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Production Foreshadowing

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/production_foreshadowing_60.png
In retrospect, this is quite fishy.

"...Oh, sorry. I keep saying crazy-sounding stuff, don't I? Hey, remember me, okay? This is probably the last time I'll be able to drink freely like this... If I ever see you again, I'll tell you more of my story. ...Of course, it'll probably have nothing to do with your problems."
— Vincent Brooks, Persona 3 Portable

When something said or appearing in a work Foreshadows another work that would be produced by the same people later.

If this happens in the same continuity as the work they appeared in, it's an Early-Bird Cameo. If it happens in another work that has already been made, but you haven't seen it because it hasn't been localized, then Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros."

When this happens the other way around, it's a Production Throwback or a Company Cross References.

Super-Trope to Sequel Hook.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes: In Season 9 episode 1, Miss Peach interviews the producer of a new show called Careful S. and Kalo, a rumored spin-off of Happy Heroes that was confirmed to be in development in 2014 (this episode premiered in 2015). The 2018 mini-season Happy Heroes and the City of Mystery likely evolved from this spin-off, given that it stars Careful S. and Kalo in a prominent role.

    Comic Books 

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • Pixar has been doing this a fair deal since 1995:
    • Toy Story: After staying on the top of Andy's mother's van, Buzz Lightyear gets one of the dissin' flies from A Bug's Life smashed into his helmet.
    • Woody from Toy Story 2 makes a cameo as a clapper loader in the outtakes that play over the credits of A Bug's Life.
    • In Toy Story 2, Geri, the man who repairs Woody, has a drawer full of eyeballs that resemble the ones from Theodore Pauly, a character from Monsters, Inc..
    • In Monsters, Inc., one of Boo's toys is Nemo from Finding Nemo.
    • In Finding Nemo, a boy in the dentist's waiting room is reading a comic book of The Incredibles.
    • In The Incredibles, a scene features a Hudson Hornet resembling Doc Hudson from Cars in the background.
    • In Cars, the Cozy Cone Motel has a picture of the Eiffel Tower, which is located in Paris. Ratatouille takes place in Paris.
    • Ratatouille:
      • A cockroach resembling Hal from WALL•E appears in Linguini's apartment.
      • Whilst working his way up to the rooftops of Paris, Remy is chased by a dog (seen only in silhouette) bearing a striking resemblance to Dug from Up.
      • A DVD bonus short has WALL•E making a brief cameo as a Mars rover operator. Parodied on WALL•E's website, which shows him hiding in every single past Pixar movie.
    • In WALL•E, a walking stick with tennis balls attached to its feet appears two times. Firstly, when WALL•E is about to pull across the magnifying screen, the walker is sitting behind the iPod. Secondly, when WALL•E falls down from the ceiling of his truck (after being knocked there by EVE), he collides with the walker. This walker belongs to Carl, the protagonist of Up.
    • Up: When Carl's balloon house goes past a little girl's bedroom, a pink teddy bear is in the far left corner of the screen. This is Lotso, who is an important character in Toy Story 3.
    • Toy Story 3:
      • One of the posters in Andy's room features Finn McMissile from Cars 2.
      • In the same movie, Andy also has a "Newt Crossing" sticker next to his computer; and in Brave, the Witch uses a Newt as an ingredient for her magic potion. Newt was a Pixar film that was canceled in development.
    • Cars 2 has car-versions of the royal family of Brave pictured on a tapestry in the British pub.
    • In Brave, there is a bas-relief of Sully in the Witch's hut, for Monsters University.
    • Monsters University:
      • At one point, Art gives Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan a dream journal with a unicorn and a rainbow, an allusion to Rainbow Unicorn from Inside Out.
      • Dinosaur toys that resemble characters from The Good Dinosaur that appear in the scare simulators used for the final event of the Scare Games.
    • Inside Out: When Riley thinks about how she and her family stopped by to look at some dinosaur sculptures (and inadvertently damaged their car) on the way to San Francisco, the two statues that appear are of Forrest Woodbrush and Arlo, characters from The Good Dinosaur.
    • Hank the octopus from Finding Dory makes a background cameo in The Good Dinosaur when Arlo learns to swim.
    • A driver in Finding Dory's climax has a Lightning McQueen bandage on his right hand, for Cars 3.
    • Cars 3 has a car who loses his focus on the treadmill because he's nostalgic for his hometown, Santa Cecilia. This is the town featured in the next movie, Coco, and an image of Santa Cecilia looks like an image shown in the Coco trailer attached to Cars 3.
    • In Coco, when Miguel and Hector are making their way to the battle of the bands, one can spot a skeletonized The Incredibles poster on the side, for Incredibles 2.
    • In Incredibles 2, Jack-Jack has a Duke Caboom from Toy Story 4 in his crib.
    • During Toy Story 4's credits, a bouncy castle can be spotted with the pegicorn design seen on Barley's van in Onward.
    • Onward has a brief shot of a Dorothea Williams record on a shelf in the Lightfoot house. Williams would be a central figure in the story of Soul.
    • In a background shot of Soul, a travel advertisement for an Italian town called Portorosso can be seen, the setting of the next Pixar movie, Luca.
    • In Luca, a record labeled 4★Vilaggi can be seen in Giulia's bedroom, a reference to the Boy Band 4★Town that Mei and her friends are fans of in Turning Red.
    • In Turning Red, Miriam's skateboard has stickers of the Star Command logo and Sox, both prominently featured in Lightyear.
    • In Lightyear, a vending machine has bottles labeled "Wade Water". Wade Ripple is one of the two main characters in Elemental (2023).
    • Elemental (2023):
      • Harold's painting seen during the Ripples' dinner includes the colors of emotions (red, yellow, green, blue, and purple) and adds orange, pink, indigo, and aqua, in reference to Inside Out 2.
      • At young Wade's school, several posters can be seen lining the walls, with one reading "Join the Space Club." On the blue poster, a planet with holes and tentacles can be seen, which also appears in Elio.
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • Pinocchio has books of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan propped in the background during the Storybook Opening.
    • Aladdin:
      • A statue of a cherub appears in "A Whole New World", which would later show up in Hercules's "I Won't Say I'm In Love".
      • During the same number, the magic carpet is seen flying past the Temple of Zeus, and the scene immediately afterward has Aladdin and Jasmine at the Palace of the Emperor of China.
    • In Walt Disney's introduction to a 1954 TV broadcast of Alice in Wonderland, Walt discusses a Christmastime tradition that people living in England have of performing pantomimes of classic stories. The stories that Walt gave as examples include Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, which Disney had previously planned to adapt into animated movies — though decades of Development Hell meant that Walt, unfortunately, wouldn't live to see these plans fulfilled.
    • Zootopia:
      • Duke Weaselton runs a stand selling pirated movies. He not only has animal versions of recent Disney animated hits but also of films that were not done yet at the time of the film's release, such as Meowana and Floatzen 2. One bootleg, Giraffic, referenced a film that was canceled the next year called Gigantic.
      • An image of Maui's fishhook can be seen on the side of Finnick's van.
    • Ralph appears as a tribal drawing at the end of the credits of Moana.
    • One of the last images in the credits of Encanto is an airship drawn in traditional Colombian style, which acts as a tease for Strange World.
    • A drawing of Star, a supporting character in the next movie Wish is shown in the credits of Strange World.
  • Illumination Entertainment:

