Referenced in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials And Tribulations, Godot mentions he doesn't like spoiling himself with trailers, and "we'll just wait and see how the movie turns out tomorrow, won't we?" when he refuses to reveal something until the trial starts.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 would later play this straight. The trailers make a big deal of Edgeworth being offered to become a defense attorney. But the actual offer itself, coming at the end of case 2, is a majorWham Line if you don't see it coming. It's even spoiled at the end of the demo too. (In fact, though the demo comprises of basically the first half of Case 1, the exchange at the end doesn't take place until the end of Case 3)
Most trailers for Ace Attorney games blatantly give away the culprit of the game's first case. Though in some cases, the case turns out to be a Reverse Whodunnit anyway, and even when they aren't the first culprit is often a Warmup Boss and thus made completely obvious within the game itself.
The launch trailer for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice shows Phoenix and Apollo fighting each other in trial. This doesn't happen in-game until Phoenix's Wham Line in Case 5: "If you continue to claim that [...], then I will be seeing you in court".
In a possible attempt to subvert this trope, the E3 reveal trailer for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood featured an attack on the Papal carriage in 1503 Rome, the city and year in which Pope Alexander VI, aka Rodrigo Borgia, died. While both hold true in the game, unfortunately the circumstances are far less epic than the trailer implied.
Played more straight with some European versions of the "Story" trailer (narrated by Cesare Borgia), which concludes with a showdown between him and Ezio Auditore atop a castle wall. The US version does not name it, but the European versions identify the setting as 1507 Spain, the year and country in which Cesare Borgia died in Real Life, de facto confirmed when the developers started name-dropping the site as Viana no less. Moreover, this showdown was much more accurate to the actual in-game event than the (completely inaccurate) E3 reveal trailer had been. It's not much of a spoiler though, since it's one of the first things seen in the game before a game-long How We Got Here.
A trailer for Backyard Baseball '09 spoiled, among others, the last character to be unlocked.
The website and promotional material to Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal made frequent referrals to Demogorgon, Prince of Demons, and his importance in the expansion pack's Watcher's Keep dungeon. Que the actual game where you're sent in there to deal with someone called the 'Imprisoned One', with the game dancing around the actual identity of the entity until you actually decide to pick a fight with it.
Similarly, the twist of the Player Character's heritage, which was only revealed in the second-to-last chapter of the original game and put the entire narrative in a very different context, is common knowledge from the second game onwards. The introduction says it outright (and all but spoils Imoen's nature as well by making her almost as central as yourself), and in-game it gets so bad that CHARNAME may as well have a giant neon sign saying 'bhaalspawn' bolted to his/her helmet.
Baldur's Gate III's description on sites like Good Old Games and Steam refers to a "otherworldly evil" as one of the factions that threatens the balance of power in the Forgotten Realms and infects the Player Character. This would have been more effective had not every single trailer released for the game made it clear that the Player Character is implanted with a Mind Flayer Tadpole (which also happens in the opening cinematic of the game, so it's not like it's a big plot twist or anything).
That at some point you will get to meet the returning characters Jaheira and Minsc was showed left and right in trailers, promotional photos, previews, and even dev streams.
The Caligula EffectOverdose: Zigzagged for the trailers regarding the new character Eiji. The Japanese trailers involving him made sure to not spoil anything. The American trailers freely display the fact that Eiji is a two-faced liar, openly spoiling that behind his gentlemanly facade, he's vindictive and the Token Evil Teammate.
Not a trailer, but a preview nonetheless of Cave Story's DSiWare port in Nintendo Power casually mentions that you play as a character named Quote, something that you should only learn late in the game if you fulfilled the complex conditions needed to obtain the Golden Ending.
One trailer for Citizens of Earth, which seems to have been deleted from Atlus's Youtube channel, showed the party screen with every citizen unlocked, including two spoiler characters, the Alien and Photon. Another trailer makes things better by having a few characters still locked, but the Photon is still visible.
