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Iconic Outfit / Video Games

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Iconic Outfits in Video Games.

  • The standard Assassin outfit (a long robe/coat with a red sash and a beaked hood, normally in white) in Assassin's Creed is this. No matter the time period, almost every Assassin will wear some variant: Ptolemaic Egypt, the Roman Empire, the Viking Age, the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, the Renaissance, Imperial China, Feudal Japan, the Golden Age of Piracy, the Seven Years War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, Victorian Britain, the Russian Revolution, etc. Even Desmond's white hoodie harkens back to it. It's not strictly required, but is worn by every Assassin protagonist except Aveline.
    • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey has a non-Assassin variation of sorts. The Eagle Bearer (Alexios or Kassandra) is easily identifiable by their Spartan helmet, red cape, grey armor, fustenella, gold-plated gauntlets and greaves.
  • Banjo-Kazooie:
    • Banjo the Bear is memorable for his yellow shorts. He was granted the chance to talk about it in a Facebook Q&A promoting his latest game. Of course, he also has the backpack that houses his longtime friend Kazooie, but uh... that may cause some uncomfortable conversations these days.
    • His shorts and backpack are so iconic that they appear on every. single. transformation. that the pair have been through in both the original and sequel. Yes, even the ones that don't make any semblance of sense, like a pumpkin, a snowball, or a washing machine.
  • Hazama/Terumi from BlazBlue became playable in Continuum Shift, complete with a white color scheme for his suit that confirms his status as a Smooth Criminal.
  • Brink! has The Anger (particularly the black and red variant), appearing in the developer's Vanity Plate (throwing the Molotov that explodes into the Splash Damage logo). The hood and bandana combo were also available as promotional headgear for the Sniper in Team Fortress 2.
  • Appearing (or not) in a variety of media, Carmen Sandiego has her matching red hat and trenchcoat.
  • Castlevania has a few of these in the latter days.
    • For example the infamous "Black leather skirt and high-heeled Dominatrix boots" that Simon Belmont was saddled with for Castlevania Chronicles.
    • And Soma's ever-loving white, fur-collared, and blue-trimmed Pimp Coat. Even with the questionable change in artists he kept the iconic coat.
    • Isaac's pants are quite infamous.
    • Alucard's 18th century outfit from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has become his default look to the point that he's still wearing it in Dawn of Sorrow, which is set in 2036, after casting aside his "Genya Arikado" guise.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 has the Samurai jacket, worn by V in most promotional materials and in their action figure incarnations. It features a light-up popped collar (itself a Shout-Out to the cover artwork of Cyberpunk 2020), massive studs on the shoulders and a large logo of the fictional band Samurai on the back.
  • Dead or Alive has several of these, especially for the women in the game (Lei Fang's Little Black Dress, for instance). But one of the most memorable belongs to a male character: Zack's silver "Teletubby" outfit. Kasumi is primarily known for her blue shinobi outfit.
    • Despite being only an alternate outfit, Ayane's butterfly dress appears more often in cosplay and fanart.
    • Khaos in particular has almost always used only Ayane's iconic outfit, with some modifications to better fit a new role for her. Three particular mods made are removing the pull-on sleeves for opera-length gloves, changing the style of stockings to what's considered the signature ones of another character of his (one case justified in that Ayane variant drawing a Rainbow Angel series mandating said other character's signature high heels), and higher-heeled boots for those that get to keep them (sometimes a personal variant to another iconic-in-the-Khaosverse ankle boot).
  • In Dead Space Isaac Clarke wears various armors, however each game has a suit that gets used extensively in promotional materials, serving as the outfit featured in most (if not all) trailers. In Dead Space, the Level 3 Engineering RIG served that role; it featured in all trailers for the game. In Dead Space 2, the Advanced RIG serves the promotional function, and is the final suit unlocked in game. In Dead Space 3, that role is split between the EVA suit in space and the Arctic Survival Suit planetside. Overall, the Level 3 RIG is probably Isaac's most iconic suit, as it is featured in 2 and 3; and if Isaac has a cameo in other games, he's more likely than not to be wearing that rig.
  • Demon's Souls and its successors Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring all feature outfits that are prominently shown either on the covers, in advertising, or both. They are also usually worn by plot-relevant non-player characters:
    • Demon's Souls: The Demon Slayer has the Fluted armor set along with the Rune Shield and Rune Sword. Also worn by Ostrava of Boletaria aka Prince Ariona Allant.
