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Remember The New Guy / Video Games

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New characters that everyone already knows in video games.

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Other examples:

  • Ace Combat:
    • Grimm in Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War is introduced this way, where halfway through the fourth mission he comes in out of nowhere, announces he's taking a spare plane up to help you defend the base, and the game treats this like some sort of shocking development while a first-time player is wondering, "who the hell is this?". Fortunately, it happens early enough in the game that it isn't too jarring.
    • Hero Killer Mihaly A Shilage of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is supposed to be this legendary Old Soldier of an Ace Pilot, and his Badass Boast in Trigger's final duel with him claims that "There are pilots like you in every generation, and I've felled every last one of them." The problem is that he never appears or even gets alluded to in any other Ace Combat game, even though he's supposed to also be Yellow 13's instructor.
  • In Baldur's Gate II, it's actually the main character's own choice if they recognize people they might actually have met in the first game or not. Interestingly, among the dialogue options there is usually also "Shouldn't you be dead?" This is somewhat necessary, of course, considering the non-linear nature of the Baldur's Gate games and lack of an Old Save Bonus function. It's actually possible to play the first game without ever meeting some of those characters, or without having them join your party, depending on the decisions the player makes.
  • Battlefield 4 manages the amazing feat of invoking this trope with an actual recurring character, CIA agent Kovic. He's supposed to be one of the two people who were interrogating Blackburn about his actions in Battlefield 3, but outside of his appearance, it's simply not possible to recognize him. You can't recognize him by name, because the previous game never saw fit to ever tell you it. You can't recognize him by his personality or manner of speaking, because his entire personality back then could be summed up as "you're a lying liar who lies, the Russians are the real bad guys because they're Russian". You can't even recognize him by voice because, despite actually going to the effort of retaining the same actor, he forgot what voice he used for Kovic the first time around and sounds completely different, sounding more like Sgt. Cole, a completely different character who died in 3.
  • Billy vs. SNAKEMAN has Sue. Allegedly, she's in your party from the start, but she doesn't appear on your ally list until you've beaten her in a game of Mahjong. (The behaviour of the two nameless AI players during this game implies they're also Sue, emphasizing that entering a scene without being identified is something she's exceptional at even by ninja standards.) More generally, this game has a theme of the player slowly attaining the perspectives to make connections and notice activities which have been going on in the background the whole time (and realize that early on the player character has played the role of a nameless background civilian in numerous other stories), so while Sue's still an unusual case she does fit in.
  • Sofia Lamb, the Big Bad of BioShock 2 is established in the latter game as having been a major opponent of Andrew Ryan during Rapture's early history, having her following/cult of ideals diametrically opposite to those of Ryan and having public debates with the latter despite having never having been mentioned in the previous game (Sinclair and Alexander at least had their names mentioned once or twice). This is slightly justified by her having been kept in Ryan's secret prison during Fontaine's rise to power while Ryan did his best to wipe her from the public record.
  • Parodied with Professor Nakayama of the Sir Hammerlock DLC of Borderlands 2. When he first appears, he assumes that you've come to square off with him and stop his plans. Hammerlock however clarifies that they're simply here for a hunting trip and have no idea who he is. When Nakayama tries to brag about his various exploits, Hammerlock and the Vault Hunters still don't know who he is, which deeply annoys him.
  • Yuri from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 claims to have been created by Stalin despite never being mentioned in the previous game. He even has a picture of the two of them.
  • The Crash Bandicoot series was prone to introducing Funny Animal characters, despite the mythos of the series implying all animals with anthropomorphic abilities were mutated by Neo Cortex or N. Brio. For example, Coco, Crash's sister, is introduced inexplicably in the second game, her background never referred to (later games and bios clarify she was another mutant created by Cortex, though even then she is not shown or mentioned in the first game, the only point she could have been created, with it later being revealed that she was created and escaped the castle during that time).
  • Dark Souls: It's well-known that Gwyn has three children; His unnamed Firstborn, Princess Gwynevere, and Dark Sun Gwyndolin. By reading all the lore and noting the statues in Anor Londo, it is clear that these three are his only children. In the third game, we're introduced to 2 more Daughters of Gwyn: Yorshka, a Dragon Crossbreed, and Fillianore. The latter is explained away by being sent to live with Pygmies in a far off kingdom. The former is an absolute mystery, claiming she's a daughter even though Gwyn hated dragons and it's not even clear if Giants and Dragons can breed to begin with.
    • Data mining shows that Fillianore was originally supposed to be Gwyn's wife - and that would make a lot more sense. It is completely unknown why her role was changed to one of a never mentioned daughter.
  • Deltarune: New character Nubert was retconned into Chapter 1 with the release of Chapter 2. His every appearance plays him up as an old friend everyone loves, despite the fact that he literally hadn't existed for the first three years of the game's lifespan.
  • Divinity:
    • A big part of the lore of the series involves the Divine Lucian (the player character of the first game, Divine Divinity) and his adopted son, Damian. Divinity: Original Sin II, set before Beyond Divinity, introduces a character named "Bishop Alexandar", who is the son of the Divine. Previously made games in the series didn't mention Lucian even having another child, yet Original Sin II explains him as having been there all along. Fortunately, Larian avoids some other pitfalls of this trope in that Original Sin II is actually set before Beyond Divinity and most importantly Divinity II Dragon Knight Saga, and since by this point Alexandar is long dead, there'd be no reason to mention him. Original Sin and Dragon Commander, being set in the distant past, of course wouldn't mention him for the fact this was a thousand years before it all.
