History DemotedToExtra / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':

* Interestingly, with ''VideoGame/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'' the Green Goblin's role is demoted to only his fight scene and the Max Dillon/Electro subplot is given only slightly more attention than the Goblin.

* ''VideoGame/XMenLegends'':
** Emma Frost. Playable character in the first game, NPC in the second. Still, that's better than some other characters who were playable in the first game (such as Jubilee) who don't appear at all in the second game. Probably to make room for the Brotherhood characters.
** Poor Magma only ever gets mentioned in a trivia question in the second game, despite being the main character from the first.
%%Administrivia.ZeroContextExample** Beast himself suffered from this in the first act [[spoiler: until he's captured and BrainwashedAndCrazy, then returned to this after being defeated, which also undoes the brainwashing]].

* Many playable characters from the first ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' game make cameo appearances as [=NPCs=] in the sequel, all that can be potentially killed without any impact to the main story, sometimes tied to side quests. Specifically:
** Xan and Branwen appear in the tutorial to teach you about mages and clerics as temporary party members. They won't appear in the campaign.
** Quayle now runs the circus in the promenade, initially seized by Kalah before you clear the latter's schemes. Quayle is like a foster father and a mentor to Aerie, whom he wants to join your party.
** Xzar will approach you to investigate the Harpers' headquarters in search for Montaron, who disappeared inside. It is later revealed that the Harpers were tricking both you and Xzar to get the latter to expose himself, in order to kill him (Montaron was already dead).
** Faldorn is leading the druids attacking Trademeet. You will have to defeat her to stop the conflict.
** Ajantis will lead a team of paladins near Windspear Hills, but due to an illusion they are shown as ogres to you and viceversa. Conflict is inevitable even if you try to reason because he is notoriously LawfulStupid and will charge recklessly into what he perceives as monsters. Only after killing them the illusion disappears revealing the corpses of paladins, and if you have Keldorn in your party he will recognize Ajantis.
** Tiax is an inmate in Spellhold. He will join the first battle against Irenicus, only to die.
** Coran will ask you to free Safana from a werewolf called Lanfear. You were tricked: Safana wanted your bounty and made an agreement with Lanfear to ambush you. Things end in disaster when Lanfear kills Safana because the werewolf only wanted Coran as a love interest, being rejected afterwards. A fight ensues but Coran might survive.
* Certain major characters of the ''Franchise/ForgottenRealms'' setting are this in ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', such as Elminster or Drizzt.

* The ''[[VideoGame/SNKVsCapcom Capcom vs. SNK]]'' series does this a lot. Popular characters expected to appear (such as [[VideoGame/FatalFury Andy Bogard]], [[VideoGame/ArtOfFighting Robert Garcia]], [[VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters Goro Daimon]], [[Franchise/StreetFighter Yang]], [[Franchise/ResidentEvil Jill Valentine]], [[VideoGame/IkariWarriors Ralf & Clark]], and even VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}) either get cameo appearances/assist roles, passing mentions or don't appear at all. (Though it should be noted that Creator/{{Capcom}}'s [[VideoGame/CapcomVsSNKMillenniumFight2000 two]] [[VideoGame/CapcomvsSNK2MarkoftheMillennium entries]] in the series restricted themselves to fighting game characters; Creator/{{SNK}}'s games, not so much.) This is very noticeable on the SNK side, as most of the ''KOF'' teams (sans the Women Fighters Team) are incomplete in the games. [[labelnote:(For example...)]]The Art of Fighting Team lacks Robert, the Fatal Fury Team lacks Andy, the Japan Team lacks Goro Daimon, the Villain Team lacks Billy Kane, and so on.[[/labelnote]] Some characters who appeared in the handheld title, ''[[VideoGame/SNKVsCapcomMatchOfTheMillennium Match of the Millennium]]'' (such as [[VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}} Felicia, B.B. Hood]], [[VideoGame/TheLastBlade Akari]] and [[VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters Leona]]) appeared in that game and then got cameos or nothing. Chang also shares his moveset with Choi in ''[[VideoGame/CapcomVsSNK2MarkOfTheMillennium Capcom vs. SNK 2]]'', but Choi got into ''VideoGame/SNKVsCapcomSVCChaos'' on his own, with Chang only getting cameos. On the plus side, the ''Card Fighters'' series contains nearly all major characters (and several minor ones) from practically all Capcom and SNK games... in the forms of cards, as it is a trading card game series.

