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Early Bird Cameo / Video Games

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Early Bird Cameos in Video Games.

  • Kite (Sora), an unlockable extra character in .hack//Link, is the main character in .hack//TheMovie.
  • Geese Howard makes a cameo in the extended ending of the SNES version of Art of Fighting, which was released months before Geese's actual appearance as the True Final Boss in the arcade version of Art of Fighting 2.
  • Asagi might be the ultimate example of this. Of course, we don't know if she's ever actually going to GET her own game or if Nippon Ichi is just screwing around.
  • The final memory of Assassin's Creed Rogue shows Shay in the Palace of Versailles assassinating a man who mentions his son Arno. Said character later became the protagonist of Assassin's Creed: Unity.
  • The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a Gaiden Game to Life Is Strange 2 that serves to set up the events of the latter, with the Diaz siblings showing up at the very end of said game. Notably, this was their first appearance in the series and prior to them being announced as the protagonists of "2".
  • Trixie from Back to the Future: The Game appears in Poker Night at the Inventory, facing away from the camera.
  • Bear & Breakfast: As soon as you get the Atlas from Beanie, you can see Twiggy, Wade, and Charlotte in the southern part of Blackmoss. However, you can't meet them until later in the story because you can't cross the Broken Bridge to that area yet.
  • In Best Fiends, Seriously's five year celebration video gave early previews of three new Fiends: Ru the panda ant, Dougie the vinula moth, and Dina the Hickory Horned Devil. The latter was released just a week after this surprise appearance, albeit with a slightly modified design.
  • The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble: The Beast (the Big Bad of the game) is on a poster at the very start of the game.
  • Each of the Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters have their own dedicated ECHO log hidden in Borderlands 2's Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary DLC. Each ECHO log is designed to give a bit of flavour to the Borderlands 3 Vault Hunters and explain what they were doing on Pandora before the events of the game.
  • In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, Tyalie first appears at the Summit in Chapter 3, as an unnamed aide shadowing the GameFAQs admin. She even has a few lines, but isn’t properly introduced to the main cast until Chapter 6.
  • Lumi, the virtual Damsel in Distress of Child of Eden, previously appeared in Lumines II in late 2006, which also featured "Heavenly Star", the debut song of Genki Rockets, the semi-fictional band that Lumi is the "singer" of.
  • In City of Heroes, Crey agents are enemies intended for level 30+, but the climax of Golden Roller's missions allows you to fight them early around level 19 (whereas other lower-level missions tend to have the corporation only as The Ghost, letting you fight allies of theirs at most).
  • In Copy Kitty, the first mission in World 10 features graffiti on several parts of the city. One of these is the silhouette of Cleru, the protagonist of the creators' next game in the setting.
  • In the Crash Bandicoot series, Nina Cortex's official debut was in Crash Twinsanity. However, the Fusion crossovers with the Spyro the Dragon series were released before it and introduced her as a radically different character.
  • The Dark Tales series has a fairly obscure one. In the collector's edition of Fall of the House of Usher, the player has a personal office which contains a number of interesting items, including a painting of two people. One is clearly C. Auguste Dupin, while the other is a woman whose facial features are left indistinct; but her attire and hairstyle strongly indicate that this is Anna Fleurs, who debuted properly later in the short-lived Freemium side game Nightfall. However, another game in the series reveals that Anna debuted much earlier than that - the bonus chapter of Morella shows that Anna is actually the player character in some of the games. (The character's gender is inconsistent.)
  • Death Stranding:
    • Mama's first introduced when she picks up the cargo Sam brought to Central Knot, and her chiralgram is briefly seen during the commotion in Bridget's office as she's dying. She's introduced through a codec call, and Sam meets her in person in chapter 5, about twenty hours into the game.
    • You can see Heartman's chiralgram in the scene of Bridget's death, and he's somewhat more properly introduced later, through a codec call. His first in-person interaction with Sam takes place in chapter 8, about thirty or so hours into the game.
    • Higgs first appears in the prologue, where he appears on top of the Corpse Disposal car to summon a BT. Later on, a figurine representing him is shown during the overview of Sam's mission. He's properly introduced at the end of chapter 2, eight or so hours into the game.
  • Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus has an actor variant of this trope: being a Massive Multiplayer Crossover video game based on several Light Novels, it manages to get the voice actors of the featured series' anime adaptations to reprise their roles. This includes the voice cast of Asura Cryin'', which adaptation premiered a few days after the game's release.
