No Celebrities Were Harmed / Video Games

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• In Aion, characters Ascend from being ordinary 'humans', becoming Daeva; in the main city for each race, players will find NPCs labeled as "Daeva of ..." for various things — Intuition, Song, etc. One of the two Asmodai Daevas of Cooking is named 'Batali'.
• In the fantasy game Alundra, there is a character named Jaylen who resembles Jay Leno and has a similar taste in cars.
• Angry Birds Stella Pop has Shakira on it. No really. Sure, it's a bird, but it's still Shakira.
• Robert Garcia from Art of Fighting is based on Steven Seagal in his prime, while King was modeled after Dutch Muay Thai fighter Saskia Van Rijswijk (with a bit of Grace Jones thrown in conceptually as well). Robert's redesign in XIV seems to be inspired by Orlando Bloom during his Pirates of the Caribbean days.
• Chuck Downfield, the annoying announcer of Backyard Football, was definitely based off of John Madden.
  • The Webber twins are arguably modeled after Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Although they also have quite a few similarities to Venus and Serena Williams, which is more emphasized in later games.
• Bad Dudes has the titular Dudes rescue "President Ronnie" from Ninja. The NES port referred to him as simply "the President" and updated his sprite to resemble George H. W. Bush.
• The fighting game Battle K-Road is a rather blatant example, featuring Wolf alongside T-8P (who also has a Head Swap in the form of D-9P).
• Quite a few male characters in video games resemble David Bowie, including Raziel from the Legacy of Kain games, and even the Pokémon Zangoose, which has an Aladdin Sane lightning bolt-esque design on one side of its face.
  • Emperor Mateus Palmecia from Final Fantasy II GREATLY resembles Bowie's character Jareth from Labyrinth. His English voice actor evidently picked up on this, as his performance is very similar to Bowie's. Plus, there's the fact that his gameplay in Dissidia is based entirely around setting up traps.
  • If Raphael from Soulcalibur II and III doesn't look like David Bowie, I don't know who the hell does (Mr. Bowie excluded). It's been way toned down in SCIV, though, in part because Raphael is now much buffer.
• Blush Blush has the streamer Ichiban, who strongly resembles Markiplier. He references Mark's catchphrases and some of his past videos. Mark made a video where he jokingly played through the game to see how far the similarities went.
• SNK's 3D realistic fighting game Buriki One has a number of characters based on famous fighters from almost all disciplines such as MMA (Gai Tendo), Judo (Jacques Ducalis), Greco-Roman wrestling (Ivan Sokolov) and Professional Wrestling (Patrick Van Heyting.)
• The main plot of Cake Mania 5: Lights, Camera, Action! is famous director "Michel Bey" directing an extremely... confusing adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
• In the Call of Cthulhu Adventure Game Shadow of the Comet, many of the character portraits are based on famous folks such as Vincent Price, Jack Nicholson, Tor Johnson, Sean Connery, and even H.P. Lovecraft.
• In the first Caravaneer game, Oswald Raff's similarity with Silvio Berlusconi might be a coincidence.
  • Jorge Arbusto^note "George Bush" in Spanish is a recruitable mercenary in the first game who resembles George W. Bush.
  • In the sequel, Fiston Diputtan, president of the Federation, definitely is not Putin. Neither is the wealthy slaver Dolland Truffle related to anyone in real life with a similar name.
  • Chunk Nariz has a relatively large religion formed around his memetic persona.
  • You can escort a Noam Chomsky in the sequel if you convince Samantha Stone to visit Tifk.
• The original NES Castlevania end credits: Trans Fishers (Terrence Fisher), Vram Stoker (Bram Stoker), James Banana (James Bama), Christopher Bee (Christopher Lee), Belo Lugosi (Bela Lugosi), Boris Karloffice (Boris Karloff), Love Chaney Jr. (Lon Chaney Jr.), Barber Sherry (Barbara Shelly), Love Chaney (Lon Chaney), Mix Schrecks (Max Shrek), Green Stranger (Glenn Strange), Cafebar Read (Oliver Reed), Andre Moral (André Morell), Jone Candies (John Carradine), and the hero, credited as Simon Belmondo (Jean-Paul Belmondo), the literal romanization of the Japanese spelling, instead of the Anglicized spelling of "Simon Belmont" used in the manual.^Explanation"Simon Belmondo" ("see-MOAN Bel-moan-do") is a French name based on the aforementioned Jean-Paul Belmondo, hence the Japanese spelling of "Shimon Berumondo".
• Clarence's Big Chance: Clarence totally isn't pre-transition Chris Chandler. Not at all.
• Jennifer Simpson from Clock Tower was modeled after Jennifer Connelly, who also starred in the Dario Argento movie (Phenomena) that inspired the game.