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • In Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret, the characters mention a demon designed by Nick's father, who is blue, has three legs, smells of ozone and feels acidic. A demon fitting this description is a character in Dark Lord of Derkholm which was published a year later.
  • Books in The Magic School Bus series often did this. On one of the final pages, Ms. Frizzle would wear a dress related to the topic of the next book. (For instance, her dress would have pictures of bees on it, and the next book would be about bees)
  • In The Night Mayor by Kim Newman, the protagonist is an author best known for a tropetastic spy thriller starring an implausibly glamorous redheaded secret agent named Vanessa Vail. Newman's later Diogenes Club series (which is deliberately somewhat tropetastic) stars an implausibly glamorous redheaded secret agent named Vanessa. (Just Vanessa — part of her implausible glamor is that she has only one name — but she does use 'Vanessa Vail' as an alias in one of her earliest published appearances.)
  • In The Battle of the Labyrinth, the fourth book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, a crowd of monsters resembling humans with various animal heads makes an appearance as background characters in an arena. In The Kane Chronicles, demons resembling humans with various animal heads are the favored Mooks of the primary antagonist.
  • The Baton Rouge-class cruiser appeared in the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (a 1980 licensed reference book that documented human space technology from Sputnik I to Star Trek: The Motion Picture) as one of the starships used just before the timeframe of the original series. Apart from the external deflector dish on the secondary hull, it bears a striking resemblance to the Enterprise-D of Star Trek: The Next Generation (not coincidentally, both were designed by Rich Sternbach). Also, some illustrations from the book were used as computer displays (the eponymous "Okudagrams").
  • The Discworld books often did this, not just by using Sequel Hooks but also by often taking statements and segments during the book and expanding them into their own works later on. The most egregious example from this may be the book The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, which was first mentioned in Reaper Man. There are ten years and 15 other Discworld novels in between these works.
  • The second two books in Gordon Korman's Everest series feature several references to scuba diving. Korman's next adventure trilogy, Dive, had scuba as a central focus.
  • Ellen and Otis: One chapter of Otis Spofford has the titular character doing a favor for an older boy from Zachary Taylor High School, and mentions his team will be playing Benjamin Harrison High School. Eleven years later, Cleary would release Ribsy, the final Henry Huggins book, in which Ribsy ends up at a football game between these same two schools.
  • Lizard Music: One of the B-movies Victor watches is titled Invasion of the Fat Men, which is about millions of fat men falling from space and eating all of the planet's junk food. This is the same premise as Pinkwater's book Fat Men From Space, which was published a year later.
  • Walt Disney Pictures bought the film rights to Winnie the Pooh in 1961. Merchandising commenced in 1964, with two storybooks based on the first two chapters of the aforementioned novel: The Honey Tree based on In which we are introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh and some Bees and A Tight Squeeze based on In which Pooh Goes Visiting. These books are notable for using the original text note  and Disney-fied versions of the E.H. Shepherd illustrations. These books were published to get US audiences accustomed to Pooh, as Disney was producing an adaptation of the stories. This would be Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree in 1966.
  • Each book in the Shady Hollow series (a mostly Cozy Mystery series by Juneau Black) has at least a passing reference to an element from the next book that's usually plot-irrelevant here. The first book has a reference to cider from Cold Clay Orchards, the next book's central location; Cold Clay has a brief description of a book by one Bradley Marvel, who turns up in person in the sequel; Mirror Lake mentions in passing a large painting of Twilight Falls waterfall - the next book will be Twilight Falls.
  • The Doctor Who New Adventures novel Theatre of War has a brief appearance of a book stamped with the sigil of the Library of St John the Beheaded, which makes its first proper appearance in the subsequent book, All-Consuming Fire.

