History Main / EternalRecurrence

* The ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' canon is similar, with BigBad Dracula destined to be reborn (at least) once every hundred years and defeated by some iteration of the Belmont clan and their allies. Worth noting is the fact that Dracula himself is canonically DeaderThanDead as of 1999, but the cycle seems to be going on even without him. That is explained in ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'' by Genya Arikado (none other than [[spoiler:Alucard, the Dark Lord's prodigal son]]), who states his belief that even if Soma ([[LateArrivalSpoiler Dracula's reincarnation]]) {{refus|AlOfTheCall}}es to become the next Dark Lord, if nature wills for a being to counterbalance God, then ''someone'' out there will eventually take up the mantle. This ideology is shared by Celia Fortner (the BigBad of ''Dawn'') and her {{cult}}, With Light. Additionally, ''Aria of Sorrow'' reveals that there's a de-facto main antagonist of the series known as Chaos, who is the source of all of Dracula's powers. In short, it's a mix of AsLongAsThereIsEvil and BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil. Genya however also believes that free will means that no specific person ''has'' to be the Dark Lord.

* Despite [[Wiki/SCPFoundation The Foundation's]] best efforts, this seems to be the case with [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2000 SCP-2000]]. The object is built to survive ''any'' apocalypse scenario and then rebuild human civilization exactly as it was before the apocalypse. However, it turns out that it has been used before - depending on interpretation, anywhere between seven and thirty-five times... ''minimum.''

* In the MagicalGirl CrossOver ''FanFic/ShatteredSkiesTheMorningLights'', [[Manga/SailorMoon Chaos]] reveals that the war of good versus evil has waged countless times in infinite universes, with every BigBad there's ever been as an aspect of itself. Every time the war is fought, [[YouCantFightFate Chaos and its aspects are fated to lose.]] The plot gets kicked off when [[Anime/SmilePrettyCure Joker]] convinces Chaos to [[ScrewDestiny rebel against its fate and natural function]], so that the recurrence might finally end.

[[folder:Film]]

* Happens in ''Anime/GallForce'', multiple times, often in silly ways.

* When the creators of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' needed to explain the opening scenes which depict events similarly, but for the most part completely different from what ends up happening, it was implied that this may have been a previous, unsuccessful iteration, which failed for one reason or another. [[spoiler: The spiral nemesis is spiral power being so overused that the universe collapses into a big crunch due to the extra energy created]].

* A ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' ''Omake'' has then-Lieutenant Aizen taking a stroll with the then-much younger Gin. The stroll takes place in winter and Gin remarks that to him, winter and the cyclical seasons is like {{Hell}}, which to him is the same stuff repeating over and over again.
* ''Manga/DestinyOfTheShrineMaiden'' (manga version) has a cycle of the world being destroyed by {{Orochi}}, one miko sacrificing her life to seal away Orochi, the other miko choosing one of eight possible worlds to revive, and the reincarnation of both mikos in the new world. [[spoiler:At the ending, it's suggested that the cycle is now broken… for now, at least.]]
* Happens as an result of CanonWelding between ''Manga/{{Devilman}}'', ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' and ''Manga/DevilmanLady'' -- [[spoiler: the world constantly resets itself and in every new version of it Akira Fudou and Satan reincarnate to fight each other]]. And in ''AMON'' [[spoiler: the world is on an extended version of GroundhogDayLoop, spanning millions of years from Satan's betrayal to Akira's death, so everything that happened once will happen all over again and again.]]
* One of the possible explanations of what happened at the end of ''Manga/GetterRobo Armageddon'' [[spoiler: where main characters are dragged into another dimension in which endless war between an army of horrenderous monsters and an army of Getters takes place]] is this - it may be possible that [[spoiler: they are Getter Teams from previous versions of the world]]. It doesn't help that Manga/GetterRobo has crossed over with various Creator/GoNagai works, including abovementioned ''Manga/{{Devilman}}''.
* A crucial plot point in ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' in the form of the Dark History [[spoiler:aka all the previous ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series]], which highlights the seemingly endless cycle of bloodshed and conflict between Earth and Spacenoids. And the protagonists are fighting to ''prevent'' that cycle from repeating itself.
* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', every [[NumberOfTheBeast 216 years]] an Eclipse results in the creation of a new member of the God Hand. This has happened at least four times previous to the one in the story. It's also mentioned that the Incarnation Ceremony, in which one of the God Hand is given a corporeal body and reborn into the physical plane, can be performed once every thousand years. If it's happened before, there hasn't been much hinting at what the consequences were the last time it happened, but a little arithmetic (216 X 5 = 1080) [[WildMassGuessing suggests]] that it somehow results in there being ''no'' God Hand, so that [[ResetButton the cycle can start fresh]].
* ''Manga/UndeadUnluck'' features this as the main plot. The protagonists' organization is tasked with collecting or defeating certain universal constants or Negators, who defy certain concepts; should they fail, a Punishment is added to the world. At 100 Punishments, the world ends. [[spoiler:We later learn that the world ''always'' ends, and has ended multiple times in the past before getting restarted. Because of this, Andy and Fuuko decide to stop this hell loop by killing God.]]

* ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'': [[spoiler: ''[[GrandFinale Thrice Upon a Time]]'' implies the events of ''Neon Genesis'' and ''Rebuild'' are just two of an indeterminate amount of times the story of ''Evangelion'' has played out. ''Rebuild'' is the apparent final iteration of the cycle that ends with Shinji using Instrumentality to write the Angels and Evangelions out of existence to create a world free of all the suffering caused by their existence.]]

* In the mainstream MarvelUniverse, [[http://tinyurl.com/62ow6l Galactus is the sole survivor of the universe that existed before the Big Bang]] and also the seed for the universe that will come into being when the current one is destroyed.

* In Marvel's ''Comicbook/{{EarthX}}'' time is presented as a circle. One day, humanity's mutation will run its course and we will lose our identities to become whatever people think we are or need us to be, then go back in time and become the Asgardians.

* ''FanFic/RoyalHeights'': The main antagonist Embry reveals that the only reasons Utopias need to be recreated every four years is that [[spoiler: a witch, like herself, comes to destroy Utopia at the same time, obliterating the city and all its citizens along the way.]] Then the new Utopia comes in and all is well again until the loop repeats itself later.
* ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'': The [[ForeverWar Eternal War]] between the Demon Empire and Angel Federation always flares up periodically, decimating galaxies before both sides eventually fight each other to exhaustion and temporarily stop fighting to rebuild, before going to war again. Maledict's entire grand plan was to end the cycle by creating the "Ultimate Weapon" to permanently defeat Allysion and her Angels [[spoiler: which eventually resulted in him creating Sonic, Shadow, Eric, and Tsali]].

* In the ''Manga/HeavensLostProperty'' / ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'' crossover ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10853474/1/Cry-for-an-Angel Cry for an Angel]]'', it is eventually revealed that every 6000 years, Minos orders Ikaros to wipe out human civilization and reset history to zero, leaving only enough humans to repopulate, in an attempt to prevent humanity from ever advancing enough to challenge him. Ikaros breaks the cycle by developing free will and rebelling.
* In ''FanFic/PurpleDays'', Joff's research takes him to an isolated cavern in the Sunset Sea, where he finds ancient records of the elder race that came before mankind in Planetos, telling him the Long Night has been going on for far, far longer than he ever dared imagine, and a desperate plea, to take a stand, and fight the darkness...

