Xanatos Gambit / Visual Novels

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• The Ace Attorney fangame Two Sides of the Same Turnabout uses this as its premise, with its Arc Words being "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose". Defense Attorney Helen Alard wakes up in a locked room with a dead body and blood on her hands, and has to defend herself in court. The big twist is that "Helen" is actually a Villain Protagonist who murdered the real Helen and stole her identity several years ago. The case's prosecutor and victim, who were old friends of the real Helen, set the whole situation up to be sure the imposter Helen faces justice for her crimes: either she fails her defense (i.e. you get a Game Over) and is convicted for the murder she's been framed for, or she succeeds... but he's set things up so she can't prove herself innocent of this crime without implicating herself for Helen's murder (she has to bring up something about a piece of evidence she couldn't possibly have known unless she was Helen's killer), and by the time she (and likely the player) realizes this it's already too late and she undergoes the series requisite Villainous Breakdown.
• The Mastermind of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is obsessed with despair, and their plan is ultimately to inflict despair on as many people as possible. She doesn't exempt herself from the despair. When Naegi ultimately nixes her plans by rallying the students together to end the Mutual Killing Game, she's ecstatic over her own despair over her plan falling apart and gleefully executes herself so that she can feel the ultimate despair of death.
• In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Kokichi creates a plan to bring an end to the killing game, which involves creating a murder situation that even Monokuma can't solve. Since he's put together that someone has to be watching the game, their goal is entertainment, so he decides to create a scenario where they can't determine whether Kaito or Kokichi is the killer or the victim. Doubly impressive is that it incorporates an attempted murder by Maki, which only made the whole thing harder to figure out. Ironically, while the whole thing was undone by Shuichi's detective work (the guy who'd been previously motivated by both participants in the plan), it ultimately did lead to them ending the killing game once and for all.
• In Super Danganronpa Another 2, Case 3's murderer Kanade Otonokoji comes up with the most convoluted plan in the franchise and uses Loophole Abuse with Twin Telepathy to make it so that both herself and her twin sister are both considered the killer, so that no matter who the others voted for they would win. The only reason this fails is due to a Deus ex Machina.
• Higurashi: When They Cry
  • Miyo Takano pulls an amazing one that not only works over all of the different arcs, and thus several different 'worlds', but also manages to have each one work slightly differently (thus moving almost into Batman Gambit territory) in each arc, always with the same results. Though, the character isn't aware that each arc is a different world and each one of them thinks it's just working in their particular world, but the effect is the same, either way.
  • The various gambits pulled off, along with other Xanatos index tropes (especially an I Know You Know I Know played for humour), in the various club activities. Mion and Shion's gambit in the zombie tag game is of special note, along with the combined Xanatos Gambit and I Know You Know I Know (with slight improv) that Rena and Satoko pull against each other in the water fight...
  • In all the worlds similar to Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen, Miyo's gambit failed because Shion killed the right person at the wrong time, without the one pulling the strings knowing until it was too late.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
  • In the fourth case, Manfred von Karma pulls one of these off when he allows Phoenix to get a Not Guilty verdict for his client in the trial at hand — causing that client to confess to a different crime, allowing von Karma to prosecute him for a more personal reason.
  • In the fifth case, Phoenix does his own after he proves that evidence he withheld earlier in the case was legal. If Gant says the cloth is fake, Phoenix can easily prove otherwise by using a photograph of the crime scene. If Gant says that cloth is real, which he does, then Phoenix can use the same photograph to prove it was cut off before the victim was killed, subsequently indicting him.
  • In the same case, Damon Gant tries to pull one on Phoenix just a few moments before Phoenix pulls his own. If he presents the cloth at that point in time, Ema will certainly be convicted. If he doesn't, then Gant can accuse him of fabricating evidence, strip Phoenix's badge, and clear his own name. Unfortunately for him, though, Phoenix overturns the attempt with a book on evidence law.
  • Phoenix does another in 4-1. He forges key evidence to replace that which the killer, Kristoph Gavin, erased. Kristoph reveals the forgery (which he does)? Good; he also self-implicates. He keeps quiet? Also good; the fake likely convicts him.
• In Planescape: Torment, one quest has you defending an old man from a gang acting on rumors that he's hiding a large stash of valuables. Upon turning in the quest, the person who sent you mentions that he had planted the rumor himself as revenge on the gang. He figured that either they would fail and get themselves killed, or "succeed" but having left enough evidence to get caught and jailed.
• Umineko: When They Cry, once you realise Beatrice is using a Xanatos gambit to hide another gambit and why, the meaning of the story changes dramatically. The reason that Beatrice choose Battler as her opponent is so that he may remember who she was and what he did to her, if he does remember, she will forever exist in Battler's memories, if he does not, she will be certainly destroyed by him, granting her freedom in death. Both more desirable for her then being trapped in the purgatory of half-existence. Under that gambit is the one Beatrice makes by betting her life against Battler's. No matter whether Battler removes her from existence, or she breaks Battler's mind, she will be with him for the rest of her existence, her greatest desire. Combine these gambits and you find why she tries so hard to keep Battler fighting against her for as long as possible.
• Used in the Zero Escape series, mostly because each Zero often needs one to ensure their own survival and does so using the unique form of Time Travel employed through Psychic Powers in the series.
  • The first game is orchestrated by the present version of Akane Kurashiki in order to punish those who set up her first Nonary Game as well as to both train Junpei in how to use the Morphogenetic Field and to mentally link to her past self and help her escape from the Gigantic. She's seen every possible outcome to the scenario and actually uses it to help Junpei in the present - get information in one timeline like the combination of a safe, even if it kills him, then her past self will see it and silently relay it to him so that he can use it in another timeline.
  • The second game is orchestrated by both Akane and the 70 year-old Sigma Klim so that Old!Sigma could jump into his past self's mind and prevent the Radical-6 outbreak while also training his past self, as well as another ESPer, on how to jump into the past and also to prevent the Radical-6 outbreak. The Nonary Game Ambidex Version is designed so that Sigma can only complete it after Jumping numerous times.
  • The third game is orchestrated by Delta, AKA Brother - the founder of Free The Soul - who has complex reasons. He needs Diana and Sigma to give birth to his sister and himself then send them back in time in one timeline, to fail in another and then set up the events of the second game, as well as Akane and Junpei. He also needs everyone to work together to prevent the outbreak of Radical-6, which he orchestrated in the hopes that he could kill a specific target among 6 billion people. To get everyone out and prevent the release of Radical-6 means he's successfully created SHIFTers who can prevent an even worse event than Radical-6.

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