* In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' the romantic nature of Trish's relation to Dante was completely toned down once Creator/HidekiKamiya was no longer at the helm of anything ''Devil May Cry''-related; at the end of ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'' she and Dante grew to be very close (their final theme tune that plays over the staff roll is even called "Seeds of Love – Trish & Dante") and in ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' they appear to pretty much be a BattleCouple. Everything after that, however, gave a new angle to their relationship. In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry2'', Trish isn't in the story at all, Dante is alone, and she is merely an one-note unlockable character. [[Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries The anime]] (set before ''2'') made Trish work far away from Dante very often and played the fact she weirds him out due having his mother's appearance. ''VideoGame/{{Devil May Cry 3|DantesAwakening}}'' (a prequel in which Trish isn't present) introduced the fact Dante is not very lucky with girls despite his appearance, and in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4: [[UpdatedRerelease Special Edition]]'' Trish even teases Dante about his inability to "get the girl" at the end (contrasting him with [[ChildhoodFriendRomance Nero and Kyrie]]), showing the two are mostly just good partners currently.

** [[LegacyBossBattle Legacy]] {{Superboss}} Baal has suffered a bit of this. In the first few ''Disgaea'' games, Baal is the most powerful {{Superboss}} the player can fight. In ''VideoGame/Disgaea4APromiseUnforgotten'', ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2'' and ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 5}}'' the Baal fight was added in a patch, which essentially means Baal is Demoted to Free {{D|ownloadableContent}}LC.

%%Needs context about his previous role** While Sun Quan was often {{overshadowed|ByAwesome}} by his father Sun Jian and (to a lesser extent) his brother Sun Ce in the series, ''[=DW6=]'' ups this to the point where ''his father'' gets a story mode over him, the ''actual ruler'' of Wu. Keep in mind that only five characters (plus two in the special edition) per faction as well as "other" characters Diao Chan and Lu Bu have their own stories. Practically, ''Wu itself'' could be considered this compared to Wei and (especially) Shu.

** Even if he appears in all games since his debut, Guan Ping has been suffering this since ''7''. First, the most canon appearance he gets will be just about Fan Castle, where he will be unplayable and proceeds to die doing a failed YouShallNotPass. And with the inclusion of Liu Shan, his budding romance with Xingcai, which was introduced in ''5'', vanishes out of thin air as Xingcai focuses more on babysitting Liu Shan (may be historically justified as Guan Ping would've died far before Xingcai would come to age). They still give teases like they're still close friends in case of free modes, but that's it.

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', Freya features rather prominently in the first disc after her introduction, but pretty much as soon as [[spoiler:her race is massacred and she pulls a YouShallNotPass so Zidane, Dagger, and Vivi can escape]], she only appears in battle and a few minute scenes until the epilogue. Painfully ironic given that her character quote is "To be forgotten is worse than death."

** Lunafreya Nox Fleuret and Cor Leonis in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' both suffered this. Cor was originally the fifth permanent party member, where he would join the party halfway through [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the first game in the trilogy]]. When the development team was switched and they decided to go back to just a single game, Cor was demoted to a mentor and GuestStarPartyMember role. After replacing original heroine Stella, Luna found herself having a major presence in the new ''Final Fantasy XV Universe'' multimedia project, particularly ''Kingsglaive''. Her actual game presence, however, was largely cut down for conflicting reasons, leaving her with only a handful of scenes in the game. Patches and later an entire DLC episode was set to rectify this, however ''Episode Luna'' ended up being cancelled.

%%Needs more context to differentiate from KilledOffForReal** Isn't it sad, Justice? After the first game, sure it's understandable [[KilledOffForReal you're dead]], but you barely had any lasting impact beyond [[spoiler:possibly being Dizzy's mother]]. Even this wiki has forgotten it was YOU who was the first to use the Gamma Ray move in a ''GG'' game. There's also Kliff Undersn, who's only canonical appearance in ''[=GG1=]'' [[MentorOccupationalHazard ends with him dying at the hands of the aforementioned Justice]]. When they do appear, they're probably only added due to fan demand and are usually removed due to balance issues. Likewise, when given their own story paths in these appearances, these tales are retellings of either the first events of the first game or the specific dates from [[GreatOffscreenWar the Crusades]] prior to ''[=GG1=]''.
%%Needs context about how their role decreased** The series' resurgence in TheNewTens with ''Guilty Gear Xrd'' provides an interesting wrinkle to the above example. [[spoiler:Justice is still an NPC, but factors greatly into the plot of both ''-SIGN-'' and ''-REVELATOR-''; the main villains of both titles seek to merge with her [[EmptyShell (mostly) vacant body]] for their own purposes. Additionally, flashbacks and other revelations throughout both installments heavy focus on Justice's former human identity, Aria. If that wasn't enough, while the Valentines seen throughout ''Overture'' and ''Xrd'' are all but said to be genetic copies of Aria (with the original even [[GeneticMemory regaining some of "her" memories]] upon her deathbed), ''-REVELATOR-'' newcomer Jack-O' turns out to more or less be the woman in question, essentially serving as a backup copy of Aria [[SoulJar holding half of her soul]] after Aria/Justice was corrupted by her contact with [[BigBad the Universal Will]] in the backstory. The ending of ''-REVELATOR-'' sees Jack-O' merging with Justice to revive Aria, who will presumably pick up the slack for her myriad previous identities in the next iteration of ''GG'']].

