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  • Devil May Cry 4 stars new protagonist Nero in the place of Dante, however as cool as Nero is he still gets shown up by Dante every time the latter shows up. It also doesn't help that Nero gets put out of action and Dante takes over for the second half of the game until Nero comes back for the final mission. It isn't until Devil May Cry 5 that Nero comes into his own.
  • The .hack games are notorious about this. The first four games had about two dozen characters, but only about 6 were any important. And of those 6, most lost importance as soon as their roles in the main plot were done - most notably, Balmung. As soon as he joins the main party, he becomes nothing but a tool.
    • And G.U. isn't all that better. While most of the characters do contribute for the plot somewhat, by the end of Redemption most of them are, again, mere tools. This applies even for Atoli, who was a major character in the previous two games (heck, Reminisce is pretty much all about her) only to get a single plot-relevant moment... at the ending.
  • From Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, despite what the title would have you believe. He completely takes over the first case solving almost everything for you, while in the last case, he makes things a lot easier than they should be for Apollo. Also, much of the game revolves around his case 7 years ago.
    • While most examples of this trope strictly fall under either tropes are not bad and tropes are not good, Phoenix manages to be an example of both. Fans were originally upset over the main cast of the series being completely replaced, so Phoenix's involvement was something of a Hope Spot for enraged fans. After the game's release, many fans felt that Apollo was a lackluster main character and grew to dislike him, but this may be due to the fact that he never really had a chance to develop due to Phoenix's heavy involvement in the plot.
    • And ironically, despite the next game, Dual Destinies, putting Phoenix back in the spotlight with Apollo seemingly Demoted to Extra, it managed to develop Apollo much more than Apollo's own game did, to the point where fans now finally think of him as a character who can stand up on his own right. Of course, Athena Cykes managed to play one to both of them, but this is understandable seeing as she's a new character.
    • Even more so in Spirit of Justice, where despite having Phoenix Wright in the title, Apollo is the central character of the story. The plot starts with Phoenix, but eventually reveals Apollo's backstory. In the end, it's Apollo who topples a tyrannical regime.
  • The Colonial Marines in Aliens vs. Predator (2010). Despite not being the title characters and having the least interesting gameplay mechanics (bog-standard FPS gameplay versus completely unique alien warriors), they have the longest story campaign by a wide margin, and prominent roles in the other two campaigns and the multiplayer. The title characters themselves get shafted in their own ways - the Aliens have a miniscule solo campaign of only a handful of very simple missions with little story, while the Predator is only fought once in either campaign and has almost no role in the plot.
  • The pros in Backyard Sports. The advertising REVOLVES around them rather than the neighborhood kids. From their first appearance onward, they are easily the best players in the game, leaving the kids, who have much worse stats, unnecessary to beat the game. Well, except Memetic Badass Pablo, but that's a tradition.
    • In fact, Backyard Skateboarding is written from the perspective of Andy McDonald (the only pro player in the game), despite the fact that there are eleven other playable characters, six of whom are available from the start just like McDonald.
  • In the Batman: Arkham Series, the Joker has always been a villainous example of a spotlight stealer, though he is recognized as Batman's archnemesis. In Batman: Arkham Asylum, it was justified, as he was the main villain who instigated the breakout. However, further games always incorporate his involvement in some ways, making it seem like Rocksteady cannot make an Arkham game without the Joker. His involvement in Batman: Arkham City was substantial enough to rival Hugo Strange, the game's real big bad. Black Mask, who was believed to be the Big Bad in Batman: Arkham Origins, reveals that the Joker was impersonating him, and he essentially dominated the plot as the game's true main villain who hired the assassins. Even in Batman: Arkham Knight, his absence constituted a massive drop in crime until the Scarecrow shows up. And he still manages to steal the screen time from every villain, in the form of a fear induced hallucination. As a result, he has more scenes than all of the villains combined. Further reinforcing this, one of Batman's fear hallucinations involve the rogues gallery forming a more effective teamup than Scarecrow's army, just to put down the aforementioned villain. And he kills them all in that hallucination. Oh, and he was essentially responsible for the Arkham Knight's existence as the final nail in the coffin.
  • Kagura Mutsuki and Celica A. Mercury of Blazblue: Chronophantasma. A large chunk of the three stories of Chronophantasma deal with Kagura's attempted coup against the Imperator and Celica's relationship with Ragna and life in the modern world, despite being relative newcomers to the story. The creators seem to be aware of this; in the PS Vita port, there is a scenario where Kagura and Celica are paired up against Ragna and Noel in a series of games to decide who should have the title of the game's main protagonists. In the West, they (especially Celica) are blamed for leaving the other newcomers (Bullet, Azrael, Amane) and some veterans (Litchi, Arakune, Taokaka) underdeveloped. note 
  • Fritz from Brain Dead 13. Definitely Fritz. He even has a spot in the box art which says "Starring Fritz". Not bad for a Determinator maniac who is so hell-bent on using so many ways to kill Lance.
