Missing Mom / Video Games

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• Ashley's mom in Another Code disappeared ten years prior to the game's start and it's only until 2/3s of the way into the game that she finds out what happened to her. She wound up getting murdered.
• Both played straight and inverted in Chrono Trigger: Marle's mom died when she was young. But Crono has a missing dad and nothing is mentioned of him. Both of Lucca's parents are alive.
• Cyberpunk 2077: Judy Alvarez's mom died when she was very young. She admits that when she looks at her photo, she sees a stranger.
• Both of the heroes in Dark Chronicle have missing moms. Max has a major subplot about finding his mother. Monica's is simply never mentioned. Max does eventually find his mom, but since she came from another time period, she cannot stay with him and her husband Gerald.
• Leah's mother Adria in Diablo III is mentioned to have died when Leah was very young, only for her to turn up alive in Act II hell-bent on getting her hands on the Black Soulstone and trapping the last two Lords of Hell in it. Unfortunately, the truth about Adria is much more horrible than Leah could ever imagine — she had Leah with the Dark Wanderer for the sole purpose of using her as a vessel to bring about her master Diablo's rebirth as the Prime Evil, which she does in by far the cruelest betrayal in the entire series.
• In Detroit: Become Human, the mother of Hank's child is never acknowledged, save for a sticker on Hank's desk that implied she was emotionally distant.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest IV: It's implied that one of the Zenithian angels that the party meets in the sky-castle (not Orifiela, as is often theorized) is the Hero's disappeared mom, though neither of them actually puts two and two together.
  • Dragon Quest V: When the history begins, the player character and his father have spent years searching for Mada, the protagonist's mother. Later, it is the hero's kids who spend eight years searching for their parents.
• Dream Daddy:
  • Carmensita's mother Rosa died when the former was young, before her dream coffee shop was opened. Mat runs the Coffee Spoon in her legacy, but her death made him lose his passion for music and develop stage fright.
  • Subverted with Craig's ex-wife Ashley. Even though she doesn't appear in game, Craig explicitly states that the two of them have joint custody of their three daughters. On the MC's third date with Craig, he leaves the girls with their mother for the weekend.
• Edna, the main character of Edna & Harvey: The Breakout doesn’t seem to have a mother, a fact that is important to the plot but never brought up or explained.
• Fallout 3 has them in spades:
  • The Player, Harden Simms, Amata, Angela Staley, Sarah Lyons, Brian Wilks, Sydney, Derek Pacion
  • The Player's situation is particularly interesting in that his/her mother suffered Death by Childbirth...and is never seen. (A nice trick that allows you to make your character look however you want even if they don't match the Caucasian dad: they take after their mother.)
• Final Fantasy:
  • Every single Final Fantasy playable character that somehow manages to retain one parent for the whole game always, without fail, retains the father, which means that every character in the series suffers from this if they don't fall under the broader Parental Abandonment and/or Deceased Parents Are the Best. Perhaps hardest hit is Garnet of Final Fantasy IX, who turns out to be an orphan, gets adopted, and sees her adopted mother die in front of her, thus missing twice as many moms as most Final Fantasy characters.
  • Tifa of Final Fantasy VII also has this issue. Her mother died when she was very young. So depressed she was that Tifa went on a dangerous trek to Mt. Nibel (with Cloud accompanying her) in the hopes that she would see her mother again. It didn't work.
    • Additionally, Aerith and her mother Ifalna were experimented on for years, and Ifalna was so physically weakened that when the two managed to escape, Ifalna collapsed and barely managed to entrust her to Elmyra before dying.
    • Cloud also counts after the Nibelheim Incident, He lost his mother to Sephiroth.
  • Final Fantasy X has this one is spades.
    • Rikku's mother is never mentioned outside of one unlockable scene, where it is revealed that she was killed years ago by a rampaging machina.
    • Seymour Guado, the game's Dragon (or at least The Dragon's Dragon), is parentless, and not entirely by accident. The death of his mother serves as his Freudian Excuse.
    • Tidus, lost both his parents in one swoop. When he was a child, his father became one of the disappeared variety, which caused his mother to die of grief. For years afterward he never forgave his father for it.
