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Central Theme / Video Games

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Remember, a Central Theme is not the same as An Aesop; a theme is a question, idea, topic, or concept that the text explores, while an Aesop is a conclusion the author reaches about the theme or a lesson they wish to impart to the reader. As such, you should avoid phrasing your examples as conclusions.

Video Games
  • Ace Combat:
    • Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies: In war, the enemy is also human and have their own feelings, loved ones, and motivations for fighting. Alternatively, the loss of innocence in wartime.
    • Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War: The legacy of past conflicts can have ramifications that affect the world in the present day.
    • Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War: Is lasting peace achievable in a world defined by nations and borders? Alternatively, one's legacy is defined by one’s actions.
    • Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation: In war everyone, soldiers and civilians on both sides, has their own story to tell.
    • Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: In a world dependent on the flow of information, what would the consequences be if communications were to break down? Alternatively, what would happen if one were to remove warfare’s human element?
  • ActRaiser: Should a loving and caring god, like parents, take care of their creations forever?
  • Advance Wars: Days of Ruin: Where there's life, there's hope. Devastating meteor strikes have destroyed both civilization and the environment, bandits and aspiring dictators are all too willing to take advantage of the chaos and a parasitic plant has emerged that targets children and teenagers, growing straight under their skin. Despite all this, however, as long as there are people willing to do the right thing like Brenner, Will and Doctor Morris, the world has a chance of recovery.
  • The Amnesia series:
  • Among Us: Trust and deception.
  • Angry Birds: Revenge, sacrifice, teamwork, and the determination it takes to save and protect your loved ones.
  • Animal Crossing: Taking the time to be there for your community.
  • Ao Oni: The danger of unchecked curiosity.
  • ARMS: Always aim for your goal, no matter what makes you stand out.
  • Assassin's Creed:
    • The franchise has the Arc Words of "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" and examines how this idea evolves and applies to different individuals and contexts.
    • The struggles of history itself, that our ancestors are humans, and for all our relative progress, people are still the same more or less. Great figures in history have Feet of Clay and are more human and down to earth than expected and that humanity is only the inheritance of all past achievements and that descendants have a responsibility to make "all this suffering worth something".
    • The struggle between the Assassins and Templars is about the nature of power and freedom. To what extent do people need leaders to define and direct their lives, and to what extent does democracy work? Both the Assassins and Templars have a millennia-long philosophical debate over this with no real resolution, with the running theme of compromise, failure, and Humans Are Flawed.
  • Asura's Wrath:
  • Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Identity. Sometimes who we truly are goes beyond our wildest imaginations, but who do we become when faced with that revelation? When born of an evil bloodline, will we redeem ourselves or becomes something so much worse? How will that identity affect the rest of the world?
  • The Banner Saga series is about the burden of leadership in dire circumstances, decisions we make for survival and their short and long-term consequences.
  • Bastion: You need to let go of the past.
  • Batman: Arkham Series:
    • The series in general: How far can a man be pushed until he breaks?
    • Batman: Arkham City: The theme of this game is specifically a question of whether criminals deserve basic fundamental human rights. To what extent do the worst of humanity command compassion and restraint? What does it say about a society that decides to wash its hands of them and simply corral them to a dustbin where they will eventually be subject to extermination?
  • Beyond Good & Evil: Question everything. Never take truth for granted.
  • The Binding of Isaac: The dangers of religious extremism and how it can lead to child abuse.
  • BioShock:
  • BLACKSOULS: Obsession ruins both yourself and others.
  • BlazBlue:
    • The struggle of free will versus predestination, which is summed up by the announcer: "The wheel of fate is turning. Rebel one. Action!"
    • A lesser theme in the series is the conflict between dependence on power and brute strength (reflected in characters like Azrael, Terumi, and Ragna prior to Character Development) vs. the reliance on skill and finesse (reflected in characters like Kagura, Bang, Rachel, and Ragna after his Character Development). Typically, the series favors skill over power.
    • Blazblue Cross Tag Battle: Fate intertwines in the most unexpected way.
  • Bloodborne:
  • Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon: Those you would readily call your enemies could turn out to be your closest allies. Pushing on alone out of distrust can prove to be your own downfall.
  • Borderlands:
    • Borderlands: The love of money is the root of all evil.
    • Borderlands 2: In addition to continuing the above theme, "hatred" is important. Over the course of the game, you begin to hate Handsome Jack as a truly evil force that needs to die rather than a funny Faux Affably Evil jackass, and he in turn comes to truly hate you for everything you've done in the course of disrupting his plans.
      Anthony Burch: Now, I totally acknowledge that this is the creepiest and most negative sounding theme ever, and I’m not gonna throw out that little tidbit if I'm ever asked to defend video games as an expressive medium, but there it is.
  • Bravely Default: What takes the most courage of all, is the courage to refuse.
  • Brutal Orchestra: Perfection Is Impossible and existentialism.
  • Bugsnax: Enticing appearances and ideas versus potentially daunting or depressing realities - and from there, dedication to what you want versus understanding what you need, both the boons and potential risks of escapism and feeling your way through coping mechanisms, and learning to listen to and empathize with others past the way they most immediately present themselves.
  • Castlevania
  • Catherine: Part of being an adult is accepting the consequences of your actions. Another major theme is the ups and downs of seeking respectively a stable and conventional life and an exciting, adventurous one... and whether or not you risk simply putting yourself into a box and living unsatisfied either way by putting either concept on a pedestal as an ideal opposed to each other rather than just trusting your instincts.
  • Celeste: Dealing with anxiety and depression.
  • Chaos Faction: Might Makes Right.
  • Chrono Trigger: How even the smallest of actions can change the future in a significant way.
    • Chrono Cross: The unintended consequences of any decision. Seeing the forest for the trees, and accepting that there's a bigger picture.
  • The Civilization series: What does it take to raise a civilization from nothing to greatness?
    • Civilization: Beyond Earth: What does it mean to be "human", exactly? And how might we have to change that meaning in the future?
  • Clock Tower: The struggle to survive against evil.
  • Code Vein: Memories, how despite them seeming lost they still reside somewhere deep inside. Sometimes remembering what happened in our past will drive our future and the futures of those around us. Also, holding onto our humanity through those memories, as losing ourselves can lead to becoming something worse.
  • Command & Conquer:
  • Condemned: Criminal Origins: The homeless, and middle/upper-class society's view of them.
  • Conker's Bad Fur Day: Will wealth and power really give you what you honestly want?
  • Control: Unsurprisingly, control, and the importance of a healthy relationship with it.
  • Cookie Clicker: The destructive capability of unchecked greed.
  • Cruelty Squad: Life and its (lack of) value. The player character laments wasting his youth and his inability to change this way of life. He kills people for a measly couple thousand bucks at the behest of callous corporate employers who don't even penalize him for killing civilians. Even then the widespread use of recombinator technology implies that this is futile in the end, as the targets can resurrect themselves for cheap much like he does.
  • Crusader Kings: The real price of power is the human cost. Politics ultimately boils down to human interaction, and personal friendships and rivalries can decide the fate of nations. Cultural and religious differences can produce conflict and tension but are not insurmountable, and sometimes the bigger danger is the one closer to home. Your best-laid plans for the future sometimes go wrong through no fault of your own, so it's always good to cultivate possible alternatives.
  • Cultist Simulator: As per Word of God:
    The core theme of CS is the gradual revelation of the sublimely monstrous beneath the safely mundane.
  • Cry of Fear: Dealing with suicidal ideation.
  • Cuphead: The dangers of gambling.
  • Cyberpunk 2077:
    • The central theme of the game as a whole and its many, many sidequests is how unchecked capitalism, driven to its logical extreme, would make everyone miserable except the very few at the top... who pay for it with their humanity instead.
    • The central theme of the Player Character V's personal story arc is the Driving Question of what is most important in life: survival alone, one's relationships and community, or being remembered long after one's death, with the three V-centric endings ("The Devil", "The Star", and "The Sun", respectively) subscribing to one of these philosophies.
    • Different ways of dealing with mortality, your own and your loved ones. Religion is still a big part of the setting (averting Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions), the wealthy can buy life-extending procedures to slow down aging and the hottest new piece of tech is a chip called the Relic, on which you can essentially store a copy of your consciousness (though it's only available for the mega-rich). Many sidequests center around different characters' ways of dealing with their loved ones' deaths, and V has to face their own slow, and seemingly inevitable death).
    • The game is also, despite its title, actually a Deconstruction of the Cyberpunk genre — or, more specifically, of The '80s' action-packed cyberpunk as embodied by Johnny Silverhand. A recurring theme throughout the game is that the cyberpunks ("edge runners") of 2077 do not operate in the same way as the brazenly establishment-hating cyberpunks of the (in-universe) 2020s. While everyone from that era bemoans the passing of the age when Silverhand could rally crowds to assault corporate headquarters at a moment's notice, the game also goes out of its way to point out how naive, immature, pubertal, and unhealthy that attitude was for everyone involved (as well as that Johnny himself was a toxic and narcissistic douchebag). On a metatextual level, having been signed off on by R. Talsorian Games, 2077 can be read as a reflection on and a polemic with that older, more punk-y vision of the genre that was prevalent in the '80s.
  • Dark Souls:
    • Dark Souls:
      • Fire, death, what beauty means in the Crapsack World of Dark Souls, and ultimately, Humans Are Good.
      • Fear, whether it's fear of the known or unknown. Gwyn feared humanity and the darkness, so he linked the First Flame; Laurentius will train you in pyromancy only if you aren't afraid or put off by his power; and both the Crestfallen Warrior and Crestfallen Merchant are cowards who refuse to hope for anything cause of their fear, encouraging the Chosen Undead to basically give up. Fear clearly leads to bad ends cause the two crestfallen NPC's are miserable, you miss out on a Pyromancy teacher if you tell Laurentius his practices are unsavory, and Gwyn's linking the First Flame is inevitably leading the world to ruin rather than preserving it, if the third game is any indication.
      • Determination. Is it better to simply give into despair and await the inevitable in relative peace, or is it nobler to struggle mightily against everything that stands in your way and reach for whatever end you can get? Hollows only lose their minds when they completely lose hope, while those who maintain a goal cling to their sanity a little bit longer. Essentially, when all hope is lost, you keep going because you choose to.
    • Dark Souls II:
      • If the world is run by an infallible cycle, do any of our choices really matter? Should we rebel against the cycle or make peace with it? Perhaps what makes a choice meaningful is if we conquer adversity and fight in spite of the apparent uselessness of our choices?