* Creator/GuyMaddin's ''Film/BrandUponTheBrain'' features the odd quote, "Everything that happens will happen again. Twice."
* In ''Film/TheFifthElement'', the evil planet reappears every 5,000 years.
* ''Film/CloudAtlas'' takes the same themes of the book and turns them up a notch by employing repeating visual motifs and {{match cut}}s, as well as having actors play different characters across the six storylines. A slave-owning reverend becomes a {{corrupt corporate executive}} in another life and a cannibalistic tribesman in another. Similarly, a backstreet sweatshop in 70's San Francisco is echoed by a fast-food chain in futuristic Korea that employs engineered clones, a man trapped in an abusive nursing home is paralleled by a fabricant huddling in a prison cell, and two lovers find each other in lifetime after lifetime.
* ''Film/TheIncident2014'' features two intersecting time loops, which may lead to others.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' the Long Night might be an eternal recurrence. There are too many legends of the world freezing over and the living being terrorized by the dead.
* Literature/TheBrightestShadow: The Hero's arrival is essentially this if the cycle is ever reset, leading to bloody/climactic battles every time.
* Creator/RickRiordan's ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'':
** How many times do you think the Titans and giants will keep going after the Olympians?
** Invoked with Monsters, which regenerate to be fought again, and with immortals, as they don't change (much). Addressed further in ''Literature/TheKaneChronicles'', which share a universe.
* In Creator/MichaelEnde's ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'', it is implied that Fantasia is destroyed on a regular basis whenever the balance between worlds gets bad enough, so someone has to be sent a book and travel there to create everything anew.
* The world of ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series has a cyclic system of time. The seven spokes of the Wheel represent the seven eras, and the turning of the Wheel is the course of history repeating over and over again. [[{{Satan}} The Dark One's]] foremost human minion, Ishamael, was a philosopher who thought too deeply about this, [[StrawNihilist concluded that human life is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and wants to help his master undo creation because of it]]. Rand, TheChosenOne, struggled with this concept for a long, long time, before eventually concluding that [[spoiler: [[TheAntiNihilist the purpose of the Wheel was the opportunity to get things right next time and fix your mistakes]]]].

* One of the many computer generated worlds in ''Literature/{{Otherland}}'' is based on ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Through the Looking Glass]]''. Every time one king or the other dies, the world is reset to how it was at the beginning of the game.
* In Creator/DavidEddings' ''Literature/{{The Belgariad}}'' and the sequels and prequels, this is used to explain why the same situation tends to reoccur over and over again. This was used partially as a wry acknowledgement of, and excuse for, Creator/DavidEddings' lack of creativity, as he himself admits that he basically wrote it as an attempt to make the most generic fantasy plot of all good. The cycle ''is'' supposed to be broken by the end of the sequel series (the explanation they get for the recurrence is that history can't properly progress so long as there are two Prophecies, so in the meantime patterns recur while the two Prophecies fight it out about which vision of the future should happen. The events of the end of the sequel results in there being only one Prophecy, so now things can start progressing as they should again), but since the only thing that takes place after that is the framing for the prequels this doesn't really matter to the story.

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story ''Literature/Nightfall1941'', a well-known cult claims that all civilization is destroyed every 2049 years when the Stars come out and cover the planet (which has six suns and therefore never experiences true darkness) in fire. The archaeological data does confirm the cycle of civilizations, but no one believes the reasons stated by the cult (the expanded version has an archaeologist discover the data right at the beginning of the book). [[spoiler:Turns out, every 2049 years five of its suns are in one hemisphere, while there's only one remaining on the other. That sun is eclipsed for a long period, eventually covering the whole planet in darkness as it rotates. All the people go crazy and set fires, looking for a new source of light, burning down their whole civilization like clockwork.]]
* A major theme of ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz''. The novel chronicles humanity's recovery from a nuclear apocalypse [[spoiler:and ends with a second nuclear apocalypse which, it's pretty strongly implied, will kill everyone on Earth. The church has sent out colonists to other worlds, though, so it's possible that humanity may survive]].

