History Main / GreatOffscreenWar

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The Belkan War was this in ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'': the only events mentioned in the game were that Bartlett and Pops were shot down together, and that it ended when Belka dropped seven nukes on its own soil. It was later expanded on in ''VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar'', allowing you to experience the conflict for yourself, henceforth becoming a major part of the franchise's lore.
** Other wars that form a crucial part of certain games' backstories are civil wars in enemy nations, one big example being the Estovakian Civil War, a brutal knock-down drag-out mess that involved as many as ''five'' factions and lasted six years, essentially a precursor to the Anean Continental War seen in ''VideoGame/AceCombat6FiresOfLiberation.'' In ''VideoGame/AceCombatXSkiesOfDeception'', the Leasathian Civil War also serves a similar purpose.
* ''VideoGame/AIWarFleetCommand:'' The war outside the galaxy, known semi-officially as the Extragalactic War in the sequel. Rather than being a past event, it's simply far away with almost entirely unknown but impossibly huge threats involved on one side, and the AI on the other. This war is the reason you aren't dead; it takes up so much of the AI's attention and industrial capacity that you, in comparison, are a speck NotWorthKilling. The goal of the game is to remove the local processors to rid your area of the galaxy from AI control, without raising enough hell that it decides it can spare the time and power to ''really'' murder you. And if things [[GodzillaThreshold get too far out of control]], stuff that is an actual valuable asset in this war rather than mere chaff is brought in; the low end is pure pain, the high end is [[HopelessBossFight a death sentence]].
* The ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' series makes reference to a war that occurred tens of thousands of years ago in the First Civilization, between [[{{Precursors}} Those Who Came Before]] and the humans they used as slaves. This war is never detailed, but is instead used as a context to explain how the {{Half Human Hybrid}}s "Adam and Eve" became {{Phlebotinum Rebel}}s and stole the secret of the [[MacGuffin Pieces of Eden]]. And then their civilization was wiped out by a [[CozyCatastrophe solar flare]], making the whole thing moot.
** Later games also establish the Isu had their own war, dubbed "the War of Unification". ''Valhalla'' has characters in the Asgard storyline mention a war between the Aesir and Vanir, which only ended when Odin and Freyja reluctantly married. Whether this has any relation to the War of Unification is unclear, given the Asgard memories are [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness not an accurate depiction of events as they happened]].
* ''VideoGame/AtlasReactor'' has the Titan War, which was fought between practically all of humanity after the Reactors failed and Atlas was the only place left on Earth with power. The War was won by the three {{Mega Corp}}s who currently run Atlas. Several of the Freelancers you can play as were veterans of the War, having gained Resurrection Contracts due to their actions during the war.

* The Ura-Caelondia war in ''VideoGame/{{Bastion}}''. It's been over for a while, but a lot of the Ura and the only living Caelondian old enough to remember it (Rucks) are still a bit sore over it.
* ''Franchise/BlazBlue'': The First War of Magic, in which humans (including Hakumen, Jubei, Valkenhayn, and Terumi) fought against [[EldritchAbomination The Black Beast]]. Later, the Ikaruga Civil War, in which Jin became "The Hero of Ikaruga" by murdering Bang's lord.
* A recurring theme in ''VideoGame/BookOfMarioThousandsOfDoors'' is an offscreen war. The Persian Empire, The Koop Kingdom, and the 10-Nauties are the primary superpowers fighting in it, though what it's being fought over is...unclear. [[spoiler:''Book of Mario 64'' reveals the Stellarvinden, while controlling Mario, consumed all the peaches and caused a global shortage.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' mentions a conflict between most of the major weapons manufacturers known as the "Corporate Wars" that resulted in the collapse of the Central Government.

* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' has "The Demon Castle War" in 1999 where modern-day soldiers attacked (and died; given the zombies) Dracula's Castle. This war also heralded Dracula's true and final death at the hands of Julius Belmont, Alucard, and other allies (including a member of the Belnades clan), thanks in part to a Shinto ceremony sealing Castlevania inside of a solar eclipse and cutting off the Dark Lord from his source of power in the process. There is no game that covers this, with the two closest games to that point being set [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow 36 years afterwards]] or [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin 55 years before]].
* The rebooted ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow'' series had the Necromantic Wars, a series of conflicts between the titular Lords of Shadow against [[{{Precursors}} the ancient civilization of Agartha]] that took place before the game's storyline and is merely referenced on in-game supplementary material and Zobek's narration. The Lords of Shadow were victorious and completely wiped out the Agarthians, with only a few survivors of left when the game begins [[spoiler:none of which survive until the end]].
* In ''VideoGame/CatQuest'', the Dragons Wars which opposed the dragons to the Old Masters and the Dragonbloods, happened a very long time ago but is constantly referred to through the game.
* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'': References are made several times to a war for control of [[ArtifactOfDoom the Demon Crown]]. It's implied that the protagonist and Curly Brace were combatants in this war, two of the few surviving soldiers from the army that massacred the Mimigas. [[spoiler:But that's ultimately revealed to be false when Curly regains her memories--she remembers fighting to destroy the Demon Crown, separate from any army, with the protagonist as her only ally.]]
* ''VideoGame/ChickenPolice:'' The Meat War, which happened about 100 years before the events of the game. It lasted 27 years, 80-90 million animals died, and 27 species were declared extinct after the war. Some people are worried that a second Meat War is brewing.
* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' has the first Rikti War in Primal Earth, and the [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Hamidon Wars]] in Praetorian Earth.
* The [[NoodleIncident "Great Mistake"]] in ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' is sometimes implied to have been WorldWarIII, or a regional nuclear exchange (India and Pakistan are often brought up in this context). Other times it seems that it was an ecological collapse and/or some kind of unexplained science [[GoneHorriblyWrong going horribly wrong]] -- whatever it was, it's the cause of EarthThatUsedToBeBetter.
** Likewise, in ''Beyond Earth'''s spiritual predecessor, ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', had [[spoiler:the implication that civilization back on Earth completely went to shit not long after the ''Unity'' left. By the time Planet's descendants finally return to their world of origin, Earth is a lifeless rock with a few giant craters in it]].

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'':
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'': The war against the Everlasting Dragons, which lead to the founding of Lordran and the prosperity of human kingdoms. Only one character who lived through it will remark on his experiences, which are mainly tinged with sorrow that he now that it's over, his purpose as a dragon slayer is now finished as well.
*** Briefly mentioned is the war against the demons of Lost Izalith. Where Gwyn personally led his knights to exterminate the Chaos Demons created by the Witch's attempt to recreate the First Flame. This war ended and failure, and all that's known is that the Black Knights came into being after the Flames of Chaos corrupted them and made their weapons more deadly to demons.
*** The lore makes the occasional mention of an event called the "Occult Rebellion" where a group of humans or giants made war upon the gods of Anor Londo using forbidden weaponry that channeled Dark. The only name tied to this event was Havel The Rock, who was apparently exiled. The ember used to make the weapons was hidden in the Painted World and the entire conflict, [[{{Unperson}} as well as it's participants]], was otherwise erased from history.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'': The war against the Giants that took place some 100 years or so before the game begins. It apparently lasted over 120 years and, while Drangleic was ultimately victorious, the kingdom was utterly ravaged by the Giants' attack and never recovered.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': The reason for all those dead knights in Lothric? A civil war erupted between two religions in Lothric, one being the state religion of worshipping and kindling the First Flame, the other being centered around a woman named Gertrude and her "heretical" worship of the Angels (whoever they were). The Winged Knights are the remnants of Gertrude's rebellion.
* ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'': The great war between the Furons and the Blisk millennia ago, which resulted in Mars being reduced to desert, Venus an acid-raining hellscape and the Furons rendered sterile. Upon Pox and Crypto heading to Earth to harvest brain stems in the first game and finding out that the Blisk are [[NotQuiteDead not extinct as they thought in the second game]], they spend the last few missions of the second game alongside a Soviet spy named Natalia trying to prevent the extermination of humanity by the Blisk.
* The Sin War, an eternal war between the forces of Heaven and Hell, is given as the background to ''VideoGame/Diablo1997'', but aside from a short mention in [[AllThereInTheManual the manual]] it doesn't really make an appearance. It's only in [[VideoGame/DiabloII the second game]], after [[BigBad Diablo]] has been released that angels start making an appearance and the war itself becomes relevant.
* The ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series has several examples:
** Loghain of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' often mentions the Ferelden rebellion against Orlais. Vague references to the war between the Qunari and the Tevinter Imperium are also present.
** The First Blight lasted 192 years, the Second lasted 90 years: the Third and Fourth blight were comparatively smaller and lasted only 15 and 12 years. At the beginning of ''Origins'', Duncan is desperately trying to increase the ranks of the Fereldan Grey Wardens in order to avoid another Blight lasting years or even generations. [[spoiler:''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' confirms that the Fifth Blight, which is the setting of ''Origins'', lasted a full year, which is comparatively amazing.]]
** The plot of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' is about what ''started'' the Mage-Templar War that has engulfed all of Thedas by 9:40 Dragon. Vague hints are all we actually know about the present in which the framing-device is set, whereas the game itself focuses on the life of Hawke from 9:30 - 9:37 Dragon and how the Champion came to unintentionally participate in the opening shots of the conflict.
** Thedas history is built on one enormous war after another. The titular Dragon Age was predicted to be a time of upheaval, but it's still got some catching up to do in terms of body count. The oldest known conflict, predating the First Blight and the Age system, is the elf empire vs the nascent [[TheMagocracy Tevinter Imperium]]. The sheer loss of elf culture is still being felt centuries later.
** The novel ''Literature/TheStolenThrone'' describes the rebellion against the Orlesian occupation, although the final battle in which Loghain really proved himself as a general is not described (the future King Maric wasn't even present there, choosing instead to settle a personal score).
** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' reveals some important info about the war between the Elven empire and Tevinter [[spoiler: - namely that the elves were already involved in a ''civil'' war. Far from the mighty conquerors their descendants imagine, Tevinter was kicking the elves when they were already down.]]
* Various flavor text descriptions in ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'' allude to a divine crusade by the three good gods against a kingdom run by an evil cult. The kingdom's divine rulers were overthrown, and the good gods reduced their realm to a barren wasteland, which is now called the Desolation of Salt. In addition, the paladins leading the crusade discovered the Book of Weapons, a tome of spells once used by a group of rebels who tried and failed to overthrow the kingdom. While the game shows the aftermath of the conflict, it does not depict the conflict itself.
* ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege II'' has an ancient war forming the entire background to the plot, although the details are somewhat vague due to the circumstances involved - the war ended when two powerful magical artifacts met which resulted in an EarthShatteringKaboom, wiping out everyone involved and reshaping the world right down to changing how magic worked. The game gives various hints about it, but many of these come from an UnreliableNarrator who [[spoiler:turns out to be the real BigBad and was lying about at least some of it all along]].
* ''VideoGame/DungeonsOfDredmor'' contains many references to a war between elves and dwarves that's taken place back on the surface; the dungeons are full of discarded weaponry and such.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Earth|2150}}'' series, we never get to see or read details about [[WorldWarIII World War 3]], only that it was a nuclear war that destroyed all former nation-states. Only a few facts are known from before the war, mostly about the founding of the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Lunar Corporation]]. The game history starts after the war, with the creations of the [[{{Eagleland}} United Civilized States]] and the [[TheEmpire Eurasian Dynasty]].
* A number of wars influenced the present-day state of affairs in ''VideoGame/EldenRing'':
** [[TheEmpire The Golden Order]] was not the first to govern the Lands Between, and was only established through multiple wars of conquest. In particular, the hard-fought victory against the giants of the mountains saw that race completely wiped out.
** While we don't hear much about it, there was certainly a conflict between The Golden Order (Marika's followers) and the enigmatic Godskin Cult (A group of skin wearing heretics bent on killing the gods). It ended with the death of the cult's leader, the Gloam-Eyed Queen and the Rune of Death being taken by Maliketh. In the modern day, Godskins are few and far between, mostly hidden in weird areas that aren't particularly fond of the Erdtree.
** A war between Marika's Empire and the dragons of Farum Azula began when [[RentAZilla Gransax]] breached the walls of Leyndell for the first and only time in history. [[TheAce Godwyn the Golden]] ended the war when he [[DefeatMeansFriendship bested and befriended the dragon champion Fortissax]] and integrated the dragons into the Golden Order.
** Radagon invaded Liurnia twice on Marika's behalf. He was turned back the first time by the forces of [[TheArchmage Queen Rennala]], and the second was resolved when [[AltarDiplomacy the two of them married]].
** The most recent and devastating was the Shattering. When the Elden Ring was shattered and both Queen Marika and Elden Lord Radagon disappeared, their demigod children each claimed a fragmentary [[PlotCouponThatDoesSomething Great Rune]] and started fighting one another. In particular: Leyndell was besieged twice; [[TheGoodKing Morgott]] sent an army to destroy [[TheAntiChrist Rykard's]] forces in a gruesome mass-MutualKill; the scholars of Raya Lucaria rebelled against the Carian Royals; and finally, [[WorldsStrongestWoman Malenia]] marched her troops south, defeated Godrick in Limgrave, and finally met with the forces of [[FourStarBadass General Radahn]] in Caelid. The fight between the two left Malenia comatose, Radahn a maddened husk of his former self, their respective armies all but destroyed, and the realm of Caelid a disease-ridden wasteland.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': Several significant wars have been fought in the series backstory or between installments that have shaped the game world.
** The War of the First Council in the First Era set the stage for all that followed. The devout, Daedra/ancestor-worshipping Chimer and atheistic, scientific Dwemer came into conflict in the land now known as Morrowind. After years of fighting, they were [[EnemyMine forced to team up]] to drive out the invading Nords. Their alliance remained under the leadership of Chimeri Lord Indoril Nerevar and Dwemer Dumac Dwarfking, known as the "first council." It was a time of great peace and prosperity for both races. However, the Dwemer DugTooDeep beneath Red Mountain and unearthed the Heart of Lorkhan, the [[GodIsDead creator god]]. Chief Tonal Architect, Lord Kagrenec, crafted tools to tap into the power of the heart, hoping to allow the Dwemer to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOFExistence transcend mortality]]. The Chimer, seeing this as a blasphemy against their gods in the Daedra, attempted to stop the Dwemer, reigniting their war. The two tribes clashed at Red Mountain, the Nords also may have been involved but that's only according to their history the Dunmer don't mention any other factions participating in the battle. Forces led by Nerevar and Lord Voryn Dagoth infiltrated the Dwemer Red Mountain stronghold. [[TheRashomon Exactly what happened next is up for intense debate]], but the Dwemer disappeared from existence, Nerevar was slain, Dagoth and the Tribunal used the tools on the heart to [[PhysicalGod achieve godhood]], and Azura cursed the Chimer with dark skin and red eyes, transforming them into the modern Dunmer. The Nord defeat in Morrowind also marked the furthest expanse of their early empire, the first empire of Men in Tamriel. Many of their conquests were thanks to their mastery of the Thu'um as a weapon of war. After that defeat, Jurgen Windcaller, one of the defeated Nord leaders, reflected on it and determined that it was a punishment from the gods for misusing the Thu'um. Thus, he created the Way of the Voice and founded the Greybeards to [[HeelFaithTurn only use the Thu'um to honor the gods]]. Afterward, it saw a drastic drop in use as a weapon of war and the Nords were never again able to reach that level as an empire. The aftereffects of this battle can still be felt in the plotlines for ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''.
** The Tiber Wars were a series of wars fought as part of [[TheConqueror Tiber Septim]]'s campaign to conquer all of Tamriel. Septim had conquered all but Morrowind (protected by their [[PhysicalGod Physical Gods]] and the Summerset Isles (protected by their [[MageSpecies powerful magics]]) during the late 2nd Era, the only two provinces the last empire out of Cyrodiil, the Reman Dynasty, had failed to conquer.[[note]]Reman I was able to get the Altmer to join his Empire, but not by military force. He got them to join via treaty with exceptionally favorable terms to the Altmer.[[/note]] Unknown to Septim, the Dunmer demi-gods of Morrowind, known as the Tribunal, had been cut off from their divine power source by their ancient enemy, Dagoth Ur. Septim's legions easily sacked Mournhold, the capital of Morrowind. Without their gods to protect them, the rest of Morrowind would have been devastated in a protracted war with Septim's legions. Knowing this, Vivec, one of these gods, met with Septim and forged an Armistice. Morrowind would join the empire as a VoluntaryVassal, sparing his people from war. In addition, Vivec offered the Dwemer-crafted [[RealityWarper Reality Warping]] HumongousMecha - The Numidium - to Septim in exchange for special privileges for Morrowind. (Specifically, continued [[TheClan Great House]] rule, free worship of the Tribunal, and the right to continue practicing slavery which was outlawed elsewhere in the empire.) Septim then used the Numidium to [[CurbStompBattle Curb Stomp]] the Altmer of the Summerset Isles (sacking their capital in less than hour), bringing them under the rule of men for the first time in history. With the unification of Tamriel, Septim began the Third Era of Tamriellic history during which the games from ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' to ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' all take place.
** The War of Betony was fought between the Bretons of Daggerfall under King Lysandus and the Redguards of Sentinel under King Camaron over control of the strategically important island of Betony in the Iliac Bay. Both kings were slain during the war, which saw Lysandus' son lead the forces of Daggerfall to victory. Lysandus' ghost, however, returned to haunt the city of Daggerfall, which kicks off the plot to the ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]''.
** The "Great War" was fought between the forces of the [[AntiHumanAlliance Aldmeri Dominion]] under the leadership of the anti-human extremist [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Thalmor]] and the [[VestigialEmpire remnants]] of the Septim Empire under Emperor Titus Mede II in the 4th Era. The Dominion's forces sacked the Imperial City, committing gruesome atrocities against the city's populace. With reinforcements from his Nord forces in Skyrim, Mede was able to recapture the city, but at great cost. Knowing that his empire was too exhausted to endure further conflict, Mede reluctantly [[WonTheWarLostThePeace signed the White-Gold Concordat]]; a treaty that, among other things, banned the worship of [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Talos]] in the Empire. This particular provision angered the Nords most of all, leading to the CivilWar in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''.
** The civil war itself in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' is an optional side quest, allowing the player to completely ignore it and let it happen entirely off-screen if they so choose.
* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyVBeyondTheMyth'': When you reach the Fetid Necropolis and return to speak with Ramus, he will recall a few major moments of Arcania's history. Notably, a despot and his opponents clashed in the same stratum, and the numerous ensuing deaths would transform the place into the Fetid Necropolis. The founding leaders of Iorys would proceed to entrust the Guild with the task of discovering the mysteries of the Yggdrasil before another such war would ensue.
* ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' has the Mutagen Wars, also known as the Basilisk Rebellion. Hyde and Lazarus were veterans of the first while Slim was a veteran of the third on the opposite side, with each of them having various conversations regarding it. The writer eventually released the details of the war, which can be read [[https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/the-basilisk-rebellion-the-mutagen-wars-and-slim/72647 here]].
* ''VideoGame/ExaPico'':
** The thousand-year war between Sol Ciel and Sol Cluster that peaked with the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Grathnode Inferia]]. Only a few people actually remember the events of it by virtue of being over 700 years old.
** ''VideoGame/ArTonelicoMelodyOfElemia'' has the war between Mir-led Reyvateil and humans, which ended with Mir sealed and the Reyvateil treated as second- or even third-class citizens.
** ''VideoGame/ArTonelicoIIMelodyOfMetafalica'' has the previous period of conflict between the [[RageAgainstTheHeavens Grand Bell]] and the [[AssimilationPlot Sacred Army]]. The current period of conflict takes the majority of the gameplay, so it doesn't feel very offscreen-y.

* ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' has the Great War, a two-hour war during which every nuclear-capable country in the world launched. No one knows who launched first, and given the state of the world afterwards it doesn't really matter anymore.
** Two sources -- the leader of the Enclave (the remnants of the US government) and the log of a Chinese submarine commander during the Great War -- point to the Chinese. Still, they might be mistaken, and part of the lead-up to the Great War is still undetailed -- the war between China and the USA has been given a fair bit of attention, but the other Resource Wars -- especially the one between Europe and the Middle East, and the ones that happened in Europe after that - are still mostly names, if even that.
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' mentions several for the New California Republic. There's the NCR-Enclave War, The NCR-Great Khans War and the NCR-Brotherhood of Steel War. Each of the conflicts relates to at least one companion; Boone = Khan War, Veronica = Brotherhood, [[spoiler:Arcade]] = Enclave.
** Averted with ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' with the "Operation Anchorage" simulation, where you (virtually) fight a small part of the war to reclaim Alaska from the Chinese before the bombs dropped, though notes around the facility record that the simulation has been [[InternalRetcon repeatedly rewritten at the orders of a general]], and bears less and less relation to the reality.
** We finally get to see it, or at least one of the opening salvos, in ''VideoGame/Fallout4''.
* Rex "Power" Colt, the main protagonist of ''VideoGame/FarCry3BloodDragon'', is a veteran of many wars across the globe, serving under Commander Ike Sloan in Omega Force. Of particular note is Rex's time fighting in Vietnam War II, where he was killed a rebuilt as a Cyber Commando.
* Franchise/FinalFantasy seems to love this trope:
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': The War of The Magi that destroyed previous civilization(s) and petrified the Warring Triad, gods of magic.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': The war in which Shinra conquered the world, especially Wutai. The very end of this war (the conquest of Wutai part) is the very first chapter of ''VideoGame/CrisisCore''.
*** '''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRebirth'': Shinra's world conquest is further elaborated on with a previous war fought between the company and the former Republic of Junon. Between what veterans told of it in sidequests and the sheer number of abandoned Republic installations seen in the game, it's implied that this war was much more brutal than the one with Wutai.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': The war between Galbadia and Esthar, roughly eighteen years before the game began, which was caused by Sorceress Adel, the ruler of Esthar, attempting to TakeOverTheWorld.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': The war that destroyed the world and drove Yu Yevon mad, turning him into Sin.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'': The stage is set by the great Crystal War of twenty years earlier; the opening cinematic shows a climactic battle from the War. The three great cities now deputize adventurers because of how the war depleted their armies. Becomes an onscreen war in the Wings of the Goddess expansion, where characters can travel back in time and participate in the war.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'': The War of Transgression, which nearly destroyed Cocoon 500 years ago.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': For ''A Realm Reborn'' players, the United Eorzea-Garlemald war that culminated in the Battle of Carteneau is this, with the current conflict being an extension of it. ''Legacy'' players got to experience it firsthand.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' has the war between the kingdom of Lucis and the [[TheEmpire empire of Niflheim]]. The turning point of the war is shown early in the story (using footage from ''Film/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV'') and continues in the background.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'': The war fought between Mullonde and the Zodiac Braves. [[spoiler:The truth is very different from what scholars accepted as historical facts.]] And recently, the 50 Year War in which many of the game's older famous generals made a name for themselves.
** ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'': The war between Lufenian and their neighbor, which facilitated the birth of [[BigBad Chaos]] to defeat Omega.
* Most ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games have this as a part of the backstory:
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' have the first war between the Kingdom of Archanea and the dragon-ruled Dolhr Empire, where Marth's distant ancestor won fame for sealing the Earth Dragon Medeus away.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' have a great war between humans and dragons, referred to as 'The Scouring', that occurred roughly 1,000 years before the events of the games. It ended with the humans supposedly killing off the dragons, though in actuality, the dragons, on the verge of defeat, exiled themselves through the Dragon's Gate to find a new home in another world, closing the portal behind them. The few dragon survivors that didn't make it to the Gate and were left behind in Elibe retreated to the Nabata Desert and founded the village of Arcadia.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' details an ancient war against the Demon King, where the Five Heroes and the Manaketes defeated the demons, then went on to found the current kingdoms of Magvel (sans Carcino).
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' give us several offscreen wars of the past, the biggest being the ancient OrderVersusChaos war between Ashera and Yune, with various factions siding with either goddess. More recently, there was also a great revolt of Laguz to liberate themselves from Begnion slavery.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' has one occurring just one generation before the game, instigated by the actions of the Grimleal (a [[CardCarryingVillain card-carrying]] ReligionOfEvil), leading to the previous exalt of Ylisse trying to exterminate them, only to fail as his nation got bogged down in a bloody war with the realm of Plegia as a whole. [[spoiler:The second generation characters turn out to come from a war-torn future where the Grimleal caused a ZombieApocalypse, forcing them to travel back in time after their parents all fell attempting to fight back against the Risen horde.]]
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' has long had conflicts between the two main countries of Hoshido and Nohr, with the game's story being the latest war.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has easily the most war-torn setting in the entire franchise. The land of Fódlan has suffered numerous foreign invasions throughout its almost 1,200 year history, and the continent's three countries have fought their fair share of wars against each other, and put down an even larger number of internal insurrections and rebellions. The most signficant is a war that occurred so far in the backstory ''none'' of the characters in the game were alive to witness it, not even the [[spoiler:the most long-lived surviving Children of the Goddess. That would be the apocalyptic war between the technologically advanced Agarthans and the goddess Sothis, which sundered the continent, led to the destruction of Agartha, and possibly even the extinction and rebirth of humanity as a whole, as the Agarthan descendants in "those who slither in the dark" repeatedly refer to the humans living on the surface as creations of Sothis]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'' has the [[TheEmpire Coalition]] / [[TheAlliance Alliance]] war, the beginning of which was shown in ''VideoGame/{{Starlancer}}'' but which lasted for another century afterward and the winner is not the one the first game would indicate, as well as the 80 Years War between Rheinland and the [[NGOSuperpower GMG]].
** For that matter, ''Starlancer'' opens with a Coalition vessel arriving in Alliance space for some sort of peace conference, suggesting that the two sides had at minimum been in an unusually literal SpaceColdWar up until that point. This is quickly glossed over in favour of establishing the Coalition as a bunch of [[CardCarryingVillain Card-Carrying Villains]]. Some flavour text also alludes to a Lunar Civil War some fifty years earlier that the elderly carrier the player character is assigned to participated in, but this is never elaborated upon.

* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'' has the Pendulum Wars, which is where Marcus Fenix made himself a war hero. And the majority of the Locust war that happens before the first game opens.
* ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'' has the War, a war between [[{{Precursors}} the Astrals]] and the rest of the Skydwellers, which happened millennia ago, causing the former to retreat to their home island and leaving behind dozens of their creations which still remain in the present.
* Since ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' radio conversations and ads have hinted at a war between America and Australia which happened sometime in the mid 1980s. It's played for laughs.
* In the ''VideoGame/GroundControl'' games: [[WorldWarIII World War 3]], the Independence Wars, the First Stellar War, the Terran-Viron conflict, most of the Second Stellar War. There are mentioned in a few brief lines in the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Guardians Of The Galaxy|2021}}'' is set after the "Galactic War", which saw Thanos and the Chitauri attempting to conquer the galaxy, with the [[SpacePolice Nova Corps]] and a LaResistance group standing against them and countless planets being pulled into the fray in some way (such as Drax's home of Katath being razed by Thanos or Groot's home of Planet X being [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroyed]] as a test of a Chitauri superweapon). It eventually ended with Thanos's ([[NeverFoundTheBody unconfirmed]]) death by Drax's hands and Gamora capturing the Chitauri Queen.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'':
** ''Prophecies'' has the titular Guild Wars that caused a divide between the three human kingdoms of Tyria. Three separate Guild Wars occurred, ending only when the Charr invaded and presented the humans with a more urgent threat.
** A majority of the war against the Charr also took place off-screen before the game begins, during the two-year timeskip after the tutorial, and after the refugees departed.
** Factions has the Tengu Wars which brought about a (temporary) peace between the Canthan Empire and some of the native Tengu. Much earlier in history there was also a war of unification where the Luxons and Kurzicks were both conquered by the Empire.
** Nightfall has the war between the free nations of Elona and Palawa Joko, .
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'': Several wars took place between the two games.
** A prolonged war took place between the Charr and the surviving armies of Ascalon. Ultimately a peace accord was signed in the face of the common enemy, the Elder Dragons.
** In Elona Palawa Joko diverted the main source of water for the human nations, forcing their surrender. He now controls everything south of the Crystal Desert.
** The dwarves have continued to wage a war against the Destroyers since the end of the first game and so are never seen in the sequel.
* ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' has the Crusades, an apocalyptic conflict between humans and Gears, led by Justice. In some games you can play duels that happened back then.

* The Seven Hour War from ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. It's the reason why the Combine control the planet: they defeated all of Earth's armed forces in [[CurbStompBattle just seven hours]].
** Additional media expands upon the circumstances of the War: It wasn't so much that the Combine overpowered the ''full might'' of the world's militaries in a matter of seven hours, but that, ever since the Black Mesa Incident, the planet had been devastated by portal storms and the hostile extraterrestrial life that emerged from them. It was to the point that the planet was practically three steps away from total societal breakdown anyways, and the Combine ''just happened to come across Earth'' in the midst of all this. The Seven Hour War wasn't so much of a "decisive battle" as it was simply mopping up what little military resistance could be mustered in the middle of the massive global calamity. The true tragedy of the Seven Hour War isn't that Humanity's forces weren't defeated so decisively and trivially, but that Humanity ''lost the War before it even began.''
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** The backstory has the Interplanetary Wars, a ten-year-long series of conflicts fought almost 400 years before the events of ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', which led to the establishment of the Unified Earth Government and the United Nations Space Command as humanity's main governing powers.
** The Inner Colony Wars, mentioned off-hand in ''[[ComicBook/TheHaloGraphicNovel Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa]]'', were a series of conflicts involving the Inner Colonies nearly 200 years after the Interplanetary Wars.
** The Covenant's 3,404 years of history includes a vast number of conflicts that we know relatively little about, with several involving the conquest of newly encountered species. These conflicts include the War of Beginnings, the Taming of the Lekgolo, the Sixteenth Unggoy Disobedience, the war against the Banished (which was concurrent with the war against humanity), etc.
** The games treat the war between the Forerunners and Flood (which ended 100,000 years before the start of the main series) largely as this, though we did eventually get a more direct look into the conflict in ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga''. The Forerunners are also noted to have fought various other wars even further back in the past, most noticeably [[spoiler:their conflict with AdvancedAncientHumans]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Hexx}}'' mentions the Chaos wars, which apparently involved one of the four deities in the setting.
* Though it's only [[JigsawPlot hinted at]] until the sequel, before the events of ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'', [[spoiler:the Soviets attempted to invade America, managed to make it at least to occupying Hawaii and nuked San Francisco]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' had two:
** An unnamed war that ended with the ancient Hiigarans being banished to Kharak, [[spoiler:which was entirely their fault: the [[TheEmpire Hiigaran Empire]] attacked the ancient [[TheRival Taiidan Empire]] unprovoked and with [[DoomedHometown enough]] [[AtmosphereAbuse force]] to lead to [[HigherTechSpecies Bentusi]] [[CurbStompBattle intervention]] and banishment of the entire surviving population using ''barely'' functioning prison barges.]]
** On Kharak, the Heresy Wars: two rival religious [[TheClan kiithid]], [[TheFundamentalist Gaalsien]] and [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Siidim]], had spent almost ''three centuries'' tearing apart Kharak and the Kharaki people. Eventually it got bad enough that [[TheEngineer Kiith Nabaal]] decided to leave their HiddenElfVillage and lend their advanced technology - steam engines and machine guns - to Soban, a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy warrior kiith]] born from constant abuse by the warring powers. [[TheDogBitesBack The results were predictable,]] and both major powers faded into relative obscurity until the time of ''VideoGame/HomeworldDesertsOfKharak''.

* The Great Keyblade War in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''. It took place long before any other point in the game's timeline and was fought between [[TheChosenMany hundreds, if not thousands]] of different Keyblade bearers, all for the right to form the ''ultimate'' weapon and take control of the CosmicKeystone. The result: the weapon was shattered, the great power hid itself, and barriers rose between the worlds to prevent easy travel. All that remains is an absolutely ''massive'' FieldOfBlades on an otherwise abandoned world.
** Averted in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX'' which shows the Keyblade War in all its glory. The game reveals that the war was fought over Lux, the light of the world, and not the χ-Blade and Kingdom Hearts as the legends state. On that note, the χ-Blade doesn't even appear in the war at any point nor is it even mentioned during it or prior to it.
* ''VideoGame/KnightBewitched'': A few character mention that the kingdom of Halonia was in a war with a mysterious nation a long time before the current time. In the Dragon's territory, you'll learn that it was a war against the dragons, due to Typhus's manipulation of Zamaste.
* ''Franchise/{{Star Wars|Expanded Universe}} VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' has the Mandalorian Wars. Much of the information about it is from allusions and AsYouKnow statements in the games, and lots of characters you run into in both games are war heroes or veterans from one side or the other.
** Its successor, ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', has a recent war between the Galactic Republic and the reborn Sith Empire. The war ended when the Empire sacked Coruscant, held it hostage, and demanded a peace treaty (for reasons that vary wildly depending on who you ask). The two powers have spent the intervening years in a very intense just-this-close-to-hot UsefulNotes/ColdWar.
*** ''Rise of the Hutt Cartel'' involves the titular organization making their own bid for power on a galactic scale, but all the players ever see is the guerilla war for Makeb where the outcome is decided. It's not entirely clear if there even were other fronts, since their plan hinged on the resources they were raiding Makeb for.
*** Between the ''Shadow of Revan'' and ''Knights of the Fallen Empire'' expansions a massive raiding force from a third side devastates both factions. We see bits of it in a trailer, but in-game the timeline skips over it and rejoins during a combined attempt to track them back to their homeworld. There's then a ''second'' offscreen war with the same enemy's full strength where they conquer the galaxy while the PlayerCharacter is temporarily out of action.
*** The Third Galactic War between the Sith Empire and Republic after that faction is defeated takes place almost entirely off-screen, with the player character only involved in strategically important but small scale skirmishes.

* ''VideoGame/TheLastStory'' had a war that occurred hundreds of years ago that was ended by House Arganan. Later on, another large war engulfed the Empire that killed the families of Zael and Dagran, which led to them becoming mercenaries. In addition to ''that'', it is also stated that the Empire has fought many campaigns against the Gurak people in the past. The game's plot is well and truly kicked off when the Gurak invade Lazulis Island, sparking off another war.
* The battle with the quiskerians and the death of Phaeton in ''VideoGame/LegacyOfHeroes''.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' has a vague recounting of a war which occurred before Link was born and led to the death of his mother, who left him in the care of the Great Deku Tree. It's implied that this was the war that led to the unification of Hyrule.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has Ikana Canyon, which was the site of an ancient war between the Ikana Kingdom and the enemy Garo ninja. It isn't made directly clear what exactly happened during the war, though the comments of the various undead members of both sides along with the placement of several important characters (the king of Ikana within his ruined castle, the Ikana general in the graveyard with most of his men, the ninjas practically ''everywhere'', and the Garo Master within the stronghold of Stone Tower) seems to suggest the [[PyrrhicVictory Garo ultimately won, but it was a "victory" that ended with everyone dead and the canyon lifeless]].
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' talks about a war[[note]]set shortly after Ocarina of Time in a timeline where Link died before beating Ganon, according to [[AllThereInTheManual the timeline]][[/note]] known as the Imprisoning War in which the Knights of Hyrule fought to give the Seven Sages the opportunity to seal Ganon in the Sacred Realm. It also talks about an even earlier war[[note]]sometime after Skyward Sword but before Ocarina of Time[[/note]] which led to the Triforce being sealed in the Sacred Realm in the first place.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' mentions a similar conflict, describing how an evil tribe of powerful sorcerers (known in {{Fanon}} as the Dark Interlopers) came so close to getting the Triforce that the Spirits of Light had to entrap them in the [[EldritchLocation Twilight Realm]], where they evolved into the Twili.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' mentions an earlier conflict in which Hylia and her armies fought against armies of invading demons to keep the Triforce safe. In this case, the offscreen nature of the war is actually justified: in the early days of the war, the group from whose perspective we see were sent up into the sky on a FloatingContinent with the Triforce to keep both safe and out of reach of the war.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds'' treats the events of ''A Link to the Past'' as this. There is also [[spoiler:the war fought for the other Triforce in Lorule, very much like the one fought in Hyrule. ''Un''like Hyrule, they destroyed the Triforce to keep it from being anymore trouble, [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt which ended up being a very big mistake]].]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has the Great Calamity, in which [[AncientEvil Calamity Ganon]] took over the Guardians and [[AnimalMecha Divine Beasts]] and used them to ravage Hyrule. While an early expository cutscene shows a glimpse of the massacre that took place in Hyrule Castle Town [[spoiler:and Link's last retrievable memory shows the moment he succumbed to his injuries while fighting the Guardians]], the main evidence that the Calamity happened are the blasted ruins and decayed Guardians strewn about Hyrule. There's also the original battle between Hyrule's combined forces and Ganon 10,000 years prior, which is only depicted on a mural in Impa's home.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' has the Imprisoning War (separate from the conflict of the same name first discussed in ''A Link to the Past''), where Ganondorf was sealed away in the Depths after he tried to destroy Hyrule. We only see very brief glimpses of the war itself -- two cutscenes of Ganondorf summoning hordes of monsters, and one of him being imprisoned.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has several examples:
** The Rachni War that ravaged the galaxy about 2000 years ago, the Krogan Rebellions a thousand or so years before the current date, the Morning War between the Quarians and the Geth 300 years ago, and the First Contact War between the Alliance and the Turians which took place about 30 years before the [[VideoGame/MassEffect1 first game]].
** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' has Javik, a revived Prothean from 50,000 years ago, who talks about a series of wars that his people fought (such as the Metacon War) and other conflicts in his timeframe.
** There's also the war on Garvug mentioned by the Cerberus News Network, in which corporate mercenaries attempted to take over a krogan-controlled world, and the Second American Civil War, the details of which can be found during the "Stolen Memories" mission.
* Somewhere between the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series, there occurred a great war called the Elf Wars, caused by Dr. Weil corrupting the Mother Elf[[note]]An {{Energy Being|s}} made by reverse engineering Zero's viral data and used by X to purge the Maverick Virus off the earth[[/note]] and combining it with his other creation, the reploid Omega, to make reploids wreck havoc in the entire world, causing death to 60% of all humans and 90% of reploids until Zero and X stopped them in the fourth year. This event has shaped most of the Zero series' world and its characters, and yet info on the war is scarce. This, as it turns out, is intentional - it was such a horrific war that the Neo Arcadian government, built after the war, decided to bury all historical texts and info about the war deep in the ground, and declare anybody who knows it a Maverick, out of fear that "Weil's Sin" will repeat.
* ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos'': The Arizona Conflict, of which player character Michael Wilson is a veteran. It's heavily hinted that Michael's presidency, Richard's evilness, and nearly every involved party's past is connected to this event, but details are not given, aside from the fact that Michael received a Congressional Medal of Honor during that conflict.
* A recurring element in the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'':
** The backstory of ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' covers the 50-year war between the Luminoth and the Ing. By the time Samus Aran lands on Aether, the surviving Luminoth are holed up in the Great Temple waiting for a miracle to beat back the Ing, and dead Luminoth are all over the place.
** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'':
*** At the start of the game, a Federation technician mentions that he hasn't seen "that many fighters scrambled since the Literature/{{Horus|Heresy}} [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Rebellion]]".
*** Bryyo's Reptilicus civilization tore itself apart with a civil war between the traditionalist Primals and the Science Lords, super geniuses who looked upon the Primals with disdain. This war also did serious damage to Bryyo. Bear in mind, this was ''before'' the Leviathan hit the planet. The player learns about this war from lore scans dotted around Bryyo.
*** The War of Liberation on Wotan VII, which is mentioned in Ghor's backstory. As a result of the injuries he received in that conflict, he was rebuilt as a cyborg, with only 6% of his original body still intact.
* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' and ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' (old verse):
** The Timber Wars between Erathia and [=AvLee=] over the Contested Lands. Some hero descriptions mentions them, they're a key part of the backstory for ''VII'' and one campaign in ''Heroes III''... and the only one we get any real detail is canonically not a proper war (''VII'' involves a renewed conflict over part of the Contested Lands, but the only things that are ''assured'' to happen in the conflict are skirmishes and manouevering for position, followed by peace negotiations. It can escalate into a full-scale war, but hints in later games implies that the path in which that occurs isn't the one that happened).
** The rebellions against the Colonial Government after the Silence (the loss of contact with the Ancients, the mother civilization). The Colonial Government ruling the planet had been strong before the Silence, but after their legitimacy was damaged and their resources strained, and with that came rebellions. Initially the Colonial Government,under Governor Padish, held on by pumping out weapons and armour using the miraculous Heavenly Forges, but without Ancient maintenance the Forges gradually began to break down, and the rebellions chipped away at the Government. Within a century it had collapsed... and that is what is known of the only known ''planet-spanning'' conflict in the history of Enroth.
* ''VideoGame/MissionCritical'' has most of the war between TheAlliance and the [[UnitedNationsIsASuperpower UN]] over limitations on technology. The [[AllThereInTheManual manual goes into a brief overview]], but few details are given. The possible future war between the UN and the [=ELFs=] is also largely undescribed.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' has the Great Dragon War where, an unknown amount of time ago, an advanced civilisation controlled the world at large, creating powerful weapons such as the Dragonator and towers that reached into the stratosphere, as well as genetically enhancing themselves, with their decendents who kept these enhancements being able to become Monster Hunters. The titular monsters were used a guards, livestock or slaves by this civilisation. This alone created hostilities between the humans and monsters, [[MoralEventHorizon until the civilisation went to far]] and created the Equal Dragon Weapon, a living weapon made from [[FleshGolem butchering monsters and fusing parts together,]] requiring hundreds of monsters be killed to create just one Equal Dragon Weapon. This act drove the Elder Dragons to wage war against the civilisation, [[InferredHolocaust destroying their cities and creations across the world and driving humanity to near extinction.]] This justifies why the Hunters in the series are so intent of maintaining the natural order, the fantastical and futuristic weapons and locations found in the series, and also the reason Elder Dragons [[SinsOfTheFather are so hostile.]]
* Several ''VideoGame/MonsterRancher'' data entries reveal that monsters fought in wars in the ancient past. ''4'' goes even further and has wars between humans, monsters, and demons.

