Perspective Flip / Video Games

• Assassin's Creed: Some games let the player experience the Animus as Templars instead of Assassins.
  • The first three sequences of Assassin's Creed III have Haytham Kenway, Grand Master of the Colonial Rite of the Templar Order and father of the game's main Assassin protagonist Connor, as playable character.
  • Assassin's Creed Rogue revisits the Seven Years' War / pre-Revolution North America setting of the early parts of Assassin's Creed III, this time from the perspective of a former Assassin who turned Templar, Shay Patrick Cormac.
• Attack of the Earthlings presents an Alien Invasion scenario where the player takes the role of an alien matriarch leading a bunch of toothy, chittering horrors to drive a bumbling human energy corporation off her homeworld. It's Played for Laughs.
• Bravely Default loves this trope. The story follows a group of heroes, journeying with a young beautiful priestess, protecting her from harm and bringing light to the world, while fighting off the corrupt and morally black evil empire... actually, she's the misguided priestess of a corrupt faith, and the light you are bringing is being harnessed by the antagonists to blast through the dimensions in order to invade our world, and the bringing of the light is what's causing the next world's light loss in the first place, the villains while screwy (especially the mid-bosses) are Well Intentioned Extremists, while the heroes are the unassuming instigators of doom, and it ends up being a Grey-and-Gray Morality with them being the darker of the greys.
• Two Star Wars games have given the players exclusively Imperial campaigns: TIE Fighter and Battlefront II (2005). Battlefront in particular, while it might not make the Empire as a whole look much better, certainly paints the Stormtroopers as sympathetic instead of the faceless evil minions they've become known as.
• Golden Sun does this with the first and second game. The first game has the heroes tracking down the villains after they killed the heroes family when trying to get into the forbidden chamber to reactivate the world's Alchemy and trying to rescue their friends who were taken hostage. The second game flips this by following the friends who were held hostage and finding out the world is dying and the villains only went to the forbidden chamber as a last resort to save their village and the world. The friends who are hostage are working with the villains. Also, it turns out the villains never killed their families, only brought them to their village to allow them to heal and get them involved with their cause when the families were hurt by the traps of the chamber.
• In Grand Theft Auto V, the trio do a lot of dirty work for the FIB and many of their operations are financed by the bureau in an attempt to diminish the influence of their rival, the IAA. In GTA Online, government-related heists are instead commissioned by the IAA and the FIB now appears as enemies. To hammer this perspective flip further, the online protagonist knows plenty of friendly named IAA characters while not knowing a single FIB one.
• Maniac Island, an Italian Monkey Island Fan Game, tells the story of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge from the perspective of the titular villain LeChuck.
• Grey Goo (2015) is a Real-Time Strategy game featuring a great war between three very different factions. In a twist on the dynamic popularized by StarCraft, this time it's the aliens who are the battle-hardened underdogs with industrial war-machines, and the humans are the enlightened space scholars with sleek high technology .
• Half-Life:
  • Half-Life: Opposing Force has the player take the role of Corporal Adrian Shephard, one of the soldiers who in the original title are deployed at Black Mesa to silence Gordon Freeman and the rest of the staff. However, playing as Shephard makes you realise that the enemy soldiers are just as confused and frightened by the horrific events as Gordon was.
  • Half-Life: Blue Shift, meanwhile, centers around Barney Calhoun, a Black Mesa security officer trying to survive the same incident as Gordon and Shephard.
  • Fan mods from DAVLevels continue the idea: Azure Sheep about another security guy trying to save his girlfriend's and his own butt and Point of View about a variant alien slave. The latter ends up picked up by the former two in the final cutscenes, thus linking the stories and correctly guessing (or suggesting?) the Vortigaunts' allegiance flip in Half-Life 2.
• Spider-Man: The Movie had a cheat which allowed you to play as the Green Goblin, the main antagonist. The level design remained the same, but dialogue and monologuing changed to explain the sudden perspective shift.
  • It wasn't a true Perspective Flip, however: the playable Goblin is Harry Osborn, trying to figure out what happened to his father, and he's menaced by a second Goblin (who has a strange voice).