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series, there is the concept of Ka. Ka is often stated to be like a wheel, eternally rolling, with events constantly recurring. Same places, different faces. The biggest of which is the "[[JusticeWillPrevail Coming of the]] [[BigGood White]]" and the "[[TheBadGuyWins Rising of the]] [[BigBad Red]]". While mostly limited to ''The Dark Tower'' series, the basic concept tends to occur throughout several of [[Creator/StephenKing King's works]].
* The Moties in ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'' die if they don't reproduce regularly, so their population grows uncontrollably. Throughout their history, they've repeatedly built up advanced civilizations only to collapse due to the inevitable wars due to overpopulation and competition for resources. Unlike ''Literature/Nightfall1941'', they know this happens and have built many museums to store examples of technology so that civilization can be rebuilt faster the next time, in the hope that eventually they will have some breakthrough and break the cycle. Unfortunately for them, by the time humanity discovers them they've used up most of the natural resources in their system, and one of the Moties notes that each fall takes them further back because of this.
** Part of their problem is that although they've developed FTL travel many times, in this universe it's only possible between pairs of wormholes and the only one they have access to ends inside a star. One of the big fears by the humans, which leads to a permanent blockade to the end of their wormhole to ensure they never get out in sequels, is that if they ever did manage to escape their solar system, they would still be unable to control their population and eventually cause their growth/collapse cycle to take place on a galactic level.
* While the nature of time in Creator/MichaelMoorcock's Multiverse proves a bit more complex, Erekosë muses on this concept, and the possibility that in a previous (and future) iteration he led the very force he was then fighting against.

* Creator/RobertReed:
** In ''An Exaltation of Larks'' the travellers from the [[TheStarsAreGoingOut heat death of the universe]] have been making their way back to the Big Bang to turn the universe into a PerpetualMotionMachine by setting it up for eternal recurrence; rather than succumb to a slow heat death where no energy can be generated and the stars have died, it will instead cyclically expand, [[ApocalypseHow contract]], and then expand again over billions and billions of years, allowing life to start again.
** In ''Literature/SisterAlice'', the climax reveals that the InterdimensionalTravelDevice built in the core of the Milky Way is [[spoiler: known to fail]] causing an all-annihilating sphere of destruction that ravages the core of the galaxy. Sister Alice uses the device [[spoiler: to send the nigh-godlike Family members to newly generated universes, where they will eventually create a new travel device that destroys the galaxy, creating a new universe in the process and sending a Family member through, recursively forever]]

* The destruction of humanity's control over magic in ''Literature/TheAscendantKingdomsSaga'' is not the first time, due to it requiring magic to be anchored to mortal or vampire bloodlines, which can be severed. There's no apparent set period but the last time happened about four hundred years before the start of the series, and some of the vampire characters were around for it.

* David Mitchell's ''Literature/CloudAtlas'' revolves around this. Themes of slavery, oppression, exploitation and the struggle for freedom recur in various forms across six stories set in drastically different settings. It is hinted that the main character of each story is a reincarnation of the same soul. "Eternal Recurrence" is, appropriately enough, the title of a musical composition by a Nietzsche-quoting character.
* Jeanette Winterson's ''The Stone Gods'' explores this on both a human level and a planetary level. Recurring themes of love and loss on the human side, environmental destruction on the planetary side.
* Threadfall from the ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'' series happens on a predictable cycle, and wipes out large areas of landscape as well as any humans not shielded by dragons and/or impenetrable stone shelters.

* In ''{{Series/Lexx}}'', the Time Prophet tells the future by looking into the previous "cycle of time." Events in each cycle are absolutely identical. To the point of pulling off TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat on Stanley in the second episode.
* Discussed and [[DefiedTrope defied]] on ''Series/{{Lost}}''. [[spoiler:Jacob's enemy]] says that a series of events repeats itself because of the actions of humans, and it always ends the same. [[spoiler:Jacob]] replies "It only ends once. Anything before that is just progress." In season 6,[[{{God}} Jacob]] summons [[spoiler: people to the island to prove that RousseauWasRight, while the [[{{Satan}} Man in Black]] is set to prove that HumansAreBastards]]. But so far there's just [[GreyAndGrayMorality shades and shades of gray]]. That in turn was revealed to be just a tiny fraction of the actual recurrence: [[spoiler: the island itself, or perhaps the protector, summons people to the island. Always have and always will]].

** Of course, this is just one of [[EpilepticTrees many in-universe theories]] as to what it is.
* ''Series/TrueDetective'': "Time is a flat circle." The nihilistic hero Rustin Cohl goes into a much detailed description of the theory.