    • Dark Souls: The Chosen Undead boasts the Elite Armor set. Also worn by Oscar of Astora, the first character you encounter in the game whose final act before going Hollow is to free you and pass on his quest to you.
    • Dark Souls II: The Bearer of the Curse has the Faraam set. Featured prominently in artwork, it was even forged in real life by a modern day blacksmith for a commercial.
    • Bloodborne: The Hunter wears the Hunter Set which, while distinctive enough on its own, is most visible in the promo materials with the Saw Cleaver and Hunter Blunderbuss.
    • Dark Souls III: The Ashen One wears the Firelink set. Also worn by the Soul of Cinder, the deific manifestation of the First Flame and all those who Linked the Fire. This includes the Chosen Undead and the Bearer of the Curse.
    • Elden Ring: The Tarnished wears the Raging Wolf set, originally known as the Bloody Wolf set in the Network Test beta. It's rather out of the way in the full game, found via an easily missable side quest: After completing two assassination missions for the Volcano Manor, one of your fellow assassins will ask for your assistance in taking out a pair of targets, one of which is wearing the armor set and will drop it upon his death.
  • Dante of Devil May Cry fame is nearly instantly recognizable by the image of his red leather Badass Longcoat, although it's a slight subversion in that the outfit is slightly different in each game (different vests in Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 2, no shirt in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, different coat design in Devil May Cry 4), but the imagery of the red coat juxtaposed with the visual contrast of his white hair is certainly iconic.
  • The green armor and high-tech helmet worn by the protagonist of the Doom series. In the 2016 reboot, the outfit finally gets a proper name: the Praetor Suit.
  • Dragon Age:
    • Hawke in Dragon Age II, having become a living Folk Hero to the people of Thedas, has the Mantle of the Champion as their iconic outfit. The Mage version of the armour is the one used in the promotional materials and box-art. They still wear the Mantle by the time of Inquisition.
    • Varric has his iconic leather coat and chest hair and Isabella has her own iconic outfit compared to her Origins appearance where she wore fairly nondescript armour.
    • Most people in the first game end up swapping out their gear for better armor over the course of the story, except for Morrigan, whose starting robes are ahead of the curve when they first appear and are available as a better version with the same character model after completing her personal quest, and whose subsequent appearance in Witch Hunt has her wearing the exact same clothing (unlike anyone else from the first game who appears somewhere else later).
    • Dragon Age: Inquisition frequently depict the Inquisitor in the Armor of the Dragon and Helm of the Inquisitor which covered their face... conveniently. There's also the infamous beige pajamas worn around Skyhold, but a patch has since introduced new clothing options.
  • Dragon Quest:
    • All of the player classes in Dragon Quest III have become this to the point that they've become the standard choice of outfit for NPCs of that class throughout the series. The Hero of that game in particular, with their circlet, mantle cape, and bright blue tunic, is utilized as the signature look for a heroic-type character inspired by the Dragon Quest series.
    • Dragon Quest IX plays with this: among the many equipment options you can discover are an array of Mythology Gag gear that lets you dress up your current party to look like heroes from all of the previous games in the series. You even gain Accolades by collecting and donning a complete set, as well as several Accolades if you manage to match what the representatives for each class are wearing in the example illustrations. On top of this, a lot of the gear that isn't directly connected to one of the past heroes are still references and holdovers from older games in the series, like the Dragon Quest II's Water Flying Cloth/Flowing Robe.
    • Played with as Rule of Funny in Dragon Quest VII onward, as the "Pod" / Pip and "Foo" / Conk families of monsters are tiny critters who dress like the default set of heroes in III, but are so tiny that they use leaves and hollowed nuts as armor, and use rocks and sticks as weapons.
  • King K. Rool in Donkey Kong Country is most known for his red cape, gold crown, and gold bracelets, even though he only wore them in the first game and in Mario Super Sluggers. When he was announced to be a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he would return in his classic cape from his first appearance.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • In-universe with uniformed Blades in their Akaviri style armor with Akaviri katanas. Virtually all citizens of Tamriel are able to recognize a uniformed Blade.
    • In Skyrim, the Iron Helmet/Hide Armor outfit has come to represent the Dragonborn, due to its appearance in the game's trailers and promotional art.
