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Examples of Fun with Acronyms in Video Games.

General

  • The Japanese abbreviation for arcade game is "AC". Several games have subtitles that, when written in acronym form, spell "AC":
  • Classic LucasArts adventure games run on the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion or SCUMM for short. This actually got them into a bit of trouble when the system was adapted to the NES (for the port of Maniac Mansion) and dubbed the NES SCUMM; apparently Nintendo misinterpreted it as a Take That! and requested its removal from the credits. SCUMM is also a host for embedded game engines, including iMUSE (Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine), INSANE (INteractive Streaming ANimation Engine), and others.
  • SCUMM was (briefly) succeeded by the Grim Fandango Engine, or GrimE.
  • The Executable and Linkable Format, was originally designed along with Debugging With Attributed Record Formats (although this is more of a a backronym; see here).
  • CAVE stands for Computer Art Visual Entertainment.
  • One joke related to inferior ports is that "port" is an acronym for Piece Of Reprogrammed Trash.
  • The original version of the Super FX co-processor was labeled "MARIO CHIP 1". "MARIO" was a backronym for "Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation & I/O".
  • The updated version of the Xbox One, known simply as the XBox One X.
  • The various iterations in the RPG Maker Game Maker series have toyed with this: When creating new projects, the first letters of the default names for characters usually spell out an RPG Maker-related word:
    • RPG Maker VX had Ralph, Ulrika, Bennett, Ylva, Lawrence, Oscar, Vera, and Elmer ("RUBYLOVE", named for the "Ruby Game Scripting System" that was introduced in RPG Maker XP).
    • RPG Maker VX Ace had Eric, Natalie, Terrence, Ernest, Ryoma, Brenda, Rick, Alice, Isabelle, and Noah ("ENTERBRAIN", the series' publisher since RPG Maker 2003; it and ASCII Media Works became subsidiaries of Kadokawa Games, publisher of MV and MZ)
    • RPG Maker MZ uses Reid, Priscilla, Gale, Michelle, Albert, Kasey, Eliot, and Roza ("RPGMAKER").
  • The M2 ShotTriggers series of video game ports; "ShotTriggers" is a play on "STG" (Shooting Game), the Japanese term for Shoot 'em Ups.
  • Open world titles developed by Rockstar Games, such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Red Dead Redemption, run on the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine, itself developed off of Angel Studios' (now Rockstar San Diego's) Angel Game Engine.
  • The Nintendo 3DS uses .CIA files — standing for Citra Importable Archive — as the default package format for digital distribution, which a homebrew developer cheekily played with by naming their package installer app as "FBI". If the leaked Nintendo official documents were to be believed, Nintendo continued on this theme of naming 3DS software components after government agencies with the Nintendo Serendipitous Archive (NSA).
  • One of Nintendo's development studios is Nintendo European Research & Development, a Paris-based office that specialises in developing emulators and other miscelaneous software.

Specific works

  • Ace Combat:
  • In Afterlife (1996), you manage a Heaven and Hell for mortal Ethically Mature Biological Organisms, who upon death appear in your Afterlife as Stuff Of Unending Lifes for the powers that be. One of the types of SOULs in your afterlife may be a AAAAOPRASUMARALFist, who believes that there's always an Afterlife, one only goes to hell, is punished for every one of its major sins, and then gets reincarnated. It's basic AAAAOPRASUMARALFism: Absolutely Always An Afterlife, Only Pit Realms Await, Souls Undergo Multiple Afterlives Reincarnationm Always Loop Fate. And that is just a few in the game.
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures has Laughin' Jokin' Numbnuts.
  • When Animal Crossing: New Leaf got its Welcome Amiibo update, it added a Coupon Allocating Terminal that spits out Mutual Exchange Of Wealth coupons when players do regularly assigned, limited-time tasks. Yes, the machine has kitty ears.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: At Noctis City, there's an advert on a screen monitor for Super Computing Power, presented as; S.C.P.
  • Archaic Sealed Heat is a story about an army that dies in a fire and comes back from their ashes...
  • Battle Corps grants you a B.A.M or Bipedal Attack Machine to kick ass. There's also the Mad AI, Multi Organic Synergistic Energized System or M.O.S.E.S.
  • Banjo-Kazooie:
  • The main antagonist of Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is the leader of the terrorist organization B.L.O.O.D.M.O.S.E.S. We're never told what this incredibly long initialism stands for; considering how closely the game parodies JRPGs, it's likely to be a parody of Final Fantasy VII's similar non-abbreviations AVALANCHE and SOLDIER. However, since this game was only the first chapter in the Hoopz Barkley SaGa, it may be revealed in a future chapter.
  • Battlezone (1998): Many of the weapons have acronyms that state their function such as the Magnetic Inversion Tethering Snare mine (pulls objects and vehicles towards it), the AntiTank-Stabber, the Targeting Atuomation Gun. It also goes for the factions of the series such as the National Space Defense Force, the Cosmo Communist Army (or Cosmo Colonist Army). By the second game, we get the International Space Defense Force and the Alliance of Awakened Nations. The fanmade Forgotten Enemies expansion introduces the Earth Defense Force.
  • In beatmania IIDX 11 RED, RED stands for "Revolutionary Energetic Diversification version". Conveniently enough, the color scheme for IIDX 11 was predominantly — you guessed it — red.
  • Being A DIK: The titular fraternity is Delta Iota Kappa (ΔIK) whose members are known as the DIKs — fitting given their reputation for the most rambunctious parties and overall Frat Bro behavior. This also applies, in a somewhat roundabout manner, to Burgmeister & Royce's sole sorority, Eta Omicron Tau (HOT), commonly known as the HOTs and comprising exclusively attractive young women.
    • In Episode 5, Isabella tells the story of her time at Smith & Reading, where she joined the sorority Omega Mu Gamma. This is lampshaded immediately by the MC and Jill, who cannot stop laughing about Bella having been a sister of OMG till she threatens to stop telling the story; she also comments on the MC's new allegiance to ΔIK.
    Is this mockery coming from a boy who just joined a phallic fraternity?
  • Big Action Mega Fight is a macho action game which can also be abbreviated as B.A.M.F.
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy: Stop the Rock! has MAAX, the Meteoroid And Asteroid eXploder.
  • A quest in Billy vs. SNAKEMAN rewards you with the H.A.R.O.: the High-Explosive Anti-RNG Ordnance.
  • The BioShock 2 DLC Minerva's Den revolves around Rapture's mainframe computer. Its full name is the Rapture Operational Data Interpreter Network, or R.O.D.I.N., after Auguste Rodin, the artist who created the sculpture The Thinker after which the computer is nicknamed. The main lobby of Minerva's Den contains a replica of The Thinker.
  • Bloons Tower Defense:
    • All blimps have an acronym as their name. In their order of appearance, we have the MOAB (Massive Ornary Air Blimp), BFB (Brutal Floating Behemoth), ZOMG (Zeppelin Of Mighty Gargantuaness), DDT (Dark Dirigible Titan), and BAD (Big Airship of Doom).
    • On the monkey's side, some upgrades or towers are acronyms as well, such as the gatling's BADS (Bloon Area Denial System), the M.O.A.R. glaives (Multiple Objects Advanced Ricochet), the MOAB SHREDR spikes (Super Hard Rending Engine Driven Razors), the M.A.D (MOAB Assured Destroyer) and the COBRA tower (Covert Ops Battle Response Agent).