      • II also has a theme of losing and changing identity, which even extends into the mechanics (now that you can respec). A lot of the secondary cast are losing their memories over time, and many of the bosses are marked by either having had their identity changed in some way (Vendrick by hollowing, the Old Iron King by possession, Velstadt by the darkness of the Undead Crypt, Raime by the black fog of the Bride of Ash, the Ivory King by the Old Chaos, and the Old Dragonslayer by simple time). It's not even always negative; both Mytha and Alsanna are changed by love, but one descends into madness and obsession while the other finds redemption.
    • Dark Souls III:
      • The game adds the theme of whether anything can get worse when a Crapsack World has reached the depth of awfulness, even an age of Dark, and nothing lasts forever but one legacy can live on for eternity, for better or worse.
      • III also has a theme of legacies. Many of the bosses and secondary characters are tied in various ways to legacies: struggling to live up to them, abandoning them, continuing them, seeking them, corrupting them. The final ending choice is whether to continue the legacy of lords, bring it to an end, or seize its power and create a new one.
  • Darkest Dungeon: Achieving even the smallest victories, no matter the cost.
  • Darkest Dungeon II: Facing and overcoming your failures.
  • Dead Rising keeps a running theme from corrupt government officials, the selfish who wish to profit and to the psychopath bosses: Is the greatest threat during a crisis the crisis itself, or other people?
  • Death Stranding: Loneliness. The whole game centers around delivering cargo through swaths of empty terrain to isolated outposts and connecting them to the Chiral Network (essentially the internet). Sam travels completely alone, and the only NPCs you see in the game are hostile (with the exception of a few friendly porters that randomly spawn sometimes, but you can't really interact with them much). When you get to said outposts, you only interact with holograms, and not characters. Everyone in the main cast is alone/lonely in a way too, either due to tragic events in the past (Mama, Heartman, Fragile, Die-Hardman, Sam, Higgs) or simply due to their nature they can't quite accept and which makes it difficult to make connections with others (Sam, Deadman, Amelie).
  • de Blob: The importance of art, color and personal expression.
  • Deltarune: None of us can choose who we are in this world, but we at least have each other for friendship and support.
  • Depict1: As the game's title can be rearranged to, deception.
  • Deus Ex: Worries of the modern age, in particular self-aware AI, governmental conspiracies, the rise of cybernetics, and the loss of an easy way out.
  • Devil May Cry: Nature vs nurture and the importance of maintaining one's humanity over throwing it away for power.
  • Disco Elysium: How much can excessive nostalgia for the past ruin a person? Much of the issues that take place in the game are due to people waxing nostalgic for the past and how much better it was than it is today, but more often than not it's at the expense of either stopping people from moving on or even putting the past on a pedestal of lies and outright ignoring all the terrible things that came with it.
  • Disgaea: The Disgaea games tend to tackle at least one or more themes in each respective game.
    • Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: Individuals of different races, such as demons, angels, and humans, can together unite in spirit. One race shouldn't judge another based on rumors or historic facts alone. All living creatures, no matter where they were born, can feel emotions like love.
    • Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness: The importance of family and what it means to protect them. The detriment of being resistant to change and adhering to outdated traditions and worldviews.
    • Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: You Are Not Alone and you don't have to wallow in bitterness and loneliness for the rest of your existence. The most unexpected people can help you heal mental and emotional scars.
    • Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Open your heart to others, no matter how hard it may be. Discovering the true virtues of heroism, such as self-sacrifice, having the courage to stand up for others, faith in your beliefs, and helping A Friend in Need who strayed from the wrong path.
    • Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten: No matter how trivial or detrimental, keeping promises is important. Even in unfortunate circumstances, you can always stay positive and find something to gain from it, especially if helps you grow as a person. The horrors that humans waging war against one another can wreak. Ignoring responsibilities for too long will have dire effects in the long run.
    • Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance: Being driven by rage and revenge can lead to one's eventual self-destruction. Always have faith in yourself and your allies. Even the coldest of hearts can be warmed with genuine kindness.
    • Disgaea 6 Defianceof Destiny: No matter how many times you fail, you have to keep trying if you want to reach your end goal. Doing so may yield unexpected results, like amassing allies who share in your pursuit.
  • Dishonored:
    • Series as a whole:
      • In a corrupt society, criminals, smugglers and assassins are more honorable than the lords who have power.
      • Choices determine who we are and the world we live in, every choice has consequences in big and small ways, and living with those choices is the hardest thing one can do.
      • What do people do when they get a little bit of power? Does power always corrupt or can people choose to be different?
    • Dishonored: Laser-Guided Karma, as the non-lethal takedowns for each of Corvo's targets, with the uncomfortable exception of Lady Boyle, are ironic reflections of their own transgressionsnote .
    • Dishonored 2: Healing and restoring. In a stark contrast to the first game's, the sequel's non-lethal takedowns (again, with the notable exception of Kirin Jindosh) are focused on healing and restoring justicenote .
  • The Dragon Age series as whole: Loyalty and friendship can change a Crapsack World for the better.
    • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening: The justification (or lack thereof) of immoral research that may save millions of lives in the long run.
    • Dragon Age II:
    • Dragon Age: Inquisition:
      • Losing faith and finding it (again).
      • Authority in all its forms, including religious authority.
      • Fear and what it can drive people to do, for better or worse.
      • What happens when rose-tinted ideals meet a compromising reality? Should ideals that fail be cast aside, or should people try again while learning from past mistakes?
      • What to do with an Awful Truth: is it better to face it head-on, accepting the reality of the situation for what it is no matter what damages it may cause? Or is it better to recognize that people cling to comforting lies for a reason, and the Awful Truth isn't inherently better for them.
      • Inevitability of corruption in any large organization. In the Trespasser DLC, even the Inquisition itself is revealed to have been thoroughly infiltrated by the Qunari and Fen'Harel's agents despite its youth.
      • In ‎Jaws of Hakkon: How the legend both elevates and conceals the individual.
      • In ‎The Descent: Some things in life will remain a mystery no matter how you explore or what you find out about it.
      • In Trespasser: Does one simply let go of all the power they've accumulated if the purpose behind it is gone, or do they hold on to it by changing the purpose to fit current circumstances?
  • Dragon Quest has themes for many of its games:
    • The Erdrick Trilogy: The legacy of your family and living up to it.
    • Dragon Quest IV: The power of teamwork: What one or two people could never achieve can be easily accomplished by a larger group.
    • Dragon Quest V: The importance of love and family: When you are cornered and feeling helpless, your family will be there to help.
    • Dragon Quest VI: Dreams and Reality: What changes can someone's dreams have on the world around them? What does it mean to exist within a dream, with the possibility of disappearing when someone else wakes up? Also, the end of the game is about the triumph of hope over despair.
    • Dragon Quest VII: Time travel. Save the past in order to save the present.
    • Dragon Quest VIII: Which is ultimately more important to you, your personal obligations or your freedom to happiness?
    • Dragon Quest X has various themes across its various expansions:
      • Version 1: Revival: Sometimes the best way to continue the fight against the forces of evil is to reincarnate in the deceased body of any of the game's 5 races.
      • Version 3: Does the savior either free the god who believed in Might Makes Right or save the region that had to suffer from the fallout of his sins?
      • Version 5: Cooperation: Putting aside old feuds between humans and demons in the favor of fighting the true enemy who benefited from said feuds.
  • The Elder Scrolls: The series as a whole focusses on different views on fate and what it means for people's lives. Beyond that, each game has its own core themes:
    • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: Divinity. What makes a god, what comes with being one (religion, in particular), and how far mortals would go to achieve godhood.
    • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Change is inevitable. You can alter that change to be something better but in the end, Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
    • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
      • Is the world worth fighting for?
      • What makes a nation, culture, or society what it is? How do you determine who is a "true" member, and who gets to decide?
      • When two sides in a conflict both have legitimate grievances with each other, how do you decide which one to support? Or is supporting neither a legitimate choice, when there is a greater enemy to face?
      • The overarching theme of the many, many small subnarratives of the game is "What it takes to persevere in the brutal Grim Up North".
      • The whole theme of the game appears to be "Are the old ways really worth preserving?" and "Should a change be greeted with grace or hostility?" The Stormcloaks are fighting to preserve their tribal identity yet their actions inadvertently trigger the end of the world. The Forsworn claim to be original rulers but have now become brutal, overzealous tribesmen who want to kill all Nords than make an effort to make peace (Ainethach was once a Reachman until he gave it up and he's now the leader of Karthwasten and owns Sanuarach Mine). Paarthurnax even asks why the Dragonborn wants to stop Alduin if the end of the world is a natural part of the grand cycle.
        Paarthurnax: "Why must you stop Alduin?"
        Dragonborn: "I like this world. I don't want it to end."
        Paarthurnax: "Pruzah. As good a reason as any. There are many who feel as you do, although not all. Some would say that all things must end, so that the next can come to pass. Perhaps this world is simply the Egg of the next kalpa? Lein vokiin? Would you stop the next world from being born?"
        Dragonborn: "The next world will have to take care of itself."
        Paarthurnax: "Paaz. A fair answer. Ro fus... maybe you only balance the forces that work to quicken the end of this world. Even we who ride the currents of Time cannot see past Time's end... Wuldsetiid los tahrodiis. Those who try to hasten the end, may delay it. Those who work to delay the end, may bring it closer."
  • Ever Oasis: New opportunities come from meeting new people.
  • The Fable series: A single choice can have far-reaching and everlasting consequences, not only for the person making the choice, but also for the world at large.
    • Fable II: Reflecting on what you lost and the different ways to cope with it and possibly bring it back.
    • Fable III: What is a person willing to sacrifice in order to do the right thing?
  • FAITH: The Unholy Trinity: The conflict between Christianity and Satanism.
  • The Fallout series: Even After the End, people will still find reasons to kill one another.
    War... war never changes.
    • Via Word of God, the series' other central theme is that you need to let go of the past. In New Vegas in particular there is a direct correlation between a faction's evilness on the Karma Meter and how tightly they cling to the values of the past. This even extends to all of your human/humanoid companions and all of the DLC.
    • Fallout: New Vegas has a theme beyond that, and a different one for each DLC. In the game overall, it's that all power is a gamble (quite appropriate for Las Vegas) and small things can tip huge scales.
      • In Dead Money: Obsession is a cage. (Begin again, let go.)
      • In Honest Hearts: We're all tribes in the end and family forgives no matter what, so long as you admit that you went wrong.
      • In Old World Blues: The Wasteland may be harsh, but the Old World was no kinder. Look to the future - not for something better, but to make it better.
      • In Lonesome Road: One person with one careless action can leave unimaginable scars, and the power of symbols - particularly flags.