* In ''VideoGame/NexusTheJupiterIncident'', the [[AIIsACrapshoot AI Wars]] are mentioned, but no details are given. Other conflicts not mentioned or mentioned/shown only briefly are the war between [[OneWorldOrder IASA]] and the [[MegaCorp megacorporations]], the [[TechnicalPacifist Vardrag]]-[[LizardFolk Gorg]] War, and the Noah-Gorg War prior to the events of the game.
* The ''VideoGame/NieR'' and ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' has two offscreen wars before the start of the games. ''[=NieR=]'' has the White Chlorination Syndrome and the infected Legion that Project Gestalt was originally designed to counter long since faded into history. While ''[=NieR=] Automata'' has the proxy war between aliens and humans by letting the machines and androids fight for them respectively, which was said to be ''fourteen'' wars.
* ''VideoGame/NosferatuTheWrathOfMalachi'': The Scripts Of Grimvald Vorius mention that [[spoiler:Malachi was sealed away]] after an event known as "the Crimson Wars" centuries ago.

* Ophilia Clement from ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'' was orphaned as a girl as a result of war. Exactly which war is never disclosed.
* ''VideoGame/OperationMatriarchy'' has the Human-Velian war that occured seven years prior to the game, which is never shown but alluded in cutscenes.
* The most important event in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'s'' backstory is the [[RobotWar Omnic Crisis]], in which the world's [[KillerRobot om]][[NotUsingTheZWord nics]] rebelled ''en masse'' for reasons unknown. It was during this period that Overwatch itself was founded to bring together [[HeroesRUs the world's best soldiers]] to create an elite task force for combatting the machines. They proved so effective at ending the crisis that the United Nations allowed them to stick around as an officially-sanctioned international law enforcement agency for decades into the early [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture "present"]] of the 2070s, at which point [[DividedWeFall internal problems]], [[HeroWithBadPublicity bad press]] and [[DisasterDominoes some critical losses]] forced its collapse, setting up the actual narrative's [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether main]] [[OrderReborn premise]]. In the present, the conflict's effects are still being felt: Russia is engaged with its own conflict with hostile AI left over from the Crisis, nonviolent and sentient [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots worker omnics]] are the subject of [[FantasticRacism persecution and injustice]] throughout the world, and many characters -- most notably Bastion, one of the [[TokenHeroicOrc very same killer machines]] deployed during the conflict that has since developed free will -- struggle with the [[ShellShockedVeteran memories]] of what they [[SurvivorGuilt endured]] during the war. Bastion's and Reinhardt's animated story cinematics mitigate some of the "offscreen" nature of this trope by giving us some glimpses of the Crisis while it was ongoing, and the [[WhatCouldHaveBeen cancelled]] graphic novel ''First Strike'' would have focused entirely on Overwatch's origins during the conflict's height. But otherwise, it remains confined to the background as an explanation for how the world wound up in [[CrapsaccharineWorld its current state.]]

* ''VideoGame/PandorasTower'' has a war that occurred fifty years ago. Unlike most instances of this trope, this particular war and its fallout have [[CataclysmBackstory great plot significance.]] Later on, the kingdoms of Elyria and Athos had been fighting a war that ended only two years before the game begins, and tensions between the two countries are still high despite the peace.
* Lt. Surge in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' refers to a war in which his electric Pokémon "zapped [his] enemies into paralysis." None of the subsequent games (except the [[VideoGameRemake remakes]], which repeated the line exactly) mentioned anything about this war. A popular fan [[http://mashable.com/2013/10/12/pokemon-fan-theories/ theory]] theoriezes that there was a large conflict before the first game, which is why there are so few adult males; most are either older, or children.
* A war three-thousand years before ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' serves as the backstory for the game's plot.

* In ''[[VideoGame/QuiltsAndCatsOfCalico Quilts & Cats of Calico]]'', the Kingdom of Scratchington is at war with its neighbors. The Quilter's father left Tomkitty City to fight in the said war, while the Quilter themself meets the army at Tiny Whiskerville to sew for them. Due to the cozy tone of the game and its focus on quilting and cats, we don't get to see the war itself.

* ''VideoGame/{{RuneScape}}'' has the God Wars which had raged on for 4000 years, making up the entirety of the Third Age. Despite ending 2169 years ago, the repercussions are still felt today: many races were driven to extinction, down to LastOfHisKind or DyingRace; and the gods were forced to depart from Gielinor. Many quests focus on this time: the cave goblin-dwarf railway is postponed due to the discovery of related artifacts, the player rediscovers the myriad, a DyingRace of EnergyBeings, human-vampyre tension runs high but if another war breaks out, [[AllPowerfulBystander Guthix]] would be reawakened to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroy the world and remake it]]. [[spoiler:Except now he's dead.]]

* ''VideoGame/SepterraCore''. The Resource Wars, the most recent of the wars between Ankara and Jinam. Also the war between Chosen factions that devastated Maya's hometown.
* ''VideoGame/ShiningResonance'': All the player is allowed to see of Ragnarok directly is a mural of the event, along with narration explaining that the High Elves allied with the Shining Dragon and the World Dragons to seal away [[GodOfEvil Deus]]. Since the event took place many centuries ago, the mural is one of the few remaining records of it. The only "living" survivor of the war is the spirit of the Shining Dragon, who explains to Yuma that WarIsHell very much applies. This lack of info sets up an endgame reveal [[spoiler:about [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Deus' true nature]] as a machine made by the elves to harvest Dragon Energy before its catalysmic potential prompted the great war to stop it and those who didn't care for the risks and consequences.]]
* This is the central cause behind the events of ''VideoGame/ShironeTheDragonGirl''. [[spoiler:The war happened between the different races populating the world. The dragonkins' castle fell and everyone in it was slaughtered, including the royal family. The Dragonkin king, in an attempt to protect his daughter, used memory orbs to create an illusion of the castle, where she daughter would be safe. Centuries later, Shirone is mistaken for the king's daughter. She and all neighboring visitors end up trapped in the illusion. As Shirone grew up in a world of peace, she has no trouble teaming up with the other prisoners (all from a different race), and after witnessing their teamwork, the king's ghost finally realizes that the times have changed and the war is no more. He dismantles the illusion after asking Shirone to cherish this peace.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Signalis}}:'' The war between the Empire and the Eusan Nation ({{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}}s of China and East Germany) is frequently mentioned and is clearly still happening, but the game takes place out of the combat zone.
* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' has the Great Turf War between the Inklings and Octarians that took place a century before the first game's events, in which the Inklings ended as victors and Octarians were forced to live underground. Cap'n Cuttlefish was part of this war, and several of its details are revealed throughout the games in [[StoryBreadcrumbs Sunken Scrolls]] and casual conversation.
* For the longest time, ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' had the Guild Wars, which were referenced only in vague snippets as a civil war whose consequences still loomed over the Terran worlds. Fast forward many years, it's been more-or-less explained away with [[ExpandedUniverse tie-in literature]]. Still nothing in the games, but this series has always assumed you [[AllThereInTheManual did the reading first]].
* The Winchester War in ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'', which opposed London loyalists to the Reach independentists, took place several years before the game, leading to the very awkward status quo in place at the start of the game. From what can be heard and seen (it left some very impressive debris fields, and you constantly find wrecked locomotives to investigate while roaming the Reach), this war was a gruesome one.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'' talks about a war in the back story in which the Star Sprites sealed away the Dark Star to keep it from attacking the Mushroom Kingdom.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' features the war between the Pi'illo Kingdom and Antasma to keep the latter from obtaining the wish-granting Dark Stone. The Pi'illos were able to seal Antasma in the Dream World to keep this from happening, but Antasma was able to crush the Dark Stone and turn the Pi'illos to stone until Mario and Luigi free them.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', [[spoiler:the Ruined Kingdom is speculated to have gotten that way as a result of its inhabitants having one against the Ruined Dragon. The region is covered in sword-like pins that were used in an attempt to contain the Dragon's electric powers.]]

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'': Long ago, during Mithos's time, Sylvarant and Tethe'alla were at war. This war killed the [[WorldTree Giant Kharlan Tree]], which was once a source of ever-flowing mana. [[spoiler:This is also where Mithos met Kratos and Yuan, and where Martel was killed, and thus how he decided to split the world in two.]] Because the Tree is considered a myth, the war is also assumed to have been mythical, especially since the best-known version of the story ends with the citizens of Tethe'alla exiling themselves to the moon by climbing the Tower of Salvation, which is obvious fairy-tale material. [[spoiler:This version of the tale is spread by Cruxis as propaganda, but while it does contain some obvious lies, it's still closer to the truth than one might expect.]]
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' references The Great War between humans and Entelexeia. One of the party members is a veteran.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': The Great Suwa War, in which Kanako subjugated Suwako; and Yukari's (first) invasion of the Moon. [[spoiler:''Silent Sinner in Blue'' is essentially Yukari taking revenge upon the Lunarians over her defeat 1,000 years ago.]]
* ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'':
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'': The Hundred Days War. It took place a decade or so before the start of the first game, and shaped the personal history of many of the main characters. The protagonist is the daughter of the man who won the war, and whose mother was a casualty of it, and her love interest [[spoiler:is the SoleSurvivor of the village that was destroyed by the aggressors to create a PretextForWar]].
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'': The War of the Lions. It took place two hundred and fifty years before the game proper, but it get referenced regularly, and the war that is fought in the second game is in many ways a repeat of that war. In the third game, there's also the North Ambria campaign where TheHero of the first two games participates in said war and all the details are told through flashbacks as he explains it to his friends. ''Anime/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteelNorthernWar'' is an anime dedicated to finally featuring the events of this great offscreen war onscreen.
* ''VideoGame/TriangleStrategy'': Thirty years before the events of the game, the three nations of Norzelia engaged in a conflict called the Saltiron War, which ended with an uneasy truce.

