Posthumous Character / Video Games

Posthumous Characters in Video Games.

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• Alice's entire family from Alice: Madness Returns died in a house fire. However, the collectible memories allow us to hear what their story was before passing away. Shockingly, her sister Lizzie's memories reveal that the fire was caused by a Stalker with a Crush who was rejected by Alice's sister, setting the whole plot in motion.
• Everyone in Analogue: A Hate Story, except for *Mute and (depending on how you define "death") *Hyun-ae. The entire reason you're there in the first place is to investigate why the ancient slower-than-light "generation spaceship" never made it to its destination, and the death of its entire population is the obvious proximal cause. Turns out Hyun-ae killed them in revenge for unceasing misogynistic abuse including cutting out her tongue, right before uploading her brain and becoming *Hyun-ae. The sequel, Hate Plus, has you investigate logs embedded in the AI you rescued in the previous game that promise to explain what caused the spaceship's society to go so far off track. Even if it weren't for the above-mentioned catastrophe, the logs in question are all hundreds of years old, so old age would have gotten any human documented in them, and the last log is titled "The Death of *Mute", foreshadowing that the *Mute in the logs got her memory wiped and her programming drastically altered to become the Female Misogynist *Mute of the present time.
• ANNO: Mutationem: While exploring The Consortium's facility, Ann comes across documents that refer to a scientist called Dr. D, who allegedly was involved in a incident when she got sucked into a rift when a lab experiment went out of control. A Precious Photo found in G's office reveals she was C's former lover and her death was the primary motive for C's actions to obtain the Artifact of Doom.
• Sayoko in the first Another Code didn't really get much attention, despite the plot revolving around her daughter attempting to solve the mystery of how and why she died in the first place. Her character is more fully fleshed out in the sequel, with her backstory making up a good chunk of the main plot.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • This is the central premise of the series. All those historical characters are virtual reproductions of genetic memories stored in Desmond's DNA. All of them have been dead for centuries.
  • In Assassins Creed IV, Desmond is this, with the protagonist finding audio-recordings of his messages.
• Baldur's Gate:
  • Gorion, Charname's foster father, dies right after the tutorial. Doesn't stop him from appearing in Charname's dreams a lot, or certain enemies from impersonating him.
  • Bhaal, Charname's real father, died twenty years before the game starts during a catastrophic event known as the Time of Trouble. It's the plans for his resurrection that drive most of the plot, and he too likes haunting Charname's dreams. In Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, Charname even gets to witness his death first hand.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum has Amadeus Arkham, aka the Spirit of Arkham. Batman must collect journal entries of the founder of the Asylum throughout Arkham Island in a side mission, where we learn the secret history of Gotham's greatest prison and its chief doctor's eventual incarceration within his own institution.
  • In a similar nod to Amadeus's mission, Batman: Arkham Origins sees Batman also search for the journal entries of Cyrus Pinkney, another deceased founding father of Gotham.
  • In the series finale, Batman: Arkham Knight, the Joker is dead. However, at the same time, he is very much alive, also being a very important plot point in Batman's mind.
• Batman: The Telltale Series sees a greater focus on Thomas and Martha Wayne, and their legacy, which is the crux of the plot, because unlike other versions, these versions underwent Adaptational Villainy and were in league with crime boss Carmine Falcone and Gotham's corrupt mayor Hamilton Hill, with Thomas Wayne being a Greater-Scope Villain as his actions resulted in the existence of the Penguin and Lady Arkham (a similarly Adaptational Vilified Vicki Vale), whose actions also in turn lead to bad publicity for Bruce and Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face.
• Although it's implied that most of the dead characters in Bendy and the Ink Machine are more of The Undead, there are a few dead characters involved in the Apocalyptic Log that it's unknown whether Henry ever encounters as such:
  • Grant Cohen is confirmed dead in "The Old Song" in the New Game Plus, where Henry's seeing tool shows his name on one of the coffins.
  • Ditto for Lacie Benton.
