Unobtainium / Video Games

• Arknights: Originium is a black, crystalline mineral with incredible energy density, which can only be found in the site of great catastrophes, where it is available in a shockingly large amount (see the giant black crystals). It has seen use as everything from a power source to construction material.
• Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon revolves around Coral, a substance found only on the planet Rubicon, which has the power to revolutionize countless different fields of technology. Being inexpressibly valuable, the game is driven in large part by Corporate Warfare over access to it. The fact that 50 years ago, something caused Rubicon's largest deposits of Coral to ignite, incinerating the entire star system and killing millions, hasn't put a damper on their greed. And then there's the fact that it's a sapient, collective alien organism capable of biological symbiosis with humans.
• ADAM from BioShock is only produced by a specific variety of deep sea slugs. It has the power to rewrite a human's entire genome in minutes, and even transfer some memories from one individual to another. Naturally, the corporate dystopia of Rapture finds a way to harvest a little more: by implanting the slugs in the bellies of prepubescent girls, driving them insane as they turn into hosts that drink the blood of human corpses and act as a filtering machine.
• Chrono Trigger has Dreamstone, which was once more valuable than even gold. By the time Guardia was even in its medieval era, Dreamstone was long gone, nowhere to be found anymore. Thankfully, you can Time Travel back to Prehistory, when Dreamstone was more common, and earn a sufficient sample in a Drinking Contest.
• Chrono Cross has Rainbow Shells that are the size of normal seashells in this story, and they cannot be found on regular enemies (though some one-time mid-bosses can drop them or are possible to steal from) and as such, they are exceedingly-rare to acquire.
• City of Heroes:
  • Various one-off missions in the MMORPG have the player retrieve various Mac Guffins, including one actually called Inobtainium. Fittingly enough, it's an alloy of Yeahritium and Nosuchium.
  • Played more straight in the game is Impervium, a metal found as a rare form of salvage (Enchanted Impervium is one of the most valuable drops), which the Vanguard soldiers are said in their profiles to be armored with.
  • Orichalcum shows up too, also as a salvage material for crafting.
• Command & Conquer and its sequels feature Tiberium, a plant-like but crystalline xenoforming agent. First discovered in in the Tiber river, it has become Earth's most valued resource and Global Currency, as it literally grows out of minerals in the ground, which are easily harvested and processed. But as an existential downside, it is also virulent and toxic. By the second game, Tiberium has spread across the entire planet, but is too hostile to mass-harvest due to its absorption and dispersion of nuclear minerals, while Tiberium 'spores' have caused a genocidal pandemic. Much of the remaining series becomes a conflict between those who want to find some way to destroy Tiberium and those who want to find a way to improve humanity so they can thrive in a post-Tiberium world.
• The Warden's Keep DLC for Dragon Age: Origins adds a random encounter that lets you salvage a single chunk of Starmetal from a tiny meteor impact crater.^note This is, in fact, an alien escape pod. In an homage to Superman, a peasant couple at the scene adopt whatever baby was found inside, implied to be from the Mass Effect universe, and allow the Grey Wardens to take the remaining super-alloy slag for themselves. Starmetal constitutes an unofficial 8th tier of crafting materials above even the top-level Dragonbone, and if you find the one Ultimate Blacksmith who can work it, can be crafted into Starfang, the most powerful melee weapon in the game. Its item description outright says that due to how the sword came to be, the world has never seen its like before, nor will it ever again.
• Dragon Rage has Zeenium which is some sort of magical element.
• Eradicator has the Mazrium ore, a futuristic mineral available only on Planet Ioxia. And you play as a mercenary tasked with eradicating the local population so your bosses can move in to build the Mazrium mining outposts. What the Mazrium does and why it's so valuable isn't elaborated in-game though.
• EVE Online has a player economy built around mining for a rather long list of made up materials. And the rarer types are very hard to get. Bonus points for using "Tritanium", which is the most sought after element in high security space. However, most of the asteroids that refined minerals come from are made up of either real-world minerals (such as veldspar and gneiss) or slightly renamed versions of real minerals (like hemorphite and hedbergite).
  • It's implied that the mined and refined materials actually are all real-world elements and minerals. Civilization has fallen and re-built itself, so they've picked up new names and places in the technology tree. Salvaged wormhole materials are a straight example, though.