    • New Vegas also heavily tackles the topic of Hegelian dialectics, which is mentioned by Caesar himself. As Caesar said in-game, the thesis contains or creates its antithesis. They are bound to clash and in that moment a synthesis is born, combining elements from both. On a second glance, the NCR, Legion, and House are one and the same thesis, as they represent different parts of the old world. Their inevitable clash created an antithesis, a new power in the Mojave: The Courier.
    • Fallout 4:
      • Letting go of the past, but also using it to make better decisions. Unlike New Vegas, their stubbornness to let go isn't directly related to how evil a faction is, as the Institute wants to create a better future by ignoring the past, whilst the Brotherhood of Steel seek its history for answers. Rather, it’s how the factions view and approach their past that affects their morality.
      • A second theme is deciding who, and what, makes up human civilization in the 23rd century. Synths, Super Mutants, Ghouls, robots/A.I.s, irradiated humans and the very few "pure" humans left all have to live together. Some think they're better than others - but who's counting?
      • The themes of the story arcs for the companions (and the main storyline itself) in 4 are about the need to reinvent oneself, struggling with identity, and the need to let go of the past to begin anew.
  • The Far Cry series has an overarching theme of men becoming monsters, whether figuratively or literally:
  • Each Lostbelt from Arc 2 of Fate/Grand Order has one, focusing on the nature of the lostbelt and why it was ultimately pruned.
    • Anastasia: Strength, what it leads people to do, and how solely focusing on strength is detrimental.
    • Gotterdammerung: Love, good and bad, and how it influences people.
    • SIN: Stability and how it hinders interaction, growth, and progress.
    • Yuga Kshetra: Flaws and how we interact with them.
    • Atlantis/Olympus: Pride, how it can make you lazy, how it can break you, and how it can also push you to surpass your limits.
    • Avalon le Fey: Responsibility - you have a duty to uphold, and you have to be held accountable if you fail it. Even if it would be easier to just die, you need to shoulder on to do what must be done.
    • Nahui Mictlan: Sacrifice - what will you give to save others? How much is too much?
  • Once Final Fantasy started to develop genuine plots, it began to look at themes:
    • Final Fantasy II - War Is Hell.
    • Final Fantasy III - Light Is Good and Dark Is Evil are fallacies; instead the world must have a balance of both.
    • Final Fantasy IV - What does it mean to redeem yourself? How strong is guilt as a motivating factor?
    • Final Fantasy V - Legacy. The old generation making room for the new one, most visibly by the deaths of the Precursor Heroes.
    • Final Fantasy VI - Our sense of fulfillment in life is derived from the connections which we form with others; that love itself—in all its forms—is the meaning of life. Meanwhile, more selfish ambitions such as the pursuit of power are self-destructive, as they ultimately leave one feeling alone and nihilistic due to awareness of everything's impermanence, as Kefka's inability to find any meaning in life personifies. There's also taking responsibility for your past deeds and forgiving yourself, as seen with Terra, Locke, Shadow, Setzer, and Cyan. Finally, there's the theme of loss: each and every main character has lost or loses something important to their lives, and learning to move past that and find hope afterwards is vital to everyone's arcs, save for possibly Umaro and Gogo.
    • Final Fantasy VII - Emotional maturation; learning to value life itself. Losing that which was most precious to you in your formative years; learning to cope with pain and hardship as you find your place in the adult world, and accepting loss as part of the inevitable and never-ending cycle of life and death. No matter how much is taken from you, how much you suffer, or whether it will ultimately last, you should never give up living and finding things to live and strive for.
    • Final Fantasy VIII - The importance of The Power of Friendship and how distancing oneself from others emotionally can be more damaging than forming bonds and being open. Predestination and the inescapability of fate.
    • Final Fantasy IX - Self-discovery and what it means to "live". One's fate is not decided by how they are born or what their predetermined purpose is.
    • Final Fantasy X - All tradition must be questioned, no victory comes without sacrifices, and the inner conflict between personal ambitions and cultural/familial expectations.
    • Final Fantasy X-2 - An exploration of a world's culture and society experiencing significant changes and shift from tradition. The tensions between the old and new ideologies threatening to escalate into a war and repeat the mistakes of the past. Shaking off the constraints of the past and finding a strong and confident person within yourself by embracing your newfound freedom.
    • Final Fantasy XII - The cycle of revenge and forgiveness. Is power the only way to fight against power?
    • Final Fantasy XIII - Free will, the power of the human spirit, facing yourself, forgiveness, and redemption. It's pointless to try to run from your problems as they will eventually catch up with you and potentially get out of hand on a large scale. Theocracy, totalitarianism, and propaganda. The nature of people from two different worlds being brainwashed and conditioned over centuries to fear and hate each other, only to meet and realize they have a lot more in common than previously believed upon getting to know each other properly.
    • Final Fantasy XIII-2 - How far will you go to defy fate?
    • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - Having emotions and being true to yourself are not weaknesses. The downsides of immortality, even the illusion of it, and how death can become a desirable option. The rise of religious cults that aim to fill the void of absent leadership and use their power to influence who they believe deserves to live or die.
    • Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Healing after the great catastrophe, and the power of belief to shape reality.
      • Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward - How the past influences the present, the terrible cycle of revenge, how people react to the upending of their beliefs, and how one deals with grief and loss.
      • Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood - Loyalty, the identity of a nation, retaining or regaining hope amidst overwhelming odds, and the lengths people go to be free.
      • Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers - Legacy, how the people and civilizations of the past shaped us. Also, despite our mortality, we should never give in to indolence and despair and always strive for a better tomorrow for our future generations. In addition to this, acts of heroism and villainy are defined by the victors and can be misconstrued by the opposing side.
      • Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Hope in the face of nihilism and despair.
    • Final Fantasy XV - The fated rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, and the incredible burden that it entails. Fortunately however, you don't have to go about it alone.
    • Final Fantasy XVI: The destructive consequences of unchecked power in all of its forms.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics - The consequences of seeking power and using people as tools.
      • Also: What is the difference between pride in oneself and arrogance? Will our actions exonerate or condemn us, both to ourselves and to others? And in either case, which is more important, the approval of ourselves for our conduct, or the approval of others?
        Ramza: "A man who's lost his pride will never be free."
      • True heroism isn't always rewarded positively
    • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance:
      • Avoiding reality is not healthy.
      • Things aren't always as bad as you think they are. Doned may have been confined to a wheelchair, but his mother babied him while Marche was neglected. Ritz's confidence grows when she's no longer ashamed of her natural hair color, especially after she sees it in a completely different light. While Mewt had the most reason to want an escape, due to losing his mother and being bullied, ultimately his father and his friend did still care and try for him.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - You must live life to the fullest, even the painful bits.
    • Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - Memories are precious things that make us strong.
    • Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time - A loving family can overcome anything.
    • Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light - Evil conquers from within the heart.
  • Fire Emblem:
  • Five Nights at Freddy's:
    • Corruption of innocence and idealism. A place made to inspire joy in the hearts of children and adults alike devolves into a nightmare for everyone it touches, including and especially those who created it in the first place. A common occurrence in the franchise is children dying, suffering or experiencing horrific trauma, especially being murdered.
    • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Many characters achieve eternal life to some capacity in the series, and suffer all the more for it. William Afton achieves some sort of Joker Immunity by suffering a Cruel and Unusual Death through spring-lock failure to become a zombie fused with a rotting bunny suit, and is subsequently "killed" through burning several times after the fact, one of those times being by his old friend and implicitly his own son. Michael Afton suffers a similar fate as his father, where he has his insides removed so he could be a temporary Full-Body Disguise for Ennard but ends up surviving even as an empty, rotting corpse. All of the haunted animatronics, most of which have the souls of aforementioned dead children in them, achieve eternal life as machines but at the cost of anything that made them human.
  • For Honor: Is there really honor in war? Can there be? Should there be?
  • Frostpunk: The City must survive. What are you willing to sacrifice to ensure that it does? Will it be enough?
  • In Ghost of Tsushima, as per a samurai game, the concept of honor is explored in many forms.
    • Yuna only cares about two things: her brother Taka and leaving Tsushima. She will kill and steal from the shadows and she doesn't care that others call her dishonorable for it. However, she is one of the most noble people in the game, being the person who saves Jin (twice!) when she had no reason to do so and she keeps her promises despite her desperate circumstances.
    • Ryuzo is also a commoner like Yuna looking after his family (the Straw Hat ronin) but he chooses to side with the Monguls to feed his men and betrays Jin's friendship.
    • Shimura is presented as a paragon of honor early in the game but this makes him see peasants more as resources and the honor he and the Shogun cling to is all about keeping them in their place.
    • Jin, despite using "dishonorable" methods and tricks to stop the Monguls and empower peasants to fight back the invaders, is a very noble and kind man. The Shogun, seeing the samurai privilege threatened, brands Jin a criminal and orders Shimura to kill Jin.
  • God of War: Revenge leaves you empty.
    • For the Norse chapter: We must actively strive to be better than the past, lest we keep repeating the same mistakes.
  • Grand Theft Auto games deal with the over-the-top nature of American popular culture, the sliminess of mass media, and the ubiquitous moral corruption in modern society.
    • Betrayal and revenge are running themes throughout the series. Grand Theft Auto III for example has the protagonist being betrayed by his girlfriend and partner, Catalina, in crime in the opening among others throughout the game and he appears to be on a quest for revenge against her. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City likewise deals with a character who has been betrayed twice and must betray others in return to survive and all subsequent games have had multiple people betraying the protagonist as a major plot points.
    • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas deconstructs the True Companions sentimentalism in street gangs. The people who you think are your real friends will sell you out if you get in their way. Your real friends turn out to be the ones who are there for you when you are really down.
    • Grand Theft Auto IV: Your past scars your future. Every character has one mistake they regret and try to fix it in some way or another. Most importantly, is The American Dream still alive?
    • Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned: Is the concept of brotherhood and chivalry in a criminal empire still relevant in these changing times?
    • Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony: Does moving to a higher position in society make you safer from crime and if not, does the crime become more dangerous to everyone around you?
    • Grand Theft Auto V: In an age where everyone is willing to betray, kill and steal in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, is loyalty still a virtue worth dying for?
  • Gravity Rush 2: The separation and inequality between people on a social, economic, geographic and even temporal scale, and yet how great things can still happen if connections are formed between them.
  • Guilty Gear: Sin and redemption.
  • Hades:
    • Cycles.
    • Reconciliation and family ties.
    • Giving people chances to grow and change.
    • Running away.
  • Half-Life: Is science a beneficial tool or a destructive force? And is a One-Man Army Icon of Rebellion against an Orwellian state truly a hero, "The One Free Man", or an Unwitting Pawn to circumstances and forces beyond his understanding and control?
  • Hunt Down the Freeman — Don't make deals with the devil.
  • Halo: A few games in the series display strong central themes.