  • Powered Armor for the Fallout series. As well as the iconic blue-and-yellow-trimmed Vault suits, complete with PipBoy. Each game in this series has a set of armor adorning the cover: Fallout has the T-51b, Fallout 2 has the Enclave's Advanced Power Armor, Fallout 3 has the T-45d and Fallout 4 has the T-60c. Fallout 76 returns to the T-51 armor, as it was standard issue for soldiers in Appalachia before the war, given that the region needed less advanced gear than soldiers in the nation's capital. Fallout: New Vegas changes things up in that its shown outfit is the NCR Veteran Ranger's combat armor, which is un-powered. The armor was so popular with fans that the Lonesome Road DLC added an non-faction-affiliated version of the armor called "Riot Gear", which could be used by characters regardless of faction note .
  • Final Fantasy has the jobs come with recurring costumes.
  • Several classes in Fire Emblem have iconic uniforms. For example: the Pegasus Knights' miniskirts, Lords wearing gentlemen's clothing and donning Badass Capes, and armored Knights with shoulder guards larger than their heads.
  • Grand Theft Auto has many examples, since except for the protagonists starting from Vice City, none of the characters ever change clothes.
    • One of the most famous is the first well-known one, Claude's black leather jacket and drab green cargo pants in Grand Theft Auto III. He's even wearing the exact same outfit in his cameo in San Andreas, set nine years before.
    • Even the ones that can change outfits are most commonly identified with whatever they wear at the start of the game; Tommy Vercetti of the aforementioned Vice City has quite a few outfits available, but he's most associated with his starting Hawaiian shirt.
    • Carl Johnson of San Andreas is even moreso primarily associated with his starting white tank top, jeans and sneakers, despite having an even more extensive selection of clothes available to him.
    • Niko Bellic is often portrayed wearing fingerless gloves, even though he never actually wore them in-game. The reason for this is because of early artwork showing him wearing them, although they were removed from the game later on. Asking where Niko's fingerless gloves were became a popular meme on GTA message boards.
    • Niko's starting outfit, a leather jacket and tracksuit, has become rather iconic, too, to the point where he wears them in all his appearances in the expansion packs, despite having access to a designer clothing store and plenty of money.
  • Half-Life: Dr. Freeman's HEV Suit.
  • Master Chief's armor in Halo, which might be because he never wears anything else. His look in Halo 2, the "Mark VI" version of the armor, is particularly iconic, since he wears it in the next two games, though his classic look, the "Mark V" armor, from Combat Evolved is still famous enough that it's possible to use the same helmet and otherwise make a more than passable reproduction of it in Halo: Reach. Red vs. Blue uses this helmet aspect to help differentiate Caboose and Church when the machinima started using Halo 3 as its filming game.
  • The protagonists in Harvest Moon all have different clothes however the series is associated with Pete's clothes: backwards blue hat, red handkerchief around the neck, and overalls. In the first game his handkerchief was the other way around and he had a green hat according to official art. Certain protagonists (such as Mark from Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness or Adam from Harvest Moon: Magical Melody) use attire similar to Pete as a Mythology Gag.
  • Hitman: Agent 47's black suit, white buttoned shirt, red tie, and the barcode tattoo on the back of his head.
  • Hotline Miami has Jacket's rooster mask and varsity jacket, and Biker's motorcycle helmet.
  • Ib
    • The titular character has her white formal shirt with red scarf tie, red skirt, black knee socks and red loafer shoes with red bows and white soles.
    • Garry is best known for his signature ragged longcoat.
    • Mary is easily identifiable by her Victorian style green dress with white lace hem trim, blue scarf tie, white collar and sleeve cuffs, dark grey stockings and black Mary Janes.
  • KanColle gives us Shimakaze, whose outfit consists of a sleeveless sailor top that shows off her body, elbow gloves, a hair ribbon tied like rabbit ears, a microskirt and a very visible thong. This outfit of hers was one of the factors contributing to the rise of the popularity and recognition of the game, to the extent that people would recognise her without even knowing who she was or which franchise she was from. It helps that (historically as well) being the only ship of her class, she's the only one wearing it.
  • The King of Fighters:
    • Mai Shiranui's famously Stripperiffic red kimono(?) in Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters — a classic example of the Theiss Titillation Theory in action.
    • Red pants belted together at the knee. Black jacket. White button-up shirt. You are now seeing Iori.
    • Terry Bogard has two of these - one with a red trucker cap, the other with a wool-lined brown coat.
    • Kyo's trademark headband and schoolboy uniform. He hasn't worn it in-canon since '97, but almost every crossover (such as the SNK vs. Capcom series) still depicts him with it.
  • In King's Quest, there is Graham's iconic feathered cap, red sleeveless tunic, and cyan pants. Even after he becomes king, he prefers this outfit for daily life.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Sora's outfit from the first game with the poofy red shorts, white gloves and big yellow shoes, which was, notably, based on another iconic outfit: Mickey's. Sora goes through various costume changes throughout the series, but the silhouette and overall color scheme will always remain. (Kingdom Hearts II was an exception, but only in the color scheme.)