  • Darkstalkers. Was at first about Demitri Maximoff; after the first game, Morrigan Aensland clearly becomes the focus even when you add in an anti-Christ in the last game. It's so bad that most fans know who Morrigan is, but have no clue on what game she's really from. This is even mocked (to nearly fourth wall-breaking proportions) in Cross Edge (where Morrigan, Felicia, Demitri, Lilith, and Jedah make an appearance). In one particular part of the postgame segments, after defeating a revived Jedah and teaming up with him, the Darkstalkers engage in a lengthy discussion of how Demitri originally was the main character, until Morrigan's popularity usurped his title of protagonist. Lilith expresses surprise at this, believing that Morrigan was always the heroine of the story, but in the end, she doesn't quite care, as she—being a part of Morrigan herself—is almost always guaranteed at least a cameo whenever Morrigan shows up.
  • In Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Ayane gets a disproportionate amount of screen time during the last half of the story mode, while the protagonist Kasumi is left in the dust.
    • More generally, the female fighters of the series (which is Best Known for the Fanservice) are so much more prominently featured that a fair few people would be surprised to find out that Dead or Alive actually has male characters, though Ryu Hayabusa remains an exception.
    • The latter marketing team of Dead or Alive turn both Marie Rose and Honoka into this. They're actually very popular in Japan, and not being popular in the West, but this isn't quite the issue. The problem is, as Dead or Alive branch out for more collaborations and appearances in other titles, both Marie Rose and Honoka continue to headline as DOA's representatives that you'd think DOA is about them, Kasumi is only there to remind you that she's the series' heroine, and even Ayane gets less and less publications that you could've thought that both Marie Rose and Honoka are the deuteragonist and tritagonist of the series.
  • Etna, The Lancer from Disgaea, has gotten more and more focus over the years, playing a large role in Disgaea 2, featured predominantly in spinoff titles such as Cross Edge, Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? and its sequel, and Trinity Universe, and Etna Mode (which is essentially a "What if Laharl had never reawakened") in the PSP version of the first Disgaea. However, with Disgaea 3's Raspberyl Mode and Disgaea 4, it appears that Etna has been ditched in favor of Flonne, especially considering that's she's an Archangel now. And as for Laharl?. The only subsequent game to give him an important role is Disgaea Infinite. And then Disgaea Dimension 2 happened, and Laharl was put back in the spotlight (although one of the major subplot still involves Etna).
  • In the Dynasty Warriors series, Zhao Yun has been the cover boy for nearly every (at least non-expansion or Spin-Off) game. But in DW7, where individual Musou modes were scrapped for Kingdom-based stories, nearly each kingdom has one with the most notable ones being Xiahou Dun, Sun Quan, and Sima Zhao from the kingdoms of Wei, Wu, and Jin respectively who have the most stages than any characters. While it may be justified for Sun Quan (who was often overshadowed by his father and older brother) and to a lesser degree Sima Zhao, the fact that Xiahou Dun is playable in battles that not only he did not really take part in historicallynote  but battles that could've gone to characters who were without stages yet being involved in them historically raised a few eyebrows.
  • Vaas from Far Cry 3: he takes over the cover of the game, is featured in most advertisements and gets more screen time than the real Big Bad of the game. With few complaints.
    • Not to mention many fans were upset when after all that build up, he becomes a basic boss fight and is killed off early. Many fans felt the storyline went downhill afterwards.
    • Show of hands; how many of you looked at the cover of Far Cry 4 and even noticed there was somebody there other than the guy in the pink suit? That's the Affably Evil antagonist Pagan Min, voiced to great acclaim by Troy Baker, whose character and dictatorship the entire game revolves around. That you can get a secret ending where protagonist Ajay resolves his business in Kyrat in a matter of minutes and goes on to party with him really says something.
  • Fate Series: Two major cases, both somewhat fitting given the characters in question are Attention Whores.
    • Fate/EXTRA has three servants that the player can choose from as their partner / Love Interest for the game. Of the three, the "default" choice is Nero Claudius, an Awesome Ego sporting Large Ham and Ms. Fanservice extraordinaire. Come the game's sequel and Nero is effectively treated as The Hero and considered a Universally Beloved Leader by her new subordinates, while the other two (Tamamo-no-Mae and Nameless/EMIYA) become a Villain Protagonist for much of their own route with a 0% Approval Rating amongst their new subordinates and a subordinate of Nero herself respectively. Nero is the focus not only of her own route, but also the game's final route, which gives her a Purposefully Overpowered Super Mode to allow her (and only her) to defeat the Final Boss. In fact, Nero hogs the spotlight so much that it carries over into her appearance in Fate/Grand Order, where not only is she the primary focus of one of the game's main story chapters (where she is again shown as being a Universally Beloved Leader), but also appears as a major ally in another, was given her own series of yearly events (though these have slowly been subject to Hostile Show Takeover) and makes regular, plot-centric appearances in other events. Contrast the vast majority of FGO characters that did not originate from FGO itself: the vast majority of whom are largely Out of Focus to give some spotlight to the game's own original characters and only a few of whom ever really enjoy A Day in the Limelight on rare occasions of it all. Eventually, she stopped making appearances in the main story and her yearly event was hosted by other characters multiple times, until 2021 where she not only got to host her event again but was revealed to be the main antagonist of the Arcade spin-off as "Queen Draco", complete with a Beast form and a playable event Servant. Then 2023 came where said antagonistic version became the central character of the Arcade collab event with Mobile and the first playable Beast-class Servant to retain said class.