* In ''Series/Babylon5'', the Vorlons and the Shadows, two of the races of the First Ones (the original intelligences in the galaxy), were left behind to become shepherds of the younger races that would appear. Instead, every thousand years they would begin a cycle of war, pitting the younger races against each other in a battle of OrderVersusChaos. Captain Sheridan finally figured out how they could all stand up to them and gave them a giant "[[ScrewDestiny Screw you, get out of our galaxy]]" speech, finally ending the cycle.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' and ''{{TabletopGame/Earthdawn}}'', magic flows and ebbs. At its peak, the nature of reality becomes thin enough for the Horrors to come through, and they do. The indigenous population of Earth must then hide, if they do not want to be eaten. Several supplementary sources suggest that if metahumanity can develop its technology level to be as powerful as its magic at its peak, then the Horrors could be defeated once and for all.

* "Tome of Decay", the SourceBook focusing on [[PlagueMaster Nurgle]] for ''TabletopGame/BlackCrusade'' expands upon the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' deity's character to tie him into this. Specifically, Nurgle represents -- or at least believes he represents, rightly or wrongly -- the natural cycle of the universe. Life grows and develops to a certain point, and then it starts to stagnate and decay, its moral corruption empowering the resurgence of the Chaos Gods, which sweep forth from the warp and [[ChaoticEvil destroy or defile all life]] until they have nothing left to do but turn upon one another, with Nurgle consuming them all and then consuming himself, as the avatar of decay and despair made manifest. Then, with the warp stilled and calmed by their dwindling, life arises again from the ruins of the old, making the progression to the point where it calls forth Chaos again to cleanse it in turn. This, then, is why Nurgle is the most AffablyEvil of the Chaos Gods; he just thinks he's doing his job of putting the old, corrupt universe to the torch and rendering it down to fertile soil from which new life can go. Given [[CrapsackWorld the nature of the 40kverse]], it's [[VillainHasAPoint kind of hard to disagree that euthanizing it and letting something new be born from its ruins is really a bad thing]].
* In the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' supplement "Tall Tales of the Wee Folk" for BECMI, a centaur relates an account of how the current [=BECMI=] cosmology, in which the Spheres of Energy, Matter, Time and Thought oppose the Sphere of Entropy, is a temporary phenomenon: in the distant past, the four Spheres were a single Sphere of Life, and ''Entropy'' was divided into four. The unaging Faeries of the present are former Immortals from this era, who'd protected the Sphere of Life during the previous iteration, and will do so again when their full powers return as the Spheres shift once again, in a neverending trade-off between Life's dominion and Entropy's.