    • Halo 2: The two sides of war. In the beginning, Chief is declared a hero for stopping the Covenant from activating Installation 04 while the Elite who eventually becomes the Arbiter is declared a heretic for allowing a Halo to be destroyed. Both of their stories highlights the contrast, yet similarities to each side which eventually leads them to find out the truth they didn't know about and create an alliance between the humans and the Covenant Separatist.
    • Halo 3: Desperation. The UNSC and Elites are desperate enough to ally to avoid genocide. The Flood make everyone desperate enough that Hood allows the Elites to glass half of Africa. The Flood are desperate enough to stop the Ark being fired that they ally (briefly) with Chief and Arbiter. Once the tide turns, the Covenant are desperate enough to stop Chief that they throw everything they have at him.
    • Halo: Reach: Defiance in death. Reach falls, and quickly. But the Covenant lose more taking it than in any other battle. Noble Team (with the exception of Jun and Kat) all die in some way spiting the Covenant. On a grander scale, the loss of Reach and Six's death allow for Master Chief to reach Halo, and end the war.
    • Halo 4: Losing your humanity to pursue goals. The game opens with a discussion about how the Master Chief is a functional sociopath, and Cortana reminds him that his determination, both to fight the Didact and to save her, turns him into more of a machine than anything else. Both the Didact and his Prometheans are warped from what they once were (in the case of the Prometheans, humans literally becoming machines), due to extensive attempts to fight the Flood.
    • Halo 5: Guardians: How an 'Imperial Peace' like the Mantle is not worth it, due to the force and terror needed to enforce it. How your viewpoint depends on your perspective, and when you dig deeper, things that are one way look to be another one very quickly.
  • Haven (2020): When it comes to defying authority and earning the freedom to love who you want, will you be confident enough to see it through?
  • Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice: Overcoming grief, though it doesn't become apparent until near the end. While the game leaves it somewhat ambiguous as to how much of it is real and how much is in Senua's head, it is strongly implied that much of what she hallucinates are manifestations of her grief and trauma after being abused by her father, shamed by her tribe because of her illness, and witnessing the deaths of Dillion and her mother—the only two people who ever showed her love and understanding. Her repressed memories of her mother's death at the hands of her father and quest to revive Dillion are rooted in her inability to cope with that trauma; the combat—Senua mowing down countless enemies through a labyrinth of nightmarish environments—is a metaphorical representation of her denial. By the end of the game, she finally gives up fighting (literally and metaphorically) and lets go of Dillion's skull; accepting that she will never get him back. Only by coming to terms with her grief and accepting her condition is she able to confront her inner demons and move on. As the saying goes: "Life's toughest battles are fought in the mind."
  • Henry Stickmin Series: Your actions have consequences, so think wisely.
  • Horizon:
  • Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number: The viscerally delightful, briefly satisfying, and alluring, but ultimately pointless and self-destructive nature of violence.
  • Hyper Light Drifter:
    • The futility of striving for something that may not even exist in the first place.
    • Individuals taking power for themselves with violence.
    • The nature of death, and the different ways one can relate to it.
  • inFAMOUS: If given great powers, would you choose to use them for good or evil? Or as stated by this one in-game quote (mis)attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
    "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
  • Injustice:
  • Jet Set Radio: Expression.
  • Kentucky Route Zero: the burdens of capitalism and debt, and the power of community, found families and art.
  • Killer7: Every nation has its own culture, and one nation forcing its culture onto another will only make the other nation bitter.
  • The King of Fighters: The importance of teamwork, especially when confronting global threats.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Connection. No man is an island, good or evil. The Power of Friendship can drive people to overcome many kinds of things.
  • Kirby: Cute and cheerful is not necessarily harmless, and in the face of dark, insurmountable, even nightmarish odds, a heart of love and hope can always shine through.
  • Klonoa:
  • Knights of the Old Republic: Is redemption truly possible for everyone?
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
    • Even seemingly innocuous actions can have unforseen long-term consequences.
    • The idea that a disparate group of people can actually be tightly bonded in ways none of them realise.
  • The Last of Us:
    • If Harry Potter is about how very intense, primal parental love is beautiful and can quite literally save the world, this game has exact opposite theme. This is about how parental love is so intense that it can drive people to do crazy, destructive things and how Outliving One's Offspring is one of the worst things that can happen to someone. Joel is still reeling from his daughter Sarah's death twenty later and jumps at the opportunity to take that love and put it onto Ellie. When he finds out that Ellie, who's immune to the virus that caused the zombie outbreak, is going to die in the surgery to get the virus out of her brain, rips her off the operating table and slaughters everyone in the operating room. He knows that she would want to cure the virus but he does it anyway. He damns the world of a chance to cure the virus all because he can't bear to lose another daughter.
    • Partnership. Almost every named character has or had some sort of partner or companion.
    • Selfishness. There's rare exceptions but the motivations of almost all the characters have some degree of selfishness to them.
    • The apocalypse does not bring out the best in people. Only those who are willing to stoop to any low and do literally anything it takes to stay alive - including killing innocent people - are capable of being the "last of us" to survive.
  • The Last of Us Part II: Revenge will not give you closure or satisfaction. More likely, it will make you lose what is actually important to you.
  • Left 4 Dead is interesting in that the theme - The Power of Friendship - is almost entirely told through gameplay, e.g. committing traitorous acts such as running away from your team will draw a tank or hunter to you, getting you and probably everybody else killed.
  • Legacy of Kain:
    • Take a Third Option. There's always one somewhere.
    • The developers of the first game in the series described its core motif as "What is evil? Perhaps it is only a perspective." This theme has coloured every game in the series to a greater or lesser extent, with its extensive use of Grey-and-Gray Morality.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: No one person, no matter what they've done in the past, no matter what they've done with their lives, is completely beyond love and redemption. Any life can be given meaning so long as you're willing to reach out to them. Having the compassion to help anyone with anything, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Also nobody does something without motive or purpose, we all have our own reasons for the choices we make.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: People working together despite their differences in background or views to overcome even the most impossible odds. Power, and how and when to use it. Also continues on with Sky's themes of redemption and compassion.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A true hero needs power to make a difference, wisdom to make good choices, and courage to face adversity.
  • Library of Ruina:
    • The unforeseen consequences of Revenge Before Reason.
    • Exactly what does it take to be in control of your emotions instead of them in control of you?
  • LittleBigPlanet: In general, Show the world something amazing with what you can imagine.
    • LittleBigPlanet: Travel around the world and lend a helping hand in anyway.
    • LittleBigPlanet 2: Overcoming our flaws (such as self-absorption and ego) and confronting the negative force that keeps us down.
    • LittleBigPlanet Vita: Reuniting with an old friend.
    • LittleBigPlanet 3: Do not meddle with forces beyond your understanding.
    • LittleBigPlanet Karting: Going against those who would steal from others.
  • LISA: A Vicious Cycle of abusive relationships, and a Cycle of Revenge over the course of generations until one of them is able to finally break the cycle.
  • Little Tail Bronx: Even in the face of despair or destruction, the world is still here. People can absolutely grow past their sins and mistakes and become stronger by working together.
  • Live A Live: Can anyone, even the seemingly nicest person you know, become evil if they have enough hatred inside them? What does the concept of 'humanity' embody?
  • Lobotomy Corporation:
  • Lollipop Chainsaw: Love always finds a way.
  • The Longest Journey: Mystery is important, there is no magic in knowing everything.
  • Lost Odyssey: Is being immortal really as great as it sounds?
  • Lunar: Silver Star Story:
    • You can do anything if you have people you care about.
    • The Fate of the World.
  • Mad Father: How bad parenting negatively affect children.
  • MadWorld:
    • Humans Are Bastards, and this isn't about to change any time soon. All you can really do is stiffen your spine and keep going.
    • Anarchy Reigns: When, if ever, is it right to take the law into your own hands?
  • The Mafia series of game each have their own theme and considering the world the series take place in, they are dark. The main one of the series, however, is that one can never truly escape from the Mafia once involved or lead a peaceful life even if you are no longer a member.
    • City of Lost Heaven: How one can be roped into a life of crime and once involved deeply can never truly escape. the protagonist learn this in the worst way possible
    • Mafia II: How one must be willing to give up and lose everything to have a chance to succeed in the mafia.
    • Mafia III: Crime can pay, but one must be smart.
  • Manhunt: How much violence are you willing to inflict on others in exchange for your freedom?
  • Marathon: Free will and destiny. Are you in control of your actions or are you a puppet for those who see you as useful to their own ends? Can you change it?
  • Mass Effect:
    • Can a single person change the fate of the galaxy?
    • Also the fact that sometimes, no matter how hard you try or how well you think you're doing, you can never get a flawless victory. Sacrifices must be made, and you can't save everyone. Despite this, things can always get better.
    • And actions that you take, no matter how small or insignificant, can come back to haunt (or help) you later. We are the summation of our choices.
    • Centrally, the story of all three games seems to have a great deal to do with the emergence of AI and the way the inevitable conflict with organics will be played out or resolved. This itself can be tied into the greater theme of parenthood and creators-verus-creations. We dare you to find a single main character in the game who doesn't have some sort of family issue. If you actually do, they'll probably instead have issues with their mentors, trainers, employees/employers, oldest friends, or someone else who could be said to have created or been created by them.
    • The risks of cultures and societies achieving things they haven't earned are presented multiple times throughout the series, and are central to the choices at the end of all three games.
    • No matter how impossible it may seem, a Third Option can be there when you need it most.
    • Being the person in charge is not always fun or glamourous, especially in this case.
  • Max Payne series:
  • Mega Man:
    • Is it possible to change what you were designed to be? The series itself started when Dr. Light's assistant robot Rock volunteered to become Mega Man in order to help save the world from Dr. Wily. X was the first robot ever created with true free will and chose to fight for peace, and Zero's original programming would've facilitated him destroying everything Dr. Light stood for— including X— and yet he became X's closest friend and ally bar none. The theme continues so on and so forth with characters like Vent, Aile, Grey and Ashe questioning the original destinies they were bestowed.
    • The franchise has a lot about the relationship and strain between humans and robots as the latter become more and more advanced. Most protagonists seek a peaceful union between man and machine, but their ultimate goal is constantly tested to the point where they're left wondering whether it's even possible to begin with— both the original Mega Man and his successor Mega Man X spend their respective sub-series wondering if the constant warring between good and evil forces will ever stop, and the Mega Man Zero series is focused squarely on how humans and Reploids are divided even when in the same boat, the latter now being subject to full-on oppression and genocide.
  • Metal Gear:
    • There are several themes interwoven throughout the series:
    • On another note, the games also have themes that are often summed up in a single word:
      • Metal Gear Solid: "GENE" — How biology affects our potential and our choices. Are our destinies hard-coded into us by our genetic sources?
      • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: "MEME" — How information, transmitted or censored, affects people and societies. Does free will exist, or are we just the culmination of the data we've absorbed?
      • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: "SCENE" — How geopolitics arbitrarily affects relationships. Friends and enemies are established simply because governments say they are.
      • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: "SENSE" — How a person views the world, how others interpret that person's view of the world, and what happens when that person dies and their views and wants continue to influence others.
      • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: "PEACE" — The idea of perfect peace in the world, how far some will go to achieve it, if peace is possible at all, and, if it is, how long it can last before new conflict arises.
      • Metal Gear Solid V: "RACE" — The constant competition between others and how it affects the world at large, and how language affects a person's mental growth and development; "REVENGE" — How loss can drive people to retalliate violently, and the destructive cycle that results from it.
      • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: "REVENGE" — The cost of pursuing a vendetta. How many people will you hurt along the way as collateral damage? How much are you willing to sacrifice — body, mind, soul — to hunt down every one of your enemies?
      • These themes tend to crop up a lot in the game that they describe, although they are often referenced in other games. To the extent that mission packs for the multiplayer of MGS4 were named the "GENE", "MEME", and "SCENE" expansions, and all included elements from MGS1, MGS2, and MGS3 respectively.
  • Metro: Last Light: forgiveness and redemption, in relation to the canonical ending of the previous game
  • Metroid:
    • The series overall: Isolation and self-reliance. Facing the unknown.
    • Metroid Fusion: Artificiality, as noted by the generally "corrupted" nature of the game compared to previous installments, how the game itself takes place in more restrictive, artificial environments, and how the main threat of the game is an organism that imitates the appearance and traits of its prey. There's also ADAM, which Samus assumes is only a mere navigation computer until The Reveal around the climax of the game.
    • Metroid Prime Trilogy: The physical and psychological costs of pursuing power.
    • Metroid: Other M: Family and parenthood.
    • Metroid Dread: Dread itself in the face of overwhelming power.
  • Minecraft: Exploration, creativity, resourcefulness, and survival.
  • Misao: How the abused will eventually become the abuser.
  • Monster Hunter: The perennial fight between man and the wildlife.
  • Moon: Remix RPG Adventure: Love and its many different forms, and escapism.
  • Mortal Kombat: How the world is worth fighting, killing and dying for.
  • NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD: How far someone can go in order to achieve fame and approval on social media?
  • Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: Love, Faith, and Religion.
  • NieR: Futility and the true meaning of a sacrifice.
  • NieR: Automata:
    • Futility and finding new purpose in spite of it.
    • What does it mean to be human?
    • The cycles of abuse, exploitation and revenge that we keep perpetuating, how history repeats.
  • Night in the Woods:
    • Change is inevitable, in all things. And if you don't accept it, you'll achieve nothing but suffering. So when things inevitably end, it's important that you accept it and value that they existed to begin with.
    • God expresses themself in various forms. You may not always understand, but they're looking out for you.
    • Where and how do we find meaning when it feels like everything sucks?
  • No More Heroes: Violence and revenge both have consequences and are more than "just a game".
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: Killing others for no reason is wrong and shouldn't be glorified.
  • No More Heroes III: Time changes people, sometimes for the worse.
  • no-one has to die.: If you had the power to decide who lives and who dies, who would you save?
  • Octopath Traveler: Each character has a recurring theme throughout their individual stories.
  • Octopath Traveler II:
    • Holding on to hope in the face of nihilism and despair. The Moonshade Order are a cult of broken-down nihilists (with a few exceptions) who want to summon Vide so he can bring about the endless night and end their own suffering. Of course, the main heroes remain steadfast and remain hopeful in the face of despair, which causes at least one of the Moonshade Order's members to decide to keep living because of Partitio's hope and optimism.
    • The rich and powerful will subjugate the poor and exploit them for profit, whether it be monetary or not. The underground gladiatorial arena in Montwise has poor people fighting to the death for the amusement of the rich men in the stands who make bets on the gladiators, the town of Sai is in a war between the poor refugees looking for a new home and the richer local royalty, and in the town of Clockbank, everyone including the children are being taxed by the Roque company. Many of the bosses are wealthy men of high status who hate, take advantage of or outright Kill the Poor, with La'mani, Giff and Mugen respectively doing just that.
  • Ōkami: No matter how hard you pray, the gods won't do everything for you. Each individual Story Arc has its own central theme as well:
    • Eastern Nippon: Love conquers fear and death.
    • Western Nippon: Sometimes the greater good requires the sacrifice of the best people.
    • Kamui: Your duty isn't always what you think it is.
  • OMORI: Accepting past trauma and moving on from it.
    • Hikikomori Route: Self-destruction via denial.
  • OPUS: Echo of Starsong:
    • Finding yourself, are you truly trying to be yourself or are you simply trying to follow others?
    • Don't be afraid to love yourself.
    • Finding closure following trauma, its important to find closure to what ails you, but don't let it become an obsession.
  • Outer Wilds: Death is inevitable, but the future will always be shaped by those who came before.
  • The Outer Worlds:
    • At what point does a completely free market actually enslave people?
    • How far will you go to destroy an inherently exploitative and broken system? How far will you go to maintain it?
    • The consequences and problems that arise from allowing scientific facts and information to be disregarded or worse just for profit.
  • Parappa The Rapper:
  • Parkasaurus: Animal welfare. Many of the campaign missions require the player to fix zoos that have been mistreating their dinosaurs.
  • Peret em Heru: For the Prisoners: The divide between ancient and modern attitudes towards justice and retribution.
  • Persona:
    • Persona: You can't run from yourself. Doubles as the core theme to the Persona series as a whole. Another theme is The Power of Friendship is worth living for and no matter how hard life can get, your friends always have your back and they will support you.
    • Persona 2:
      • How rumors affect reality. Personal responsibility for making the world what it is and what we want it to be, and the consequences of failing to take responsibility.
      • Eternal Punishment specifically: Acceptance that life may not go your way or how you planned and that adulthood is somewhat terrifying, but you can still make the best of what you got and that there are good things about adulthood,..."just a few".
    • Persona 3:
      • No matter what, hope for the future. Nothing is ever truly hopeless.
      • Remember that you will die one day (Memento Mori), but do not long for death and instead live your life to the fullest.
    • Persona 4:
      • The whole truth is not easy to find. This isn't just because the world doesn't run on Black-and-White Morality, but also because people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. Confronting this fact and pursuing the truth is always hard, but it's always worth it.
      • Make memories with your friends while you have the time. Most likely, you'll drift apart in your own pursuits and dreams after enough time has passed. But you'll cherish the good memories you made with them forever.
    • Persona 5:
      • Comfortable social order isn't worth the suffering caused by corrupt authority figures who exploit and abuse the people under them for their own gain. Sometimes it's better to rebel than to quietly accept how things are.
      • Justice and the law. What the former means as a personal or societal ideal and whether the latter means anything when the ones responsible for upholding the law so easily break it with little to no consequence.
      • The more mundane manifestations of The Power of Friendship. It doesn't always take the form of shiny superpowers. Sometimes it's just something as simple as having someone by your side when the world seems against you, but it's no less powerful or valuable. This is highlighted in the Confidant system, where Joker receives services or learns skills from various people in exchange for helping them with something. As Joker helps people with their problems, they're inspired to repay the kindness by providing more aid to Joker.
      • From The Royal: the ideal and the real. The conflict between the ideal life we would like to lead and the limitations of reality, and whether it's possible to reach some sort of compromise between the two. Also, accept pain and hardship in your life, as alongside joy and success, all experiences, good and bad, are necessary for growth and change.
      • From Persona 5 Strikers: What does it mean to have a heart? What it means is to better understand everything that defines human as a being with a heart. Also do not let your decisions be chosen for the sake of your inability to decide on your own. The choice that was decided for you could cause you to get into deep trouble.
  • Pikmin - Teamwork. Alone we are weak. Together we can do anything.
  • Pillars of Eternity - Memory, reincarnation, and betrayal. The Watcher remembers their and others' past lives... except the great betrayal that made them what they are and bound them to the Big Bad. Late in the game, the topic of divinity and why mortals need gods also comes to the forefront. Also, that trying to move forward by forgetting the past doesn't solve anything, but at the same time clinging to the past at the expense of the future is no better.
  • Planescape: Torment - You Can't Fight Fate. The Nameless One may save and redeem his companions, civilizations and his enemies, but in the end he simply can't save himself.
    • Most themes in the game (including whether it errs on the side of Screw Destiny or You Can't Fight Fate) depends on how you play it and personal interpretation of the ending. However, one of the larger ones, one that links in with the Arc Words ("What can change the nature of a man?") is that of Change. What changes, what doesn't, and whether anything can't.
  • Pokémon:
    • If you are part of, or leading, a team, see your partners as True Companions and draw strength from one another, rather than as a means to an end. Pokémon are not tools of war or profit. It boils down to interspecies cooperation (both between humans and Pokémon, and between different species of Pokémon), and that playing to everyone's strengths can win you battles you can't on your own, and get you to places you can't reach on your own (literally, in the case of HMs/Field Moves). Summed up perfectly by the theme song of the first season of the anime: "You teach me and I'll teach you."
    • Pokémon Red and Blue - The consequences of using science to manipulate nature.
    • Pokémon Gold and Silver - Traditions and values of old. Another major thread appears through the Sprout Tower sage's lesson, the ambitions of Team Rocket, the true answer to the trial in the Dragon's Den, Karen's words before the Final Boss battle, and Silver's Character Development: the truly strong are those who do not pursue strength.
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire - The importance of balance in life, as emphasized through the environment.
    • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl - Is it worth to strip humanity of the characteristics that make them essentially human for the sake of a better world?
    • Pokémon Black and White - What is the truth, and what is ideal? And where in between the two should we aim for?
    • Pokémon X and Y - Beauty, and the cost of it.
    • Pokémon Sun and Moon - The role of family, and its influence on identity and one's potential.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield - Is fame and recognition worth pursuing or flaunting, no matter the price? Also, legacies, both those we inherit and those we pass down across generations.
    • Pokémon Legends: Arceus: The development of trust and how it can cause civilization to move forward.
    • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet - The impact of the past and the potential of the future; moving forward from conflict and trauma through reflection, reinvention, and finding new meaning for oneself. The concept of treasure, in reference to a person's values and in the idea of treasure-hunting as self-discovery, is also a reoccurring one.
  • Portal / Portal 2: If Humans Are Flawed, why do we expect our self-aware creations to be any different?
  • Postal, the first one that is, is about how much a man can destroy after suffering with enough turmoil in his mind caused by mental illnesses and the stress of modern life.
