Continuity Snarl / Video Games

Continuity Snarls in video games.

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• 007 Legends attempted to bridge the rebooted Daniel Craig-era continuity with stories from the classic films, but did so in a way that was at odds with the established revised continuity, leading to this trope (and eventually leaving it in Canon Discontinuity territory following the release of Spectre):
  • Bond is established as having fallen in love with and married an Expy of Tracy from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in a plotline that has her die after a drive-by shooting, seemingly between the events of Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, yet she is never mentioned by either M (voiced here by Judi Dench, who does comment on the marriage, unlike the film) or Bond himself.
  • Blofeld is established as being an amalgam of versions of different actors who played the character (Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas and Charles Gray) in the original continuity, who is seemingly killed by Bond (who has been made aware of SPECTRE early) before the game ends. As of Spectre, Blofeld has a completely different appearance (and actor), is established as having been hidden in the shadows long before the events of said film, and has a completely different origin and connection to Bond.
  • Felix Leiter is portrayed and voiced by Demetri Goritsas, a Caucasian actor, yet in Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace, Leiter was played by Jeffrey Wright, an African-American actor. The game makes no attempt to acknowledge or even lampshade this, despite getting a large number of other actors back (or giving them sound-alikes) for the game.
• While Aliens: Colonial Marines has some continuity problems with that of the film series it draws from, the Stasis Interrupted DLC in particular introduces so many snarls within a single scene (the introduction of Dwayne Hicks and the events leading to the EEV ejection) that it deserves its own entry:
  • The third film presents a situation where a facehugger egg was laid by the Alien Queen somewhere on the ship. While various sources have tried to pin down the location of said egg (to varying success), the game presents a situation where it was placed in the hypersleep chamber — a sealed-off room connected adjacent to the Sulaco's loading bay. This creates a Voodoo Shark situation, as the location of the egg as presented is both logistically (the Queen couldn't have been able to reach into another room, through two doors, and place an egg on the far wall of the chamber) and narratively (as at least one character was watching her from the moment she exited the Smart Ass dropship in the film) impossible.
  • The hypersleep chamber has no evidence of fire damage, despite being burned so irrevocably in the film (as a result of the facehugger causing a fire as it attempted to break into one of the chambers) that it required an evacuation of the EEV module to save the crew. In the game, the facehugger never detaches itself from Ripley, and the cryopods are ejected due to a gunfight that breaks out between Stone, Turk, and the W-Y commandos.
  • Corporal Hicks is woken out of cryosleep wearing a green t-shirt and pants, whereas he went into cryosleep in a previous film wearing only bandages and a different pair of pants. Meanwhile, Turk (one of the colonists from the Legato) is wearing bandages in exactly the same placement as the former character, and gets thrown into said character's cryotube before the EEV is ejected. Were it not for the fact that his head was conveniently crushed by a support beam, he would have caused a stir once the other survivor of the EEV crash discovered him instead of Corporal Hicks in the cryopod. Conversely, Hicks is still wearing his dogs during the rest of the DLC and the main game, despite said dogtags being recovered from his cryopod in the third film.
  • Ripley still has a facehugger attached to her as she is loaded into the EEV, even though in the film, the audience sees that the facehugger has already detached from her by the time her cryopod goes down into the EEV.
  • Most notably, even though Bishop in the third film reveals he was connected to the ship's flight recorder while in stasis (which is how he knows there was a facehugger aboard the Sulaco), Colonial Marines neglects to introduce a reason that he wouldn't also know that another ship (the USS Legato) docked with the Sulaco, that Corporal Hicks was woken from cryosleep or that the pods were ejected due to a firefight in the hypersleep chamber.
• Baldur's Gate:
  • When a Bhaalspawn dies, the body dissolves and the divine essence goes to fuel Bhaal's resurrection. This is showed by the cutscene when the protagonist dies, and the epilogue of the first Baldur's Gate Sarevok's death, with both turning to dust. Comes Baldur's Gate II and we discover that Imoen is a Bhaalspawn too, despite she could have died and been resurrected many times in the first game as any other normal character. Even more egregious is that the regular mechianics continue anyway, even after her soul was stolen. While you must reload if you die, because you can't be resurrected, she can undergo the process whenever you want.
  • This is even lampshaded in a banter in the expansion Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, where it is established that the soul of a former Bhaalspawn can be resurrected through special means but would not carry anymore divine essence and be a normal mortal. Imoen asks to Sarevok how it feels to die, and he sarcastically answers that she should already know considering how weak he sees her, after which she acknowledges that her experience is a different thing as it is like simply seeing black and then suddenly awakening somewhere else (even if during your playthrough she never died at all!). She is still a Bhaalspawn that can die and be resurrected infinite times, anyway, until the epilogue when she chooses to relinquish her divine essence.
  • Baldur's Gate II established that at some point Imoen dual classed to a mage/thief, ignoring if you never dual classed her in first instance. Many players complained through the years the lack of choice in this, but BG2 was released in 2000 after all, when transfer of savegame statuses was in its infancy (the fact you could export your protagonist was already seen as an incredible achievement back in the day). Then comes Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear in 2016, made by Beamdog. This expansion for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (not the original game by BioWare) establishes that Imoen decided to practice magic on her own with duke Jannah after Sarevok's death, and that's also the plot reason for why she can't follow you through the campaign. Unless you did indeed dual class her during BG1, even reaching the max level possible as a mage to sling powerful spells until the final battle... only to see the new campaign start with Imoen suddenly not being anymore available because she has to study magic otherwise she would only be a burden.
  • Siege of Dragonspear also made you travel into Avernus at some point, which makes all your travels in Hell or the Abyss in bg2 not look as surprising and unprecedented as they are portrayed in the latter game.
  • When the Murder in Baldur's Gate tabletop campaign was released by Wizards of the Coast, it totally ignored whichever epilogue the saga had. At the end of Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal the protagonist was the last carrier of Bhaal's essence left, and this is stated by a divine being who then asks you what you want to do: you could choose whether to embrace all the divine essence and ascend to godhood, or relinquish your part and become a normal mortal while Bhaal's essence was to be sealed forever. The plot ignition of Murder in Baldur's Gate is that the original protagonist survived as a mortal, became duke of Baldur's Gate, and then was assaulted by Viekang, a surviving Bhaalspawn. However, both transform into the Slayer, until only one survives. The players must kill the remaining one, which triggers Bhaal's resurrection because all of his children are now dead and so their essence fuels his return.
  • Baldur's Gate III by Larian introduces Orin, who is a Bhaalspawn, granddaughter of Sarevok and result of incest and the Dark Urge, a possible origin for the player character, who is a Bhaalspawn too. This despite Throne of Bhaal showed that children of Bhaalspawn didn't carry on the essence — it wouldn't even be a good plan to stir Bhaal's resurrection otherwise. All while having to acknowledge that the events of Murder in Baldur's Gate are canon, thus Bhaal is already alive (and this is explicitly referenced in the game, so all his essence already returned to him and there couldn't be more Bhaalspawn).
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War tries to establish a Shared Universe between the Black Ops continuity and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) with the appearance of a young Zakhaev. The problems with this? Cold War takes place in 1981, and we were shown a picture of Zakhaev in the Modern Warfare dated 1982, and he looks much, much older in the latter. The fact that Cold War is still supposedly in canon with Call of Duty: Black Ops II also means that Captain Price's world (2019) has only six years to change all its technology and turn into that of Black Ops 2 (2025), which strains credibility.
• The Dark Tales series of PC games have a minor form of this going on for anyone who attempts to figure out which ones happen when. Many of the games contain no dated information, although they're all set sometime in the 19th century. For a long time it was presumed that the games happened in the order in which they were released, but later games in the series which do contain dated information have made this rather impossible. The fact that C. Auguste Dupin's appearance has been altered over time doesn't help either, since he looks older in some games which logically should have happened before some of the games where he looks younger. One of the games (Lenore) even causes one of these within itself in the bonus chapter, where various documents give the year as both 1890 and 1895.
