Distinctions Without a Difference in Video Games.
- Assassin's Creed III: Connor has just gone through an epic naval battle at Chesapeake Bay, all to get some French ships to aid him in his assault on Ft. George in New York. When he begins to explain his request to the Admiral, the following exchange occurs:Admiral de Grasse: Wait, wait. I thought you might need some pirates killed, or goods transported. And instead, you ask us to... what, shell New York?
Connor: No. Of course not.
de Grasse: Ah...
Connor: Only part of it.
de Grasse: ...explain yourself. - Batman: The Telltale Series: Batman tries to convince the captured Penguin to give up his master's plan.Batman: You think she cares for you? You are nothing more than a pawn she has discarded.
The Penguin: What the hell do you think I am? I am no pawn, I am a Soldier — I’ll tell you nothing! - Borderlands 2: "I'm not saying you owe me, but I am implying it."
- Call of Duty 2 has a mission called "Retreat? We're Advancing in Another Direction".
- Cyberpunk 2077: Saul insists that the Aldecaldos' main source of income is "logistics", not "smuggling", but when pressed for a distinction, he shrugs and admits that given the type of "logistics" they mostly get called upon to do, there really isn't one.
- Used in the PC adventure game The Dagger of Amon Ra:"Kill is such an ugly word. Actually, we're going to sacrifice you to Amon Ra!"
- Yuan Shao in Dynasty Warriors 5: "This is not a retreat! Rather, a move for my future!"
- Endless Sky: For the most part of the game, the difference between a Space Fighter and an Attack Drone is clear - while both are launched from carrier craft, one is crewed and the other is not. The one instance when it stops mattering is for Korath Automata spacecraft, none of which are crewed.
- From Fallout: New Vegas:
- This exchange:Courier: In the meantime, you'd rule Vegas as some kind of dictator?
Mr. House: I prefer the term "autocrat". - Also, from the "Old World Blues" DLC:Dr. Klein: I'm not going to harm it. I'm going to dissect it until it's dead!
- This exchange:
- Final Fantasy thieves have a tendency for this.
- In Final Fantasy VI, Locke insists, "I'm not a thief, I'm a treasure hunter!" Regardless of the fact that some of the treasures he hunts are currently owned by someone else, and that he specializes in stealing from enemies in combat and even mugging them (stealing AND attacking in one turn) if you get the right accessory.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, Balthier clarifies for some bounty hunters: "I'm no thief. I'm a Sky Pirate."
- Final Fantasy X-2 has the Machine Faction and "machines," which are a really just salvaged machina, but which are called that in order to avoid a term which still holds negative connotations for some in Spira. A random NPC woman even comments "A machine? It's just a machina."
- Final Fantasy XIV made the same mistake as World of Warcraft further down — originally, the Anti-Grinding came in the form of a "Fatigue" system which reduced experience as your session grew longer, and players hated it. An update changed it to a limited "rested bonus" that accumulated while logged out, and this time players loved what was essentially the same mechanic.
- Fire Emblem: Awakening: Regarding the passing on of important information:Lissa: Vaike! Did you forget to tell Stahl about our mission?
Vaike: The Vaike never forgets! ...I just don't always remember, is all... - Used in the Futurama video game after the boss fight against the Sun God.Leela: You wouldn't think a god could be mortally wounded.
Sun God: You found me out. I'm not really a god. I'm just an ordinary eternal, omniscient, superintelligent being. - In Gizmos: Riddle of the Universe; Kurt suggests reporting a crashed NASA unmanned spacecraft to the Gizmo Land government.Sid: Are you serious? Man up!
Kurt: Hey, I'm not scared, I'm just a little frightened. - Hitman:
- In Hitman, the game calls several of the flashy kills that require a bit of setup "Opportunities". The following game changes the name to "Mission Stories", despite being identical in every way except the name.
- In Hitman 2, the "MK.II" line of weapons are functionally identical to their non-MK.II counterparts, save for a tiny little square pink sticker with the number "2" on it. The exception is the ICA Executive Briefcase MK.II (which is some Self-Deprecation on this trope, and has a massive worn out "2" sticker on the lid, and the homing speed is super-slow, a nod to the games' "Slow Homing Briefcase" bug).
- This trope's name is dropped in Injustice 2, in one of the intro quotes between Atrocitus and Brainiac:Atrocitus: You're worse than the Manhunters!
Brainiac: I collect planets, not destroy them.
Atrocitus: A distinction without a difference! - The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie has Lloyd asking for Lapis' help in the final chapter to obtain the Tower of Babel and restore Lapis as the administrator of the Elysium System. Lapis however says no to the surprise of many in attendance. She even says that she still would have said no if Rufus had asked her to do so. Her reasoning however is that because she's the one who has to solve this, she's therefore the main party involved in this. From her perspective, they're not asking help from her. She's asking help from them. Swin lampshades that there's literally no difference with Lapis arguing there is.
- The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon: When Cynder say that they must let all the water from dam at once in order to have the best chance at stunning the Destroyer, Sparx says no before saying the exact same plan she just said.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: The developers said that the girl in the early promotional art wasn't the Master Sword, she was the Goddess Sword... which becomes the Master Sword over the course of the game.
- Mass Effect:
- Schnells the salarian isn't trying to help people cheat at Quasar. He's just making a machine that could help people cheat at Quasar. If they wanted.