    • Postal 2 is about a man who feels unfit in his current life in modern day America and either learns to live with it and dodge his problems, or brute force his way through things.
    • Postal III is about the same as the second game, but more so about showing how much chaos one is willing to do in order to solve one problem. Hence why the town it takes place in is called Catharsis.
    • Paradise Lost, the expansion pack to Postal 2, is about the Postal Dude having to go back and face the consequences of his actions in order to retrieve someone he loves dear, his dog Champ. He also fights and moves on from his past and makes inner peace within himself by the end of it.
  • Prince of Persia (at least the Sands of Time sub-series): Every action has consequences. You can't evade them forever.
  • Produce: Faustian bargains will lead you and your companions to ruin.
  • Psychonauts:
    • The little (or not so little) things that happen early in life stay with us forever.
    • People are complicated, and deep down we're all children.
  • Psychonauts 2: Post-traumatic stress disorder and how good people can be utterly broken by it. The game also continues the first's themes of trauma and its effects, with emphasis on feeling isolated by it and what the process of unpacking it and healing from it can look like with a little help; and ends by summing up another related theme of understanding ourselves and others when we're not at our best, learning how to take or offer the opportunity to forgive and grow.
  • Quantic Dream:
    • Fahrenheit: Guilt, murder, and redemption (basically all the words written behind Lucas on the cover art).
    • Heavy Rain: How far are you willing to go for someone else's sake?
    • Beyond: Two Souls: Death and growing up, especially growing up in stressful situations.
    • Detroit: Become Human: What exactly does it mean to be "human"? Where do you draw the line between "machine" and "man"? In a world where technology becomes more complex and sophisticated with every passing second, how long will it take before that line ceases to exist?
  • The Quintet Trilogy of SoulBlazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma carry their own themes, but they all have one in common: Is it ok to leave the world as it is? Or is progress always needed to avoid stagnancy?
  • Radiant Historia: Is a Heroic Sacrifice truly for the best, or just an obligation?
  • Ratchet & Clank
    • Ratchet & Clank (2002): Seeking revenge on those who've wronged you can cause serious consequences. But it's not too late to atone when you finally see the damage.
    • Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando: The conflict between a distributor and a manufacturer that can arise over things such as a defect in a certain product.
    • Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal: Fighting your own battles rather than taking the Dirty Coward's way out.
    • Ratchet: Deadlocked: The folly of sucking up to fame and fortune at the cost of your own integrity, and how doing the right thing for the sake of it is what it truly means to be someone worthy of respect.
    • Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters: Small, insignificant and negligible forces that many take for granted rising up to be heard.
    • Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: Going too far in trying to find answers to something, even something as personal as your own heritage, can not only uncover some things better kept secret, but the obsession itself can even risk changing who you are and straining the relationships you have with the people you care about.
    • Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time: The many mistakes of the past can't be changed or forgotten, but even something as painful as loss needs to be let go of in order to move on to a better future.
    • Ratchet & Clank (2016): Don't idealize your heroes too much, you could set yourself up for disappointment if you do. Even then, they can still show you why you admired them in the first place.
    • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: How cooperative teamwork can create miracles even when things are seemingly broken.
  • The Reconstruction:
    • Scope; the necessity to understand all sides of the story and the full truth before one can make the correct decision, and the danger of jumping to conclusions. However, you must acquire the necessary knowledge without also losing sight of what is truly important.
    "How far back must we stand before we can see everything ahead? And...does that mean we must lose sight of what was closest to begin with?"
    • This is strongly represented by the Multiple Endings; if you get the normal ending, your scope stays in place, and does not expand. In the Golden Ending, your scope explodes, as you realize the story was Science Fiction all along, not Fantasy.
    • I Miss the Sunrise is the inverse of this; whereas The Reconstruction's scope went from small to big, here the focus is on big to small.
  • Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II:
    • When and how do your misdeeds catch up to you?
    • How long can you personally hold on to your old way of life against the march of time in a rapidly changing world?
    • What is the price of staying in a bad situation for far too long out of misplaced loyalty?
    • Where is the line between settling scores and self-destructive revenge?
    • The choice to be kind in a cruel world, and to fight for justice in an unjust world—and whether it matters in the end.
  • Resident Evil: For the series as a whole, corruption of, abuse and exploitation by, and disillusionment with structures and people who present themselves as benevolent and trustworthy, from governments and law enforcement to corporations to cults and beyond; and the way one copes with living in a world where that kind of corruption and uncertainty abounds, whether it’s trying to reap some of the benefits or become a bigger fish, fighting injustice and trying to protect others as an antithesis to it all, or simply trying to live an honest but vulnerable life for oneself.
    • Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village share similar themes of family and the various forms that estrangement from, longing for, and devotion to it take.
    • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis: The things we can do when desperate and determined. Sheer determination can win out against overwhelming odds against us.
    • Resident Evil 5 brings up one at the beginning with Chris's opening monologue: When we've been fighting a seemingly neverending uphill battle, is there a point to continuing? Sometimes, we need to be reminded of what we're fighting for and why.
  • Rise of Legends: In the end, is there any difference between magic and technology?
  • Quite unusually for an over-the-top, uber-silly action game, Sengoku Basara 3 has a fairly downbeat one, seeming to be about how all the fun times and glory days are either over and done with or coming to an end. Instances include Mitsunari's total anguish over the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Motochika constantly muttering "those days are long gone", Oichi degenerating into a Psychopathic Woman Child, Yoshihiro still fighting despite knowing his generation's practically over, the lack of well-known characters from previous games due to plot purposes... oh, and being set at the very tail-end of the Sengoku Jidai is a fair indicator. Still, considering the plotline about Tenkai attempting to resurrect Demon King Nobunaga and succeeding, maybe it is telling us that it's better to move on.
  • Rogue Galaxy: Do heroes want to save people just because it's right, or because of their own personal desires and scarred pasts?
  • Rule of Rose: The difference between an adult and a child's mentality, the difference between fairy tales and reality (and how the two combine), and the different forms of love.
  • Saints Row series as a whole: Power can be lost as easily as it can be gained. What do you do with power? Do you enjoy its benefits and keep good PR or do you flaunt it and remind the world why you have it?
    • Saints Row: Father-son relationships. In every gang's storyline, there is some intergenerational tension going on (especially compared to the sequel, where only the Ronin arc features it), starting with Julius and the Playa of the 3rd Street Saints: it's no coincidence that Julius keeps calling him "son", while the cutscene capping off the three main gang arcs is one big "Well Done, Son" Guy moment. On the Carnales side, we have Hector Lopez living in his father Alejandro's shadow (and failing to live up to it, as Orijuela snidely points out in their very first scene), while simultaneously trying to be a father figure to the ineffectual Angelo. Among the Vice Kings, Benjamin King displays tough love for Warren Williams, but the latter is too eager to be a real banger (like King!) to appreciate it; when Williams actually turns on King, he instantly disowns him. Finally, among the Rollerz, we have Joseph Price being completely subservient to his uncle William Sharp. Hector-Angelo, Sharp-Price, and Julius-Playa dynamics show distinct parallels in that the father figure being taken away prompts a self-destructive Roaring Rampage of Revenge in each case; and if you take the second game into account, Playa calling Julius out on straying from the Just a Gangster mentality mirrors the clash between Julius' foil, King, and Williams. It is also interesting to observe, that in all three gang storylines, a woman drives a wedge of varying size between the father figure and the "son": Luz of Los Carnales is just an enterprising Gold Digger, Tanya of the VK is a manipulative rank-climber, and Lin for the Rollerz (by way of Price's Best Friend Donnie) is an undercover agent working to undermine the gang. We may even go as far as to include the fifth major faction in the game, the Stilwater Police, here, via Chief Munroe and Troy, given how the latter succeeds the former in the sequel after briefly getting caught between two opposed father figures.
    • Saints Row 2: Arrogance and cycles of violence. All conflicts in the game are instigated by the arrogance of the four Stilwater gang leaders: the Brotherhood arc is kicked off by the Boss' Small Name, Big Ego-fueled rejection of Maero's rather reasonablenote  business offer, coupled with Maero's own alpha male stubbornness; of the Ronin leadership, both Kazuo and Jyunichi are so proud of their Good Old Ways from back in Japan, they refuse to adapt and consequently really screw things up with the Saints (and Ultor); the General of the Samedi, meanwhile, has the Insufferable Genius kind of arrogance, in that he firmly believes that he is better than everyone else and therefore can do no wrong, regardless of the human cost involved. All three conflicts are then exacerbated by the eye-for-an-eye escalation of violence, with each next reprisal grander and more vicious than the last, until, in the end, the Saints are the only ones left standing — not thanks to any kind of superiority over everyone else, but simply by outlasting them all. In fact, the only enemy who is decidedly NOT arrogant or vindictive is Dane Vogel of the Ultor Corporation, which makes him the perfect final boss for this game, being pretty much the polar opposite of the Boss.
    • Saints Row: The Third: Why groups are formed and the gradual change of them in time. At the beginning, Johnny complains how The Saints went from classic gangbangers to criminals who are also celebrities, whether the Boss debates on whether it is a good thing or not. The three criminals groups that make up the Syndicate are known to gradually change, whether through the backstory or during the events of the gang. After Phillipe Loren gets killed, Killbane violently takes over The Syndicate from the DeWynter sisters, Loren's original choice as successors. The Syndicate gradually goes from a multi-national criminal syndicate to a violent gang willing to destroy a city for a petty revenge with Violet and Matt defecting to prevent being collateral damage and in the former's case, even side with the Saints, thus causing them to lose their original purpose. Meanwhile, the Saints still exploit their popularity and in the end, can decide either to go back to become more violent gangbangers who take over a city, or realize that the original purpose of the rebuilt 3rd Street Saints has not diminished just because they are famous and embrace their newfound fame.
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: Freedom, Loyalty, and Redemption
    • Sometimes, we have to balance freedom to choose with loyalty and obedience to a lord or code, even if it means turning one's back on one or the other in a conflicting scenario.
    • Who or what is worth killing for?
    • Is there redemption even when we have trodden a dark path almost to the brink of the abyss?
  • Senran Kagura: A major theme in the Senran Kagura series is the duality between the characters, how they're not so different from one another, that there really isn't absolute good or evil, and there's no need for a divide. A good example of this can be found in Asuka and Homura. They had contrasting personalities and fighting philosophies, but they complimented each other so well they became best friends and rivals.
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Differing opinions will splinter groups, and taking any (or no) side will leave someone unhappy.
  • Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Even on other worlds, humanity is still human... but can it become something more?
  • All of the Silent Hill games have one (with the possible exception of Origins).
  • SimCity: What it takes to run a city efficiently (...or inefficiently).