• Excelsior Phase One Lysandia: Many powerful weapons and armor are forged from Eramel, which, oddly, is only mined in a tower.
• Multiple kinds of unobtainium are mentioned in the background information of the Halo series:
  • An "unknown alloy" (read as: the writers couldn't think of a cool name) used to make the shields of the Hunters and the armor plating of Covenant warships. Eventually named nanolaminate, implying it's not really an alloy.
  • The impressively resistant construction material used to make the Halos and other non-Hard Light Forerunner structures, described as being incredibly dense and accurately carved to the molecule. The author of this article from Gamasutra, a PhD., goes to the trouble of calculating just how much unobtainium would be needed to build the Halo , plus other stats you never knew you wanted to know.
  • Blamite, the explosive crystalline material used primarily to make Needler ammunition, which can only be found on one moon orbiting the Elite homeworld.
  • The ammo for the Covenant Carbine is an unnamed toxic and radioactive compound mined from several locations within Covenant space.
• Harvest Moon:
  • Orichalcum also shows up in these various titles (usually used to make gift jewelry).
  • They also feature Mystrle and Mythic Ore — used to give tools semi-magical properties.
  • And plain ol' Mythril in Harvest Moon's spin-off titled Rune Factory.
• Just Cause 3 has Bavarium, a minable substance found only in Medici, which has the power to fuel lasers, forcefields, and EMPs.
• The Lost Planet series features a rare power source that can only be obtained by killing Akrid native to the planet E.D.N. III. For reasons that remain unclear, the Akrid will coalesce all their heat into a biochemical 'glowy-orange' fluid the instant they die, which ejects from the Akrid's corpse. This fluid is easily absorbed by human technology, where it can be used to power super-advanced steam engines or just stay warm on the Ice World.
• Mega Man:
  • A recurring element in the series is a metal called "Ceratanium" (in the original Japanese, simply "Ceramic Titanium"). Its exact properties are unknown, but it seems to be involved in making all the Mega Mans' armor, and in Mega Man Zero 4, where you can collect parts and get the engineer to make body armor out of them, the Ceratanium is found once in a fixed spot each stage and goes exactly once into each piece of body armor you can make.
  • There's also officially "Bassnium," the power supply Wily says he used to make Bass, which is a bit silly. In the Japanese version, it has the much less silly-sounding name "Fortenium". However, since Wily himself discovered the element while designing Bass/Forte, it's not out of character for him to give it a silly name just to match his robot.
  • As well as the metal used to make the Met/Mettaurs/Methats that are so iconic in the series. One fan explanation for it not being used in every robot Wily makes is the fact that it's Unobtainium — or at least rare enough that only small objects can be created with it at a time.
• Orichalcum, seen elsewhere in this article, also turned up in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis as a power source for the machines of Atlantis and potentially other machines as well. Which is why Indy had to stop the Nazis from getting to it first.

• Cleria, Emelas, etc. in the Ys series.
• StarCraft, likewise, had "minerals" of an unspecified type and "Vespene Gas" (which you require more of, by the way), which each of the playable races uses in a different way to produce its various units and buildings. Neosteel, the material of Terran construction, is another example. Also, the Khaydarin Crystals.
• XCOM:
  • The first two games of the series (UFO and TFTD) have Elerium, an element that formed in yellow crystals and had an atomic number of 115. By the third game, Elerium could be mined on Mars and extrasolar colonies. Elerium's in-game role was probably inspired by claims made about element-115 in the 1980s by a UFO enthusiast with the splendidly appropriate name of Bob Lazar. Sadly, when someone eventually got around to synthesising the stuff they called it Ununpentium instead, and it also appears that Lazar was talking through his hat.
    • Subverted by Alien Alloys, at least in this game. Producing Alien Alloys is prohibitively expensive, as it requires some rare elements and exotic molding methods, and you probably have other things you want your engineers to do anyway, but is entirely doable after research.
  • The second game reveals that Elerium-115 becomes inert if submerged in salt-water for too long, and since the second game is subtitled Terror from the Deep, that's a bit of a problem. The new source of power is Zrbite - apparently, an artificial material created through molecular manipulation. Following the victory in TFTD, however, the aliens' Molecular Manipulation network collapses, and all remaining Zrbite becomes inert. It maintains its Unobtainium status, however, and Inert Zrbite is later used to build FTL-drive engines (with Elerium-115 as fuel).
