Cryptic Background Reference / Video Games

• Historical references abound in Assassin's Creed, some of which can come off as cryptic background references. But Assassin's Creed III has two unusual examples:
  • In the downloadable-content side-story "The Tyranny of King Washington." In the regular story, the PlayStation 3 version of the game included extra missions in which Connor tries to stop Benedict Arnold from betraying West Point to the British, which were omitted from the others. In the DLC, which is set in an alternate timeline but with Connor aware of the events of the main story, he remarks that he finally got Arnold back for West Point when he kills him at the end of the first chapter. Arnold says that he has no idea what Connor is talking about, since in this timeline he never turned coat and thus never betrayed West Point. To Wii U, Xbox and PC players who didn't get those missions, it comes off as a cryptic background reference, merely something that happened off-screen.
  • In the main game and some others, conversations can be overheard in towns—particularly from heralds—referring to real historical events, such as a town crier in Assassin's Creed III informing citizens of events taking place in Egypt that have no bearing on the story at all. In Brotherhood—set in Renaissance Italy—a herald refers to the recent discovery of the New World and its native peoples.
• BlazBlue has six legendary heroes. Hakumen is playable, Jubei and Valkenhayn Hellsing show up as NPCs and the rest are shown only as silhouettes until Continuum Shift. It adds Terumi Yuuki to the playable list, adds Platinum (one of the three souls in her body being that of Six Heroes member Trinity Glassfield) to the NPC list and reveals that Nine is dead. Valkenhayn and Platinum later became playable through DLC and expansions, and the silent villain Phantom is heavily implied to be a brainwashed Nine.
  • By the end of the fourth game not only have they all been introduced, they're all playable as well: Jubei, Nine (killed and resurrected as "Nine the Phantom"), Yuuki Terumi (in three different forms no less), Valkenhayn, Hakumen, and Trinity (in Platinum's body)
• Cave Story. There are references to shared histories between characters, and to a war ten years ago with armies of robots from "the surface" attacking the Island, and to three bearers of the Demon Crown prior to the Doctor. There's just enough information to construct a vague timeline for the backstory, but it's obvious that there's more to the history than what we're told. When asked for further information about the game's world, the writer has said that he himself doesn't know.
• Demon's Souls, the Dark Souls series, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring are almost entirely bereft of traditional exposition, and the story of each game must largely be pieced together and inferred from item descriptions, level design, and the like. There are occasional characters better informed than the Player Character who will provide some precious information, but they generally prove untrustworthy. Hidetaka Miyazaki claims the inspiration for this style of storytelling came from him attempting to read Western fantasy novels as a teen despite having a limited grasp of English: he could only understand certain passages, many of which referred to objects or events described in passages he couldn't read, thus turning explained plot points into this trope.
• From the first Devil May Cry game, searching around and interacting with specific objects in Mallet Island will reveal small details regarding the abandoned island's long dead inhabitants and their cultish worship of Big Bad Mundus. None of it ever amounts to anything significant in terms of gameplay, and some fans believe it to be a holdover from the game's early development history as a Resident Evil title. Dante himself will occasionally, humorously lampshade that none of the island's history has any bearing on his quest.
• Dragon Age: Origins has a lot of background material that isn't wholly relevant to the games' plot. Moreso in the sequel since the game takes place on a more personal level. Some particularly interesting bits of background are that the Primeval Thaig was apparently part of an ancient dwarven civilization predating the Deep Roads, which had temples and worshiped gods (and that the Primeval Thaig was ruled by a "dwarf so foul the Stone rejected him" and covered in evil red lyrium that drives people insane), that at least one Eluvian leads to "another place - beyond this world, beyond the Fade", that Flemeth is, at least according to Morrigan, something other than merely a mage or an abomination, and that the qunari must have arrived in Thedas (the continent where the games are set) from somewhere because they only showed up three hundred years ago, but no one knows where they came from.
  • More subtly, there is the whole Codex business: in theory, it should offer exhaustive explanations and backstories of in-game events, items, and characters. However, in practice, one cryptic reference explanation contains three more references that don't get explained.