When City of Heroes began their Signature Story Arc program, the very first one is "Who Will Die!?" It was pretty blatant that Statesmen was going to bite it, not only because many promotional images showed his iconic faceplate laying discarded, but because the dev whose moniker was Statesmen jumped ship when Paragon Studios split from Cryptic. Averted, whoever, in that he wasn't the only one...
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Averted. The demo of the game changed the victim and killer for the first chapter, in order to hide the first major plot twist. It was also gloriously averted when it came to Sayaka Maizono: she's made out to be the female sidekick for the first chapter before dying a very sudden and shocking death a few hours in, making her the first victim. Not only did they hide her death, but all advertising material and promos for the game made her out to be a major character and the main sidekick, helping to make her death even more shocking. Played straight in an English-language trailer, however, which showed Makoto Naegi escaping his execution and falling down the garbage chute, which doesn't happen until the end of Chapter 5.
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair continues this trend by mixing up the victims and killers for its demo, as well as showing clips of the game that keep the first victim alive past their canonical death.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony carries the torch by having a completely different demo than the game in question; Makoto and Hajime from the prior two games show up, averting any spoilers from those games. The victim is Hagakure yet again, two of the students sit out for the trial to make room for the returning characters, and the whole thing is revealed to be an elaborate ruse by the the three of them and Monokuma to get the new protagonist adjusted to what they might have to face.
The final encounter with the Hive Mind in Dead Space is revealed in the pre-release trailer.
The original trailer for Deus Ex spoiled one of the biggest twists in the game, via a cutscene of UNATCO agent Anna Navarre telling you that she "came to watch you die" (which occurs after you've been captured by UNATCO and if she's alive), as well as fellow agent Gunther Hermann trying to kill the player character, JC Denton.
The trailers for Devil May Cry 4 gave away things like the true intentions of the Order of the Sword, the failure of an attempted Shoot the Dog incident, and the continued importance of the demonic katana Yamato.
The E3 2018 Trailer: Sharp-eyed fans, brightness/contrast adjustments, and going frame-by-frame of the scene where Nero loses his Devil Bringer had many series veterans spoiled of the revelation that Vergil returns, albeit he first appears in his "corrupted" state referencing his time as Nelo Angelo.
The Final Trailer: Dante having another Devil Trigger form, Sin Devil Trigger (to series veterans, it resembles his Majin Devil Trigger in 2 even before this form's official name was revealed), Nero gaining his own proper Devil Trigger, and finally confirming Vergil's return.
The Special Edition Trailer directly spoils several plot twists from this game's main story, such as Vergil coming Back from the Dead and being able to turn into V, and Nero getting a true Devil Trigger.
The trailer for the DLC expansion Vergil's Downfall gives away that Vergil left Kat and his brother for parts unknown at the end of the game.
The Jester as a dice can be seen at the very end of the launch trailer of Dicey Dungeons, spoiling the fact that they're Promoted to Playable.
The Doki Doki Literature Club!Plus promotional material spoils the major twist that the game is psychological horror, not a cutesy dating sim. However, most people who know enough about the game to buy the expanded edition know this point already. Because Team Salvato's logic for making the original game free-to-play was so people who thought the game was an average dating sim wouldn't feel scammed for paying for it, and the Plus version of the game is paid, it makes sense that they'd be more upfront about the true nature of the game for Plus.
A main quest in Dragon Age: Inquisition involves Varric contacting an old friend who might know about the Big Bad. The game plays up the reveal as a surprise, which it could have been to anyone who didn't see the trailer that prominently featured an appearance fromHawke.
Dragon Quest II: If you look closely at the beautiful front box art of the American version, it shows a mural of Malroth behind Hargon atop the alter.
Dragon Quest XI: Several trailers show the hero fighting alongside Heliodorian soldiers against an army of monsters, showing that the country and its forces eventually undergo a Heel$Face Turn. This scene is even shown in the opening montage sequence that plays when you load the game or if you let the title screen sit too long.
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2: More like "Credits Always Spoil", but similar principle. If you're paying attention during the ending credits, you'll notice it lists the various monsters in Joker 2 via what series they debuted in. Including ''Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime.