    • Magister Dallis as well — if the ending that involves removing source from the world is indeed the canonical one, then she is still alive, yet vanishes offscreen and from the lore.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series, the Dragon Cult was a Religion of Evil from the Merethic Era who, along with the dragons they worshiped, was defeated and overthrown during the ancient Dragon War. They are a relatively new addition to the series' lore, only being introduced in Skyrim. Possibly justified; since the Dragons primarily operated out of Skyrim and frequently battled the Ancient Nords, it makes sense that the Dragon Cult was most prominent in Skyrim and just hadn't been seen elsewhere in Tamriel.
  • Marcus in Fallout 2 and all of the other named Super Mutants in Fallout: New Vegas were members of the Master's Army at the time of Fallout. This even has a decent in-universe justification for them being newly-introduced from the player's perspective - if they'd actually been in the first game, they wouldn't be around, since any encounter with them would have inevitably lead to a fight and their deaths, because the Super Mutants in the first game were Always Chaotic Evil. ED-E from New Vegas was also established to be built by a Dr. Whitley, a previously-unmentioned Enclave scientist at Adams Air Force Base from Fallout 3.
    • A non-character example is featured heavily in Fallout 4, with the newly introduced T-60 Power Armor being included in the introductory cutscene and the playable prologue (both set before the great war) and a loading screen explicitly stating that it "saw extensive use" and was a "common sight" prior To the Great War, despite never having been even alluded to in any prior game, needless to say it is something of a broken base, especially with Bethesda's seeming inability to decide whether it is superior or inferior to the T-51b, the Power Armor previously established as the most advanced pre-war design.
  • In Fate/Grand Order, Nezha's debut in the main story is given little fanfare as the characters briefly mention that she was summoned by Chaldea sometime before the Salem chapter started, and treat her as if she was always there. She had made an appearance beforehand but only as an NPC cameo in an event that ran two years prior to her debut, and even then, it doesn't explain how or when she was summoned.
  • In Fear Effect the character Rain debuts in Retro Helix which is supposed to be a prequel to the first game, she is quickly established as Hana’s most important person in her life through the second game, yet in the first Fear Effect there’s not even a hint of Rain ever existing, even during the later parts of the game where Hana faces some trials that forces her to relive past memories and needs to find determination to move on, Rain simply doesn’t cross Hana’s mind as a motivation to keep going; Retro Helix just makes an excuse at the end that Hana told Rain to stay at home to justify Rain’s absence from the first game.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Lampshaded in Final Fantasy X-2: Buddy was apparently there in Final Fantasy X, but Yuna doesn't remember him. Justified in that in X the entire Al Bhed race was rescued from Home on the Airship, but Yuna wasn't there for that and only got on the ship herself near the end of the story. A throwaway comment from Rikku implies that she, Buddy, Brother and Gippal were all old friends. When you meet Yaibal of the Youth League, Yuna has the option to say she does remember him despite him only being introduced in X-2 (though he does appear in the "Eternal Calm" prologue to the game).
    • Crisis Core combines this with some serious Retconning of Final Fantasy VII. Turns out, Sephiroth wasn't driven mad just by finding out he was the product of genetic engineering. He was driven mad by a combination of that and Genesis' Breaking Speech. Who's Genesis? An extremely Camp Expy of Sephiroth who was apparently one of his best buddies back in the day. Let's just say fans are divided on how well this worked.
    • Final Fantasy VII Remake features a counterpart to Genesis in this respect with Roche, a Third Class SOLDIER. He appears as a mini-boss during Avalanche’s raid on Shinra and has a Worthy Opponent face-off with Cloud, despite him not appearing or existing at all in the original game. However unlike with Genesis, the response to Roche has been far more unanimously positive likely due to him not impacting the original story like Genesis did and the fact his Badass Biker Blood Knight personality is so contrasting with every other SOLDIER that he’s become an Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Fire Emblem:
  • Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 ends up doing this to its main villain, as Cayenne has been incognito and Faking the Dead since the beginning of the game... yet when we first see him, it's in his masquerade as Shayne Muscat, and was never once mentioned as Vanilla mourns her father Shayne and argues with her older sister Canelle... but neglects to reminisce about her mentor Cayenne until after he reveals his hand. At the end of Chapter 10 of 12.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's' first sequel introduces us to the closest thing the series has to an antagonist for the first time: the Puppet. Considering 2 is a Stealth Prequel, you would imagine it doesn't survive the events of the game. Nope, it's still around and screwing things up by the time the first game rolls around, as shown by the cutscene in-between Night Four and Night Five... which means it's been around the whole time, when no mention is made of it whatsoever in the first game. note 
  • God of War II has Atlas, who recognizes Kratos on sight and clearly bears a grudge against him for some reason, with Kratos recognizing him in turn ("Much has changed since we last met!"). The prequel released the following year, Chains of Olympus, reveals that Kratos, during his time of servitude to the Olympians, was the one who chained up Atlas on top of the Pillar of the World to begin with.
  • Poked fun at with El Trio De Los Muerte, a new member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad in Guacamelee!: Super Turbo Championship Edition. Their introduction is done in the last few seconds of the scene the villains are introduced in and Juan is killed, where they suddenly walk into the scene and ask "Hey guys, what'd I miss?"
  • When Godzilla: Unleashed brought in the Showa Mechagodzilla, the monster's manual backstory would retcon the events of Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee's story mode by describing him as the trump card of the Vortaak's first invasion of Earth, a role originally occupied by Mechagodzilla 2. Mechagodzilla 2's manual backstory would describe it as a human built machine inspired by the Vortaak's Mechagodzilla, serving as an explanation for how it possesses the finger missiles its movie counterpart didn't have.
  • Guild Wars has an interesting relationship with this trope, particularly in that they often zig-zag it.