    • Yuna's situation is similar, if reversed. Her mother was killed by the Big Bad's monster suit, which prompted her father to go on a suicidal mission to destroy it, and thus make the world a better place for his daughter. This greatly influences Yuna, who follows in his footsteps.
  • Final Fantasy XII has zero maternal figure whatsoever:
    • Vaan lost his parents to a plague, while Penelo's parents died during the Archadian conquest of Dalmasca.
    • Ashe's father, King Raminas, is briefly seen in the prologue before his unceremonious assassination, but her mother is never seen or mentioned. Ditto with Larsa, whose father, Emperor Gramis, plays a minor role before his assassination, while his mother is not mentioned at all.
    • Balthier's mother is implied to have died when when he was a baby. A sketch in the epilogue shows baby Balthier being carried by Doctor Cid, with no maternal figure present.
    • Fran's parents are never discussed. She did leave Eruyt Village fifty years ago, so they may have died.
    • Inverted with Basch, who abandoned his mother when Archadia conquered Landis, something that his brother, Gabranth, never forgave him for.
  • Final Fantasy XIII:
    • Lightning (and by extension, her sister Serah) lost their parents, causing Lightning to be promoted to the matriarch of the family. She also later fills in as Hope's surrogate mother; while she initially sees him as a burden, she eventually comes to care for him.
    • Sazh lost his wife at some point before the story, leaving him to care for their son, Dajh, and in return leaving him without a mom.
    • Hope's mom dies during the riot at the Hanging Edge, and his entire motive throughout the story is to take out vengeance for her death against Snow of all people, the man who fought alongside her and attempted to save her life, while she willingly joined the fight ^note though to be fair, he does admit later on that he only chose to blame Snow and take revenge against him so that he would have a reason to want to keep living. He then comes to see the rest of his party as his new family.
    • Perhaps most significant, though, is the plot of the fal'Cie, and their ringleader Barthandelus, which is to bring back the Maker to their world so that she can hit the Reset Button after the fal'Cie and humans screwed the world up so much; more so, however, they want to be reunited with her, since after everything was fine and dandy after creation, she left without a word, leaving the stability of Cocoon in the hands of the fal'Cie Orphan. In other words, they want their mommy back.
• Almost all main characters in the Fire Emblem series have mothers dead or unmentioned but fathers extant -0 e.g. Roy, Eirika and Ephraim, Ike, and so forth. (To be fair, their fathers don't languish long, either.)
  • Several cases happen in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.
    • Genealogy of the Holy War Gen 1: The wives of the bad guys aren't seen, and a good part of Lord Arvis's backstory is centered around his mother Cigyun, who left him after his dad Viktor was Spurned into Suicide...and succumbed to Death by Childbirth while giving birth to her daughter with Prince Kurth, Deirdre. And to make things worse, Deirdre becomes a Missing Mom to Seliph when she's Brainwashed and Crazy into marrying Arvis himself; Ethlyn is killed in the Yied Massacre alongside her husband Quan; and Ares's mother Grahnye dies in the brutal occupation of Lester.
    • Genealogy of the Holy War Gen 2: If the girls from Gen 1 got married and had kids, almost all of them except for Edain become Missing Moms. Ayra disappears after Belhalla and it's not clear if she still lives or not, though the Oosawa manga says she did kick the bucket; Erinys is crowned as the Queen of Silesse since Lewyn is gone and his mother Rahna is dead, but dies of illness shortly before Gen 2 kicks off; Tailtiu is pretty much taken hostage by her family alongside Tine and so abused by her sister-in-law that she falls victim to Death by Despair (and if she isn't married, her sister Ethnia follows the same role to her kids); Silvia leaves her kids in an orphanage and disappears; Lachesis is at first by Nanna's side, but later she disappears in the Yied Desert when trying to visit her son Diarmuid, though she's implied to be still alive; and finally Brigid is rendered amnesiac and lost after Belhalla, reappearing in Thracia as the still amnesiac Eyvel. As a corollary, Deirdre is revealed to have been killed...by her own son Julius, possessed by the god Loptous.