• The Closer: Game of the Year Edition:
  • The incident the title character suffers in the beginning is inspired by the story of how Brad Lidge, a modestly successful MLB player who was playing for the Houston Astros in 2005, suffered a humiliating gaffe against St. Louis Cardinals power hitter Albert Pujols in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Pujols himself is referenced wholesale by the Big Bad Carlos Rodriguez, from his team and batting role right down to his nickname "The Machine". That said, the in-game incident carried heavier baggage than the one in real life; the game's version happened in Game 6 of the World Series, and the New York Yankees were unable to undo the damage the Closer's mistake did the way the Astros could for Lidge's.
  • Another player character, Zizek, is based on the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. That pretty much explains his character as a philosopher defiant against societal norms.
• Coffee Talk:
  • According to her Tomodachill profile, Freya's favorite author is Geil Naiman.
  • In Episode 2, one of Lucas's status updates is him asking if "@mloydfayweather", the game's equivalent of Floyd Mayweather Jr., is available for a boxing match. It's also a reference to Logan Paul's match against the latter in 2021.
• Bill and Lance in the original Contra were blatantly based on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. The backstory of Shattered Soldier echoes Demolition Man (which itself featured Stallone). Bill is accused of murdering his partner and causing "calamity on a global scale" with a superweapon, and is sentenced to Human Popsicle prison, but is temporarily thawed to take down his old partner turned nemesis since he is the only one powerful enough for the task.
• The Radical Entertainment games in the Crash Bandicoot series does this a lot: Crunch Bandicoot is Mr. T, Doctor N. Gin is Peter Lorre (although it can be argued he was based on Lorre to begin with), Tiny Tiger is Mike Tyson, the Ratnicians are an army of Jerry Lewises, Chick Gizzard Lips is Howard Cosell, and some of the Park Drones consist of Andrew Dice Clay, Boris Karloff, W.C. Fields, and Charlton Heston.
• Crime City is an arcade buddy-cop themed Run-and-Gun game with the player 1 Cowboy Cop, Tony Gibson, being blatantly based on Mel Gibson, specifically the Martin Riggs character from Lethal Weapon. They even share a surname!
• In The Darkside Detective, one of the city's notorious former inhabitants was the mobster Al Caphoney, who got away with many years of organized crime only for tacks evasion^note (he swerved in the road to avoid a sharp object, and was arrested for dangerous driving) to be his downfall. McQueen pauses in the middle of explaining all this to claim that any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
• John Morgan of Dead Island: Riptide. Let's see, Australian soldier? Check. Hand to hand expert? Check. Uses Wolverine Claws? Check. Definitely that lawyer from Blue Heelers.
• Dead or Alive
  • Bass Armstrong looks like Scott Steiner but is modeled after Stan "The Lariat" Hansen (as was "Macho" Mike Haggar from Final Fight and Saturday Night Slam Masters; in fact, many Japanese-made wrestling game main characters that people confused for Hogan analogues were actually based off of Hansen) and made to look like Hulk Hogan (mostly the nWo version). This makes things even MORE confusing when Bass's daughter Tina ends up resembling Hogan's (decidedly NON-wrestling) daughter Brooke. Given that Brooke was 8 the year the first game came out it's safe to assume Tina was not based on her. Oh, and he is also played by Kevin Nash in the movie.
  • Zack is clearly based on Dennis Rodman, who even voiced him in the beach volleyball spinoff game.
• In Delicious 9: Emily's Honeymoon Cruise famous singer (and total Jerkass) "John Tones" comes to perform on the ship.
• The main character of Destroy All Humans! is an alien who talks like Jack Nicholson. In the third game, an actual parody of Nicholson appears, with Crypto complaining how annoying his voice is.
• Lazarus, a foul-mouthed, boisterous radio host in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that deals with conspiracy theories, and serves as a Greek Chorus of sorts along with Eliza, is inspired mostly by Alex Jones, but by other personalities, such as Jim Rome and a fictional radio host from the movie Eight-Legged Freaks.
• Flynn, the protagonist of forgettable first-person-shooter Devastation, looks much like Eminem.
• Dm C Devil May Cry features the "Raptor News Network" and Bob Barbas, parodies of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly.
• The Big Bad in Doom³ bears a striking resemblance (both physically and in voice) to Sir Anthony Hopkins. In particular, to Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter...
• The DS remakes of the Dragon Quest games featured new character artwork. Alena, rechristened a "Tsarevna" (Russian princess), and coming from a Fantasy Counterpart Culture Russia, bears a striking resemblance to Tsarevna Anastasia Romanov. Considering what happens to her father's kingdom, it's rather appropriate.
• The classic Sega 3D beat-em-up games Dynamite Cop features a protagonist, Bruno Dillinger, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Bruce Willis. Such that when the first Dynamite Cop was localized in the west, the game's name was changed to Die Hard Arcade, and Bruno was renamed "John McClane". When Bruno appeared in Project × Zone, they completed the look by having him voiced by Ben Hiura, who does the Japanese dub voice for Willis' film appearances.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Ulfric Stormcloak shares a lot of similarities to Robert the Bruce. Just as Ulfric shouted High King Torygg apart to kickstart his rebellion against the Empire, Bruce stabbed John III Comyn on holy ground — Comyn was a Scottish baron and political rival of Bruce with ties to the English, and at the time the killing was a highly controversial move. Fleeing the authorities as an outlaw, Bruce was crowned the first king of Scotland and then led armies to war against England, winning independence in 1328.