    • While it may seem that Abaddon is a case of this, a veteran from 2005 might remember Abaddon's maw in Prophecies. However, Eye of the North plays this straight with the Norn and the Asura, who have apparently been in the world just as much as humans, Charr, and Tengu (and have even shared the same landmass!) but are just being introduced. Apparently, humans have never saw signs of Asura on the surface, and the Ebon Vanguard apparently didn't notice the Norn whose territory they regularly scout. Somewhat justifiable in that news doesn't always travel fast, and the Ebon Vanguard is an independent organization.
    • Averted with the Sylvari — Guild Wars 2 states them as being the newest race, and makes zero effort to claim they've always been there. They may seem a bit like an Ass Pull, but there was a little bit of backstory to the Sylvari in Eye of the North. Hope you didn't blink; you probably missed it. The lead up to Heart of Thorns reveals that the recent origin of the Sylvari wasn't just to justify another race in Guild Wars 2, but was a massive, plot-relevant Chekhov's Gun.
  • Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James has this in the sequel, Revenge of Jesse James, the new guy being Bob Younger, brother of Jesse's closest friend Cole Younger which Jesse acts like he knew the whole time, despite never mentioning Bob even once during the first game's events.
  • Half-Life:
    • Dr. Arne Magnusson from Half-Life 2: Episode Two is apparently a vital and high-ranking member of La Résistance - and had a similar role back in Black Mesa — who just happened to have never been mentioned at all previously. The closest the game comes to explaining who he was is him claiming he might forgive you for a "microwave casserole" incident, calling back to the ability to blow up a random scientist's lunch before the resonance cascade in the original game.
    • Half-Life 2 does this a lot, due to the first Half-Life almost entirely making use of generic NPCs, though in some cases (Barney Calhoun and Dr. Isaac Kleiner) the effect is lessened by taking those generic NPCs from the first game and turning them into unique characters (it also helps that Barney was the protagonist of Blue Shift,note  and Kleiner was mentioned in the game's manual as one of Gordon's college professors who ended up helping him get into Black Mesanote ). Eli Vance likewise has a line upon actually meeting him face-to-face in 2 indicating he was the black scientist who asked Gordon to get topside and call for help immediately after the resonance cascade. Alyx, Eli's daughter, lampshades this in her introduction, stating that Gordon probably doesn't remember her — on top of having a valid reason for why she didn't show up in the first game, that being she'd have only maybe been one year old during the incident at Black Mesa. Judith Mossman is likewise introduced as a former Unknown Rival to Gordon back in the day, thus the player is unaware of anything she may have done before the second game because Gordon isn't either. The only particular standout case of this trope, other than the aforementioned Magnusson, is Dr. Breen, former administrator of Black Mesa at the time of the resonance cascade turned administrator of the Combine's presence on the planet.
  • Halo:
    • In Halo 2, the Prophets were treated this way for people who didn't read the books, where they had already shown up several times. This is justified by you not getting a good look at the inner workings of the Covenant in the first game (though its novelization, released between Halo 1 and 2, did show that a Prophet was indeed attached to the fleet hounding you).
    • As were the Engineers in 2009's Halo Wars and Halo 3: ODST — while they had already shown up in Expanded Universe material from the very first book onward, and were even Dummied Out from the first game, those entries were their first actual in-game appearances.
    • The Brutes, also introduced in-game in Halo 2 , were this as well, though not entirely intentionally. Initially, the events of Halo: First Strike, which took place between 1 and 2, were meant to be humanity's first encounter with the species. Then every bit of Halo media taking place before the original game featured them anyways — to the point that Halo: Contact Harvest, written by one of Bungie's own main writers, had them as the second ever Covenant race humans have met and fought with — which resulted in the opposite effect where their lack of presence in the original game is Early-Installment Weirdness. A 2010 reprint of First Strike removed all mention of Brutes being newly-introduced.
    • The Drones, yet another species introduced in 2, were also this, with the original explanation being that the Covenant didn't start using them in battle until near the end of the Human-Covenant war. Like with the Brutes, this was retconned away as later works showed that they had been fighting humanity for the entire duration of the war.
    • Series prequel Halo: Reach introduced the Skirmishers, a Lightning Bruiser subspecies of the Jackals, who were never fought in the previous games. The given explanation by Bungie was that they were wiped extinct by the carnage at the Fall of Reach, though this didn't explain why they didn't show up in other media taking place chronologically before the first game like the aforementioned Halo Wars. And again, this original explanation was retconned away as later works showed that there were still plenty of Skirmishers around long after the Fall of Reach.
  • Witch Princess was introduced in Harvest Moon DS but is the long-standing rival to the Harvest Goddess from Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town.
  • Hidden City, especially the Upper City cases, frequently introduces new characters and locations during Events, but the residents act like they've been around for quite some time.
    • The August 2021 event introduces the Traveling Circus, but even though the Circus tent didn't even have an icon on the map until the event begins, they've apparently been performing in the City for long enough that Carlos is familiar with all the performers, having took his children to see the shows many times before.
    • Ali Vazir and his Moroccan Cafe first appeared in the February 2022 event, but the Cafe is apparently a well-known establishment and has been for quite some time. Kira is surprised that the Player doesn't know about them.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The first three games of the series combine to give us two examples, in a rather convoluted fashion. A bit of background: In the original game, the Big Bad is a king named Ansem who Mickey Mouse met in the backstory. In the next game, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the Ansem character reappears and there is also a new character who calls himself DiZ. It's implied that DiZ is another incarnation of Ansem, as Mickey finds him familiar. The trope comes into play in Kingdom Hearts II. The heroes run across a painting depicting a guy they haven't seen before. When Mickey sees the painting, he claims this new character is Ansem, and the Ansem from previous games is actually an imposter. This is despite the fact that even Mickey called the imposter "Ansem" in previous games. It's later revealed that DiZ is this true Ansem, while the imposter was Ansem's never-before-mentioned apprentice Xehanort. Thus both the real Ansem and the Xehanort character fit this trope despite technically being introduced in previous games.