    Live-Action TV 

    Music 
  • Some songs on BTS' 2016 album Wings hint at their follow-up releases being the LOVE YOURSELF Series, starting with the following year's Love Yourself: Her EP.
    • "Reflection"
      "I wish I could love myself"
    • "BTS Cypher Pt. 4"
      "I love, I love, I love myself"
  • DAGames:
    • In both Medleys, Will sneaks in elements from upcoming songs, with the first one having lyrics from the then unreleased "Instruments of Cyanide" and "Brothers in Arms" and the second one having lyrics from the then unreleased "Are You Proud Of Me Now?" and "Return To The Motherland".
    • Xavier Rotom, the central character of the Pandorium story Solitude, was first revealed when the Solitaire DAKnockout and "Hail to the Jester Queen & King" were released; two years before his story even came to full conception.
  • of Montreal: "Faberge Falls For Shuggie" from the album Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? ends with the chant "Skeletal lamping, the controller sphere, false priest". These would turn out to be the titles of the next three releases.
  • Origami Angel:
    • In Somewhere City, "666 Flags" mentions the singer's plans to "build a Gami Gang theme park". The next album is called GAMI GANG.
    • The remix album Origami Angel Broke Minecraft includes "Greenbelt Station" as its only fully original track. This song was later released (although slightly different) the next year, on GAMI GANG.
  • The Rolling Stones's 1968 TV special, The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus, was made to promote their latest album, Beggars Banquet, and the Stones' set also included "You Can't Always Get What You Want" from their next album, Let It Bleed, which was released a year later.
  • Devin Townsend:
  • Yes: "The Remembering (High the Memory)" from Tales From Topographic Oceans has the word "Relayer" repeated in the middle of the song. It would be the title of their following album.