    • Also from Fate/EXTRA's never-localized sequel, there's Elizabeth Bathory, a minor recurring antagonist whose gimmick is that she's an awful singer who wants to grow up to be a famous pop star instead of a horrible murderess, oblivious to how her callous disregard for others' comfort and desire to be young forever are foreshadowing exactly that. She was popular enough to play a disproportionate role in Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, where she derails the main villain's plans by being too stupid to predict the actions of. However, in Fate/Grand Order, she not only received a "spin off" Servant in the form of Carmilla, her grown-up self with a rather different personality, but got tons of character focus, not only appearing prominently in multiple major story arcs across Part 1, but getting her own yearly event each Halloween, with a yearly seasonal variant given away for free. This eventually started to create a backlash against the character, fed further by Western audiences unfamiliar with the character and uninterested in her idol singer gimmick, to the point that she was eventually phased out of main story events altogether and her yearly event given a break until well into Part 2, which did much to dilute the criticism on both counts.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn switches between three armies. One of these armies is lead by the hero of the previous game, Ike. About halfway through the game this pretty much becomes Ike's game. Micaiah's left in the dust. Heck, the trailer makes it seem like Micaiah is going to be highly important in part 3. While she is, there are far more opportunities to use Ike's new party than the Dawn Brigadiers.
      • However, nobody really suffers this as much as the heroes of Part 2 - a Let's Play of Radiant Dawn mentions that the characters in Part 2 are generally flawed because they have such limited availability throughout the game - Elincia manages to still remain important, but she's pretty much Demoted to Extra during part 3. However, in part 4, Elincia and the Dawn Brigade manage to join everyone.
    • After Fire Emblem: Awakening a runaway success for the series, the spotlight was lit on it at full strength for a long time. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS added two characters from the game (Robin and Lucina, not to mention Chrom, later in Ultimate), and gave it the honor of being the only one of two Nintendo games that was featured in Project X Zone 2 (the other being Fiora). The Awakening characters in Smash was the starting point of major contention in the Smash community for accusations against Fire Emblem for being over-represented in the series, and drama regarding whether Echo Fighters take up spots for other characters that could've possibly been in the game.
    • Fire Emblem Fates was heavily promoted as the "next big thing" for the series, and it was placed firmly behind the coattails of Awakening. Corrin was added to Smash only days before the international release for the game, part of it as a nod to Roy having added under similar circumstances. The fact Fates was so heavily promoted so early on, including Smash and series crossovers, along with its status as a Contested Sequel among fans, ended up having an overall negative impact towards the game's reputation.
      • As a side note, it seems Intelligent Systems seems to want to put both Awakening and Fates on the same spotlight, not only in how they seems to give relatively equally large amount of attention to those two games compared to the rest, but also trying to tie Awakening to Fates by having a subset of character be reincarnations of Awakening characters plus three of the children units as themselves being recruitable characters.
    • Where this gets particularly egregious is in the crossver games. Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE was initially teased as a Fire Emblem X Shin Megami Tensei crossover, and Fire Emblem fans were largely disappointed by the end result, particularly in how it only references the first game and Awakening. Fire Emblem Warriors was especially bad about this, as over 75% of the roster were picked out from Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Fates. Fire Emblem Heroes also features a large amount of characters banners around them as well (but gacha games are largely Popularity Power driven, so that's not unexpected).
    • The page image refers to Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, specifically the last chapter. The second generation of Genealogy sees Seliph lead a liberation army against Emperor Arvis, who is responsible for the death of his father, as well as most of the first generation. With Arvis gone, the final chapter is mostly about Julia and her ties to Julius. Seliph isn't exactly Demoted to Extra, but he has much less to do than he did in previous chapters, with most castle dialogues having him act as The Watson to Lewyn. The final boss also reflects this, with Seliph being nearly worthless against him despite getting his Infinity +1 Sword near the end of the previous chapter, while Julia can take him down effortlessly with her Last Disc Magic. Adding insult to the injury is their inclusion in Fire Emblem Heroes: Seliph ended up being a Low-Tier Letdown while Julia continued to get improved over time and got her Legendary Hero variant first before Seliph.