• There's a rather telling one between Dead Space and Dead Space 2; in the first game, the Red Marker is basically portrayed as benign and the key to stopping the Necromorphs, but in the second one, it's the active source of the Necromorph outbreak. Actually unsnarled (though partially through clue-fuelled deductions) in Dead Space 3: the Markers broadcast a signal that creates Necromorphs and, when their numbers reach a critical mass, causes them to amalgamate into a gargantuan alien life form called a "Brethren Moon". The constant rephrase of "Make Us Whole" from both of the Markers is them trying to compel enough people to die and become Necromorphs to create a new Brethren Moon. Isaac misinterpreted the Red Marker's pleas in the first game and inadvertently placed it upon a signal-dampening device that had been constructed when it was placed there two centuries earlier.
• There are several inconsistencies across the Diablo series, although most players pay so little attention to the story that they won't realise it.
  • It is said that Mephisto, along with Baal, was originally captured in the desert near Lut Gholein, and later moved to Kurast. In the Diablo III timeline it says: Mephisto is captured near the jungles of Kehjistan.
  • It is said that the Ancients are the spirits of the Nephalem, the Ancient Ones. But the Arreat Summit (the official DII website) says that they were barbarians chosen by the Ancients.
  • The writings of Abd al-Hazir say that the Tristram Cathedral was built around 912 over the vault where Diablo was imprisoned, but Diablo hadn't even been exiled to Sanctuary at that time.
  • The Diablo 1 manual says that after their exile, the Three Brothers ravaged the lands of the Far East for countless centuries; but in the game, it is stated that they did so for decades. In the current timeline, 50 years pass between their exile and capture.
  • Before he came to Khanduras, Leoric was originally a northern lord, but this has been changed to an eastern lord.
  • In the Sin War trilogy of novels the robes of the order of Dialon are azure, but they should be crimson. Meanwhile, the robes of the order of Mephis should be azure instead of black (to match the color of their Soulstone).
  • There are many errors in Scales of the Serpent, where the statue of Dialon has a hammer instead of tablets and where the one of Bala has tablets instead of a hammer.
  • In Scales of the Serpent, the high priest of Dialon is named Arihan and is said to have had his title for a long time; but in Birthright, all the high priests are named (Malic, Herodius, and Balthazar) and Arihan isn't part of them.
  • Abd al-Hazir mentions that Zoltun Kulle was a Vizjerei mage and as evidence cites the Demonicus de Zoltun Kulle. In the Book of Cain, Cain suspect Zoltun was an Ennead mage.
  • There's even something of a continuity snarl between Diablo II Classic and Lord of Destruction. The cinematics of Diablo II Classic says that Diablo was defeated for a while (long enough for the news to reach Marius, at least) before Baal found Marius, took his Soulstone back and burned the asylum down. But in Lord of Destruction, Tyrael says that while the hero was fighting in hell, i.e. before Diablo was defeated, Baal had been rallying his army and launching his assault on Mount Arreat, and had already taken over all but one of the barbarian strongholds; and Baal had already recovered his Soulstone by the time he had taken over Sescheron in the opening cinematic in Lord of Destruction. So... did Baal get his Soulstone back before or after Diablo was defeated? The official timeline rectifies this snarl: Diablo was defeated in late 1264, and Baal began his assault on Mount Arreat in early 1265, retconning Tyrael's statement and undoing the retcon on Marius's story.
• Dragon Age: There are a few inconsistencies regarding the Warden after Origins, as their potential choice in Witch Hunt clearly wasn't factored into the following entries.
  • The conclusion of Dragon Age II has Leliana claiming that the Warden and Hawke's disappearances are no coincidence and Cassandra says in Inquisition they thought they were connected after they couldn't find either of them. This is all well and good unless a Warden who romanced Morrigan goes through the Eluvian with her eight years ago at the end of Witch Hunt. So why did Cassandra and Leliana expect (or even bother trying) to find someone who had been missing for almost a decade, and why would they think their disappearances were connected if they'd have been five to eight years apart from each other?
  • During a King Alistair's visit to Kirkwall in Act 3 on a side quest, Teagan will claim, "The Hero of Ferelden should be back in Denerim by now." But at that point, they should be five years missing. 
  • Their codex in Inquisition if they survive the Fifth Blight is they served as commander for several years rebuilding the Order in Ferelden before disappearing, even though they pretty much left the Order and Ferelden altogether to be with Morrigan after holding the title for six months.
  • The after-mentioned also applies to a Warden who romances Zevran, as they left to reunite with him in Antiva and join him in his personal war against the Antivan Crows, taking them to places far outside of Ferelden. It is very unlikely the Warden would have had the time or means to have led an organization in another country.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In general, canon and continuity are almost meaningless concepts. Bethesda refuses to invalidate your choices about who your character is and what he/she does. Therefore, there is no definitive version of the Nerevarine/Champion/Dragonborn, etc. and very few canonized events (the main quest line usually being an exception).^note According to the developers, "all the quest chains present in the game happen, but not all are necessarily done by the [Player Character]." Additionally, all in-game information, books, and historical records are biased or otherwise unreliable or contradictory, with the implication that All Myths Are True and everyone is right in spite of the contradictions. From a meta-perspective, canon is complicated by the fact that the majority of the lore that elucidates the nature of the world of Tamriel comes from the work of an ex-dev and was written in an unofficial capacity after he left the studio. Many lore scholars within the fandom actually consider his work more canon than the published games themselves, and the fact that the games reference and quote these works adds to the confusion. Rather than become frustrated, fans tend to embrace this ambiguity as one of the more fascinating elements of the series.
  • These even happen in-universe, with Time Crash events known as "Dragon Breaks." Essentially, the Dragon God of Time (Akatosh) is tampered with in some way, causing him to "forget" the true course of events for a period of time, meaning that everything that possibly could have happened during said period of time does happen, even mutually exclusive events. The end result is that the reality of the world changes in some way, often radically. The "Warp in the West" which merged Daggerfall's Multiple Endings is one of the most famous Dragon Breaks.
• The treatment and statements about power armor in its various models in Fallout 4 creates a number of problems with continuity. Previously it had been established that the Brotherhood of Steel uses power armor models T-45 and T-51, which were both developed before the war. The Enclave has their own more advanced power armor (later designated X-01) which they explicitly developed after the war. Then Fallout 4 states that the X-01 is also from before the war, and introduces another pre-war model, the T-60, which is somehow slightly superior to even the X-01. There is an attempt to Hand Wave this by saying that the X-01 was in prototype stage before the war, and Enclave finished it, more than 150 years later. Another new oddity about the power armor is that they now require fusion cores for power, which can only run a power armor for about ten in-game hours at moderate activity, whereas in earlier games they were explicitly stated to have their own fusion reactors.
  • The game introduces Vault 95, whose purpose was to hold hundreds of drug addicts, cut them off completely when the war begins, then give them a huge stash of drugs 5 years later. One of the terminals inside mentions Jet as one of the drugs shipped into the vault, yet 2 introduced Jet as one of the few drugs made after the war (from mutated cow dung).
    • Possibly explained by Jet being super-easy to manufacture at any chemistry station; if you accept that Myron was not the original inventor of Jet, merely the one who rediscovered and popularized it in New Reno, its presence on the East Coast (even pre-War) makes a lot more sense. Fallout 76 later doubled down on this and retconned it so that Jet had always been around, but Myron perfected it into a more potent form.
  • A pre-war science lab in the game boasts in their pre-recorded orientation about having helped the US government create the Humongous Mecha Liberty Prime, which they say was used to liberate Anchorage, Alaska during the early stages of the war with China. Yet 3 explained that, while the US planned to use Liberty Prime to take back Anchorage, the development of power armor made that unnecessary, and in fact, Liberty Prime's existence was never public knowledge.