  • XCOM: Enemy Unknown also features Elerium, again used as a power source. Unfortunately, you can't synthesize it, and the only way to get it is looting it off the aliens. In-game, the heads of your R&D and engineering teams state that with a few years of focused research they could make both the Alien Alloys and the Elerium Generator commercially viable, but that there is no time for that big a project before the aliens are defeated.
  • Elerium returns in XCOM 2 as the ultimate and, in fact, only noteworthy power source on Vichy Earth after 20 years of alien occupation overrode most human-made technology. Once again it can't be synthesized on Earth, but now it also comes in two forms. Elerium dust is your higher-tier acquisition resource and implied to be what powers all of XCOM's more advanced tech. Your Friend in the Black Market claims that it also makes for a great pick-me-up. Elerium cores are self-contained power sources required for the construction of the really powerful stuff, as well as some Plot Coupons. There's also mention of some unknown metals and alloys that make the Chosen weapons more powerful/efficient than what should be physically possible, but these are just flavor text without an actual impact on the story or gameplay.
  • XCOM: Chimera Squad: Taking place five years after 2, Elerium remains a valuable resource for both you and criminals. Although most of the aliens are now working peacefully with humanity, the implication is that it is still impossible to create on Earth, and must be salvaged from ADVENT tech.
• Xenonauts: Just like in X-Com, you can salvage the alien fuel source, Alenium, which cannot be reproduced terrestrially. Incidentally, even before attempting to use it as a power source, Xenonaut scientists decided they made for even better missile warheads, giving your interceptors an early shot in the arm in terms of firepower.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The first game requires the player to collect various exotic metals and crystals such as mythril, orichalcum, lightning stones, power crystals, and serenity gems in order to create items, eventually including the most powerful weapon in the game.
  • Extra points goes to Orichalcum+ in Kingdom Hearts II, which not only is like Orichalcum but better, but is in so few quantities that you just barely have enough to craft the only item which requires it: Ultima Weapon.
• Minecraft:
  • Redstone, a nice little powder that can conduct electricity and can be used to open doors, power minecarts, make music, etc.. Although it actually is very common when mining deep enough. The unminable bedrock is sometimes referred to as Unobtainium. This is probably the most accurate use of the name, since, without the use of cheats, you cannot obtain it.
  • Emeralds. Although they can be traded for with villagers, trying to mine them isn't as easy. They rarely spawn and are only found in mountain biomes, scattered in random single block veins. Good luck. However, there are more emerald veins per chunk than diamond veins and occur at much higher levels, making them much more common in caves.
  • Netherite, a fireproof material (even lava can't burn it) which allows you to upgrade your diamond gear with better efficiency, durability and enchantments. The process to obtain it is rather convoluted and tedious, as you need to go to the Nether to mine ancient debris (only found in veins of up to three, with only one or two veins per chunk, usually near the bottom and never in the open air — meaning you can't spot them on cave walls, forcing you to dig at random and hope for the best — and requiring a diamond pickaxe to mine on top of that), then smelt those into netherite scrap, of which you'll then need four, along with four gold ingots, to craft into a single netherite ingot (phew!).
• World of Warcraft has frightening amounts of Unobtainium.
  • Starting out around the time the player starts mining Mithril ore, proceeding through Truesilver, Arcanite, Fel Iron, Adamantium and finally Khorium and Eternium. To quote a recent Penny Arcade post on the subject, "What's next? Awesomite?"
  • There's also the equally-mundane Titanium, its enchanted cousin Titansteel, and the more fantastic Saronite. This contains or possibly is entirely the blood of the Eldritch Abomination Yog-Saron, God of Death, drives people who mine it mad, and naturally forms into the shape of skulls when smelted. And which for some inexplicable reason, people decided to make armor out of and wear. Yeah, sticking that on your head couldn't possibly go bad.
  • World of Warcraft is also littered with mundanely-named minerals that possess properties far greater than their real-life counterparts.