• In Halo, the second game does this with the Arbiter, the guy who led the charge to destroy Reach (which, incidentally, you see in action in Halo: Reach), killing most of the Spartans and millions of humans. He was also the leader of the forces you fought against in the original Halo: Combat Evolved. Now, however, he becomes a Player Character and his story takes up half the game, taking him through the paces of Heel Realization until he realizes that his leaders have been deceiving him and his kind all along. Turns out he was a good guy fighting for the wrong side all along.
  • For extra Mind Screw, he was the leader of the forces who killed the Player Character in Halo: Reach — you play as the guy who is directly responsible for killing another guy you played as in another game.
• In Fate/stay night once Rider's identity has been revealed, the story gives her character a rather different interpretation of the general one. Specifically, instead of just a random monster, she was basically just some woman with eyes of petrification and two sisters that people kept trying to kill. Every time they did so, she would kill them instead. Eventually, the strain of Breaker Gorgon set in and she turned genuinely monstrous and Perseus came to kill her. Her rather crappy original life led her to feeling a great deal of kinship with Sakura and is the source of her undying loyalty to her.
• Final Fantasy Tactics does this in-universe. The game explains what really happened and how the villainous heretic Ramza is actually the hero.
• Fire Emblem series:
  • The Conquest route in Fates is essentially this: while earlier entries (and the Birthright route of this game) have defense against an invading empire as a recurring in-story motive, here the player can take the side of, well, the conquerors to get to know them and their driving motivations better.
  • Likewise, while three routes of Fire Emblem: Three Houses involve fighting off an invasion by The Empire, under certain conditions one can take a fourth route and side with the imperial side. While the Empire is the most morally grey faction, their leader still pursues an undeniably good goal, even if they use rather extreme tactics to achieve it.
• Front Mission exhibits a perspective flip in the purest sense of the trope: The protagonist unit, Carrion Crow, is on five missions of "war against terror" only to learn the truth afterward and defect to the rebels (some sooner than others).
  • The technically called "terrorists" were wrongly suspected of being dangerous terrorist savages by the peacemakers. Truth is, the good guys were actually the "terrorists"; the villains were the production company that the ignorant peacemakers were defending.
• In the Interactive Fiction piece Alabaster, you are the Huntsman from "Snow White", leading her into the woods to do the whole heart-swapping business. Also, the King, who voluntarily erased his memory.
• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep contains the scenarios of Terra, Ven, and Aqua. To complete the entire game, you must complete each of their scenarios. Playing only one can lead the player to be biased to the current character, since many things are going on at once; for example, Ven and Aqua will perceive Terra as willingly subjecting himself to the darkness. The game also does a nice job in that, even though the scenarios of the three will overlap sometimes, the cutscenes will be in the general camera perspective of the character you are currently playing as.
  • The final boss of Terra's story has the player becomes the boss towards Xehanort. The battle music is Terra's theme and he generates the barrier around the arena, both things that traditionally come from the villain in this series. Adding to this, Xehanort has possessed Terra and is using his body, leaving Terra to fight as the Lingering Will, an Optional Boss from a previous installment in the franchise.
• Blizzard's strategy games starting from StarCraft are notably different from most RTS's, in that instead of mutually exclusive campaigns they incorporate the advances of all sides of conflict into a single storyline, often allowing a different look at the same events.
• Colony Wars: Vengeance is a Perspective Flipped sequel to the original game which has players assume the role of an Earth Empire pilot as they try to strike back at the League of Free Planets after the Empire suffered a crushing defeat that left them in a state of civil war for years.
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series uses this occasionally. In Tiberian Sun: Firestorm the GDI and Nod scenarios are separate but both intertwine in the end. Then in Tiberian Wars, it shows the perspectives of GDI, Nod and the Scrin, and how they affect one another.
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: the Allied campaign's 10th mission has you defending Einstein's base in the Black Forest from Soviet attacks so that he can perfect the Chronosphere technology and give the Allies an edge in attacking and capturing Moscow without having to traverse all of Russia to do so. The Yuri's Revenge expansion replays the same battle from the Soviet side in the second mission of the Soviet campaign so that the Soviets can force the Allied surrender instead — it is appropriately named "Operation: Deja Vu".