• BioShock:
  • Everyone in BioShock except the handful of people still alive at the start of the game gets all their character development done through Apocalyptic Log entries. The most notable examples include Doctor Suchong, who is responsible for several important plot elements, and Ryan's mistress Diane McClintock, who gets a fairly comprehensive character arc if you hunt down all her logs. Of course, the trope is not always played straight, and the central villain is a notable and memorable subversion.
  • Played straight in Bioshock Infinite by Lady Comstock. She was the late wife of Comstock who supposedly gave birth to Elizabeth a mere seven days after conception. She is worshipped as a martyr after her (supposed) assassination at the hands of Daisy Fitzroy nineteen years before Booker reached Columbia. Until Comstock uses Elizabeth's powers to resurrect her as the Siren. But even that isn't really her.
• Bug Fables:
  • Queen Elizant I, the founder of the Ant Kingdom and creator of the Explorer's Association that drives the game's plot forward. The opening lore states that she entered "A deep sleep" and her daughter, Queen Elizant II, takes her place. Subverted in that the "deep sleep" is revealed late in the game to be literal. She was put in stasis intended to be awoken after her descendant found the Everlasting Sapling, but she does not wake up during the events of the game.
  • The scientists in Upper Snakemouth who were responsible for the cordycep zombies roaming around and Leif's rebirth. They are long gone, but holographic projections of them can be found all through the lab detailing what they did to try to obtain immortality without the Everlasting Sapling.
• The Caligula Effect:
  • Ichika Saotome, whose death affected Shogo and Thorn greatly. Shogo was supposed to kill himself with her but backed out of it at the last second, and Thorn blamed Shogo for her death; he uses Ichika's appearance as an avatar in Mobius to torment Shogo further.
  • Overdose has Himari Minamide, the leader of an underground idol group before her sudden death. Despite being dead for years, all of the new main and side characters are connected to her in some way or another.
• Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly: Jorji's grandfather, who died before one of Jorji's daughters was born, was a war veteran who was honorably discharged due to a permanent leg injury. Bourne Street was named after him in his honor. Jorji became a cop to protect his grandfather from criminals after a burglary, even if the latter didn't trust the police, but he died just when Jorji entered training. Jorji's grandfather also used to talk to the fairy vendors in front of his place, which was where he bought his lighter, which Jorji holds onto dearly as a lucky charm.
• Control:
  • Director Trench is only alive in the opening cutscene; the next time he's seen is when Jesse walks in on the aftermath of his apparent suicide. Nonetheless, he continues appearing in her mind and giving obscure clues as to her next goals. Pope speculates that this could be a side effect of Jesse bonding the Shapeshifter Weapon that killed him.
  • Director Northmoor is dead long before the game even began, being Trench's predecessor, but he's still talked about a bit by his successor. Except that Northmoor's not really dead, but being locked in the Bureau's power plant to act as its power source is hardly better.
• Prophet in Crysis 2 — He is alive and kicking in Crysis and Crysis Warhead, but doesn't get much in the way of development. 2 expands on his story greatly via flashbacks.
• Many characters throughout the Dark Tales series are this, as Dupin and the player only learn about them after they've been murdered.
• Deceive Inc. has Agent Knight, who's a more ambiguous case. They were a top spy until their last mission, where they disappeared under currently unknown circumstances. Regardless of their ultimate fate, their absence is keenly felt by Agents Ace and Chavez—who were their teammates during that fateful mission—and Agent Squire, their former apprentice and successor...not to mention the implications that their final failed mission was the Inciting Incident for Deceive Inc.'s existence in the first place.
• Devil May Cry:
  • The Legendary Dark Knight Sparda is the father of the series' main protagonist Dante and has an influence in the plot that is felt everywhere despite being dead.
  • Eva, Dante's mother, was killed by the minions of the demon lord Mundus. This is what drove Dante to hunt demons in the first place.
  • Vergil first appears under a possessed state under the name of Nelo Angelo and in the service of Mundus. After his death, his sword plays an important role in Devil May Cry 4. This is ultimately subverted when Vergil is resurrected in the fifth game.
  • There's also the unnamed, original ruler of the Underworld, who was usurped and slain by Mundus.