    • The series also has an iconic outfit that's not tied to any single person in the famous Black Coat.
  • Throughout all of his appearances (in Knights of the Old Republic, its sequel, tie-in comics, Star Wars: The Old Republic, etc.), the one aspect of Revan's appearance everyone remembers is his mask. His robes and lightsabers vary slightly (some of those appearances are set three hundred years apart, after all), but the mask stays.
  • The Last of Us: Joel's green plaid shirt (he even wears similar shirts in some of the The Last of Us Part II's flashbacks) and Ellie's maroon T-shirt on top of a black long sleeve shirt (to hide her bite mark). It helps that those are the outfits they wear for approximately 60% of the game, and were the most prominently featured in the advertising.
  • Left 4 Dead: Nick's $3,000 white suit with blue shirt underneath. The style has recently come back in Real Life, causing many fans' heads to whiplash whenever they see it in stores or on TV on unrelated people.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Link's green tunic, leather boots, and green pointed floppy hat. Several games go onto making the outfit itself a matter of significance due to its recurence throughout, such as being the outfit everyone in a certain school year wears, attire signaling a coming-of-age, or a guard's outfit meant to harken back to the first hero to lay claim to their homeland.
    • Similarly, Zelda's iconic look is a long white dress with either a pink or purple top, gold pauldrons, and a detailed thin apron that runs down the front of the dress. Most of her appearances have had some variation of this look since A Link to the Past, with the exception of Skyward Sword and the Breath of the Wild Switch Era Zelda.
    • Ganondorf appears less frequently but with more varied designs than the other Triforce holders. But per the below, his original bodysuit from Ocarina and his plate armor with cornrows from Twilight Princess are most recognizable. His Switch era design, a late comer that only appeared in the flesh in the third game, is very popular but less recognizable than Link and Zelda who had their look in Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity both.
    • From 1998 - 2006 the most iconic designs of the Zelda cast were taken from their Ocarina of Time incarnations. This would be their default look in most merchandise and spinoffs including Super Smash Bros. and Soul Calibur II.
    • From 2006 onward the default look is almost always the Twilight Princess-era designs for more serious works or Toon Link Wind Waker-esque designs for more comical appearances. The Twilight designs for Link and Zelda are largely more detailed versions of their Ocarina outfits anyway. The only major exception to the rule is Mario Kart 8 which uses Skyward Sword Link as default. Occasionally, looks more similar to A Link to the Past and prior (Zelda without opera gloves, Link with brown sleeves) are used for expressly "classic" nostalgia plays.
    • Link's "Sheikah blue" Champion's Tunic from Breath of the Wild got a lot of positive feedback from the fanbase, to the point that fans are willing to accept it as an alternative to the aforementioned outfit. Similarly, Zelda's blue field clothes from Breath of the Wild have become her most iconic informal outfit. The fact that she wears it in her official art for the game and her Breath of the Wild amiibo certainly helps. Switch Link would later be an alternate outfit for Skyward Link in Mario Kart. Nintendo themselves seem to treat these Switch era designs as a sub-series similar to the Toon designs, to the point that both Twilight and Switch designs can appear together in the same marketing material.◊
    • Despite the fact Zelda wears a pink dress in A Link to the Past, it's much more common in fanworks to depict her with her powder blue dress seen in some official artwork.
    • In Twilight Princess, the fourth piece of the Fused Shadow is better remembered as Midna's improvised helmet, especially because it's the only clothing she's wearing. From the same game, Zant's mechanical chameleon helmet (and his fancy wardrobe, to a lesser extent) also counts.
  • Leisure Suit Larry has Larry Laffer's iconic white polyester leisure suit, complete with a gold plastic medallion and possibly other faux-gold chains.
  • While he can obtain many different outfits (mainly by divesting Stalkers of their clothes plus masks upon their deaths or finding certain Stalker garments elsewhere in certain locations and/or searching various Trinity Sanctums unlocked via getting the Trinity Key after answering the King of Riddle's first riddle correctly), P of Lies of P is predominately depicted in either the 'Blue Blood's Tailcoat' attire consisting of a blue longcoat, a small cross-shaped gold brooch securing a white ruffle tie combo at his throat, a maroon vest, sand-colored breechess, white stockings and black ankle shoes) or his default outfit which is a white poet shirt (which he wears with the Blue Blood's Tailcoat), black pants and black boots in fanart. Two other outfits that tend to get drawn as frequently are the Workshop Master's Workwear and the White Lady's Hunting Apparel mainly due to how well they fit P and their designs in general.