    • Interesting enough, in Genealogy story itsef, theres an even bigger example: Leif, the prince of Leonster, and Seliph's cousin. Leif is one of few children character who is guaranteed to appear in the second generation, the other being his own big sister, Altenna. As a result when it comes to the storyline of the second generation, Leif evidently have so much more dialogues compared to the other character. Leif is one of few character in the entire series who can be Killed Off for Real and still have a dialogue in storyline sections, several chapters after his introduction and the campaign at Thracian Peninsula covers 3 chapters out of 6 of the second generation, in which one of them is the prologue. The content of said chapters can be summarized as such: Chapter 7: Seliph meets Leif. Chapter 8: Leif met his sister for the first time. Chapter 9: Leif reunited with his big sister, defeated Travant and liberated Thracia. The remaining 2 chapters of the game proceed to rush through the remaining plotline with the conflict against Granvell empire, Julius first proper appearance, and Arvis crammed in chapter 10, and the endgame cramming even more with Seliph army duking it out against the remaining Holy Weapon wielders, the Silesse Pegasus Knights, and the Deadlords. This particular quirks of Genealogy did not went unnoticed in the story itself, with one scene in chapter 8 lampshading the army's prolonged stay in Thracia. Shouzo Kaga himself ended up elaborating Leif story even further with Thracia 776 where Leif become the protagonist of the story.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the Toy animatronics are hyped up as a big new threat. Past Night 3, they're phased out in favor of the old animatronics. (Mangle sticks around.)
    • This is played with with Bonnie the rabbit throughout the entire series. On one hand, Bonnie doesn't really get any more spotlight than the other animatrons for the most part in gameplay terms, being just a single enemy in a game full of them. The biggest exception in gameplay would be Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where the only true enemy in the game is heavily implied to be an old prototype model of him, but even then the actual Bonnie doesn't show up at all. He does, however, get the most prominent spots in all of the game's trailers, with most of the lingering shots falling on one model of his or another, and being the one to perform the jump scare at the end all four of them, assuming one includes Springtrap from 3 as one of his models.
    • In Five Nights at Freddy's 4, Nightmare Fredbear is the sole enemy on Night 5 and takes over midway through Night 6, causing the other four animatronics to stop attacking. Nightmare takes over the role on Nights 7 and 8.
  • Sveta takes over the storyline of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn almost as soon as she's introduced. What was supposed to be Matthew & friends collecting parts to fix the glider Tyrell broke, instead becomes her personal quest to end a Total Eclipse of the Plot, guest starring Matthew & friends. Debatably not a bad thing, since she was a fan favorite even before the game's release, and Matthew is a franchise-standard Heroic Mime with relatively little development.
  • The unit High x Joker in iDOLM@STER SideM have more events than even the main units Dramatic Stars and Jupiter. A lot of less popular units are completely ignored when it comes to cards.
  • Dan Smith, one of the seven multiple personalities of the Killer7 gets an entire chapter devoted to his character's backstory and is more often than not the selected persona during the animated cutscenes. Mask de Smith also gets a disproportional amount of screentime compared to the others, as does Garcian Smith (justifiably so in Garcian's case). It should be noted that Suda51 admitted that he didn't have time to do everything he wanted in this game, which may explain why we never find out much about Kaede, Coyote, Con, or Kevin.
  • The King of Fighters does this, a lot. However, they change up the characters, and the old focuses become peripheral. Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami's intense rivalry was the main focus of 'KOF '95-'97, but with that matter settled, Kyo became a secondary character. In some games, he was put in only to appease fans. For the record: '95-'97 was Kyo and Iori, '99-2001 was K' and Kula, 2003 to XIII were Ash Crimson, and XIV and XV is Shun'ei.
    • '94. The big story for that one was the dream matchup between the Fatal Fury Team (Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, Joe Higashi) and Art of Fighting Team (Ryo Sakazaki, Robert Garcia, Takuma Sakazaki), made very clear by title sequence and every victory comment each member delivers to the other team. Today, not only do most KOF players probably not even know what games they're from, Takuma has been thrust into the sidelines occasionally (with Yuri taking his spot in the AOF Team), Andy has been reduced to an occasional bit player, and Joe and Robert are tenuously clinging to trusty sidekick status.
    • In fact '99 wasn't even supposed to have Kyo and Iori, but fan demand caused the first chapter of the NESTS Saga to hinge on Kyo clones being mass-produced and the two of them becoming secret characters (with the in-story justification being that Kyo mysteriously vanished after defeating Orochi, and Iori followed suit just to track him downnote ). When that wasn't enough for test audiences, the producers went and added two of the aforementioned Kyo clones in the game, both still wearing Kyo's school uniform and with his old movesets.
    • And finally, we come full circle with the NESTS characters themselves becoming this. Despite being relegated to the sidelines starting with the Ash saga, they continued to be featured in every subsequent entry barring XII. As of XV there are more characters from the NESTS saganote  than any other barring the Fatal Fury cast. Much to the chagrin of longtime fans.
  • The Kingdom Hearts series:
  • Dekar from the Lufia games tends to steal the show whenever he's in the party, by virtue of doing or saying something awesome, stupid, or some combination of the two. In the remake of Lufia II, he even gets to do one of the game's most famous scenes, originally done by Guy...which ends up even more hilarious coming from Dekar.
  • Liara T'Soni gets a much more noticeable amount of screen time in Mass Effect 3 than any other character in the game by being mandatory in three missions, having more cutscenes than any other character, being directly involved in From Ashes DLC and potentially the person with the last line in the entire game if the "Refusal" ending is chosen.