• Dragon Age:
  • King Maric died at sea roughly five years before the events of Dragon Age: Origins, at which time his son Cailan was crowned king. His absence from Ferelden impacts the plot, in part because most people don't feel Cailan is as good a king as his father was. No likeness of him ever appears in the games, but he does appear as a character in some of the tie-in novels and comics.
    • Depending on which origin is selected, some characters can be this. If the Warden is not either of the dwarf options, they won't learn about King Endrin or Prince Trian of Orzammar until after they have both died. Non-human noble Wardens don't learn about the Teyrn of Highever until well after he and his family have been murdered. Non-Dalish Wardens only hear about Mahariel and Tamlen in the past tense when they visit another clan.
  • Malcolm Hawke, father of the player character in Dragon Age II, died a few years before the events of the game. Although his death doesn't have a huge impact on the plot, it is a driving factor behind Hawke's character, as his death essentially left them the head of the family. Malcolm is never seen, except as a ghostly pair of eyes in the Legacy DLC; this is because Hawke strongly resembles him physically, and Hawke's appearance can be customized by the player.
    • This is also true of the various family members of Hawke's companions, all of whom are only ever mentioned as having died before the companions ever met Hawke. Most particularly it's the case with Sebastian's family, because their murder is what drives his entire character arc and leads him to meet Hawke in the first place.
  • Divine Justinia is this in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and her death is what starts the plot.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Numerous characters from the backstory of the series have been dead for hundreds or even thousands of years prior to the events of the games, but their impact is still felt as a catalyst for those events. Notable examples include St. Alessia, founder of the First Cyrodiilic Empire, whose pact with the Eight (later Nine) Divines is felt on numerous occasions throughout the series, and Tiber Septim, founder of the Third Cyrodiilic Empire (the current empire in the main series of games), who ascended after his death as Talos, the Ninth Divine. Other examples can be found on the series' Historical Figures sub-page.
  • Lord Indoril Nerevar in Morrowind. His death, and the subsequent events, are the main catalyst for the plot of the game some 4000 years later. The events of his life and death are discovered through in-game books and conversations with several prominent characters. They, of course, conflict greatly. The Player Character is his reincarnation. Maybe.
  • Skyrim:
    • High King Torygg is killed in a duel by Ulfric Stormcloak just prior to the events of the game. Such duels are allowed in the ancient traditions of the Nords, but Torygg's supporters (including The Empire) feel that Ulfric's use of the Thu'um in the duel made it unfair and invalid, leading into the game's Civil War. The player can meet Torygg's spirit late in the main quest in Sovngarde. He doesn't think it was a fair fight.
    • Jurgen Windcaller founded the Greybeards thousands of years ago, preaching "The Way of the Voice", which states that the Thu'um should only be used to honor the gods, causing the Greybeards to practice pacifism and, most importantly for the game, nonintervention in worldly affairs. (Getting them involved is a main quest plot point.)
• Every character in Eternal Darkness not named "Alex", "Edwin", "Peter", or "Michael". One of the first sentences involves the narrator, Edward, informing you that he is dead.
• Extra Case: My Girlfriend's Secrets: Despite Marty's assumptions, Seira is neither alive nor an evil spirit, though her death traumatized Sally into developing an evil Split Personality.
• Fallout:
  • Throughout the series, many characters will only be mentioned in holotapes or journal entries, given that the entire series takes place many years following a nuclear apocalypse. Some, on the other hand, are dead on behalf of the Wasteland not being a kind place.
  • Fallout 3: The Lone Wanderer's mother dies giving birth to him/her; the one scene that they are present in they can't be seen for obvious reasons — it's the LW's birth. Her presence is felt throughout the game, motivating James to complete their legacy. Her favorite Bible passage, Revelations 21:6, is the passcode to Project Purity.
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • The Dead Money DLC features this trope prominently: two of its main characters have been dead for over two hundred years, and the present story is told almost entirely against the backdrop of what their long-dead relationship created. Via the use of carefully placed audio logs, settings, and recollections of surviving characters, they even manage to have their own complete character development and story arcs.
