History AluminumChristmasTrees / VideoGames

* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfArise'', [[BoobsOfSteel Kisara]]'s [[CustomUniformOfSexy armour is backless]] with the justification given that she wanted to increase mobility and reduces its weight. This was actually a real (although rare) practice, where some knights believed that if an enemy managed to get behind them, they were screwed anyways, so they might as well make their armour easier to wear.

* The [[RankInflation S-rank]], present in many games that use ranking systems, is assumed by many to just be a way to say "you did perfect"; however, it actually stems from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Japan Japanese government's grading system;]] an S is equivalent to an American A here, an A is a B, etc. For the record, E is the lowest grade in Japanese schools; the F grade does not exist there.

* When ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorWarfighter'' came out, many people made fun of the subtitle, not realizing that Warfighter is a [[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/warfighter real life military term]].

* ''VideoGame/ArmyOfTwo'''s mechanic of inserting a tampon into a bullet wound as emergency care received much derision from professional reviewers despite the developer's insistence that their consultant told them (and as some independent investigations [[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tampons-to-the-rescue/ have concluded]]) this is something some real armed combatants actually do. Hell, that was the whole reason tampons were invented ''in the first place'' before the feminine hygiene applications were realized.

** Based on ''[[VideoGame/BioshockInfinite Bioshock Infinite's]]'' concept, it could be assumed that the "Boxer Rebellion" and "The Battle of Wounded Knee" were both made up to emphasize Comstock's murderous white supremacy. They were both actually [[https://en.wikipedia.org/Boxer_Rebellion very real]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre and grim events]] of US history.

*** The Boston Mayoral Shelter is a thing in real life, except it's called the Massachusetts State Emergency Operations Center.

* With all the weirdness and silly humor associated with ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'', you'd think that Cave Johnson's moon rock poisoning was just another silly joke. In fact, lunar dust is an actual hazard to humans. It's just as destructive to human lungs as asbestos, since it's just as sharp and brittle unlike earth dust, which has been rounded by natural actions (wind, rain, etc) that don't exist on the moon, and you will die a slow, horrible death if you breathe in too much of the stuff.

** The majority of fans don't realise that "Master Chief" (or, more formally, Master Chief Petty Officer) is an actual rank in the US Navy. This has been exacerbated from the rank's use in fiction being heavily subject to the JustForFun/OneMarioLimit, and other Master Chiefs in fiction tend to have their rank glossed over and/or only referred to by the "MCPO" abbreviation.

*** Although the town itself is completely fictional[[note]]It should be noted that in-game, it's pointed out that the name Novac is post-war: it was given to this roadside motel complex by semi-literate wastelanders based on the half-readable sign saying "NO VAC(ANCIES)".[[/note]], Dinky the T-Rex in Novac is modeled after the Mr. Rex sculpture in Cabazon, California, and named after the neighboring Dinny Apatosaurus sculpture.

** Many of the UNSC weapons in the series are based on real life weapons, such as the shotgun with its strange, top-loading feature being based on the South African Neostead 2000. The development team actually had to cut some of the odder features of the real guns, like the Neostead working by pumping forward instead of backwards and having two magazine tubes (something which only became relatively commonplace in real life after ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' or so), or the SMG's original reloading animation, which would have included pushing a 'stick' of caseless ammunition into the feed port, then breaking it off to avert OneBulletClips. For extra fun, the Assault Rifle of [[VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved the first game]] was designed as a concept of what a futuristic bullpup assault rifle would look like, but between nailing down the design and releasing the game, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_F2000 F2000]] was released, and ended up heavily featured in [[VideoGame/SplinterCell another popular Xbox game]] just a year later.

* In [[VideoGame/MegaMan8 Mega Man 8]], Duo, one of the main characters of the game, fights an evil robot in the intro cutscene who some fans have nicknamed "Oud". While this is more than likely meant to be Duo's name backwards, an oud is in fact [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oud a real life string instrument]] that originated in the Middle East, fitting with the music themed names of many characters in the series.

*** There's a part where Sigint tells Snake the story of a unit of Russian "bomb dogs" during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, who were to be used to destroy tanks (and failed because the Russian tanks had been used for the training, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard causing the dogs to attack them instead of the German Panzers]]). Since he describes it as a secret military project, it's safe to assume it's just the usual Hideo Kojima insanity and just another detail in a game about psychic bee soldiers and electric megalomaniac Communists. It isn't. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog The bomb dogs were real]] and the plan ended up that way.