- The directive of the Reapers is to prevent synthetic life from completely destroying organic life. Despite being synthetic themselves, they seem to think that there is nothing wrong with turning all advanced organic life into goo and using it to make new Reapers, since using the goo to make new Reapers means the organic life they obliterated is not technically completely gone since it had become raw material for new Reapers. Notably not a case of Loophole Abuse, since the Reapers seem to genuinely believe they are doing what they are supposed to do. Players found this to be an unsatisfying conclusion to a series-long mystery, to say the least.
- Humorously, a piece of dialogue with Kasumi will see her insisting that she isn't lactose intolerant. She just doesn't put up with "lactose's stupid drama."
- Mortal Kombat 9: Raiden quotes the trope name word-for-word when the Elder Gods refuse to aid Earthrealm against Outworld's invasion; according to the Elder Gods, since Shao Kahn is merely invading Earthrealm and has yet to actually merge it with Outworld, he hasn't actually violated the laws of Mortal Kombat.Raiden: A distinction without a difference! Innocents are dying at the hands of Outworld!
- In Persona 3, near after The Reveal regarding Ikutsuki's manipulations to Yukari's father Eiichiro Takeba's video. For context, the edited video tells whoever's listening to destroy the 12 Arcana Shadows, but the original video says not to do that, lest they refuses into Death.Ikutsuki: Ah yes, he did record that himself. Of course, I had to make some modifications.
Yukari: You doctored it?
Ikusuki: I corrected it. - In Roots of Pacha, Jukk claims that he's not a perfectionist, just that he has "high standards. Okay, very high standards."
- In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, "war" has become a taboo term, on account of the memory of Earth That Was. Nevertheless, the various factions still get into bloody conflicts with each other. So how do they get around this? Well, instead of "declaring war," they "pronounce Vendetta." That oughta do it!
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric has Amy suggest that she and Sonic go one way, while Knuckles and Tails go another. Knuckles calls the plan stupid... then suggests the same thing, just in different wording. Sonic just agrees to it to get Knuckles moving.
- From Sonic Riders is Eggman's insistence that the EX-World Grand Prix isn't just a race, but a "special" race to see who's the fastest and requiring a Chaos Emerald as payment for entry. Sonic just rolls with it since Jet the Hawk is going to be competing.
- In Tales of Berseria, after the party fights Phoneix, Bienfu and Grimorh reveal that there are "dog normin" and "cat normin" and that there's an irreconciable difference between the two. They compare it to the difference between sky blue and sea blue, though some of the party think that those two really aren't any different. Eizen insists that to the trained eye there is, but then they start giving other examples, like pudding vs. custard, sherbet vs. sorbet, or a hoagie vs. a sub sandwich, which Velvet says there really is no difference.
- When you're Ubercharged as Soldier in Team Fortress 2:Soldier: We have you surrounded, at least from this side!
- Touhou Project:
- It's a Running Gag for resident kleptomaniac Cute Witch Marisa Kirisame to employ Insistent Terminology in regards to her thieving habits: She has never "stolen" anything, she's just borrowing stuff. Without permission. Until the day she dies. And she won't return the things she's "borrowing" if asked to, either, because she needs those things in order to create an Elixir of Immortality. Which, to be fair to her, makes sense because she's a human, while the people she "borrows" stuff from are not. They'll outlive her and can just reclaim their property once she's no longer around to enforce it.
- Sakuya Izayoi's signature ability is often billed as her being able to halt the flow of time. Sakuya herself, however, insists that of course she doesn't stop the flow of time in the entire universe; she just makes herself move at infinite speed with zero mass.
- In the Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen game, this is used by Grindor to question Starscream's courage under fire:Grindor: I'm sorry, Starscream, I forgot: you don't retreat, you advance backwards!
- Mentioned as a backstory element in Tyranny: Occulted Jade, the (now-fled) leader of the Tidecaster faction of mages, insisted on calling herself an Archon instead of an Exarch — an Archon being simply an Exarch (being with special individual power) who is recognised by Kyros, the local Evil Overlord (Jade did it as a Take That! against Kyros' authority). Since every other Exarch is an Archonnote , it's not something that comes up much.
- World of Warcraft:
- Victory in The Halls of Reflection relies upon you running from The Lich King and escaping his fortress before he one-shot kills your entire party. The achievement for doing this in a certain time is called "We're Not Retreating; We're Advancing In A Different Direction!" - quoting Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith (see Real Life examples below).
- During the alpha and beta tests, your character's experience gain would gradually decay as you kept playing, and only recover while you were logged out. This mechanic was poorly received, as it made players feel like they were being punished for playing the game. So in the game proper, your character would instead accumulate an experience bonus while logged out, which would of course be used up in the course of grinding until you didn't have any left. Despite being the same basic mechanic and serving the same basic purpose, players interpreted this version as a reward for taking breaks, and so it was much better received.
- In Undertale, the difference between monsters and humans becomes increasingly this as the game goes on. While monsters and humans have differences in how their bodies and souls work, their behavior is so identical that these "differences" are essentially a moot point. During most of the game, most of the monsters don't even realize the player isn't a monster, while the monsters act so identically to humans that the player has zero difficulty fitting in unless they're a murderous maniac going for a Genocide Run. Both groups have the exact same capacity for good and evil, and the exact same capacity to judge and misjudge each other, and in the Golden Ending it's shown monsters had zero problems integrating into human society once they escaped the underground.