    • The Honest Hearts DLC has Randall Dean Clark, AKA the Survivalist, AKA "The Father in the Cave", a former American soldier and survivalist from two hundred years ago, whose actions led to the survival and creation of the Sorrows tribe, who now see him as their god and protector. However, his existence and life story are only revealed through the myths the Sorrows created around him and the journal entries he left behind, in his many hideouts in the caves.
  • Fallout 4:
    • Depending on which Sole Survivor the player chooses — either Nate or Nora — the other is killed early on in the prologue. Most players don't let this affect their game much for a number of reasons (chief among them being the fact that most companions are romanceable, a feature missing from earlier games).
    • Somewhere between 3 and 4, both Elder and Sarah Lyons passed away, leaving the chain of command in the hand of one Arthur Maxson. Brotherhood members will mention them occasionally, but not in a good way.
    • Robert MacCready's wife Lucy^note apparently not the same Lucy from Little Lamplight in Fallout 3 was killed by a Feral Ghoul several years before the game takes place. Similarly, Cait's abusive and alcoholic parents were killed by Cait herself as soon as she bought her way out of slavery.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy V, Enuo was a dark wizard who was killed 1000 years before the game starts. He summoned the Void and his actions split the world into two, before he was swallowed by the void. His past deeds set into motion the events of the main game.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Zack Fair from is the entire reason Cloud becomes the main character, yet we only find out about his existence after Cloud realizes that he was pretending to be Zack the whole time.
    • Sephiroth is this as well. Cloud killed him long before the game starts, though he eventually wills himself back to life in the end just in time for the Final Battle. Every time you encounter him outside of flashbacks prior to the end, it's just another Jenova clone.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • Jecht, Tidus's emotionally abusive father, whom we only see through flashbacks in the form of recorded spheres. However, we eventually learn that Jecht isn't dead.
    • Braska, Yuna's father and the previous summoner who defeated Sin ten years prior. Unlike Jecht, he doesn't get as much character development and did leave a Video Will, if you happen to find it.
  • Serah in Final Fantasy XIII turns to solid crystal only seconds after she appears for the first time at the end of the first act. As the game progresses, more details are revealed about her and her past. Her fate is a major motivation and driving force behind both Lightning's and Snow's diverging storylines, and she played a major role in the events that led up to the beginning of the game.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
  • Christophe, Lonato's son and Ashe's adoptive brother, was executed four years prior to the events of the game for allegedly planning to assassinate Rhea.
  • Dimitri's father, King Lambert, his stepmother, Queen Patricia, and Felix's brother/Ingrid's fiancé, Glenn, among countless other people, perished in the Tragedy of Duscur. Eventually, it's revealed that Patricia didn't actually die in the Tragedy, and in fact was one of the instigators of it. However, given what happened to her brother, it's likely she still died at some point.
• Fuga: Melodies of Steel has Spritz Strudel, a former spy of the Berman Empire who was executed for treason when he leaked their invasion plans to the Gasco military. This resulted in his family becoming persecuted, and his son Britz enlists as a Child Soldier, feeling it was the only way to clear his family name.
• The Galaxy Angel series has a few of them.
  • Almost immediately in is Gerard Transbaal, killed in a coup orchestrated by estranged son Eonia.
  • The sequel trilogy adds three more, all related to two of the Rune Angel pilots. Bianca Mateus, the younger sister of male pilot Roselle, had passed away due to an illness before Roselle could show off his new pilot license (her dream to go into space was why he trained to become a pilot to begin with) while Garam and Masara Azeat, Anise's parents, perished in a mine collapse while Anise was an infant.
• The mysterious Inventor in Grapple Dog, a mouse-like being who hasn't been seen for at least hundreds of years at this point. And Nul personally knew him as well, but doesn't have a very high opinion of him. According to Nul, the Inventor is responsible for taking the Cosmic Gadgets for himself and didn't care for Nul like he claimed to.
• The Fortune Teller in Guild Wars: Factions has a massive impact on Factions's plot, having foreseen Shiro's rise to fame (and fall to villainy). The last time she is seen in Factions, she warns Shiro to beware the harvest ceremony, driving him to murder the emperor. However, Nightfall explains that she was a demonic agent of Abaddon, sent to corrupt Shiro Tagachi. She is still alive in the Realm of Torment and is a boss fight.