  • Diddy Kong Racing:
    • Banjo, Tiptup, and Conker. Timber was also supposed to have his own game with Bumper and Pipsy as his sidekicks, but it was cancelled.
    • Krunch, a neutral member of the Kremling Krew from Donkey Kong Country. Although he never appeared in another game, nor did he ever seem destined to, his design and attire were based on the Kremlings in the then-unreleased Donkey Kong 64 as opposed to the original SNES trilogy.
    • Although she did not appear in person in that game, Kazooie was actually first mentioned in the game instructions manual for DKR.
    • Tricky was supposed to be this, but the game he was going to have a major appearance in became rebranded to become a part of the Star Fox universe. Star Fox Adventures ends up having a different-looking triceratops also named Tricky that has no relation to the one here.
  • Digimon World 3 featured Agunimon, KendoGarurumon, and AncientGreymon in cameo appearances as DNA Digivolutions; all three Digimon would go on to play large roles in Digimon Frontier. However, it's slightly complicated; Frontier wasn't released in some regions, while in Japan, World 3 was released three months into Frontier's run.
  • Dragon Age:
    • Merrill and Isabela both appear in Dragon Age: Origins - Merrill is part of the Dalish Elf origin, while Isabela can be encountered at the Pearl in Denerim. They are retroactively turned into this trope by their appearance as party members in Dragon Age II.
    • When the trailer for Dragon Age: Inquisition was released, it confirmed the return of the beloved character of Hawke from Dragon Age II, who is shown arriving in the company of a Grey Warden. Absolutely no one in the fandom realized that this Warden was actually meant to be Alistair, another fan favorite from Dragon Age: Origins, until the character's new design was revealed later.
    • Sera may have had an early appearance back in Origins before she became a companion in Inquisition. A sidequest in Origins has the Warden deliver a painted box to an unseen contact known to be associated with the Friends of Red Jenny. After delivering the box, a child his heard laughing and the contact disappears. In Inquisition, Sera, an active member of the Friends of Red Jenny, states that during the events of Origins, she was a child in Denerim, where she spent her time playing with painted boxes and burying things she stole.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • An in-game book in Daggerfall, On Oblivion, mentions a Daedric Prince named Jyggalag. It wouldn't be until Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion that Jyggalag would actually appear.
    • Morrowind:
      • The book Children of the Sky is the first in-game mention of the idea of "the Voice" in the series and its use by the Nordsnote . Two games later in Skyrim, the Voice shows up in-game and the Player Character can use it.
      • There are no Trolls in Morrowind, but there is Trollbone Armor. The helmets (which are hollowed out Troll skulls,) have three eye-sockets, just as trolls have from Oblivion onward.
      • Each of the expansions gives a taste of what is coming up in the next two games in the series:
      • The Tribunal expansion can be seen as a sneak peek of what Oblivion would be like, since the city of Mournhold bears many similarities to the Imperial City: Multiple districts in closed-off cells as opposed to being in the same cell as the surrounding wilderness, an Absurdly Spacious Sewer down below (that is actually part of the ruins of former city upon which the current city is built), the presence of Goblins, Liches, and the Dark Brotherhood in full-force, no Levitation, and even Royal Guards in plate armor, which was how the Imperial Legion would be portrayed throughout the next game. There's even Foreshadowing of the Oblivion Crisis at one point in the questline.
      • Solstheim in the Bloodmoon expansion is essentially a cameo for Skyrim two games in the future. It's snowy, full of Nords, werewolves, spriggans, draugrs, and mead, all things that show up in Skyrim prominently. (Solstheim itself then shows up again as the setting for the Dragonborn expansion to Skyrim.)
    • Oblivion: The in-game book Immortal Blood mentions Movarth Piquine, a vampire hunter who was turned into a vampire and also the Clan Volkihar, a Nordic clan of vampires. Later in Skyrim, Movarth Piquine is a vampire lord and the Big Bad of the quest Laid to Rest, while the Clan Volkihar is a faction that can be either joined or fought against in the Dawnguard expansion to Skyrim.
  • Two years before the Broken Lords debuted in Endless Legend, a Broken Lord Hero in was added to Endless Space, albeit as an "Unknown race".