    Pinball 

    Tabletop Games 
  • The Future Sight set of Magic: The Gathering contained several themes (and cards) that would make their "proper" debuts in later sets. It was the third set of the Time Spiral block, whose previous two sets contained Production Throwback and What Could Have Been.
    • Magic has done quite a bit of this of late to create a feeling of mechanical continuity between sets with unrelated stories. The most popular tournament format, Standard, consists of cards printed in the current block, the previous two blocks, and any standalone sets released between that time. A set will often be seeded with individual cards or a sub-theme that will be expounded on in a later set or block (or tie in with the previous block) to keep the Standard environment interesting as blocks rotate in and outnote .
    • Wizards did this twice with the Eldrazi, though in different ways.
      • In the original Zendikar block, the card Eye of Ugin was printed in the Worldwake set, and has an ability that reduces the cost of colorless Eldrazi spells. The Eldrazi wouldn't make their appearance until the last set of the block, fittingly named Rise of the Eldrazi.
      • In the first set of the return block, Battle for Zendikar, the card Kozilek's Channeler was printed, which makes two colorless mana and references an Eldrazi named Kozilek. Kozilek got a new card in the next set, Kozilek, the Great Distortion which has a mana cost that requires that at least two colorless mana be spent to cast it. Exactly what the Channeler was made for.
    • And again for Amonkhet. A card called Dark Intimations referenced casting a Bolas planeswalker. No Bolas planeswalkers were permitted in standard at the time the card released (Aether Revolt). In the next block (Amonkhet), two Bolas planeswalkers were released: Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah and Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver.
    • Before either of these, the set Darksteel has a card called Shield of Kaldra. Shield of Kaldra make three specific cards indestructible: itself; Sword of Kaldra, which came out the previous set Mirrodin; ...and Helm of Kaldra, which wouldn't come out until the next set Fifth Dawn.
  • When Warhammer 40,000 released its 5th Edition in 2008, the section containing pictures and background material for its armies had very little to say about the Dark Eldar, which combined with the fact that the army's codex was a decade and two editions old led to fears that the Dark Eldar would be discontinued. But what the core rulebook did contain was a piece of artwork with drastically redesigned Dark Eldar infantry and vehicles, as well as an in-universe chart graphing Eldar pirate raids that showed a ten-year lull in activity followed by a massive spike. Sure enough, the Dark Eldar got a new codex and new models in 2010, which were regarded as some of the best in the franchise's history.
    • In a lesser form, the December 2010 issue of White Dwarf featured, as one of the contendents in a battle report, a Necron army (which back then was the other army with a dated codex, one month after Dark Eldar got their update) led by a Lord called Imotekh the Stormlord. What back then could have been just a random name given to a generic HQ unit became something more one year later, when Necrons got updated with a new Codex which included new units and named characters, such as - you guessed it - Imotekh the Stormlord.

    Theatre 
  • Final song of Black Friday features return of several characters from The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals and in final scene, as everyone await what is implied to be a nuclear missile about to hit the town, Ted can be seen embracing Charlotte and nerdy kid who ordered hot chocolate in one scene of TGWDLM. That character would later turn out to be Pete, one of protagonists of third installment of the series, Nerdy Prudes Must Die. And while it's unclear if that part was already planned then, Nightmare Time would also reveal him to be Ted's younger brother.