  • Borderlands: The "Claptrap's Revolution" DLC gives us the "WIRED", or Wireless Information Router Encoding Device, a remote control for rebooting the Claptraps.
  • The Telenet Japan game Browning features a Humongous Mecha named the BROWN INnovatory Gunner.
  • BRAHMA Force: The Assault on Beltlogger 9 has it's titular mecha, Bipedal Robotic Assault Heavy Mechanized Armor.
  • Breed have the GRUNT project, or Genetically Revived UNiversal Tactical Sentient.
  • Bug Fables has Doctor H.B.'s special invention that allows you to refight all past mini-bosses and bosses, separately or in the Boss Rush. Its name: Battery-Operated Super Simulator.
  • Bullet Girls Phantasia has Final Panty Strike, a Desperation Attack that involves your character sacrificing their underwear (and thus, their last bit of defense) for an upgraded version of their normal Limit Break. Ironically, the game is a third-person shooter.
  • Call of Duty:
    • Many guns with acronym names get deadlier-sounding, completely redundant overhauls after being Pack-a-Punched. Prime examples include the Dead Specimen Reactor 5000 (DSR-50) and the Malevolent Taxonomic Anodized Redeemer (MTAR).
    • Call of Duty: Black Ops II has a machine gun called the HAMR (Heat Adaptive Modular Rifle), which when Pack-a-Punched in Zombies is upgraded to the SLDG HAMR.
    • Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare has the Focused Spectral Array cannon, or F-SpAr for short.
  • Violet's ending in Cel Damage is her doing a No Animals Were Harmed segment after the show, brought to you by Models for Ethical Animal Treatment.
  • City of Heroes:
    • Before Issue 21 revamped the starting levels, new heroes used to report to one of five divisions of the Federal Bureau for Super-powered Affairs, depending on their origin:
      • Tech: Department of Advanced Technology Application
      • Mutation: Genetic Investigation and Facilitation Team
      • Science: Scientific Experimentation Research and Application to Paranormal Humans
      • Natural: Enhanced Logistics for Insight and Tactical Excellence
      • Magic: Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation
    • The police force of the Rogue Isles in City of Villains is, sensibly enough, the Rogue Island Police.
    • The trial where you finally defeat Praetor Tilman, who calls herself "Mother" (enemies call her "Mother Mayhem"), is the Minds of Mayhem trial. (This also means the Master of... badge for that trial is comically abbreviated "MoMoM.")
  • The full title of C.H.A.I.N.G.E.D. is "Chronological Haunted Anomalous Interconnected Narrative - Guide Each Decision".
  • Inverted in Civilization VI: The in-game encyclopedia reveals that the proper name for the Humongous Mecha unit is the Gunnery Deployment Rig, but everyone in-universe (and the game itself) calls it the Giant Death Robot.
  • Command & Conquer:
    • The series gives acronyms to the Mission Control systems, including the Electronic Video Agent and the Computer Assisted, Biologically Augmented Lifeform.
    • Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 gives us Strong Homogenous Residual-Interactive Neutron Kinetic beam a weapon of Cryocopters.
  • The flash game/indie game Concerned Joe has "IHTMOID", which doesn't really mean anything, but sounds ridiculous, and the programmer even admits this to Joe. However, Joe doesn't find it so funny when he finds out what it stands for: I Have To Move Or I'll Die.
  • Creatures for the Commodore 64 has a long-winded acrostic on its title screen: Clyde Radcliffe Exterminates All The Unfriendly Repulsive Earth-ridden Slime.
  • Crush Crush: The college that Peanut attends and Miss Desiree teaches at is called "S.T.F. University".
  • Cuphead has an expansion titled "The Delicious Last Course", referring to it being Downloadable Content.
  • Deadly Rooms of Death has the Surface Avian Based Emergency Response system, or S.A.B.E.R.
  • The Dead Space series has three, which can be obtained from the names of the chapters. All are extremely dark and contain massive ending spoilers.
    • Dead Space 1: NICOLEISDEAD
    • Dead Space 3: BROTHERMOONSAREAWAKE
    • And finally, a Downloadable Content pack, Awakening, which continues the story after Dead Space 3, simply has this cheerful message from the devs: RIP.
  • The Grant City Anti Crime force in Dead to Rights.
  • The first level of Descent II is named Ahayweh Gate, which stands for "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here". There's also the Portable Equalizing Standard Transbot, and the Preliminary Integration Groundbot.
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution has Utility Remotely-Detonated Explosive Device. Also, augmentation clinics belong to an organisation called Liberty In Mind and Body.
  • In the Dink Smallwood mod Picnic Perils Dink calls his sword the Fearsome And Reliable Terrible Scimitar.
  • Doki Doki Literature Club!: One of the characters is called Monika, which was just selected as a non-Japanese "popular girl" name. However, some of the weirder material in the Updated Re-release DDLC+ implies there's also an acronym to that name: the Mail section implies a story about somebody experimenting with a bunch of virtual characters and contains a reference to "Monitor Kernel Access".
  • In the 2019 re-releases of Doom, its version of the Back to Saturn X series of mods were officially shortened to BTSX, while featuring joke subtitles for their respective episodes with Better Texturing with Startan X for Episode 1 and "Big Towers" says Xaser for Episode 2.
  • Dota 2 (Defense Of The Ancients) has Invoker's EMP spell. In this case, EMP stands for Endoleon's Malevolent Perturbation (or Extractive Mana Pulse given what it does).
  • Dr. Dumont's Wild P.A.R.T.I. features the Particle Accelerator and Reality Translation Integrator.
  • The name of the continent on which the Dragon Age games are set, Thedas, is actually derived from "THE Dragon Age Setting". One imagines the designers were stuck trying to think of one and finally said "Eh, what the hell."
  • In Dragon Quest IX, there's an "Herbalist" accolade presented by the Herbalist Institute for Potions, Poultrices, and Investments in Extracts.
  • Duke Nukem:
  • In EarthBound (1994), there is a billboard in Threed warning children not to spend all their time playing video games. It was erected by the supporters of the Parents Opposing Obsession Plan.
  • This happens far too much in eRepublik.
  • The alchemically powered AI responsible for recreating life on Earth in Eras of Alchemy is H.E.R.A., short for Holographic Earth Revival Alchemist.
  • Etrian Odyssey has the infamous FOE's, randomly encountered enemies that are MUCH stronger than normal. The acronym is officially "Field-On Enemies" (changed to a Latin phrase in the English translation), but most players have declared it to stand for "Fucking Overpowered Enemies".
  • EVE Online players will notice the ingame target painter is very useful. Meta versions of it are sometimes more expensive but give a little more boost and are easier to fit onto a ship. The meta versions are named: 1) Partial Weapon Navigation, 2) Peripheral Weapon Navigation Diameter, 3) Parallel Weapon Navigation Transmitter, and 4) Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron. Alliance and Corporation names tend to exhibit this as well, despite ticker names being limited to five characters. The Goonswarm alliance and corp used to be set up that viewing the full, long name of a ship would include "OH GOD BEES".
  • Everhood:
    • The card you get early on to access special places is called V. I. P. Card, standing for “Ventriloquist Improvisers Puppeteer’s Club”.