  • Epic Battle Fantasy:
  • The PC version of the The Fairly OddParents! game Breakin' Da Rules! features a level where Timmy has to avoid a younger-aged version of Vicky and Tootie's mom, named Nicky here. The character eventually appeared on the show in her adult form, alongside her unnamed husband, in the "Channel Chasers" movie.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout Shelter featured Fallout 4 companions Preston Garvey and Piper Wright as Legendary Vault Dwellers prior to the release of the latter.
    • In Fallout 4, one of your potential companions, the Railroad agent Deacon, will be present in major settlements before you first meet him face-to-face when joining the Railroad. For instance, he’ll be a security guard when you first arrive at Diamond City. Being a Master of Disguise, he'll be labeled as a generic NPC before you become acquainted with him.
  • Fatal Fury:
    • The appearance of Alfred the Pilot in Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 was meant to be a tie-in for his own game, a PlayStation-exclusive port Real Bout Fatal Fury Special subtitled Dominated Mind, but since that game was only released in Japan, many people think he was simply a character made up for Real Bout 2. In Hon-Fu and Yamazaki's endings, the antagonist from Dominated Mind, White, can be seen.
    • Rock Howard, the protagonist of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, appears in Terry's ending in Fatal Fury 3.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Nearly half a year before he became the protagonist of his own game, Luso Clemens showed up as a minor playable character in the remake of the original Final Fantasy Tactics, War of the Lions, even though the games are on competing systems. In what is either this or an Ascended Extra, Hurdy, a main character from A2, first appeared as an operator of the teleporting services in Final Fantasy XII.
    • Final Fantasy VI features two playable characters who can't be recruited until the second half of the story. Umaro the yeti can be spotted within the first five minutes of the game occasionally emerging from an inaccessible cave in the mining town of Narshe, and isn't acknowledged until much later when Mog suggests recruiting him. Gogo the mimic is an interesting case. Word of God has stated that he was going to be revealed as having appeared throughout the game impersonating various characters you encounter, but this was dropped during development apart from one bit of dialog from Siegfried at the Colosseum. Nothing in the final game connects Gogo to the alleged imposter, leaving it open to interpretation. (Whether he is the Famed Mimic Gogo who appeared in the previous game is similarly never made clear.)
    • The Final Fantasy VII Remake version of Cloud showed up in the Japanese Mobius Final Fantasy in 2015, along with the Guard Scorpion and Shinra soldiers to fight, and cards representing him, Barret, Jessie, Biggs and Wedge.
    • In Final Fantasy VII Remake, there is a minor character called Kyrie who has sidequests pretty late in the game. She first appears as an NPC on the train in one of the very early chapters and has cameos scattered throughout.
    • Final Fantasy IX: Before Quina is properly named and met in Qu's Marsh, Steiner can find them cooking in the Alexandrian kitchens. They also participate in the Festival of the Hunt under the name "The Strange Gourmand", though they're not physically seen.
    • Dissidia Final Fantasy includes secret sets of player icons featuring Lightning, Ace, and Noctis, the protagonists from Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Type-0, and Final Fantasy XV. Lightning became playable in the sequel, Dissidia 012, but the other two games still hadn't been released. Indeed, their cameos were so early that they still referred to the games by their working titles Final Fantasy Agito XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, even when the same icons were reused in 012. Ace and Noctis would ultimately become playable in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Faye, a new character added to the remake Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, actually debuted in the crossover mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes about a week before her home game's release. Heroes was also the first game to feature the Echoes designs for Alm, Clair, and Lukas.
    • In a non-character example, the crossover game Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE features appearances from weapons from across the franchise, including a pair of magic staffs from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which wouldn't be released until three and a half years later.
  • The PS3 version of the first Gal*Gun has Ekoro appear as an important character during Doki Doki Carnival mode. She later becomes Mission Control and a potential Love Interest for the main character in Double Peace.
  • Eoleo, one of the playable characters in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, briefly appears as a toddler in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.
  • Grand Theft Auto 2 introduced the ability to change the radio station in your car, as well as having different ones for each district. This could be considered in a way foreshadowing to GTA Radio. As another added touch, a gang radio station's reception degrades the further you are from its source in a district, which eventually came back for Grand Theft Auto V (crossing between Los Santos and Blaine County causes you to lose the signal for some stations).
  • Gran Turismo 2:
    • One of the demo builds included an unfinished rendering of Monte Carlo AKA Côte d'Azur, which made its proper debut in GT 3.