  • In Mental Omega, a Game Mod for RA 2, this comes into play with the Allied Nations and Epsilon Army's (the mod's version of Yuri's army) final Act 2 missions, called Hamartia for the Allies and Babel for Epsilon. Both of them focus on the exact same battle, the final fight around Epsilon's Mental Omega Device in Antarctica, and playing both fills in the gaps of what one faction was doing while the player was distracted elsewhere in the other's mission. For example, after some dungeon crawling with two of the Allied hero units to destroy the initial objective in Hamartia (the final Mental Dynamo protecting the Mental Omega from attack and the central Dybbuk Launch Facility), it immediately sends the player back to the greater battlefield to see that the incoming main attack on the Mental Omega is being repelled and one of your allies has taken massive losses, with Epsilon clearing and placing down fresh bases on the right half of the map, while playing Babel has you clearing out that half of the map in the first stage to make way for your side's reinforcements and counterattack...while being forced to defend the Mental Omega once the Allied heroes destroy the Mental Dynamo and Dybbuk Launch Facility protecting it.
• Battlezone (1998) features two campaigns, NSDF (American) and CCA (USSR), running at roughly the same time as both sides prowl the Solar System during the Space Race looking for Bio Metal. The NSDF campaign features Grizzly One and his squadron they uncover the secrets of Biometal whilst fighting off the Soviets, whereas the shorter but much harder CCA campaign has the largely featureless "Comrade" and his army as they try to stay ahead of the Americans by fighting the brutal NSDF Black Dog squadron and ultimately releasing some Sealed Evil in a Can; their campaign ends at the same time the CCA remnants join forces with the NSDF in their campaign to fight off said sealed evil.
• In Fleuret Blanc, Squeaker's Twice Told Tales usually involve this, such as telling The Beauty And The Beast from the perspective of the servants, or Cinderella from the perspective of the prince's family. This is usually done to reframe the story around Fleuret Blanc's Central Theme of materialism.
• In Boss Rush, you play as several archetypical Shoot 'Em Up bosses, destroying rebel/human fighters, including:
  • The Tonbogiri, flagship of The Empire.
  • The Drone Unit Antonius, a private warship for sell to the highest bidder.
  • The Bio-Craft Nidhoggr, mount of the space-barbarians' Warleader.
  • The Genesis Ark Omega, a mysterious alien starship which is actually carrying an Eldritch Abomination to a suitable new home.
  • The Unknown, which appears to be a giant flying ? and uses attacks themed after non-letter keyboard characters.
  • The Phenomenon Cloud Nine, which can only be played by "donating" $5 to the game.
• A couple of fan-made scenarios for Plague Inc.: Evolved, referred as "Antiplague", consist in fighting the pandemic by enforcing measures which either slow down the plague or speed up the research of the cure; the victory condition is to complete the cure.^note Because of technical limitations, the victory screen still says that you wiped out the humanity. In 2020 this became an official mode called 'The Cure'
• Shining Wind has Kiriya as the protagonist of the game where he can draw swords out of people's chests (they just need to shine and he doesn't even need to physically touch them). Souma is a major character of the game whose entire shtick is to try and stop the civil war from erupting or stopping it completely. If players want to know more about Souma and his perspective, then they would have to watch the anime Shining Tears X Wind where it explains what Souma has been up to behind the scenes.
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus features a fully-featured port of Wolfenstein 3-D as a mini-game, but with a twist; titled "Wolfstone 3D", the story is changed so instead of B.J. Blazkowicz fighting through Nazis to kill Hitler, players take on the role of Elite Hans fighting through Kreisau rebels to kill "Terror Billy".
• Hydrocity Zone Act 1's midboss in Sonic Mania involves the Waterspout machine boss of Hydrocity Zone Act 2 from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Except this time, you are the one piloting it, and have to suck up Eggman into the propeller blades much like how he would try to do the same to you in Sonic 3.
• Warrior Dragon by Lumental is an RPG much like Dragon Quest, only the protagonist is a dragon saving the townsfolk, who are also dragons.
• Kingdom Rush: Vengeance has you play as the general to Vez'nan, the Big Bad of the first game, and instead of saving Linirea you're going to help conquer it. Most of the enemy types in the first game are now Promoted to Playable allies and towers. On the flip side, the fully upgraded towers that you played as in the first game have enemies based off them that also use their abilities.