    • Xion in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days puts a very clever meta twist on the concept, appearing in a game that was released years after Chain of Memories (which debuted Axel and the Organization in general, and foreshadowed Roxas) and II (which debuted Roxas) but chronologically came before both (being meant to expand more on Roxas and his time in the Organization). Xion is best friends with Roxas and Axel, and is the fourteenth member inducted in Organization XIII, despite the fact that it's... you know, Organization XIII. There's also no mention of her whatsoever in any of the other games, even by her supposed "best friends" — in fact, Axel directly says on his deathbed that Roxas was the only one in the Organization he cared about, which would kind of reflect badly on his friendship with Xion if she'd been in that game. However, Roxas not mentioning Xion is justified because his memories of the Organization were wiped for most of his role in II, and was rapidly forgetting her anyway by the end of Days, as was anyone else who ever knew her; as it turns out, Xion was a Living Memory (constructed by the Organization as a tool and never truly counted as one of them, as Saix makes clear) and when she died, the very memory of her died too. Roxas and Axel never mentioned their best friend in II because although it's shown that they deeply and genuinely cared about her, even they forgot her as part of the Ret-Gone. In this Q&A (highlight to see his answers, and beware of spoilers), Tetsuya Nomura revealed that they had a basic concept for Xion existing in Roxas's backstory back when they were making II, so some version of Xion was always planned to exist. In hindsight, this explains why Roxas's memories of his time in the Organization seemed so fragmented when they came back to him in II — from a Doylist viewpoint, they had a character majorly important to his backstory they had to develop first before showing more of his life, and from a Watsonian viewpoint, Xion was involved in so many of his memories that forgetting her meant most of his memories were incomplete.
    • Missing girl Subject X from Kingdom Hearts III plays the trope straight, however, and unlike Xion, there is no in-story reason yet for why she is just now being mentioned. It is explained that she was a test subject of Ansem and his apprentices, and became friends with Lea (the original human version of Axel) and Isa (the original human version of Saix) who would sneak into Ansem's castle to see her. She mysteriously vanished one day, much to Xehanort's dismay (he wanted to conduct more experiments on her) and causing Lea and Isa to start working as Ansem's apprentices to figure out what happened to her; she is significant enough that even over 10 years later, Xehanort is still eager to find her, and it turns out that Lea and Isa, even without hearts as Axel and Saix, were making schemes within the Organization to eventually locate her before Axel's friendship with Saix fell apart, making her the equivalent of Kairi to Lea's Sora and Isa's Riku. And despite the staggering importance she has in those characters' motivations, she's not mentioned when the two are having private meet-ups discussing their real agenda all the way back in Days. Though as a consolation, it's hinted that her true identity could be one of the Keybearers from Kingdom Hearts χ, which would at least make her a Canon Character All Along, and although she isn't seen or referenced at all in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (which took place at the same time that Subject X would've been held in Ansem's castle), Lea and Isa are shown trying to sneak into Ansem's castle for an unstated purpose, so like Xion she might've been planned at this time.
  • The Legend of Heroes - Trails: Juna Crawford, who made her debut in Trails of Cold Steel III is introduced as a resident from Crossbell and a good friend (and Fangirl) of the Special Support Section, the protagonists of Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure, despite her not appearing in the original release. The Kai remasters of the Crossbell duology retroactively added her and younger siblings as minor NPCs to address this discrepancy.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Hylia is introduced in Skyward Sword as a God of Good tasked by the Golden Goddesses with guarding the Triforce, the patron deity of the tribe of humans who would subsequently become known as Hylians, the namesake of the land of Hyrule, and the ancestor of the Royal Family specifically and the Hylians in general on account of the first Zelda being her reincarnation. Despite filling such a crucial role for the people of Hyrule, none of the previous Zelda games from any of the different timelines made any mention of her. Gets even weirder with Breath of the Wild, the first major console game to be released after Skyward Sword, which is stated to be the latest chronologically in its timeline; statues of Hylia are ubiquitous, and she is worshiped across the land as Hyrule's primary deity. Before Breath of the Wild, fans assumed that the people of Hyrule had forgotten about the Goddess Hylia after so long to justify her absence in previously made but chronologically subsequent games.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:
      • The game doesn't introduce the Zonai, but in the previous title they were only an ancient people who created interesting ruins. In this game they're the co-founders of Hyrule, or at least one of its successors, and central to the plot spanning several millennia.
      • The Zora woman Yona is said to have recently come from a Zora settlement seperate from Zora's Domain (implicitly one outside of the boundaries of Hyrule), which at least justifies why Link never ran into her in Breath of the Wild. But she is also Sidon's childhood friend and fiancée, something you'd think the Zora Prince would bring up to the guy he considers his best friend.
  • MapleStory does this a lot. Examples:
    • In Black Heaven, you are often accompanied by three bird-like Non Player Characters named Dolpi, Gupi, and Lepi. The dialogue suggests you've known them for a long time, although this is the first time they appear.
    • In the Madhouse scenario, released in the 2015 Halloween event, your goal is to rescue an old friend named Chloe from a Bedlam House, and some other friend - Eddie, Marilyn, Chu, Lopez, and Sean - come with you. Thing is, all six NPCs don't appear in any previous scenario, despite dialogue that suggests you've known them for a long time.
  • Mega Man:
    • Mega Man 7 introduces Auto, an otaku Gadgeteer Genius who has apparently been working for Dr. Light long before the start of the game.
    • Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters introduces Duo, who Mega Man and co are already familiar with despite this being his first appearance. In Duo's ending, it's revealed that this is because the game is a Stealth Sequel to the then-unreleased Mega Man 8, which is Duo's first chronological appearance, and his inclusion here was to promote that game.