  • Zero of Mega Man X started stealing the spotlight in X4 then completely took over the plot in X5 and X6. A lot of this is the result of Keiji Inafune, the creator of the series, reacting to Executive Meddling. According to Inafune, he actually originally designed Zero as X's new design, but was told it was too different and was ordered to redesign X to look much more like the original Mega Man: he did exactly that, but repurposed Zero into a separate character who would slowly rise to prominence over X so his original design would be the main character as he always intended. He then intended the X series to end with X5, and even has it end with a definitive finale complete with a Where Are They Now ending three years later where Sigma is dead for good and the world is rebuilt, so he could get to work on the new Mega Man Zero series: again executive meddling prevailed, with questionable results, as three years later became three weeks later, Sigma and Zero were resurrected, and the story chugged on with X6, X7, and X8. Once Inafune moved on, Axl actually stole the spotlight from the other two characters in X7, and to a lesser degree in X8, and from there the X series basically whimpered out of existence.
  • Mortal Kombat spends a great deal of the storyline focus on rivals Scorpion and Sub-Zero. But, as they're the headliners for the games, they're the ones who got the most attention; many of the characters seemed to be designed solely as one-off characters (like Stryker), or that the others underwent ridiculous plot changes to try and make them viable again (Raiden becoming evil, Liu Kang dying, etc.).
  • Namco × Capcom was originally conceived with just Namco characters; Capcom was brought into the picture later, and it shows. They did a good job integrating the Capcom characters into the plot, but most of the important plot points are still from the Namco side of things; the Capcom characters are just sort of... there.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon X and Y: Perhaps in response to older fans disliking that Gen V sidelined old favourites until the post-game to focus on its new collection of creatures, Gen VI's headline titles place a great amount of focus on older Mons during the main campaign. Specifically the Kanto starters (Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle), who end up taking the spotlight away from the Kalos starters (Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie). They are added to your party with much fanfare shortly after earning your first badge and come with Mega Stones with which to Mega Evolve, which none of the Kalos starters can claim. Gen IV's Lucario also sees a lot of love, as you get one as a gift from Korrina, and it's the first Mon to showcase the game's signature Mega Evolution mechanic.
    • Charizard's special treatment above even other Gen I Mons from Game Freak, high popularity with the fandom, and high prominence in Sword and Shield has led to Memetic Mutation, where the fire dragon is treated as an actual god◊.
      • In X and Y, the final forms of all three starters can Mega Evolve. However, Charizard gets TWO Mega Evolutions; the only other Pokémon in the entire series that can do the same is Mewtwo, a Legendary Pokémon.
      • Charizard is extremely prominent in Pokémon Sword and Shield, being Champion Leon's signature Pokémon. He is almost always seen with Charizard, and when he's not, he'll find some way to work it into the conversation. His other Pokémon rarely get any mention. On top of this, the Charizard line is the only non-Galar starter evolution line that was legitimately obtainable in the game at launch, prior to the the release of Pokémon HOME and an eventual DLC Expansion Pack.
      • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet's first event, a seven star Tera Raid for a Pokémon not normally available in the game is none other than Charizard.
    • A majority of the returning Pokémon in Sword and Shield's regional Dex are from the fifth generation more than any other generation, even the first. It's thought that this was the influence of James Turner, the game's art director, who could have a bias for the generation due it being the first time he worked on the mainline games.
  • The Raving Rabbids of the Rayman series, with said characters commandeering the franchise more and more from Rayman himself with each subsequent game. Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 featured Rayman wearing a Rabbid outfit for the whole game to disguise himself as one of them, even talking like them; Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party removed him as a playable character and demoted him to starring in cutscenes where he's constantly harassed by them. Rabbids Go Home would go on to completely remove him altogether, separating the two series from each other going forward. However, the Rayman fanbase still views the Rabbids with disdain, as the focus on Raving Rabbids games prior to the spilt caused Rayman 4 to get cancelled, and even after the split, the Rayman series still got very few games compared to the continued near-yearly deluge of Rabbids titles (for comparison, Rayman only had two console games during the 2010s, while the Rabbids nabbed six). The Rabbid characters even got to be guest fighters in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up and gain its own crossover series with Super Mario Bros. in the form of the Mario + Rabbids turn-based tactics games.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Chris Redfield is for all intents and purposes the The Hero of series, but the casual viewer would be forgiven for assuming fan favorite Leon S. Kennedy is the real protagonist given his prominence in the games thanks to the immense popularity of the second and fourth game where he stars. Also the three CG movies, the third of which has Chris as the main character... but Leon shows up and unavoidably robs the limelight from him and Rebecca Chambers. And if all that wasn’t enough Leon is also stars in the Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness an animated Netflix series alongside Chris’s own sister Claire.
      • It's ironic as Capcom keep pushing Chris as the main RE rep in Marvel vs. Capcom while Leon's only playable appearance was Namco × Capcom, despite Leon clearly being more popular even on the official character poll on the Resident Evil Website.
    • To be fair, even when Mr Kennedy isn't in sight and Chris Took a Level in Badass such as in Resident Evil 5, Chris still gets Overshadowed by Awesome courtesy of the Big Bad Albert Wesker who soundly steals the show for the latter part of RE5 before getting Killed Off for Real.