  • Like a Dragon/Yakuza:
    • Ever since the first game in the series, Kazuma Kiryu wears a very light grey blazer jacket with matching pants and a maroon shirt. Under his shirt, on his back, is his iconic dragon tattoo. Even when he changes outfits every game, he'll always throw on the old colors at least once before an important moment. In the prequel Yakuza 0, Kiryu would wear two completely different suits before eventually adopting his traditional grey suit by the end of the game.
    • Much like Kiryu since the beginning of the series, Goro Majima wears a yellow and black snake-skin jacket with no shirt underneath, leather pants, and matching boots, in addition to an eyepatch over his left eye. Under his jacket is a menacing tattoo of white hannya mask. Yakuza 0 sees him also wear a completely different suit until the end of the prequel game, trading it out for his snake-skin jacket.
    • Ryuji Goda wears a light tan overcoat with tan shirt and pants. Like Kiryu, he has a dragon tattoo, albeit gold in contrast to Kiryu's silver dragon.
    • Shun Akiyama wears a maroon jacket with a black shirt and pants. Atypical of other protagonists, he does not have any tattoos, being a civilian.
    • As of Yakuza 5, Taiga Saejima is frequently portrayed with a shaven head wearing a thick parka jacket with a fur lined hood, and forest camo-colored pants. Underneath his parka, on his back, is a ferocious tiger tattoo.
    • Ichiban Kasuga of Yakuza: Like a Dragon has a Palette Swap of Kiryu's outfit, wearing a maroon jacket and pants over a white shirt. His tattoo is of a dragonfish, the transitionary state between the Legendary Carp and a dragon.
  • No matter how many alternate appearance packs are released, or how many customization options are given to the characters, nearly everyone in the Mass Effect trilogy seems to always end up in the promotional material or cutscenes wearing the outfits they first showed up in. The major exceptions are Liara, who swapped her generic dark-green labcoat for a unique white outfit in the second game, and Ashley/Kaidan, whose default outfit was replaced with a redesigned blue suit of armor and off-duty garb in the third game.
    • Most notable example is, of course, Shepard's default N7 armor, despite being far from the best suit available statwise. You always start in the dark grey armour with the red and white stripe. Even in-universe, though there are other N7 graduates, and you may have undergone cosmetic surgery between games, your squadmates instantly know that the human in front of them wearing an N7 badge is Shepard.
  • Mega Man and Mega Man X have a very distinctive blue helmet that defines not only who they are, but is emblemetic of the entire Mega Man franchise.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Solid Snake's sneaking suit in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has become a fondly remarked-upon outfit, especially for the the way it highlights his backside — remember that he only wore it for about two hours, in a game where he wasn't even the lead character, and yet it's eclipsed everything else he's ever worn to the point where it's considered his 'default' look; even the OctoCamo outfit he wears in Guns of the Patriots has a pre-installed camo pattern that takes on the color of the sneaking suit. The Bandanna would probably fall under this as well, if it wasn't already an in-game meme/infinity-plus-one-bandanna. There's also his trusty cardboard box. To a somewhat lesser extent is the sneaking suit from Metal Gear Solid, which is actually the same outfit as the more famous Sons of Liberty one, with the addition of a thick thermal vest/body armor - spinoffs such as Ghost Babel and the first Acid game have him wearing that variant, which fit well for the near-arctic Alaskan environment it was introduced for but looks completely out of place in the Central and South African areas those spinoffs take place in.
    • Certainly the mullet. Even though he wore his hair short in as many games as he wore his hair long, including in his first appearance on the PlayStation (where he specifically cuts his hair during the briefing tapes upon learning that his long hair makes him look almost exactly like the terrorists' ringleader), and even though it's not even technically a mullet, the meme's stuck and the haircut is invariably associated with him, although as a charm point rather than a means of mockery like most other fictional characters who have ever been associated with the hairstyle (e.g. mid-'90s Superman).
  • Metroid:
    • The Varia Suit. Although Samus rarely starts the game with it (and if she does, there's a pretty good chance she loses it pretty soon) and usually gets another upgrade or two to her suit, its design (complete with the iconic Shoulders of Doom) and color scheme are synonymous with her Powered Armor.