• Both Haunted Hotel and Paranormal Files have several characters who only come to the attention of the player character after their deaths (some natural, most not), because each series focuses on helping deceased characters stop tormenting the living and Go into the Light.
• Pandora of HeroSmash, as she, according to her memorial statue found in Aurora Park, made the ultimate sacrifice so that the residents of Super City could see another day.
• Hidden Dragon: Legend has the Chinese Empress, Wu Zetian, as a major character who died a decade before the game's events. Her quest for immortality (which failed) led to the establishment of an evil cult called the Trigram, who imposes a reign of tyranny all over China which the hero needs to stop.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: One of the key characters in the game is Elisabet Sobeck, a brilliant scientist of the Old Ones... a thousand years ago. Aloy wonders if there might be some way she could have survived, and Sylens admits that from what he's discovered of the Old Ones, some sort of immortality doesn't seem especially far-fetched. The reason they even consider the possibility is that Aloy looks exactly like Elisabet; several people assume that they are mother and daughter. When Aloy finds out that Elisabet is dead after all, she's distraught, but not particularly surprised. Aloy is in fact Elisabet's clone, born a thousand years after her death from frozen gene samples because her geneprint would allow her to access most of the important facilities of the Old World.
• In Iji:
  • Mia, Iji's little sister, is long dead once her sibling gets out of her coma, but her ribbons lead Iji on a wild goose chase throughout the game that ultimately culminates (if you manage to collect them all) with her coming to terms with her death.
  • Hel Sarie was killed long before the game's events, but her death leads to the sorry state that the Tasen is in at the beginning, being led by her incompetent successor Krotera and vulnerable to the Komato.
• Iron Helix: The crew of the Jeremiah Obrian, the ship that you are exploring, are all dead by the time you get onboard, your interactions with them being limited to discovering video logs they recorded only moments before their deaths.
• The Remnant Psyches in killer7 are the ghosts of people who were previously associated with the Seven Smiths during their lifetime, mostly former victims. Most of them are the ghosts of defeated bosses like Andre Ulmeyda and Curtis Blackburn, but some of them (namely Travis Bell, Kess Bloodysunday, Susie Sumner) were also past victims who died before the events of the game. The only possible exception is Iwazaru, who may be The Mole, the Big Bad, neither, or both.
• Billy from Kindergarten is a student who mysteriously disappeared before the start of the game, leaving his friend Nugget alone, his jilted girlfriend Cindy using Billy's sister Lily as a proxy for her revenge, and Lily herself depressed and searching for the truth behind his disappearance. The player can find a finger and a bloodied shoe belonging to him in the bathroom, implying that he was killed. Subverted in the final mission, in which the protagonist and Lily find out that the principal kidnapped him for experimentation since he knew too much and that he's alive and well (if mutated) in the principal's secret lab.
• The mask spirits from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. You do get to meet Darmani and Mikau briefly, but it's after they die that you get to know them in more depth through living their lives.
• LISA: The titular character kills herself in the Time Skip between the first and second games. Her death had a noticeable impact on her big brother Brad, which subsequently takes out his issues on his adopted daughter Buddy, and most of Brad's story arc revolves around him attempting to protect Buddy when he couldn't protect Lisa.
• Theofratus from Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. Almost every chapter begins with dialogue from his life before his death, providing details to his character, as well as important hints to the game's plot.
• In Mass Effect 2, it's revealed that Tali's father Rael 'Zorrah, the great Quarian general, was killed by Geth before Shepard reaches his ship. It turns out he died after allowing Geth units onto his ship to use as test subjects for war practices. His last message were orders to his daughter on how to rid the ship of the Geth.
• The real Spider from Mega Man X: Command Mission is a possible example, as after his big Heroic Sacrifice mid-way through the game, he suddenly shows up again and reveals himself to be the Big Bad in disguise. It's never revealed when the switch between the real deal and the imposter happened, either. For all anyone knows, X and company never met the real deal in the first place.