    • The IA-2 and IA-10 license tests are based on the Eau Rouge-Radillon section of Spa-Francorchamps, which wouldn't appear in full until GT 5.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy features references to the television series' movie Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure, even though the movie wasn't released until about six months after the game came out. Billy and Mandy's android duplicates Billybot and Mandroid appear as alternate costumes, the Boogey Man's alternate costumes include his pirate getup and himself as a lawyer, the Boogey Bay level takes place on Boogey's pirate ship, and Horror's Hand is mentioned and shown in Boogey's Mojo Meltdown.
  • If the Player Character chooses to be asocial on her wedding night in Guenevere, she'll have a dream vision of Mordred, several years before he is even born.
  • Guitar Hero had two of Foreigner's re-recordings of "Jukebox Hero" and "Feels Like the First Time" release before the release of the album "Feels Like the First Time".
  • Half-Life 2:
    • If you know about the All-Seeing Vortigaunt Easter Egg and go into the pipe where he's hiding, you'll discover he has a stockpile of dead headcrabs. Fast headcrabs, in fact, the kind you won't run into alive until about a third of the way through Ravenholm.
    • Overwatch Elite soldiers first appear at the end of the chapter "Entanglement" as Gordon and Alyx are about to teleport out of Nova Prospekt. They aren't fought proper until late in the following chapter.
  • The PC port of Halo 2 includes a silenced version of its SMG in a test map. This silenced SMG later went on to be the primary weapon of the player character in Halo 3: ODST.
  • The House of the Dead: OVERKILL's PS3/PC rerelease, Extended Cut, adds two extra chapters played as Action Girl Varla Gunns and her brother's Dumb Blonde girlfriend. In the second extra chapter, the player can catch a quick glimpse of the Crawler, the boss of the fourth regular chapter (not that this makes his appearance any less out-of-nowhere).
  • In the first level of The Legend of Zelda game Hyrule Warriors, it's possible to run up to meet with Wizzro before his official story introduction in the second level. He's only identified as the Dark Wizard, and he runs away after he reaches half health. This doesn't stop him from summoning King Dodongo, however.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
  • The Kyo clone Kusanagi initially showed up in The King of Fighters 2002 as an alternate moveset for Kyo, but did not receive a role in the story proper until the next game, 2003.
  • In King's Quest V, King Graham meets and rescues Princess Cassima in Mordack's castle. At the end of the game, his son Alexander falls in Love at First Sight with Cassima, fueling the events of the next game.
  • During the production of the La-Mulana remake, the game's development team released a video on April 1st, 2010. The video showcases a mix of genuine changes to the game and gags created specifically for the video. One of said gags was a cameo appearance by Lumisa Kosugi from the game's sequel, which wasn't announced until 2014.
  • Gooigi was created for Luigi's Mansion 3, but appeared a year earlier in the Nintendo 3DS remake of the first game. This is actually explained in-story as the Professor E. Gadd from the second game, Dark Moon, sending him to the past as a field test for his abilities.
  • In the postgame of Magic Pengel you get to fight the otherwise unfought Kiba. The doodles are based on Taito-related characters, including Reimu Hakurei (for whatever reason misnamed in the localized version as "Zul", even though Japanese refers to her as "Hakurei's Miko"). One of her attacks is specifically called 夢想封印 (which the localized version has as Dream Seal, years before the English fan translations), which would end up becoming one of her bombs in Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil few months later, making this an early bird cameo of an attack, of all things (the new Reimu redesign didn't, as it was first seen even earlier in Seihou Project's Extra Stage).
  • It's no coincidence that Makai Kingdom got a PSP remake after Overlord Zetta's cameo in Disgaea 4, which was the first time since Makai Kingdom that he has actually appeared in humanoid form. The character from the remake, Petta, appears in Disgaea 4 as Downloadable Content.
  • Three years before Max Payne came out, the Aesir Corporation's headquarters appeared during the cityscape flythrough in Remedy Entertainment's Final Reality benchmark/tech demo.
  • Mega Man:
    • Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters was technically the debut of Duo, the game coming out four months before Mega Man 8.
    • An odd example with Mega Man Network Transmission, an interquel set between the first and second Battle Network games. Here, MegaMan battles QuickMan when the latter causes trouble in a bank after his operator gives him the fake vaccine. The next day, QuickMan's anonymous operator emails Lan a "Thank You" message and a Fast Gauge subchip for knocking some sense into QuickMan. Since Battle Network 2 released in 2001 and Network Transmission released in 2003, anyone who played the second game would know the operator is Speedy Dave.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Alongside the Super Smash Bros. Brawl cameos, Old Snake also made a cameo before his official debut, as the most statistically-powerful bonus character in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops +.