* In ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', there's supposedly a huge war with the gargoyles going on. The soldiers talk about it. You see the wounded being cared for in Cove... however due to the WideOpenSandbox gameplay you travel all over the fairly pristine world and never find a single battleground.
* The backstory of ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' had a war between monsters and humans that resulted in the monsters being sealed away in the underground. Even though monsters are said to be almost helpless in the face of a sufficiently powerful KillingIntent, humans feared monster-kind's ability to [[spoiler: absorb the power of human souls and grow stronger]].
* Several cases in the ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' series. The ''Tournament'' series in particular has the Human-Skaarj War; the only concrete references we've got to how anything went down are a pair of Assault maps in ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004'', one of which depicts the final battle and the other part of the various conflicts in its aftermath. Other cases include the "Strider Wars" mentioned in ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'', which very little is known about save for that one of your crewmates served in the war, and was responsible for setting up a trap for the eponymous Striders that resulted in their defeat. Other conflicts that occurred offscreen include the First Necris Invasion and the Corporation Wars (which may or may not be occurring during the events of ''Unreal II: The Awakening'' and ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament3'').

* The First Eptinan Wars exist has only a blurb in the manual for ''VideoGame/VanguardBandits''. The Second, also has this effect, having been going on since before the game starts, and despite still going on most of the backstory for it exists in a single flashback.
* ''VideoGame/VectorThrust'' had WorldWarIII in an AlternateUniverse Earth which opened up with a nuclear barrage between Kaesel and Poltavia. Having only targeted each other's militaries but avoiding civilian casualties, they isolated themselves while other nations took advantage of the power vaccum, one nation being The Kingdom, which had [[DecadeDissonance next generation weaponry.]] When The Kingdom suddenly enters a nuclear civil war and attacks everyone they believe responsible, it takes ''all six'' of the world superpowers to stop them, and by then, there was already apocalyptic levels of damage done, and most of the world except for one continent is irradiated. The game pretty much takes place AfterTheEnd, the remaining nations still maintain order to some degree.

* Characters in Season 4 of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadTelltale'' mention that several large communities are at war with each other. [[spoiler: The Delta's raiding party is the main antagonist of the season, but the larger community is never shown. Neither are the other communities they are fighting.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', The Old War between the precursor Orokin Empire and the Sentients is pretty much the cause of the state of present setting. It was the cause of the creation of the playable faction, the Tenno, the release of the [[ZombieApocalypse Technocyte Plague]], and if the Stalker is to be believed, indirectly resulted in their destruction when [[spoiler:the Tenno TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and]] destroyed them, leaving behind the reams of LostTechnology that everyone is squabbling over now.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' 's ExpandedUniverse has goblins mention in passing a series of no less than four Trade Wars, and described as worse, the [[RuleOfFunny Peace War]]. Details are sparse, limited to battles having been fought in the tunnels of the goblin capital Undermine, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Trade Prince Gallywix's favorite bakery being repeatedly destroyed over the multiple wars.]]
** There are also the Troll Wars, which are why high elves are friends with humans, humans have mages, and Zul'Aman is in ruins. A few of the Artifact quests also reference it.
** The space-faring demonic [[TheLegionsofHell Burning Legion]] is described as having destroyed over 1000 worlds, many of which had plenty of armies and champions for some probably pretty epic wars. Some of these are described in the chronicles of the Order Halls in the Legion expansion.
** Meanwhile, the Shadowlands expansion describes how the various afterlives of the Warcraft universe need to regularly defend themselves from outside forces in some apparently massive wars. In particular, both [[HeavenAbove Bastion]] and [[WarriorHeaven Maldraxxus]] have been invaded by the forces of the [[ThePoweroftheVoid Void]], while [[CityoftheDamned Revendreth]] had to fight a war against the armies of the [[LightisNotgood Light]] that was so costly, it bathed a portion of the realm in blinding, searing, perpetual daylight.

* ''Xenoblade'':
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'''s ActionPrologue is the Battle of Sword Valley, which was the last battle of the Mechon invasion of Bionis and where [[DecoyProtagonist Dunban]] became a legend throughout the land for singlehandedly turning back the enemy advance. There was also the war between the Machina and the forces of the Bionis, millennia before the events of the game.
** In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', there is a massive conflict between two alien armies that just so happened to break out over Earth. As shown in the opening sequence, the battle resulted in Earth's destruction and humanity's forced exodus into space, with one of the alien armies pursuing them and causing one of their ships to crash-land onto Mira.
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' has two:
*** The Aegis War, a conflict from 500 years ago that resulted in the destruction of three titans as [[PhysicalGod the Aegis]] [[HumanWeapon Mythra]] and her driver Addam fought against [[PersonOfMassDestruction Malos, another Aegis]] and his army of [[MechaMook Artifices.]] While in the game itself, it is only ever talked about or shown in flash backs, as multiple characters that fought in the war are still alive, the DLC expansion "Torna the Golden Country" is set during the war, showing how the war ended and setting up the main game.
*** An even more vague war is shown briefly in the last chapter of the main game, which didn't even receive an official name. [[spoiler: It was set over Earth - yes, ''our'' Earth, and involved two factions, one of which wasn't even named. The named faction were called the Saviorite Rebels, while the unnamed one was likely made up of the United States of America and an unspecified European nation, and the {{God}} of ''2'''s world, the Architect, was a human scientist working for the unnamed faction. That's not the twist, though - the real twist is that the Architect is [[LiteralSplitPersonality half of]] Professor Klaus/Zanza, the first game's BigBad, and that the event that resulted in the creation the worlds of the first two games happened during the final battle of said war. Said event was vaguely shown at the very end of the first game as well, with the version being shown in ''2'' being more detailed and showing it from the perspective of Professor Klaus. [[MindScrew Yeah, it's that kind of game]].]]
* The ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' backstory includes the [[RobotWar Terraformer War]] in the 2140s AD, during which [[AIIsACrapshoot insane terraforming robots]] wiped out all of Earth's extrasolar colonies and nearly destroyed Earth, too. A Terran warfleet managed to lure them through a jumpgate, which was then destroyed behind them; this fleet became the Argon race. About 200 years later, we had the [[http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Xenon_Conflict First Xenon Conflict]], where the terraformers reappeared, followed by the [[http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Boron_Campaign Boron Campaign]], a more conventional interstellar war between the various superpowers.
[[/folder]]

