and wife, is a resort hotel and casino big enough to contain its own theater, concert hall, bar, guest rooms, chapel, ballroom, and clock tower. Almost every single room is littered with elaborate hand-carved marble statues, artifacts, paintings, and inventions, which according to the Flavor Text, are incredibly rare if not unique.
• The Valentine Mansion, London - home to the English Countess Isabella "Ivy" Valentine from the Soul Series. The grand staircase and library are used as fighting arenas in SC 1 and SC 3 respectively.
• Street Fighter:
  • The Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind OAV and the proper Street Fighter IV game show Ken's house, a lovely mansion where he and his wife Eliza take residence and, in Super are joined by their newborn son Mel.
  • While the non-canon manga Sakura Ganbaru had shown Karin Kazuki's massive state, it's not until Street Fighter V that it's seen in all its glory in the official games. And it's very, very worth the wait.
• Sunless Skies: Langley Hall is a physics-defyingly titanic version of these, with Lord Langley founding it in a corner of Eleutheria to give travelers a place to rest, relax and enjoy themselves, possibly settle down and never face the lawless darkness outside again. Just the entrance hall needs seven hearths burning at once to keep it warm, the coatrack doubles as a textile shop from the sheer amount of coats kept, and just finding specific places within needs your crew to embark in expeditions, complete with supplies. At least it's comfortable, so long as you don't leave too early.
• Croft Manor in the Tomb Raider series.
• In the backstory comics for Team Fortress 2, we see that the Demoman lives in a very fancy mansion with his mother. The Heavy also seems to live in a big fancy cabin.
• Tormented Souls: The Wildberger Mansion used to be one of these, before it was converted into a hospital, which in turn was abandoned.
• With enough money, the players in Torn City can upgrade all the way up to an entire private island!
• Touhou Project's Eientei and Scarlet Devil Mansion. Both are also cases where they are Bigger on the Inside. Interestingly, the Scarlet Devil Mansion is a..well, Western-style mansion, while Eientei is very much Japanese.
• Trails of Cold Steel: Alisa is from a wealthy family, and her family home is a two-story penthouse. The party visit it, and are impressed by its size and luxury. She grew up there with her parents, her grandfather, and Sharon the maid. Then her father died, her grandfather moved out, Alisa went to a military academy and Sharon was sent out to keep an eye on her. Her mother now lives there alone when she isn't running the family business, and eats energy bars instead of proper meals.
• Unpacking: The final home, at least in comparison to the other places where the protagonist has lived. Not only does it have an upstairs and downstairs, it also has extra rooms in the form of a second bathroom, a walk-in closet and a nursery.
• Wario Land:
  • The Wario Land II version of Wario's castle/house has tons of rooms, is probably the size of a small town when mapped out, and has TEN LEVELS set in the building. Getting to his alarm clock requires going through about twenty rooms for goodness sake!
  • Wario's Castle in Wario World. It's a solid gold castle people, complete with fancy throne and lots and lots of treasure lying around just about everywhere.
• Several fans have pointed out that Icecrown Citadel in World of Warcraft is absurdly large. It's walls stretch for miles under almost the entirety of the Icecrown zone, making much of the zone into mere courtyards. And goodness only knows what is beneath all that ice, there could be miles and miles of caverns. Especially given that a faction of the subterranean Nerubians allied with the Lich King. It is by far the largest residential building on Azeroth, even dwarfing Queen Azhara's magnificent undersea palace. This has gotten people thinking about why the building is so large: since buildings on this scale were usually only built by the Titans or their constructs. Then again, it is built into a glacier. The explanation for it's enormous size might be simply that it has to be huge in order to not get crushed by all that ice. Other royal residences in the game actually tend to avert this trope. The palaces of Stormwind and Lordaeron are larger than the surrounding buildings, but not ostentatiously so.
  • Mardenholde is also extremely large for what it is: it's just a regional governor's house, but it's almost the size of Lordaeron's palace with fairly extensive grounds. Granted, the governor isn't the only one who lives on the grounds, but still. The same is true of Durnholde as well. This is possibly explained by assuming that these buildings were built before the rise of Lordaeron for Arathi lords. Also, it's not like land is at a premium in Arathor: even assuming that there are technically more buildings than actually appear in the game (since there are nowhere near enough houses to actually accommodate even all the named NPCs).

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