    • Metal Gear Ac!d 2 beat both games by featuring Metal Gear Solid 4 trading cards two years before the game was even released (granted, they were based on the very first trailer that was released).
    • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty got two of these. Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, if the player completed every single one of the VR missions, gave a sneak preview of Metal Gear RAY. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, which was released a year before MGS2, featured an extra game mode where the player controls a newly recruited soldier who undergoes VR training by having to complete harder versions of Solid Snake's missions in the main game. The name of this agent is revealed at the end to be "Jack", the same name of the protagonist in MGS2.
    • Cyborg Ninja Raiden played a cameo role in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. However, it's not the same Cyborg Ninja suit Raiden wears in Guns of the Patriots, but more of a cosplay of him in Gray Fox's exoskeleton suit from the first MGS.
  • Modern Warfare:
    • The prologue "Crew Expendable" and endgame "All In" featured two Red Shirt SAS members, Wallcroft and Griffen, who were promoted to squad leaders in the MW3 mission "Mind the Gap".
    • In the remastered versions of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, Yuri makes cameos at events he was retroactively established to have been present for by Modern Warfare 3. In Modern Warfare Remastered he and Vladimir Makarov are present for Imran Zakhaev's failed assassination at the hands of Cpt. Price, and in Modern Warfare 2 Remastered he can be found wounded at the beginning of the playable area in "No Russian".
  • In Mr. Saitou, the side of the page containing Brandon's math homework has a doodle of a goofy creature saying "So much math!". It later appears as the Sphinx of Basic Math who gives Mr. Saitou and Brandon puzzle hints throughout their journey.
  • During Route B of NieR: Automata, two holographic twin girls make brief "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" appearances throughout the campaign, such as after the first battle against Adam and Eve, and when 2B strangles 9S to death. The player won't know who either of them are until the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, when they're revealed as the Terminals, the commanders of the Machine Lifeforms and the ultimate masterminds behind the entire Machine War.
  • In Oddworld: Abe's Exodus, a terminal to Vykker Labs can be seen still under construction during Abe's visit to FeeCo Depot, hinting at the then in-development Munch's Odyssey.
  • Pizza Tower: A contingent of U.F.Olives appear near the end of Oregano Desert, residing inside a parked UFO. Later, they appear as the primary enemies of Deep-Dish 9.
  • Persona 3 Portable features a man drinking at the nightclub in Paulownia Mall. He appears to be Vincent from Catherine. He tells you a bit of a story about how much of a Jerkass he is, then points out that it has "nothing to do with your problems" at the end.
  • PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: The game was released November 2012, and has elements from DmC: Devil May Cry (released January 2013), Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (both February 2013), and BioShock Infinite (March 2013). It also had Big Daddy, possibly Production Foreshadowing to the Burial at Sea DLC (March 2014), considering almost everything else was in reference to Infinite.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness is a third-generation game. It features a non-playable Munchlax and a sorta-playable Bonsly, both fourth-generation Pokémon.
    • Munchlax appears in the town square as a random event in the original Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team, and can be (kind of) made playable via cheat codes. The player can also get statues of Lucario, Weavile, Bonsly and Mime Jr. placed outside their house.
    • A year before Gale of Darkness was released, Munchlax appeared in the game Pokémon Dash as an AI-controlled opponent.
    • Pokémon Pinball's Blue Field theme music is a remix for that of Ecruteak City in Pokémon Gold and Silver before the latter was released.
    • A few months before the release of the original Pokémon Red and Blue in North America, the sprites of the three starters, as well as Pikachu, Meowth, and Mew, appeared as stickers in the Game Boy Camera. However, the camera came out in Japan three years after the original Red & Green Versions, so this is only an early-bird cameo for North America.
    • In the remakes FireRed and LeafGreen, Koga's daughter and successor as Fuschia City Gym Leader in Pokémon Gold and Silver, appears as a generic NPC sprite. Meanwhile, in the Team Rocket hideout in the Sevii Islands, one of its leaders allude to the plot of Gold and Silver as well as mention The Rival of the same game, while hinting that he's the son of Giovanni.