  • Engineers, Jewelcrafers, and Blacksmiths use Thorium (a radioactive metal used in some reactors as a replacement for uranium and of which powdered form has been known to spontaneously combust in the air... dust which would be prolific around any thorium mining, smelting or forging site... and causing liver damage if absorbed in the body pre-combustion) and later on Cobalt (which gives off toxic, arsenic containing fumes when smelted, is an active nutrient for bacteria, is the third highest rated metal for causing contact dermatitis, and can lead to cardiomyopathy or cobalt poisoning if too much is absorbed into the body from breathing or consuming cobalt dust or powder... which would be produced, as with thorium, by the mining, smelting, and forging process). And while these are real elements, the apparent ease and safety with which they can be mined, smelted, and forged adds an Unobtainium aspect to them. And we won't even start on mercury being as harmless as water in the Deepholm zone, with one quest even requiring you swim in a lake of it. Considering the average character's Power Level is way Over Nine Thousand by the time they get to Deepholm, plain old mercury shouldn't be a problem.
  • Dark Iron is a metal that can only be mined in a specific part of Blackrock Depths, and can only be smelted and worked on a special anvil in another specific part. Guarded by a giant fire elemental. It can be used to make rather strong armor.
  • All of that aside, a plot version exists called Kaja'mite. A rare mineral only found on two islands that we know of, its presence gave the goblins super-intelligence. When supplies ran out, their intellects gradually went into decline and they spread out across the world as traders in hopes of finding new sources.
  • Further expansions added obsidium, elementium, truegold, ghost iron, kyparite, trillium, living steel and lightning steel.
  • Leystone is rare enough, and can only be smelted using frost magic. Demonsteel is an even rarer alloy of it that and felslate, using another specific anvil, though it is located in a friendlier location.
  • Bacon could be considered this, at least the type used in Legion recipes, as you need to do a specific World Quest to hunt the Rare Mob that you get it from.

• Mass Effect:
  • Element Zero or "eezo" is responsible for all of the technology in-game, as it has the ability to manipulate mass, which makes it valuable for propulsion systems, projectile weapons, kinetic force fields, artificial gravity, and a powerful, convenient method of Faster-Than-Light Travel. Indeed, "eezo" is a key element of virtually every advanced galactic technology.
  • "Biotics" are individuals who were exposed to Element Zero in utero and manifested biotic abilities (the power to manipulate dark energy) as a result. Those who don't manifest are often born normally with few complications, but unfortunately there also exist some who develop fatal cancers and rarely make it to term. Other problems faced by Human biotics is that because they are still part of the first generation, many were wired with invoked older models of Biotic amps before humanity really knew what they were doing. While the L3 amps are stable, those wired with the L2 models experience some serious side effects, everything from nosebleeds, to occasional migraine headaches, to full-on insanity.
  • Another use for Element Zero, commonly used by criminals is to refine it into a Fantastic Drug called "Red Sand", so named after the first drugs were developed from Eezo found on Mars. It's like cocaine, but it gives you limited biotic powers. Oh, and it's highly addictive, and addicts who can't pay for their habit are sometimes sold into slavery.
• The Final Fantasy series is also known to have various forms of Unobtainium, such as orichalcum or adamantite. In fact, every RPG ever made by Square Enix has something like that, often in the same relation as the Kingdom Hearts example.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 lives this trope to the full! Not only has it scores of metallic unobtainium, but also plenty of both osseous (bones) and dendritious (wood).
• The Crusader games has two.
  • Di-corellium, a mineral that is apparently better for use in nuclear reactors than plutonium—to the point that it almost became a metaphor for petroleum, and at the very least for energy crises in general, what with the increasing scarcity of it and power shortages on Earth because of it—and of which vast quantities, about half of all known reserves, are on the moon.
  • Polonium — yes, ''that' polonium — an element than in real life is unstable, highly radioactive, and extremely toxic, is used as... body armor.
• Metroid Prime Trilogy:
  • The games feature Phazon, which is a highly-mutagenic, violently unstable, sentient mineral. Being a bit more specific, there is an incredibly resistant metal made from it known as Phazite.
  • In addition, visor scans can identify the chemical properties of certain structures. When you see names such as "Talloric Alloy" and "Bendenzium" in the description of a destructible obstacle, it is usually an indication as to which weapon you will need to use to proceed.
• Dwarf Fortress has a rather extensive simulation of real-world geology and metallurgy, including creating simple alloys such as bronze and electrum.