    • Thracia 776: Aside from Leif and Nanna's mothers, there's Mareeta's mother, who fell to Death by Childbirth; Misha's mom Deet'var, who was an enemy slain by Sigurd's troops; Sara's mother, who died of grief some time after Sara's birth since Manfroy killed her husband in front of her; Saias's mother Liza, once a Magic Knight at the service of Saias's father aka the aforementioned Arvis, who died protecting him from the Loptr Church; and, ultimately, Karin's conversation with Ced alludes to Queen Ferry's recent death.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, the absence of the mothers of Roy and Lilina gets around having to decide upon a canon pairing for either Roy's father Eliwood or Lilina's father Hector in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (Lyn for both of them, Ninian or Fiora for Roy, and Florina or Farina for Lilina).
  • Eliwood from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade has the distinction of being the first Fire Emblem lord whose mother, Eleanora, is alive, well, and visible. But in exchange, it's his father who dies. Still a better deal than most lords get.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, the death of Joshua's mother is an important plot point in Eirika's path. She is Ismaire, the Queen of Jehanna, who is murdered by General Caellach when she tries to keep him from shattering the Stone of Jehanna.
  • In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Ike and Mist's mother Elena actually has plot significance, including her death. She died while trying to recover Lehran's Medallion from her husband Greil, as the relic turned him into a mindless berserker that slaughtered everything that crossed his path. Elena was one of the few persons able to wield said Medallion without going nuts, but when she tried to get it from Greil, she died. By the time he learns of this, his father was already dead as well.
  • In Awakening, all the first generation female characters who had children become missing mothers in the Bad Future (except Lissa, who is mentioned to still be around in Owain's paralogue). And there is also the Avatar's own mother, who ran away with him/her to protect her child from the Grimleal sect, but what happened to her afterwards isn't clear.
  • In Fates, many characters have missing moms. To be specific, the Avatar's mother Mikoto was seen as the ruling Queen of Hoshido but died protecting him/her as early as Chapter 5, causing his/her draconic powers to awaken. It's later revealed that the rest of the Hoshido siblings are born from the previous Queen, making the Avatar Mikoto's only child, though she was their Parental Substitute and mother figure. In the case of the Nohr siblings, they each have separate mothers who died fighting over Garon (save for Xander's mother Queen Katerina, who died when he was a little boy), making them half-siblings. Azura's own mother, Lady Arete, became Garon's second Queen but died defending the kingdom and was resurrected to serve Anankos in the third route.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
    • Byleth's mother Sitri is mentioned to have died in childbirth. Her backstory is the big revelation of the Silver Snow route, and she factors heavily in the Big Bad of the Cindered Shadows expansion's motives.
    • Dimitri's biological mother died of a plague shortly after he was born. His stepmother Patricia, who is also Edelgard's biological mother, was killed in the Tragedy of Duscur four years prior to the start of the game as far as they know. In actuality, they Never Found the Body, but her ultimate fate is left unexplained.
    • Notably averted by Claude, whose mother is alive offscreen.
• In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, protagonist Matthew's mother, Jenna, is nowhere to be found. Particularly notable because she was one of the protagonists of the previous game in the series.
  • She is at least said to be in a city that the player doesn't visit. Tyrell and Karis' mothers aren't even named.
    • Karis however does make references to her parents in the plural sense, so her mother is at least implied to be present in her life even if the player doesn't know who she is.
• In the Half-Life series, Alyx Vance's mother, Azian, died during the Black Mesa Incident, and she was raised by her father, Eli. Eli was clearly devastated by his wife's death, and has a picture of her in whatever space is currently serving as his office. Alyx was very young when Azian died, but she still gets indignant when Big Bad Dr. Breen mentions her.
• The Halloween Hack: Jeff's mom is shown in Magicant and is seen leaving Prof. Andonuts in a flashback, explaining why she's not seen in Earthbound.
• Apparently, if you're going to be a mom in the Jak and Daxter series, you will at some point in your child's youth drop completely out of their life, probably through death, and will only be mentioned once in a while.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, Tammy's mother, Lavendula, and Tang and Dys's mom, Besk, died before the events of the game.