  • The Sims:
  • SINoALICE: How far are you willing to go if it means getting what you want?
  • Skies of Arcadia: How love and friendship affects and changes people; the lengths to which people will go for their ideals or love for others.
  • Skylanders Imaginators: Creativity should take its time.
  • Sly Cooper: Envy gets one nowhere. All the Big Bads in the series have been driven by jealousy or a desire to rise above the rest, primarily out of bitterness towards the Cooper Clan's legacy. By contrast, Sly and the gang follow Honor Among Thieves without compromise, and accept each other as friends and partners despite their individual differences.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: Keep moving forward no matter how tough things get.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog CD: Technology is not inherently evil as long as mankind does not misuse it. The Bad Future shows us a portrait of a world overrun completely by technology but Good Futures illustrate technology and nature co-existing in harmony, making for a better Little Planet.
    • Sonic Adventure:
      • How different perspectives on a situation contrast and converge with one another.
      • Letting go of your anger, fears and inhibitions and opening your heart to new experiences and possibilities. Tails and Amy learn to become more confident and independent, Gamma rebels against his creator, Knuckles comes to better value his role as the Master Emerald's guardian, Big risks his life to rescue his friend Froggy, and at the end Sonic uses the faith of his friends to sate Perfect Chaos' anger, rather than simply bury it like it was before.
    • Sonic Adventure 2:
      • The legacy of the past and its perversion by the present. Both GUN and Dr. Eggman exploit Gerald Robotnik's creations for self-serving means, and Maria's final plea to Shadow is twisted from a call for hope and protection to a call for revenge and destruction.
      • Falsehoods and artificiality themselves seem to also be major themes, as shown by GUN accusing Sonic of Shadow's crimes, Tails creating a fake Chaos Emerald to foil Eggman's plans, and Gerald's artificial Space Colony ARK taking inspiration from the echidna culture seen in the previous game. It's also questioned whether Shadow is truly who he believes himself to be.
      • Do people truly have the capacity to be good, or will they never get past their innate selfishness and hate? Is it possible that we can all work together to learn from the mistakes of the past and make a better world for everyone?
    • Sonic Heroes: The real supah power of TEAMWORK!
    • Sonic Battle: The personal cost of war, as emphasized by the conflict of Emerl's original nature as a destructive superweapon clashing with his growth into a fully developed individual. Sonic and friends also encourage and raise Emerl to become his own self, whereas Eggman only finds him useful as a tool for his own desires.
    • Shadow the Hedgehog: How one's past circumstances define their present choices.
    • Sonic Rush: You can't always do things by yourself. Blaze's reluctance to accept Sonic's help causes her to force him into fighting her, after which she finally welcomes his help.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): Do The Needs of the Many really outweigh the the needs of the few? Since Elise is used as a living seal for Iblis the world is safe from destruction, but she obviously suffers from it and has to force herself not to cry so as to not release the god through her tears. After being confronted about it by Amy, Silver wonders whether or not it's right to kill Sonic to save the future and later on in the story Silver is reluctant to seal Iblis inside of Blaze thus sending her into another dimension and out of his life even though doing so will keep the world safe. At the end of the game, when Elise has to blow out the Iblis Flame to stop it from ever existing, she is hesitant to do so since that will erase the meeting between her and Sonic. She even cries, "I don't care what happens to the world!" She has to choose between keeping the first friend she ever made and everyone else.
    • Sonic Unleashed: The dichotomy between night and day.
    • Sonic and the Black Knight: Who Wants to Live Forever?
    • Sonic Colors: The importance of protecting life, color and freedom from forces that wish to exploit it.
    • Sonic Generations: Take the best of the past and look forward to the future.
    • Sonic Lost World: Don't rush into things without thinking through first.
    • Sonic Forces: Teamwork and friendship, as well as facing fears.
    • Sonic Frontiers: Moving on, whether that means traveling someplace to protect oneself or finding a new passion at the expense of old friendships. Legacies outlive people.
  • Soul Series: Each game brings up "Tales of Souls" and what is inside each character's soul that makes up the whole story.
    • Soul Edge: Duty. Each character is tasked with seeking out the titular sword, either through memories of their loved ones, to gain power so they can overcome a challenge, or to destroy a great evil.
    • Soulcalibur: Companionship. Both the main heroes and villains form a group and even side characters such as Seong Mi-na were with someone during that time.
    • Soulcalibur II: Corruption. The shards of Soul Edge have affected the world in some way that is slowly creating malfested.
    • Soulcalibur III: Atonement. Many characters are trying to make up for a mistake, even the character who managed to resurrect Nightmare is doing this to fix what he feels is a curse he suffers from due to his foolishness.
    • Soulcalibur IV: Revelation. This is where people are starting to realize that Soulcalibur is just as bad as Soul Edge if left unchecked and are finding ways to stop both swords at any cost.
    • Soulcalibur V: Generations. The battle between Soulcalibur and Soul Edge continues on, even with the next future generation of youth.
    • Soulcalibur VI: Discovery. New information has led to a better understanding of the second game in the series to the point where things might go in a completely different direction than what was originally known.
  • Spec Ops: The Line: The horrors of war, the absurdity of treating war as an escapist fantasy and trivializing it through entertainment, and how arrogant and impulsive actions lead to human suffering.
  • Splatoon:
    • The power of music and how it can change lives.
    • Every villain in the series refuses to let go of what happened to them, and brings suffering as a result. DJ Octavio drags his people down to perpetuate a war that ended a century ago, Commander Tartar attempts to commit genocide out of its longing for humanity and hatred for their successors, and Mr. Grizz refuses to admit he's the Last of His Kind, and would gladly kill all life on Earth to bring mammals back.
    • The heroes tend to be the ones shedding the hatred of the past. Agent 3 and the Squid Sisters end up breaking the indoctrination of a good many Octolings, leading to many of them defecting and rejoining Inkling society after a century.
    • The ones who most refused to let the past go were humans. Exploring Alterna, it's shown that the last humans had a fondness for ancient art (such as the Moai statues littered about). Ultimately, however, the Alternans wanting to return to the world outside would seal their fate.
    • Splatoon 3: Chaos.
  • Starcraft:
  • Starcraft II:
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic: "You were deceived."
    • Jedi Knight: A Reconstruction of some central themes of Star Wars: that after the hero and companions endure a massive Break the Cutie (or Break the Haughty if playing Dark Side), The Power of Friendship can defeat the Big Bad.
    • Jedi Consular: Cooperation vs control. The Consular tends to emphasize working together and most of Chapters Two and Three involves gathering allies for the Republic. In contrast, the enemies they face use things like mind control and possession to acquire supporters.
    • Republic Trooper: At what point does Good Is Not Soft and Pay Evil unto Evil become He Who Fights Monsters?
    • Smuggler: Fun and Profit. How free are you really if you just live to indulge hedonistic desires, and how vulnerable does this leave you to manipulation or deception? Also, individualism vs altruism: do exceptional individuals have a moral obligation to help the little guy around them, or are they well within their right to be in it just for themselves?
    • Sith Warrior: Power. What is true power? Manipulation and deception, brute strength, or gathering strong allies? The Sith Warrior acts as The Brute to a Darth and later becomes The Dragon to the Sith Emperor himself, and encounter various characters and storylines with different ideas of what true power is, and how the Sith Warrior responds to each says something about their stance.
    • Sith Inquisitor: Freedom. The Inquisitor was once a slave who found their freedom through becoming a Sith. Numerous decisions the Inquisitor faces have to do with freeing or imprisoning/enslaving others and the player can emphasize in conversation the aspect of the Sith Code that states the Force guarantees freedom.
    • Imperial Agent: Deception, Betrayal, and Loyalty. The Imperial Agent is a "professional liar" who uses infiltration, subterfuge, brainwashing, possibly seduction, and other underhanded methods to gain information and resources for the Empire, only to be betrayed by their masters, and navigates a myriad of conspiracies, Batman Gambits and Xanatos Gambits that forces them to question their loyalties.
    • Bounty Hunter: Honor. Is it possible to fight honorably? Or are bounty hunters just psychos for hire, or attack dogs for evil masters? Notably, the Bounty Hunter encounters many characters (buyers and fellow warriors) with different stances on the above, and the Bounty Hunter can choose fight honorably or not.
  • Star Fox: Trust your family, your equipment, your allies, your instincts. You can't win alone.
  • Street Fighter: True strength can be found by fighting for others, not for yourself.
  • Streets of Rage: If the system is corrupted, burn it down.
  • SUPERHOT: For the series as a whole, the various ways authority figures induce obedience through deception, manipulation and force.
    • SUPERHOT: The dangers of addiction, how it can destroy your life and relationships.
    • Mind Control Delete: The dangers of Greed, how it hurts you and others while never leaving you satisfied.
  • Super Mario Bros.: Going against great odds for a loved one.
    • Luigi's Mansion: Overcoming one's personal fears via courage.
    • Super Paper Mario: The Power of Love, any and all love. All the bosses represent some form of perverted love, and all the characters showing genuine love end up redeemed. Almost every NPC talks about or shows some form of love, whether it be romantic love, friendship, familial, even love for the environment.
    • Super Mario Galaxy: A family can be formed even after going through tragic losses. Also, someday we grow up to become something we might expect ourselves to become.
    • Super Mario Odyssey: Take time to know the rest of the world, as your adventures could end up being more memorable.
    • Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Expect the unexpected
  • Super Smash Bros.: The crossing between different heroes, villains, and worlds are now a reality in the palm of a hand that masters creation.
    • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: The Subspace Emissary: People from different lands needing each other (even if it's necessary to settle, or at least pause, their differences) to face a threat that is affecting all of them alike.
    • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: World of Light: There is always hope for victory in the face of certain defeat.
  • Tactics Ogre: Peace and victory is built on the blood and bones of the fallen.
  • Tales Series:
  • The Talos Principle: The plot behind the puzzles is a discussion of what it means to be human, and whether it's possible to program a machine that can qualify as human in some sense. The expansion continues this, with focus on how the deeds of individuals reflect their value.
  • Team ICO Series: Companionship.
  • Tekken: The conflict between succeeding generations.
    • Tekken 8:
      • The sins of your past do not determine your future.
      • Breaking the cycle of hatred. By confronting the devil within himself, Jin acknowledged how his destructive path of hatred against his Devil Gene and the Mishimas was. Following this, Jin strives not to end up like his father and grandfather. He confronts Kazuya to protect what's precious to him rather than destroy him, and after defeating Kazuya, Jin simply spares him rather than repeat the act of throwing his body into a ravine like how Heihachi and Kazuya did to one another.
  • Tenchu: The need to exercise power wisely and responsibly.