    • Mega Man X3 has Mac, a Maverick Hunter who we've never seen before but X nevertheless trusts enough to fall for a trap sprung by him when he turns out to be The Mole in the first stage.
    • Mega Man Powered Up, a remake of the first Mega Man, introduced two new Robot Masters, Oil Man and Time Man, to fill out the roster of Robot Masters to the standard 8. They were both apparently also part of Dr. Light's first generation of robots, and were just never mentioned again in subsequent games. The Archie comics adaptation numbers them "DLN-0A" and "DLN-0B" due to them not fitting into the Robot Master numbering system, and tries to handwave away their absence as them being unfinished experimental models that Wily finished up for his own purposes in secret, hence they first appear in an arc that takes place after the original game's events.
  • Metroid:
    • Anthony Higgs from Metroid: Other M, whose "Remembah me?" from the game's reveal trailer became Memetic Mutation within the fandom. He later goes on to make absolutely sure that you do, becoming the only new character introduced in Other M that most fans can even recall the name of, much less actually like.
    • Downplayed with Adam Malkovich in Metroid Fusion, as the reveal of his existence is also the first time (within the games, anyway) that we learn Samus was a Galactic Federation soldier who defected, much less that she held her commanding officer in such high esteem. Samus had never talked about her backstory much in general at this point. In addition, "Adam" is just a nickname she gives the computer A.I., with the man himself being a Posthumous Character. Cue The Reveal that the computer really is Adam, which surprises Samus herself, since she didn't know the Federation did that sort of thing until he gave it away at the end.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance: This game marks the debut of Bo' Rai Cho, an Outworld martial arts master who taught Liu Kang the technique he used to defeat Shang Tsung in the first game's tournament and is familiar enough with Kung Lao for the latter to seek him out for training. Cho was never seen nor mentioned prior to Deadly Alliance.
    • Mortal Kombat 9: Skarlet is a DLC character who is present during the MK1-era events according to the story mode, but never interacts with any of the characters. This is probably intentional, as, just like Ermac, she's a character born from an Urban Legend of Zelda.
    • Mortal Kombat X: D'Vorah is an enforcer for Shao Kahn who wasn't in 9, but fought the heroes when they rescued some monks while in Outworld for the Tournament that happened then.
  • In Ninja Gaiden, Momiji’s existence was never alluded to, not in the slightest, before her debut game: Dragon Sword, the 4th title released in the revival era for the franchise, despite being an extremely important figure in the Dragon Lineage and Hayabusa Clan, as she had the same progeny as her big sister Kureha with both being gifted in keeping the clan traditions, and was someone Ryu has always knew since childhood; it is undoubtedly clear Momiji was never a character meant for the original vision Itagaki had when recreating the Ninja Gaiden series, with the Handwave over her absence in the first new era game being that she was just somewhere else making all the more impressive how very popular Momiji ended up being as the series went on, with her inclusion in each new game since.
  • Pokémon:
    • The series is probably the most extreme example, considering that every Legendary Pokémon is from a legend from long ago, but was only recently introduced to the games' audience. Especially bizarre considering that one of them is God even though people in the setting were and still are shown to celebrate Christmas.
    • The other 874 (and counting) Pokémon introduced after Gen I don't help on this front either. This is particularly weird because it sometimes tends to handwave it as the newly introduced Pokémon being newly-discovered species... even though the residents of that region all know more than enough information about these new mons to train and use them for the same purposes as any other region, which sort of implies that the regions don't interact with each other a whole lot despite the first four all being in the same country. It's especially odd with the almost-obligatory remakes two or three generations later, where once the player beats the Elite Four, the next 200 or so extra Pokémon introduced since the original version will just sort of appear out of nowhere without anyone seeming to particularly notice, except for the local Professor who first tells the player that they're here now.
    • In the Japan-only sequel to Pokémon Trading Card Game, there is an option to play as a female character. The story still treats them as having done the events in the first game, despite not existing in the first game.
  • In Power Pro-kun Pocket 14's Burning Magic Ball League scenario, Pocket Hero Red, thought dead since 7, claims to the protagonist he played for the Boogie Woogie Victorys during the events of Vagabond Nice Guy in 9. The player knows there was no masked Henshin Hero on that team... but there was heavy subtext that the protagonist of Vagabond Nice Guy was Red all along.
  • Really? Really! has Sakura, a childhood friend of Rin and Kaede, who was never introduced in either the VN or the anime, even in the flashbacks where you'd realistically at least hear of her.
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel to Red Dead Redemption that focuses on the heyday and eventually the collapse of John Marston's former gang around a decade before the first game, which was previously assumed to consist solely of him, Dutch Van der Linde, Bill Williamson, Javier Esquella, John's wife Abigail, and their son, Jack. Come the sequel, it's revealed that the Van der Linde gang in its prime consisted of two dozen people, most of which were never been mentioned by anyone in 1 despite their significance to the characters' backgrounds. Protagonist Arthur Morgan in particular is never mentioned despite his pivotal role in helping the Marstons escape the gang life and giving them a chance at a normal life. To the game’s credit, there is an In-Universe explanation in his case. John tells Mary-Beth, one of the few former members that survived, and Abigail separately that he does still think about Arthur most times but doesn’t talk about him because it’s too painful and there isn't much else to be said about the events of the past. True to his word, save for instances of dialogue with other characters that had met Arthur, John never directly talks about the man. Abigal's tendency to cry every time Arthur gets mentioned adds to this.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Krauser from Resident Evil 4 is a guy that protagonist Leon met in the time period between Resident Evil 2 and 4 that the player never got to meet until 4. What's a tad jarring is that the game seems to take this trope a step further, introducing him almost as if his presence was some kind of shocking plot twist (which is further reinforced by the fact that it is one from Leon's in-universe perspective) and acting as though a first-time player is somehow supposed to know who he is. His introductory cutscene even makes it a point to dramatically reveal his face in a close-up. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles retroactively addresses this with its storyline, with Leon and Krauser as the two protagonists of the main plot (which is set a few years before RE4), and the trope becomes effectively averted if you actually play the games in chronological order. This is averted in the remake, where Krauser is shown in the opening cutscene as Leon's military instructor during his training; notably, his Darkside Chronicles backstory is also retconned, with Leon never being a part of Operation Javier and Krauser being the Sole Survivor of the mission along with being disavowed by the United States.