  • Evil Genius:
    • The antagonists are 5 international alliances; named P.A.T.R.I.O.T. (consisting of "Allied" nations such as North America and Japan), S.A.B.R.E. (Europe and British Colonies, like India), H.A.M.M.E.R. (Russia and Cuba), A.N.V.I.L. (China and... more China), and S.M.A.S.H. (Africa and South America). The player is never told what those stand for. They return for the sequel with their powers consolidated to controlling their respective contents exclusively. The DLC campaign also introduces a sixth alliance dedicated to the world's oceans, J.A.W.S..
    • According to an advertisement, ANVIL stands for Asiatic Notorious Villain Incapacitation League.
    • The sequel has the names of the five Doomsday Devices, M.I.D.A.S, H.A.V.O.C., V.E.N.O.M., V.O.I.D., and Z.E.R.O..
  • Evolve:
    • The Emergency Medical Evacuation Technicians' acronym helpfully creates the word — and later, name — Emet.
    • The Assault character Markov wears the SALGE, a Space and Low Gravity Environment suit. When Caira asks what kind of suit it is and gets SALGE as an answer, she asks if he's telling her to fuck off in Martian.
  • Fallout loves these. Of particular note is the acronym for the attribute system, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck), developed after negotiations broke down with Steve Jackson Games to use their GURPS system.
    • Black Isle's original Fallout 3, codenamed Fallout: Van Buren and canceled late in development, had the Ballistic Orbital Missile Base to provide Death from Above.
    • The released Fallout 3 introduces the "Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System".
    • Fallout: New Vegas: the Courier shortens "Fully Integrated Security Technetronic Officer" to Fisto. The Old World Blues DLC introduces the Laser Assisted Electric Rifle.
    • In Fallout 4, Vault 81 has the Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer, nicknamed "Curie." This one is a bit of Fridge Brilliance, since the letter "U" began as a variation of the letter "V."
    • Fallout 76 features the Construction and Assembly Mobile Platform, which allows players to build settlements and constructs wherever they go. There was also the Vault-Tec sponsored Break-It Early Test Application for players to test out the game before launch.
  • Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon:
    • Six words: Battle Armored Dragon Assault Strike System.
    • At one point, Doctor Darling claimed that fuck is an acronym of Failure to Understand the Capacity for Kindness.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • The revolutionary group AVALANCHE from Final Fantasy VII doesn't stand for anything. Nor does the elite private army unit, SOLDIER. This is due to the fact that those terms, in the original Japanese version, were written and pronounced in English, and in Japanese, English words are written in all caps. So, they were never meant to be acronyms at all. Why yes, Sony does have a reputation for putting out Blind Idiot Translations around this time, why do you ask?
    • Many fans have tried to figure out what the 'SeeD' elite mercenaries stands for in Final Fantasy VIII. It sets up the entire theme of them being trained at 'Gardens', and it's always spelled with a capital S and D - but we never find out what, if any, significance there is in this. The ending implies that "SeeD" and "Garden" have no meaning, and the terms came about as the result of a Stable Time Loop. This doesn't account for why the Kramers capitalize just the S and the D, though, as they only heard it spoken.
    • Final Fantasy XI has a children's group called the Star Onion Brigade. The Wings of The Goddess Expansion pack has a kids group from the past called the Windurstian Teen Force.
    • Final Fantasy XIV has spontaneous mini-quests that can take place in the game's overworld areas called FATEs: Full Active Timed Events.
    • The iPhone/iPad game Final Fantasy: All The Bravest features heavy use of the series' famous "Active Time Battle" system.
  • First Encounter Assault Recon, better known as F.E.A.R.
    • Rooster Teeth Productions created a machinima for the director's edition of F.E.A.R. called People Acting Normal In Crazy-ass Situations.
    • Also, a particular piece of Not Safe for Work fanart played with this and gave F.E.A.R. 2 the acronym S.C.A.R.Y, or She Can Actually Rape You, for the game's ending.
  • FreeSpace 2 has the Target Acquisition and Guidance Missile.
  • In Galaxy Angel, the Emblem Frames piloted by the Angels are different from other ships in that each one possesses a Human Brain Artificial Brain Linking Organization System or H.A.L.O. for short.
  • Gears of War brings us the Coalition of Ordered Governments. Their soldiers are called Gears, who all wear "COG Tags". Given that the Coalition follows an "Everyone is just a cog in the machine and must do their duty for the greater good" type philosophy, these names are almost certainly deliberate on their part (although the COG Tags were probably named for the pun. They're dog tags shaped like cogs, what were they supposed to call them?).
  • Graceful Explosion Machine is all about gems. Your ship's hull is decorated with gemstones, most of the planets are named after gemstones, and the enemies leave behind diamond-shaped explosions when they're destroyed.
  • In Gradius III, the player's ship is the M.A.X., or Modulated Artillery Exalter.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • Grand Theft Auto III has Citizens Raging Against Phones.
    • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has Jeremy Robards' Think Your Way to Success program. The three parts?
      • Think, Hold That Thought, Complete
      • Learn, Start, Do It
      • Motivate, Demonstrate, then Motivate Again
      • Another example are the security guards you can see roaming around the more affluent areas of town, the members of the Patrol Investigation Group.
    • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas:
      • Los Santos Delivery.
      • Ban Immigration Greencards Outright Today!
      • The Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, which was an actual unit of the LAPD.note 
    • Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories has a precursor group to CRAP called Citizens United Negating Technology For Life And People's Safety.
      • There is a sporting goods store named Feel All Great Sports.
    • In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, there's an anti-drug program called Consider Our Kids Everyday.
    • In Grand Theft Auto IV, the army no longer shows up at higher wanted levels. Instead, Niko is pursued by heavily armed agents of the National Office Of Security Enforcement, the HD Universe's version of Homeland Security.
      • The Federal Investigation Bureau.
      • Drug Observation Agency.
      • Liberty Sanitation Department and Liberty State Delivery.
      • Sentinel Tuning Division.
      • One Weazel News report mentions people rallying against murders related to the movie Dragon Brain. They call themselves Cizitens Understand Medieval Games Undermine Loving Parents.
      • In-game radio commercials and websites mention the Florist Alliance Group and the Families Utilizing Conservative Knowledge organization, which funds a toy company that manufactures gender role-enforcing dolls.
    • Grand Theft Auto V:
      • Some ambulances say Mission Row San Andreas.
      • Household Order Bin Operations.
      • Atheist Society Serving Mankind Under Noteworthy Coordinated Humanism.
    • Grand Theft Auto VI features the animal conservation agency Protection Of Animals and Controlled Hunting.
  • The main title acronym GRID Racing has the misfortune of being most famous for a certain disease formerly called Gay Related Immune Deficiency or, as we know it today, AIDS.
  • Many Guild Wars fans have noted that the title of the Expansion Pack, Guild Wars: Eye of the North could be reasonably abbreviated as "GW:EN;" perhaps not coincidentally, the question of what happened to Gwen after the Searing is resolved in the expansion. In said expansion, the Asura use constructs called Genius Operated Living Enchanted Manifestations.
  • Halo has the Office of Naval Intelligence, more commonly referred to as "ONI".
  • In Activision's Atari 2600 game H.E.R.O., the player is part of the Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operations team and must rescue trapped underground miners with a one-man helipack.
  • In Hidden Agenda (1988), the Former Regime Personnel can either be prosecuted for their crimes or given a blanket amnesty. If given an amnesty, they will form a paramilitary group called LIMPIA, which launches death squad attacks on peasants, human rights activists, and labor leaders. "Limpia", as a conjugated verb, is Spanish for "cleanse" or "purge".