* GreatOffscreenWar/ASongOfIceAndFire

[[folder:Literature]]
* The [[Literature/AeonLegionLabyrinth Aeon Legion]] fought a number of these like the First Temporal War against a people called the Kalians over who would police TimeTravel. Also the Faceless War fought against parasitic monsters called the Faceless. The Legion is still struggling to recover from the Faceless War.
* ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown'' apparently experienced two of these, the Genomic War - which gave rise to a number of genetically engineered HumanSubspecies who have had varying degrees of success interacting peaceably with baseline humans in the years since -- and the Android Uprising, about which we are given even fewer details, but the current society seems to believe that AndroidsArePeopleToo. The biggest effect of the Genomic War on the main story is that it apparently caused the Amish and Mennonites to have to evacuate their territories for a time, and when they finally returned, they were somewhat less closed minded than they had been, and a number of outsiders followed them, making them a much more ethnically diverse group than they had been.
* Most of the large-scale conflicts in ''Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark'' are glossed over with few details given. Even if a story is taking place during an interstellar war, the protagonist is likely to be involved on its fringes. This includes the four Void Wars against the [[HumanAliens Faata]] (taking place over the span of a century), the war with the [[LizardFolk Dromi]] (which lasts for at least 150 years due to the [[WeHaveReserves sheer numbers of the enemy]]), as well as the smaller conflicts against the [[HumanAliens Kni'lina]] and the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Haptors]].
* ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight'' has the war against the [[SorcerousOverlord Witchkings]] a number of centuries back, which broke the back of the kingdoms of the elves and enabled the rise of the human states of [[TheEmpire Savondir]] and [[TheRepublic Amorr]] as the main great powers of the setting. Whether seen as history (by the humans) or living memory (by the elves), everyone still recognizes how important the war was. In the setting, it's treated much like World War II is in real life, as a great defining political and cultural event, and the Witchkings are still invoked in rhetoric as the one supreme great evil, somewhat like a sort of fantasy version of GodwinsLaw.
* One of the ''Literature/BarnabyGrimes'' books mentions a war that was fought (possibly still being fought) to the East, in "The Malabar Kush". It included events such as "the siege of Rostopov", "the fall of Dhaknow", and "the storming of the Great Redoubt".
* The CrapsackWorld of the ''Literature/BasLagCycle'' has had a few:
** The destruction of the ancient Ghosthead Empire, which had been founded by AncientAstronauts wielding [[EntropyAndChaosMagic probability magic]] so powerful that the site of their arrival on the planet remains a combination EldritchLocation and {{Hellgate}}; relics like "Possible Towers" and "Possible Swords" are scattered in hidden places across the world.
** The Malarial Queendom of the Anophelii was all but exterminated and its few survivors sequestered on a small island, where the mosquito-like females' insatiable HorrorHunger can be controlled.
** New Crobuzon's GoldenAge ended in the Pirate Wars against two rival city-states, to which New Crobuzon retaliated with an attack of [[FantasticNuke Torque-bombs]] that twisted the ruins of Suroch into a teratogenic wasteland.
* The [[AlienInvasion Psychlo invasion]] in ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth'', which lasted about [[CurbStompBattle 9 minutes]].
* ''Literature/TheBountyHunterWars:'' The backdrop of the series is a bloody civil war amongst the Bounty Hunters Guild that the Empire and Xizor are benefitting from. Practically none of the actual conflict is shown. Aside from the bounty hunters from ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' (several of whom don't take a side), only ''four'' guild members (Craddosk, Ob Fortuna, D'harhan, and Gleed Ontondon) appear in the trilogy, and two of them die before the conflict starts.
* The ''Literature/CassandraKresnov'' books have the League-Federation War for which Sandy, an ArtificialHuman SuperSoldier, was created. It's never explained for certain who actually won, though the implied outcome is that the Federation won but left the League more or less intact.
* One of these is mentioned at the very end of ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'', when Dallben explains that he came across the aftermath of a tremendous battle in which everyone had been killed, including civilians. [[spoiler:The only survivor was the infant boy he found hidden among the roots of a tree; Dallben took him home, named him Taran, and raised him. He tells the story to explain that he kept Taran's parentage from him not because he didn't want the boy to know it, but because he himself has no idea who Taran's parents were.]]
* Creator/StephenKing's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series occasionally reference the last war of the Gunslingers against the Good Man, and it's the backdrop against which ''Literature/WizardAndGlass'' is set. There is also an even older event implied to be a nuclear war, which is why the series is AfterTheEnd in the first place.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Two major conflicts occurred in ancient history -- [[WizardsWar the wizard wars]], which serve as an example of why wizards shouldn't actually cast spells, and the wars of the Evil Empire, which serve as the origin story of the Orcs. The latter may or may not be the same as the "big old wars" mentioned in "Troll Bridge", in which Cohen the Barbarian fought for a bright new future and the [[ShoutOut return of the king]], and Mica the troll fought because a big troll with a whip told him to.
* ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'': The third book briefly mentions the Purity War, a conflict fought between the genetically pure and the genetically damaged. The result was the quarantining of several GD-dominated test cities in the Midwest (including Chicago) as a way to produce more GP people.
* ''Literature/TheDreamsideRoad'': The conflict with Thunderworks totally reshaped the world's governments and earned [[TheDrifter Orson Gregory]], a.k.a. Wayfarer One, a reputation for heroism and badassery.
* ''A Dry, Quiet War'' by Tony Daniel. The protagonist returns to his home planet after fighting a war twelve billion years in the future at the end of time, apparently to hold back the spread of entropy so the universe has a chance to exist in the first place. He deliberately says as little as possible about the war because to discuss what happened would risk creating a GrandfatherParadox, and he'd have to return to the future to fight all over again.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad Butlerian Jihad]] is repeatedly mentioned in the original ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' series and had a profound effect upon the setting, specifically, it is the reason computers are outlawed. [[FranchiseZombie After Frank Herbert's death]], his son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson wrote a [[Literature/LegendsOfDune prequel trilogy]] to flesh out the details. [[FanonDisContinuity But the fans try not to talk about those.]]
* ''Literature/TheEmpiriumTrilogy'': The Angelic Wars were a series of ongoing battles between humans and angels. Since these battles happened centuries ago, we hear a lot about them, but never see them happen.
* Somewhat ironically, the war in ''Literature/TheForeverWar'' happens almost entirely offscreen. Time dilation due to near-lightspeed travel means the protagonist misses the vast majority of the war, only finding out what has happened and how technology has changed when they arrive back at base decades or centuries later than when they left. The war lasts over a thousand years, in which time the protagonist completes four years of military service, almost all of it travel time.
* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Future History'' (leading to Literature/KnownSpace) series deals heavily with relations between humans and the Kzin, but the early Man-Kzin Wars never showed up in the books just because Niven didn't like writing war stories. He did let other writers go back and fill that in later, though.
* ''Literature/TheGodslayerChronicles'' by JamesClemens has a back story of a great war between the Gods which ended in the shattering of the Gods' world and splitting the Gods into 3 beings: a flesh but immortal body which landed on "Earth", and 2 non-corporeal forms in the Aether "The Aethryn" and the Naether "The Naethryn".
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series:
%%** The First Wizarding War against Voldemort.
** The Second Wizarding War zigzags with this trope. On one hand, the heroes do eventually get to battle the Death Eaters and their allies. On the other hand, it's pretty clear there are some incidents/battles that happen offscreen such as Voldemort's attack on Amelia Bones which results in the [[KilledOffscreen latter's death]]. This is because most of the books are taken from Harry's point of view. The majority of the seventh book has the trio mostly being on the run and LockedOutOfTheLoop from the wizarding world until they're able to hear from the radio news about various Death Eater-related attacks/incidents.
** The war against Gellert Grindelwald is even more obscure. All we know for sure is that it apparently took place around the same time as World War II. WordOfGod is that the timeframe and location of the war against Grindelwald are not a coincidence, but is vague on whether this was just a deliberate parallel to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII by the author or an indication that they were actually the same war. Although this conflict would eventually become the central one of the prequel ''Film/FantasticBeasts'' film series. However, only two of five have been released so the details are still vague.
* ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'': The first book reveals that while the Greek demigods were busy fighting Kronos in the East Coast during the events of ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', the Roman demigods were busy fighting Kronos' second-in-command, Krios (whom we only saw in a vision in that series) in the West Coast. We only get cursory mentions of the war, but judging by Jason Grace's BadassBoast, he personally slew Krios.
* ''Literature/HighSchoolDXD'': The war between the Angels, Fallen Angels, and Devils. When the series begins, the three sides have struck an uneasy truce because the last bout of the war very nearly wiped out all three sides [[spoiler:and resulted in the deaths of both the four Demon Kings of Hell and {{God}} Himself]]. Many of the series villains are members of one side or another who wish to continue the conflict, regardless of the potential extinction of their faction.
* From ''Literature/HonorHarrington'':
** Admiral Theisman's purge of the StateSec forces which refused to fall in line with the new government after the overthrow of the Committee of Public Safety. The only part of it shown is from ''The Fanatic'', which itself took place away from the meat of the action. Not a typical example, as that particular conflict took place between two of the later books of the series.
** Earth's "Final War" many centuries before the current timeline, where the planet was nearly rendered completely uninhabitable until several colonies sent aid to repair the damage.
* The ''Literature/HostileTakeoverSwann'' series has the Genocide War against the Race, the {{Big Bad}}s of the Literature/MoreauSeries, which destroyed all their colonies. There are still {{Kill Sat}}s in place over their homeworld, programmed to destroy anything that makes orbit.
* Twice in ''Literature/TheHungerGames:'' the [[AfterTheEnd civilizational collapse]] that led to the founding of [[PoliceState Panem]], and the more recent "Dark Days" when Panem's districts rose in an unsuccessful rebellion against the Capitol which lead to the creation of the titular games.
* ''Literature/TheKharkanasTrilogy'' has a few:
** The story happens just a few years after the Forulkan War, which is often referenced but never explicitly shown. Almost all characters have in some way been influenced by it, be it through participating or losing a good chunk of their families to it, and the entire population of Kurald Galain has been decimated; some noble houses are almost gone. All that is shown for certain is that the Tiste won.
** Either parallel to or shortly after the Forulkan War, the war against the Jhelarkan happened, but even less is shown of that even though it must have happened recently enough that the Jhelarkan are still licking their wounds and have yet to deliver the promised hostages as of the start of the first volume.
** At the end of the second volume a far more ancient war is hinted at. It's supposed to have been scarily similar to the current civil war, hinting that history is repeating itself, but that's all that is said about it.
* ''Literature/LaszloHadronAndTheWargodsTomb'': The Sagittarian Extinction is the one most relevant to the story, but also mentioned are the Solar War, the Imperial Wars, and the [[RobotWar Interregnum]].
* The aptly-named Vague War in Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', which takes place decades prior to the novel. Many references are made to the war, but few details are revealed. Apparently, it was a big free-for-all with all known races but no alliances. The war led to the formation of the [[TheEmpire Human Empire]]. The author even throws in a funny story about humans spreading misinformation about their dietary needs (i.e. that we need spinach to survive). The aliens spend resources developing a spinach-killing virus and lose countless ships spreading it throughout the human worlds. When humans don't die, they [[OhCrap surrender out of shock]]. On a less funny note, good luck finding spinach after the war.
* ''Literature/LivInTheFuture'': A war known as "The Big Big Nuclear War" ended in 2967. Not much is known about it other than [[PortalCrossroadWorld portals beginning to appear in large numbers]] after it concluded.
* Some kind of great war is implied to be happening in ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies''. The reason the children are on the island is because the plane that was evacuating them from a soon-to-be-nuked Britain was shot down.
* The vast majority of the century-long war between TheAlliance and the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Syndicate Worlds]] in ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' series. John "Black Jack" Geary catches just the opening salvos, before being forced to become a HumanPopsicle. His EscapePod is discovered many decades later, and he helps turn the tide and bring the war to an end.
* The ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', being a ten-volume doorstopper series with a millennia-spanning backstory, also has a couple:
** The so called Jaghut War on Death is said to have happened millennia ago. The only source of information on that is an undead dragon in the [[Literature/TollTheHounds eighth book]], who claims that it happened and brought the Jaghut -- usually a solitary bunch prone to becoming hermits -- together in entire armies, as well as allies from almost every race inexistence at that time. High King Kallor, who's old enough to have seen the Jaghut in their prime, has never heard of that war and refuses to believe the dragon. The trope is, however, later averted in the prequel, ''Literature/TheKharkanasTrilogy'', where it happens onscreen, but is still in play for the main series.
** The civil war that sundered the Tiste homerealm of Kurald Galain is often references but barely ever shown, and what little information there is tends to contradict itself. All that's certain is that it destroyed Kurald Galain and caused the three Tiste peoples to evacuate into other realms, and was caused by Mother Dark turning away from her children. Again, this one is averted in the prequel trilogy, but remains in play in the main series.
** The extermination war in which the T'lan Imass decided they'd had enough of being ruled over by the Jaghut Tyrants and vowed to hunt the latter into extinction is also often referenced and important for the setting's backstory, but only bits and pieces of information are given to the reader. This one happened at least three hundred thousand years before the main story.
** Another extermination war with even less information available is that of the Forkrul Assail against the followers of the god best known as the Errant. It reduced the Errant's power drastically and himself from the local top god to skulking the shadows. And that's pretty much all that is known about it. Other than that he is still smarting tens of thousands of years later.
** The Forkrul Assail -- they love their war mongering -- invasion of the sub-continent of Kolanse is very sparsely explained, but being important to the series' backstory, it is referenced quite often once introduced. They showed up in their ships, took over, caused a famine and have been lording over Kolanse ever since. How exactly they managed to gain control over several kingdoms can only be inferred thanks to their particular style of magic.
** The various conquests of the Malazan Empire are mostly only referenced, chiefly among them the conquests of the continents of Korelri and Genabackis (only the tail-end of which is shown) and the sub-continent of Seven Cities. The latter plays the bigger role in the backstory of the series as it provides the reasons for the Whirlwind Rebellion that happens in the [[Literature/DeadhouseGates second volume]].
* ''Literature/TheMazeRunner'': The prequel novel, ''The Kill Order'', mentions the War of 2020. This is the only time in the series where real-life year count is used (the count currently used is made up of three digits), suggesting that the war was the catalyst for the reset of the count. This may mean that the series is set over 200 years into the future.
* Conspicuously averted in ''Literature/LesMiserables''. Hugo takes a break from telling his story to go into a ''very'' extensive and detailed history lesson on the Battle of Waterloo. He finally ties it into the main story at the very end of the battle by revealing a relationship between two characters that really could have been summarized in a sentence or two. [[spoiler: Thénardier was looting the bodies and encountered Marius's OnlyMostlyDead father, saving his life and thus causing Marius to initially believe that Thénardier is a war hero rather than a total scumbag.]]
* In ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', there is supposedly a vast war raging between the three superstates, but it has no actual bearing on the novel's plot. [[spoiler: Of course, it could just be made up to make the party's rule seem legitimate]].
* In ''Literature/{{Palimpsest}}'', there are a lot of references to a war that took place at some point prior to the events of the story. Most of the immigrants know it happened, but few seem bothered by the details. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that Palimpsest had once closed itself off to immigrants completely, but Casimira went to war against the anti-immigrant group because sorrow and loneliness made her determined to bring the immigrants back. Because she won, people from real life once again got the ability to travel there and possibly stay forever.]]
* ''Literature/ThePerfectRun'': The [[MassSuperEmpoweringEvent advent of superpowers]] from the Alchemist's Elixirs led to years of conflicts and war called the Genome Wars. The war killed off billions, devastated entire swathes of continents and [[AfterTheEnd reshaped the world]], with a Genius supervillain called [[EvilGenius Mechron]] being a major player - and all before the story even begins.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's novel ''Literature/PlagueShip'', the ''Solar Queen'' lands on Earth in the middle of a radioactive wasteland. The few clues given indicate that this is all that remains of central Europe, destroyed in a nuclear war a long time ago.
* The ''Literature/RedRising'' trilogy has three:
** The Conquering, which took place roughly 736 years before the start of the original novel. The original Golds who colonized Luna, weary of paying heavy taxes to Earth-based corporations, declared their independence, turned around, and conquered Earth.
** The Dark Revolt, when the [[SlaveMook Obsidian]] caste rebelled against their Gold masters a little less than three centuries after the Conquering. The rebellion was unsuccessful, and 90% of the Obsidian population was exterminated. To prevent future rebellions, the Obsidians were stripped of all technology and banished to the poles of planets and moons, where [[LesCollaborateurs tribal shamans]] encouraged the superstition that the Golds were gods, a fact which Golds masquerading as [[Myth/NorseMythology Nordic deities]] deliberately reinforced.
** More recently was the first Moon Lords' Rebellion, which began fifty-five years before the start of the trilogy, when the moons of Saturn rebelled against the Core after [[BigBad Octavia au Lune]] usurped her father as Sovereign. The war lasted for twenty years and did not end until The Ash Lord destroyed Rhea, the moon which had instigated the rebellion, with nuclear warheads, killing millions. Up until the second book of the trilogy, the glassy ruins of Rhea in the night sky and their children held as political hostages on Luna was enough for Octavia to keep the Moon Lords in line. After the Augustan alliance shatters at the end of Golden Son, the outer moons of the solar system declare their independence once more. Though their second rebellion does not do well, the revelation that Octavia had been keeping enough nuclear weapons to repeat what the Ash Lord did to Rhea if necessary convinces the Moon Lords to form a [[EnemyMine temporary alliance]] with the Rising to defeat the Sovereign's forces.
* Several characters in ''Literature/RememberToAlwaysBeBrave'' are straight from the last of three global wars which started in their 1900s, the Roman-Nipponese war. Immediately before those two, there was the Sino-Roman war and the Roman-Mongolian war, and all three lasted from around the 1900s to 1953, with a nuclear bombing of Japan and the "Peninsula" (Korea) followed by a long, bloody invasion.
* In ''Literature/RestaurantToAnotherWorld'', there are references to the Demon War of Conquest, which occurred about 70 years prior to the start of the series. Demons lost the war and this is the reason why many demons like Aletta are still discriminated, even though the majority of demons have abandoned their wicked ways and have integrated into society. A regular of the restaurant Artorius/Pork Cutlet is one of the Four Legendary Heroes who had defeated the Demon King.
* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'':
** At the outset of the series, there has been a civil war raging in Arcasia for over a hundred years. The Countess Persephone's father was slain in it, Duke Nobel proved his skill as a military commander during it, and Bruin, Tiecelin, and Grymbart fought in it, occasionally referencing battles, camp life, what the weather was like before an engagement, etc. The war drove an entire region to famine so extreme that its people had to resort to ''eating their own children'', and yet it's over before page one of ''Reynard the Fox''.
** More cryptically, there are occasional references to "The Glyconese Rebellion", an ancient war in which ''dragons were involved.''
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein:
** Several stories in the Future History 'verse refer to the "Wet Firecracker War", particularly in ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'' and ''Literature/TheDoorIntoSummer''.
** In ''Literature/BetweenPlanets'', his protagonist refers to "the great field, still slightly radioactive, where Old Chicago used to be." It is not known if this is a result of the Wet Firecracker War or some other incident.
** His near-immortal protagonist, Lazarus Long (a.k.a. Woodrow Wilson Smith) mentions having participated in several wars on nearly as many planets.
* In ''Literature/TheRogueKing'' by Aldrea Alien, there was once an empire spanning the whole continent. It fell 2000 years prior to the story's setting.
* ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'' has constant mentions of the Great War between Heaven and Hell (lasting for a few million years), demons wiping out multiple other races on other worlds, and skirmishes among the demon nobility.
* ''Literature/SeekersOfTheSky'' makes references to major conflicts between this AlternateHistory's powers, mainly between [[TheEmpire the State]] and the Russian Khanate (it's mentioned that this world had it own version of the Napoleonic Wars). There are also mentions of occasional conflicts between the State's American colonies and the Aztec Empire. There is also the war that brought the British Isles under the State's control.
* ''Literature/TheShadowhunterChronicles'' has the Uprising, a rebellion instigated by a clique of Shadowhunter supremacists called the Circle, who wanted to topple the Clave and install a government that persecutes Downworlders. This forms the backstory of many characters; Clary's father, Valentine, was the Circle's leader, while her mother, Jocelyn, plus the Lightwoods, the Herondales, and the Waylands were senior members. Luke was also a member, until he was expelled for turning into a werewolf, and didn't participate in the Uprising. The failure of the rebellion is the reason why Clary, Jocelyn, and the Lightwoods all live in New York, and why Jace was raised by Valentine instead of his parents, who both died during the rebellion.
* The ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'' books mention the First War of the Races. It's only mentioned briefly as being a huge war where the rebel Druids and the race of Man fought the Druids and the other races (Elf, Dwarf, Gnome and Troll). Men were defeated, but the war had far-reaching consequences. However, none of the books at present actually tell the story of the war itself such as what caused it, the major battles and so on.
* ''Literature/SkyJumpers'': Forty years prior, General Shadel made an attempt to TakeOverTheWorld, which was largely unopposed due to the Worldwide Nuclear Disarmament Act eighteen years before [=THAT=]. Ultimately, a new type of bomb was created in the hopes of stopping Shadel, the Green Bomb. Unfortunately, Shadel had managed to get hold of how to build those himself, and fired his bombs at America's ally nations. Of course, America fired their green bombs at him, ending his campaign. Unfortunately, much of society was destroyed in the process.
* In Creator/JoWalton's AlternateHistory ''Literature/SmallChange'' trilogy, Germany continued fighting on the Eastern Front past 1949; Japan conquered most of China. The novels take place from the detached perspective of England, with word of the continuing war coming in [[CrypticBackgroundReference newspaper headlines and occasional chatter]].
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' [[Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]:
** In the ''Literature/StarTrekNewFrontier'' series, Calhoun and Picard (and their crews) discover that a species that's apparently been friendly -- the Selelvians -- is actually capable of an insidious level of mind control which they've hidden successfully up until this point. In the next book in the series, there's been a TimeSkip of several years and the Selelvians have been defeated after a fairly vicious war.
** The war is also this trope in the "mainstream" [[Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse novel 'verse]]. We know that it indeed happened (between ''Literature/StarTrekVulcansSoul'' and the early ''Literature/StarTrekVoyagerRelaunch''), off near the Tholian border, but other than a couple of offhand mentions it's not yet been visited.
* ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'': Many of the {{MacGuffin}}s, events and plots of the entire series are a result of the direct influence of the events in [[WizardsWar the Great Wizard War]] that happened over 3000 years ago.
* ''Literature/TerraIgnota'': The setting was shaped by the Church Wars, a religious war about "two interpretations of the same god" which was so horrific that it discredited the entire concept of the nation-state: starting in Europe, all borders were dissolved in protest, and citizenship to any nation became voluntary and could be renounced at will (national sovereignty becoming secondary to a set of humanistic Universal Laws applicable to everyone, everywhere). It also led to a taboo against organized religion that stands strong even centuries later. Few details are given about the war itself, but America is both clearly singled out as the aggressor and has seemingly ceased to exist in global politics and culture by the time the books take place.
* Stewart Cowley's "Terran Trade Authority Handbooks" opening opus, ''Spacecraft: 2000-2100AD'' purports to be an identification guide of the spacecraft of that era (it's essentially one-page profiles based on spacecraft pictures by illustrators such as Chris Foss and Peter Elson). The smaller ships of the Proxima Wars - Earth and Alpha Centauri vs. Proxima Centauri - from all three races fill the military section, and there are hints of major fleet actions between capital ships early in the conflict. While a few specific battles are touched on in terms of detailing the service histories of the ships that fought them, and the civilian ships built in the wars' aftermath add a smattering of their own history, a full history of the entire war does not exist. There were to have been further TTA handbooks as part of an early 21st Century attempt to reboot the franchise, but these seem to have gone to DevelopmentHell. Cowley played the game again in the follow-on ''Great Space Battles''. One of the ships in the ancient fleet which is resurrected to save humanity when its enemies show a disturbing ability to hack the battle computers of the sophisticated frontline ships (and yes, this predates the reboot ''Battlestar Galactica'' by DECADES) is described as being a veteran of 'countless' Imperial policing actions - but we never get to find out what these are, even though they are serious enough that battleships were required.
* ''Literature/TheToughGuideToFantasyland'': Long ago, there was a [[WizardsWar Wizard War]] that left large tracts of Fantasyland as Waste Areas, devastated by magical pollution that persists into the present. Few details are given of what exactly happened. However, this is one of just two historical periods which ever get referenced.
* ''Literature/TrailOfLightning'' takes place AfterTheEnd when the world has been devastated by both the Big Water (flooding driven by climate change) and the Energy Wars (armed conflicts between nations to secure remaining resources). No one from Dinétah bothers to leave because they believe the rest of the planet is uninhabitable.
* ''Literature/{{Triplanetary}}'' mentions the first and fourth Jovian Wars, which resulted in the formation of the Triplanetary League from Venus, Tellus, and Mars.
* ''Literature/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign'': The Secret War. It's referred to several times as the reason for much of the chaos in the world. No longer offscreen after the fifth volume, which reveals the lead-up to the war and the war itself.
* ''Literature/VillainsByNecessity'': The War that set up all the events in the book. Over a hundred and fifty years ago, Good fought Evil in a vast, destructive conflict. Evil was led by the Dark King, with many battles whose relics are still left behind in the present. The Six Heroes finally gathered every segment of the Spectrum Key on a quest, causing the defeat of Evil and then sealing it off from the world entirely. Unfortunately, this upset the cosmic balance, so in the time since things have slowly been sliding toward "sumblimation", i.e. destruction by pure Light and Good. Six villains instead have to gather the segments and release Evil for averting this.
* Bujold's ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' is full of these. Mad Yuri's War, the Cetagandan Invasion, the Komarr Conquest and subsequent Revolt all have a direct impact on the storyline decades after they took place.
* In ''Literature/WatchersOfTheThrone'', while the political drama is ongoing on Terra, there are no less than ''four'' different wars being fought off-screen.[[note]]And that's just the ones that get mentions in the book; this ''is'' a ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'' book, after all[[/note]]
** The Thirteenth Black Crusade is throwing itself at Cadian Gate ([[spoiler:and in fact has already breached it, the news just hasn't reached Terra yet]]), and provides the main motivation for the political schemes.
** The Thousand Sons invasion of Fenris is mentioned as one of the things that pass by the Chancellor's desk without him being able to respond.
** In the latter half of the book, [[spoiler:civil unrests and global riots pass most of the protagonists - trapped in the Imperial Palace - completely by.]]
** The second book's plot springs from [[spoiler:Guilliman departing Terra to fight in the Indomitus Crusade.]]
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''[[Literature/NightWatchSeries Watches]]'' books, the Treaty is signed between the Light and the Dark Others after a magical war that nearly destroyed everything. Hardly any details are revealed about the war. The beginning of TheFilmOfTheBook ''Night Watch'' shows a battle between two groups of barbaric-looking people without using any magic (the director hates magic), with each group consisting of two dozen men at most. This is likely meant to be [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic symbolic]], though.
** Later novels flesh out more details. In ''The Last Watch'', Anton sees a vision of a battle that took place long ago that ended when Gesar and Rustam used a spell devised by Merlin to collapse the layers of the Twilight in a certain area, turning both the Dark Others and their human armies into [[AndIMustScream living statues]].
** In ''School Supervision'', it's revealed that {{Ghostapo}} was real in that some Others participated in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII on the side of the Nazis and used magic against the Allied-aligned Others. [[UsefulNotes/TheCityFormerlyKnownAs St. Petersburg]] was the site of the biggest magical battle of the war, likely contributing to it becoming a GeniusLoci in ''The Face of the Dark Palmira''.
* ''Literature/TheWarAgainstTheChtorr''. There are frequent mentions of the United States fighting (and losing) a war in Pakistan, which led to the forced demilitarization of the country before the events of the series. And in one novel after being captured by renegades, the protagonist returns to be told the United States had actually been invaded (other than by the [[AlienInvasion Chtorrans]], that is) while he was away. Mind you, it's implied [[TheShortWar that war didn't last very long]] thanks to the invaders using TrojanHorse technology sold to them by the United States.
* The Aiel War in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' is mentioned in passing by numerous veteran Warders, Tam al'Thor, and others. Many other wars -- the Breaking of the World, the War of a Hundred Years, Artur Hawkwing's war of consolidation -- all serve to create rich background for the series.
** The ending at least of the Aiel War was covered in the {{Prequel}} novel, ''New Spring.''
* The 'Holy War' against the Ghouls in E. R. Eddison's ''Literature/TheWormOuroboros'', in which all the civilized ("polite") nations of the world of Mercury fought alongside each other, and that ended just shortly before the book's storyline begins.
* In ''Literature/TheZodiacSeries'', the Trinary Axis is brought up quite a few times. To put it simply, a pair of StarCrossedLovers (Blazon Logax of House Leo and Brianella Amarise of House Cancer) decided to secede from the Zodiac, convincing Vecily Matador of House Taurus to join them. Things escalated from there. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, the immortal [[ManBehindTheMan Aquarius]] laid the seeds for it (though it's heavily implied it was unintentional on his part).]]
[[/folder]]