    • Since at least Generation 5, it happened that Pokémon appeared in trailers time before their proper announcement:
      • Japanese commercials for Pokémon Black and White showed multiple Pokémon (Drilbur, Excadrill, Cofagrigus, Gothitelle, Reuniclus, Alomomola, Galvantula, Axew and Haxorus) months before their official announcement.
      • Trevenant appeared in a Japanese commercial for Pokémon X and Y, but wasn't officially announced until after the game's release.
      • One of the Pokémon Sun and Moon "Train On" commercials had a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance of Ribombee, a Pokémon that wasn't revealed until the game came out.
      • The "Jump into a Paldean Journey" trailer for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet features brief appearances of five different Pokémon that weren't announced yet by then: the sequence showing a Team Star base fight features a Charcadet, the scene where one of the trailers goes to Artazon has Nacli, Squawkabilly and Tandemaus visible in the mini map in the bottom right corner and a Roaming Form Gimmighoul is slightly visible during the showcase of the photo mode. Curiously, these appearances are found only in the international version of the trailer, while the Japanese version features different bits of footage to avoid spoiling these Pokémon.
  • The worm-like protagonists of the Nitrome flash game Rainbogeddon appeared as an enemy type in Nitrome Must Die, months before their actual game was released.
  • Resident Evil:
    • In the 2002 remake, if the player goes around behind the staircase to the second floor in the main hall and tries to interact with the locked doors to the lower levels hidden there, a cutscene will play in which they hear a distorted feminine voice wailing and moaning from beyond the doors. This turns out to be a teaser for the remake's new penultimate boss fight, Lisa Trevor, whom the player won't meet face to face until they make it to the cabin in the back-woods area later on in the game.
    • Both the remake and 1996 original feature a note left by one researcher for his girlfriend Ada, who would appear as a full-fledged character from Resident Evil 2 onward. One smaller, easier-to-miss detail is RPD Chief Brian Irons' signature can be seen on both Chris and Jill's police ID cards on the character select screen; he also wouldn't make an appearance until the sequel.
  • Rock Band 2 had the album release of Shackler's Revenge a few weeks before the album it was on (Chinese Democracy) was released.
  • In SD Gundam G Generation: Monoeye Gundams, the player can find the Strike Gundam of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in a prototype design in one stage. The Moonrace says it was a Mobile Suit sealed away.
  • Shadow Hearts series does this twice.
    • In the original game there is an Optional Boss called Golden Bat, who turns out to be the brother of your resident vampire Keith. In Covenant, we learn that his name is Joachim, and he becomes a party member.
    • Similarly, in Covenant Joachim himself faces yet another family member, his sister Peach Bat. In From the New World she's named Hildegarde (Hilda for short), and she's once again a party member.
    • From the New World itself set up an early cameo of Black Bat, vampiric siblings' grandfather, but Shadow Hearts III ended up being never produced.
  • Sly Cooper:
    • Sly 2: Band of Thieves starts its second chapter with a recon mission. During the mission, in addition to taking a photo of Rajan, the chapter’s antagonist, Sly also takes photos of the remaining members of the Klaww Gang: The Contessa, a double agent working for Interpol, Jean Bison, the shipping manager and logging expert, and Arpeggio, the leader of the group. All three of them serve as antagonists in later chapters.
    • In Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, rotating the camera during one portion of the prologue will show three silhouetted figures. One of them is the Big Bad, Cyril LeParadox, and two of them are his underlings, Sheriff Toothpick and Miss Decibel. Evidently, they’re already planning their scheme to steal all the Cooper Family Canes.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
    • Sonic appeared as an air freshener in the arcade racing game Rad Mobile eight months before Sonic the Hedgehog.
    • As an unofficial, copyright-breaking version of the trope, Sonic showed up as a generic level enemy in The Adventures of Quik & Silva, released on the Amiga two weeks before the first Sonic game.
    • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was first previewed in pre-alpha form on Nickelodeon's Nick Arcade, several months before its release.
    • Miles "Tails" Prower is arguably this, if one considers Sonic CD to take place before Sonic 2.
    • Knuckles is playable in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as part of the Knuckles in Sonic 2 setup. The Mobile version's good ending also adds a Sequel Hook where the Death Egg crashes on Angel Island and Knuckles is seen peeking through the bushes when Eggman stomps his feet in anger.
    • The Shadow Androids, artificial clones of Shadow are first shown in Team Dark's story in Sonic Heroes. Even though they were a minimal but pivotal plot point, they didn't appear as actual enemies until Shadow the Hedgehog.