    • In Resident Evil 0 Rebecca Chambers is the protagonist and is sufficiently more badass than later appearances, but unfortunately the same game features Billy Cohen who’s not only a cool character but has a unique backstory and steals the spotlight away from poor Rebecca who then becomes The Load chronologically.
    • Played with Ada Wong, she's a definitely fan favorite since RE2 and even more so in RE4, she always stars alongside Leon (except for Degeneration and Vendetta where Claire and Chris respectively take her place) and in RE6 most of the plot revolves around her and she appears in every scenario and has her own fourth one. Subverted a bit though as Ada is always a side character and unlike Jill or Claire hasn't stared in her own solo game.
    • In Resident Evil 7 despite not even being the Big Bad Jack Baker steals the show for most of the game with his cheesy one liners and utter refusal to die not matter how many times Ethan kills him, if wasn't enough he returns in the End of Zoe DLC just so he can be Killed Off for Real.
    • Monster example in Resident Evil 2 (Remake) as the Tyrant completely steals the show being by far the most loved aspect of the remake turning up in every scenario and thanks to game mechanics is truly unstoppable. Thanks to Mr X's newfound popularity he found his way to Resident Evil 3 (Remake)’s Project Resistance and Monster Hunter: World.
  • Much of the flak directed towards the Soda Poppers in Telltale's Sam & Max: Freelance Police games was because they were overly focused upon throughout the first season, at the expense of other side characters. As a result, the second season was filled with anti-Poppers Fanservice, leading them to get Killed Off for Real.
  • Silhouette Mirage revolves around a war between the strength-based Silhouettes and the intelligence-based Mirages. In practice, though, the Silhouettes are pretty much background flavor in the plot. There are mooks of both attributes, along with neutral-attribute Humongous Mecha... piloted by Mirages. There are Mirage bosses, and there are Silhouette bosses... who mostly work for the Mirages, if they aren't just random. And the dual-attribute Guardian Angel bosses who menace you throughout the game? Yep, they're Mirage creations.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog : Shadow the Hedgehog, who has had the most plot focus of any character for a while. He even managed to star in his own game. Then, he and Silver took over Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), to the extent that you only play as the title character for about a third of the game, and he has far less plot connection to the Big Bad of the game than Shadow and Silver do. The series, starting with Sonic Unleashed, have stopped focusing on him so much, but even then he still gets a lot of preferential treatment; he's one of the major bosses in Sonic Generations (Whereas most of the other characters are relegated to NPC's in the hub world), one of the few characters carried over to the Sonic Boom sub-series alongside the four main heroes and main villain, and got his own DLC campaign in Sonic Forces.
  • Soulcalibur:
    • Even though its name is in the title from the second game on, the Soul Calibur itself barely matters. The sole element of the series that has any impact at all is Soul Edge. Of course, Soul Edge is the title of the first game, and would have been the series title if not for trademark issues.
    • The ad campaign(s) for Soulcalibur II led many people who believed them to be surprised when they found out that Link, Heihachi, and Spawn were actually not the only playable characters. Hard to say which ad campaigns were the worst at only showing Link, Spawn, or Heihachi.
      • Each of them also appears quite prominently on the cover of their respective version's box, despite having no role in the canon story.
      • In hindsight, Soulcalibur II pretty much created a trend still present in the series now, where the majority of the marketing campaign for each subsequent game has focused more on the guest characters (Star Wars characters in SCIV, Kratos in Broken Destiny, Ezio in SCV, etc.), while the Soul Edge saga and the continuing stories of the recurring characters have seemingly fallen on the wayside.
    • From the look of the box art◊ of Soul Blade, you wouldn't really think much of the blond-haired guy right? Well, that guy is Siegfried Schtauffen, who has effectively become the main character since the first Soulcalibur despite not owning the titular sword until IV. note  He's the only character to own both Soul Edge and Soul Calibur at different points in the series becoming BOTH the Big Bad and The Hero. You can even see how important he became over time by comparing his original concept art◊ and his artwork◊ in IV. Of course, this ended up making him a likable character.
    • To be more specific: the original Soul Edge had no central protagonist (though Word of God circa V stated it was Mitsurugi), but Sophitia and Siegfried are arguably the most prominent because the former destroys one half of Soul Edge, while the latter becomes the Big Bad under its power. Soulcalibur had Xianghua as its protagonist, as per Word of God (she originally wielded the holy sword before Siegfried did). II once again had no protagonist, though it did promote several new characters as being of great importance, but Siegfried, as Nightmare, is starting to steal the spotlight. note  By III, he's the full-blown protagonist.
  • Super Robot Wars:
    • In the Super Robot Wars: Original Generation sub-series Kyosuke Nanbu and his girlfriend Excellen Browning were given this treatment at the beginning of the saga. The first Original Generation game was largely a retelling of Super Robot Wars Alpha, but allowed the option to play as Kyosuke instead of as Alpha's main character Ryusei, despite this option sending the entire second half of the game into Canon Discontinuity. The second game eliminated the idea of branching paths but instead made the story entirely centered on Kyosuke, including rewriting the plot of Super Robot Wars Advance to give Kyosuke an Evil Twin serving as its Greater-Scope Villain. Two Gaiden Game entries on the Nintendo DS were also produced which feature alternate-universe equivalents of Kyosuke and Excellen as their main characters, along with new and improved versions of their robots. This excess of attention declined over time, however: Original Generation Gaiden, Second Original Generationnote  and The Moon Dwellers all star other characters and reduce Kyosuke to one of many bit parts among the cast, even if he still typically gets one of the spots on the cover of any given title.