Escape Lala 2: The end of the game's trailer shows the spirits of the wizard and the princess Together in Death in the heavens, which you don't see in-game until the Post-End Game Content. However, because the spirits just look like floating orbs, the context of the scene in the trailer is not immediately obvious.
Fallout 2: A screenshot on GOG.com show how Vault 13 has been taken over by intelligent Deathclaws. And also Frank Horrigan, but at least without context.
One of the trailers for Far Cry 4 includes a shot of Pagan Min leaning against a door and talking to the protagonist through a doorframe, saying "Damn if it isn't fun." Well, this shot takes place during the game's ending. The doorframe in question is the door to the Lakshmana shrine, the place Ajay spends the entire game searching for.
The instruction manual originally packaged with the North American SNES version included a walkthrough that spoiled the plot for about half of the game; just flipping through it randomly could spoil at least three Plotline Deaths for you.
The manual spoiled even further by giving item lists that mentioned every character class in the game that could equip them. So anyone who read it over and noted that they haven't seen anyone with the class Lunarian yet could easily figure out that anything before The Giant Of Babel, the major dungeon following the recruitment of said Lunarian would not be the final dungeon.
Final Fantasy VI included a map of The World of Ruin, which is what the game world turns into halfway through, with the game. It also gives away the magic system (which has some storyline significance). Not to mention listing all the characters with mini-bios (giving away a few Heel Face Turns) and their abilities. The latter gives away the twist that Terra is a half-esper.
Final Fantasy XIII's trailer has a prominent scene with all six characters flying on the back of a monster thing. Playing through the game, you get to a part where Sazh "commits suicide", but this scene hasn't happened yet. Clues you in that he's still alive! Also, he gets his summon right before that seemingly happens without giving you a chance to use it. It was shown in use in the trailers.
Final Fantasy XIV has a trailer play if you launch the game and leave it idle without logging into the server. People who own the Heavensward expansion pack are treated to a trailer where it shows a major NPC dying from a poisoned drink in the 2.5 storyline. Many fans were livid at Square-Enix for showing off a major spoiler for people who didn't reach that point in the story yet. Not all is as it seems since it's revealed in the expansion pack's story that the character never died at all and was just put into a deep sleep. The trailer for Shadowbringers also spoils the fact that a major NPC whose soul was called elsewhere is alive and well in the trailer.
Final Fantasy XVI begins with the protagonist Clive swearing vengeance on the Dominant of Ifrit, responsible for the murder of his brother Joshua. However, all the marketing trailers and official art already strongly suggested that Clive himself was Ifrit's Dominant, having dissociated from the memory to spare himself the guilt of having killed his own little brother. Granted the twist comes fairly early in the story.
Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: The 2018 Global Fan Festa spoiled the existence and appearance of two major characters, Juraga and Faisalith, before they were introduced to the Global version of the game proper. Also an egregious example because in a panel the day before the developers flat out did not want to spoil anything about Faisalith, not even her gender or name, only for her to appear in the art gallery and during the orchestral performance.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is notable for having a press release that basically outlined the entire game's plot. This included the revealing of the true identity of the Black Knight, which was never revealed in the previous game Path of Radiance, but also only revealed near the end of Radiant Dawn.
The first official English trailer for Fire Emblem Fates contains rapid-fire clips from Ryoma and Xander's fight cutscenes, heavily implies something bad will happen to Mikoto (showing a scene of a dark explosion and Sakura screaming "Mother!") and that Elise will die on at least one path. True enough, the clip shown turned out to be from Elise's death scene on Birthright.
Early promotion material for Half-Life 2: Episode Two revealed that Alyx dies, or at the very least gets incapacitated, although it's also avoided in that Alyx also gets better and her "death" (falling off a bridge in the promo) is totally different in-game. The trailer also reveals that the G-Man is back in a speaking role after being sidelined for the last game.
The reveal trailer for Half-Life: Alyx features Eli's "Close your eyes, honey!" line from Episode Two re-recorded with his new voice actor, James Moses Black, all but spoiling the inclusion of the respective scene from that game. It also spoiled the appearance of the G-Man, who is absent for most of the game only to be revealed as the prisoner that the Combine were keeping inside the Vault.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist's launch trailer spoils some major plot points by showing CGs of Tammy being saved from her early death, which spoils the fact that her death in the first playthrough can be prevented, and Anemone and Kom fighting the Faceless, the latter which ends up killing Kom halfway through the story.