  • In Fallout 3, the Vertibird was said to be in the prototype stage before the war and was almost ten years away from entering service when the bombs dropped. Though it appeared in the Anchorage Reclamation simulation, Word of God explicitly stated that the simulation was altered by an Unreliable Narrator. However, Fallout 4 shows that Vertibirds were already used by the US military in the days before the war.
• Compilation of Final Fantasy VII: The Nibelheim incident. The original game alone provides about three different versions of the event because of the people involved (Cloud's memories are messed up, Sephiroth deliberately manipulates him and Tifa doesn't know all the details). While at some point we do get what seems to be what actually happened, when the other parts compilation retell the events each version is different and multiple details don't match up. For example, in Last Order Sephiroth deliberately jumped into the Mako shaft, while every other version has him thrown into it by Cloud. Also, Crisis Core has Genesis present during the events, something that doesn't happen in any other version.
• Gradius has given fans attempting to construct a coherent timeline for the franchise many headaches. Especially for the spin-offs, which are usually dated as "X years since the war against the Bacterions" when there have been no fewer than six such wars. And that's not even counting trying to incorporate the Otomedius spin-offs into the primary timeline (the franchise is unclear as to whether or not Otomedius is an Alternate Continuity).
• Halo's canon policy that "new > old" naturally results in a lot of these.
  • The universe can't make up its mind on whether there was a single "class" of Spartan-IIs or more. The various writers have changed the answer to that question more than nine times.
  • Halo: The Fall of Reach established a very precise timeline for the titular battle. And then Halo: Reach came along and ruthlessly snarled it up, so much so that the timeline issues still haven't been fully resolved despite 343 Industries' best efforts.
    • Additionally, Master Chief was originally intended to be a Cyborg that was more machine than man with Mark V being his model. However, Fall of Reach established the SPARTAN-II Program which is supposed to be so top secret that no more than half a dozen people galaxy-wide know enough about the Spartans to identify specific models of Spartan-specific gear, let alone knowing anything more about the Spartans other than that they're big guys in Powered Armor. However, as a result of the old lore Halo: Combat Evolved has regular grunts pointing Chief's armor out as the Mark V version which is beyond classified.
  • Forerunner/Flood-related lore is rife with this, even though The Forerunner Saga made a pretty decent effort to reconcile Bungie's and 343 Industries' respective portrayals, with the canon explanation being that any information that gets retconned away had come from an Unreliable Narrator or Expositor. Most notably, early lore strongly implied that humans were the Forerunners' direct descendants, before later media changed them into two separate but probably-related species. Other examples included the vastly different portrayals of the Didact (which were only reconciled by revealing there were two of him), the revelation that most Forerunners actually disliked humanity despite previous media establishing the latter as the designated "Reclaimers" to the former's legacy, the shifting timeline of when the Forerunners first became aware of the Flood, and whether the motivations of ancient humanity's attempt to conquer Forerunner worlds leaned towards those of Invading Refugees merely seeking to replace colonies lost to the Flood or those of Well-Intentioned Extremists trying to halt the Flood's spread.
• Hearthstone is a perfect example of what happens when a spinoff plays fast and loose with the parent series' continuity. Generally, the game doesn't stop long enough to let you think about it, but taking a step back reveals how nonsensical the plot is.
  • Expansions are typically based on established Warcraft locations, so it's a given that noteworthy characters will appear. The issue is when the expansions are set after they took place originally, and characters from that expansion that are dead or in a completely different circumstance in WoW now are right where they were years ago. Prime examples are the "beasts of Northrend", literally random animals used in the original Trial of the Crusader, are somehow alive again for the new Grand Tournament that's canonically held in honour of the first Argent Tournament.
    • Additionally, settings tend to blend timelines together. Take Rise of Shadows, which can't decide whether it's set on the Northrend Dalaran or the Broken Shores Dalaran. The expansion brazenly features characters and monsters from both settings. That's not even getting into Kalecgos being on the Council of Six - a position he took after becoming the Aspect of Magic - and the canonically later Descent of Dragons establishing his predecessor Malygos being alive and still the Aspect of Magic.
  • The original nine heroes all come from different time periods, which is fine given the complete lack of story in the base game. Then came the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion, which is a What If? where one of the original heroes became the new Lich King. Except, the timeline is way off now. Gul'dan died decades before the Lich King was created (in fact, his death is directly related to why the Lich King even exists) and most of the other heroes are depicted as much older versions from well after Arthas died. The snarl is lampshaded in a tie-in comic miniseries, which explained the entire plot as the story of a Con Man at a tavern... except the ending of that series implies said con man's entire story was somehow completely true.
  • Even out of its relation to WoW, Hearthstone can't avoid this. In the Galakrond's Awakening adventure, players play through separate good and evil campaigns that have a linear story until the last chapter, which has split good and evil endings. That is except for the third chapter's airship battles. The evil campaign has Captain Eudora defeat the Explorer's ship The Wanderer, then Rafaam sends her to distract the Dragonflights so he can complete the ritual to summon Galakrond. In both endings, he successfully performs the ritual, so this definitely happened. However, in the Explorer's campaign, the Wanderer wins against Eudora and the League of Explorers makes it to Dalaran to intercept Rafaam. This also definitely happens since they face off in both continuities. The answer is a big shrug.
• Jak II: Renegade establishes that Baron Praxis's rule has been going on for a while — Ashelin mentions looking down from the palace and dreaming of a better way when she was a little girl, and since she's in her early twenties at the time, which indicates that Praxis's dystopia lasted at least fifteen years. The heir to the throne, aged somewhere between five and seven, had presumably been raised in secret. Makes sense? No, because Jak 3 establishes that the city's rightful ruler, Damas, was overthrown by Praxis after his son, the heir, had been born, instantly shaving a decade off Praxis's actual rule and making Ashelin's definition of "little girl" look very questionable.
• Kingdom Hearts suffers immensely from this.
  • In the very first game, Riku tells Sora that there can't be two Keyblade Masters and takes the Keyblade from him. The letter that King Mickey sends to Donald and Goofy also implies that Sora is THE Keyblade Master by telling them to find the one person with the key, but what happens at the end? We see King Mickey with a Keyblade of his own just like Sora's. It doesn't help that while possessed, Riku wields another type of Keyblade and that now virtually everyone in the series has one. One could easily say that he just made a mistake, but that isn't even hinted to be the case.
  • Naminé is simultaneously both an example and not an example. She was somehow born from Sora's body and Kairi's heart when Sora became a Heartless in the first game giving her power over his memories. Roxas is kinda like her twin, born from Sora's body and heart (and taking on the form of Ventus because his heart was hiding in Sora and its hinted part (or all) of it stayed in Roxas). The series explains this quite clearly and points out Naminé is a special type of non-standard Nobody. This is a minor issue until you realize Sora also gets his body BACK within minutes of losing it due to the now restored Kairi's powers as a Princess of Heart, resulting in Roxas getting NONE of Sora's memories, and it's unclear if Naminé got any of either of her "parents"' memories. And let's not get into Xion and the fact that she's Sora's memories made manifest while also being a replica of Sora... Yes, the series explains how all this happened quite clearly! But it doesn't explain how any of that CAN happen.
• While the individual Klonoa games have decent plotlines, the inter-game continuity gets rather ridiculous. In Door to Phantomile, Huepow is revealed to be the prince of the Moon Kingdom using the Ring Spirit form as a disguise, and is tragically separated from Klonoa at the end of the game, both of which are ignored when he reappears in later games. Not only does Joka have a different personality in every game he appears in, but he already knows Klonoa in half of them, and is killed in the other half. And Chipple, a random villager from Empire of Dreams, showed up in Dream Champ Tournament, where he had become Klonoa's close friend... and a kangaroo.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Even Nintendo has joked about series continuity being a bit confusing. Until the franchise's 25th anniversary, we didn't even know the official timeline, with fans having spent years debating over how everything fits together outside the explicit sequels. Hyrule Historia cleared everything up by confirming a fan theory that the timeline split in Ocarina of Time, but also admitted that the final version still plays things a bit fast and loose, and noted that it's subject to change if anyone comes up with a better theory; this indeed happened a few years later, with Link's Awakening and the Oracle games switching spots.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the most confusing example yet, as it was seemingly designed to be impossible to give an exact placement on the timeline, due to having countless elements and plot details that originate from all three timelines. The only thing that could be said for certain is that it takes place in the distant future of the series; but when it comes to which timeline it's in (or even the possibility of a Merged Reality of all three), the developers have only given a Shrug of God and said that they prefer for the players to decide for themselves. The sequel The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom establishes a new Ganondorf and a different origin for the Kingdom of Hyrule with the inclusion of the Zonai (and a few borrowed plot points from both A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time), suggesting that it's a unique timeline altogether.