    • Resident Evil: Revelations pulls the same thing with Raymond, who shows up out of nowhere, is given a dramatic reveal of his face in a close-up, and then pulls his gun on Jill and Parker before the screen fades to black and leaves a first-time player wondering why the devs thought this would work now when it didn't work for Krauser. Fortunately, unlike Krauser the game does address this immediately, as the next chapter opens with a flashback to the "Terragrigia Panic" an in-universe year prior, where Raymond actually does get a minor speaking role and even a namedrop (though you have to stick around for a few minutes at the beginning to hear it from someone else, since Parker abjectly refuses to refer to him by any name other than "Cadet") before the game gets back to the present day.
    • Resident Evil 6 has a ton of these.
      • Piers Nivans, a BSSA operative is touted as a partner to Chris who he's known for years and has become extremely close to. Except from the player's perspective, Piers is a complete stranger seemingly just taking Jill Valentine's position and role within the story. Although to be fair to Piers, this could apply to the rest of Chris' BSAA squad whom the game tries its hardest to make you care about especially when they die but, unlike the surviving S.T.A.R.S members Jill, Barry and Rebecca, they simply haven't had enough appearances/history to make the player feel how Chris feels about them. Piers did at least get a prequel manga, however.
      • Helena Harper, a fellow CIA agent, is introduced as someone Leon knows and trusts within The Government and her role and story is treated as a big deal with Leon doing his best to help her find her sister which fails then help her take revenge upon Simmons who's been manipulating her. Problem is, much like with Piers, Helena is someone newly introduced with her importance to Leon being very much an Informed Attribute. She's pretty similar to Claire (who does have history with Leon), right down to the "gotta find my sibling" plot signifying Helena may have been supposed to be Claire herself at some point which is given credence by the fact that a good chunk of RE6's Leon scenario involving TerraSave (Claire’s company) was taken out and recycled for Resident Evil: Revelations 2, which does star Claire.
      • Jake Muller is likely the biggest case of this overlapping with just plain retconning. He's proudly introduced as Wesker's illegitimate son that he fathered with a Serbian immigrant before he was killed and Came Back Strong as a superhuman, with Jake's inheritance of his father's metahuman potential being a key plot point. Except at no point was Jake mentioned in the several games Wesker appeared in previously and even the idea of Wesker having a one night stand with a random woman is hard to concede since his entire character was pretty much For Science!-focused and RE5 highlighted how little Wesker gives heed to the rest of humanity whom he deems inferior, thus unlikely to boink one of them.
      • Big Bad Derek C. Simmons is treated as a massive deal, being The Man Behind the Man controlling the government and manipulating events, being the foster father of Sherry Birkin post-RE2, the man who Ada was working for throughout the earlier games and even the one who orchestrated the thermobaric destruction of Raccoon City. Unfortunately, unlike with Wesker, Simmons wasn’t shown or mentioned once in the games prior, even in the scenes which showed what happened to Sherry after RE2, meaning he essentially came out of nowhere for the player. Averted however if you take into account the CG movies, as Simmons was briefly shown at the very end of Resident Evil: Damnation* where he clears Ada of her wanted status after delivering a Las Plagas sample to him.
      • President Adam Benford is a especially notable case of this. His closeness with Leon, being one of few people Leon has shown any vulnerability to with his PTSD after Raccoon City is a driving force behind Leon’s Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his death, yet much like Chris' squad it's difficult to appreciate the significance of Adam or the grief Leon feels since we only see the guy in flashbacks and, thanks to a Time Skip, he isn't even the same president from RE4 whose daughter, Ashley Graham, Leon went on a massive mission to rescue — something the player could latch onto. However, it's implied that due to being the person that recruited Leon, he was the government agent that interrogated Leon and forces him to join the government as one of their agents in his RE3 epilogue and its Darkside Chronicles retelling. Funnily enough, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness averts this, featuring President Graham and makes note how indebted he feels to Leon for him saving Ashley.
    • Resident Evil 7: Biohazard's DLC pulls this twice, once on itself and once on the greater series:
      • The End of Zoe DLC introduces us to Joe Baker. He's a member of the Baker family that has gone completely unmentioned until the DLC and has managed to avoid getting infected like the other members since he lives in the outskirts of the Baker property.
      • Not a Hero, meanwhile, introduces "Blue Umbrella", a PMC formed by former members of Umbrella Corporation reorganizing themselves to atone for the original company's various evils. The problem is that files in the DLC state the PMC version of Umbrella was formed in 2007, two years before Resident Evil 5 takes place, and yet neither that game nor 6 (set in late 2012 to early 2013) so much as hinted that such a reformation took place.
    • Resident Evil Village truly takes the cake with Mother Miranda who's revealed to be pretty much responsible for everything that went wrong in the story, being the one who inspired Ozwell E. Spencer, the founder of Umbrella, into creating B.O.Ws. Also, she's been creating bio monsters since the 1900s, despite (with the exception of the Las Plaga of RE4) there being no hint of any bio-organic monsters being around before Umbrella.