%%Needs context about their previous role* ''VideoGame/KessenII'' is likely the worst standing culprit to the above. The story opts for a fictional angle depicting Diao Chan as Liu Bei's primary love interest and completely focuses on his and Cao Cao's conflict. Wu is only seen ''twice'' in the entire game.

** Naminé and Axel were major characters in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'', but their roles were greatly reduced in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' (probably because, once Roxas was gone and Sora's memories were restored, Naminé didn't have much else she could possibly do except [[FusionDance remerge]] [[LiteralSplitPersonality with Kairi]], and Axel was ''supposed'' to die in the prologue as a tutorial boss, but he was SavedByTheFans and his role extension had to be small or it would clash with what was already plotted out).
** After ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Donald and Goofy, who were consistent main characters alongside Sora, have been put more and more OutOfFocus, amounting to cameos in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep Birth by Sleep]]'', unlockable multiplayer mode characters in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'', {{Guest Star Party Member}}s in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded coded]]'', and background furnishing in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance Dream Drop Distance]]'' [[spoiler:save for the VERY end]].
** ''Also'' after ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Kairi was dropped from all importance while just Sora and Riku received further focus. Even in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', despite being trained as a Keyblade wielder, she still gets sidelined [[spoiler:by being killed by Xehanort]] yet again.
** A Disney example would be pretty much everyone from ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013''. Even though Arendelle appears as a world in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', Sora only interacts with each of the Frozen cast once which has no bearing on the plot before they are relegated as background characters where the plot goes on exactly like the movie without Sora's further input to the point that he might as well not be there in the first place. Special mentions to this trope however goes to Prince Hans in that despite being the main villain of ''Frozen'', only appears in two brief non-speaking appearances before randomly turning into a Heartless as the world's BossBattle.

** Sohei Dojima, if the games are played in chronological order; in the prequel ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'' he's at the height of his power, the leading crime boss of Kamurocho and the one orchestrating the battle for the Empty Lot in a bid to become Chairman of the Tojo Clan. In all other games, [[spoiler:he's dead, KilledOffscreen by Nishiki in the first half hour of ''VideoGame/Yakuza1'' when he attempts to rape Kiryu's LoveInterest Yumi. About the only impact Sohei has is his legacy, as his wife is trusted enough to be Acting Chairman following the assassination of the Fifth Chairman and his son, Daigo, is considered the only man worthy enough to become Chairman in ''VideoGame/Yakuza2''. Heck, Sohei's name isn't even ''mentioned'' after ''2'' and Daigo is considered the only Dojima of note for the rest of the series.]]

** Zigzagged with Admiral Hackett. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' he served as a frequent contact for side missions but never appeared. In the base game of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' he goes through this, being nowhere to be seen, until a single [=DLC=], although he does appear in the flesh. This is completely reversed in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' where he becomes Shepard's most frequent and trusted contact for the entirety of the Reaper War, and forms basically a BigGood ensemble for the galaxy between himself, Shepard and Anderson.

%%Needs context to differentiate from KilledOffForReal* Odin gets this pretty bad in ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'', despite being the ''title character''! Despite making a decent role in everyone's storyline (except Cornelius', where he essentially just cameos early on), and all of the truly massive amounts of storyline hyping he gets, Odin gets [[spoiler:knocked off rather easily at the end of the game, where he gets overwhelmed by the undead and killed by a Halja]].

** Brahma, despite being equal to Shiva and Vishnu in Hinduism, makes very few appearances in the franchise. The second ''Digital Devil Saga'' game does make use of his appearance...and gives it to Brahma'''n''', a totally different concept, while Shiva and Vishnu are high-end Bonus Bosses.