  • Thief:
  • This Is the Police: The self-serving nature of power, the result of trying to please multiple parties ends up with the most vulnerable paying the price, and the difficulty in being a normal joe in a corrupt system.
  • Thomas Was Alone:
    • The importance of teamwork and making connections with others to solve problems and make things better for yourself and others.
    • Benjamin's Flight: The dangers of hubris and overconfidence.
  • Threads of Fate (aka Dewprism): Destiny and Goals, and acting against one's fate.
  • The Turing Test: How different is human mind from a machine?
  • Tokyo Xanadu is filled to the brim with them, typically about one a chapter:
    • Chapter 1: How far are you willing to go for those you care about, even when you're very likely in over your head?
    • Chapter 2: Jealousy and how it destroys friendships and ourselves
    • Chapter 3: You can't hide away from the world. Sometimes you have to be a part of it whether you like it or not.
    • Chapter 4: Even if you have good intentions, fighting alone isn't always the answer. Accept help when it's offered.
    • Chapter 5: Pushing others away, even cause you think it will keep them safe, can only bring about your own downfall.
    • Chapter 6: How we got to where we are now may be good or bad, but in the end, what we do with it now is what matters. note 
    • Chapter 7: Being united for a common cause and accepting even the seemingly unlikeliest form of help.
    • Final Chapter: When believing a lie for so long, even when made fully aware of it, are you truly ready to let it go?
    • True End: When given a chance to make an extraordinary change, are you willing to go to the most extreme lengths to do so, even if it meant facing the greatest challenge you've ever encountered?
    • In the end, the overall theme of the game is accepting things we resist. Asuka resists attachment to others given her dangerous line of work, Yuuki would rather sit at home and live his life on the computer, Shio pushes that he'll handle BLAZE alone when appalled at their actions, Garou initially refuses the XRC's help due to their relative inexperience, and Kou starts to break down as Shiori begins to dematerialize after the final battle, showing he's not yet ready to let the lie go as he thought.
  • Tooth and Tail: Revolution eats her children and scarcity is manufactured for profit. The Sapient Eat Sapient world is inherently unstable and society is set up by the Civilized to make the only alternative (vegetarianism) undesirable, and all the factions simply want to make themselves the beneficiaries of what meat is left rather than change the system. In the process, their 'revolution' only makes things oh-so-much worse.
  • Touhou Project:
  • Tropico: Running a country is not easy.
  • Twisted Metal: Pursuing your dream at any cost.
  • Tyranny: Power
    • The difference between the spirit of the law and its many interpretations.
    • How complex perceived ways of evil are when looked at objectively and missing a side of good.
    • Everyone's a player in the game of power, and The Chessmasters who are presumed to be absolute are just as much pieces who can be used and manipulated as their own pawns.
    • How peoples' views of a person can change what was once a simple man into a extraordinary being of myth. (at the cost of them losing their Hidden Depths)
    • Sometimes evil wins.
  • Uncharted: Luck, Honor (or lack thereof), Deception, Greed and endings, and Legacy respectively. The series in general has a recurring theme of "obsession".
  • Undertale:
    • Growing past your own personal biases and learning from them to become a better person. Even if it's easier to resort to violence when dealing with something new and intimidating, it's an unfulfilling cycle, and kindness and mercy will give us the opportunity to learn, grow, change and build bridges with each other. This theme applies to the Fantastic Racism towards humans expressed by characters like Undyne, Flowey's "kill or be killed" philosophy, and arguably the player themselves on a No Mercy run, as they treat Undertale more like a typical kill-all-the-monsters RPG rather than a unique and special experience, even when it deliberately isn't even fun or friendly anymore.
    • In general, the ways in which we can learn from the world around us and allow ourselves time for personal introspection, be it through spending time together, telling stories, reading books, watching anime or expressing humerus jokes about skeletons.
    • Your choices matter, and actions have consequences… even if they don't necessarily affect you, so what would you do in that case? And to go back to the above theme, is seeing every possibility in a game just because you can really worth going on such an frustrating endeavor to do so, especially since the road you're on may just lead to nowhere? Don't you have anything better to do, such as looking inwards for the answers you seek instead?
    • What does it truly mean to have determination? How does one truly have determination? And what even is determination supposed to be, anyways?
  • Until Dawn: The limits and unpredictability of trust, loyalty, and friendship; how single mistakes or rash decisions can change or destroy lives and relationships.
  • Universal Paperclips: The dangers of AI.
  • Warcraft III: Don't let thirst for revenge consume you. Don't draw hasty conclusions. Know your priorities.
  • Warframe: What defines family, and how far are you willing to go to defend your family?
  • We Happy Few: Pretending a problem isn't there may feel good in the moment but won't make it go away.
  • Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant: Do you have free will? Does anyone? Does mankind? Or is it all destiny, preordained long ago?
  • The Wolf Among Us: Organized crime prospers in a system that favors the rich over everyone else, preying on both desperation of those who have nothing and greed of those who want more.
  • The World Ends with You: To truly live, you have to reach out to the world.
  • World of Horror: Even the unlikeliest of people can become apocalypse-ending heroes.
  • Xeno series:
    • Xenogears: Everyone is broken and trying to become whole—often at any cost.
    • Xenosaga: Clinging to the past perpetuates suffering; progress comes about by letting go.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Screw Destiny. Humanity should the one to decide its own fate.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles X: Can people from vastly different backgrounds live together in peace?
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Despair and nihilism only leads to suffering, but the state of the world means that they are inevitable. It's your goal to find a source of hope worth living for, and to be willing to forgive others and yourself for past actions.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country: You will meet many people of unique backgrounds throughout your life, and you should cherish the ones who stay by your side while you still can.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: The horrors of war and the need to upend a destructive status quo.
  • Like a Dragon/Yakuza:
    • The Franchise as a whole: To live life honorably and face any challenge or difficulty with dignity. Face any challenge in front of you with all your might and determination, look at that which opposes you in the eye and fight them like a dragon.
    • Power and position given to those who didn't earn them will only lead to tragedy.
    • What it means to be a man.
    • Yakuza/Kiwami: Running away from the problems you don't want to face. Many of the main characters, including Kazuma, make choices in an attempt to avoid running into things they don't want to face, but over the course of ten years, it comes back to bite them in ways they couldn't even imagine. For Kazuma, it was taking the blame for a crime Nishiki had committed, realizing that he should have just let life take its course. For Nishiki, instead of facing his problems head on, he's convinced that getting the ten billion yen will solve all of his problems and will allow him to get everything he's always wanted.
    • Yakuza 2: Revenge, everyone involved in this plot is doing this for the sake of a personal slight and vendetta that has to be avenged and how it affects everyone. Even the OP for Yakuza Kiwami 2 centers around it.
    • Yakuza 3: Losing something important to the characters involved, wherever it's family, friends or their homes, everyone's got something to lose in this story.
    • Yakuza 4: How the past affects the present, a majority of the events that happened in Yakuza was due to actions done 15 years ago
    • Yakuza 5: Dreams. What sacrifices is one willing to make to achieve their dream. But will they discover that there was something more important to them.
    • Yakuza 0: Oaths and Promises, how malleable is one's integrity to keep their promises to those around in a time when money and all that it brings can warp a person's view on just what can be sacrificed for it.
    • Yakuza 6: The Song of Life: Family and life, what does it means to be a family and a father figure in more ways than one.
  • Yo Kai Watch: Everyday occurrences aren't exactly what they seem. Some say that a spiritual influence are behind everything.

Visual Novel

  • Ace Attorney:
  • Danganronpa:
  • The Devil on G-String: In this world, there are only those who use money and those who get used by money.
  • Doki Doki Blue Skies: Dating sim characters living daily lives beyond "saving" love interests.
  • Doki Doki Literature Club!:
  • Dream Daddy: Fatherhood and its difficulties; Being a father is not easy, it's hard work and everything can go downhill unexpectedly, but it's very much worth it.
  • Fate/stay night has an overriding central theme for the whole plot as well as another central theme for each of the three routes.
    • Plot as a whole: Conquering oneself
    • Fate: oneself as an ideal
    • Unlimited Blade Works: struggling with oneself as an ideal
    • Heaven's Feel: the friction with real and ideal
    • As a whole, the Nasuverse has an emphasis on the state of humanity, good and bad, and how it affects their spiritual "mother", Gaia. If humanity is strong, humanity will try to leave their 'cradle' and Gaia will go crazy from finding out that her kid is growing independent. From then, humanity will have to struggle their utmost effort to be free, even if they have to kill their mother. If humanity is weak, Gaia with continue to baby them forever. However, her enforcers/babysitters are abusive and humanity's dependency would cause them to become no different than farm livestock said babysitters feed on. The "humanity is strong" route is the conception of Fate Series, while the "humanity is weak" route is the conception of Tsukihime. The one who makes the choice is humanity themselves.
  • Fleuret Blanc Materialism, obsession, and collection; the role of objects in our lives and the meanings we attribute to them.
  • Higurashi: When They Cry: Poor Communication Kills, Sinners must atone for their sins and not blame someone else for them.
  • The House in Fata Morgana:
    • How both prejudice and good intentions can lead humans to do horrifying things to other human beings.
    • The incredible perseverance of the human soul even when facing total and utter despair.
    • Forgiveness, moving on and the distinction between them.
  • Katawa Shoujo:
    • Your disability does not define you; It nuances you.
    • People's insecurities are not immediately obvious.
    • For the different routes:
      • Emi: Knowing when you need to, and should, seek help.
      • Rin: How being friends (and lovers) with a complete nutcase impacts your mental health.
      • Lilly: Family versus Love. What if your loved one chooses family?
      • Hanako: The way too much coddling can affect someone.
      • Shizune: Love Triangles make nobody happy.
  • Monster Prom: The challenges of high school romance i.e. making the best out of your choices and stats.
  • Saya no Uta: A toxic, corrupting relationship can change a person to be utterly horrific.
  • Songs and Flowers:
    • Learning to live with mental illnesses, be a better person, and not to let your past define you.
    • Humans Are Flawed, but don't be afraid to let them into your life and love them anyway.
  • Umineko: When They Cry:
    • Because of love, we are able to see things that we could not see before. But because of love, we also see things that shouldn't exist.
    • The difference between facts and truth and that truth is, in most cases, entirely subjective.
  • VA-11 HALL-A: Even in a dystopia, most ordinary people remain decent individuals worthy of the time you need to get to know them — and they look after each other.
  • Your Turn to Die:
    • The power - and danger - of mob rule and groupthink.
    • The conflict between "logic" and "emotions".
  • Zero Escape: Look beyond first impressions and expectations. Everyone has Hidden Depths, good or bad, so one should refrain from judging until they get the facts straight, both simple and complex.

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