  • River City Girls introduces Sabuko, the katana-wielding daughter of the series' recurring Yakuza boss Sabu. Not only was she never once mentioned in any of the previous games, but the only child Sabu had was an adopted son named Ken. The American-exclusive ending of River City Girls Zero even lampshades this when Misako and Kyoko question whether or not the game is even canon based on the lack of references to Sabuko.
  • Saints Row:
    • Saints Row 2 does this if you create your character as a female, since you could only play as a male in the original. Lampshaded all throughout, alongside said character being Suddenly Speaking, where NPCs continually ask if they did something with their hair.
    • At the start of the fourth game, the player character has become President and has chosen actor Keith David (playing himself) as Vice President. Keith David did voices for previous games, but was almost entirely restricted to the first game (which few people played compared to the later games due to it being a console exclusive), and had never appeared in-universe before. Plus, unlike Burt Reynolds as the Mayor of Steelport in Saints Row: The Third, he wasn't necessarily an instantly-recognizable personality, leaving many fans confused about who he was and why he was so important.
    • Players may also feel the same way about Benjamin King in the fourth game, who again is an important character despite not having featured since the first game.
  • In Sharin no Kuni Chapter 5, the first-person narrator reveals that the person he's been narrating to is not the reader, but his sister, Ririko, who actually was behind him all along.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • In Sonic Adventure 2, it's implied that Knuckles has had to deal with Rouge a few times before this particular time when the Master Emerald was stolen.
    • Dr. Eggman was given two robot minions, Orbot and Cubot, in Sonic Colors (Orbot's prototype SA-55 previously appeared in Sonic Unleashed). Despite having never been seen before, they speak as if they've been around to witness Eggman's failures since the beginning.
  • Splatoon 2: The Octo Expansion DLC introduces playable Octolings to the series and establishes that Octolings are starting to move into Inkopolis. Even though there was a war between the Inklings and Octolings not very long ago, nobody in Inkopolis seems to have any problem with them. It's mentioned in one of the conversations during Octo Expansion that the younger generations of Inklings flat out don't care about the bad blood they've had with the Octarians and consider the war ancient history, while there's strong implications that the Octolings of the same age were mostly kept loyal by brainwashing and they don't have any particular problem with the Inklings after it's broken.
  • Spyro the Dragon:
    • Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly introduces "Dragon Spirit", a large statue that has the spirit of an ancient dragon in it. It never appeared in the previous title, nor does it appear in any other, but it is treated as it was always there.
    • Spyro: A Hero's Tail introduces us to Flame and Ember, two dragons around Spyro's age. In previous games no adolescent dragons were depicted, only hatchlings and adults. The game also introduces a new batch of eggs despite the fact dragon eggs only occur every twelve years.
  • Star Control had the villainous Ur-Quan as the lead of the "evil" side of the conflicts depicted in the game's scenarios. Star Control 2 retroactively makes them all just one particular breed of Ur-Quan, the Kzer-Za, as well as introducing a different species of Ur-Quan, the Kohr-Ah, as an even more evil antagonist that even the Kzer-Za breed opposes.
  • Another Blizzard example with StarCraft:
    • Tychus Findlay was never even mentioned in the original StarCraft, but in the sequel he's been Raynor's old partner in crime, and probably his best terran friend. Though, being Blizzard, they made sure to carefully insert him in continuity through an Expanded Universe novel that takes place before the original game and came out shortly before the sequel. Also, it does make sense for Tychus to have never appeared before, since he was in prison for years before the start of Starcraft; he'd never even seen a Zerg before his own introduction in Wings of Liberty. As a bonus, that novel also invented an outlaw past that had never once been hinted at before for Raynor, before his Confederate marshal days.
    • Also, Matt Horner, who supposedly was (retroactively) with Raynor since shortly before Tarsonis, but was never mentioned in SC1. He had been introduced in a tie-in novel, so he wasn't completely unknown. The time between the games would also at least allow for Raynor to have picked up a few people since then, and the interactions with Raynor throughout Brood War wouldn't have had Horner around anyway, so it made sense at least.
    • Crown Prince Valerian Mengsk could also be this, as there is not the least bit on a hint in SC1 that Mengsk had ever had a son. The writer of Firstborn, where he's introduced, is at least kind enough to mention that Mengsk was afraid of his enemies using his family against him and hid the truth from everyone.
    • Brood War features Artanis appearing as a new advisor. This wouldn't too bad (plenty of other Protoss in existence)... if the characters didn't act like they knew and trusted him more than you. Tie-in material eventually explained why: he's the Executor of the previous campaign and you're the new guy, eventually revealed to be Selendis.
    • The StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops DLC campaign introduces Dominion General Carolina Davis, who has apparently been at Arcturus Mengsk's side since the rebellion of the Sons of Korhal against the Confederacy. Somewhat unsurprisingly, she turns out to be the DLC campaign's Big Bad as the leader of the Defenders of Man.
  • Star Fox Command introduces Lucy, Peppy's daughter. She is not mentioned in any of the previous games. You would think Peppy would have mentioned her at least once.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Toadsworth, who was first introduced in Super Mario Sunshine. He had apparently been serving the Mushroom Kingdom's royal family for years (which would imply that he had done so even during the events of the original Super Mario Bros.). The introduction of the younger version of Toadsworth in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time seems to confirm this.
    • Averted with Bowser Jr., who was introduced in the same game as Toadsworth, yet Mario and Peach clearly haven't seen him before. Peach even remarks, "So you're Bowser's son?" while he was explaining what he had been trying to do to Mario the whole game.
    • Speaking of which, although Bowser and Peach weren't really new to the series, games like Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time suggest that Mario knew them since his childhood, and that he lived in the Mushroom Kingdom since birth, although previous games as well as the comics and TV shows suggest that he lived on Earth (Brooklyn, New York, to be specific) his whole life.