    • The nature of New Work, Recycled Graphics means that if a show is sufficiently popular to get into the game once, it will often appear many times in a row, especially if it's a series which can easily be inserted without using its plot or by only covering its plot in a single stage. Gundam shows and other shows made by Sunrisenote  are especially prone to this. Well-established favorites Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack appearing in virtually every title, while successful shows such as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny or Code Geass will often appear in almost every game for a stretch of ten to fifteen years.
    • A somewhat common event across the series is for one particular show to dominate the plot and receive loving recreations of many of its signature episodes. Instances include GaoGaiGar in Super Robot Wars W, Yamato 2199 in Super Robot Wars V, and Mashin Hero Wataru in Super Robot Wars X. Oddly, despite being lavished with such attention, these shows almost never get the recycling treatment described above, possibly because everything that can be done with them has been done.
    • Among the Getter Robo entries, Getter Robo Armageddon is this to every other incarnation, as it remains the most popular Getter work, has the most iconic visual renditions of the characters, and has a large number of upgrades for the main characters together with a fairly short plot. Even games which avoid using Armageddon's robots, such as Super Robot Wars 30, often use the Armageddon character designs.
  • Some say there's the Kirby series in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, to a degree. Interestingly, this is an attempt to make up for the lack of attention Sakurai gave to his own franchise in Melee (only Kirby made it in, compared to five Mario characters and four Pokémon ones, and Dedede was the first out of the roster when it exceeded the maximum number of characters). As for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, both the Kid Icarus and Fire Emblem series manage to steal all the attention, mainly due to Sakurai also working on the latest installment at the time of the former series and the latter series having almost as many playable representatives as the company's flagship Mario franchise and its subseries. The Kid Icarus representation was somewhat toned down in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, however.
    • What should be noted about the Kirby representation in Smash is that it a large majority of them are limited to the Sakurai-directed games. While it makes sense for Sakurai to put in references to the game's he's been involved with, he hasn't since been involved in the series in a long time and the fact that his games get the overwhelming amount of shares of references compared to the rest is disappointing to the bigger fans (especially the ones who wanted Bandana Waddle Dee in the game).
  • Tales Series:
    • This is a big complaint leveled at Reala in Tales of Destiny 2, especially in the end game. Though to be fair to her, it's not so much her that dominates the plot as her relationship with Kyle that does. The problem is that other beloved characters get decreased screen time and plot relevance because of it, and many plot threads are rushed over in the process of avoiding red string strangling.
    • Leon Magnus, who not only outlives Stahn in the sequel, but has the greatest deal of plot relevance of the original cast in said sequel, gained a whole new side story (and manga) in the remake's Director's Cut, and has by far the greatest amount of focus in spinoff games and outfit cameos. While Leon is one of the franchise's most popular characters overall, there are complaints by a Vocal Minority who get upset at his constant character focus, often to the detriment of Stahn, Tales of Destiny's protagonist.
    • In Tales of Eternia, Rassius appears to be important and important enough for the entire party to mourn his death and treat it as a major plot point despite him having only met and interacted with Farah before.
  • In Twinbee, the spotlight spends more time on Pastel than it does on other characters.
  • In World of Warcraft, this is a complaint about Thrall and his satellite love interest Aggra, stemming mostly from their completely unnecessary inclusion in Patch 4.2 (which was otherwise about Malfurion's Druids and the Firelands), and the Dragon Aspects and Twilight's Hammer insistence that without Thrall the world is doomed. It doesn't help that, as Thrall was previously the Orc faction leader, many Alliance players are sick of him getting the spotlight, while Horde players are upset he is now neutral. In 4.3, the entire Hour of Twilight dungeon is an Escort Mission for Thrall (and also includes the horrendously unimpressive "reveal" of essentially the Alliance's pope as a traitor, to further Alliance players' annoyance) and he plays a large part in the Dragon Soul raid, getting to wield the titular object, being presented as the Big Good, and ultimately getting to strike the killing blow; even though out of all the characters present he has the smallest connection to Deathwing and the Dragon Soul itself. The raid also concludes with him getting a Babies Ever After ending. By the time Cataclysm was over, even his fans were starting to get a little sick of him. In Warlords of Draenor, Thrall is the one to finally kill Garrosh, even though there's probably a dozen other major characters with good reason to want him dead. This also makes the ending of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid pointless, as Garrosh was only spared to begin with because "his punishment is not for [Thrall] alone to decide". So much for that.
    • Aggra herself, whose entire purpose was to basically be forced on Thrall as his love interest in order to sink the popular Thrall/Jaina ship, more or less stealing the interest of Thrall from Jaina.