  • It also has Adamantine, an incredibly rare ore that can be processed into various forms that allow it to be used in almost any type of construction imaginable — weapons, armour, tools, clothing, furniture, building material... about the only things you can't make out of it (well, without modding) are beds and food. It also happens to be both as light as styrofoam, be more resistant than any steel manageable, and being sharpenable enough that you can drop a knife on a stone floor and it'll be embedded to the hilt. Naturally, you can buy out a whole caravan with just one implement made from it. Be careful, though - if the vein is hollow, you're going to get a visit from the Circus.
  • There's also slade, which can't be dug out. Even if you could, it's horrendously heavy (we're talking core of the sun heavy), so the potential uses for it are very limited — not that it matters, as the game won't let you use it even if you somehow get some out of the walls^note Makes for terrific catapult ammo, at least. You're not thinking about this, though, because if you've even seen slade, you've got other problems to worry about.
  • Now the developer is planning for game worlds to each have their own unique unobtainium with each one making some rare materials with randomly generated properties. When he first tried it out, he expected metals but ended up getting cursed mist. So far, the closest approach to this has been the Divine Metals that you find in Vaults, worn by angels. They're only slightly worse than Adamantine (better in density regards if desired for blunt weaponry), but the only way to get yourself some is to kill the wearers, which is probably the hardest thing to achieve in the game. After version .50 you can also find it in limited amounts in "unusual volcanic wall" pockets, but they're part of artifacts you might not want to melt (but are still very useful by themselves) and are also often guarded by their once-wearers, now Fallen Angels... though those Angels are often wearing more common arms and armor of the same metals that you can also melt, still providing you with the stuff if you can beat them.
• The Myst series has the artificial stones nara and deretheni. There is also a tawny stone found on Riven, used for ornamental purposes.
• The X-Universe has Nividium^note  popularly thought to be a pun on Nvidia, but Word of God states otherwise, a rare material found in asteroids. Mining it seems to cause the ire of the hostile Kha'ak, whose ships use small amounts of nividium in their hull. Otherwise, it doesn't have many uses and its main value seems to come entirely from its rarity. However, X: Rebirth states that Nividium is merely the Teladi's name for Platinum, and goes on to describe its usage as a catalyst in chemical reactions and as a heirloom for Teladi.
• Spice in Spore, as a reference to Dune. It can be used for anything - it's a food, dietary supplement, fuel source, cleaning product, narcotic...
• Ratchet & Clank's Raritanium zig-zags this a bit. In the first game, there's only one piece of it in the entire game, but then you can mine for it in Going Commando or get it by shooting enemies down in space. Then Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked have no important appearance of it (some wrench upgrades are stated to contain Raritanium in the latter). Then Tools of Destruction and Into the Nexus have it and it's used to upgrade your weapons, but it's... well, rare, and you won't be upgrading too much... until Challenge Mode, where you'll probably be drowning in the stuff. A Crack in Time only mentions the ore in the Argorian Battleplex's "Raritanium Cup" tournament. In the meantime, All 4 One, Full Frontal Assault, Into the Nexus, and R&C 2016 all have the Warmonger, a rocket launcher whose rockets are stated to be tipped with Raritanium.
• The Null Fragments in zOMG!, when in use, were like this. These little purple gems could be used to make anything you could think of, from tattoos, to figurines, to feather boas, to the armor of an alien species, to... you get the idea.
• The browser game Skyrates includes Unobtainium (in fact, portrayed as Green Rocks ) as a trade good, and is also used in role play and player discussion as a reasoning for hard to explain occurrences, jokingly or otherwise.
• A little-known RTS called Submarine Titans has "Corium-296"... which appears to suggest that it is an extremely heavy element. Corium is very important to achieving the advanced technologies in the game, but is not naturally found on Earth: the enormous comet that forced humanity under the seas was made of the stuff, and small deposits (fragments of the comet) are found all over the place. ^note "Corium" is actually a nuclear industry moniker for the molten goop that forms when the entire reactor core melts and its materials mix together and start interacting with the surrounding materials
• In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, you need the three pure metals (each corresponding to one of the creator godesses) to create a blade that turns the titular hourglass into the Phantom Sword. It's required by the plot, since the Phantom sword is the only thing that can hurt Bellum. The names of the Pure Metals are derived from their color: Crimsonine, Azurine, and Aquanine.
• Psitanium from Psychonauts. High grade unobtainium — a meteorite that grants anything alive psychic powers and is the plot device for any number of absurd things in the game.