    • Waluigi debuted in this manner on the Nintendo 64's Mario Tennis, getting into a confrontation with Luigi immediately after appearing during the game's introductory scene. The reaction Luigi gives implies that the two knew each other beforehand, and have a long-standing mutual dislike for each other.
  • Super Robot Wars ends up doing this quite a bit in multi-game storylines, since each installment adds multiple new anime series to an established world, requiring the writers to explain where they've been and why nobody ever brought them up in all this time. To name just one example, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED was added to Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 (actually the fourth game in the story); the reason nobody ever noticed an entire cluster of space colonies populated entirely by Gattaca Babies is because Blue Cosmos (the racist, Coordinator-hating terrorists from SEED) had been suppressing information on them for the longest time. Even the other Gundam characters are gobsmacked by this.
  • Teresa Lipan is introduced in Syphon Filter 2 as Gabe and Lian's ally despite never being mentioned in the previous game.
  • Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return begins with the titular wild boy going to the rescue of his girlfriend Tabby with the help of his best friend Zippo. Both were nowhere to be seen in the first game.
  • Tomb Raider Chronicles introduces Charles Kane and Father Dustan, who reminisce with Winston (Lara's butler) of her past adventures. Despite Dustan and Kane being Lara's friends for years, it's the first time in the series that they're actually seen or even mentioned. Originally, Kane was supposed to have been Jean-Yves from the previous game, but due to his real life Expy not being happy about his likeness being used without his permission, the character was cut and replaced with Kane.
  • Touhou Project:
    • Touhou has done this multiple times, with both Alice Margatroid and Kasen Ibaraki claiming to know Reimu and Marisa in their first appearances, while Reimu and Marisa can't say the same. The general implication is that Reimu is (by her own admission) bad with remembering faces and neither she nor Marisa can be bothered to remember every single person they've met (though Marisa thinks Kasen seems familiar but can't remember her name). Alice's case may be a Mythology Gag as, along with Reimu and Marisa, she was one of four characters from the franchise's now non-canon PC-98 era to be rebooted into the current Windows-era canon.
    • Wild and Horned Hermit presents a justified example with Aunn Komano, who acts friendly towards Reimu, Marisa, and Kasen, and says she knows all about them, but none of them recognize her. It turns out that she really was there from the beginning — she was one of the Hakurei Shrine's Komainu statues who was brought to life as a Yōkai by Matara Okina, the Final Boss of Hidden Star in Four Seasons.
  • Uncharted 4: A Thief's End introduces the audience to Samuel Drake, an older brother of series protagonist Nathan Drake who never once got any mention, despite the fact a lot of who Nate is can be owed to his older brother's influence (both as a person and in his career). This gets justified later in because Nate considered his brother's supposed death a stain on his past and never talked about him since. Not so justified, however, is how the extremely well-connected Marlowe in the previous game — who had files on intimate details of Nate's entire life, including his real surname — apparently knew nothing about Sam.
  • Warcraft:
    • There was never a hint that Grom Hellscream had a son, until suddenly in The Burning Crusade, there he was. Particularly significant considering he's eventually elevated to the leader of the entire Horde.
    • When you speak to the time-traveling dragon Chromie in Dragonblight, she starts by saying it's good to see you again before asking if it's the first time you've met. This is used to cover up her appearance in an earlier questline in the Eastern Plaguelands that the player may or may not have completed, and references her time travel by saying "You could say that we have met before. To that end, we shall also meet again."
    • Lieutenant Thorn is introduced in Warlords of Draenor as a respected Alliance soldier and your new second-in-command. You never having heard of her before is given the excuse that she's not accustomed to needing help like everyone else is (a meta joke about your primary exposure to NPCs being with quest givers).
    • In general, WoW expansions often toss new characters straight into the plot without any setup, with established characters somehow already knowing them. Just looking at the Warlords intro experience: Khadgar, Thrall, Maraad, Liadrin, and... Cordana Felsong? Who? Apparently she was a trusted ally of Khadgar and he had known her for a while before stepping through the Dark Portal to alt-Draenor, but we never learn how.
    • Cataclysm retconned worgen and goblin death knights to have been there all along, alongside all the other playable death knights when they broke free of the Lich King's control at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel. They have different backstories to the other playable worgen and goblins introduced in the same expansion, and have supposedly been around since the beginning of Wrath. Why we haven't seen a single one of them in Northrend is anyone's guess...
    • Captain Garrick for the Alliance, and Breka Grimaxe for the Horde. Both are supposed to be high ranking members of their respective groups, and both even make reference to fighting alongside one another in Northrend during the events of Wrath. Problem is, both characters were only introduced in Shadowlands as officers leading the rescue operation in Exile's Reach, a starting zone/tutorial area added in that expansion. Neither are seen again until a quick appearance as members of the Dragonscale Expedition in Dragonflight. It's particularly noticeable for longtime players when some members of the missing expedition in Exile's Reach see them and exclaim "You're Captain Garrick/Warlord Grimaxe!"
  • Sergius from Xenosaga Episode 2. Despite Margulis being very loyal to him, he is not at all mentioned in the first episode.
  • Yakuza 4 introduces Taiga Saejima, Goro Majima's blood brother and probably the only person the Mad Dog of Shimano is genuinely close to, even more so than Kiryu. This is despite Majima never even mentioning he had a blood brother, or that he was part of any family other than the Shimano Family prior to striking out on his own. There's a good reason, though; Majima was forced to betray Saejima by no-showing at the hit that landed Saejima on death row, and suffered a year of Cold-Blooded Torture at the hands of Shimano afterwards. The accumulation of guilt and lingering psychological damage makes Saejima a rather uncomfortable topic for Majima, and when hints were dropped in the remake of the first game, Majima noticeably deflects whenever Kiryu gets close to learning more.

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