* [[GreatOffscreenWar/ASongOfIceAndFire A Song Of Ice And Fire]]

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' falls back on this one a lot, to the point where EpilepticTrees have grown due to some wars sharing the same rough dates. Some of these conflicts are original while others are carried over from the original ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' counterparts:
** ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' had a great battle between Good and Evil 10,000 years ago. Zordon was with the good guys, Rita with the bad guys under the command of Zedd. The only other clue we have about it is the ending: According to some of the novelizations released around the time, the war ended in "a tie" and came down to a frikkin' ''coin toss'' to end the war. Zordon won, but Rita, being a sore loser, trapped Zordon in his Time Warp and stole the Dragon Coin before she and her minions were sealed away in the trashcan. Naturally, nothing like the books' 'coin toss' thing has ever been suggested onscreen. All we know is, Rita got canned, and that Zordon has used teenagers before (though none of Zordon's warriors in flashbacks looked like Rangers.)
** ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'' is so vague that we don't even know if there was one big event or just a bunch of isolated incidents. Either way, a lot of backstory happened 3,000 years ago, ending in the placement of 5 quasar sabers in stone on Mirinoi to be chosen to fight again in the future. Most of it in deep space, but if the Lights of Orion were found on Terra Venture, then they have to have been left on Earth when they were lost back in the day.
** ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue'' had Bansheera and company [[SealedEvilInACan put in the can]] 5,000 years ago thanks to a powerful warlock who seemingly single handedly beat them all. Bansheera's ''entire'' motivation for attacking in the present is to destroy the city and reestablish her palace upon the demons' sacred ground, granting 'ultimate power.' The fact that she had it then meant she had to have been a lot worse than anything witnessed during the Lightspeed series.
** ''Series/PowerRangersWildForce''/''Series/HyakujuuSentaiGaoranger'' had the war between the Animarian civilization and the Orgs 3,000 years ago.
** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'' introduced one of the generals this way; the warlord Shimazu terrorized the populace with his Wolfblades 2,000 years ago until he is sealed in a mask.
** ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' saw a group of wizards seal away the forces of the underworld only twenty or so years prior (so somewhere in or around the 1980s). Interestingly, we know a lot about the end of this war thanks to it apparently being a very family affair.
** ''Series/PowerRangersJungleFury'' had a war between man and beast 10,000 years ago. Surprisingly, four of the seven {{Old Master}}s that survived the war also survived to the present day.
** Averted in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', where we get a number of flashbacks to Venjix's conquest of Earth the year prior.
** ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai''/''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger'' had the Nighlocks/Gedoushu sealed away by samurai in feudal Japan, and apparently a number of skirmishes between them and the samurai's descendants in the intervening years. ''Power Rangers'' even showed a flashback involving the current Rangers' parents running off to fight as Rangers themselves, which had to have taken place somewhere in the 90s alongside a previous ''Rangers'' series.
** Gloriously averted with the Great Legend War of ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'', though the [[TheEmpire evil Space Empire Zangyack]] are said to have had a long history conquering the universe before the invasion of Earth.
** ''Series/ZyudenSentaiKyoryuger'' had the war where the Deboss wiped out the dinosaurs but were ultimately forced into hibernation, along with the two sides being in a cold war that heated up occasionally throughout history.