  • Hot Lava: The heroes are members of GAT- Global Action Team.
  • Nobody's quite sure what HQ stands for, and the definition seems to change every month or so.
  • NISA's translations of the early Neptunia games had the goddesses be referred to as Console Patron Units, and their Super Mode (known in the original Japanese as simply "goddess transformation") as Hard Drive Divinity.
  • Hypnospace Outlaw classifies violations of Hypnospace's rules that Enforcers can act upon as CHIME: Content infringement, Harrassment, Illegal activity, Malware, and Extralegal commerce. In the late game, the acronym is updated to CHIME(S) with the addition of the ability to Submit evidence of Dylan Merchant's criminal acts.
  • The title organization in Jim Pond & the Agents of F.A.R.T. is the Federation of American Redneck Terrorists.
  • In Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, Keith fights for the Nations of International Citizens for Earth (N.I.C.E.) against the Beastly Alien Dudes (B.A.D.).
  • The Killing Game Show features Hostile Artificial Life Forms and Deadly to Organic Life Liquid.
  • Kingdom of Loathing:
    • The Hippy Army's F.R.O.G. division, which stands for Fairly Rotten Oral hyGene.
    • There's also the Irritating Series of Random Encountersnote 
    • The Familiar Underground Community of the Kingdom haven't thought of an acronym yet.
    • The Comrades of Animals Really Need to Infiltrate Villainous Organizations and Rescue Everyone Button
    • The February 2017 Item of the Month is a heart-shaped crate that sets up a Tunnel of Love... or rather, a Tunnel of L.O.V.E., as in Low Orbit Vehicle Elevator.
  • Kyo Kusanagi from The King of Fighters has a special move called the R.E.D Kick or "Rainbow Energy Dynamite" Kick.
  • The Kirby series has several cases in which the world names are used to make a word:
    • This practice goes all the way back to Kirby's Adventure, though this one's a bit of a stealth example as it involves Sdrawkcab Name: Vegetable Valley, Ice Cream Island, Butter Building, Grape Garden, Yogurt Yard, Orange Ocean, and Rainbow Resort in reverse order makes ROY G BIV, a mnemonic for the colors of the rainbow.
    • Kirby: Canvas Curse had Reddy Land, Arange Gorge, Iello Adventure, Neo Greo, Bloo Hills, Omarine Zone, and Wonder Lilane, with RAINBOW tying into the game's theme of paint and color.
    • Kirby's Return to Dream Land gives us Cookie Country, Raisin Ruins, Onion Ocean, White Wafers, Nutty Noon, Egg Engines, and Dangerous Dinner in a clever bit of Foreshadowing for when the villain gets his hands on the Master Crown. Even the soundtrack addresses this; the final boss theme is titled "CROWNED".
      • The Deluxe-exclusive Magolor Epilogue features Aerogree Dimension, Pyred Dimension, Poseiblu Dimension, Locandra Dimension, and the Ethereal Altar, spelling out APPLE and hinting at the final boss's fusion between itself and a Gem Apple Seed and having the mode serve as a Stealth Prequel to the Team Kirby Clash Deluxe and Super Kirby Clash games.
    • The Compilation Rerelease Kirby's Dream Collection includes extra challenge levels Happiness Hall, Apricot Atrium, and Last Land, for developers HAL Laboratory.
    • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, the levels are titled Fine Fields, Lollipop Land, Old Odyssey, Wild World, Endless Explosions, and Royal Road; "FLOWER" refers to the Dreamstalk that guides Kirby forward. The final level adds on two letters, Eternal Dreamland; "FLOWERED" drops a hint towards the final boss, who merges herself with the Dreamstalk.
    • It happens again in Kirby: Planet Robobot, the levels this time are titled Patched Plains, Resolution Road, Overload Ocean, Gigabyte Grounds, Rhythm Route, Access Ark, and Mind in the Program. This is another hint towards the final boss, a malevolent computer program, though the full word isn't spelled until after the boss is revealed.
    • It happens yet again in Kirby Star Allies, though this time it's only partially plot-relevant. Each of the stages in Planet Popstar, Friendly Field, Reef Resort, Inside Islands, Echo's Edge, Nature's Navel, Duplex Dream, and Sacred Square, make up the word FRIENDS, fitting with the theme of befriending characters to solve puzzles and play through the levels. It's also not directly spelled out to you, because Inside Islands and Duplex Dream are optional stages.
    • Once again, this happens in Kirby and the Forgotten Land with its levels. In order, it gives us Natural Plains, Everbay Coast, Wondaria Remains, Winter Horns, Originull Wasteland, Redgar Forbidden Lands, and Lab Discovera. When put together, they spell out NEWWORLD, which is the proper name of the eponymous forgotten land. In addition, the main corporations that were in operation in the setting (readable in Cypher Language) were Holine, Alivel, and Lightron; another reference to HAL Laboratory.
  • The Metroidvania K.O.L.M. is Kind Of Like Metroid. The Escort Game sequel K.O.L.M. II is Including ICO.
  • In The Last of Us Part II, the resistence group "Washington Liberation Front" is abbreviated to the clunky "WLF". Fortunately, that looks similar to the word "wolf", so they call themselves the "Wolves" as a convenient and much cooler, one-syllable shorthand.
  • Last Rites grants you an Uzi with the words F.O.A.D - Fuck Off and Die - written on the stock. The game came out in 1997, way before the term becomes a popular internet slang.
  • League of Legends:
    • The game itself is abbreviated as LOL.
    • Corki the Daring Bombadier's flying machine is based on a prototype known as the Reconnaissance Operations Front-Line Copter.
    • Zac the Secret Weapon was originally a Living Weapon developed by the Mad Scientists of Zaun, known as the Zaun Amorphous Combatant.
    • As part of the celebrations of the widely-popular April Fool's Day mode (Ultra Rapid Fire, in which all cooldowns are 20% of their normal values), a professional game was set up with several well-known faces for the League tournament scene. These were divided into two teams, Ye Olde League Organisation and the Society of Worth-Assessing Gentleman.
    • Ultra Rapid-Fire mode itself is a case of this, as a play on the name of the character announced for the game's first April Fool's Day — Urf, the Manatee.
    • Nunu fights alongside his best friend, a magical yeti named Willump. In his Nunu Bot skin, this becomes the Workforce Integrated Lossless Lifeform, Uploaded Mainly for Punching.
  • Left 4 Dead 2:
    • The CEDA is a Government Agency of Fiction based on FEMA — it stands for Civil Emergancy and Defense Agency. The misspelling was apparently intentional.
    • In the "Dead Center" campaign in The Streets, the CEDA sends trucks with the words Disease Emergency Assessment Dispatch to the scene. Note that CEDA is trying to save everyone from a Zombie Apocalypse.
  • In The Legend Lives!, Akmi Yooniversity student housing on the more... remote planets is called Yooniversity Economical Graduate Off-site Dwelling Stations.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: No matter which of the two main title translations you choose for Sora no Kiseki, be it Tracks in the Sky or Trails in the Sky, you're gonna end up with TITS. When Xseed localized the game (under the latter name), they played along and lampshaded this on the description for the game's forum.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has a really contrived example with a bizarre minigame known as "The S.T.A.R. Game", whose acronym is basically the game's rules and goal: So all you must endeavor is to Track down all the glowing orbs And collect them all before time Runs out!
  • Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work has C.A.N.E.: Conservatives Against Nearly Everything.