    • Also the Zero Suit, especially since it appeared as an alternate form for her in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
  • Ryu Hayabusa's black ninja suit (aka the "Legendary Black Falcon") from Team Ninja's reboot of the Ninja Gaiden series ended up becoming his standard outfit from the fourth Dead or Alive game and onward, becoming his most iconic design outside his original blue outfit from the earlier arcade and NES games.
  • PAYDAY: The Heist has a two-piece suit and clown mask combination worn by every member of the crew. While the suits aren't worn in all of the heists,note  the clown masks and suits are ubiquitous and unique to each crew member. Come PAYDAY 2, the crew wears the suits on every heist except the Green Bridge and No Mercy remakes, plus the White House, and the suits are colored differently for each crew member. Though Dallas' mask and suit is the most iconic for the franchise, being present in all media since PAYDAY's inception.
  • Aya Brea in Parasite Eve is known for Little Black Dress, despite wearing it only in the first chapter of the game. She spends most of the game in her black jacket with a white t-shirt and jeans, which most people remember her for.
  • Persona 5 has the Phantom Thieves' outfits when in the Metaverse:
    • Joker's black Badass Longcoat, with accompanying slacks and dress shoes, red gloves, and a black-and-white Domino Mask.
    • Ryuji Sakamoto/Skull's black leather jacket with accompanying pants and legs, red Scarf of Asskicking, yellow gloves, and a metallic mask in the shape of a skull
    • Ann Takamaki/Panther's red leather bodysuit with thigh-high darker-red boots, pink gloves, and a blood-red mask in the shape of a cat's upper head
    • Yusuke Kitagawa/Fox's black tracksuit, white boots, blue gloves, blue-and-white striped abdomen wrap with a white-and-red striped fox tail attached, and a white fox mask with red accents.
    • Makoto Niijima/Queen's black and dark-blue leather bodysuit with a black corset-style vest, long black Scarf of Asskicking, steel-toed black boots, spiked shoulder and knee pads, and a metallic eyemask.
    • Futaba Sakura/Navi's black bodysuit with green Tron Lines, black pants, black boots with green steel toes, and Cool Goggles with oversized red lenses.
    • Goro Akechi/Crow's white royal regalia with golden accents, accompanied by a red mask with a distinctly long nose. Following his reveal as The Mole, he changes this ensemble out for a black-and-blue striped jumpsuit, a black tattered cape, and a black helmet that conceals most face save for his mouth and his eyes, which are behind red lenses.
    • Kasumi Yoshizawa/Violet's black leotard, black leather jacket, thigh-high black boots, red gloves, and a black with silver highlights.
  • Pokémon:
    • The Youngster trainer class and their shorts. "I like shorts. They're comfy and easy to wear!"
    • The Lass trainer class always wear miniskirts. In fact, their Japanese name is literally "Miniskirt".
    • The playable characters are also easily recognizable in their attire. Red in particular is very well-known for both his classic and modern clothes (especially the hat, which is included in Super Smash Bros. in both incarnations). To a lesser extent, Brendan is known for his hat which many players believed to be his hair with a bandana.
    • Cynthia is almost never depicted in fanworks or canon without her coat. Outside of her anime appearance in Unova, that is...
  • Little Mac, the protagonist of Punch-Out!!, is well-known for his black and green outfit — especially the iconic, bright green boxing gloves. In the Wii game, it's the attire he wears in the Minor Circuit at the start of the game.
  • Resident Evil: Has Claire Redfield's biker outfit and Leon Kennedy's RPD outfit in Resident Evil 2. Plus Jill's outfit in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and with Claire again in her Resident Evil – Code: Veronica outfit. Leon's leather jacket from Resident Evil 4 is also well-remembered, even though he only wore it for the first hour or so.
  • Koei is responsible for doing this to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms characters. While many elements of the more iconic characters' appearance, like Guan Yu with his long flowing beard, do exist in the original literature, the Dynasty Warriors games and any predecessors and successors therein always depict recurring characters with now-signature features, to the extent that other properties depicting Three Kingdoms, like this webcomic and the toyline BB Senshi Sangokuden also use them — Lu Bu with his pheasant-feathered headgear, Ma Chao with spiky anime hair, Sun Ce's choice of weapons, the list goes on.
  • Ridge Racer: Reiko Nagase's white outfit is perhaps her most iconic, as it even carries into her appearance in Pac-Man Fever (2002).
  • Scribblenauts: Maxwell has his rooster helmet.