  • The Spin-Off game Hyrule Warriors has an internal example: within Cia's Tale, some things that were mentioned in-game are contradicted. Volga originally is said to have sold his soul to Cia to be stronger, but Cia's Tale states Volga wanted nothing to do with anyone and Cia had to brainwash him into servitude. Cia is also mentioned as having turned Midna into her imp form, but now Midna was already an imp fighting against Zant when Cia first appeared.
• Before The Storm, Life Is Strange's prequel, is pretty infamous for many cases of this. The Franchise's own wiki lists the many, many canon contradictions, both major and minor. Here are some of the major ones:
  • In general, Chloe having many of the first game's supporting cast (Victoria, Warren and Nathan, for example) as classmates makes no sense because they are considered somophores and still are as of Life is Strange, 3 years later, where they should be seniors by that point if it was the case. Hell, if we go by their birth dates cleary stated in the original game (for example, Victoria being born in August 14, 1995 while Before The Storm takes place in 2010), they should be freshmen at best.
    • Victoria's entire presence in the academy is a massive headscratch, doubly so because in the first game, she came to Blackwell Academy because Mr. Jefferson is teaching. Yet in Before the Storm, Jefferson is not currently employed at Blackwell.
    • Hell, Chloe meeting and knowing Warren and Nathan makes zero sense, as he didn't even know the former's name in the first season of Life is Strange, let alone anything else about him, and Chloe previously said that she met the latter in a bar around 2013. Ditto for Justin and Stella. In the original game, none of the Blackwell students in Max class(the same ones who show up in this game) seems to know who Chloe is, besides Nathan. Here's a exchange between Max and Stella regarding Chloe:
      Stella: Some girl just asked about Nathan before you came in.
      Max: What girl?
      Stella: She had blue hair, dressed like a punk... I've seen her putting up those Rachel Amber posters.
  • Chloe claimed that Max never called or texted her after she moved away, not did she try to tell her she was leaving. In this game, Max actually texted Chloe several times, and even initiated conversation at one point. In addition, the bonus episode Farewell revealed that Chloe knew Max was moving several days before it happened, and Max even left a tape, where she promised she will speak to Chloe even after she leaves.
  • David and Joyce's marriage happened before Chloe turned 16 in the original game, while in this one, they just started dating while Chloe is already 16.
  • In Season 1 of the first game, Chloe already dyed part of her hair blue by the time she is 16, while in this game she doesn't dye her hair until episode 3, long after she turned 16.
    • In addition, Chloe was still attending Blackwell till 2011 in the original game, but she can get expulsed during this game's events (year 2010). It's possible she got reinstated, but unlikely as her school file in the first game doesn't mention previous expulsions or reinstatements.
  • Frank said he personally rescued several dogs from a fighting ring in season 1, adopting Pompidou in the process. But here, Damon gifts Pompidou to Frank.
    • Additionally, Chloe didn't know the dog's name in the original game, while she does know the name in this game. Pretty jarring, as that particular fact would've come in handy during the plot of the first game.
• Mabinogi has this, much to the ire of some of the community.
  • In Generation 11, you're told that the Shadow Realm was created out of the grief of Price Tuan. Cichol reveals in Generation 16 that it's the fault of the Soul Stream. The Soul Stream is also responsible for the desolation of Metus and the Beach of Scathach.
  • Cichol also says that the desolation of Another World was also caused by the Soul Stream. Upon arriving to Another World in Generation 1, under the pretense that you're going to the fabled paradise of Tir Na Nog, Dougal (the only one there) tells you that it is another world destroyed by the Fomors.
  • In Generation 4-8, you learn that the Elves and Giants are beings cursed by Irinid (Neamhain) herself. As per the renewal of Chapter 1, Elves and Giants can now participate in the quests in order to obtain their transformations instead of doing the string of quests they originally had in order to obtain their transformations (which were actually removed). Most of the focus of becoming the Paladin was on making the actual armor to go on the journey to obtain the spirit that will enable the Milletian to become the Paladin at will (with a time limit). When the Milletian actually does transform, they wear the armor that they journeyed to create. Elves and Giants do not. They still become the Falcon (if you're an Elf) or the Savage Beast (if you're a Giant). In addition, the skills respectively are still called "Fury of Connous" and "Daemon of Physis," respectively. One begins to wonder why Morrighan would send beings cursed by her sister to get blessed behind said sister's back, and how they just happen to transform differently from the humans.
• Madou Monogatari:
  • How the Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari universes connect to one another is a mystery, given both worlds contain the same characters but seem to ignore the events of one another. Most of SEGA's continuity has set the games in other universes altogether to ignore the issue.
  • How old Schezo is. Word of God on where Madou Monogatari ARS is in the timeline puts him at least somewhere in the hundreds of years range, around 180. In Madou Monogatari Saturn Schezo's so old he's forgotten to count, but admits he's somewhere above 50. In the Puyo universe, Schezo's age is never questioned, but he's never treated as much older than the rest of the cast. There's also Word of God that the cast of the Puyo timeline can't age and are cursed to prevent them from thinking about the passing of time, but that contradicts Schezo knowing he's at least in his 50s in Saturn, which is spelled out as taking place in the Puyo timeline. Witch is also brought into the Snarl; her presence in ARS in Schezo's route means she's at least as old as Schezo, but Tower of the Magician treats her as younger (her own grandmother was a young woman 50 years ago) and official character profiles in various games list her being anywhere from 13 to 15.
• Medal of Honor: In the first game, your OSS liaison Manon says that her brother Jacques died performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save children from a school rigged with explosives; in the sequel Underground which has you playing as Manon, Jacques dies driving a truck filled with explosives in an ambush leaving the school, the Germans using the school as a supply storage to lay a trap for Resistance members.
• Mega Man has a real weird timeline on account of how Capcom often had multiple subseries running concurrently but very few ending conclusively (with Mega Man Zero being the only Classic timeline series to actually receive a Grand Finale with Zero 4). More specifically:
  • Mega Man X was supposed to end after Mega Man X5, but didn't, leaving a complicated mess of the continuity of not only future X games but its Sequel Series as well. Mega Man X6 retconning Zero's death interfered with Keiji Inafune's plans for X5 to lead directly into the Zero series, and Inafune later had to clarify that Zero's ending in X6 occurs at the very end of the X series timeline.
  • Mega Man X: Command Mission is set in 22XX, which is the Fanon assumption for when the Zero series takes place. Bosses regularly refer to Zero "Century-Old Junk" (literally, not figuratively), and given how the X series takes place in 21XX, things don't fit, especially considering the time needed for the Elf Wars and such. This discrepancy is explained away by two facts: Command Mission is a non-canon Gaiden Game and Zero is given no exact date in-series, with Word of God merely stating that it takes place a century after the Elf Wars (which in turn are set sometime after the currently Left Hanging X titles). Of course, with Command Mission releasing after both Mega Man X7 and Mega Man Zero but before Mega Man X8, this raised a lot of questions, especially when it came to what exactly happens to Axl given his Sequel Hook-inducing injury at the end of X8, his apparent healthiness in Command Mission, and his status as a Sequel Non-Entity throughout the entirety of Zero. The snarl only worsened with Mega Man ZX Advent, wherein Model A is clearly based on Axl in the vein of the other Biometals yet isn't actually "Model Axl" — it's Model Albert.