  • The Warden can do this during Witch Hunt, only vaguely hinting to their new companions their precise relationship and reasons for searching for the Witch of the Wilds. Particularly noticable if Morrigan was romanced, where Ariane eventually comes to realise that the Wardens cryptic statement that "She has my child" didn't mean that Morrigan had kidnapped their child as she'd assumed, but actually because Morrigan was the mother of their child. Furthermore, she later figures out the nature of their relationship, asking the Warden if they are aware they subconsciously play with the ring on their finger when they think no-one is looking. After the Warden explains it's part of a pair shared with Morrigan, Ariane is genuinely amused when they fervently deny that this means they're married.
• The Elder Scrolls series has thousands of years of backstory material that is only hinted at in the games, either through dialogue with various characters or in the many in-game books.
• Fable and Fable II gives us all kinds of elaborate references to places you never go, ancient tribes and cults, and legendary heroes, none of which are ever seen.
• Far Cry 3:
  • The casino chips you find in loot are described as being from "the Jeni Soleil Casino Cruise heist." This is not explained any further.
  • Privateers will sometimes say "At least I'm not on that island with the dinosaurs." This may have been foreshadowing that ultimately went nowhere, as in January 2015 Ubisoft said that a Jurassic Park-type island with dinosaurs was one of the possible locations for Far Cry 5.
• Final Fantasy VIII does it occasionally, most notably with the sorceresses. For example, "Great Hyne" is mentioned as their progenitor and source of their powers, but you never learn who exactly that was, save for some legends told by NPC you're likely to miss.
• Final Fantasy XIV does this a lot. As it is an MMO, some of these references became fodder for patches and the Heavenward expansion, which focuses on the Dragonsong War, a war between Ishgard's theocratic society and Dravania's dragons that was waged for a thousand years by that point, and brings more of these with the Warriors of Darkness and bits and pieces found in the Dusk Vigil and Azys Lla's museum. The fallen Allagan Empire also started out as such only to get some explanations with the Binding Coil of Bahamut and Crystal Tower dungeons, as well as the aforementioned Azys Lla which explains how it became a Soiled City on a Hill and how its actions up to that point resulted in a Calamity that ultimately wiped the Empire out entirely. In addition, there have been seven umbral eras and seven astral eras, but the only points that get even a description that comes close to being in-depth are the ends of the third (the aforementioned fall of the Allagan empire, leading to the Binding Coil dungeons and Crystal Tower raids), fifth (a war between two societies of mages that triggered a worldwide flood, leading to the Shadows of Mhach raids and frequently referenced in the Scholar and Red Mage quests) and sixth (the fall of Dalamud that ended the 1.0 content cycle) astral eras, and the seventh umbral era (the five years between Dalamud's fall and the initial storyline from the A Realm Reborn relaunch).
• Foxhole's lore primarily exists of small bits of flavor text for maps, along with statue plaques, forgotten notes, and descriptions of view points that reveal tiny snippets of the setting.
• Golden Sun games have a lot of this kind of information that you can gather from the various NPCs or furniture in the various towns, regarding the political and economic situations of your surroundings, gossip about local leaders, what the cuisine and culture are like in each place (in some places extending to religious beliefs), optional content you can explore, and once in a while some obscure lore tangentially related to the plot.
  • Dark Dawn takes this a whole step further with the major characters themselves discussing some stuff in relatively major cutscenes that isn't at all involved in the plot of the game, like the three races of the Precursors, the modern geography and political unrest around Morgal and Bilibin, and Kraden's messenger pigeons. Fans were annoyed that this cut into plot and character development, which were less consistent than in the previous two games.
• Guild Wars has a few, though many of them ended up being explored in the Bonus Mission Pack.
• Kingdom Hearts enjoys this quite a bit. The meaning of the phrase that started the series, "You are the one who will open the door to light" has still not been fully explained. In the first game, Sora closes the Door to Darkness; in the second, he finds Kairi's letter, which does open a path back home, but as he's not the one opening it technically, it's unknown just what the phrase means.
