Sigil Spam / Video Games

Sigil Spam in Video Games.

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• All Is Dust (2015): Get used to the sight of a red circle containing an inverted cross with an arrow pointing down on it. You see it all over the farm.
• ANNO: Mutationem: The Consortium keeps their mark throughout their base on each of their vehicles, weaponry, technology, including documents and messages.
• Both the Assassins and Templars put their respective logos on everything in the Assassin's Creed series, but the titular Assassins really take it Up to Eleven. Their staple remover capital "A" symbol is visible somewhere on virtually everything they use; it's on flags above their HQs, it's engraved into their weapons, it's stitched into their clothing, it's cut into their clothing (they are fond of split capes that are cut so as to form a clear representation of the Assassin "A", with the distinctive inward curve at the bottom edges to make it very clearly not a coincidence) and in some cases it's even worked into their architecture. To a lesser degree, the Templars do this with their cross logo, but it's mostly restricted to their flags, weapons, and metal accessories (like buckles). You'd think the two halves of a secret Ancient Conspiracy older than civilization itself would be more circumspect with advertising their allegiances.
• In Back to the Future: The Game, the symbol of Citizen Brown's regime in alt-1986 is a human figure with its arms raised, which appears all over the place. When Brown looks at it after his Heel–Face Turn, he gets the idea for the similarly-shaped flux capacitator.
• In the Batman: Arkham Series, Batman sprays his Explosive Gel in the shape of his logo. There is little apparent benefit to this, since most of the things he blows up probably don't need to have a distributed explosion, and in several cases it would actually be counterproductive^note Such as destroying the Titan containers in City.. One possible explanation is that he does it just to amuse himself. ^note Out of universe, they need "casting time" to keep him from just spamming gel everwhere. Which is presumably why he doesn't just have some sort of remote mine.. Interestingly enough, the quickfire action for explosive gel in City and Origins has him perform a somersault and haphazardly spray a glob of it on the ground, which functions identically to actually taking time to spray the bat shape, while in Knight he shoots out a much smaller glob like a dart gun that can only blow down wooden panels.
• City of Heroes:
  • The base builder allows you to do this with your character's Super Team logo while putting their secret base together.
  • Three villain groups in the game, Arachnos, the Fifth Column, and the Council, are fond of slapping their logos on everything in sight as well.
• Command & Conquer:
  • When technology evolved enough to allow use of full rendered 3D graphics for RTS games, Command and Conquer games become fully guilty of this trope. Every unit has at least one logo of its mother faction. Most buildings have symbols as well. It may be justified by the fact that units needs to be easily distinguished - however that is what team colors are for, as the logos are pretty tiny (as the battlefield is viewed from afar), so this justification is pretty weak. Maybe psychological warfare then.
  • As an FPS spin-off, thus seeing them from much closer perspective, Renegade takes this up to eleven, with Nod logos everywhere.
  • Nod does this in all its game appearances, their symbol is either a fist, or a scorpions tail. Their barracks has a fist on top of it.
• Throughout Darkest Dungeon, a symbol that looks like a semi-circle with five spikes sticking out of it shows up. It's frequently seen somewhere on the bodies of monsters, often as a brand or in an arrangement of parts. Fans called it "the Stress symbol", as it most often shows up when a hero takes a Stress hit, but Darkest Dungeon II clarified that it is officially known as "the Iron Crown" (a name hinted at in the final levels of the original), and has appeared time and again all through human history. Its true meaning is the embodiment of every failure, negative emotion, and destructive choice humanity has ever made, to the point it's almost a Sentient Cosmic Force born of human evils. On the other hand, if that semi-circle is gold and doesn't have spikes, it's the symbol of the Light, humanity's belief in a loving god made manifest.
• In Dawn of War the Imperial Eagle shows up all over the architecture on Meridian in the second game and its expansions.
• Dead Space:
  • All of the containers and at least one location on any given wall, device and all posters will feature the CEC's logo. Given the corporate ownership of the USG Ishimura, it's acceptable.
  • Dead Space 2 maintains the general feel of the first game with respect to this trope.