• Mary Skelter: Nightmares and its sequel Mary Skelter 2 have a recursive variation. The post-game of the original Play Station Vita and Steam versions of the first game has the player taking the Blood Team through an Underground area and fighting a Nightmare that, unlike most other Nightmares, is willing to retreat for its own survival. The sequel has scenes between chapters that follow someone running away from the Blood Team, starting in the Underground area and moving to an area not seen in the original game. This is the first hint that the main character of the sequel and said Nightmare from the first game are one and the same. The Embedded Precursor version of the first game then features an expanded post-game that continues into the area exclusive to the sequel's flashbacks, except from the Blood Team's perspective. The twist at the end is that thanks to Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, the Blood Team and said Nightmare work together to subvert the events that lead to the sequel..
• Minotaur Hotel: The whole premise of the Visual Novel, centering around the Minotaur from ancient myth and his side of the story.
• Plague Inc.: The Cure mode takes the opposite view of the base game, with the player trying to save humanity by curing the disease that they would otherwise be spreading.
• Shovel Knight: Plague Knight's campaign takes place at the same time as Shovel Knight's, but from his perspective, showing the bizarre antics he was getting up to while Shovel Knight was foiling the rest of the Order Of No Quarter. Most notably, you get to play Plague Knight's boss fight as Plague Knight, changing a fairly standard boss fight into a Hopeless Boss Fight.
• Mobile Suit Gundam Spirits Of Zeon and Mobile Suit Gundam 0079: Zeonic Front both let you play as Zeon, the traditional enemies of the original series.
• The Last of Us Part II is primarily about Ellie's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the one who murdered Joel, her Parental Substitute. Then, about halfway through the story, you're suddenly given control of said murderer to learn their motivation and witness the events up to that point from their perspective until the two paths meet again where they previously diverged, culminating in a vicious battle between the two Dueling Player Characters.
• Tyranny is, effectively, a Perspective Flip on the typical High Fantasy epic. An Evil Overlord is moving to Take Over the World, with only bands of rebellious heroes standing in his way... but instead of playing as them, you play as one of the Evil Overlord's henchman, sent to deal with unrest in one of the Empire's territories. You get a very different perspective on such stories; the villainous Empire is a domineering and repressive force, but is also bringing peace and technological advancement to the world, while the rebels are terrorists from regressive cultures that were constantly warring with each other before they got a common enemy. Its up to you whether to play this trope straight by staying loyal to the Big Bad, or to subvert it by becoming a rebel yourself.
• Warcraft has two campaigns, each showing a side in the Human-Orc war. There are Faction-Specific Endings, though the sequels make clear the Orc one was canon.
• Wolf's Gang is a Perspective Flip on the typical "humans vs. monsters" conflict of RPGs. The player characters are typical RPG monsters such as a Wolf Man, a skeleton and a minotaur, while the humans are the enemies.
• NieR has this trope as its primary twist. The first time you play through the game, it seems to be a straightforward story of good vs evil, as Nier fights against the monstrous and evil Shades to protect his friends and save his sister/daughter. On the second playthrough, however, the game shows scenes from the Shades' perspective, and allows you to understand their dialogue... and it turns out that most of the Shades are innocent and/or sympathetic. Sure, there's a handful of genuinely evil ones, but most of them are fighting only to defend themselves from the player, whom they see as a mass murdering psychopath. Even the Big Bad, the Shadowlord, is quite literally another version of the player, with exactly the same motivation: protecting his beloved sister/daughter and curing her terrible disease.
• Natsuki Chronicles, being a P.O.V. Sequel to Ginga Force from the point of view of Natsuki, Ginga Force's Chapter 7 boss, has you replicating the same fight in Stage 7, but from her point of view this time. Since the fight ends in her defeat in Ginga Force, you can't actually defeat Alex and Margaret; instead, the actual objective is to survive until the fight ends on its own (getting destroyed too early still results in a game over).
• After playing likely over 100 hours as the virtually unstoppable space ninjas who wiped the titular cybernetic suits in Warframe, "The New War" sees you controlling a Grineer Lancer and a Corpus Crewman, two of the mooks you’re cut down in droves. Played With in that at this point, everyone has a shared problem to deal with - the returned Sentients.

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