• In Golden Sun, there are nine forgeable materials: in increasing order of power, Tear Stone, Star Dust, Sylph Feather, Dragon Skin, Salamander Tail, Golem Core, Mythril Silver, Dark Matter and Orihalcon.
• Master of Orion:
  • Master of Orion 2 has Xentronium. It cannot be invented by the player and must instead be plundered from the Antarans, either by capturing and reverse engineering one of their warships or by defeating the Orion Guardian (both very difficult to pull off, and each only gives you a ~30% chance of acquiring the technology). If you're successful, you're rewarded with the best armor plating in existence (Xentronium edges out the best player-researchable armor by a 5:4 factor).
  • The MOO series also contains many other substances such as Tritanium, Zortrium, Uridium and Adamantium. Due to the way research works, any of these can be Unobtainium in a given game.
• Snoopy vs. The Red Baron for the Playstation 2 and Playstation Portable does this bald-facedly. In order to make a superweapon called the Doodlebug, the Red Baron needs, what else? "Unobtainium." Subtle. Of course, the entire plot of the game is about a story Snoopy is imagining.
• Half-Life series
  • Half-Life's Xenium: if you focus a particle beam on a pure crystal, it can rip through dimensions. And it can't be found on Earth but is an essential component to human-made teleporters.
  • Half-Life 2 Or that blue-ish metal Combine tech is made of. Whatever it is, it can't be scratched by anti-tank rocket impacts and reflects tau particle beams. Also, dark energy was the universe's scientific Unobtainium just like in real life — until the Combine came; the Citadel's central reactor is an inexhaustible supply of the stuff. It is used to generate plasma made of exotic matter which is the basis of all Combine tech.
• The instruction manual for Supreme Commander 2 explicitly mentions that the humongous mecha King Kriptor is unobtainium-armored.
• RuneScape features many odd metals, including Mithril and Adamantite. It also features "Runite" as a metal. Then there's the "Dragon" metal, which unlike the others, cannot be mined anywhere, nor can it be forged. Weapons made of Dragon metal can be obtained through drops, but not made.
• In Original War a recently discovered material known as Siberite, or Alaskite, depending on timeline, is an efficient energy source, can be used as a nuclear weapon and can power up a time machine.
• Australium in the backstory of Team Fortress 2, a material so powerful and versatile that it has granted the rather dim-witted Australians global technological supremacy. Shipped in bars marked with a picture of a man fighting a kangaroo. It also has the side effect of causing Testosterone Poisoning to those who handle it, turning anyone using into ridiculously manly Boisterous Bruisers with mustaches and Carpets Of Virility. Even the women. It's also usable as rocket fuel. Disclaimer: we didn't say it was good rocket fuel. The Life Extenders used by certain characters also run on the stuff.
• The Phantasy Star series has laconia, a metal similar to silver in appearance that is found on the planet Dezoris; it is often refined and crafted into some of the best gear available in the series.
• Sam & Max approach a mine tunnel in Beyond the Alley of the Dolls: "Maybe there's gold down this tunnel! Or rare deposits of Cantgetium!"
• The Perils of Akumos offers us naxonite and peryolitium, which are particularly hard to find considering that you're supposed to be near mines of them.
• In The Elder Scrolls:
  • In the series in general, there are a number of materials which qualify, several with a Non-Indicative Name. Primarily, there is Ebony, which here is similar to a volcanic glass (and theorized to be the petrified blood of the dead creator god). It's worth more than gold when used as bullion, can be forged into extremely high quality weapons and armor, and can be imbued with Daedric souls to create devastating Daedric weapons and armor. There is also Glass, which is an iridescent green mineral, and like Ebony, can be forged into high-quality light armor and weapons.
  • Dwemer (Dwarven) metal is an interesting case, as it's unobtainium In-Universe: in-game books in Skyrim reveal that mages, smiths, and scholars have tried for years to imitate its properties, with no success. The Dwemer were known to tinker with the laws of nature and physics, so its highly likely they applied these skills to their metallurgy. The only reliable source is recycled scrap metal from Dwemer ruins.
  • As seen in Morrowind, Vvardenfell being incredibly rich in Ebony and Glass resources makes it extremely valuable to the Empire. Both substances are protected by Imperial law and can only be mined and sold with the proper permits.
  • In the Shivering Isles expansion to Oblivion, the smiths in New Sheoth can forge armor and weapons from amber and madness ore. (Lord only knows what the latter comes from.)