• The driving force behind The King of Fighters, Orochi, qualifies. The only things we know for certain are 1. it involves a horribly evil destructive power, 2. the clan is absolutely fanatical and will stop at nothing to raise their god, 3. the Kusanagi, Yagami, and Kagura clans were the ancestral foes of Orochi, 4. but the Yagami betrayed the alliance, causing their flames to turn purple. Everything else is a confused mishmash... some artifacts we never actually see (until Ash Crimson starts pilfering the current clan members of their powers in the 2003-XIII arc), "maidens" who may or may not have been slaughtered, Kyo getting preferential treatment causing Iori to go all emo or something, a bunch of sealing and unsealing attempts, "battle energy", earth worship and "returning all to nothing", Rugal of all people chosen as a guinea pig, self-destruction, betrayals, counter-betrayals, etc., etc. Worst of all are the numerous plot points and outright sequel hooks that are flat-out dropped, such as a heavily-implied rift between Rose and Adelheid at the end of XI.
  • It doesn't even end there. KOF mythos designates Orochi as "Gaia's Will"; it's not only the progeny of the earth mother of Greek myth (bizarrely enough), but her self-appointed guardian. Gaia herself has yet to directly appear in any capacity and is only mentioned in regards to her familial ties with Orochi and her creation of humanity, assuming she's mentioned at all. This begs the questions of where exactly is Gaia in the present, why did she create a being so fanatical in its duty to her that it vowed to destroy humanity (the very beings Gaia herself brought to life), and why is she practically non-existent not only in the face of her child's actions, but when dealing with earthly matters as a whole. More headscratching ensues if you take into account the greater SNK universe; one of the tournament regulars is the reincarnation/descendant of Gaia's great-granddaughter.
  • Those from the Past's goal to obtain the power of Orochi by breaking its seal (yet again) comes across as this, as it's never clearly spelled out during the Tales of Ash what their leader Saiki wants to do with it. Not even in XIII, the climax of the saga wherein said leader makes a formal appearance and all of his scheming comes to fruition. Side materials reveal that the group is more or less the Western European equivalent of the Orochi clan and Saiki needs Orochi to power an artifact known as the Gate (which does appear in XIII) so he can travel back in time and change the flow of history so as to prevent the cult from suffering a horrible loss to their human adversaries (presumably Elisabeth's ancestors, thus explaining her personal vendetta against them and the repeated, equally cryptic mentions of her and Ash's "mission"). Sadly, little of this is explicitly mentioned in the game proper, and Saiki's shady, self-serving nature (complete with the implication that said explanation doesn't hold water) opens up grounds for further discussion.
  • If there's one plot point in KOF that adheres to this concept more than anything else, it is—without a doubt—the Dragon Spirit. That subplot first reared its head back in KOF '99, with Kensou and Bao shown to be vessels for an otherworldly power coveted by the mysterious Ron (former leader of the Hizoku clan of assassins and a former member of NESTS, the villainous cartel of which KOF's third Story Arc centers on). Fast forward to XI and XIII and all we know is that Kensou has apparently mastered its powers (much to Ron's approval) and Ron has unspecified ties to Those from the Past (as Saiki alludes to Ron having warned him of Kensou in their pre-boss fight dialogue). We know nothing of the Dragon Spirit's origins or why Ron has his sights on it, although it can be inferred that this has something to do with Ron's betrayal of his clan. This is mainly an effect of the plotline mostly being put on hold in lieu of Those from the Past's machinations; with several Hizoku members being introduced to the cast since 2000 (including Ron's son Duo Lon, a semi-important supporting character from 2003 onward) and the Tales of Ash having come to a close with XIII, it's possible the next arc will finally revisit these story elements and elevate the ever-elusive Ron to main villain status.
• From both Left 4 Dead games, the only parts of the story that are completely laid out for you are from the single 4-chapter comic ("The Sacrifice"), and the short character bios that each of the Survivors get (neither of which are found in-game). The rest of the plot that's given to you will only be through random (often campaign-specific) character dialogue, about 99% of which isn't even guaranteed to trigger (usually requiring multiple play-throughs if you want to catch everything), or occasionally from significant pieces of the map, but most of all from the writings on the walls of different saferooms (and occasionally elsewhere) of other people who have passed through that area, describing bits of their experiences as messages to others, agreement or disagreement with what the military is/was doing, just how bad CEDA failed, how fast somebody changes into a zombie after being infected, and so forth, but not even those people are in 100% consensus about whatever's been going on, and nobody really has any idea what even started the whole thing. We might get some answers eventually, but given Valve's reputation for making third installments, it's probably not going to be any time soon.