* The shopping center in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'''s "Wolverines" mission, [[CaliforniaDoubling despite it taking place in Virginia]], is based on a real life one in Vancouver, WA, [[http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/31748.html as seen here]].

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'', ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake their]] [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Remake remakes]] take a ''lot'' of ribbing from their fans for having characters get infected and then cured with vaccines because, as well all know vaccines ''prevent'' rather than treat right? There actually ''are'' vaccines, called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_vaccines therapeutic vaccines]], that treat existing infections rather than preventing future ones which work by enhancing the immune system response rather than providing an acquired immunity to a future infection, and while the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipuleucel-T first successful one]] to be approved by the FDA didn't come out until 2010, these things were actually being researched as early as the '70's. In fact, in real life a therapeutic vaccine reasonably ''would'' be used to treat a virus that caused mutations, as such vaccines in real life are used to treat viruses and cancer, meaning it actually would be reasonably possible for such a thing to not only destroy a virus but reverse malignant tissue growth the virus had caused.
* A surprisingly large number of people think the [[http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/m3irsnip.htm M3 Carbine]] in ''VideoGame/ReturnToCastleWolfenstein'' is some crazy fictional gun. Nope, it just wasn't silenced, or used in the western front.

-->They got more *(extended censorship bleeping)* [[LampshadeHanging than they got the likes o' me!]]

* In ''Videogames/TalesOfArise'', [[BoobsOfSteel Kisara]]'s [[CustomUniformOfSexy armour is backless]] with the justification given that she wanted to increase mobility and reduces its weight. This was actually a real (although rare) practice in the Middle Ages, where some knights believed that if an enemy managed to get behind them, they were screwed anyways, so they might as well make their armour easier to bear.

* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' features a lot of crazy weapon concepts: [[GatlingGood Belt-fed Gatling assault rifles]], [[UpToEleven and rocket launchers]], weapons that get more accurate with sustained fire, weapons that are [[ThrowAwayGuns thrown away instead of reloading them]]... Among these, [[TestosteronePoisoning Torgue]] guns [[AbnormalAmmo shooting miniature missiles]] seem like another crazy invention of the development team, but no. Those are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet Gyrojets]], and those did exist.

* ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter 2'' has the caseless round-firing H11 assault rifle. Looks and sounds like science fiction, but it's actually a [[AKA47 renamed version]] of the [[RareGuns G11]], a real caseless weapon that came very close to being mass-produced before [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp things happened that cut into its funding]]. Also, the BIZ-2 is a renamed PP-19 Bizon, which used a unique helical magazine. Even HarsherInHindsight, there have been real-life cases of people being set on fire by tasers.

** Galar Route 6 in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' has what appears to be an out-of-place desert in a region themed on the British Isles. In fact, there really is a desert to the east of Manchester.

** All of the regions in the games are based off real places, mostly in Japan. For instance, the Kanto region is named after a part of Japan, and several of the towns correspond to real cities in the area (for instance, Vermillion City is based on Yokohama, and Saffron City and Celadon City are supposed to represent different parts of Tokyo). Even the Cycling Road is based off [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Bay_Aqua-Line a real bridge]], which was being built in Tokyo Bay during the game's production.

* The [[RankInflation S-rank]], present in many games that use ranking systems, is assumed by many to just be a way to say "you did perfect"; however, it actually stems from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Japan Japanese government's grading system;]] an S is equivalent to an American A here, an A is a B, etc.

* Baslam in ''VideoGame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'' is a merchant who built a town, gathering the stone by dismantling ruins of priceless historical value. It sounds like a comically over-the-top bit of CorruptCorporateExecutive behavior, medieval fantasy-style... unless you know this has actually been done in real life. Multiple times. Medieval Cairo was built by raiding limestone from the pyramids, the Renaissance Italians would tear marble off of Roman buildings and melt down statues in order to get the materials needed for their own works, and numerous houses built in the immediate aftermath of the English Civil War contain identifiable pieces salvaged from castles destroyed by artillery.

*** Speaking of Baltic Hornets, while ''they'' certainly don't exist, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_giant_hornet Japanese Giant Hornet]] certainly does. Their name in Japanese is ''ōsuzumebachi'' which translates to "giant sparrow bee". Not only are they [[{{Pun}} Bees in Japan]], they are a major threat to honey bee hives. The hornets will sniff out honey bees, and pillage their nests, literally butchering entire colonies of bees before hauling all the honey and delicious bee-torso steaks they can stuff into their home nest. It seems the bee/hornet confusion may be more a result of LostInTranslation than ArtisticLicenseBiology.