• In Deus Ex, every group in the game puts their logo on every computer system that they own. Even the Illuminati. Also, the MJ12 labs have a gigantic statue of a hand reaching around the globe in the front hall, which makes a very nice backdrop whenever our villains need to foreshadow something.
• Data East's own logo is used in almost every single screen of Diet Go Go, TumblePop's Spiritual Successor, sometimes even multiple times at once!. The only scenes where it doesn't appear are the bonus stages and the intermission scenes.
• The UAC logo in Doom from door to blue carpet and even screensaver.
• Once the design was finalized in the Dragon Age series, the Chantry sunburst symbol turns up just about everywhere, which makes sense as it's the dominant religious icon and no more unusual than seeing crosses aplenty in real-life medieval Europe. In Dragon Age II, a lot of the architecture in Kirkwall tends to be covered in various sigils, and as Hawke's family arms becomes increasingly prevalent through the game, it starts to be used as a symbol. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the titular organizational also likes to plaster their logo (from which the Seekers of Truth and Templars derive their own logos) everywhere.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Throughout the series, the forces of the Third Cyrodiilic Empire of Tamriel (particularly the Imperial Legions) have a tendency to heavily feature the Red Diamond or the Imperial Dragon on most of their equipment.
  • Skyrim shows this to be the case for the native Nords in regards to their Hold symbols. Enter the capital city of a Hold and you will see its symbol everywhere, from the armor and shields of its City Guards to banners of all shapes and sizes throughout the city, especially around the the Jarl's longhouse.
• In the Fallout: New Vegas DLCs Old World Blues and Lonesome Road you'll often come across a painted version of the Fallout setting's equivalent of the Stars and Stripes. These are done by Ulysses and aside from him leaving his mark also serve a practical purpose: White marks indicate the correct path, red marks indicate dangerous areas and blue markings mean that there's supplies in the following area.
• Omnipresent in Far Cry 5 with the Eden's Gate cross, which they either drape a flag of over everything or helpfully paint on their property so you, the player, know what to shoot. It's completely justified, too, with them being a cult with heavy emphasis on brainwashing and conditioning.
• The Yevon symbol (a stylized angel) is everywhere in Final Fantasy X, along with a leitmotif. In fact, the Yevon symbol is on the final boss. Partially because Yevon is the final boss.
• Final Fantasy X-2: LeBlanc's organisation put her logo (a heart with two dots) on every available surface.
• The Gear symbol in Gears of War. There's even a bridge supported by beams stylized to look like gears.
• Grand Theft Auto 2: The distinctive "Z" signs hanging overhead, not unlike the Third Reich's banners.
• Half-Life
  • Half-Life's Black Mesa scientific research corporation puts their logo on almost everything. Justified as their complex is a top-secret Elaborate Underground Base and they don't want anything escaping.
  • Happens in Half-Life 2, this time, of course, with the Combine logo. The symbol appears on propaganda posters scattered around City 17 and on all Combine equipment.
• The Half-Quake series of Half-Life Game Mods prominently has the >) smiley show up in a lot of places, mostly buttons. The first installment of the mod trilogy stands out with this, as this symbol can be seen on medkits, weapon skins, teleporters and even headcrabs.
• While the Halo series was almost an aversion of this trope in the original trilogy, Halo 3: ODST began to push it towards this, with widespread use of the various logos for the various corporate, government, and AI entities featured in the franchise (with ODST particularly featuring those of the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Superintendent). Halo: Reach takes Sigil Spam Up to Eleven with the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant stamping their respective logos on everything from side arms to sand bags.
• The Red Star forces in Heavy Weapon definitely love placing their logo on their bosses and Mooks.
• The logo of AM appears in some form in every level of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, so much that Nimdok's scenario, being a mockup of a World War II death camp, has this insignia in place of the typical Nazi swastikas. Since AM created these places, it makes sense.
• inFAMOUS: Second Son's DUP has their facilities and vehicles covered in their logo and distinctive black, white, and gold color scheme. This also helps players identify the Everything-Is-Smashable Areas.