• Mischief Makers treats all the characters as already established, and new characters are often brought in with the assumption that they've had encounters with main character Marina in the past.
• In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Rekke is a living Cryptic Background Reference, a Hidden Character who is found clinging for dear life to flotsam near the endless storms east of the Deadfire and doesn't speak any language known in the region. It's strongly implied he comes from beyond the storms of Ondra's Mortar, a place where no known explorer has ever sailed before. He eventually learns enough Aedyran to confirm this and tell of further details about his homeland, Yezuha, including its enigmatic, monotheistic God, but enough of a language barrier exists that he can't fully explain the cryptic hints he gives.
• There are a number of unofficial Pokémon that are clearly alluded to exist in the setting, but are not capturable, or for some, ever even seen by the player:
  • One of the most well-known examples is the original dragon that was split into the Tao Trio. We don't know what it looked like, as it's not possible to restore it.
  • The Legendary Beast trio were brought back to life by Ho-Oh. We don't know what they were originally before being resurrected. The only hint we've been given is silhouettes that look more like normal, real-world dogs than any existing Pokémon.
  • Shellder has an alternative evolution that can clearly be seen on Slowbro's tail and Slowking's head, but is not capturable by the player by itself. ^note It may even come in two different forms because there are visible differences between the one on Slowbro's tail and the one on Slowking's head; crown Shellder have both horns and a gem. A leaked demo revealed it was originally programed in as an attainable Pokémon separate from the Slowpoke line, but was removed for a unknown reason.
  • Cara Liss restores some fossil Pokémon for the player. However, she does it by frankensteining the front half and back half of separate species, the result depending on what exactly you give her. (This is a reference/joke on how in real-life early paleontologists mismatched bones, especially in Britain where this region is based; incidentally, she's wearing mismatched shoes and has mud on her face to further emphasize how careless she is). For some reason, the game does not allow you to obtain these Pokémon in their correct, original complete state, although there is plenty of speculative fanon and fanart.^note One is believed to be based on a raptor, another a plesiosaur, one a stegosaurus, and the last is a fish (coelacanth?)
  • Kangaskhan are always seen with babies in their pouch. These are clearly its pre-evo, but they are not obtainable separately by the player. If the player breeds a Kangaskhan to try and get it, the egg simply hatches into a adult Kangaskhan with a baby already in it's pouch. The leaked Gen 1 alpha suggests it was supposed to be connected to fellow "Child and Parent" species Cubone and Marowak.
  • Genesect is a fossil Pokémon bought back to life and altered to have a cannon on its back. What it looked like in its original state is unknown.
  • Many fossil Pokémon are part Rock-types. It's not officially confirmed, but Fanon is that many of these Pokémon gained the Rock-type because of being resurrected from fossils, and that in their original state, their types and thus, forms, were different.
  • Arbok is noted to have more than 20 variations of the markings on its body. Some of these can be seen in different games (as unofficial form differences?), but not all of them.
  • The Sealed Chamber in Ruby & Sapphire, where you learn how to find and potentially capture the Regi trio, has the following (translated) inscriptions around one of the rooms: 'In this cave we have lived. We owe all to the Pokémon. But, we sealed the Pokémon away. We feared it. Those with courage, those with hope. Open a door. An eternal Pokémon waits.' This is the only reference to any backstory of this kind in the entire game.
• In Quern - Undying Thoughts, Maythorn's journal mentions "Oshwald, the capital world of the United Empire" but does not provide much in the way of information about it beyond its six ancient gateways.
• The Saboteur: What is the trouble that made Sean unable to return to Ireland? Who are the enemies he made there? What did Sean's father do there exactly? Where did Sean learn to use explosives? What was Sean doing in Budapest when he met Skylar? It's possible that the time period immediately before the literal "Troubles" in Ireland is referenced, and this would also explain how he learned to use explosives.
• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri includes many fictional quotes from the game's characters and other people in the game's world. These as well as a handful of other game elements are the only inside look we have into what life on Planet is really like (unless you read the novelizations, anyway). Many details are left to the imagination, such as, "What exactly is 'nerve stapling', anyway?" Somehow, it works.
• Silent Hill is another prime Canon Fodder series, as this trope tends to be the only source of available information. With one exception (Walter Sullivan, the main enemy in Silent Hill 4, was originally mentioned in a newspaper article in Silent Hill 2) none of them are explored or elaborated upon, and in the case of some this is probably for the best.
• Star Trek Judgment Rites plays this In-Universe when Kirk and his team board the alien ship Compassion, which is currently attempting to land on top of a Federation colony. The ship's mentally-unstable computer provides some information about the ship's origin and purpose, alluding to an ancient society that got rid of its mentally-ill by sending them on a long round-trip, to be cured by future advances in medicine once they get back. Unfortunately, none of it is complete, and a lot of it is contradictory both with itself and with things observed around the ship. Pretty much all of the team's actions revolve around getting inside the computer to repair it, and when they do, the computer appears to "sober up" and provides more answers... which are still contradictory. Unfortunately, in the end the whole thing turns into an Un Reveal when the computer suddenly admits that it was all just an illusion - a test - and the episode has no real ending.
• Street Fighter II contained the mysterious line "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance," prompting much debate on just who "Sheng Long" was and a rumor that he was an unlockable character. It was eventually explained that the name actually just referred to one of Ryu's attacks, not another person. But still...
  • Then there's Bison/Vega crowing about how "The Ancient One" couldn't face him. And Fei Long dedicating his art to "the master and his son" (actually a reference to Bruce Lee, Fei Long's expy source). And those three college students who inspired Sakura to take up fighting. And anything at all involving Gill. That's not even touching on the whole sordid tale of how Charlie Nash's death happened, or for that matter, where it happened, which has so many possible explanations by now, it qualifies as a Multiple-Choice Past.
  • Undoubtedly the biggest issue involving said Sheng Long, the canon ending to the first tournament. Other than the basic fact of Ryu hitting Sagat really, really hard, we're never going to know for sure what actually happened. The most likely scenario, in fact, involves Ryu connecting with Sagat's chin (the usual one hit KO location for MMA); any blow to the chest forceful enough to put away a brawny heavyweight would've left a much larger scar than what Sagat's currently sporting.
• This happens once a game in the Summon Night: Swordcraft Story games: random NPCs come into the scene and reference something that would make sense as part of a longer plot but which you don't know about. ("I would gladly fight to the death to follow the last orders of Master Shinrai!" ...Master who?) How much of this is the result of this actually being a spin-off series of a larger plot that never made it outside Japan isn't immediately obvious to English-speaking players.
• Super Robot Wars lives on this trope - Throwaway references became major plot elements in later games - such as Lemon's last name, and referring to a 'Beowulf' who piloted a 'Gespenst Mk. III' (Alt Eisen) - obscure references to the previous game, where the protagonist's theme called was 'Steel Beowulf' and his unit was revealed to have been a modified Gespenst Mk. I considered for mass production. And many, many more.
• Team Fortress 2 has this to an extent. It began with the Excuse Plot of two rival corporations hiring mercenaries to fight over seemingly trivial objectives. Each mercenary has a distinct and interesting personality, but virtually no Back Story is given and they didn't even have any real names. Since the release, more of the history leading up to the game has been revealed, and additional bits about some of the classes have come forward.
  • Potentially, the increase in backstory has only increased this trope. Why does the Announcer control both sides, pitting against each other for no apparent reason? What are her connections to Saxton Hale and the Redmond and Blutarch families? Why is friendship such an alien concept to her? What will the Engie do with all that secret deposits of Australium? How did the Soldier get a magician as a roommate? (All this only appears in the addition material. If you're content to run around reducing other players to bloody chunks it won't bother you. After all, reducing each other to bloody chunks is the point of the game.)