The "Neon Reveal" trailer for inFAMOUS: Second Son, as you'd expect, reveals the identity of the holder of Delsin's Neon ability: Abigail "Fetch" Walker. Fast-forward to the game's release day and the fact that the mission in which you first meet her surrounds her with mystery regarding her gender - such as running far too fast for Delsin's current abilities to reliably keep up with and having the news portray her as a sniper perpetually at a distance - becomes utterly irrelevant.
One of the plot twists in Jak II: Renegade that couldn't be seen coming three miles away is that the game is set in the future. Unless you watched any trailer, of course, where it's explicitly stated by the characters.
Extremely blatant in the case of Kid Icarus: Uprising. The information and trailers released prior to the game show off pretty much every stage, boss, character, and plot point up to Pit's final battle against Medusa. In addition, less than a month after the game's release, several new trailers came out, spoiling just about everything else.
At E3 2014, a trailer for a PS4Updated Re-release of The Last of Us was shown, which at least had the decency to start off with a black screen showing the words "The following trailer contains spoilers".
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV's English trailer reveals that the final Divine Knight Awakener and the pilot of the Auric Knight is Rufus Albarea. Interstingly enough, the Japanese trailer hid that fact very well despite showing off the knight in one of its trailers but deliberately hid who the pilot was.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask also has a trailer that spoils much of the game, namely its launch trailer for the 3DS remake. said trailer spoils two major bosses, many of the game's masks, various sidequests and pretty much every major dungeon in the game. If you didn't know the general plot outline of Majora's Mask before watching it, you most probably did afterwards.
Take the standard trailer here. Pretty much half the late game gets given away, and the Gamespot trailer actually goes further by showing even more. For that matter, one of the pre order sleeves for the game actually had a picture of the final battle on the front...
Taken even further for Wind Waker HD, which not only has a big picture of the final boss battle on the cover (in the special edition version), but also a free figurine of said boss which you can clearly see in the packaging.
Life Is Strange 2 had a whole gameplay trailer which was a playthrough of almost the entire prologue (a few scenes and many interactions were cut out/ignored). The spoiler comes from the fact that the death of Sean and Daniel's father Esteban Diaz was shown at the very end of the video. Hell, his death is even spoiled in the plot summary for the game. Granted, it would be pretty hard not to spoil his death considering that's the driving force of the plot, especially with the game's episodic nature often having to spoil previous episodes in order to recap them, but it's still possible.
Life Is Strange: True Colors repeats this with the death of Gabe Chen, which was divulged as early as the announcement trailer (but not shown, unlike Esteban's death) and likewise serves as the driving force for the plot.
The intro sequence for Lunar Knights is actually a montage of all of the cut-scenes in the game.
Mass Effect 2's previews, especially its "Fight for the Lost" campaign, gave away several plot points that the game's writers appear to have intended to be surprising reveals. Jack's sex and Archangel's identity are kept secret in-game until Shepard actually meets them, and the recruitment dossier sets Shepard up to recruit Okeer instead of Grunt; unfortunately, all three characters were featured heavily in the game's marketing, with Jack and Grunt even having their own interview-style promotional videos. And of course, the only way to somehow avoid knowing that Shepard is dead and the Normandy was destroyed at the beginning of the game would have been to avoid every piece of media BioWare released at the time of the game's development.
Maximo: Ghosts to Glory plays with it. It goes out of its way to spoil the plot twist that Sophia's Achille's Decoy Damsel, even mentioning it in her manual bio... and naturally she's none of the above.
Done as a meta-joke in The Messenger (2018). At the climax of the first part of the game, the protagonist guesses he's getting close to the finale, and the Shopkeeper states he clearly hasn't seen the trailer, which shows off the game's Art Shift gimmick which the game hasn't gotten to show yet.