• Are you sure that Elite Beat Agents didn't name its muscular baseball hero "Hulk Bryman" to avoid a lawsuit from Barry Bonds?
  Hulk: "You bet, kid!"
• Election Year Knockout: Each opponent in the game is a very obvious parody of a Real Life political figure, which becomes apparent from simply their name. Jab Bush is a parody of Jeb Bush; Uncle Joe is a parody of Joe Biden; A-Oh! is a parody of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC; Ted Bruz is a parody of Ted Cruz; Cap'n Crenshaw is a parody of Dan Crenshaw; Birdie Sanders is a parody of Bernie Sanders; Chief Warrin' is a parody of Elizabeth Warren; Mike Pious is a parody of Mike Pence; Donald Thump is a parody of Donald Trump; Justin Turbeau is a parody of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau; Kim Jong BOOM is a parody of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un; and Vladimir Bootin is a parody of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
• Emily Enough features a very, very blatant No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Ed Gein — the description of his career as a serial killer is lifted word-for-word from accounts of Gein. In one of the game's more disturbing puzzles, you have to skin an old lady alive so he can wear her skin.
• In EverQuest II, at Gnomeland Security HQ in Steamfont, a Gnome named Adam Cogbuster and a Halfling named Jamie Spocketbreaker are developing complex and dangerous new weaponry. They look a lot like Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman.
• Fallout 2 featured characters named 'Juan Cruz' and 'Viki Goldstein' in the 'Hubologist' base, although they insist that any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
  • For those playing at home, they "coincidentally" resemble Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Scientology, respectively.
  • The same game also had a big black boxing champion nicknamed "The Masticator", who could bite off your ear during a boxing match against him.
• Subverted in Fallout: New Vegas with 'The King' and his gang 'The Kings' who all dress like Elvis Presley. The King in particular though, as he even speaks in the same fashion as Elvis did. This is a subversion, however, as the Kings operate out of 'The King's School of Impersonation', a 50s drama school to teach people to act, dress, and speak like Elvis. Using the materials from the school, The Kings built their identity around the legendary figure.
  • The explanation for why no one mentions the name of the figure the school was about? By the time the King (the gang leader) got there, the surviving materials all referred to the figure simply as 'the King'.
• Billy from Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters is based on Axl Rose, with his original design from Fatal Fury 2-KOF '95 taking cues from former English pro-wrestler Dynamite Kid. Boxers Michael Max and Axel Hawk are based on Mike Tyson and George Foreman, respectively.
• In F.E.A.R., there is a character named Norton Mapes who is clearly based on the late great John Candy.
  • Or◊ Harry Knowles◊...
• Aside from the "Emperor Mateus Palmecia-Bowie" example above, the Final Fantasy series has:
  • Final Fantasy VI's SNES English localization made the Dream monsters of the original Japanese version into The Dream Stooges, complete with actual names. This trope was put into greater effect in the Advance remake, in which the stooges' names were distorted, but still obvious.
  • Final Fantasy VII and its spin-offs
    • Barret Wallace looks and speaks remarkably similar to Mr. T.
    • Tifa Lockhart's initial appearance really resembles Jennifer Connelly, particularly her appearance on Career Opportunities (compare Tifa◊ to Connelly in that film◊). However, Tifa's appearance since Advent Children has been modeled after Ayumi Ito, who is her Japanese voice actress since the film.
    • Aerith Gainsborough's appearance◊ resembles (and is said to be modeled after) a young◊ Brooke Shields. Coincidentally or not, Aerith is eventually laid to rest in a blue lagoon.
    • Genesis Rhapsodos is exactly modelled after GACKT, to the point of Gackt voicing him in Japanese.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake:
    • Biggs is drawn to resemble Charlie Sheen's character from Platoon, and his English voice actor imitated Sheen's voice.
    • Chocobo Sam's English voice actor imitated Sam Elliott's voice.
  • Final Fantasy VIII
    • Like Genesis, Squall Leonhart's appearance was based on GACKT, while also drawing influence from the late River Phoenix.
    • Zell Dincht is said to be modeled after Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. Zell's facial structure does resemble a young Flea◊'s, though.
    • Headmaster Cid Kramer greatly resembles Robin Williams.
  • Noel Kreiss from Final Fantasy XIII-2 resembles a young Tom Cruise.
• Perhaps the ultimate in use of this trope is the long-lived Fire Pro Wrestling series, where every wrestler in the game is a renamed version of an actual professional wrestler. There are over one hundred wrestlers in the latest one.
  • The last one, Fire Pro Wrestling RETURNS for the PS2, contains over 350 wrestlers...and every single one of them is a rename (and some are recolors) of a real-life wrestler (many of them are just more "obscure" ones that casual US wrestling fans won't recognize).