• Thief II: The Metal Age During the missions, you occasionally hear and read references to "the Baron", who's absence has allowed Sheriff Truart to assert his dominance over the city. No detail is given about who the Baron is or why he is absent, but this little detail creates the feeling that the game is set in a small corner of a much larger world.
• Touhou Project is filled with this trope. It ranges from important things like the Great Suwa War, Yukari's (first) invasion of the moon, and the sealing of Gensoukyou within the Hakurei Barrier, to miniscule details like Marisa's relationship with her father, the dispersal of the oni, and Rumia's ribbon. Add some Hufflepuff Houses and rampant Shrug of God, and the result is an entire series that is prime Canon Fodder.
• Several, both minor and major are scattered throughout the Trails Series. Some particular standouts.
  • The Divergent Laws. References to weapons carried by Ouroboros have very rarely been described as having special properties granted to their wielders by the Grandmaster of Ourboros. At the climax of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC, Loewe shatters Weisman's barrier around the Aureole, an object that was gifted by the goddess Aidios and has been explicitly said to be capable of granting miracles. Whatever the heck these Laws are, it was enough to completely derail the plans by the Big Bad and defies everything else we're told about what should be the most powerful objects in the setting. A quote by Loewe remains the only explanation we're given over the course of 8 games. "The sword granted to me by the Grandmaster. Just like your staff. It's a demon sword forged through the Divergent Laws."
  • The Thirteen Factories are an oft-mentioned source of where the Enforcers regularly obtain Archaisms, but it's still unknown who oversees these factories, where they're in operation, and how projects on such a massive scale have gone unnoticed and rival what any of the large companies in Zemuria can make.
  • The Great Collapse is mentioned by characters to be what caused the downfall of the ancient Zemurian civilization, but more than 14 years of games later and it's still unexplained what this was, exactly. It could be anything from wars, Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, the collapse of moral and social restraint, a natural disaster or series of natural disasters, and so on. Whatever it was, shortly there after every one of the seven Sept-Terrion disappeared from the world, birth rates plummeted, civilization crashed, and the survivors were thrown into a centuries-long Dark Age.
• In Tsukihime, during the final encounter with Nrvnqsr, he and Arcueid have a conversation on things that you don't learn until much later in the game, or in supplemental materials. This is intensified by the use of code-like terms, such as referring to Roa as the "Serpent of Akasha".
• It seems that Valve is fond of this trope. The Half-Life series is almost entirely built out of it. What were the various departments at Black Mesa researching? What do those vast Combine machines actually do? How did those corpses end up where they are? Who was the Rat Man? Who was Lazlo? The vast majority of the story is told by implication only.
  • The "Rat Man" from Portal was later explained in the Lab Rat comic that was released alongside Portal 2.
  • Most enigmatic and underexplained of all are the Half-Life series' villains. The Combine are some kind of confederation of enslaved and cybernetically-enhanced alien species, but so far we know almost nothing of the scope of their empire, or even who's running the whole thing. Are the grub-like Advisors the leaders of the organization, or merely some middle-management? Their history and motivations remain completely unexplained, though their MO seems to be the assimilation of alien species and extraction of resources.
  • And then there's the most important and mysterious character in the entire series, The G-Man. Not a single word of explanation has been given for where he came from, the motivation behind his actions, the origin of his god-like powers, or who his ominous Employers may be. Given that he caused the famous Resonance Cascade that led the Combine straight to Earth, you might think he's working for them. But the Combine have consistently treated him as an enemy, and he does help Gordon expel them from Earth. What connection does he have with the Vortigaunts, and why can't he stop screwing with protagonists? His actions are so seemingly contradictory that his purpose and backstory could turn out to be anything.
• All throughout Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, you get lots of background hints of events and backstories that have little to no relation to the power struggle in Los Angeles that makes up the main plot, such as news reports about apparent Signs of the End Times or quests where you meet/help out heroes of other stories. It all gives you the sense that everything you're doing is nothing more than a sideshow on the outskirts of a much larger and stranger secret war that you've barely seen a glimpse of.
• Xenogears. A lot of the backstory involving dead civilizations and their predecessors from space but you only know (sparse) details from supplementary materials. Squaresoft was hoping to make sequels based on this information.