  • Skyrim:
    • Skyrim reveals that Orcish and Elven armor are partially forged from orichalcum and quicksilver, respectively.
    • Skyrim allows elite smiths to forge armor from dragon scales and bones. The modding community has seen fit to add dragonbone weapons as well. And Bethesda themselves later added dragonbone weapons when they released the Dawnguard DLC.
    • The Dawnguard DLC also adds Aetherium as part of the "Lost to the Ages" quest. Aetherium is an incredibly rare, luminescent blue crystal found deep underground. The crystal has a strong magical aura, but it is alchemically inert and harmonically volatile, and no known conventional process can enchant, smelt, mold, bind, or break it. The Dwemer of ancient Skyrim created the Aetherium Forge to smelt the crystal under precisely controlled conditions. The quest involves locating and activating the forge, which has just enough Aetherium left to produce one item with unique abilities.
• The Fallout series features several.
  • Fallout: New Vegas's DLC's feature a metal called Saturnite, which holds both an edge and a temperature extremely well. In the Dead Money DLC, it is found as absurdly sharp kitchen knives that can be superheated for extra damage. In Old World Blues it is made into Power Fists, which can also be superheated.
  • Fallout 76 has Black Titanium, an extremely strong metal mostly used in mining, and Ultracite, a radioactive material that can be used as an extremely efficient power source.
• Mega Man X: Command Mission has Force Metal, used in reploid engineering.
• In the Sword of the Stars sequel, the loa build most things out of "wise clay", which is also the material that stores their thought processes, and can be shaped into just about anything. Loa fleets, for example, travel as a cube, which splits near the destination into all the loa ships.
• Shin Super Robot Wars: "Tronium" only exists on the planet Tron; unfortunately, Tron vanished due to a meteor impact long ago. This caused the value of Tronium scattered throughout space to skyrocket, especially since it's needed for every warp-capable ship the feuding parts of the Ze Balmary Empire want to send into battle. According to Eiji, a rice-grain sized piece of Tronium is capable of powering over thirty battleships.
• In Cookie Clicker, after purchasing the Plastic, Iron, Titanium, and Adamantium^note itself a form of unobtainium mice, the fifth mouse upgrade is explicitly called the "Unobtainium mouse".
• The Irata colony in M.U.L.E. mines for Smithore, which is used make more of the eponymous Multi-Use Labor Elements, and Crystite, which is sold off-world for some unknown purpose.
• SimCity's Cities of Tomorrow has Omega from OmegaCo. In order to produce this resource, one must combine oil and raw ore in such a secretive way in order to create what is essentially the ultimate unobtainium that many people are willing to pay handsomely for. As from the actual website blog:
  I do know that this mysterious, state-of-the-art, super-strong, super-conducting, lightweight, fruit-flavored, and all-around amazing substance is somehow created by combining tons of Oil and Ore in a very secretive, elaborate, and sometimes smelly process. I also know that Sims of the future will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on it, and that's where OmegaCo comes in.
• In the space combat MMO Moon Breakers, Helium-3 is the main reason two factions are fighting each other in the first place.
• In Space Age, one of the main objectives of the Proteus-Z's expedition to Kepler-16 is to locate sources of Nucleum ore.
• Singularity has "Element-99", or "E99" for short. It's a mysterious mineral that can only be harvested on the island of Katorga-12, which the Soviet Union converted into an E99 research and mining facility during the Cold War. It is used to power the Time Manipulation Device (TMD), which does Exactly What It Says on the Tin, so long as the object it's pointed at is composed of E99 (it also works on biological creatures but that's ill-advised).
• Civilization: Beyond Earth has three varieties, one used by each of the three primary Affinities. Firaxite is a volcanic mineral that can be processed into a room-temperature superconductor, used by the AI- and robot-centric Supremacy affinity. Floatstone is a pumice-like vesicular igneous rock that contains magnetic monopoles, used by Purity for their mag-lev Hover Tank units. Xenomass is a bacterial slime containing a number of proteins and substances that facilitate genetic engineering, used by the Bio Punk Harmony affinity.
• Anti-Idle: The Game has a material that is called this letter for letter. It is used for crafting a number of high-rank items.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X has Miranium, a mineral unique to the planet the White Whale crashed on that can be refined into almost any material and is used as fuel for Skells. One sidequest also involves the team collecting a mineral with odd physical properties that ends up named after one of the recruitable characters.