• Flaming Zombooka: Two zombies in the second game's level pack's title screen look like zombie versions of Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley with their hairstyles and clothes.
• Most characters in Frederic Evil Strikes Back are slightly-changed versions of real life musicians.
• In God Hand the cast of supporting characters includes a casino bouncer who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Afro-haired Kung-Fu master based on Black Belt Jones and a Zebra-themed masked wrestler who fights just like Giant Baba. Shannon has sometimes been interpreted as a caricature of Paris Hilton.
• Grand Chase's final (as of Season 2, has now been removed for Season 3) PVE mission (finishing Xenia Frontier's Red and Violet forests on 3 star-difficulty under 15 minutes) has you trying to beat the dungeon-clearing record of one Indiana Ford.
• Many fans suspect Alexandra Chilton from Grand Theft Auto IV is a thinly veiled parody of Paris Hilton...
• The Hitman World of Assassination Trilogy has a tendency to model some of the targets on real celebrities:
  • Jasper Knight is based on the same chess-playing defectors Viktor Korchnoi and Lev Alburt (among others) who defected from the Soviet Union to the USA.
  • Claus Hugo Strandberg is a mix of Bernie Madoff (famous for crafting a 17 year long investment scandal and created the largest Ponzi Scheme in history) and Julian Assange (who was famously held up in the Embassy of Ecuador in London after publishing U.S military documents).
  • Jordan Cross shares his appearance and veganism with that of Jared Leto (who is also a part of a rock band; Thirty Seconds to Mars), while his crime of killing his girlfriend is in reference to Sid Vicious being suspected of killing his girlfriend Nancy Spungen.
  • Ken Morgan is based on infamous New York lawyer (and former mayor for the city) Rudy Giuliani, even sharing his receding hairline and tortoiseshell glasses.
  • Marco Abiatti not only looks like the former Italian prime minister; Silvio Berlusconi, but also has the attitude of other European populists. Both share ties to the mafia, off-color jokes, and feud with a newspaper; all of which are based on controversies surrounding Berlusconi.
  • Craig Black is based on Stephenie Meyer, as his book series; Cassandra Snow, is clearly a parody of Twilight. Like Meyer, Black is stated to have released several sci-fi books that were ignored, and Black's involvement in a cult is based on Meyer inserting her Mormon beliefs into her books.
  • Jonathon Smythe is an obvious pastiche of Justin Bieber, in both appearance and infamy (minus the homicide, we hope); only amping up his notorious bad boy streak to the extreme.
  • Gabriel Santos is an over-the-top Large Ham parody of the persona Gordon Ramsay gives off in his shows, minus the notoriety of injuring his staff.
  • Thomas Cross is blatantly modelled after media mogul Richard Branson. His media conglomerate and mentions of him being cold and staunchly conservative appears to have been taken from Rupert Murdoch.
  • Robert Knox's public image as an eccentric billionaire with a great interest in artificial intelligence and outlandish PR stunts bring Elon Musk to mind, while the scars on the right side of his face resemble those of late Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda, who also got them from a racing accident.
  • Sierra Knox shares the revelation that she worked her way way up in her father's engineering company's finance department under an assumed name, with that of claims that BMW heiress Susanne Klatten did the same thing.
  • Byron Washington III brings to mind Thomas A. Saunders III, founder of The Heritage Foundation. Both are founders of conservative think tanks at the center of climate change denialism.
  • Sophia Washington has her appearance modelled on Serena Williams, having the same sunglasses, initials, and her original name (as unintentionally left in her intel and in the ICA Files in Chongqing) is "Serena Washington". Much like Serena, Sophia also has a sister, Zoe Washington, which mirrors Serena's sister, Venus Williams.
  • Athena Savalas bears an uncanny resemblance to "the Queen of Mean" Leona Helmsely, in both her appearance, her location, and her treatment of her employees.
  • Jimmy Chen bears a passing resemblance to infamous journalist Andy Ngo. Ngo has been criticized for sharing fabricated and edited information, something Chen also does. They are both of Asian descent and have a habit of inserting themselves into volatile situations by going directly into the heart of what they want to cover.
  • Imogen Royce looks very much like Grimes, with matching Royce's embracing of transhumanism and technology as a way to depopulate the work force seems to be a Take That! towards practices advocated by Grimes and her ex-partner Elon Musk.
  • Manon Beaulieu is clearly based on Yayoi Kusama, who shares a similar dress sense of patterned dresses and a bob-cut hairstyle.
  • Allison Moretta may be inspired by Anna "Delvey" Sorokin, a Russian-born con artist who swindled money from institutions and banks under the pretence of setting up an art foundation.
  • Sully Bowden is based on Mike Tyson, in that they are both champion boxers with anger issues and drug addictions. Bowden has a scar on his right eyebrow that is in an identical placement to Tyson's own. He might also joke about being 1/8th Irish, likely alluding to Conor McGregor.