• Just Cause 2 the government of Panau has branded almost everything on the island, including electrical generators, oil tanks, water towers, propaganda trailers, gas stations, statues and vehicles, with its symbol, a white star on a red background. You can (and should) destroy anything with that symbol on it in order to cause chaos and destabilize the regime.
• Killzone: The Helghast symbol is everywhere. Truth in Television, as it is a fascist government, and some similar governments have done so before. But the Helghast takes it to Nazi-like levels.
• Kingdom Hearts.
  • The Heartless emblem and the Nobody sigil both show up on pretty much anything connected to their groups. Hell, even that crown design gets around. There's also the classic Mickey Mouse logo, which shows up everywhere in Disney Castle.
  • One of the pattern options for your gummi ship offers three different sigils to spam at once: the Mickey Mouse symbol, the Kingdom crown, and a keyhole symbol that we might as well call Sora's heraldry and be done with it.
  • Note that the symbols on the enemies actually do serve a storyline purpose: many Heartless varieties were artificially created, so their symbol was included in order to determine the experiments from the natural "pureblood" variety. The Nobodies all belong to one group and use that mark as a means to identify with it.
  • Birth by Sleep adds the Unversed logo and reveals that the Heartless and Nobody symbols are both derived from the Mark of Mastery symbol found in the Land of Departure.
  • Dream Drop Distance adds 3 new ones: Spirit and Nightmare Dream Eater logos (which are very similar to the symbols above) and the Recusant's Sigil, the X used to mark people by Xehanort and the second Organization. The most worrisome part about the Recusant's Sigil is that it's also part of many of the above symbols (the Nobody and Heartless symbols are just the start), making you wonder just how far Xehanort's influence has stretched throughout the entire series.
  • Being a Disney property, the series as a whole has a few Hidden Mickeys. Kingdom Hearts III elevates this to a First-Person Snapshooter Collection Sidequest, with 90 "Lucky Emblems" scattered throughout the worlds for Sora to take selfies with.
  • The Gazing Eye, a blue eye with a cat's pupil seen on plenty of weapons, such as Riku's Soul Eater and Way to the Dawn and Master Xehanort's Keyblade, No Name. Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover explains that the original Gazing Eye (specifically, the one in Xehanort's Keyblade) is the Master of Masters's eye, and it's how he can see the future.
• Kirby:
  • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, King Dedede's signature V-Sign appears everywhere during his own game mode. All star collectibles are replaced with it, and all food now appears as ice cream in the shape.
  • In Kirby: Planet Robobot, the letter-H logo of the Haltmann Works Company appears all over the place after their invasion of Pop Star. Kirby can even unlock the logo as a sticker to put on his Robobot Armor.
• Both the Republic and the Sith cover the interiors of their installations with prominent Sigil Spam in the Knights of the Old Republic games. If their ruins are anything to go by, the Infinite Empire of the ancient Rakata was heavily into it as well.
• The Triforce, especially in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Also in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo symbol is even found on blocks and switches.
• In Marathon, the UESC symbol appears on all terminal log-in screens and most doors of the eponymous starship.
• Mass Effect:
  • In Mass Effect 2, Cerberus puts their logo in nearly everything they own, including their uniforms, ships, and facilities, both in their interior and exterior. There are several facilities that have dozens of logos every three feet apart on the walls as though it's some kind of wallpaper pattern. Fridge Logic kicks in when you realize that they are considered terrorists by the Alliance and Citadel Council. You'd think they'd keep a low profile.
  • By Mass Effect 3, Cerberus punts any notion of subtlety out the window when they outfit their military forces in black, white, and yellow custom armour stamped with their logos. Even their custom-designed weapons are stamped with their logos! Somewhat justified as Cerberus punts all notions of secrecy out the window as well; launching several full-scale invasions of installations and colonies controlled by the Citadel races and the Human Systems Alliance.