• In the Metroid series, Samus Aran's former CO Adam Malkovich is an intriguing example. In Metroid Fusion, his character is introduced in monologues given by Samus, with implications that he sacrificed his life to save her. However, in an interesting twist, Adam's mind was uploaded into the computer on the station Samus was on, so in a weird way he was kinda, sorta alive, depending on how you view the phrase "alive".
• Night in the Woods has a few:
  • Mae's Grandpa's last words are the subject of the game's opening, and the events of his life come up in several sidequests. The Weird Autumn edition adds a scene where he appears to watch over Mae while she naps in the Church.
  • Bea's mother gets very little characterisation beyond Mae drunkenly sobbing about how nice she was. Her death is mostly what forced Bea to grow up much faster than Mae.
  • On a more spoilery note, Casey, whose status as a missing person is felt several times throughout the game and turns out to be a case of Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead. The fact that the villains considered his life worth so little that they were willing to sacrifice him to the Black Goat without worrying about anyone missing him helps drive home that they are, indeed, the bad guys.
• Octopath Traveler II has Malaya, who first appears in Castti's story in her first chapter. She helps Castti deal with a sudden disease outbreak in Canalbrine after she arrives there without her past memories, but when inquired, she refuses to tell her anything about her memories besides the fact that she was the one that sent Castti adrift before she ends up in Canalbrine. This is because the real Malaya is already dead along with the rest of the Eir's Apothecaries, having been killed by Trousseau's poison rain, but not before she carries a weakened Castti to the harbor with some medicine. The Malaya Castti encounters in her journey is an hallucination.
• OMORI has Mari, whom around the first Faraway town sequence is revealed to be Dead All Along. At first the player is heavily led to believe that she hanged herself, but in actuality Sunny accidentally pushed her down the stairs in the midst of an argument, and Basil was a witness. It was Basil who came up with the idea to stage it like a suicide, but the image of Mari's hanging corpse with a single eye open manifested itself in Sunny's mind as Something, a malevolent entity that haunts Sunny's dreams. Basil created his own Something to prevent himself from having to confront the truth about Mari in a similar way to Sunny. The climax of the game is a Battle in the Center of the Mind where Sunny has to remind himself of the truth and give himself the courage to tell his friends what really happened.
• Persona 3:
  • In the main story, Ken's mother is the driving force behind Ken's motivations to join S.E.E.S. and attempt to kill Shinjiro for accidentally murdering his mother with his Persona.
  • "The Answer" has the protagonist, though the main team eventually get to see him acting as The Great Seal between Nyx and Erebus.
• Portal 2:
  • Cave Johnson, the man behind Aperture Science. His glory days and eventual decline are chronicled in a bunch of audio-logs that are played on some of the levels.
  • Caroline, Cave Johnson's assistant. Subverted, as it turns out that she's still alive due to forced Brain Uploading and became GLaDOS.
• In Potion Permit, Osman's father Oswald died before the events of the game, but the documents scattered across Glaze Iceberg and the one locked in Osman's office reveal his involvement in the research accident. He evacuated the research team out of Glaze Iceberg, but he wasn't able to rescue his best friend Dr. Lewis. Although Oswald was hailed a hero, he still felt guilty for losing Lewis because the latter took all the blame for the accident. Oswald planned to clear Lewis's name by publishing the latter's research logs, but he passed away before he could do so.
• Erana from the Quest for Glory series is a powerful sorceress whom you hear about throughout the series, and then in Quest for Glory IV you get to find out what happened to her. She was sealed away by an Eldritch Abomination while sacrificing herself to stop said Abomination from entering the world. You can bring her back from the underworld in Quest for Glory V if you choose, and she becomes one of your love interests.
• After finishing the first generation of Record of Agarest War, Leonhardt becomes this. He is still being discussed by other characters even after his death.
• Rosenkreuz of RosenkreuzStilette is one. He sacrificed his own life to have his final wish granted — his wish was for the Holy Empire to accept Magi as part of their military.