• Lindsay Lohan sued Rockstar, claiming that the actress Lacey Jonas in Grand Theft Auto V was a caricature of her, which was ultimately dismissed.
  • Jay Norris is a parody of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, specifically the version in The Social Network with his corruption and insufferable nature turned up.
  • Michael was designed after his actor Ned Luke, but it's impossible to see him without thinking of Robert De Niro. Trevor (Steven Ogg) has also brought up similarities to Jack Nicholson.
• Guilty Gear:
  • Axl Low is a laid-back British clone of Guns N' Roses vocalist Axl Rose. With a dash of Marty McFly. With fire magic and a kusarigama. The name of Low's alternate self from the past, William, is also taken from Rose, born William Bruce Rose Jr.
  • I-no seems to be based of Shiina Ringo.
  • Less obvious but Sol Badguy has a lot of Freddie Mercury in him, especially in the way how he holds Fireseal emulates Freddie's way with a mic stand. Taken further with the later reveal that his real name is Frederick Bulsara.
• Sgt Stacker (voiced by Pete Stacker) in the Halo series is reminiscent of R. Lee Ermey.
• Homescapes:
  • Austin and his family discover a secret room containing an unknown film by famous director "Stacy Rubric".
  • Jed mentions feeling like running out and learning martial arts after watching a "Chackie Jan" movie.
  • Olivia's favorite mystery author is "Agnes Misty".
• Theodore "Ted" Faro, Greater-Scope Villain of Horizon Zero Dawn (by way of being Too Dumb to Live rather than being actively malicious, mind you) is a clear pastiche of silicon valley billionaires like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and especially Elon Musk. He's a Techbro trilionaire who built his fortune on new technology that he didn't actually invent himself, but paid other people to invent and then took credit for. He was also hailed as a hero for his developments, but was far more selfish and greedy in private. Hopefully unlike Elon, he ends up causing the apocalypse by creating self-replicating, bio-matter-devouring, unhackeable robots that of course run amok and destroy all life on Earth.
• Kate Green in House of the Dead 4 looks blatantly similar to Fergie. And in Scarlet Dawn, she resembles actress Keira Knightley.
• In Horatio The Third Senior Manjensen With Knuckles, Morgan Treeman, the Big Good, is a parody of Morgan Freeman.
  • House of the Dead: OVERKILL Isaac Washington is, for all intents and purposes, an Expy of Samuel L. Jackson.
• Kingdom Hearts doesn't have too many instances of this, but it does have a few that fans can clearly point out:
  • Demyx is based on, you guessed it, David Bowie.
  • Master Eraqus is very clearly designed after Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Much like how Yen Sid's name is an anagram of "Disney", Eraqus's is "Square."
  • Master Xehanort was also at least partly designed after Disney producer Roy Conli. It gets totally lampshaded in one of the reveal trailers which Roy presented.
• Some of the VIP clients in Kitty Powers' Speed Date are Expies of famous celebrities, like DewDiePie and Katie Berry.
• Canderous in Knights of the Old Republic looks like Ron Perlman and would fit right in with many of the other characters he played.
• One of the Personality Cores in The Lab's minigame "Slingshot" is a Climate Change Awareness Core, whose job is to cause climate change so it can raise awareness of it. It also sounds like a certain former US vice president.
• Vasu the ring appraiser from The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games also appers to be based on a Japanese comedian, Igari Shopan, whose most famous act was dressing up as an Arabian snake charmer.
• In LEGO Minifigures Online, the Movie Starlet looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe.
• Live A Live's Sammo Hakka is a fairly obvious expy of Sammo Hung, with his first name and large yet surprisingly agile build. The official translation for the 2022 remake slightly obscures this by renaming him to "Hong Hakka."
  • Max Morgan from the Present Day chapter is clearly based on Hulk Hogan.
• Loopmancer has a Hiroyuki Sanada expy named Hiroyuki Ogata. Besides the name, they both sport the same beard and are depicted as katana-swinging badasses.
• Lost in Nightmare: Jill looks a lot like Sarah Connor from Terminator. In The Remake of the original, Jill had a Sarah Connor-ish outfit as an unlockable.
• The designers of the Madden NFL series created draft classes from scratch, often tossing in high-profile players still in college whose names and images they couldn't legally use. Like a scrambling QB from Florida named "Tim Tribow".
• In Make It Big In Hollywood naive movie mogul wannabe Lisa somehow attracts the personal attention of "Brad Schmitt".
• The NES game Maniac Mansion features a character called Wink Smiley, who is a talk show host clearly based on Jay Leno. He looks exactly like a young Jay and even has Jay's chin.
• Mass Effect: The default male face of Shepard is based on Dutch model Mark Vanderloo.
• Metal Gear
  • The original Metal Gear featured a cover artwork that was obviously traced from a publicity still of Michael Biehn in Terminator.