    • Cream the Rabbit can be seen as concept art in Sonic Mega Collection, and has brief actual cameos in Sonic Adventure DX.
  • In Space Invaders Extreme (available on both PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS), Mr. ESC from 'Exit (2005) makes a cameo appearance when you select the Exit option. While Exit was already released on the PSP at the time, and the DS version of the game was already available in Japan at the time, the DS Space Invaders Extreme'' appearance is a legitimate Early-Bird Cameo in North America.
  • During the later parts of the Creture Stage in Spore, a spaceship will visit the planet. There is a possibility that the spaceship in question belongs to one of the many spacefaring empires the player will meet later in the game, or even The Grox.
  • Starfield: If you visit the bar The Viewport on your first visit to New Atlantis, you can meet and talk to an NPC called The Hunter. You won't see him again until the middle of the main quest, where he becomes very important.
  • There are references to Lezard Valeth and Lenneth Valkyrie in Star Ocean: The Second Story. Valkyrie Profile would not be completed for another two years after Star Ocean 2 was released.
  • Other than their captains, the crews of two of the three faction flagships in Star Trek Online made partial or full appearances in missions before they were fully introduced and fleshed out in the annual event mission "First Contact Day"/"Day of Honor"/"Republic Day". Some of the USS Enterprise-F command staff appeared during cutscenes in the feature episode "The 2800", while the RRW Lleiset command staff turned up as background NPCs during "A Step Between Stars".
  • Star Wars:
    • Galen Marek, aka Starkiller, Darth Vader's secret apprentice and protagonist of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, made a playable appearance in Soul Calibur IV three months prior to the release of his game. He goes simply as "The Apprentice" in SCIV.
    • Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
      • The Naboo Starfighter appeared as a secret ship six months before the release of The Phantom Menace. Amazingly, this code managed to remain hidden until after the movie came out. Whether or not this subverts the trope is debatable.
      • The first mission of Rebel Strike is basically the Rogue Leader bonus mission "Revenge on Yavin" from the Rebels' point of view.
  • Street Fighter:.
    • X-Men vs. Street Fighter snuck in Shadaloo-era Cammy as a playable character before the Alpha series got to introduce her proper in Alpha 2 Gold (which is itself an early cameo that predates her canonical introduction in the following game, Alpha 3).
    • Along those same lines, Sakura's Rich Bitch Rival Karin Kanzuki was originally going to make her debut in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter in order to set up her "official" appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 3. For whatever reason, this plan fell through, but her prototype sprite can be viewed in the game's ROM data.
    • Dan Hibiki also appears as a random design that was expected to go unused in some old artwork poking fun at SNK's Art of Fighting series. He later became an official, secret character in Street Fighter Alpha.
    • Balrog and Vega made cameos in Sagat's endings in the first two Alpha games, while E. Honda appeared in Sodom's ending in Alpha 2. All three of them would appear as playable characters in Alpha 3. Fei-Long also made a cameo as a spectator at Dan's stage in Alpha 2, but he wasn't included in Alpha 3 until the console version.
    • Rolento and Cody made cameos in the first and second Alpha games respectively before they became playable in Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 respectively.
    • Chronologically, Street Fighter IV is set before Street Fighter III. Yun and Yang appear in Chun-Li's opening story sequence in the console version. They later appeared as playable characters in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition.
    • In Street Fighter V, both Menat and Falke made cameo appearances in Ed's Story Mode before being confirmed as a playable DLC character at later date. Likewise, Rose (Menat's mentor) would cameo and be alluded to by Menat in her story, long before she'd return to playable status in V's fifth wave of DLC.
    • Dan's sister Yuriko Hibiki was introduced in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter before appearing in Street Fighter V (specifically as the shopkeeper from Arcade Edition onward).
    • The final DLC character for Street Fighter V, Luke, was introduced as a character who marks the start of "the next generation of Street Fighter." Indeed, he was featured prominently alongside Ryu in the very first announcement for Street Fighter 6. As it turns out, Luke was meant to formally debut in SF6 (furthered by how character art leaks group him with all the other newcomers), only to be added into V along with the game's fifth season of DLC due to complications caused by both the COVID-19 Pandemic and Yoshinori Ono's departure from Capcom in 2020, which delayed the development of 6.
  • In Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, a squirrel◊ from Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures appears on one of Strong Bad's unlockable shirts.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • The Rock Mushroom's attack from Super Mario Galaxy 2 actually first appeared as one of Bowser's attacks during the final boss battle in Super Mario Galaxy.