• In Shin Megami Tensei V, the God of Law is this, having been killed by Lucifer eighteen years prior to the events of this game. However, Abdiel and many other members of Bethel refuse to believe that He is actually dead until they realize at the pan-demonic summit that the Nahobino's mere existence proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
• Silent Hill has a few of these, all of which manage to be major characters. For example, the worst ending in Silent Hill implies that Harry dreamed the entire plot of the game as he died in the car crash.
  • James's wife Mary from Silent Hill 2 drives pretty much the entire plot, as despite being dead, a letter from her brings James to the town and kickstarts the game in the first place.
  • Harry Mason in Silent Hill 3, which is discovered at the game's halfway point. Harry's death was orchestrated by the Big Bad to try and get Heather to succumb to her hate and give birth to the God of Evil.
  • Walter Sullivan in Silent Hill 4: The Room, despite being the primary antagonist, as he returns as a ghost to set the plot in motion.
  • Joshua Shepherd and possibly Adam Shepherd as well in Silent Hill: Homecoming. Alex was meant to die in Joshua's place, and Joshua's death caused the game's events. Meanwhile, Adam was a negative influence to Alex growing up, resulting in his current troubled mind.
  • Harry himself in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The whole game is about Cheryl attempting to come to terms with his demise.
• Zig-Zagged with Master Eon from Skylanders. He was one of the greatest Portal Masters in Skylands' history, but became a spirit before the first game started after Kaos destroyed the Core of Light and Eon got knocked into his own portal by the ensuing explosion. He is now a Spirit Advisor to the new Portal Master, the player. But later in Skylanders: SuperChargers, he is shown to still be able to interact with the other characters even as a spirit. He even spends the first third of the game being a Distressed Dude.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Knuckles's people, the Knuckles Clan, briefly mentioned in the Japanese manuals of the classic games and finally seen in Sonic Adventure. They lived millennia ago and most of them were wiped out by Chaos, but their actions shaped history and the world.
  • Maria and Gerald Robotnik have been dead awhile but still factor into the plot, such as in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Battle. Their memories are very important to Shadow the Hedgehog and his motivations.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Knights of the Old Republic: Revan is the Big Bad that got the whole plot rolling. A Fallen Hero of the Mandalorian Wars who fell to the Dark Side, became Dark Lord of the Sith, and laid waste to the galaxy until he was stopped by a sneak attack from his apprentice Darth Malak while distracted by a Jedi strike team. Though it later turns out they didn't die in that sneak attack, but they were captured by the Jedi and mind-wiped — and you've been playing as them the whole time.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, we have Coorta in the Peragus level. The various holocrons mention him as being a troublemaker (bringing weapons into the mining facility despite how dangerous it is) and being the driving force behind selling the Jedi for bounty money. It seems like he's being set up as a disc-one antagonist. When you finally meet Coorta, you find his dead body on the ground, and the final holocron shows him as being killed by HK-50 after he tried to escape the mining facility.
• Gouken in the Street Fighter series before Street Fighter IV made him better (his appearance in the American animated series doesn't count), being Ryu and Ken's teacher, his assumed death at the hands of his brother Akuma leads to Ryu seeking out Akuma for answers and discovering the power of the Satsui no Hado, which he struggles with from Street Fighter Alpha all the way up to Street Fighter V.
• Despite Treize Khushrenada's death being used as a martyr for the Mariemaia Army and Wufei's usual Face–Heel Turn excuse in Super Robot Wars Z3 Jigoku-hen, his actions and death in Saisei-hen also have a big impact on Char Aznable. Instead of leading Neo Zeon to punish humanity by dropping Axis on Earth like in so many other Super Robot Wars games, he opts this time to save humanity by using Axis as a singularity point to unite them because he'd had learned much from Treize, whose dying words were telling him not to make the same mistakes as he did.
• The Talos Principle: Alexandra Drennan, the researcher who left the audio recordings.
• Total Annihilation: Kingdoms: It is revealed in Iron Plague that Garacaius died long ago when he gave up his immortality and founded the Steampunk kingdom of Creon, which he made into an Antimagical Faction.
• River is the crux of the entire story of To the Moon, but she's already been dead for years when the story opens. However, you do get to see most of her life in person through Johnny's memories.