** The members of Team Dark, namely Shadow and Rouge, used to had a starring role in almost every game after their debut culminating in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', where they arguably had the most plot importance over Sonic's group. Afterwards however, they basically hardly show up as a unit at all. Shadow and Rouge still get attention every now and then, but it's a far cry to when they were treated as (respectively) TheRival to Sonic and an on-and-off ImpliedLoveInterest to Knuckles. Poor Omega, meanwhile, barely even gets to appear nowadays, and he tends not to do much when he does.
** Both Silver and Blaze were the secondary stars of their respective debut games, but have both since fallen by the wayside. They're both more or less relegated to the Spin off titles and the occasional cameo nowadays outside of MilestoneCelebration games like VideoGame/SonicGenerations and VideoGame/SonicForces.

** Of the Babylonian Rogues introduced in ''VideoGame/SonicRiders'' as major characters, only Jet the Hawk stuck around in any meaningful capacity, and even then his appearances are mostly limited to rival character status in spinoffs like ''VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames''. Wave the Swallow and Storm the Albatross more or less vanished into the ether as soon as the ''Riders'' series wrapped up, and appear so little it's easy to forget they exist.

* About half the cast of playable characters in ''VideoGame/StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime'' falls into this. Nel, Albel, and Mirage are fairly important characters in disk 1, then in disk 2 fade into obscurity. Adray, Peppita and Roger do this as well, though they never had a particularly major hand in the plot to begin with (Roger being the only 100% optional character). Since you are only allowed to bring along two characters out of Nel, Albel, Roger, and Peppita, the game has to fit their dialogue in rather awkwardly, and the other characters rarely if ever acknowledge their presence. Mirage is perhaps the most painful example, however -- she doesn't even get this courtesy, since she was added in a version after the original released in Japan, and as such essentially gets no dialogue at all after she joins the party!

* ''Franchise/StreetFighter'': In-between ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' and ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha 3'', Cody was demoted to background cameos and the occasional mention. Haggar got it even worse; he has yet to appear as a playable character in any ''Street Fighter'' games, though he did appear in a few ''[[VideoGame/CapcomVs Marvel vs. Capcom]]'' games. Possibly explained in ''VideoGame/StreetFighter6'', which features a "Haggar Memorial Stadium"--implying he died at some point, which ''would'' prevent him from appearing.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'': Since the franchise is a MegaCrossover between dozens of HumongousMecha anime, this happens in pretty much every single game because it would be impractical (if not outright impossible) to have every single character from the constituent anime play as major a role as they do in the originals.

** In spite of being the titular character and more or less the hero of his series, Anime/{{Betterman}} Lamia's reduced to a handful of roles in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsCompact3'' and always is a NPC ally on missions he appears.

** While every ''playable character'' above got brought back for ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', this fate befell the Subspace Army -- the primary antagonists of ''Brawl''[='s=] adventure mode -- in the ''World of Light'' adventure mode. Except for Galleom returning as a boss, the entire Subspace Army, [[spoiler:including Tabuu himself are reduced to spirits.]]

* Alisha from ''VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria'' has most other examples beat. In early promotional materials, she was given the spotlight right along side the lead Sorey. She even got her own figure and a Pre-Order Mystic Arte. So naturally fans assumed that she was the heroine of the game. But as the game got closer to release, fans began to notice that she was becoming less and less prominent in the promotional materials. Then come the actual game, Alisha drops from the party (and plot) partway through, and doesn't really matter much from then on. She does get ADayInTheLimelight thanks to dlc, but it's still a far cry from fans' expectations.

** In ''VideoGame/TinyToonAdventuresBabsBigBreak'' for Platform/GameBoy, Plucky and Hamton were both playable characters alongside Buster. In the sequel, ''Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Montana's Movie Madness'', they give Buster advice before the stages begin and are featured in Gogo's bonus roulette, wherein they restore Buster's health meter to its full extent if he lands on either of them.

* All characters in ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' (except protagonists Reimu and Marisa, of course) get shunted to the side after their debut game is finished. The exceptions to this are the occasional player characters (Sakuya, Youmu, Sanae, and the other playable characters in the fighting games) and the characters who appear in the [[AllThereInTheManual side materials]] (covering everyone who don't appear or have appeared already in the main games). This has been gradually getting better in later games, though.