• A major part of Star Control II is gathering minerals from planets all over the quadrant to trade for fuel, crew, and ship upgrades. There's a whole category of "Exotic" materials ranging from relatively mundane items like antimatter and neutronium to more fantastical ones such as Aguuti nodules and Tzo crystals. Naturally, the exotics tend to be very rare, very valuable, and (if found in any significant quantities) very dangerous to collect.
• In EarthBound (1994), Zexonyte, which Dr. Andonuts requires for scientific projects, is an incredibly rare material that can only be obtained from a fallen meteorite in the game's environment.
• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare: The Chemist's upgrades include a chemical element called Unobtainium. And yes, it's literally called that.
• Warframe: Quite a few different types.
  • Gameplay-wise, any rare resource is supposed to be this, but it doesn't always work out that way. Control Modules, Gallium, Morphics, Neural Sensors, and Tellurium are all reasonably difficult to obtain, but blueprints don't require them in very high numbers, so the supply tends to outpace the demand. Orokin Cells, on the other hand, are required in every high-end blueprint in large quantities, making them much more valuable.
  • Argon Crystals are only mildly difficult to obtain, but they have one flaw that makes them extremely frustrating: They decay outside of the Void, meaning it is impossible to stockpile them. Many high-end blueprints require Argon, requiring quick dips back in the Void for farming.
  • Nitain Extract was originally only obtained from rare Alerts, and the blueprints that needed it tended to require large quantities of it. The Nightwave system changed that, as large amounts of Nitain can be bought for relatively cheap with the Nightwave credits.
  • And then there are the research components: Detonite Ampules (which combine into Detonite Injectors), Fieldron Samples (which combine into Fieldron), and Mutagen Samples (which combine into Mutagen Masses). The lesser versions are uncommon drops from enemies, but converting them into the more advanced versions is expensive, so it's generally easier to run the tedious Invasion missions instead. Ironically, these are all extremely common in-universe; Detonite Injectors are used as ammo by Grineer, Fieldron is a basic component of Corpus energy weapons, and the Mutagen Mass is a still-living chunk of Infested flesh that produces toxins.
• The Wonderful 101: At least three of the Wonderful Ones have weapons made out of some kind of powerful, fictional material. Wonder-Blue's Valiantium Blade is made out of, as the name suggests, Valiantium, while Wonder-Pink's Beautiful Whip is made with Belmont Alloy. In addition, Wonder-Yellow's Peta-Peta Hammer is made of Peta Omorium, the "heaviest metal in the galaxy", said to be " strong enough to smash through even the sturdiest GEATH-Titanium." All three of them form the basis of Unite Morphs capable of fighting giant aliens with advanced technology.

• The planet Tobal hosts a fighting tournament in order to decide who is allowed the exclusive mining rights of a mineral known as Molmoran, which can be used as an energy source.
• Synergism parodies it with the name of the resource that is used for Research, Obtainium.
• Kittens Game: Unobtainium is found on the Moon and requires a steady supply of uranium to be extracted. It can then be used for space exploration or refined into an even rarer element called eludium.
• Stellaris: Several Strategic Resources are rarer than the rest; top of the list are Living Metal, Dark Matter, and Zro.
• We Happy Few: Motilene is the "fuel of the future," later revealed in the DLC Roger & James In They Came From Below to be from another universe. It can be "resublimated," which may be a reference to Isaac Asimov's "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline."
• Riffed on in Poker Night 2 as part of Brock and Ash's ribbing of Claptrap's home world being named Pandora.
  Brock: I always heard that Pandora was some sort of lush jungle paradise.
  Ash: Yeah, me too. What happened, did you guys run out of the, what was it... "Cantgetitium"?
  Brock: [chuckling]' Nah, I think it was called "Macguffinite".
  • Also, Borderlands 2 had actual Unobtainium in the form of Eridium, a supermaterial which advanced Hyperion's technology and dominance. Only problem is, they had to fuck up a Death World beyond its original Wretched Hive status to make the stuff burst out of the planet's deep mines. The side effects of Eridium runoff (known as Slag) then caused the already insane bandits living on the surface to become raving mutants, making Eridium considerably harder to harvest.

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