    Video Games 
  • In a September 2016 trailer for 20XX Tournament Edition, a Super Smash Bros. Melee quality-of-life Game Mod, there's an original chiptune song thought at the time to be composed specially for the trailer. In February of the following year, the mod's lead developer Dan Salvato said vaguely he was doing some work for a literature club. The music turned out to be one of the background tunes for Doki Doki Literature Club!, which he'd been developing the entire time.
  • In Gyakuten Kenji 2, the rival character Yumihiko Ichiyanagi/Sebastian Debeste wears a blue school uniform, and it revealed in the fourth case that his father rigged his grades to make Sebatian seem better than he actually was, much to the son's dismay. The high school Sebastian went to was Themis Legal Academy, the setting of the third case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, and sure enough, the academy is still facing corruption and forged grades even eight years later, with defense attorney Hugh O'Conner being another such victim.
  • The BioShock 2 remaster (2016) included a new Easter Egg that wasn't present in the original version. At the end of the Minerva's Den DLC, check the desk behind The Thinker's Code Printer. You can see some punch cards laying around the desk, but one punch card in particular, which wasn't included in the original 2010 release, can be seen laying against one of the desks on the floor, with the description "STATUS UPDATE: THERE'S ALWAYS A LIGHTHOUSE" written on it, as well as some punch holes disguised as Morse code. Deciphering the Morse code leads to a website with a black starred background and a header that only says "staytuned". After BioShock Infinite was included in the remastered collection, a new game started development in 2017 and was announced in 2019.
  • BlazBlue: Central Fiction has an unintentional version: Four of the game's female fighters have alternate color palettes inspired by Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, which was presumably the work of creator Toshimichi Mori, who's on the record as being a fan of RWBY. After he did an interview where he said he'd love to make a fighting game based off of the show, Rooster Teeth got in touch with Arc System Works, and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle was born.
  • In the Counter-Strike: Source rendition of cs_office, look closely at computer desktops and you'll see a Counter-Strike styled icon labeled "Shortcut to terror.exe". This would be a link to play Terror-Strike, the game that would eventually become Left 4 Dead.
  • Aside from the Sequel Hook cutscene that's unlocked after beating the game at 106%, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time includes another Easter Egg hinting at... something. Going back to the first stage after completing the game and spinning on the TV five times causes a brief image of a Wumpa Fruit surrounded by orange and blue swirls to appear for a split second after the Crash 4 logo. After the game's released, Activision teased fans with a new game titled Wumpa League, which concretized in 2023 as Crash Team Rumble.
  • In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, two mannequins on the left side of Tsumugi Shirogane's research lab feature the costumes of Sachika Hirasaka and Yuma Mashiro from the then-upcoming game Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, also by Spike Chunsoft.
  • The fifth game in the Dark Parables series, The Final Cinderella, includes a sketch of the Crooked Man and the Crooked Cat, from the nursery rhyme. Blue Tea Games later revealed on their Facebook page that this was a piece of Production Foreshadowing for their new series, Cursery, a dark take on classic nursery rhymes.
  • In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind's final expansion, Bloodmoon, there's a small fetch quest that, once completed, rewards you with a fortune telling. If you haven't yet finished Bloodmoon's main story then this fortune will pertain to its finale. If you have finished the story, however, then you will recieve a more cryptic fortune that turns out to be a primer for the plot of the next game, Oblivion:
    "When the dragon dies, the Empire dies. Where is the lost dragon's blood, the Empire's sire? And from the womb of the void, who shall stem the blood tide?"
  • Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: In a game that otherwise doesn't feature Legacy Boss Battle fights (outside of the staple elemental dragons), the surprise appearance of Iwaoropenelep as a postgame superboss serves as a tease for the Untold remake of the first game, which would be the next installment in the series.
  • Fallout 3 has a questline called "The Replicated Man", wherein a Ridiculously Human Robot has escaped from the Commonwealth and two opposing factions beseech the Lone Wanderer for aid: the "Railroad" who helped the android escape and want to protect his freedom, and his creators at the Institute who see him as their property and want him back. Fallout 4 draws heavily from this specific quest: it's set in the Boston area, the Railroad and Institute are major factions, and the existence of Synths is an important plotline that spans the entirety of the main story.
  • One reference to a future game was intended in Final Fantasy VII, but was botched by a mistranslation. In a scene where Cloud is incoherently babbling, one of his utterances is "Zeno....gias." He was actually supposed to say was "Xenogears."
  • For the third anniversary of the Five Nights at Freddy's series in 2017, Scott Cawthon released several behind-the-scenes images of the games, including a few renders of the animatronics in goofy poses. However, the images of Springtrap◊, Circus Baby◊, and Funtime Freddy◊ feature obscured parts that don't correspond to their renders... but do to their warped designsnote  in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, which was released later that year.
  • If you make your way to the attic in Fleuret Blanc, Squeaker can tell you two additional stories that are not fairytale retellings like the stories he tells in the main plot. These stories still relate to Fleuret Blanc's Central Theme of materialism, but the story about a stone that confers the power to kill with a word also contains parallels to the developer's later game Last Word.
  • Grand Theft Auto 2 has an automobile repair shop called Max Paynt, a pun on the title of Rockstar Games' future release, Max Payne.
  • Halo 3: ODST was the second-to-last Halo game Bungie made before turning over the series to 343 Industries. However, this hidden poster◊ alluded to their next big work: Destiny.
  • In a cutscene from Hitman: Blood Money, the camera briefly lingers on a copy of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, which would be much more important to the plot of Eidos' next big game in development at that time, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
  • Lands of Lore III's last world, the Shattered Desert, is for all intents and purposes an Intercontinuity Crossover with Command & Conquer, including a clearly visible first war-era Hand of Nod in the background of its opening cinematic and "Hot Beads" that can be found throughout that are all but explicitly caches of Tiberium, but it also has several references to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, which wouldn't come out for another few months - one can find a destroyed second war-era harvester and Orca, and the level's centerpiece is a Temple of Nod controlled by CABAL.
  • League of Legends: The 2018 rework of Swain added a voiceline for fighting Jinx: "Faces... fading in the flames... It was all her fault." the 2020 rework of Fiddlesticks had it growl "Jinx! It's all your fault! All your fault!" at her. Both were foreshadowing the animated series Arcane which began running in 2021 and serves as an origin story of several characters and Jinx's Start of Darkness in particular. Both Fiddlesticks and Swain are associated with corvids (crows and ravens respectively) and Arcane has a recurring motif of these birds being seen whenever Jinx's mental state takes a turn for worse. Their words seem to reference the tragic events of episode 3.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
  • In MadWorld, there's an ad for The Gates of Hell in the subway. The Gates of Hell is the bar from Bayonetta, which was still in development at the time of MadWorld's release. Also becomes Hilarious in Hindsight once you realize that while MadWorld was a Wii exclusive, the first Bayonetta was released solely on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3... only for future games in the franchise to become Nintendo exclusives.
    • In Anarchy Reigns, there is a scene where Max (the antagonist) strangles the Blacker Baron's hoe, Mathilda. Baron's response to this is, "No one said you could touch, mother fucker!" In the E3 trailer for Bayonetta 2, Bayonetta says this same line, minus the "mother fucker" part.
  • Madou Monogatari I's Mega Drive port features two new enemies, Billy Burn and Mrs. Eve, who are related to characters from another Compile series, JUMP HERO. A few months later, JUMP HERO Gaiden would release on Disc Station Vol. 11, and would feature them as prominent characters.
  • Inti Creates' Mega Man ZX Advent features the 8-bit styled bonus game Mega Man a, with graphics reminiscent of the classic NES series. Guess which game Inti Creates worked on next.
  • Metal Gear:
  • In October of 2016, Nintendo released a preview video called "First Look at Nintendo Switch". In demonstrating the versatility of the system, people were shown playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and NBA 2K17, as well as the then unannounced Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, and Splatoon 2. At the time, Nintendo claimed that while Breath of the Wild is indeed coming to Switch, the other games were just tech demos and preexisting games used to demonstrate the power of the system. Much later on, it was confirmed that yes, all of the games shown in the preview video are actual Switch games.
  • After Pac-Man Museum+ was released, players started to notice that some of Pac-Man's idle animations were taken straight from the first Pac-Man World. One month after Museum+ was released, Namco announced a remake of Pac-Man World titled Pac-Man World Re-PAC, set to be released on August 2022 on all major platforms.
  • One scene in Panzer Paladin's credits shows Grit leading four turtles through some sewers, which seemed like a cheeky reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was also preceded by a cutscene that reveals that Blaze, prior to her corruption, initially resembled April O'Neil in her '87 design. Sure enough, the next project for Tribute Games turned out to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.