• For the infamously convoluted Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid originally started off as a direct sequel to the events of MSX2 games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake with a few slight retcons, but as the series went on the retcons started piling up. Most notably with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which contradicted most of the backstory that was established in Metal Gear 2, specifically Big Boss's military history prior to the MSX games (including the moment when he lost his eye) and his age (previous games established he was born during the 1920s, when he wasn't even 30 yet in 1964).
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Each character gets his/her own ending, they often intersect, with other character's endings, and are often in direct conflict with other character's endings, showing one character winning a battle in his own ending, but being killed in the same battle by his opponent in his opponent's endings. Background information in the next game says which endings are canon, and which aren't. The official word on the Mortal Kombat: Deception endings are only on Armageddon's website: Basically, Shujinko and Nightwolf's endings worked together to end Onaga. For the Mortal Kombat: Armageddon endings, replace "Background information in the next game" with "Opening cutscene in the next game": Basically, either the backfiring of Taven's plan to kill everyone empowering everyone instead allowed Shao Kahn to win, or Kahn just flat out won on his own through his sheer power.
  • There are more straight examples of snarls in the actual story, mostly the result of the lead writer shift after Mortal Kombat 4. The two which stand out the most are Scorpion's oath to protect Sub-Zero (started in his MKII ending, supported in the official comic and UMK3 ending, then ignored completely in MK4, with following games being ambiguous about the whole ordeal, or portraying him as an Ax-Crazy revenge-seeker), and Kintaro's fate after MKII (with 3 different sources, all of the debatable canonicity, stating different and contradicting fates for the Shokan).
  • Another big snarl is that at the end of MKII, Shao Kahn is Killed Off for Real, but in 3 he returns alive and well to take over the world.
  • Yet another headscratcher concerning Scorpion occurs because of the above Word of God statement about Onaga's defeat in Deception. After being thrown into Shang Tsung's Soulnado at the end of Deadly Alliance and whisked away to heaven, Scorpion made a deal with the Elder Gods: if he became their Champion and vanquished Onaga, they'd revive his dead Shirai Ryu clansmen. In Armageddon's Konquest Mode, Taven runs into Scorpion, who is furious because the Elder Gods revived the Shirai Ryu as undead abominations. This would suggest they were being dicks who didn't uphold their end of the bargain when Scorpion delivered (as seen in his Deception ending), but that would go against Shunjiko being the one to take down Onaga in-canon (with some help from Nightwolf).
• Myst created an interesting continuity snarl when it retconned the prison books of Myst and Riven into actual ages. That is, the books themselves were not intrinsically special or different from other linking books. Myst IV goes into great detail as to what the Red and Blue ages (named Spire and Haven) are like. While this works for Myst, it violates the events as they unfold in Riven. To beat Riven, you have to trap Ghen in a prison book. This book was presented as a special "one man prison" book, which is a very important plot point. Ghen's no fool; he isn't going to go into any random book some guy brings him. To ensure it's safe, he asks you to go through the book first. This works out in the end because it is a one man prison; when he comes through the book after you, you are freed and he is trapped. If that book were a regular linking book, you'd be trapped with a very pissed-off Ghen... who had the sense to bring a gun. The official version is that that the canon Stranger talked their way out of it, which the player can't really do. Other problems emerged when the official rules for linking books were more clearly established: they included the fact that sound doesn't travel through a linking panel. This means that the stranger couldn't have talked to Sirrus and Achenar, regardless of whether they were in prison books or prison ages, nor could he have talked to Atrus through the linking book to D'ni at the end of Myst. This is compounded by the fact that Sirrus, Achenar and Atrus definitely shouldn't have been able to see the Stranger, as although the linking panel lets you see an Age, you clearly can't see back through a linking panel even inside Myst (including the D'ni book, since when you get to D'ni you can't see back into the library, so how did Atrus see the stranger?).
• Ōkami may only be a 2-game series, but it has one thing it can't agree with itself on. Ōkamiden introduces Akuro, who is the Big Bad of the game. Now, dialogue when he's introduced heavily implies that he is the successor of the previous game's Big Bad, Yami. But later, the Knowing Jewel claims that he merely used Yami as a vessel. Keep in mind that Akuro didn't exist in the first game and that both of these versions of what Akuro is come from the same game! Jeez!
• The Persona titles have generally been implied to take place in the same universe, despite great differences between the first three games (actually two, but one is a two-parter) and subsequent Persona games. This is because both games in the aforementioned two-parter, Persona 2, end with a massive Cosmic Retcon, the second of which may have reset everything from the first game as well. This is made even more confusing by the fact that the later games make several Shout-Outs to the original two/three in the forms of former playable characters being mentioned on TV or by other characters. In addition, the nature of the standard enemies do not remain consistent; P1 and P2 have them manifesting as sapient demons, Persona 3 and Persona 4 have them manifesting as feral "Shadows", and Persona 5 splits the difference, with the enemies taking the form of sapient demons but being referred to as Shadows.
  • The portrayal of the Shadows themselves is inconsistent. For example, while Persona 4 portrays Shadow Selves as being their "real" counterparts' untamed Personas, Persona 2 portrays them as capable of existing even if their counterparts already have their Personas. There are even inconsistencies between Persona 3 and Persona 4 (which definitely share the same universe); the Persona 3 Club Book states that shadows are fragments of Nyx that exist inside all humans, while Persona 4 (re)establishes them as products of the human psyche (which carries through to Persona 5). That said, most of these differences could be chalked up to the individual influence of each game's main supernatural antagonist.
  • Even the details regarding the eponymous Personas themselves constantly change:
    • While P1 and P2 indicate that you have to first perform a certain ritual before you have the power to summon a Persona, P3 implies that most Persona users are simply born with it, P4 has its characters obtain them by simply accepting their Shadows, and P5 shows them as being obtainable by anyone who visits the Metaverse.
    • While P2 indicated that all Persona users can summon their Personas in the physical world without any technological assistance, subsequent games portray most Persona users as needing an Evoker to summon their Personas when they're not inside the collective unconsciousness.
    • Persona 2 also has a plot point of Persona users being able to easily identify other Persona users from an aura they emit. No such thing is mentioned in later games, as they would have made it trivial for the characters to uncover their respective games' antagonists.
  • Persona 4: Arena directly contradicts Persona 3 and Persona 4 with the characters' choices of Personas. All of the Persona 4 characters are stuck with their Initial Personas, despite the game referencing Chie and Yosuke’s completed Social Links (meaning they should have their Ultimate Personas instead), and too little time has passed for them to have regressed. Teddie is the most glaring example as his Star Social Link is one of three that levels up automatically in Persona 4 and must be completed in order to reach the True Ending (which Arena explicitly follows). Also, Aigis has Pallas Athena, although in P3's "The Answer" Aigis inherits the P3 protagonist's Wild Card and Pallas Athena is changed into Orpheus. "The Answer" is canon because Erebus appears in Elizabeth's story and Aigis is stated to possesses the Wild Card.
  • Adding to the confusion, while this surprisingly obscure interview with Persona 4's staff indicates that the games do all take place in the same verse, Persona Magazine (which began publishing sometime after the 1UP interview) often ignores P1/P2 continuity and referred to the current Persona-verse as "the P3/P4 world."
• While early Pokémon games' differences between "Generation" versions are mostly aesthetic, later years significantly change the plot and in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire's case, who the main antagonist is. Then there's whether the original releases of a generation are canon, or if only their respective remakes are.
  • Pokémon Black and White has even more differences between the two versions than previous games, although it is implied that both versions take place in parallel dimensions of each other that are able to interact with each other (trading, player battles and the Entralink).