  • Levelhead:
    • The D.I.R.P. is the Dispatch via Intergalactic Railgun Power which delivers packages at the speed of light.
    • L.E.V.E.L. stands for Limited Exercises for eValuating employEe Limitations.
    • The Bureau of Shipping corporate values are A.C.I.D. (Automation, Courage, Ingenuity, and Dependability), which is used "to melt the competition!"
  • The Low Road has the LeCarre Institute for Exceptional Spies.
  • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon: The Possessors includes Grouchy Possessor, Harsh Possessor, Overset Possessor, Shrewd Possessor and Tough Possessor. This also applies to the mansions visited: Gloomy Manor, Haunted Towers, Old Clockworks, Secret Mine and Treacherous Mansion.
  • Luigi's Mansion 3: The bosses of the Twisted Suites are the sisters Nikki, Lindsey, and Ginny. The initials of their respective names match those of the game's developers, Next Level Games.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, a fact that didn't escape the makers' notice as they, for example, called the Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition the "GOD BOX".
  • Mass Effect:
    • The Spectres are a rather bizarre example. Despite the fact that Spectre is never capitalized, the fact that the official name for the branch they belong to is the Office of Special Tactics and Reconaissance suggests that it was, in fact, intended to be an acronym. If we assume both are actually translated from alienese, then the english acronym would have been made up by the translators to match the full name. Now, the silly part (in-universe) would be why the acronym isn't simply Special Tactics And Reconnaissance, but in real life we can all guess why the writers passed on STARs.
    • Also, General Area Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft Network is the name given to the point-defence laser arrays on starships.
    • Mass Effect: Andromeda has the Simulated Adaptive Matrix, or SAM, as everyone calls them.
    • The PAW, Particle Assault Weapon.
    • A conversation with the mayor of the colony of Ditaeon reveals that it's one of these, short for Deploy In The Ass End Of Nowhere, an in-joke from the colony's founders from their old mining days.
  • According to Word of God, MDK was originally meant to be a reference to Demolition Man and stand for MurderDeathKill, but Executive Meddling vetoed that idea, and since then the developers have toyed around with it standing for all kinds of things, such as Mission: Deliver Kindness, Mother's Day Kisses, or the main characters Max, Dr. Hawkins and Kurt.
  • MechWarrior: Living Legends features the 'Puma' light mech, whose brawling variant is called the Close Range Assault Puma, or CRAP. In the Solaris Arena, the announcer calls BattleArmor ('BA') users "Badass".
  • Mega Man:
    • In Japan, the Mega Man Legends series is called Rockman DASH: Digouter's Adventure Story in Halcyon Days. (Don't ask why it isn't Rockman DASHD.)
    • Mega Man Zero: Ciel develops a new energy source called "Ciel system", which, in Japan, stands for "Convergent Ignition by Energen Linkage". In the West, though, she appears to just name it after herself.
    • Mega Man ZX and its sequel Mega Man ZX Advent have the ROCK (Rebirth Of Crystalized Knowledge) and MEGA (Meta Encapsulated Granulated Awareness) systems for its transforming system in the Japanese and English releases respectively.
    • Mega Man Star Force 3 has Ace, whose full name is Arthur C. Eos.
  • Metal Gear:
    • High-Tech Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND. (It means nothing.)
    • The Nuclear Emergency Search Team that Nastasha works for in Metal Gear Solid is an actual organization in real-life.
    • FOX, the organization Naked Snake works for in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, stands for Force Operation X.
    • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has Snake and Drebin being pursued by a variant of the Stryker called the Mobile Gun System. Also, there's the Sons Of the Patriots system.
    • SOP is also a subversion; the military and private contractors who use the system would think it means "Standard Operating Procedure," which is what the acronym means in actual military parlance. The system is designed to provide a whole new level of assurance that soldiers will never deviate from standard procedure, after all.
    • In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Raiden is confused for a moment when the Doktor tells him he needs to take a DOOMP, which turns out to mean a Digital-Oriented Output Mounted Proxy.
    • The "Acid" portion of Metal Gear Ac!d apparently stands for Active Command Intelligence Duel.
  • In a case of fun with what an acronym stands for instead of what it spells, checkpoints in Mighty Switch Force! are indicated by the U.T.D. — which is a sensible-sounding initialism that you'd expect to stand for something like "Universal Tracking Device". Nope. It stands for "Ugly Twitching Dog".
  • Mœbius has the secret government agency "Future Intelligence Science and Technology".
  • Moshi Monsters:
    • The villains are the Criminal League of Naughty Critters, or C.L.O.N.C.
    • In the Super Moshi Missions, you can sometimes win awards for Extraordinary Performance in Catastrophic Situations, or E.P.I.C.S.
  • In the Facebook game Mousehunt, one of the traps is called the Arcane Capturing Rod of Never Yielding Mystery.
  • M.U.G.E.N stands for something, but not even Elecbyte themselves know what it stands for.
  • In M.U.L.E., the eponymous M.U.L.E.s are Multi-Use Labor Elements, resource-gathering robots that can be used to mine for minerals, grow crops, or gather energy.
  • MySims:
    • Two scrolls in MySims Kingdom, one of which is called "S.C.R.O.L.L.", give you the power to create items such as a D.O.O.R., a C.L.O.C.K., and S.I.D.I.N.G.. There are even three lengths of (decorative, as far as we can tell) piping, which are called, from smallest to largest, p.i.p.e., P.i.p.e., and P.I.P.E.. These scrolls are associated with a robot named T.O.B.O.R., who mixes this with Sdrawkcab Name. None of the acronyms are expanded.
    • In MySims Agents, it is revealed in the course of a dispatch mission that T.O.B.O.R. was originally built to be a fruit juicing supervisor, and the acronym of his name stands for Tangerine Orange Banana Orange Revisor. Still no hint about those others, though.
  • Some of the Nancy Drew games are known by three-letter nicknames, among them Shadow at the Water's Edge (SAW) and Trail of the Twister (TOT).
  • There's a popular NetHack Game Mod called Super Lots of Added Stuff Hack 'Extended Magic.
  • The Neverhood has one Moon Logic Puzzle solved this way. You come across a contraption that has "BOBBY" written on it, with five gems inside that turn different colors. You have to tune them to Blue, Orange, Blue, Blue and Yellow, in that order, to progress.
  • The Nightmare Adventures series has the Advanced Research Commission on the Anagogic, Numinous and Esoteric.
  • Night Trap casts the weary player as a hacker assistant to Dana Plato in employ of the special forces unit, the Sega Control Attack Team. Sega was never above these puns, or using their names in their games. However, in versions made for non-Sega systems, it was changed to Special Control Attack Team.
  • In Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, there are two devices that function along with the numbered doors. The first one is a red device called the Recognition Device, or RED for short. It activates a bomb located inside the characters that will explode should you not deactivate it. Oh, and how can you deactivate it? Just find the Deactivation Device, or DEAD for short.
  • Nobody Saves the World: One of the guilds you can join is the New League of Wizards, or New L.O.W. for short.
  • No One Lives Forever:
    • The villanous organization is known as HARM. A Running Gag of the series is that files and characters often refer to what it stands for without ever revealing it to the player. Intelligence items that can be collected by the player humorously detail the exchange between the crime organization and the Hair Alternative Replacement Membership club in a dispute over the H.A.R.M. "trademark". HARM ends many of its communiques to its agents with the phrase "Remember what HARM stands for!"