  • In Paper Mario 64, reading Luigi's diary reveals that he's afraid of ghosts and that he wishes that he could be in his own game. Guess what Mario game came out a few months later?
  • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, if you talk to the gamer Toad kid in Pedalburg, he talks about playing the new Paper Mario game and how he's "on the fence" about it but that Luigi fans shouldn't miss it. Three years later, the divisive Super Paper Mario would be released on the Wii, and Luigi would play a big role in the game's plot.
  • Freeware game Pause Ahead has several words and phrases that appear on the Pause Screen. In levels where the screen mentions anagrams, one of the repeating phrases is "Ozuak", calling forward to the Strategy RPG Police Team Kazuo, which however ended up not being made.
  • In Persona 3: Portable, there's a NPC at a bar who mentions girlfriend problems and strange dreams, but tells the protagonist it's not something s/he will have to worry about now. This character is Vincent Brooks, the protagonist of the then-upcoming Atlus game Catherine.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon X and Y has an item called the Strange Souvenir - a tiki statue noted as being from a region far from Kalos, and the man it is obtained from mentions it's not from any past regions. Three years later, Pokémon Sun and Moon, games set in the Hawaiian-based Alola region, were revealed. Sure enough, the Strange Souvenir is available to buy freely in those games, indicating that that's where they come from.
    • Generation VII itself appears to allude to Pokémon Sword and Shield in some places, all within Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon:
      • There is a tourist trainer on Poni Island who asks the player if the area she is standing in looks like a power spot, then expresses disappointment that her Pokémon "didn't get infused with power" when she loses, alluding to Power Spots and the Dynamax phenomenon itself.
      • There is also an NPC in one of the ferry terminals who wonders aloud if Rotom might decide to inhabit PCs next and laughing off the notion, which is exactly what happens in Sword and Shield.
    • In Pokémon Sword and Shield, there is a hiker who is said to come from another region and can speak Spanish. Guess which game with a Spain-themed region came after Legends: Arceus?
    • In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, there is an extra book added to Canalave City library detailing a human who went to meet a sea prince with Mantyke, Buizel, and a Qwilfish with large spikes. Not only did this last oddly specific point turn out to hint at Qwilfish getting an evolutionnote  (as well as a regional form) in Pokémon Legends: Arceus two months later- the entire book is really instructions on how to find Manaphy in the later released game.
    • In the Pokémon Masters event tying into the release of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, Cynthia gets a new variant where her partner Pokemon is Giratina, whom she teamed up with to stop Cyrus. Come Legends: Arceus Cynthia's Hisuian counterpart, Volo, is revealed to be in league with Giratina, albeit in a much more sinister capacity.
  • The 3DO version of Policenauts was preceded by a supplemental database disc known as the Pilot Disk which featured information on the game's production and plot. The database disc was later ported to the PlayStation as Policenauts: Private Collection. Both versions of the disc feature a glossary of the game's terminology. If you look for the definition of FOXHOUND on the glossary, you will find early concept art for Metal Gear 3, which ultimately became Metal Gear Solid, drawn by none other than Yoji Shinkawa himself.
  • Postal 2: Paradise Lost, released in April 2015, features an errand wherein the player goes to a newly-established arcade to set up new arcade machines made by the game's developers Running With Scissors. The games in question turn out to be Postal Redux, a game which RWS later announced for real and then released about a year later.
  • The Quake II remaster includes some multiplayer tags related to games by Microsoft id Software, Bethesda and Nightdive Studios. One Nighhtdive tag in particular is from Turok. More specifically, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion instead of the first two games. Weeks after the Quake II remaster was released, Nightdive officially announced the Turok 3 remaster for a November 2023 release.
  • Ratchet & Clank's The Plumber has made a habit of doing his as he says farewell to the titular heroes, with varying degrees of accuracy due to Insomniac Games' one-entry-at-a-time strategy:
    • In Going Commando, he tells them that he'll "see them in a year or so", puzzling Clank.
    • In Up Your Arsenal, he departs saying "Well I'll be seein' ya! ...one of these days!". Coincidentally he wouldn't appear again for three years.
    • In Ratchet & Clank (2016) he left the duo with "See you in the next reboot!".
  • In The Secret of Monkey Island, one of the patrons in the SCUMM Bar is wearing a button that says "Ask me about Loom" (Lucasfilm Games' then-upcoming production), and if you talk to him, he'll launch into a sales pitch for the game.
  • The fan-made game Sonic: After the Sequel had, of all things, Kirby-based powerups for Sonic and Tails to use. More specifically, they were the powers represented by harlequin hats. Sonic Chrono Adventure then gave Sonic various powerups for close-range combat that changed his appearance and mobility options. Four years later, LakeFeperd released his own original action game, Spark the Electric Jester, which has slope physics and powerups that act much like the ones in Kirby games.
  • A Sonic the Hedgehog air freshener can be seen hanging hanging from the player's rear-view mirror in the Sega racing game Rad Mobile, which was released for the arcades two months before the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis.
  • In Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town "Ruby" from Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life returns as a visitor like she did in the original. However, she's no longer called "Ruby" (like she was in the older Natsume translated games) and is now Lou, and she's now from Forgotten Valley, not Forget-Me-Not Valley. These names were later used in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, the next game that was an Enhanced Remake, and this was a hint—subtle though it was—that character names would be changed. (However, her spouse's name is said to be Tum, which was corrected to Tei, and the inn is called the Mitemi Inn,note  which is changed to the Lei-Over Inn.)
  • In Suikoden, you can find some lore books describing the origins of the world, making special mention to a conflict between the True Sword Rune and the True Shield Rune. Said runes would appear in the next game, and the conflict between their wielders would be a focus for the story.
    • If you investigate Georg Prime in Suikoden II, it's mentioned that he was a Royal Knight in Falena, but cannot return due to the fact that he is charged with murdering the Queen. The fifth game is set in Falena, and even depicts the event in question, even showing that while he is guilty of the crime, said crime was sanctioned by the Queens' husband, and was done as a Mercy Kill to the Queen, who was being driven insane by her True Rune.
  • The trailer for the Nintendo 3DS that Nintendo used for its 2010 E3 Press Conference featured what turned out to be an early rendition of the final boss fight against Bowser from Super Mario 3D Land.
  • In Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2, Excellen Browning notices that all the Humongous Mecha produced by Isurugi Industries have names ending in -lion & makes a joke something along the lines of "Does that mean they made Go-" before being interrupted. Two years later Super Robot Wars W was released featuring GoLion's SRW debut.
    • The same game had a gag where, in response to Sanger Zonvolt naming his Super Robot after himselfnote , Ryusei Date suggests renaming the SRX "Dairyusei"; when his teammate Rai Braunstein complains, Ryusei suggests "Dairaioh" instead. A few months later, Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 was released, and one of the selectable characters' robots is named Raioh, later being upgraded into Dairaioh.
    • Super Robot Wars Original Generations, an Updated Re-release, added a couple of these in. At one point, Lemon Browning reminds Axel Almer that his rival Beowulf is far from the only person to call himself a wolf. The Mission-Pack Sequel, Original Generations Gaiden, introduces the Cry Wolves Team from Super Robot Wars MX.
    • The first Super Robot Wars Z contains a scene where the Big Bad, wearing a black costume with a full-face mask and a High Collar of Doom, remarks that some refer to the orange-haired protagonist Rand Travis as "Orange". Fans joked that this was foreshadowing for Code Geass's eventual involvement in SRW...and they were exactly right, since Geass made its debut in Z2.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
  • In the Team Fortress 2 official comic "A Smissmas Story", Balloonicorn (who would later appear in Meet the Pyro) made its first appearance as a Christmas ornament.
  • The English pub scene in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception features a newspaper with a headline about deadly fungus, which is a reference to Naughty Dog's then-upcoming The Last of Us. Although according to Word of God, it was a company in-joke that wasn't meant to be in the final version of the game, and almost ruined Naughty Dog's surprise reveal.
  • Undertale has a lot of dialogue and hidden content hinting that Sans came from somewhere he cannot return to and about a Dr. Gaster whose experiments got him shattered across time and space. As the game received updates and ports, more ominous easter eggs paved the way to the release of a demo for a new game called Deltarune, which Toby Fox had been planning long before Undertale was released.
    • In Deltarune itself, one of the shelves in the background of Seam's shop has a doll sitting atop it that resembles Yoki; a character created by Temmie Chang for her own personal projects. Two years after Deltarune's first chapter, she'd become the protagonist of her own game named Dweller's Empty Path.
  • One of the Fictional Video Games shown in Unpacking is TemPoPo, Witch Beam's upcoming game at the time of Unpacking's release.