  • Continuity in Pokémon games is usually thought of as being based on how the Pokémon themselves are traded from game to game, but this can get a bit confusing when you factor in Pokémon Colosseum and its sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. The latter takes place five years after the former, but both games are only compatible with the GBA games, which are assumed to take place at the same time. The Gen IV games (the Sinnoh-based games and Johto-based remakes) take place three years after the GBA games (the Hoenn-based games and Kanto-based remakes). The Black and White games take place further into the future (since an NPC from the Gen II games/Gen IV remakes settled down and now has a school-aged child, it's thought to be at least 5 to 8 years) and their direct sequels are set 2 years after. Pokémon X and Y is generally assumed to take place at the same time as Black 2 and White 2, based on a now deleted tweet by longtime Game Freak scenario writer Toshinobu Matsumiya that corroborates most of the other timeline assumptions.
  • This gets even more pear-shaped if you decide to consider the spin-off titles. Depending on the title in question, it can be canon with the main games (Snap and Ranger) or it exists in completely different continuities (Mystery Dungeon, TCG, Hey You, Pikachu! and its spin-offs, etc.).
  • Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire can't seem to decide where they fall in the continuity. On the one hand, they're explicitly stated to take place before Pokémon Black and White and Pokémon X and Y (the latter of which is concurrent with Pokémon Black 2 and White 2), which would put them at the same time as the originals (parallel to the Kanto games). However, there are a lot of Mythology Gags to the original Ruby/Sapphire, which explicitly point out a ten-year gap (such as an NPC mentioning how Pokémon Centers had a second floor 10 years ago). Some believe they imply a Continuity Reboot for the entire series, with the existence of Mega Evolution as the nail.
    • To make it worse, Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire have the Battle Resort, in which it is implied that the Battle Frontier is planned to be built. Thus it should take place before Emerald, where there is a Battle Frontier on the same island. Not only that, but an NPC in Emerald also mentions there was nothing on the island before the Frontier's construction while the Battle Resort was implied to have been in operation long enough to be famous.
    • The postgame segment also all but states that the remakes take place in an Alternate Timeline from the originals, and that the portal the scientists were planning to send the meteor through would have sent it to the universe containing the original games (which would not have had the means to deal with the meteor). The nail is not Mega Evolution itself, but the firing of AZ's ultimate weapon — which ran on the "Infinity Energy" that induces Mega Evolution — three millennia prior to the events of X/Y.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon adds another twist to the mix. It's supposed to take place roughly 2 years after X and Y on the "Mega Timeline", but there are some oddities here and there:
    • In the post-game you encounter and battle Red and Blue who are now re-designed to appear in their twenties, but you're also able to battle Wally (or rather his Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire incarnation) but he still appears to be 10 years old.
    • The demo for Sun and Moon allows you to obtain a Greninja, but this is no ordinary Greninja as it can transform into the previously anime-exclusive Ash-Greninja. The implication that this Greninja used to belong to Ash from Pokémon: The Series has raised a few eyebrows.
    • Lastly, Pokémon Red and Blue have been released on the Virtual Console and the Pokémon obtained in these games can be transferred to Sun and Moon via Pokémon Bank. Making the original Gen I games compatible (and therefore canon) with the rest of the series from Gen III onward. Later releases of Pokémon Gold and Silver for the Virtual Console would also bring the original Gen II games into the mix as well.
  • Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, which is kind of the third version but not quite (since it's still a pair of games rather than a single definitive version of the generation) is another kettle of fish entirely. This game is considered to be an "alternate retelling" of the base Sun and Moon games. It starts off similarly, but it veers off the rails here and there:
    • The biggest difference is the appearance of the Ultra Recon Squad, a group of Human-Like Aliens who come from Ultra Space. Necrozma, who is a Pokémon that comes from Ultra Space (or their part of Ultra Space), is threatening to consume all the light in the universe. Necrozma eventually takes over as the main antagonistic force in these games rather than Lusamine.
    • The postgame features a different side story: Episode Rainbow Rocket. Using Ultra Wormholes, Team Rainbow Rocket is comprised of all the Team Leaders from the past main games who come from universes where they won, all led by Giovanni. This includes Maxie and Archie, who have their original Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire designs as opposed to the "Mega Timeline" versions. In addition, Archie has his ORAS personality and manner of speech.
    • Ultra Space is more explorable. It's made up of both distant planets, Another Dimensions and Alternate Universes, including one that's a version of Hau'Oli City that's been hit with a nuclear meltdown. You can also find regular Pokémon and Legendary Pokémon from past games in these Ultra Spaces, but no explanation is given as to how they got there.
  • Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! is an odd one as their remakes of Pokémon Yellow but instead of Red and Blue appearing as the player character and rival, they're separate characters that are already accomplished Trainers, meaning that they've gone through Kanto without encountering Team Rocket. There's also an appearance by Mina from Sun and Moon, but she appears to be about 13 to 15 according to an official character artwork, meaning that the Let's Go games take place only 3 or 4 years before Sun and Moon/Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in which she is in her late teens.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus creates one in the lore that conflicts with Pokémon Black and White; Drayden states that he lived in a time before Poké Balls, but Legends: Arceus, which appears to take place at least a century prior to any of the Pokémon games, probably even earlier, features the use of Poké Balls, albeit in a more archaic form.
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction introduced the idea that Ratchet's race, Lombaxes, were functionally extinct, and Ratchet was the Last of His Kind. Many fans pointed out that this didn't make sense, because Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando had seemingly featured a different Lombax, Angela, without any implication that she and Ratchet were the last of their species. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time attempted to patch this by having a pair of radio announcers acknowledge that Angela exists and is indeed a Lombax. However, one of the main reasons given in Tools to prove Ratchet was the last one was that he'd never seen another one, a claim he didn't contest. Prior to this, one could maybe assume that this meant the Future trilogy was a Soft Reboot and Angela didn't actually exist in its continuity, but now she does, so the whole thing no longer works. Even worse, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart shows a female Lombax, Rivet, that is much smaller than Angela and sports a tail, something the radio broadcast specifically mentioned as an indicator of male versus female Lombaxes.^note Though Rivet is from another universe altogether, possibly where female Lombaxes have different physiology compared to Ratchet's Fans have given up trying to find a solution that makes sense at this point.
• Given the series' overarching reliance on strange conspiracies and convoluted plots, it's actually surprising how infrequently this problem pops up in Resident Evil. But, there are a few areas where the continuity gets tangled...
  • The biggest series-wide tangle is the precise details on what happened in Raccoon City; the game is visited in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, and Resident Evil: Outbreak, and fans argue on whether certain details can be reconciled, although the one that everyone agrees on is a window that is unbroken in RE2 but which should be broken, given that Nemesis leaps through it in RE3.
  • The Chronicles games are rather bad about this, adding new events and filling in holes in the established canon (most notably between Code: Veronica and RE4), while at the same time also contradicting quite a bit of it. Fans, however, argue about whether the "retellings" chapters are intended to be canon, whilst the Chronicles-unique stories don't actually contradict anything. Unreliable Narrator and Unreliable Expositor might also be in play, particularly with The Darkside Chronicles' Framing Device of Leon recounting events he could have only learned secondhand (like Claire's experiences on Rockfort Island).
  • In Resident Evil, the official canon is that both of the protagonists, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, and both of the secondary characters, Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers, survived the events of the Arklay Mansion. There are just two problems. The first is that nobody knows just which character was actually exploring the mansion; the game itself (at least in its 2002 remake) tries to alleviate the problem somewhat by claiming that only one protagonist was exploring the mansion, and the other spent the time imprisoned in the final hidden lab. Which then becomes problematic because there's no official word as to which protagonist was free and which was imprisoned. The second problem is that the player only encounters one secondary character in-game, depending on their chosen protagonist. So that leaves players struggling to figure out how the Arklay Mansion incident really "went down" to explain how all four characters survived.
  • Resident Evil 2 averted this, despite having two separate stories in it, by the simple expedient of subsequent games recalling elements that only come from one story. Namely, Sherry Birkin's infection with the G-Virus, which only happens in the Claire A/Leon B story.