Metroid: Other M's live-action trailer runs through a brief highlight reel of Samus Aran's past, including her discovery of a baby Metroid (from II) and the death of what is ostensibly the same Metroid (from Super Metroid) as Samus reaches up towards it, thus spoiling part of the final fight for that installment.
My Child Lebensborn: In the trailer, one of the scenes showing Klaus being ostracized is a man in robes skipping him while giving out hosties in a church. While acting as the adoptive parent to Klaus or his female counterpart Karin in the game proper, the only time the player actually interacts with a church official is when asking for the local vicar's help while trying to get in contact with the child's biological family. The vicar refuses to help, which is in tune with what is seen in the trailer.
The trailer for Nier, which also plays from the title screen, starts off by stating that the game takes place 1300 years in the future, while Kaine shouts at Weiss to snap out of his brainwashing by the Shadowlord - namedropping a character that isn't even known to exist for the first half of the game. It then goes on to show the lab beneath Emil's manor and experiment No.7, Kaine being impaled and possessed, Devola preparing to attack the player... all of which otherwise come totally out of left field in the plot itself.
The manual for Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer advises you to read certain pages only after you've seen the twist at the end of act one. This would have been useful advice if the Spirit Eater curse hadn't featured so prominently in the game's prerelease hype.
The base game did a decent job faking you out for the first two acts that the warlock you keep running into is either the King of Shadows or yet another one of his minions since Ammon Jerro is believed to be long dead and he attacks every other faction. It also has the mystery of the silver shards, one of which is embedded in the PC's chest, in the first act. Too bad the trailer (reused as the intro movie no less) showed the two fighting each other in your home village and a Githyanki silver sword exploding at the end of it.
One of the trailers for Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus flat out states that the Glukkons are also torturing Mudokons for their tears, a twist that is given an entire cutscene to emphasize more than halfway through the game. Some of the footage even flat-out shows parts of the Bad Ending!
Trailers for Persona 5Royal spoil the fact that Crow returns to the party after his stint as a Guest-Star Party Member, presumably for good. The rest of the trailers avert this though: anyone who's played the game will realize they use many clips from late-game cutscenes, but shown so briefly and so out-of-context that they spoil nothing. For example, the side-angle shot of Justine and Caroline in the Velvet Room is from the scene where they fuse into their true form, the shot of Mishima seeing blood on a train and freaking out is from the final dungeon's emergence, when Mementos encroaches on reality.
Several trailers for Pharaoh Rebirth+ spoil various parts of the level exclusive to the Steam version, including the second form of the Superboss.
The third anime special note not actually a trailer, but still a preview, released around the same time as Explorers of Sky, reveals that the hero, Grovyle, and Dusknoir are from the future, and that the hero will erase himself from the timeline to stop Primal Dialga.
Trailers for Portal 2 clearly spoiled the fact that GLaDOS was still alive and would still be the main antagonist of the game. At least for half of it.
Zig Zagged in two different trailers for Professor Layton and the Lost Future. One shows Future Layton's clothes being flung away as a reveal. Anyone who played the last two games would have expected it to be Don Paolo in disguise, but it's actually Doctor Stahngun/Dimitri Allen. Quickly afterwards, however, Don Paolo reveals himself to be disguised as the real Layton. In another trailer, Layton denounces Stahngun as the villain when he discovers that he is running the future London's mafia, however, the true villain of the piece is Clive.
The website for Puyo Puyo Tetris obscures the final character, Ex on the character page, but the wallpapers and Twitter icons both show Ex's appearance prominently, however, his name is not given anywhere on the site. The English website though borders on Late-Arrival Spoiler, in that it actually gives him a full profile(!), but keeps the shadowed appearance, while the Japanese site just used question marks.
Quake IV has a twist where your character is captured midway through the game and turned into one of the bad guys. This would have been surprising if the press releases, trailers, and the back of the box didn't give it away.
The Nintendo Switch trailer for Quilts & Cats of Calico shows the protagonist's father in their childhood home, spoiling their reunion at the end of the game.
Multiple previews for Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando had the amazing distinction of spoiling half the game's plot, including the thief's real name and gender (which you learn halfway through the game) and the purpose of the "experiment" (not referenced in-game until just before the final boss battle).