    Webcomics 
  • Platypus Comix has two comics foreshadowing the debut of Free Spirit (2014):
    • Heroine Winnie Goodwin made a guest appearance in the Electric Wonderland comic "Into Thin Aerynn" months before Peter Paltridge officially decided to give Winnie her own webcomic.
    • The Keiki story "Haole Berry" has a scene where Beefer throws rocks at three of the main characters: Winnie, Gene Harper, and Gene's older sister Jessie. He admits to Keiki that he doesn't know who any of them are, but has an inexplicable hatred for them.note 

    Web Video 
  • DEATH BATTLE!:
    • In opening of battle animation for Batgirl vs Spider-Gwen, Batgirl can be seen arguing online with commenter hoping to see a Death Battle between The Incredible Hulk and Broly. Hulk vs Broly was finale of that very season.
    • During Discord vs Bill Cipher, there is a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of Doctor Whooves, MLP's Expy of the Doctor in a brawl with Rick Sanchez. Four episodes later, Death Battle would have Rick fight the Doctor.
  • In Season 3, Episode 2 of Economy Watch, creator David Johnson's feature debut, Frontier's Border, is referenced on a receipt. "Credit Cards" released on January 17, 2023, and Frontier's Border is set to release on November 17, 2023. David has always been fascinated with this trope.
    • On the topic of Economy Watch, David is seen wearing a Washington D.C. T-shirt in Season 2, Episode 5, the Halloween special. The following episode has him visit Washington, and the episode begins where the Halloween special ended.
  • A cross-series example; during Stampy's guest appearance in Feather Adventures Episode 309, "Forest Fight!!!", he discovered a mechanism involving gates which allows players to 'swim' on land, and confirms in the episode that he had a stroke of inspiration. He eventually utilizes this in the Lovely World in the form of the minigame 'Ground Control'. Sqaishey even lampshades this in the episode.note 
    Sqaishey: Oh, is this the start of Stampy coming up with a new minigame? I feel that it is. I-I need your help on it if you wanna make it in Feather Adventures.
    Stampy: (enthusiastically crouching and uncrouching in affirmation)
    Sqaishey: (half-laughing) Yes, definitely, he's definitely thinking [up] something.