* The [[UsefulNotes/MuramasaAndMasamune Masamune and Muramasa's]] status as {{Public Domain Artifact}}s and their frequent appearances in [=JRPGs=] like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' and ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' may lead some gamers to assume that they are mythical swords, like Gram or Excalibur. In fact, they're real-life masterworks more akin to a Stradivarius instrument. Not only were Masamune and Muramasa historically real swordsmiths, there wasn't even "the" Masamune or Muramasa blade; several specimens of both still exist today in museums and private collections, and they occasionally appear at auction for the sufficiently lucky and/or wealthy collector to obtain. (That said, "the" Masamune is often considered the suitably storied [and suitably lost] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masamune#Honj%C5%8D_Masamune Honjo Masamune]].)

* When Chapter 2 of ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' was released, posts and edits related to the DarkerAndEdgier path (sometimes referred to with the {{Fan Nickname}}s "[=SnowGrave=] Route" or "Weird Route") were thought to be fake. Not only did the [=SnowGrave=] Route require a very specific way to trigger it, but it was seen as very dark for a relatively lighthearted game, using RealismInducedHorror by [[CorruptTheCutie corrupting the innocent Noelle]] with {{Gaslighting}} and emotional abuse. It even caused a brief Administrivia/EditWar on this very wiki from people who didn't believe it was real. But the [=SnowGrave=] Route is really in the game, and it really is that dark.

*** You ''can't'', however, see the Statosphere (the inspiration for the Lucky 38) from Primm in real life. And the Stratosphere doesn't dominate the Vegas skyline in general the way it does in the game. Granted, this is because other major landmarks like the MGM Grand or Caesar's haven't been ''blown up'' in reality.

*** The Goodsprings General Store, Pioneer (Prospector) Saloon, and Jean Sky Diving school are all real businesses, although the last is in ruins in the game.

* The CopyProtection of ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry5PassionatePattiDoesALittleUndercoverWork'' (the Aerodork pamphlet) includes many destinations that sound fake, being [[UnfortunateNames overtly sexual]] (Intercourse, PA; Spread Eagle, WI; Loveladies, NJ; etc.). All of these towns/cities are real.

* The ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series has a RunningGag of making FunWithAcronyms {{exp|y}}ies of real life police forces, such as [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV N.O.O.S.E]], so you'd be forgiven for thinking that [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas C.R.A.S.H.]] is another silly Rockstar joke. Not only was it a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources_Against_Street_Hoodlums very real]] former spec ops division of the LAPD, but ''San Andreas''' BigBad, Officer Tenpenny and the leader of C.R.A.S.H. in the game, is an Expy of [[DirtyCop Rafael Antonio Pérez]], one of the real-life C.R.A.S.H.'s most notorious members. Amusingly, if anything, the ''GTA'' version of C.R.A.S.H. is ''less'' corrupt and over-the-top than the real organization was; the investigation of the real group showed proof of more than 70 corrupt officers, whereas the fictional C.R.A.S.H. is limited to two corrupt officers and one less-than-willing accomplice.

* ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'', set in 1988, allows you to go to disco clubs to dance to a variety of songs. One of them is "Queen of Passion", a song explicitly billed as {{Eurobeat}}. Those who mainly know Eurobeat through ''Manga/InitialD'' and the Eurobeat car drifting memes it spawned may be shocked to know that this relatively slow-paced, disco-like song ''is'' Eurobeat music, albeit before it started being heavily influenced by Japanese electronic music.

** In addition, there are real-life sashimi varieties that use shellfish, and even snails. However, only certain species, qualities, and cuts of fish and shellfish should be used in real life, as many are prone to internal parasites that will happily jump to human hosts if consumed raw.

* Baslam in ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}: The Ark of Napishtim'' is a merchant who built a town, gathering the stone by dismantling ruins of priceless historical value. It sounds like a comically over-the-top bit of CorruptCorporateExecutive behavior, medieval fantasy-style... unless you know this has actually been done in real life. Multiple times. Medieval Cairo was built by raiding limestone from the pyramids, the Renaissance Italians would tear marble off of Roman buildings and melt down statues in order to get the materials needed for their own works, and numerous houses built in the immediate aftermath of the English Civil War contain identifiable pieces salvaged from castles destroyed by artillery.

* In ''VideoGame/{{MGCM}}'', the Ohtori twins (2 out of 12 playable magical heroines) Ao and Aka being twins born at the same time yet having different fathers seems impossible. However, the phenomenon, known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfecundation "Heteropaternal Superfecundation"]], is a documented occurrence, although an extremely rare one.