For the third game, the true nature of Dr Nefarious' plan and the literal mechanisation of the entire Tyrrhanoid race were similarly spoilt. These things are explained around halfway and two thirds of the way into the game, respectively.
Resident Evil 5 had fans upset about Jill Valentine being killed prior to the story. One of the trailers had Albert Wesker removing the hood off one of his goons claiming it to be "One big family reunion", making it obvious who it was.
The blurb on the back of the case for Rondo of Swords spoils that you're actually playing the prince's body double, not the prince himself. This isn't as huge a spoiler as it sounds — it's revealed after the very first stage — but the game was very obviously written with the intention of keeping it a secret until this (early) reveal.
The first trailer for Sakura Wars premiered on the Flash Sega Saturn demo disc, which came with the Saturn console back in March 1996. Towards the end, however, it spoils Sakura's ending, in which she leaves on a train and eventually leaps into Ogami's arms.
The teaser trailer for The Second Reality Project 2: Zycloboo's Challenge revealed that Zycloboo had kidnapped Princess Peach and the Yoshi eggs. The remakecounterpartAverts this, since this scene and the one for the Cursed Fountain level were replaced with different scenes. In the remake itself, Lemmy Koopa, who had allied himself with Zycloboo by that point, appears in place of Peach and the eggs, and you have to fight him at the end of the level.
Shadow of the Colossus had a trailer that ends with a montage showing Lord Emon looking around the shrine of worship, Mono sitting up from her resting place, and Wander lying on the ground with HORNS! Of course the last part goes by extremely quick, but keen eyed viewers of the trailer either had an idea of what the ending was about, or at least got an early head start on how the game would tie into ICO (which before the game's release, was said to have no connection to the latter title).
Shantae has a case where trailers for one unreleased game spoiled another unreleased game. A year before Shantae and the Pirate's Curse came out, WayForward Technologies began a Kickstarter for the next game in the series, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. If the title wasn't enough of a clue, the accompanying promotional video pretty much confirmed that, yes, Shantae will manage to get her magic back by the end of Pirate's Curse.
Shenmue's trailer spoils that Lan Di is seeking the mirrors' power, as well as an incident late in the game in which Nozomi gets kidnapped by Terry's gang.
Shin Megami Tensei IV attempts to play up the discovery of Tokyo as a Wham Episode, but anyone who's checked out the trailers will already know of its existence. Although, why Tokyo exists in what is apparently the 15th century is another story altogether.
The followup Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse does something similar with streams showing of the game ends up spoiling YHVH's presence in the story, but like with the game before it, the real spoiler is in the details surrounding it.
Sleeping Dogs (2012) had a mission shown on YouTube to promote the game. Unfortunately the mission they chose was Mrs. Chu's Revenge and they even gave the spoileriffic name of the mission. Anyone who saw that video probably knew what would happen to Winston by the first fifteen minutes of the game.
A trailer for the game included Wei mentioning that he was now one of the Red Poles.
Metal Sonic is supposed to be the final boss of Sonic Heroes and the secret Big Bad manipulating things behind scenes, and the game and its manual treat him as a mysterious figure, refusing to call him by his true name until the final moments of the game. Despite all this, Sega of America heavily promoted the game with Metal Sonic's image.
Elise's bio in the English website of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) gave away the fact that she has Iblis sealed inside her and would release him upon crying. In-game, this bit of information is kept a secret until the player is well into Silver's story, with the only hint given prior to that being that Eggman wants her because she's key to the mystery of the Flames of Disaster.
Before Sonic Unleashed was released, there was at least one trailer for EACH ZONE except the last, on BOTH versions of the game. What's worse is this: The trailers were each around a minute long, and usually showed both day and night stages. Each zone in the Wii/PS2 version (save one) has ONE primary day stage, that can be easily beaten in somewhere around three minutes (a requirement for all medals, actually). Therefore, at least a sixth of each stage was spoiled. In at least two cases, this included the GOAL RING.
Sonic Generations was also bad about this. For a game all about reliving Sonic's history, they revealed literally every stage, boss, and rival in the game except for the final boss (the only one not to be from a previous game) in the trailers leading up to release.