  • The original MSX2 release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake featured character portraits obviously ripped from actual photographs of celebrities (notably with Solid Snake as Mel Gibson, Grey Fox as Tom Berenger, Roy Campbell as Richard Crenna, and Big Boss as Sean Connery). These were changed to Shinkawa-style portraits in later releases to avoid any potential likeness infringement.
  • In the original Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake is (according to Yoji Shinkawa's own admission) a combination of Christopher Walken's face on Jean-Claude Van Damme's body.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
    • CIA director who is clearly meant to be a stand-in for John McCone (the real DCI at the time), but is never addressed by his name. This was likely done to avoid defaming McCone's person postmortem (since it wouldn't have sat well with McCone's family to depict him as a solicitor for murder), while at the same time maintaining the game's historical setting.
    • The Boss is modeled after Charlotte Rampling.
• In Mirror's Edge, Travis "Ropeburn" Burfield looks strikingly similar to Donald Trump, and the atrium of his office building resembles that of Trump Tower, complete with an indoor waterfall.
• Mortal Kombat: Liu Kang is Bruce Lee. Johnny Cage is Jean-Claude Van Damme. Sonya is Cynthia Rothrock.
  • Johnny is even moreso based off of Nicolas Cage. His profile in earlier games bore the likeness of Mr. Cage and Johnny's real name is even Jonathan Carlton (similar to how the other Cage's real name is Nicolas Coppola).
  • Also, the makers of Mortal Kombat II had once considered adding another female kombatant who was based on kickboxing champion Kathy Long, but she ended up not making the final cut.
• Nearly every fighting game has a Bruce Lee character. Mortal Kombat's Liu Kang, Tekken's Marshall and Forest Law, Street Fighter's Fei Long, the aforementioned Kim Dragon from World Heroes, etc. And if not that, at least a character using his fighting style, i.e. Darkstalkers' Jon Talbain, Soulcalibur's Maxi, Virtua Fighter's Jacky Bryant, etc.
• In the indie game Mr. President, the Player Character is a bodyguard for a presidential candidate with a Dodgy Toupee named Ronald Rump. Later on, the game introduces a shirtless Russian president named Rutin.
• Mutant Rampage Bodyslam host L. Wolf Jam cribs his speaking style and hair from the popular disc jockey Wolfman Jack.
• One of the regular customers in My Cafe is a nerdy IT-expert named Bill, whose name, profession and character design is definitely based on Bill Gates.
• Mystery Trackers: The Void centers on the mysterious disappearance of three fairly famous people, one of whom is horror novelist "Kevin Sting".
• NCAA Football requires the enforcement of this trope regarding all in-game players. Since, as "amateur" college athletes, their likenesses cannot legally be used, the game will only use their jersey number and loose physical characteristics (height, weight, age) to identify them. Even this became controversial as the courts began siding with the athletes in more and more legal rulings, leading to EA suspending the series.
• In the Spanish localization of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Rawk Hawk is renamed Hawk Hogan.
• Photograph Boy, an obscure PC-Engine side-scroller from 1989. It has lots of these cameos, including Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• Pokémon
  • Wobbuffet is partly based on the late Japanese comedian Sanpei Hayashiya, whose trademark was putting his hand to his forehead while saying: "sō na-n-su, okusan" or, in English, "That's the way it is, ma'am". Sonansu, as Wobbuffet is called in Japanese, is often shown putting its hand to its forehead.
  • Elesa in Pokémon Black and White is apparently based on Lady Gaga.
  • Diantha of Pokémon X and Y is clearly inspired by Audrey Hepburn.
• Bobby Ologun is a Nigerian comical personality in Japan, but also is known as a famous MMA fighter. In 2006, he becomes The Sponsor in the Sequel of Power Instinct Matrimelee for PlayStation 2 called as Shin Goketsuji Ichizoku: Bonnou no Kaihou, in which Bobby appears as the Sub-Boss "Bobby Strong", the new bodyguard for Princess Sissy.
• The Quest for Glory series features several, most prominently in the fourth game, which was the first to feature voice acting. The farmers sound like Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, and Rodney Dangerfield, The Chief Thief sounds like Peter Lorre and so forth.
  • In the second game, there are several appearances by the Marx Brothers, most notably Groucho Marx as Ali Fakir, the used saurus salesman.
  • The third game throws in Sanford and Son.
  • Both the second and fifth games in the series feature another Peter Lorre-based character named Ugarte (it's much more obvious in the fifth game.)
  • The first game threw in The Three Stooges as brigands.
• Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
  • The President is a furry Bill Clinton.
  • Courtney Gears is a robotic stand-in for Britney Spears, who sings songs about killing all organic life forms to a catchy pop beat.
• Red Dead Redemption 2: Not visually, but Arthur Morgan shares one important detail with Doc Holliday, a gunslinger who participated in the O.K. Corral gunfight. They both died to tuberculosis at age 36.
  • Bounty target Bart Cavanaugh can count in the PC and recently patched versions of the game. Between his name, his alcoholism, and the allegations of sexual improprieties, he seems to be intended as a stand-in for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (who was accused of sexual assault during his committee hearings, and who admitted to liking beer in his youth).