    • The good guys' organization is called UNITY. No full name given.
  • Not for Broadcast has Rymmington-Svist's ambitious project to build a tunnel through the center of the Earth, the Mobile Orientation Operational Burrowing Service.
  • The Octopath Traveler series has a tradition of having the initials of its major characters spell out "Octopath":
    • Octopath Traveler has the first letter of each protagonist's name: Ophilia, Cyrus, Tressa, Olberic, Primrose, Alfyn, Therion, and H'aanit.
    • Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent has the first letter of each antagonist's name, when sorted by the recommended level for fighting them, spell it in reverse order: Herminia, Tytos, Auguste, Pardis III, Oshka, Tatloch, Ceraphina, and Orsazantos.
    • Just like the first game, Octopath Traveler II spells "Octopath" by using the names of Osvald, Castti, Temenos, Ochette, Partitio, Agnea, Throné, and Hikari. But also, like the antagonists in Champions, all of the corresponding named members of the Moonshade Order that appear in each character's individual chapters spell out "Octopath" backwards. Harvey, Trousseau, Arcanette, Petrichor, Ori, Tanzy, Claude and Oboro.
    • This even applies to its collaboration event with Another Eden. It doesn't seem apparent at first, since the eight Octopath characters that appear don't quite make the acronym, but Castti and Nicola get kidnapped during the final stage. The group that faces the final boss counts Eden's protagonist and an Original Generation character in their place, making Odysso, Cyrus, Temenos, Olberic, Partitio, Aldo, Tithi, and H'aanit.
  • Open Sorcery: As part of the "occult computer science" theme:
    • TCP stands for Telepathic Communications Protocol
    • HTML stands for Hypertext Magical Language.
  • Outpost has the Disater Instant Responce Team, as well as the Sewage Processing and Environmental Waste and an atmosphere regulator called Closed Habitat Atmospheric Production. Outpost 2 adds another version of the SPEW called a Garbge and Ore Recycling Facility and hid several of these in the fluff as well, including the controller for the guard posts, the Targeting And Fire Tasking computer (TAFT) or the Robot Assist Mechanic of the Garage (RAM). Also present is a Shout-Out to another Dynamix game hidden in the flavour for Eden's Meteor Defence system — it fires a High Energy Ray-Composite.
  • Overwatch: D.va (Hana Song) is a pro gamer turned mech pilot when she became a member of a military unit called the Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army.
  • Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet: The sweets' political party is known as S.S.A.M. (Snacks and Sweets Aggressive Majority), which Sam initially mistakes for a misspelling of his name.
  • Pankapu: A number of enemies in the tower in The Starry Deeps have this naming convention. There's...
    • A.I.M. turrets (Atomatic Interception of Menaces turrets)
    • B.A.L.L. Units (Ballistic Armed Localization and Liquidation Units)
    • D.O.O.R. system (Deployment of Optimized Operations for Redress system)
    • G.U.N. Unit (Gyroscopic Universal Operation Unit)
    • Chii is a Chimeric Holistic Intelligent Integration Unit.
  • In the French version of Paper Mario: The Origami King, the full first name of Colored Pencils is Côme Raoul Aimé Yves Oscar Nicolas Siméon, "Crayons" being French for "Pencils".
  • Persona 3 has the Special Extracurricular Execution Squad, which fits in with the game's themes very well.
  • Phantasy Star Online Episode 3: C.A.R.D. Revolution has the Applied Phlebotinum the game centers around: Compressed Alternate Reality Data.
  • Phantasy Star Online 2 has a meta example among English speaking players: one type of quest is referred to as Time-Attack Client Order, or simply "TACO".
  • Phantom Brave uses Human Activists for Rare Monsters. Guess what the leader's misguided policies actually do...
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations: When one character is presented with evidence, she will classify it as "SuPer Admin Restricted Desktop Access" and ask for a password, leading to this well-known Shout-Out: "A password? This is madness!" "No, Maya, this is SPARDA."
  • The original Pilotwings has an E.V.I.L. Syndicate which captures the player's flight instructors, leading to a rescue mission. We never do find out what E.V.I.L. stands for.
  • In Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, the Plants' secret organization to retake Zomburbia is named L.E.A.F., which stands for League of Extraordinary Action Foliage.
  • Pokémon:
    • Strategy in the franchise is partially about making your Pokémon's moves stronger by using the same type of move that your Pokémon is (for example, a Water-type Pokémon using a Water-type move). This is known as Same Type Attack Bonus. Rather fitting, since some moves can be truly devastating.
    • In the metagame, two gimmicky strategies are the "Focus-sash Endeavor quick-Attack Rattata"note  and "Sturdy Aron shell-Bell Endeavor Recovery".note  The former of those is also sometimes referred to as (and formerly stood for) Fucking Evil Annoying Rodent.
    • Generation VI, specifically VGC 2015 (open to National Dex, but box legendaries still banned), had CHALK, where nearly every top team in official competition featured Cresselia, Heatran, Amoonguss, Landorus-Therian, and Mega Kangaskhan.
  • Portal:
    • GLaDOS, a Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System.
    • The Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center, or CAEC. Cake, anyone?
  • The bad guys in the NES version of the SNK beat-'em-up P.O.W. are named "GOON" (Government Of Offensive Network). In the Japanese version, they were called "GOD" (Government Of Darkness).
  • Power Dolls: Detachment of Limited Line Service
  • Prey (2017): The zero gravity tunnel that goes trough Talos I is called Gravity Utility Tunnel System, or G.U.T.S.
  • The virus in Prismata is named Viral Internal Logic Exploit.
  • Raskulls gives us the Super Nuclear Ultra Gem Grabbing Laser Extraction System. There's also C.U.D.D.L.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., but it isn't revealed what that stands for — the full name is so long, Scurv is interrupted before he could say it.
  • Ratchet & Clank:
  • Resident Evil:
    • Special Tactics And Rescue Service in the original Resident Evil, a surprisingly sensible name.
    • There's also the Umbrella black-ops operative HUNK from Resident Evil 2, whose nickname stands for Human Unit Never Killed, stemming both from his ability to successfully carry out the most difficult of missions and survive, and his tendency to be the Sole Survivor on those mission (primarily because all he cares about is completing the mission, and he views the operatives working for him as resources to be expended).
    • Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles has the Tyrant Armored Lethal Organic System, named after a giant from Classical Mythology.
  • In River City Girls, while at River City High, a classroom features a lesson on Punching Until Bricks Explode Right Towards You, hosted by Abobo.
  • The Robotic Operating Buddy (or R.O.B.) that came with NES systems in the US... which was named the Family Computer Robot in Japan. Make of that what you will.
  • Only near the end of Rockman 7 EP do you find out that EP stands for Economic Power or Expert Player.
  • RTX Red Rock has several: The aliens are called LEDs (Light-Emitting Demons), RTX (Radical Tactical eXpert), and IRIS (Independent Removable Information System).
  • In Runescape, the group dedicated to the slaughter of monsters is Humans Against Monsters. They wear bright pink robes.
  • Subverted in Saints Row: The Third when the DJ from radio station WDDT CPDG gets asked what the letters mean. He looks it up, only to discover that real life call numbers don't stand for anything.
  • Sakura Wars:
    • The series features a Dialogue Tree system called the Live Interactive Picture System, or LIPS. When the games made the jump to 3D, the turn-based battles used a new engine called the Active & Real-time Machine System, or ARMS.
    • Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love has the protagonist's pilot Transforming Mecha named STARs (Super Telekinetic Assault Robot).
  • Sam & Max:
    • The series' title can be shortened to S&M.
    • In Sam & Max: Reality 2.0, the Freelance Police meet the C.O.P.S., or Computer Obsolescence Prevention Society, a support group for outdated computers.
    • There's also THEM, the Temporal Headquarters of Enlightened Mariachis.
    • Two of Bosco's inventions in Season Two are the Personal Antipathy Registration Annulment and Non-negational Omnifunctional Identification Device.
      Max: That's just paranoid!
      Bosco: Technically, yes, it is.
  • In Save the Light, one of the contraptions that Peridot can build is called a Robotic Pulse Generator, or an RPG.
  • The title of S.C.A.T., a Forgotten Worlds-style shoot-'em-up by Natsume for the NES, stands for Special Cybernetic Attack Team. (The European and Japanese versions used different titles.)
  • The evil organization in Secret Agent goes by the acronym of "DVS" (when each letter is read aloud, it sounds like "devious").
  • The Secret of Arcanesium has the Ultra Neuro Decryption Encoder Algorithm Device.
  • The Secret World: Orochi's Anansi Alpha is working on the AEGIS system project and is filled with living scientists thanking you for the data they've gained. They're also brainstorming what the hell "AEGIS" means:
    • Anima Enhancement Global Integration System
    • Actualized Extreme Guided Immunity Support. Somebody adds that it's horrible and includes a frowny face.
    • Armor Enhancement Guidance Intelligence System
    • Agency X Enhancing Guarded Impenetrable Shield
    • Finally, somebody got fed up and created an acronym for "acronym" — Assholes Creating Ridiculous Obtuse Nonsense Yowling Meaninglessly — with an underlined notice to quit fucking around.
  • Senko no Ronde: Booster of Over-Armed Shell System is the term used to describe what happens when a player's Rounder attaches to larger and bulkier weapons, thus emulating the appearance, mobility, and firepower of a danmaku shmup boss. The subtitle for the game's sequel, Dis-United Order, continues this tradtion.
  • Shantae: The villainess Risky Boots uses long-winded names for some of her machines, some of which can invoke this trope:
    • Shantae: Risky's Revenge: The Steam-Powered Oceanic Tinker Tub, a.k.a S.P.O.T.T. like the dog name, "Spot".
    • This is used for humor in Shantae: Half-Genie Hero with the first boss:
      Risky: ...the Part Omni-Organic, Partially Titanic, Ocean-Optional Tinkerslug!
      Shantae: P.O.O.P.T.O.O.T.?
      Risky: Don't call it that!
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey has a special suit called the Demonica (DEMOuntable Next Intigrated Capability Armor).
  • Sierra Ops: The titular spacecraft's name stands for Sigil Interstellar Explorer and Rapid Research Arbiter. This is an in-universe backronym: the ship's designers brainstormed a name first, and Dr. Lomonosov came up with an acronym for it afterward. The ship was originally called ERA, for Experimental Research Arbiter.
  • Siren: Blood Curse has the JOYLiNK Network King portable LCD game system and its updated successor, the JOYLiNK Ultra Network King, or JUNK.
  • Skeleton Krew has the evil organization Deadly Enforcement Aggressive Division Incorporated (DEAD Inc.).
  • In Slime Rancher, the Tarr are known as Those Awful Ravenous Rainbows.
  • Skylanders:
    • Skylanders: SWAP Force: To sneak through Kaos' Fortress, the Skylanders uses a sheep disguise that has the name Scout Hazard to Elude and Escape Poncho.
    • Skylanders: Imaginators: The hubworld is one massive world connecting all the levels together, and it is called the Mysterious Ancient Place due to its connection with the Ancients.
  • In Snatcher, the task force assigned to hunt down and destroy the titular robots is known as JUNKER: Judgement Uninfected Naked Kind & Execute Ranger — in the Japanese version. If you prefer something with less Engrish, there's Japanese Undercover Neuro Kinetic Elimination Ranger.
  • Solatorobo has CODA, which stands for Continent Orientation Defloat Alignment.
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog games have the military organization Guardian Units of Nations. The actual meaning of the acronym was never stated in-game until Shadow the Hedgehog, but could be gleaned from some obscure sources around the time of Sonic Adventure 2's release. It might be a Punny Name, since GUN is the spelling of the Japanese word for military.
  • South Park: The Stick of Truth has you join the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, which is ruled by Cartman the Grand Wizard.
  • Spider-Man (PS4): In the city, there's a support building called Food Emergency Aid Shelter Training; also F.E.A.S.T for people in need of a place to stay.
  • The Big Bad of SPY Fox 2: Some Assembly Required leads the Society of Meaningless Evil, Larceny, Lying and Yelling, better known as SMELLY.
  • The Spy Who Ate Lunch has the Secure Homeland Intelligence Team.
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stands for Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber.
  • In Star Control, the cowardly Spathi ships fire B.U.T.T. (Backward Utilised Tracking Torpedo) missiles out of their rear. There's also the Kohr-Ah's special weapon, the Fiery Ring of Inevitable and Eternal Destruction (F.R.I.E.D.) and the Chenjesu's special battery-siphoning drones, De-energizing Offensive Guided Interceptors (D.O.G.I.) which make dog-like sounds. "VUX" is a subversion, being the proper name of the alien species (all caps included), but humanity made it into a backronym for "Very Ugly Xenomorph".
  • An unlockable TV channel in Stardew Valley is F.I.B.S., or Fishing Information Broadcasting Service, home to information regarding fish available to catch each season.
  • Starship Titanic provides us with P.E.T and S.M.E.F.
  • In the Starsiege series, you play with one or several giant mecha, called Humaniform-Emulation Roboticized Combat Units with Leg-Articulated Navigation, aka HERCs.
  • The arcade/SNES Shoot 'Em Up S.T.G. expands its Initialism Title as STrike Gunner (the three capitalized letters are in red on the title screen), but "STG" is also a common Japanese abbreviation for the Shoot 'Em Up genre.
  • Street Fighter IV has a weapon called Boiling Liquid Expanding Cell, which shorten is name called BLECE. Assuming the OVA is canon, it is what is sounds, a weapon that releases some kind of energy that causes parts of living cells to boil and explode.
  • Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People:
    • In "Homestar Ruiner", the prize for winning the Free Country USA Tri-Annual Race to the End of the Race (or F.C.U.T.R.E.R.) is the Free Country USA Tri-Annual Race to the End of the Race Silver Trophy of Ultimate Destinty (or F.C.U.T.R.E.R.S.T.U.D., which Coach Z pronounces as "Fuh-cou-trer-stud").
    • In "Baddest of the Bands", Strong Bad ends up having to perform in the Battle Royale of the Bands himself with the only main characters who aren't in a band, King of Town and Homsar. The three end up naming their new band by each picking one of five words, all of which lead to the initials DÖI, which can stand for one of 125 different combinations (such as "Demonic Oyster Insurance", "Diamond Octopus Itch-Machine", "Deluxe Omlette Iguanadon", "Devastating Oatmeal Incorporated", or "Degenerate Olive-loaf Insomniacs").
  • In Sub-Terrania by Zyrinx, the number of miners rescued is tallied under the label P.O.W., which according to the manual stands for Processed Ore Workers.