While not trailer-related, Sega of America is a huge offender when it comes to media and ads related to Sonic games. The American manual of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has the story, but when you turn the page... BAM! The second picture shows a snapshot of the start of the final boss of the entire game. If you read the manual before turning on the game, good luck getting to it. The App Store page for the 2013 remake was just as bad about it, as the screenshot advertising the Boss Attack mode showed the exact same boss. A Sonic & Knuckles ad in English also shows screens of Sonic and Knuckles' respective final bosses.
Sonic manuals tend to have a section listing the game's zones, with screenshots and descriptions. At least the Japanese manuals leave out the final level, unlike the English manuals, which even include the secret unlockable final zone.
The launcher of the PC port of Sonic 3 & Knuckles shows nearly all zones (only missing ones are Hidden Palace Zone and the secret final level), with their names and accompanying screens.
The back of the American Sonic CD box art shows the game's last two bosses and the last special stage.
Several previews also spoiled the big twist in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on who the player character is.
Divisive though it is among gameplay critics, there's little doubt that the developers of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed wanted the Apprentice Force-pulling a Star Destroyer out of orbit to be a significant point in the story. Not only was it depicted on the back of the box, it was also used for giant promotional posters designed specifically to be positioned at the entrance to game shops.
The trailer for StarCraft's Expansion Pack, which features several clips of a military funeral interspliced between the imagery of awesome carnage. The fact that the coffin had the banner of the United Earth Directorate on it meant that a major UED character was going to die, though it didn't become clear until the second-to-the-last Terran mission.
Some would argue that being a spoiler, considering the existence of the Excellence Eternal, the Mid-Season Upgrade that only she uses, in Super Robot Wars R.
In actuality, the whole bonus segment in Original Generations were like an interactive trailer for Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, thus the main story of the bonus sections got carried over to the Gaiden. Including the death of Lamia Loveless. Her rebirth in different circumstances was still well hidden in the commercial videos. As well as the inclusion of the Cry Wolves of the MX series and the returnand redemption of both Axel Almer and Alfimi.
An interesting take on this trope: In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the character of Dharkon was kept a secret throughout development, even after his mortal enemy Galeem was revealed... But then he was the first thing shown in the trailer for Hero. Granted, that came out after the game had been released and his identity was found out, but those who haven't gotten the game yet might not know who he is.
Tales of Destiny: The back of the English box talks about exploring an Aetherian ruin, a major plot twist and point that does not come into play until the second half of the game.
Those who pre-ordered Tales of Symphonia back in the day got an art book that, along with revealing all of the playable party members (as they were the only ones to get two pages devoted to them, along with a character synopsis,) but revealed the existence of Tethe'alla, and that Zelos is its Chosen One.
Tales of the Abyss: The American cover for the PS2 version depicts protagonist Luke with short hair, spoiling the fact that he would have an Important Haircut that portrayed the point of his beginning Character Development. Noticably, the Japanese cover and manual averted this by only showing Luke with long hair. When the game was ported to the 3DS, and finally released in Europe, the Japanese and localized covers were identical and showed Luke with long hair to avoid the spoiler.
Tales of the Tempest: The game's opening cutscene shows Caius is a Lycanthe. This is one of the game's major plot twists.
In Time Hollow, you get a fleeting 'flashback' of someone falling past the top of a window, and from your perspective all you can tell is that the person's probably female and a student at the high school. Unless you watched the opening trailer, in which case you know who it is right off the bat, making it painful whenever Ethan recalls it and thinks "GEE I WONDER WHO THAT WAS."
TimeSplitters Future Perfect deserves a special mention; if you can't do a puzzle in an early level, go to the main menu, wait for the game to go into Attract Mode and watch a character do it for you. It is a very easy puzzle, admittedly, but still.
The instruction manual for Totally Rad reveals master magician Zebediah's secret at least three times until they actually lampshade this trope.
When The Twin Snakes, the Metal Gear Solid remake for the Nintendo GameCube, was wrapping up production, several trailers were released spoiling the gene storyline (ingame, no mention of it is made until near the end) and dropping an extremely obvious hint as to who the Ninja was by playing a later clip over his introductory scene.