• King's Heir: Rise to the Throne: Aside from being mentioned in backstory, the Ulmer matriarch is never mentioned. Neither of the brothers try to go to her, and Randall only mentions their father being able to help them, not mom, so it's unclear if she's alive, dead, or just left.
• Kingdom Hearts is big on Invisible Parents / Parental Abandonment in general. Sora's mother gets a line from offscreen in the first game, and Riku mentions his to confirm that he'll risk never seeing them again if it means finding other worlds. Kairi is a true orphan, given that her home world was ruined and she ended up living with the mayor of Destiny Islands. It's quite likely The Heartless, Maleficent or Xehanort killed her parents (and grandmother) when they attacked Radiant Garden.
• It's never stated what happened to Sarah's mom in The Last of Us but Joel begins the game as a Struggling Single Father. All he tells Ellie is that he and Sarah's mom weren't married for long and implies that Sarah was the product of a Teenage Pregnancy.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Princess Zelda fits the trope, as she is never seen as having a mother. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time gave her a father, and she usually has a mother figure in the form of her nursemaid/protector Impa, but never a mother.
  • Link is almost never shown as having any parents at all (though he occasionally has other relatives). While Link's parents are never shown, the Great Deku Tree mentions in Ocarina of Time that Link was left in Kokiri forest by his mother as she tried to escape a war that ended before the game's beginning. She promptly dies after leaving Link in the GDT's care. Link also has a younger sister in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Unless she is biologically unrelated, this would imply that WW Link must have known his parents for a short while in his childhood, despite their later absence.
  • Zelda's (or rather, Tetra's) deceased mother is seen as a portrait in Wind Waker (but you can only access the room containing this portrait once, so most people miss it). She looks similar to the Zelda from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, except for donning a very short hair-cut and even darker hair.
  • This trope runs rampant in the N64 games especially. In Ocarina of Time, besides Link and Zelda, Malon and Ruto both have fathers but no mothers. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask continues the "present father absent mother" trend with the Deku princess, the baby Goron, and Pamela (from the Music Box House). This tendency's inverted with Anju: she lives and works with her mother and grandmother, but her father disappeared years before. Cremia and Romani are orphans who have to fend for themselves.
    • The baby Goron may be justified as the Gorons seem to be a One-Gender Race.
    • If you have Link talk to Talon while wearing the Gerudo mask, he'll comment that the mask resembles Malon's mother. Given that a Gossip stone says that the Gerudo warriors go elsewhere to find boyfriends (presumably for getting pregnant to carry on their civilization), fans hold the idea that Malon's mother was a Gerudo. Though if that's the case, it does raise the question of why Malon was left with her dad, instead of taken to the Gerudo Valley.
  • This plays into the plot, albeit in a very minor way, in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In Zelda's journal in Hyrule Castle, one of the entries talks about her mother, who suddenly passed away when she was a very young girl. This deprived Zelda of not only her parent, but her teacher, as the queen was able to use the royal blood's divine power and was to instruct Zelda how to awaken it. In a way, her death is one of the biggest reasons that Zelda failed to awaken it in time and it lead to the destruction of the world.
• LISA: One of the largest factors that caused the the estranged Armstrong Family to become the way that they are was the fact that there was no matriarch for the protagonists, as Lisa and Brad's mother died under mysterious circumstances while the children were still young. This occurs again later in the story, as Brad never had a wife, which leads to Buddy having no mother figure either, and that isn't considering the fact that Mrs. Yado, Buddy's biological-mother, was murdered by Dr. Yado himself. Sticky, one of Brad's friends, also makes several references to his father, but never makes any mention of a mother.
• In Love & Pies, Amelia's grandmother, who is Freya and Sven's mother (and by extension, Esme's sister and Kate's great-grandmother), is long dead before the events of the game.
• LunarLux: The introductory cutscene has Bella speaking to her late mother while standing in front of a tall tombstone. It turns out her mother discovered Saros's Murk experiments and tried to shut them down, but Saros trapped her in the Phantom Realm. In order to survive, she had to take the Murk Serum and transform into the boss Murk, Chronos. She's reduced to her anticore form after protecting Bella from a bunch of Moleculoids, but temporarily regains her Murk form to save Bella again in the ending.