  • In Suikoden V, the Secret Alliance for the Protection of Pretty Hunks In Real Endangerment exists to both protect and ogle the more attractive male members of your forces.
  • Superliminal: The player's dreamself has been placed into SomnaSculpt's Interactive, Lucid-Induction Dream State, or I-LIDS.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Mario Is Missing!: The Koopas and Luigi use a special device located in Bowser's castle to travel across the land called P.O.R.T.A.L.S., which is short for Passcode Operated Remote Transport And Larceny System.
    • Super Mario Sunshine has two to name: Mario's water-spraying backpack, F.L.U.D.D. (Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device) and Isle Delfino's local emergency alert system, D.E.B.S. (Delfino Emergency Broadcast System).
  • Super Robot Wars:
    • The Super Robot Wars: Original Generation super robot SRX stands for "Super Robot X-Type"
    • Altairlion from Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 has GRaMXs (Gravity-control Rapid acceleration Mobility break Cross(X) shoot).
    • Finally, new line of mech in OVA is GESTALT for Global Expanded Stamp out Tactics works ALTogether.
  • Super Time Force, in full, is Super Temporal Infinite Manipulation Expert Force. The Updated Re-release for Steam is titled Super Time Force: Ultra.
  • Supreme Commander has the Armored Command Unit and Support Command Unit.
  • In Suzerain, the international organisation for monarchies is named the Guild of Royal Allies for Commercial Exchange.
  • S.W.I.N.E. stands for Strategic Warfare In a Nifty Environment. Unsurprisingly, it involves pigs.
  • The title of the Shoot 'Em Up S.W.I.V. officially stands for Secret Weapons Installation Verification, Special Weapons Interdiction Vehicles, and SilkWorm IV, though many fans believe it really stands for "Silk Worm In Vertical".
  • The Talos Principle:
    • The Institute for Applied Noematics. One text that can be read at a terminal explains the origin of this name.
    • Elohim is actually EL-0 HIM, the Holistic Integration Manager of the EL-0 partition of the supercomputer that the whole project is being run on. EL stands for Extended Life, the name of the digital archive hosting the Talos project.
  • In Team Fortress 2, the competing intelligence agencies are known by the names of their front companies — Reliable Excavation Demolition and Builders' League United. There's also the Heavy's two unlockable melee weapons: from the Heavy update came the Killing Gloves of Boxing. The beta also had the Gloves of Running Urgently, which were later re-added to the game.
  • For Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Bandai Namco Entertainment set up a stat-tracking website called the World Tekken Federation.
  • Thunder Force V has the Attack Drone CRAW (Constituted Ray Art Weapon-unit).
  • Tokyo Dark: The main meters system is called SPIN: Sanity, Professionalism, Investigation, and Neurosis.
  • The title of Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE abbreviates to TMS, which is SMT backwards.
  • Too Human has the Non-Organic Rational Nanosystems, the sentient programs that sift through the data of Cyberspace, for the Organically Distributed Intelligence Network and his Aesir.
  • Total Annihilation has the Kinetic Bio Organic Technology.
  • The plot of Trauma Center revolved around a group of man-made parasites known collectively as GUILT, which stands for Gangliated Utrophin Immuno Latency Toxin. Particularly hilarious, because every form of GUILT is a giant parasite of one form or another.
  • The Turing Test: The AI TOM, or "Technical Operations Machine".
  • UK Sight Reading Tournament: Specifically, 8 and 9 has Symbiotic Haematophage Apparent Mutating Eliminator and Systemic Catastrophe and Ontological Loss Driver respectively, the former being a reference to the Trauma Centre example as seen above.
  • Undertale plays with acronyms a bit. A couple of Enemy Scans jokingly expand "HP" as "Horsepower" (for a seahorse) or "Hit Poodles" (for a dog). More seriously, near the end of the game, when receiving your final judgment from Sans, he tells you that EXP (usually short for "Experience Points" in RPGs) stands for "Execution Points" (a measure of how much you've abused Video Game Cruelty Potential), and LV ("Level") is short for LOVE, or "Level of Violence" (a measure of your Killing Intent). However, some other common terms in the game do not appear to be acronyms despite being usually (though not invariably) capitalized.
  • Unreal Tournament III:
    • The game attempts to justify the presence of Capture the Flag in its single-player campaign by changing them into Field Lattice Generators. Lampshaded by the player character, upon hearing this:
      "It looks like a flag, it waves like a flag, it's a flag."
    • Also, the GES Bio Rifle (Green Exploding Shit) and the ASMD Shock Rifle (And Suck My Dick).
  • Virtue's Last Reward has androids called General-purpose AUtonomous Labor Electronic Machines, or GAULEMs. One GAULEM you encounter remarks that the name is stupid and whoever came up with it was blatantly trying to force an acronym that sounded like "golem".
  • Wargasm is a 1998 RTS, the name of which besides being... unique, is apparently an acronym of War Ground Air Special Missions.
  • The full title of Warhammer Online is Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which is one in itself.
  • Warzone 2100 loves these, though they're mostly based off real-world munitions.
  • West of Loathing has a conspicuously empty area named the Desolate Lonesome Coast. Wonder what it's for? Ironically, when the game did get DLC, it didn't actually take place there.
  • Wild ARMs series:
    • The acronym ARM or ARMs stands for something different in each game. In the first Wild ARMs, it's Ancient Relic Machine; in Wild ARMs 2, it's Agile Remote Mission Squad; in Wild ARMs 3, it's Artifacts of Ruins' Memories; in Wild ARMs 4, it's Ambient Reorganization Material, and in Wild ARMs: Million Memories it's Awakening of Resonant Memories
    • Also from 4, the Cabal is composed of councilmen Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale.
  • WildStar has the Dominion Research and Experimentation Division (DRED), run by the brilliant, psychopathic Chua, feared and despised by everyone.
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:
  • The antagonists of The Wonderful 101 are an alien race called the GEATHJERK, or the "Guild of Evil Aliens Terrorising Humans with Jiggawatt bombs, Energy beams, Ray guns, and Killer lasers".
  • The World Ends with You players have put together two equipment builds that exploit the Critical Status Buff. One of them, consisting mostly of clothing in the Lapin Angelique brand, is called "Lapin Angelique Suicide Special". The other, designed to have a lower Bravery stat requirement, is called "BRV Off, Yo!".
  • World of Warcraft:
    • The game has its share, including the Goblin Experimental Engineering Korporation and Gnomish Nutritional Effervescent Remarkably Delicious Sweets.
    • For April Fool's Day, 2010, Blizzard announced an enhancement to their player statistics system called the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number. Yes, it gets bigger as you get better gear.
    • Belbi's Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles (replace Belbi with Blix for the Horde version) is a reward for the annual Brewfest festival, which makes other NPCs more "attractive" when you put it on.
  • Drug Runners And Takers in the old NES game Wrath of the Black Manta.
  • In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Poppi, and in Theme Naming:
    • English has this in two of her forms: "Quixotic Tutelar" and "Quantum Technochampion Pi" — in other words, QT and QTπ.
    • The Japanese version has a similar pattern, with her three forms being "Jet Spark", "Justice Knight", and "Judgement Day".note 
  • KOS-MOS from Xenosaga: Kosmos Obey Strategic Multiple Operation Systems.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon has the name of its resident Phonýmon, Sujimon: "monsters of men who make you feel super jittery". Even the Sujimon Sensei admits it's a bit of a stretch.

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