    • Cappy, a character synonymous with Super Mario Odyssey, technically made his first in-game appearance in the mobile game Super Mario Run, as an item the player can obtain for the Kingdom Builder mode. The statue itself was added on June 14th, 2017 as a way to promote Odyssey's presence at E3 2017. The statue was joined by several other Super Mario Odyssey-themed items in the same event, like enemies being captured by Mario, Pauline in her New Donk City Festival outfit, and Mario, Peach, and Bowser in the their respective wedding outfits.
    • Mario Kart: Double Dash!! features an example that crosses over with Canon Immigrant for Fire Emblem. The bonus disc that was included in pre-order copies of the game (included in special packages of the Nintendo GameCube) includes transferrable content for the Game Boy Advance game Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. The transfer process is taken in-universe by Elimine, who considers these contents to be her "sacred gifts". She was later introduced slightly over 18 years later in Fire Emblem Heroes via a post-release event.
    • Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Due to the then-ongoing development of racetracks for both the Booster Course Pass and the cyclic tour events of Mario Kart Tour, several instances of early-bird content arose with the former (since the expansion was originally advertised as having only retro courses from all existing non-arcade installments):
      • Sky-High Sundae's inclusion in the Booster Course Pass predated its appearance in Mario Kart Tour by less than a week via Wave 2's release.
      • Yoshi's Island's inclusion in Wave 4 and Squeaky Clean Sprint in Wave 5 were internally coded for Mario Kart Tour, in which they respectively appeared almost a month after the waves' original launches.
      • Tour Sydney Sprint includes elements of the Sydney Sprint 3 route in its second lap/segment. Sydney Sprint 3 was about a month and a half off from launch in Tour at the time Wave 2 released. This oddity also occured with Tour Athens Dash, as the latter hadn't yet introduced the third route in Tour itself by the time the full course was added to 8 Deluxe in Wave 5.
  • An odd variant: in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2, players can unlock Star GaoGaiGar as a late-game upgrade. However, the game doesn't deal with the 31 Masters of Sol, where the upgrade originates from, until the next game.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
  • Tekken: Jin Kazama's Devil form, which became a playable boss character in Tekken 5, first appeared in his ending cinematic from the PSX port of Tekken 3.
  • Temtem: Smolzy first appeared in the animated trailer in January 2020, while Mimit first appeared in artwork posted on the official Twitter account for Halloween the same year. Both would be added to the game in the Cipanku update in April 2021.
  • In Triangle Strategy, Decimal and Giovanna, two characters who require extremely high conviction values to recruit, are mentioned in Chapter III, well before they're likely to be recruited (it's entirely likely to not meet either of their requirements on your first playthrough). Going to Aesfrost during that chapter has Serenoa find a book written by Giovanna, while going to Hyzante lets players buy a note that talks about a merchant trying to peddle Decimal to anyone who will buy it.
  • "Prank", the surrealistic bonus chapter that can be unlocked in Twilight Syndrome, features an appearance by Ryo Kazan, who would later appear in the sequel Moonlight Syndrome where he would mostly be a Pinball Protagonist until the very end of the game, and later the very beginning of The Silver Case. Fittingly, both of those games were quickly deemed Canon Discontinuity, and the other Twilight Syndrome sequels disregard them entirely.
  • Ultima: Ultima VIII appears as a "pirated" game in Ultima VII Part II. Ultima IX has Ultima Online 2 appear before the game was ultimately cancelled.
  • The Oukaou and Nanajin from Wings Of Rean both appear in Another Century's Episode 2, which came out a few months before Wings Of Rean premiered.
  • In X-COM: UFO Defense, Reapers are the terror units associated with Floaters, and normally start appearing in the spring of 1999. The XCOM Files, a fan mod for the game that runs on a new engine, adds new "Monster Hunt" missions in which Reapers have a chance to appear from the start — as early as December 1996.
  • The X-Universe series has a retroactive early bird cameo. The Albion Skunk Cool Spaceship was first debuted in the promotional art for their upcoming X: Rebirth. 8 months later, they release X3: Albion Prelude out of nowhere, where the Albion Skunk is piloted by a NPC in the plot (set in between X3: Terran Conflict and X Rebirth). The Skunk wouldn't be seen again until the release of Rebirth two years later, where is the player's ship.
  • Zork:

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