  • In contrast to the original, the 2019 Resident Evil 2 (Remake) has several snarls, resulting in a wide array of Adaptation Induced Plot Holes. Whereas each linked A/B scenario pairing in the 1998 original game produced a distinct story, the Leon and Claire campaigns in the 2019 remake are virtually identical — worse, the story of each character remains fundamentally unchanged, barring the removal of the interactions with Marvin, in the 2nd Run game mode. Which is supposed to display the "what the other character was doing when you didn't see them" tale, just like the B scenarios in the original game. This results in the character who is supposed to come along chronologically afterwards having to solve the exact same puzzles and having the exact same boss fights as the character who chronologically came along first. Specific problems:
    • The 1st Run character has to find three medallions held by three statues to unlock a secret passageway under the plinth in the main hall of the R.P.D.S. The 2nd Run character then comes along and finds a note from the 1st Runner saying where they went... and has to retrieve the three medallions from the same three statues again.
    • Both characters need to find a pair of electronic circuit board components for a different puzzle. Each finds one piece in a unique area... and then the second piece for both characters is in the clock tower, needing them to shake the clock bell out of its housing to retrieve it. That means that the 1st Run character comes along and shakes the bell free... and then the 2nd run character comes along and has to do it again!
    • In Claire's story, Mr. X is killed by Birkin in the tunnels under the orphanage. In Leon's story, he shows up alive and unharmed to harass Leon in the greenhouse, and serves as Leon's penultimate boss.
    • The most infamous aspect of all is the way that Annette gets mortally wounded and dies... twice... at completely different regions of the underground lab, and canonically within minutes of meeting the 1st Run character.
  • Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has its main story and documents found at various parts of the game explain that the infection that turned the Bakers into insane monsters takes time to do so (with Marguerite Baker, in particular, resisting the infection long enough to grow concerned about it, get an MRI, and receive its results). Then the Daughters DLC released, and showed the Bakers transforming into these insane monsters the very same night they were infected.
• RWBY: Grimm Eclipse contains a few contradicting elements which make it impossible to fit in RWBY's timeline. Yang still has both her arms and Pyrrha is still alive, which would place the events of the game during or before Volume 3. However, Jaune has awakened his semblance, which would place the game sometime after Volume 5. Volume 5 (or 4, or that matter) wasn't even out when the game was released, making the latter point a case of Early-Bird Cameo.
• The Sims has suffered more and more continuity errors with each new installment of the game.
  • Between The Sims and The Sims 2, Michael Bachelor was revealed as Bella Goth's brother, and apparently switched birth order: he was fresh out of college in the first game, while Bella was married and had a child; but in the second game, he appears on the family tree as older than Bella and his ghost shows that he died of old age.
  • In Strangetown, Lola and Chloe Singles are shown as twins in one of the family photo albums, but are several days apart in age.
  • In Veronaville, the birth order of the Capps is notoriously confused. While Cordelia is named by her father's memories as his youngest child, the family tree names her as oldest. A generation down, the family tree, Consort Capp's memories, and the memories of the siblings themselves place the birth order of Cordelia's children as going either Juliette, Tybalt, Hermia; Tybalt, Juliette, Hermia; or Juliette, Hermia, Tybalt. On the other side of the family feud, Bianca Monty is shown in the family tree to be older than Antonio and Claudio, but Antonio starts off older than Bianca. Isabella Monty also has no memories of the births of her children.
  • Between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, Kaylynn Langerak went from being much younger than Mortimer and Bella Goth to being slightly older than them. Additionally, Mortimer went from being apparently older than Bella to being exactly the same age as Bella.
  • The Sims 4 pulls an outright Retcon on the backstory of the Caliente sisters, turning their mother from Nighat Caliente, who died when they were children, to Katrina Caliente, who is raising them as a single mother. Additionally, the devs have stated that Don Lothario has a crush on Katrina Caliente, which means that between games he became older than the Caliente sisters, who were exactly his age in The Sims 2.^note Of course, The Sims 4 takes place in an entirely different universe than the other three games, so it's more forgivable in this case.
• Spyro: Year of the Dragon: In the manual, it's stated that dragons are an Always Male One-Gender Race; new eggs are brought to the dragon realms by fairies once every twelve years, in what is called the "Year of the Dragon", but where the fairies get these eggs is never explained. The problem is two-fold. Firstly, in the game, many of the hatchling baby dragons are confirmed to be female by either their name, Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, or both. Secondly, in the opening cutscenes, Zoe the fairy explains that Spyro has to be the one to rescue the eggs because the eggs are too heavy for the fairies to carry.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Perhaps most prominently, there's the Blaze/Silver/Eggman Nega issue.
    • In Sonic Rush, Blaze is from an alternate dimension. In Sonic '06 she's found in the future with no explanation. And the events of Sonic '06 were erased from the timeline in that game's ending, making things more confusing. Additionally, due to that fact she was apparently from the future, the Blaze seen in '06 could be the real version of Blaze, who isn't born until later. The other one did come from an alternate universe, after all...
    • Later on, in the DS version of Colors (which may or may not be canon), Blaze appears alongside Silver during the third mission on Sweet Mountain and, should the player receive an S rank in their side mission, after a battle with Orbot and Cubot Silver claims to have felt like they'd fought together before, a nod to '06 Blaze (who was Silver's best friend). Tails comments that perhaps they had been partners somewhere, some time.
    • And then there is Generations. Blaze is first seen at Sonic's birthday party interacting with Cream and her in-game character profile notes that she's from another dimension, indicating that this is the same Blaze from Rush. As a Continuity Nod (of sorts) to '06, Blaze is found in Crisis City. Here's where things get wonky. After Sonic completes the Crisis City Act 2 mission "Blaze: Piercing the Flames", Blaze will remark "I never thought I'd find myself in Crisis City again", bringing up the question of how exactly Blaze knew of a place that existed in a timeline that was erased from history.
    • Additionally, both Silver and Eggman Nega (characters with prominent ties to Blaze, but connected to her by different games) are drawn into this snarl as well, as the two appear in the Rivals series — sans Blaze. Here, Silver is still from the future, but Nega (established in Rush as Eggman's parallel self from the same dimension Blaze is from) is now a descendant of Eggman, embittered by how Eggman's failures have tarnished the family name in the future and is now an enemy of Eggman instead of working with him. Later on, Nega would reappear in Rush Adventure and Rivals 2, each game continuing the conflicting backstories of his appearances in the first Rush and Rivals. It's implied that, due to '06 slamming down on the Reset Button until it cracked, Silver now hails from the Rivals future and Blaze is from Rush (with no official word on Nega with his lack of appearances since), but Silver is still the Rival Battle for the Modern era of Generations (which takes place in Crisis City, no less) and the ending of Generations has him and Blaze briefly chatting it up before everyone says their goodbyes to Classic Sonic and Tails.
    • The confusion was finally cleared up in 2012, with Takashi Iizuka stating that Blaze is from an alternate dimension, while Silver and Eggman Nega are from the future. Her Sonic Channel profile also states that the Sol Emeralds can take her across time and space, apparently explaining how and why she was in the future (although this does not explain Nega being from the future instead of a resident of her dimension).
  • In Sonic Forces, Tails instantly recognizes Classic Sonic as an alternate universe counterpart to Modern Sonic, rather than explicitly being his time-displaced younger self like Generations portrayed him as. This is due to a mistranslation involving the Japanese word sekai which means the world and Classic Sonic is supposed to be from another time period as was the case from the beginning in Generations.
• The Star Revenge series of Super Mario 64 ROM hacks. Seriously, just look at this. A lot of the confusion comes from remakes of the games having different stories than the original and the story splitting between both versions. Also, Time Travel is involved. The timeline is a mess and that picture even lampshades it. ^note Furthermore, notice how SR6.9 happens multiple times.
• Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic is set 40 years after the Tales of the Jedi comics, yet have very little to do with them, to the point where Jolee Bindo would have married his secret wife during a period where open marriage in the Jedi Order was common.