• Mega Man:
  • The early Mega Man games have Big Bad Dr. Wily's "Dr. W" logo in the center square of the level select screen as well as above the boss door at the end of every level. It's also above the front door of Wily's fortresses, naturally. Later games that introduce new robot makers have their sigils instead, such as "Dr. C" or "Dr. L" or nothing at all, until the plot is hijacked by Dr. Wily and "Dr. W" again starts to appear everywhere. This also becomes relevant in Mega Man X5, where the very same "W" logo shows up in the background during the battle with the Shadow Devil in the first Zero Space stage, serving as Foreshadowing and a clue to the identity of the mysterious benefactor mentioned by Sigma.
  • In Mega Man Star Force 2, the Murian symbol shows up an awful lot, on pretty much everything that originated in Mu except the Mecha-Mooks.
• In Mirror's Edge, private security firm Pirandello-Kruger is rather fond of a stylized symbol of a guard dog. You can even come across an e-mail from one PK employee to another that refers to it as a "supervillain symbol". The Runners also have a sigil, seen in the title logo and Faith's right eye tattoo, and stenciled on walls near the locations of hidden bags throughout the game.
• In Mischief Makers, every living creature and inanimate object on Clancer has the same haniwa-like face on it. This includes the planet itself.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • The sigil of the Elder Gods, a stylised Asian dragon that appears in the game's logo, is everywhere. Many stages have it as some form of decoration, even (or especially) when they have nothing to do with the Elder Gods, the Elder Gods themselves take the form of the dragon in the logo, Shao Kahn has it on his hammer, the koins are in the shape of it, and in Mortal Kombat 9, Liu Kang wears it on his belt. Liu Kang also has a recurring Fatality in which he transforms into said dragon due to being the champion of the Elder Gods.
  • Though it's not as widely used as the dragon, depictions of Shinnok's amulet turn up a lot in 4 through Deception and in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero.
• The Pigmask army of Mother 3 makes it a note to put their pig nose sigil on their machines, buildings, and even their food products.
• In Mutant Football League, the only thing preventing all hell from breaking loose at the stadium of the Lost Scandalous Dammed are the magical runes floating around, popping up, and covering everything around the stadium.
• In Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, the culprit in every crime has the same symbol—a black blob with a cartoon skull in the middle—somewhere nearby; two people have it tattooed directly on their bodies, others have it emblazoned on their clothes, and the rest have it on an object they use to commit their misdeeds (such as a laptop or a barrel). It turns out that this the skull and blob is the sigil for the crime organization S.T.A.I.N., and all of the villains in town work for it.
• In the game The Mystery of Grimstone Manor, throughout the rooms of the titular manor, the player will see many odd symbols embroidered on chair cushions or framed as wall art. They're important - but the game doesn't say so. The player must figure out for themselves what they are and what they mean.
• In Paladins, crystals of different colors and shapes are everywhere. They're found throughout maps, on champions' attire, as a type of currency, and even in the game's logo.
• In the Paranormal Files series, the eponymous agency has an all-seeing eye as its logo. The symbol appears in every scene of every game; finding them all is a collection sidequest and often leads to a Pixel Hunt because they can be so well camouflaged.
• Pepsiman is an intentionally corny advergame where Pepsi is the most important thing in the planet. From ads about it with lame Engrish slogans (Now it's Pepsi!) to entire landscapes of blue buildings featuring the Pepsi logo, about the only places you can be safe from this refreshing beverage are sewers and old mines.
• In Perfect Dark, the weapons-manufacturing MegaCorp dataDyne likes plastering their "dD" logo on all their architecture (admittedly, it is quite a cool logo). Not to mention the fact that the Carrington Institute's logo appears on Joanna Dark's Spy Catsuit.
• Persona 5:
  • Velvet Room attendants Caroline and Justine each wear eyepatches that have the Velvet Room's emblem on them.
  • Shido's Palace is filled with logos of an eye holding a globe, symbolizing The Conspiracy he runs.
• PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale represents "All-Star Power" (AP) primarily with a sort of translucent blue energy closely resembling the wavy ribbons seen in every PS3 default background on the main screen. If you look closely, Crosses, Squares, Triangles and Circles can be seen spilling from defeated characters, along with any other large source of All-Star Power. In the final level, Polygon Man's realm is overflowing with these waves of energy, and the four shapes making up the PlayStation buttons can be spotted flowing through them in a stream.