  • Silent Hill: Pyramid Head's, um, pyramid head, a huge, implied-to-be-very-heavy torture helmet that may or may not be his actual head. Note that the original is solid and has five sides, whereas the most popular version from the movie is four-sided and included grating (because it was impossible for the actor to wear otherwise).
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic's red boots and white glovesnote . The same can be said for Tails.
    • Eggman is as renowned for his classic outfit (red shirt, yellow capes which makes him look like a walrus when front-faced, and black pants) as for his modern (red jacket with white stripes and yellow buttons, black pants, black and white boots, and goggles). His blue glasses and white gloves are the only stable elements.
    • Knuckles' oversized spiked boxing gloves, but also his green, yellow and red shoes.
    • Amy's post-Sonic Adventure outfit (red boots, dress and headband with a bowl haircut, and giant golden rings on her wrists) is her most renowned, as she appeared in main series titles and spin-offs dressed this way since 1998. However, since at least 2019, her classic outfit (orange tutu, green shirt, purple shoes and red headbow with spiky quills) became popular again for her appearences in the following games with this design: the fangame Sonic Robo Blast 2 makes her playable, Coraldev plays Amy with a classic skin in Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart (and makes her his favorite punching ball), the Compilation Re Release Sonic Origins introduced her to new players with this look, and Sonic Superstars (which makes classic characters transition to 3D) makes her a playable character. Players who subscribed to the official Sonic newsletter unlock the ability to have Amy wear her modern outfit while retaining her classic look.
    • Fang the Hunter's cowboy hat, belt and steel gloves have been retained for all of his appearances, even when he re-appeared over two decades later for Sonic Superstars.
  • Street Fighter:
    • Ryu's sleeveless white gi with red headband. Ken's red and Akuma's gray ones follow on from this.
    • Chun-Li's blue outfit with spiked wristbands and white hair-puffs work too. It's so iconic that when her outfit was changed in Street Fighter Alpha, enough of the dev team missed her classic outfit that it was included as an alternate costume... In a 2-D game, which necessitated that her entire sprite set be redrawn to reflect it.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Mario's red cap, white gloves, brown shoes, red shirt, and blue overalls.
    • Luigi's green cap, white gloves, brown shoes, green shirt, and darker blue overalls.
    • Wario's yellow cap, white gloves, green shoes, yellow shirt (or a t-shirt in later appearances), and purple overalls. His WarioWare biker outfit (yellow and red helmet, goggles, blue shoes and shirt, light blue vest, pink pants, red belt and yellow fingerless gloves) also became iconic since Super Smash Bros. Brawl where it's used as his default outfit for the series.
    • Waluigi's purple cap, white gloves, orange shoes, purple shirt, and very dark blue overalls.
    • Peach's gold crown, white High-Class Gloves, and pink dress.
    • Daisy's gold crown, white gloves, and yellow and orange dress.
    • Rosalina's silver crown, turquoise gown, and star wand. Khaos has shown a stronger preference for her biker suit from Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8, as it's his go-to for racing as her in those games, but will use her in the dress should it be her only available option (as seen in Mario Kart 7, which lacks the reason she (along with Peach and Daisy) got the biker suit to begin with).
    • Donkey Kong's monogrammed necktie.
    • Diddy Kong's red shirt and a red cap.
    • Pauline's torn red dress is enforced as this in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, as whenever Donkey Kong kidnaps her, Mario grabs for her but only grabs the hem of her dress and tears it (the same way, every time). Her red suit from Odyssey also quickly became iconic.
    • Played with in terms of Bowser. While his green, spiky shell is easily recognizable, it isn't really an actual outfit, let alone clothes. Played straight with his spiked collar, armbands and wristbands, however. Also played straight with Super Mario Odyssey, where he dons a white wedding suit, which is also well-known given that it's one of, possibly the first complete outfit Bowser wore in a mainstream Mario platformer.
    • Similarly, Yoshi isn't known for wearing many clothes, but he does wear a pair of brown shoes and a saddle-like shell on his back.
    • Bowser Jr.'s bandana, with his "teeth", scribbled on it.
    • Birdo wears a bow on her head.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Wolf O'Donnell's outfit in Super Smash Bros. Brawl has since cemented the Star Wolf leader as a Memetic Badass.
    • Captain Falcon's "Captain Fabulous" pink and white outfit (Valentine's Day Falcon, as ProtonJon calls it) from Brawl has become so popular, sometimes it's referenced as a different character. Another alternate is styled akin to his evil clone Blood Falcon.
    • Ditto for the red on pink ensemble worn by Gay Luigi a.k.a. Mama Luigi.
    • And also Marth in his white "Wedding Marth" outfit.