• Street Fighter:
  • A lot of it is because II become an iconic landmark revolutionary sea-changing event of events which changed the universe forever and ever (to the point where everyone got plain sick of it). If this weren't the case, Capcom probably would've just relished their success and quietly released Alpha as a fun, inconsequential one-off featuring the unselectable fighters in the first game, then made a full break with III. As it is, II and its continuity has reached such an enormous Shuma-Gorathian level that it's dragged the rest of the Street Fighter universe into it. Hence, Street Fighter IV. With Makoto, Dudley, and Ibuki (and later Yun and Yang) at the same age and with the same motivations as in a game that canonically isn't supposed to happen for at least another three years. With a hopelessly convoluted plot involving M. Bison (who does die for real eventually) and a Korean hellion we've never even heard about before. With Adon seemingly stuck in the distant past. With Rose around for no apparent reason. Before, there would be retcons; now, Capcom isn't even trying to hash it out anymore.
  • Street Fighter Alpha 2 basically treated the SNES Final Fight sequels, particularly Final Fight 2, as if they never happened. They did so by introducing Zeku as Guy's Bushinryu predecessor, ignoring the fact that Genryusai from Final Fight 2 was precisely introduced to fill that role. The Alpha series continued with no reference to Genryusai's existence until Maki, Genryusai's daughter and a fellow Bushin apprentice, was introduced to the portable versions of Alpha 3, where she was Zeku's other student. The developers didn't bother to explain where Genryusai fits in within the Bushinryu hierarchy, but some fans believe that Zeku was actually Genryusai's student in order to explain away the discrepancy.
  • Capcom plays so fast and loose with continuity that now we have Ingrid, a character who deals with continuity snarls. Maybe. Between having few appearances and Capcom's refusal to ever clear anything up, she's more likely to turn into a snarl herself.
• Ironically, Super Robot Wars successfully averts this, despite being a Massively Multiplayer Crossover. In fact, developer Banpresto does the inverse by snarling continuity together. Currently, Super Robot Wars Alpha and Super Robot Wars: Original Generation series have several common ties via characters being the same individual throughout these continuities (Gilliam Yeager and Cobray Gordon head the list).
  • Odder still when you realize these continuities were originally to be in its own Canon, and these characters were only giving out Continuity Cameoes, but Original Generation is in the position of tying nearly every Banpresto-developed game into an interlocking multiverse courtesy of these entities referencing their own appearances from those canons.
    • Additionally, this applies to one licensed character: it's strongly implied Kaworu Nagisa in all his appearances throughout Super Robot Wars (F/F Final, Alpha, MX and Z) is the same Kaworu or his consciousness surfing across dimensions with full knowledge of his history (in Alpha 3, he vaguely refers to the events of MX, while in Z he laments the fate of the MX world, which is loosely implied to be set before Z).
• Tales Series: Demons are... drastically different between Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Phantasia, and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World does not help matters despite being an attempt at reconciling any inconsistencies between the two games but managed to bungle this point further. The game flat out stating demons are allergic to mana... Despite the presence of several demonic spirits in Phantasia, which are made of mana as a rule. Demons are also neutral at worst in Phantasia, willing to help save the world provided they are approached with the right pact ring like any other spirit, whereas in both Symphonia games they are implied to be an Always Chaotic Evil race.
• Tomb Raider Chronicles introduces plot holes involving Larson and Pierre. In Tomb Raider I, Larson and Pierre are killed by Lara during her treks to find the Scion. Chronicles implies that Lara's encounter with the two at a separate event took place before the first game. However, Larson is seemingly killed (or at least knocked out) by a serpentine statue that grabs him by the mouth and flings him across the grass. Pierre slips into a Bottomless Pit thanks to Lara saying that they agreed that she would not lay a finger on him and walks away from him. It's implied that Pierre might have died since you hear the same bone snapping sound effect that plays when Lara dies from fall damage, yet he would show up alive and well in the first game along with Larson. The contradictions likely stem from the developers being overworked and forced to push the game out for the holidays as well as them getting sick of making Tomb Raider games, ergo they likely didn't care about the finer details.
• Touhou Project:
  • The PC-98 games mostly seem to have been stricken from canon, but occasionally there'll be a reference to them, leading to headache-inducing attempts by fans to reconcile them with the Windows games. And the setting as described in the first few Windows games doesn't really match later what'd later get nailed down in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense... which would cause problems itself when the things it covered that weren't in existing games would turn out different when they actually appear.
  • The major, not really handwaveable problem is the Lunar Wars. Imperishable Night's backstory is centered around a war between Earth and the Moon (covered up by the Apollo 11 moon landing), and Reisen's desertion of the Lunarian army and subsequent escape to Earth form part of the game's main plot, since the Lunarians want her back. Then Bougetsushou comes along and suggests that the Lunarians just mistook the Apollo 11 landing for an act of invasion and got militarized out of paranoia (as well as causing the Apollo 13 incident by shooting at the rocket), meaning there were no "Lunar Wars". If this is true, it begs the question of why exactly Reisen fled to Earth in the first place.
• The creators of World of Warcraft, after admitting they had forgotten a key fact about the eredar that was established in Warcraft III's manual, went on to say that they didn't care about continuity as much as making a good game and brushed off complaints about the changes made to the draenei. Eventually, fans learned to ignore this and some other minor retcons.
  • The draenei retcon was fairly minor in terms of effects to storyline (the draenei didn't have much involvement in it before), although it did retcon the background of Sargeras somewhat: Originally Sargeras encountered demonic eredar prior to his turn to evil, with the eredar being said to play a role in his eventual corruption. Post-retcon, things are reversed: Sargeras becomes evil before ever meeting the eredar, the eredar aren't demonic, and Sargeras corrupts the eredar into becoming demons (with some of them escaping and becoming the draenei). Luckily, solving this issue was as simple as saying that demons in general contributed to Sargeras' fall rather than the eredar specifically (this explanation itself would be subject to more retcons later, but that's beyond the scope of this example).
  • The real Snarl (which was thankfully sorted out) was the origin of Garona, a half-orc and a fairly important figure in lore. She originally had orc and human parentage, and was born before the orcs launched their first major invasion (originally there was quite a bit of time between the opening of the Dark Portal and the First War, during which the orcs mainly did small raids on the human settlements nearby the Portal). However, when the First War was retconned to have happened almost immediately after the opening of the Portal, there was no way for her to be half-human. Then she was half-draenei, a human-like race from Draenor. Then the draenei were ugly creatures that looked in no way human. Then the draenei were mutant human-like creatures. The the un-mutated draenei were non-demonic eredar (see above). Her parentage went unexplained for years and for some time it seemed that she was simply going to be erased from continuity, but she was finally given a new origin, making her a product of the warlock Gul'dan's experiments that involved breeding draenei prisoners with orcs, and then making them grow rapidly into maturity with magic.
  • Blizzard lampshaded their tendency to do this with the Well of Eternity dungeon, which revisits a previously established moment in Warcraft lore using time travel. Defeating the last boss under the wrong circumstances grants the achievement "That's Not Canon!" with an angry face as the icon.
  • Previous lore stated that the only life on Azeroth before the Titans came were the elementals, and the Old Gods that they worshiped, both of which were imprisoned by the Titans before they shaped the world. At some point, the Earthen were exposed to the Old Gods, which turned them into mortal dwarves. Now, a titan computer known as the Tribunal of Ages says that during the shaping by the earthen the Old Gods came to Azeroth and corrupted it, including using the Curse of Flesh, followed by the titans coming. Supplemental materials say that other life existed before the titans came, including trolls, the evil insectoid races, and the faceless ones. Also (as a sub-snarl that is pointed out by the source) the tauren, but before their creator Ancient (the Bull Ancient) could have existed (no Emerald Dream/nature to be spawned from). The Klaxxi confirm that the insectoids (the aqir) were around before the titans, when previously it was just the elementals.
  • World of Warcraft: Chronicle was written to clarify a lot of the Snarl, especially ones related to the Titans/Old Gods, which include writing off the Tribunal of Ages as a forgery and firmly establishing the origins to the various forms of life on Azeroth.

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