• Takamachi Shirou, Kyouya's father in Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever, is mostly developed through his family's memories and flashbacks. They kept him alive and present, however, in the More Popular Spin-Off Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
• Uncharted:
  • Sir Francis Drake is this in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (doubling up as a Historical Domain Character). The plot is kicked off by Nathan Drake, who believes that he is Sir Francis's descendant, following clues left by Francis that reveal how he faked his death and went hunting for a legendary treasure on an uncharted island. His journal and messages to other people are crucial to following the trail, and at the end, Nate discovers that Francis made a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the Descendants from escaping the island. Francis is also a crucial part of Nate's characterisation, since the latter draws a lot of pride and self-confidence from being the descendant of the former, and briefly believing that Francis failed in his quest and died alone crushes Nate's spirit.
  • Marco Polo in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, though not as much as Francis in the previous game. By retracing his footsteps, Nate and his crew hope to locate the city of Shambhala.
  • Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception:
    • T. E. Lawrence plays a huge part in the story, with Nate and Sully using records of his time working as an archaeologist in the Middle East in order to find Iram of the Pillars.
    • The game also gives more details on the connection between Nathan and Sir Francis Drake. Specifically, there isn't one. Nate made up his backstory, including his name, just to convince himself that he was worth something.
• Undertale:
  • Prince Asriel and his adopted sibling Chara. Both died years before the action of the game and the player doesn't even learn about their existence until near the end — but their deaths are the direct cause of Asgore's Start of Darkness. In the end, it turns out that Asriel got resurrected as Flowey, while Chara managed to somehow accidentally possess the player just before the beginning of the game (even they admit they have no idea how this happened) and, according to a popular fan theory, is actually the narrator.
  • The other six Fallen Humans. Though they're really less of posthumous characters and more of posthumous OC stand-ins, with the game revealing nothing about them other than that they were all killed on Asgore's orders. The player can find their equipment in different locations and their souls are kept in Asgore's vault. Flowey steals and uses them twice to fulfill his plan, with the second time ending with him breaking the Barrier.
  • W.D. Gaster. We can only learn about his existence from several very well hidden Easter Eggs. He used to be the royal scientist before Alphys, but got somehow killed by his own invention, resulting in him being erased from the timeline. And now he seems to be slowly bringing himself back together...
• In Wadanohara, Sal, Mikotsu, Old and the residents of the Sea of Death are dead for the entirety of the game, as the game is set in a flashback.
• The Walking Dead:
  • Lee's fate at the end of Season 1 is inevitable, but that doesn't stop him from appearing in Clementine's dreams and being mentioned a lot by the characters of future seasons.
  • Salvador García, the father of Javier and David, dies at the start of A New Frontier. He is long-dead by the time of the main story, and only properly appears in a flashback in the fifth episode.
• A Witch's Tale:
  • Princess Rapunzel, who was the first princess of Florin.
  • Alice killed the Eld Witch's daughters and denied them reincarnation rights. In the New Game Plus, you can fight their hateful shadows.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3:
  • The game features a lot of these characters, even going so far as to include them on the Relationship Chart (typically through their relationships to still living NPCs). Given the game's themes about life and the Forever War the majority of characters are locked in, a lot is made about the influence the dead have on those who are still living. The Ouroboros party members also have some significant relationships to people that died long before the game starts, notably Joran, Nimue, and Miyabi. Many of these relationships become complicated by the reveal that soldiers of Keves and Agnus reincarnate.
  • Future Redeemed, the prequel DLC, centers on the Founders, who were posthumous in the main game. Furthermore, one of the most prominent characters is Matthew's grandfather Ghondor Vandham, who died just a few months before the start of the DLC. He is the son of the Noah and Mio who went on to become Moebius, and Moebius N accidentally killed him when Ghondor jumped in front of N's attack aimed at Matthew's sister Na'el.
• The Ys franchise provides a rare example where the protagonist of its games has been explicitly dead for centuries. Each installment featuring Adol Christin is an In-Universe re-telling of one of his journals, numbering in the hundreds, re-written into collected volumes by an unknown writer.

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