• Resident Evil series
  • Resident Evil 5 : Albert Wesker not only has moves and clothes ripped right out of The Matrix but also has the mannerisms of the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. If you shoot him and he dodges, many times he will wag his finger at you like the T-1000 did to Sarah Conner near the end.
  • In the original version of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica. Steve Burnside also resembles Leonardo DiCaprio. His hairstyle was changed in Code Veronica: X to something more like Leon's.
    • Leon himself also resembles and is probably named after DiCaprio. Claire Redfield's name may also be a reference to Claire Danes, DiCaprio's co-star in Romeo + Juliet.
  • Some of the characters in Resident Evil: Outbreak bear a certain resemblance to famous actors, especially the police officer who looks like Tom Cruise.
  • From the remake of Resident Evil onwards, Jill's appearance has been based on Canadian actress Julia Voth.
  • Rebecca Chambers has been based on Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki, who was actually the spokesperson for Resident Evil 0 in Japan. She didn't provide the voice as the games always feature English voice acting. Although Sheva Alomar's motion capture was based on her voice actress Karen Dyer, Sheva's facial expressions were based on model Michelle Van Der Water.
• RoboCop: Rogue City features at least two: gang leader Soot bears a very close resemblance to Keith Flint from The Prodigy, and Wendell is pretty much Alan Rickman in his Die Hard incarnation.
• In Robopon, the entire Macroworld/Waffle section of Ring and Cross is chock-full of this. Mr. Waffle is a washed-up computer maker, who was put out of business when a fire consumed his headquarters, Waffle Tower, twenty years ago. Now, his rival Mr. Gait has taken over the market with Macrosoft computers. Things get nasty when you learn that he sabotaged Waffle in order to facilitate his little takeover....
  • Also note that Gait uses Robopon called X-Dog and I-80. Neither of them are terribly good.
• Once you get far enough in Sally's Quick Clips, you can find a celebrity guest star in your salon: 'Donny Jepp'. Hmmm.
• The Natsume NES game S.C.A.T. is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up starring Arnold and Sigourney (as in Schwarzenegger and Weaver; they weren't even clever enough to come up with original names).
• Prolific horror novelist Sam Krieg in The Secret World is pretty obviously supposed to be Stephen King.
  • Illuminati handler Kirsten Geary is likewise Lady Gaga.
• In the first two Shin Megami Tensei games, the creator of the Demon Summoning Program is a crippled genius by the name of Steven who looks suspiciously like Stephen Hawking.
  • He returns in Shin Megami Tensei IV, with his name this time officially localized as Stephen instead of using the fan translated Steven. Yeah, not Stephen Hawking at all.
• The President in Silent Scope EX is a lookalike of George W. Bush.
• In The Sims 3, your Sim can read a newspaper story about a director based on Michael Bay wanting to make a movie in Sim City. It mentions that the director said his movie was about "A guy blowing up city hall, then a car chase, then, wait for it, a fight on the beach. All in my trademark crazy shaky camera."
• Sly 2: Band of Thieves has Carmelita Fox, whose voice in the game resembles Jessica Alba, who is also known for portraying badass and sexy women just like Carmelita.
• The Mad Scientist Dr. Eggman in Sonic the Hedgehog is a parody of Theodore Roosevelt.
• In addition, the minor character Eagle from the original Street Fighter 1 was retconned into a clone of Freddie Mercury when he reappeared in Capcom vs. SNK 2.
  • And of course there's Balrog (or rather M. Bison in the Japanese version), who was very clearly modeled after Mike Tyson. It's especially obvious when you see his character portrait in the pre-Super iterations of Street Fighter II.
  • Before Balrog, there was Mike from the original Street Fighter, who was also based on Tyson. Though unlike Balrog, Mike only appeared once and isn't very popular.
  • Dee Jay was based off of kickboxer and fitness guru Billy Blanks.
  • Alex from Street Fighter III acts as something of a Hulk Hogan homage, complete with a special intro pose with Hugo imitating the legendary match between Hogan and Andre. Hugo in turn is a renamed Andore from Final Fight, who is blatantly based on André the Giant.
  • Dudley is very similar to Chris Eubank, a Jamaican-British boxer known for his dapper attire.
  • Final Fight also had two enemy bikers named Axl and Slash modeled after their Guns N' Roses counterpart, while Poison's and Roxy's replacements in the SNES version, Billy and Sid, are obvious references to Billy Idol and Sid Vicious.
  • Abel from Street Fighter IV bares a noticeable resemblance with MMA fighter Fedor Emelianenko.
  • Crimson Viper from the same game is essentially Angelina Jolie with Cool Shades.
• In Strider (NES), Vice Director Matic, with his vertical '80s Hair-do and Cool Shades, strongly resembles Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X in his prime.