** Both Flandre Scarlet and Ran Yakumo were Demoted to Extra after their debut in their respective ''Extra'' Stages. Flandre was basically a one-shoot character, and Ran was, after her debut, almost exclusively shown in the shadow of Yukari Yakumo as a helper. However, Flandre gained a prominent role in ''Foul Detective Satori'' with some more character development, then a playable role in ''VideoGame/TouhouGouyokuIbunSunkenFossilWorld'' where she [[spoiler:defeats the FinalBoss when no one else could]]. As for Ran, she appeared as a playable character in the aforementioned ''Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost'', where her backstory is revealed and she does a lot of work in resolving the incident.
** Yuuka Kazami, from all the Windows games, has a prominent role only in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, as an extra character, and was serving basically a role of a reminder to PC-98 era. She hasn't appeared again since.
** Sakuya got that treatment after Scarlet Weather Rhapsody was released in 2008, then again after a one-note appearance in ''Double Dealing Character'', released in 2013, as a playable character. Again, though, she gains a prominent role in the first arc of ''Foul Detective Satori'' as the first suspect, then again in ''VideoGame/TouhouKouryuudouUnconnectedMarketeers'' as a playable character alongside Sanae (the only time they've been playable in the same game). In this case, it's justified in-universe, as she doesn't involve herself in incidents which don't threaten the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
** Eientei residents other than Reisen (Tewi, Eirin, and Kaguya) were pretty much out of focus after side works dedicated to them ended, while Reisen went on to have roles in ''VideoGame/TouhouKanjudenLegacyOfLunaticKingdom'' and the fighting games starting with the [=PS4=] version of ''Urban Legend in Limbo''.

** Jeffry. Much like Wolf above, although his treatment is a tad better in the second season, where he and Lion are blackmailed into fighting each other, in Jeffry's case to save his family.

** After leading the Horde forces in Hellfire Peninsula and setting up Thrallmar in ''Burning Crusade'', Nazgrel has more or less faded into the background in ''World of Warcraft''. He isn't mentioned as a candidate for Warchief despite being Thrall's close advisor and he never gives his thoughts on Garrosh's appointment.

%%Needs context about their previous role** Vol'jin essentially did nothing but hang out with Thrall after turning Rexxar and Rok'han into spirit wyverns in ''Warcraft III : The Frozen Throne'', until taking back the Echo Isles just before ''Cataclysm''.

%%Needs context about their previous role** Yugi. A painful example since the story still revolves around Marik seeking the God Cards and destroying Yami Yugi, yet you're the one who faces all the Rare Hunters and Yugi is basically not in the game until the finals begin.

** Little spotlight was given to [[BreakoutCharacter Meta Knight]] for a time starting with ''Triple Deluxe'', where he only appears via a balloon from the Circus Copy Ability and a few keychains, and continuing into ''Rainbow Curse'' where he's just a clay figure (given that his colors were stolen at the beginning of the game). Meta Knight was given a comeback in ''Planet Robobot'', which features a new version of Meta Knightmare as well as a boss appearance and a major role in the climax, and he went on to appear as a Dream Friend in ''Star Allies''... then he got thrown back out of focus again in ''Forgotten Land'', where he's just a BonusBoss in the Arena.

** King Dedede only appears in ''Squeak Squad'' as the WarmUpBoss (surprisingly enough) and only contributes to the plot by having Kirby believe he was the one who stole his strawberry shortcake. Similarly, he saw a drop in appearances following ''Triple Deluxe'', only appearing in ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheRainbowCurse'' via a clay figure (as his colors were stolen at the beginning of the game) and ''Planet Robobot'' in the first and final cutscenes.
** Little spotlight was given to [[BreakoutCharacter Meta Knight]] during the 3DS games. He only appears in ''Triple Deluxe'' via a balloon from the Circus Copy Ability and a few keychains and a clay figure in ''Rainbow Curse'' (given that his colors were stolen at the beginning of the game). He was, however, given a slight comeback in ''Planet Robobot''.

** Speaking of the original ''VideoGame/MarioBros'', there's poor Shellcreeper. These turtles are the first enemy of the game, but are supplanted by the Koopa Troopas starting in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1''. Because they are [[TheSpiny not stompable]], the need to avoid confusion with their more famous successor makes them a very rare sight in anything but pure remakes of their debut game, and even some of those remakes replace Shellcreepers with Spinies.

*** Speaking of which, this is the first game to feature ''The Prince of Darkness'' that does not include Kusakabe as a boss; despite being the BigBad of the movie, here he only appears in a few cutscenes, whereas Hokushin is given more prominence. And this was after ''[[VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsBX BX]]'', which featured on the original TV series, had him as the final boss of the Nadesico storyline.