• Pokémon: The Poké Ball symbol is so iconic that if any player of the games sees an unintentional instance of it, they will automatically make the association.
  • They even have the symbol on children's hats. It appears to be considered fashionable in-universe.
  • The villainous teams all do this with their own logos as well, the most egregious of them being Team Flare, who puts their logo on damn near everything they own.
• In Portal, just about every object has the Aperture Science logo on it, from the storage cubes, to the chairs, to the custom computer cases and even tins of beans.
• In the Puyo Puyo series, Primp's Magic School symbol is a small wing, so naturally Ms. Accord and her students all have a small white wing brooch somewhere in their person (Amitie on her hat, Sig on his bag, etc). Lemres and Feli, who hail from another school, have their own version of this too (a small golden comet).
• The Umbrella Corporation's logo is everywhere in the Resident Evil games, and even pops up in RE5, even though the game takes place several years after the corporation has been outed and dissolved.
• The Secret World: Unsurprisingly, The Illuminati are notably fond of this. This gets explained in-universe as a convenient way of Hiding in Plain Sight; they've created so many fake "Illuminati" who have no connection to the real group and have made their trope so prevalent in fiction that the eye-on-pyramid symbol has about as much meaning and connection to the real Illuminati as it does in real life. Everybody uses their symbol, so their own Sigil Spam points the way to their secrets to anyone who already has a general what and where while fading into random noise to the unenlightened.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog makes a lot of cameo appearances in other Sega games. He even appears in the Sega CD and Sega Channel boot up. He is their mascot, and they want you to know it.
  • HEXA-eco from Sonic Heroes also does this, with Grand Metropolis & Powerplant containing HEXA-eco's hexagonal logo on the walls, floors, & signs of both stages.
  • GUN in the sonic series has done this trope, with Gun Fortress & Airfleet from Shadow the Hedgehog having examples of this.
  • Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, is particularly guilty of this. His logo ("EG" in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or his face in other games) appears on many of his airships, robots, weapons, missiles, space stations, and even his bedding. Many of his robots are shaped like or modeled after him in some way too.
• In Sonic the Very Useful Engine, Thomas's face is quite literally everywhere: the rings, badniks, and level scenery are all edited to include it somewhere. Even Sonic himself gets in on the action if you get all the Emeralds!
• In The Spectrum Retreat, the game's double circle logo is everywhere, from books to floor patterns to stained windows and even the design of the robot staff members' heads. In-universe, it's the logo of the Spectrum company, so it makes sense they'd mark everything they own with it.
• In Strife, the Order has many, many images of their Sigil. The Sigil is actually an ancient alien superweapon which you obtain over the course of the game, and you can spam it, but it takes your HP.
• TriOptimum's logo is everywhere on the Von Braun in System Shock 2, from the various computer screens to the smallest storage crates. Justified since TriOp owns the ship, though the personnel on board mingles with the UNN, whose starship, Rickenbacker is docked on top of the Von Braun.
• Wolfenstein:
  • While the Nazi memorabilia wall hangings and flags in Wolfenstein 3-D are probably to be expected, the swastika, eagle and iron cross level designs are likely less so.
  • Episode 6, Level 3 of Wolfenstein is the ultimate expression of this trope: a level made almost entirely out of a whole bunch of swastikas slotted together, like Nazi bathroom tiles.
• The PlatinumGames logo is used far more liberally in The Wonderful 101 than in any of the company's previous games. This gets to such an extreme that various elements of the entire Earth's protection are named after Platinum Games and use their logo. Even a giant mecha made of buildings!
• In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM puts their shield logo on everything: Banners, Dr Vahlen's tablet and sweater, various machines... The in-universe justification is probably similar to Black Mesa, as mentioned above in the Half-Life entry: XCOM is a secret organisation, at least up until the alien war kicks off in earnest, and having easily identifiable logos on all their equipment makes it hard to smuggle anything out of the building.

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