• Apart from the "Bruce Lee as Marshall Law" example above, Tekken series have more not-celebrities:
  • King characters (King I in the first 2 games, and his successor King II from all other games) were inspired by the pro wrestler Satoru Sayama, as well as Mexican wrestler Fray Tormenta, a Catholic priest who became a masked wrestler in order to support an orphanage. Also, a lot of their moves (as well as Armor King) are homages to various WWE wrestlers.
  • Lei Wulong is modeled after Jackie Chan, particularly his character from the Police Story film series.
  • More than based on existing people, there're some characters who were created with Motion Capture of real fighters, like Capoeira master Marcelo Pereira for Eddy Gordo and Tiger Jackson, and Taekwondo champion Su Il Hwang for Hwoarang.
  • Christie Monteiro is modeled after Tyra Banks.
  • If he's not based on any existing boxer, one of Steve Fox's moves, the "Endless Roll", is a variation of the Dempsey Roll, which was created and first used by the Heavy Weight Boxing Champion of the 1920s, Jack Dempsey.
  • Craig Marduk is the actor/wrestler Nathan Jones (not Goldberg as commonly thought, although he does contain some references to him).
  • Raven is based on Wesley Snipes (in a weird mash-up of his Demolition Man and Blade movie personas).
• Temtem mentions a few parodies of real historical figures, such as Carlota Linnaea (Carl Linnaeus), Charles Temwin (Charles Darwin), and Sir Adrian Andrewton (Sir Isaac Newton).
• TimeSplitters: Sgt Cortez channels Vin Diesel.
• Tinseltown Dreams: The 50s is a match-3 game that involves earning money for actors, directors and so on in order to film several different types of movies. As such, it's filled with almost-recognizable names such as actresses "Grace Kelleher" and "Marylou Monroe".
• Trio the Punch has "Bird Brain," a boss that looks a lot like Colonel Sanders. He breaks in half and reveals to be a large purple bird, but his "suit" looks exactly like Sanders.
• Treachery in Beatdown City, an indie Beat 'em Up/Action RPG hybrid inspired by Bad Dudes above has President "Blake Orama" kidnapped by the Ninja Dragon Terrorists while the main trio also have to contend with the corrupt mayor "Mike Moneybags" based on former mayor of New York City, billionaire Mike Bloomberg.
• The President in Vanquish is fairly clearly modeled on Hillary Clinton.
  • President Patricia Caldwell from Splinter Cell: Blacklist also strikingly resembles Hillary.
• Konami's arcade game Vendetta (1991) is possibly the only beat-em-up in which you can fight crime as Mike Tyson (Blood), Hulk Hogan (Hawk), Jean Claude Van Damme (Boomer), or even Mr. T (Sledge.)
• El Blaze from Virtua Fighter greatly resembles WWE professional wrestler Rey Mysterio.
• Wade Hixton's Counter Punch: The Big Bad is an African-American boxing promoter with a shady reputation outright named Don. Totally not Don King.
• In Where's My Water?'s crossover with Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, titled Where's My Water? Featuring XYY, there is a famous singer based off Michael Jackson named Jackson Sheep.
• World Heroes based its cast largely around this trope, with a touch of justified Anachronism Stew (the plot involves a time machine). Dragon was a Bruce Lee Clone, while pro wrestler Muscle Power was an amazingly blatant steal of Hulk Hogan. Some of this was softened in the second game (Muscle Power, for example, lost his facial hair).
  • Hanzo = Hanzo Hattori, Fuuma = Fuma Kotaro, Janne = Joan of Arc, Jengis/Julius Carn = Genghis Khan, Erick = Erik The Red, Ryoko = Ryoko Tamura (later Tani), Jack = Jack the Ripper, Shura = Nai Khanom Tom, Johnny Maximum = Joe Montana. Ryofu (Japanese translation of Lu Bu), Captain Kidd, Rasputin, and Gokuu are self-explanatory. Brocken is Brocken Jr. from Kinnikuman, (Neo) Geegus is a T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, (Neo) Dio is the title character from Baoh, and Zeus is Raoh. Only Mudman isn't based on anyone.
• Patch 3.3 of World of Warcraft introduced Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls. To further cement the reference, his loot includes such items as Papa's Brand New Bag, Love's Prisoner, and Cold Sweat Grips.
  • WoW has more than a few as Shout Outs, however most notable is Archaeologist Harrison Jones. He started out as a Joke Character who was chump killed at the gates of Zul'Aman. However he somehow didn't die and turned up fighting snakes in a tomb in the Grizzly Hills zone. In the new Cataclysm expansion he has a prominent role as a quest giver in the Uldum zone, complete with multiple Shout Outs and lampshades to go round in respect to all four Indy films.
  • In addition to those, we also have Haris Pilton (pictured), Ricole Nichie, and even Chuck Norris (pending as of November 2011 though).
• The villain of Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! is "Alien Mosk", CEO of the nefarious "Tosla Incorporated". Lampshaded with NPC's dotted around that have a stock This Is a Work of Fiction warning as their dialog, typically in areas that are blatantly based on real things.

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