* GreatOffscreenWar/ASongOfIceAndFire A Song Of Ice And Fire

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' (and it's television adaptation ''Series/GameOfThrones'') has many of these. Some have been detailed in the companion books (''Literature/ArchmaesterGyldaynsHistories'', ''Literature/TheWorldOfIceAndFire'', and ''Literature/FireAndBlood''), but others remain unexplained. Ordered by reverse chronology:
** The Greyjoy's Rebellion. It's the reason why Theon is a ward of the Starks, and serves as a factor to the Ironborn's decision to secede during the War of the Five Kings, as they have not given up the idea of independence.
** The most important to the series is Robert's Rebellion, which ended fifteen years before the series starts. It began when Rhaegar Targaryen, heir to Aerys II, stole Robert's betrothed, Lyanna Stark, while Aerys himself had also murdered Eddard Stark's father, Rickard, and brother, Brandon. It resulted in the fall of House Targaryen, who had ruled the Seven Kingdoms for nearly three centuries, and the installation of the Baratheon-Lannister dynasty. It is really the cause for all of the events in the series - giving the effect that the reader has plunged into [[InMediasRes the middle of the story]] rather than the beginning.
** What Tywin Lannister did to inspire "The Rains of Castamere". "But there are no Reynes and Tarbecks"... "[[AppealToObscurity Exactly]]." ''The World of Ice & Fire'' finally reveals the event: after the Reynes and Tarbecks defied his authority, Tywin beat them militarily and burned Tarbeck Hall to the ground, and then trapped the Reynes in a mine and redirected a river to drown them.
** The War of the Ninepenny Kings, the culmination of five rebellions instigated by House Blackfyre, a cadet branch of the Targaryens. The last Blackfyre and a group of bandit-kings warred against Westeros in the Stepstones and the Free City of Lys. The conflict ended with the extinction of the Blackfyres in the male line, although the Golden Company limped on in the Free Cities. Meanwhile, the ''Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg'' prequel series explores the fallout of the First Blackfyre Rebellion. The Second Blackfyre Rebellion also led to the Peake Uprising, which killed Maekar I and led to the ascension of Aegon V "Egg".
** The Dance of the Dragons, a Targaryen civil war that happened over 160 years prior. It is now the subject of ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon''.
** The Dornish Wars, five separate conflicts instigated by the Targaryens to conquer Dorne, the most persistent of the Seven Kingdoms. Unlike the others, Dorne remained independent long after Aegon I passed away, and it wasn't until the reign of Daeron I, his great-great-great-great-great-grandson, that it was ''de facto'' subjugated. Which didn't stick, anyway; Dorne was ultimately integrated a generation later through AltarDiplomacy by Daeron's namesake and first cousin once removed, Daeron II.
** Some nobles are concerned when Cersei Lannister elects to revive the long-dormant Faith Militant, because the last time they grew powerful, they started a rebellion against the Targaryen dynasty (though to be fair, it was because they were opposed to their tradition of [[SiblingIncest incestuous marriage]]), which ended during the miraculous reign of Jaehaerys I. And it's unknown if lightning can strike twice.
** Further back in time, we had Aegon Targaryen's conquest of Westeros and the creation of the united monarchy of the Seven Kingdoms. Years in Westeros are dated from the point of the Targaryen invasion (BC = Before Conquest, AC = After Conquest).
** The seldom-mentioned Century of Blood, a century of constant wars after the Doom of Valyria destroyed the Valyrian Freehold, creating multiple factions in Essos fighting for supremacy. The Dothraki rose during this time, as without Valyria to hold them back, they were free to plunder Essosi territory. The Free Cities of Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh were formerly united under the Triarchy, but they fought each other during the Daughters' War (so-called because they are the "Daughters of Valyria") and separated.
** Westeros had several unification wars. The Age of Heroes led to the rise of great Houses such as the Starks and Lannisters. The Andal invasion led to the coming of the Faith of the Seven, the importation of the typical Medieval lifestyle and the disappearance of the Children of the Forest. The Rhoynish Invasion of Dorne led to that place becoming a principality under the rule of House Martell.
** The truly ancient wars between Valyria and the Ghiscari Empire, back when the former was still a nascent kingdom, more than four thousand years ago. It was the reason why slavery is prevalent in Essos; when Valyria conquered Ghis, it adopted many of the latter's practices, including slavery, and expanded it to cover the rest of the continent. Afterthat was Valyria's war with the Rhoynar empire. The defeat of the Rhoynish caused them to flee to Dorne.
** Going even further back to mythic times, there are the stories from various cultures about a great battle between good and evil, implied to be an earlier war with [[BigBad The Others.]] In Westeros, this was imagined as the Long Night, during which the First Men and the Children of the Forest banded together to fight the Others, who came from the Land of Always Winter in far northern Westeros.
** The first recorded conflict in Westeros was between the Children of the Forest and the First Men, recently arriving through a land bridge that connected Dorne, the Stepstones, and western Essos. The Children called in the "hammer of the waters", which flooded the land bridge and caused the North to be separated from the rest of the continent by a swamp. But the arrivals were too large in number, and the Children eventually made peace with them, presaging their cooperation during the Long Night.

** All of the above conflicts ultimately turn out to be very relevant to the main story, as they're all heavily influenced by the messy geopolitics of Remnant intertwining with [[spoiler: Ozma's own secret war against Salem, with the strong implication that said secret war, with all of Ozma's mistakes, have caused the society he tried to build to complete his divine mission to [[CrapsaccharineWorld become so unstable and fragile under the appearance of being united.]]]]

There was a war. It happened years ago, maybe even thousands of years. Characters reference it, especially if they took a part in it: the ShellShockedVeteran never managed to get over what he experienced back then, while the PhonyVeteran, on the other hand, will never shut up about how many brave things he did in it.

* The Universal War in ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'', which is long over by the beginning of the comic's story. It was a DivineConflict free-for-all between all the Demiurges that took a millennia to die down, and whittled the Demiurges' numbers down from over a million to seven. Many of the surviving seven obtained their power during the War, having been born mundane during or shortly prior to its beginning, and at least one [[ShellShockedVeteran appears to be motivated by what he experienced during the war]]. Another character is revealed to have had the makings of one of the seven, but had a revelation about the pointlessness of winning such a war and abandoned all power.

* The Universal War in ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'', which is long over by the beginning of the comic's story. It was a DivineConflict free-for-all between all the Demiurges that took a millennia to die down, and whittled the Demiurges' numbers down from over a million to seven. Many of the surviving seven obtained their power during the War, having been born mundane during or shortly prior to its beginning, and at least one [[ShellShockedVeteran appears to be motivated by what he experienced during the war]].

* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series has two examples - the wizard wars which serve as an example of why wizards shouldn't actually cast spells, and the wars of the Evil Empire, which serve as the origin story of the Orcs. The latter may or may not be the same as the "big old wars" mentioned in "Troll Bridge", in which Cohen the Barbarian fought for a bright new future and the [[ShoutOut return of the king]], and Mica the troll fought because a big troll with a whip told him to.

* In ''Literature/TheDreamsideRoad'', the conflict with Thunderworks totally reshaped the world's governments and earned [[TheDrifter Orson Gregory]], a.k.a. Wayfarer One, a reputation for heroism and badassery.

** The First Wizarding War against Voldemort.

* In the ''[[Literature/SwordOfTruth The Sword of Truth]]'' series, many of the {{MacGuffin}}s, events and plots of the entire series are a result of the direct influence of the events in the Great Wizard War that happened over 3000 years ago.
* The setting of ''Literature/TerraIgnota'' was shaped by the Church Wars, a religious war about "two interpretations of the same god" which was so horrific that it discredited the entire concept of the nation-state: starting in Europe, all borders were dissolved in protest, and citizenship to any nation became voluntary and could be renounced at will (national sovereignty becoming secondary to a set of humanistic Universal Laws applicable to everyone, everywhere). It also led to a taboo against organized religion that stands strong even centuries later. Few details are given about the war itself, but America is both clearly singled out as the aggressor and has seemingly ceased to exist in global politics and culture by the time the books take place.

* ''Literature/TheToughGuideToFantasyland'': Long ago, there was a Wizard War that left large tracts of Fantasyland as Waste Areas, devastated by magical pollution that persists into the present. Few details are given of what exactly happened. However, this is one of just two historical periods which ever get referenced.

* ''[[Literature/{{Lensman}} Triplanetary]]'' mentions the first and fourth Jovian Wars, which resulted in the formation of the Triplanetary League from Venus, Tellus, and Mars.
* In ''Literature/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign'', the Secret War. It's referred to several times as the reason for much of the chaos in the world. No longer offscreen after the fifth volume, which reveals the lead-up to the war and the war itself.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': Much of what occurs in the series has its roots in a war that took place 5,750 years ago, in which [[HordeOfAlienLocusts an alien race known as the Gems]] fought over the colonization of Earth. The splinter group devoted to protecting the planet, the Crystal Gems, won a PyrrhicVictory after a thousand years, losing all but 4 warriors to a final attack that turned the rest into [[MonsterOfTheWeek berserk monsters]]. The advancement that was made in colonizing the planet also led to a completely different geography and an AlternateHistory where various wars were never fought and most holidays never developed.

* Not ''exactly'' a war, but ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has the Fire Nation's destruction of the Air Nomads 100 years prior to the start of the series.
** The Hundred-Year War itself is an an interesting variation in the show, as while it is ongoing, it still fits within the realms of this trope: We see much of the actual effects of the war, with the show taking place during its final year, but we get little information concerning the period between the Fire Nation beginning their expansion and colonization of other countries at the start of the war to the present. We only see some snippets of the raids on the Southern Water Tribe and Iroh's assault on Ba Sing Se through flashbacks while most other battles are only alluded to. Even over the course of the show itself we don 't see that much of the actual war, with only a small handful of major military battles being shown. (four, ''maybe'' five if you count "The Drill"). In fact, the entire century of conflict between Aang's freezing to when Katara frees him is mostly untouched, even in fan fiction.

** There's also the first year of the Second Robotnik War, which saw Dr. Eggman regain his power base and promptly retake Mobius after Sonic had been thought killed in battle.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' and the continuation ''Webcomic/SonicTheComicOnline'' has the Great War between the Echidnas of Megopolis City and the Drakons of the invading Drakon Empire which took place eight thousand years ago over Mobius' Emerald mines which could contain the Chaos energy, a powerful but highly unstable energy source created by scientists on Drak the Drakons home planet, the Drakons were able to steal seven Emeralds before the war began. The gems, when combined with the Chaos energy, formed the legendary Chaos Emeralds. Two days before the war began, Pochacamac, leader of the Megopolis tribe, managed to steal the sacred Emeralds back from the Drakons, both to keep to return them to their true home and to prevent the Drakons from conquering the entire galaxy. Angered, the Drakons sent out a scout to examine the Echidna defenses before sending a full-scale invasion force to claim the Emeralds. A battle erupted inside Pochacmac's command room, with Drakon Prosecutors and Sentinels fighting against Sonic the Hedgehog and echidnas armed with Guardian Robots. The fight was briefly interrupted when a Prosecutor struck the Emeralds with his Dimensional Staff, causing a chain reaction that turned a fallen Drakon warrior into the mighty Chaos. The ensuing explosion weakened the gathered Drakon soldiers enough for Knuckles and the other tribesmen to fight back while Sonic and Pochacmac took care of Chaos. After a final push, the echidnas drove the Drakon invaders out of the city, but the war was far from over. Although no victor was ever declared, the failure of the Drakons to claim their intended prize suggests the Mobian defence held out, albeit at a great cost.
* Continuing the trend, ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'' partially deals with the aftermath of a rebellion against Eggman's army, referencing the one that took place in ''VideoGame/SonicForces''. The machinery, social impact, and reconstruction efforts are very much present throughout the comic.

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' is set sometime after both WorldWarIII ''and'' [[WorldWarWhatever IV]], AKA, Vietnam War 2.

* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' is set sometime after both WorldWarIII ''and'' [[WorldWarWhatever IV]].