    Western Animation 
  • The Pound Puppies (2010) episode "Lucky Gets Adopted" uses the instrumental version of "Love Is In Bloom", a song that would appear a few months later in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "A Canterlot Wedding". The two shows shared the same composer, who may have done it as an in-joke due to both episodes being Season Finales.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Mayored to the Mob", Uter is seen wearing a Futurama t-shirt three months before Futurama actually premiered.
    • While on the subject of Futurama, in "Treehouse of Horror IX", David S. Cohen is credited as "David 'Watch Futurama' Cohen", which was five months away from premiering at the time of the episode's original broadcast.
    • In "Treehouse of Horror XVII", producer Al Jean is credited as "Al 'July 27, 2007' Jean", referring to the release date of The Simpsons Movie, which was in production at the time.
  • The Barney Bear short Barney's Hungry Cousin had Barney going to picnic at Jellystone Park, five years before it became the residence of Yogi Bear (Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were directors at MGM during that time).
  • The centenary short Once Upon a Studio which celebrates a 100 years of Disney animation, features Asha, the protagonist of Wish (2023) the next upcoming Disney animated film, which said short was supposed to air before.
  • The VeggieTales episode "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?" has a line in the song "Oh, No! What We Gonna Do?" where it's suggested that Daniel should be eaten by a whale. Big Idea would adapt the bible story this was a reference to in 2002.

 
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Cancelation of Gigantic

Due to the cancelation of Disney's Gigantic, that easter egg in Zootopia, foreshadowing the release of the movie, now makes no sense.

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Cancelation of Gigantic

Due to the cancelation of Disney's Gigantic, that easter egg in Zootopia, foreshadowing the release of the movie, now makes no sense.

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