    • Sylvanas Windrunner and Garrosh Hellscream also get a fair bit more screentime and Character Development than the other faction leaders do, though in their case it's not so much that players want to see less of them, they just want to see more of the others.
      • And speaking of Sylvanas, after she became Warchief, the following expansions made her the centerpiece as the major driving force of the new plot threads as she rapidly spirals downwards into being an outright war criminal, to a degree even players have a hard time sympathizing with her actions that have little basis on logic or reason. She would unfortunately be one of the cornerstones of WoW's dip in writing quality as a result.
    • On the Alliance side, most of the story revolves around Varian Wrynn, his son Anduin, and Jaina Proudmoore, the three human faction leaders. While the other racial leaders do make the occasional cameo, those three are the only ones to get any significant Character Development. This has led to a complaint that humanity as a whole is an example in World of Warcraft.
      • Players have made fun of this - such as "I like this new Prophet Velen character they added in Warlords of Draenor". For reference, Velen is the racial leader of the Draenei, and the brother to Kil'jaeden. But if you forgot about the scene he played a role in Burning Crusade (at the end of a raid dungeon that most of the playerbase didn't get the chance to see until it became soloable) or joined later, you would be forgiven for taking that joke seriously, given how little screentime the Draenei really got until Warlords.
  • Ashley from WarioWare, hands down. Her popularity (particularly in Japan) has reached the point where she's overshadowing the other characters, including Wario himself. Downplayed however in that the character focus in-series still is mostly evenly distributed amongst the rest of the cast, and her only major crossover appearance outside of the series is in Nintendo Badge Arcade. By Gold, marketing for the series reversed the attention for Ashley and focused on the cast evenly again.
  • Lampshaded by WWE 12 where Michael Cole was DLC. Fair enough as he was a big name at the time, except wave bye bye to Universe Mode unless you enjoy changing his several main event title matches on every card.
  • In The Elder Scrolls series, the Dunmer (Dark Elves) became this as a race following Morrowind, which is set in their homeland. There are a number of factors at play, including their badass ashen skin/blood red eyes appearance, their Jack of All Stats aptitude making them a versatile race to play as, their relatively unique and alien culture (compared to most of the other races which are largely either High Fantasy stereotypes [High Elves, Wood Elves, Orcs] or are clearly drawn almost directly from real life cultures [Imperials as Romans, Nords as Vikings, Redguards as Moorish Samurai, etc.]), the plentiful and extremely deep lore about them coming from fan favorite writer Michael Kirkbride, and numerous other factors. Regardless of the cause, the Dunmer became one of the most popular races in the ES community in subsequent games, and every later installment has included at least one (usually several) Dunmer-related plotlines. (In fact, while the main quest is primarily stand-alone, Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC otherwise serves as A Day in the Limelight episode for the state of the Dunmer people in the 4th Era.)
  • Ryuji from Persona 5 was an In-Universe example as well as a deconstruction before the events of the game, when he was The Ace of the school's track team. His success annoyed Kamoshida, who didn't like that the volleyball team he coached was losing attention because of the track team. Kamoshida then decided to spread rumors about Ryuji's home life, which pissed off Ryuji enough that he decided to punch Kamoshida. Kamoshida then broke Ryuji's leg, claiming it was self-defense, got the track team disbanded, and didn't face any consequences at the time.
  • As a result of Team Marie winning the original Splatoon's final Splatfest, Marie was given a starring role in the story mode of Splatoon 2 while her cousin Callie was largely put Out of Focus. Marie was effectively promoted to a main character in the story and served as the player character's Mission Control, while Callie had mysteriously disappeared prior to the events of the game, making her only on-screen appearance during the game's Final Boss. Many of Callie's fans, however, were upset by her smaller role in the game, to the point that they took to social media and mounted a #BringCallieBack campaign. Their voices were heard loud and clear, and one of the additions highlighted in the game's Version 3.0 update was that Callie now appears next to Marie at Tentakeel Outpost after beating the game.
  • The Sega Superstars series celebrated Sega's various franchises throughout the years. Naturally, SEGA's mascot Sonic the Hedgehog would feature prominently and have the most characters and minigames playable under his name, but for Sega Superstars and Sega Superstar Tennis, Sonic was just one of many. Then Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing release, giving him top-billing, though the title still highlighted it was a game about SEGA as a whole. The sequel, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, dropped the "SEGA" from the title, likely because the game featured guests like the characters from Team Fortress 2 and Danica Patrick of NASCAR of all people, but Sonic remained the most prominent franchise. This trope was taken to its most logical extreme when Sumo Digital, the developers behind the racing games, created Team Sonic Racing, a racing game that only features characters and locations from Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • Yandere Simulator: The Saikou family as a whole are extremely plot-relevant at the expense of everyone else, with almost every Cryptic Background Reference (e.g. the school's origins and the existence of Fun Girl) being tied to them in some way and Word of God being willing to casually share extremely trivial information about them while remaining tight-lipped on the rest of the cast. Most notoriously, on the official website character bios, "the Wife" has a 893-word description, while Ayano, the Player Character, only has 300 in comparison.

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