• Sonia from Mega Man Star Force lost her mom due to a disease and becomes a famous celebrity to cope with her mom's death.
• Miasma Chronicles: When Elvis was very young, his mother left him the care of Diggs, and went through the Miasma barrier surrounding the town. She left a message that when Elvis could break through the barrier, she would tell him who he really was.
• In Mother 3, Hinawa, Lucas's mother, is found dead midway through the first chapter with a Drago fang through her heart. The rest of the game following this point chronicles Lucas's adolescence as he tries to come to terms with the loss of his Mother and move on from his grief over her death. Regarding other characters, Duster's mother is never mentioned by anyone, not even his father Wess, and Kumatora is an orphan raised by the Magypsies.
• Nintendo Wars: In Advance Wars, Sonja's mother is implied to have died before the events of the first game based on what Sonja and her father Kanbei say about he, and none of the other COs (save Sasha and Colin) mention their parents. Also, Sonja and her father Kanbei are the only COs with a parent/child relationship.
• In Overlord II, Rose left the Witch-boy in Nordburg in order to help Florian Greenheart establish his Empire from behind the scenes, believing that the latter will at least bring some semblance order to the world. She attempted to drive her son away from evil initially from behind the scenes, but by the end accepts him as Necessarily Evil. Overall she doesn't show much love to her son, but she does have one motherly act near the end: After defeating Florian and exploding him into ooze all over, she orders him to clean it all up himself.
• Aya's mother in Parasite Eve is stated to have died in a car accident when Aya was a child. Aya's mother is only used as character backstory. Likewise, Ben's mother, Lorraine (who is also Daniel's ex-wife) is mentioned, but never seen. She, along with the rest of the people in Central Park, get turned into goo and mesh as one huge blob monster controlled by Eve.
• In a variation, Sagani, your boreal dwarf party member in Pillars of Eternity, is the Missing Mom to her three children. It's part of her people's traditions that the women are the hunters, and so those women that have had children draw straws to go looking for the reincarnations of their village elders. Sagani drew the short straw, has now been away from home on her quest for five years, and complains that her youngest probably won't even know her by the time she gets home.
• Pokémon:
  • The Johto rival, Silver, is the son of Giovanni but he never makes mention of his mother.
  • N's father is Ghetsis but his mother is never seen. It turns out he's adopted.
  • In Pokemon Violet, Arven's mom walked out on her son just after his birth, leaving his dad to raise Arven by himself. In Pokémon Scarlet, it's revealed that she died when she tried to protect the weaker friendlier Koraidon from its more aggressive counterpart who admitted unintentionally killed her. Her AI replacement made to resemble her shortly before her untimely death then leaves to go back to the past, which hurts Arven emotionally as he had to watch his mom leave his life twice.
• In Potion Permit, Bubble's deceased mother was her inspiration in caring for the environment.
• Psychonauts: Sasha Nein's mother died when he was still a baby. Being a psychic he thought it would be a good idea to read his father's mind to find out what his mother was like. Child-traumatizing ensued.
• Aside from the eponymous protagonist of Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army, whose past has no details (probably on purpose), Kaya Daidouji, the game's Damsel in Distress has an established (though offscreen and dying) father and an uncle, but no mention of her mother is ever made.
• A major element of Röki's story is that Tove and Lars' mother died when the latter was still a baby. The impact of her passing on the family is very evident throughout the first chapter, with Tove being Promoted to Parent for Lars as their father Henrik struggles with grief.
• Roots of Insanity: It's stated in a text that's viewable in a loading screen that Dr. Riley's mother died of a brain tumor in 2004.
• Bella Goth of The Sims franchise was revealed to have gone missing in The Sims 2 during an alien abduction shortly after the birth of her second child, Alexander.
• Soul Series:
  • Xianghua's mother, who taught her how to fight, died sometime before Soulcalibur began. This equally applies to her twin sister, Xianglian, except Xianglian was sent away to a monastery when she was a baby, so she already grew up without a mother to begin with.