Ninja: Do you remember me now?
Snake: It can't be... you were killed in Zanzibar Land...
Not to mention Snake being tricked into activating Metal Gear by accident.
Terminal: PAL code number three confirmed. PAL code entry complete. Detonation code activated.
Also similar to the above Phantom Menace and Gundam SEED examples above, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake features a track labeled "Natasha's Death" (Gustava Heffner in the re-relased versions).
Konami went to great lengths to keep Raiden a secret until the release of Metal Gear Solid 2. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough to get around different release dates and almost every British gaming magazine which ran a story on the game that featured that. In an amusing inversion, however, many magazines were able to avoid spoiling the plot by making out that Snake had died on the Tanker, something the supporting characters treat as correct until halfway through.
The instruction manual also spells out that there will be a part of the game where you play as someone named Raiden who defuses bombs and uses a sword (it gives the controls for both). Although gamers reading it might assume that this will be a small part of the game, not the majority. But by the time The Essential Collection for PS2 came out, everyone knew about Raiden, so the manual for Metal Gear Solid 2 mentions that you will be playing as Raiden for the majority.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, the Metal Gears themselves don't play much of a role until Act 4. Screenshots showed Snake in the cockpit of a reactivated, railgun-less REX and RAY in a snow-covered harbour. There's not much of their relevance to the plot that isn't spoilt by those facts.
Averted in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception with Charlie Cutter. In the trailers before the launch, Cutter is seemingly a thug for the main antagonist and they even continue this ruse into their one month multiplayer trial, where Cutter's Skin was a part of the Villains team. In the actual game, it turns out that Cutter was always a double agent; a fact that the heroes knew before the player, and his multiplayer skin is apart of the Heroes team.. However, it's played straight in the launch trailer, released a few days before launch, where it shows Cutter planning alongside the heroes.
The anime commercial for the Famicom version of Valis spoiled that Yuko has to fight against her classmate Reiko.
Thoroughly averted by Virtue's Last Reward. Though a promotional anime was released before the game, detailing the backgrounds of the characters and the setup of the Nonary Game, it neatly manages to hide the single biggest plot twist in the game. It shows Sigma's face.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine had a rather predictable reveal, a daemonic invasion headed by the chaos-infused mastermind. The trailer outright showed the protagonist fighting enemies which would only show up when something like that happened, spoiling the entire surprise.
Subverted Trope with regards to Inquisitor Drogan, shown in a pre-release trailer with him walking freely among Bloodletter demons, meeting 40K fans' expectations he'd be a Token Evil Teammate as Inquisitors are apt to be. Not entirely true, so the trailer didn't spoil that he's actually totally dead at all points in gameplay, and his actions in gameplay were done by a demon possessing his corpse.
Done in the opening sequence of The World Ends with You. It spoils the whole plot, alright, but the player won't realize it until they've beaten the game.
Similar case with Deadly Premonition - the first profiling sequence is a lightning-speed montage of every major twist and plot reveal.
The launch trailer for the 3DS Updated Re-release of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 contains a lot of late-game spoilers in a rapid montage towards the end. Thankfully, it's nice enough to warn you at the start of the video that it "contains scenes that may be considered spoilers".
The launch trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles X contains a lot of spoilers such as who the aliens that will live in New LA, Lao being a traitor, and Elma is an alien.
Played straight in the demos that play on the title screen of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, which reveals a lot of concepts the game talks about but also the path the player needs to get the Golden Ending. The 'Memories of Escape' section also point in the direction of the Golden Ending.
Averted for Virtue's Last Reward which has an OVA available as promotion which shows all the players gathered in the Warehouse A room and doesn't spoil the twist that Sigma is a 22-year old college student in the body of a 67-year old man.
The second intro shows you parts from the ending. If the player is wondering when certains scenes from the game are going to appear he will be spoiled.
Although it's so disjointed that it may not be recognizable until you actually play it, the in-game trailer to Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner shows the entire game, every stage, every boss fight (with the exception of the Final Boss). It also shows the entire story, including clips from the Ending.