  • All of the Team Fortress 2 classes' outfits, and for good reason — they were designed and tested to be instantly recognizable in silhouette, in low lighting, to contrast with the backgrounds, and to draw focus towards the torso and head, the two parts you aim for. They have a big presentation on it floating around the Internet, that includes the fiendishly complex shading algorithms.
  • Tekken:
    • The Mishima studded gloves and Heihachi's tiger's head gi.
    • His fundoshi from the fourth game is hard to forget, too...
    • Many other examples as well. Kazuya's purple tuxedo, Lee's tuxedo, Anna's red Dragon Lady dress as well as her 1920s-esque "zebra" outfit, etc.
  • Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games wears many outfits, but her most popular one is her sea green tank top, brown shorts, boots, and backpack, which is what she started with from the first game. Other games either omit this outfit entirely or have it as an unlockable.
  • Touhou Project girls have some pretty iconic and unmistakable outfits:
    • Red-white, exaggerated miko outfit with detached sleeves? Reimu's Incident-resolving dress!
    • Cirno's ice wings and blue dress with white icicle-shaped pattern.
    • Flandre Scarlet's distinctive metal-and-"Christmas lights" wings certainly make an impression. Although, the Iconicness might partly come from the fact that Flandre's wings resemble Marx's wings.
    • Reisen Udongein Inaba only wore a suit jacket in one game out of all the other official games which she had been in. In all the other official works she doesn't wear it; but even so it's become her Iconic Outfit, to the point that in fanart she is almost never depicted without it.
    • Constellation-dotted, and two-toned red/blue nurse's dress that Two-Face would approve of? It's Eirin!
    • Fujiwara no Mokou has a very distinctive outfit — white shirt and fiery-red pants with suspenders. Said pants and Mokou's long white hair also bear amulets that prevent them from going up in flames when she uses her fiery magic. Mokou is memetically known as "the one who wears the pants in Gensokyo".
    • A red, plaid dress and vest, with a white shirt and a parasol? Yuuka Kazami.
    • Suwako's combination of a purple dress with long wide sleeves paired with her wide-brimmed frog-eyed hat makes her stand out in the divine crowd.
    • Oh wait! We forgot to mention the new good green haired miko in white and blue who lives with Suwako and Kanako in the Moriya Shrine. That's right guys! It's Sanae Kochiya (or Kotiya, depends upon your choice).
    • In fact, a rather famous Fan Vid uses the incredible number of unique outfits by showing only silhouettes of the characters. Behold the variety! Most Touhou fans can identify every character shown.
    • ZUN himself can also count. In most presentations he is always seen with a coloured (mostly green) beret alongside a nice large cup of beer.
  • Undertale:
    • The Human Child has their blue and purple striped jumper, and blue pants/shorts. In a lesser extent, the bandage and woodstick they wear at the start of the game count too.
    • Toriel has her white and purple dress with the Delta Rune on it.
    • Sans the skeleton has his hoodie/sports shorts/slippers combo.
    • Papyrus has his "battle body", a white "armor" with blue pants, red gloves, boots, and cape.
    • Undyne is as much remembered with her scary armor (with or without the helmet) as she is with her casual clothing, a black tanktop with blue pants and red shoes.
    • Monster Kid has their yellow and brown armless striped shirt.
    • Despite wearing them only once in the entire game, Napstablook has their headphones.
    • Temmie has her light blue and yellow striped shirt.
    • Alphys has her Labcoat of Science and Medicine.
    • Played with Mettaton EX, as his "outfit" is more of an alternate body, even if it can be interpreted as a human wearing a purple armor, heart-shaped belt, and purple boots.
    • Mad Mew Mew has her maid-princess outfit, cat bell earrings and bowtie on the tail.
    • Similar to Undyne, Asgore is as much remembered with his long cape and armor as with his pink shirt and blue pants during the Golden Ending.
    • The six Human SOULs are commmonly associated with the armors and weapons they lost in the Underground, especially the latter they use against you after Flowey absorbed them.
    • Flowey's real form Asriel has his green and yellow striped jumper with blue pants.
    • The Fallen Human has their green and yellow striped jumper, and brown pants/shorts. The Heart Locket and Knife you can find in Asgore's house are also commonly associated with them.
  • World of Warcraft has Arthas and his Sauron-esque armor, especially the helmet. There's also Deathwing and the gigantic monstrosity he attached to his chin.
  • Madotsuki's pink shirt with a checkerboard logo is instantly recognizable to fans of Yume Nikki.

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