  • Sophitia Alexandra becomes this trope for her children Patroklos and Pyrrha after Soulcalibur IV. Their interpretation differed as well, Patroklos thinks Sophitia is dead, while Pyrrha thinks she's just missing.
  • The artbook for Soulcalibur V reveals that Xiba is the illegitimate son of Xianghua and Kilik. He was sent away to live with Xianghua's father, who never made it known to Xiba that he is actually his grandfather and Xianghua and Kilik are his parents.
• Star Fox: While Fox McCloud's father James figures heavily in the backstory of the games, there's never any mention of Fox's mother. However, she appears in the early '90s Nintendo Power comics published to promote the first game. In these comics, her name is Vixy. Andross had a Villainous Crush on her, only to accidentally kill her with a car bomb intended for James.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Throughout Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser Jr. went after Mario under the belief that Princess Peach is his mother. At the end of the game, Bowser tries to tell his son something about Princess Peach, but Junior beats him to the punch: "I know, she's not really my mama." He then drops the issue and focuses on his desire to fight Mario again.
  • In Super Mario Galaxy we find out that Rosalina's mother is dead in Chapter 7 of the storybook.
• In Sword of Rapier, players learn that two of the supporting characters, Denise and Ares, where orphaned when they were little but were Happily Adopted by a woman who raised them, for the the adoptive mother to mysteriously disappear a few years afterwards.
• Jeera and Zariah from Tak and the Power of Juju just only lived with their Fat Bastard of a father.
• Lloyd Irving of Tales of Symphonia's mother was turned into a monster and died long ago, killed by Kratos, who turns out to be Lloyd's birth father. It was because of the aforementioned "turned into a monster" thing, a mercy killing/protecting Lloyd from the rampaging monster.
• Tekken:
  • Jun Kazama, mother of Jin Kazama. She held Ogre back from assaulting his son and then vanished, causing Jin to think that Ogre murdered her. Word of God, however, say that she's gone missing instead of officially dead. In story canon, Jin's father Kazuya Mishima returned, but Jun took up until Tekken 8 (4 mainline games after Kazuya's return) for her return. Beforehand, her only appearances are the non-canon Tekken Tag Tournament games.
  • Kazumi Mishima, wife of Heihachi and mother of Kazuya. Until Tekken 7, she is never seen or mentioned, barring the non-canon Tekken: The Motion Picture, where it is implied that she died when Kazuya was a baby. 7 confirms that Kazumi was sent by her family, the Hachijo, to assassinate Heihachi, and he was forced to kill her in self-defense.
  • Nina Williams is revealed to be the biological mother of Steve Fox in their endings in Tekken 4. Considering that she woke up from cryosleep two years before they finally meet, she was obviously never around in his early life, and the endings imply that she wants to keep it that way.
  • Leo Kliesen's mother, Emma, was murdered by Kazuya's goons, and she enters the King of Iron Fist Tournament to avenge her.
• In Thimbleweed Park, Delores's mother is never seen or mentioned, and Chuck brings this up at one point. It's later revealed that she in fact has no mother, and the fact that no one thinks about this is evidence that their world is actually a computer simulation.
• Amelia Croft in the Tomb Raider: Legend arc. At the end of Underworld, Lara finds that her mom is now a zombie. And her dad was disappeared/killed by the Big Bad.
• World of Mana 2, the hero has a Missing Mom and a Disappeared Dad. She become a tree and die short after meeting the hero and his dad was dead already.
• The absence of Fei Fong Wong's mother in Xenogears has a significant impact on his current state, especially as she was absent long before she died due to being possessed by an entity that inflicted horrifying torture on him as a boy leading him to develop multiple personality disorder. Learning of her final act - wresting control over her own body to save his life by sacrificing hers - goes some way to healing his disorder.
• Yes, Your Grace: One possible route can result in Death by Childbirth for Aurelea, resulting in her youngest child growing up without a mother.
• Mothers really don't fare well in Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na. Tatsuya and Feena lost their mothers before the events of the game (at around the same time, no less), and Jin and Natsuki's mother is off training somewhere during the events of the game.

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