* While ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' generates a new world each time you play, the overarching framing device of the game is that Armok, God of Blood, destroys and recreates the world anew every time it grows too peaceful, so that conflict should always exist. On a meta level, this refers to the probable behavior of the player, who is likely to [[VictoryIsBoring create a new world once all the enemies are dead]].
* In ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', [[spoiler:Chip is in fact Light Gaia, and his job is to recreate the world after Dark Gaia has finished destroying it]].
* This trope is revealed to be the plan of the BigBad Wilhelm in the third entry of the ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' trilogy. The Lower Domain of the universe is fated to collapse at a certain point in time, so his plan throughout the series is to manipulate events to initiate Eternal Recurrence to "reset" the universe, in order to stave off destruction. It's strongly implied that he's successfully done this many times prior to the events of the game. [[spoiler:Post-game material suggests that his ''true'' goal was to delay destruction long enough for the human collective subconscious to evolve to the point that a true way to stop the collapse of the Lower Domain could be discovered. Incidentally, this makes Wilhelm fall more into the NecessarilyEvil or WellIntentionedExtremist category.]]
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** [[spoiler:A hyper-advanced race of machines called the Reapers exterminate all sentient life in the Milky Way once they have reached the Citadel and established themselves throughout the galaxy. The last time this happened was 50,000 years ago, but is implied to have gone on for far longer - millions, or even ''billions'' of years.]]
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[spoiler:evidence of resistance from a previous cycle is found. 37-million-year-old evidence.]] More overlooked is the "Leviathan of Dis" which is a ship estimated to be a billion years old. [[spoiler:It's an inactive Reaper that the accidental activation of which causes the batarians to be the first victims in ''this'' Cycle of Reaping.]]
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', direct parallels are drawn between the events of the current cycle and the previous, Prothean one: Namely, [[spoiler:the extremely late discovery of the Crucible blueprints, the hasty construction, the frantic search for the Catalyst, and, finally, an indoctrinated splinter faction believing they can control the Reapers and sabotaging the Crucible]]. It is further implied that [[spoiler:the Crucible was built in each cycle but much too late to stop the Reapers; the species of the current cycle are the first ones who actually manage to complete the Crucible (sans Catalyst) while preserving most of their forces for the FinalBattle]].
** The climax of the trilogy states that [[spoiler:the actions of the Reapers are in response to ''another'' Eternal Recurrence that they have observed throughout history: The inevitable RobotWar that results when civilizations [[AIIsACrapshoot create AI and it rebels against them]]. To prevent artifical intelligence from wiping out organic life the Catalyst created the Reapers to "preserve" organic races by converting into Reapers as soon as they had the capacity to create AI. It isn't clear if this other cycle is natural, or a result of the Reapers subtly guiding the development of each cycle by planting tech for them to find; the Catalyst claims the former, but the Reaper Sovereign boasted of the latter]]. During the climax, [[spoiler:the Catalyst acknowledges that Shepard actually reaching it is a sign that the Reaper Cycle is breaking down. An organic actually meeting the Catalyst in the heart of the Citadel is the one event that never occurred in any previous Cycle.]]
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' is an example that's less TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and more 'a bunch of people die and there's some colorful explosions' thing. SIN arrives, spreads terror, Summoner gets Final Summon and spectacularly fights it, defeats it, dies in the process, several years of Calm follows, then SIN resurfaces and it all repeats again. [[spoiler:So it goes until Tidus comes along and along with Auron convinces Yuna and the rest of the group to break the cycle.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'', it turns out that there have been numerous repetitions (or cycles) of the war between the Gods Cosmos and Chaos. This shows up in the title of the sequel, where the 012 specifically refers to the 12th cycle.
* In ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'', [[spoiler:it turns out that the catastrophe that is occasionally alluded to is actually the work of Mega Man Juno who periodically activates a machine called EDEN to wipe out life on the island.]]
** A more global version serves as TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt in the sequel.
* In ''VideoGame/TreasureOfTheRudra'', all life is annihilated every four thousand years so the Gods can reseed the world with a new dominant race. The current race is Humanity, and there are only sixteen days left before their time runs out. [[spoiler: It turns out that all along, the Gods were hoping to create a race strong enough to break the cycle by killing them.]]

* In ''VideoGame/NexusWar'', the current iteration of the universe is ending. The eponymous war was to see which of the [[PowersThatBe Elder Powers]] will shape the next one. This served as a convenient SequelHook for ''VideoGame/NexusClash'', which takes it to the next step and actually shows the world rebooting from time to time.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'':
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' implies billions of parallel worlds have been created and destroyed over and over by the power of the Conception. If you get the True Demon ending though you break the cycle, which [[ItsPersonal pisses off YHVH something fierce.]]
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', states outright that the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Schwarzwelt]] has [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt consumed sinful civilizations]] innumerable times, and humanity is simply experiencing its latest iteration. This is demonstrated when the crew of the Red Sprite finds evidence of those previous civilizations, different from our own but with the same failings. However, it subverts its predecessor's example by having the [[OrderVersusChaos Chaos faction]] instigate and perpetuate the Schwarzwelt and the "punishment" of failed civilizations, while Lawful and Neutral paths seek to break the cycle (with vastly different motivations and results.)
** In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', this emerges from AsLongAsThereIsEvil. As long as humans believe in God and pray to Him, YHVH will exist, while as long as humans cannot live without repressing their desires, Lucifer will return. This results in an endless cycle where every time God or Lucifer wins (a Law or Chaos ending), that victory will set up the seeds of the next battle, and a Neutral victory just kicks the can down the road. [[spoiler: The White have a way out of this: [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the entire universe and humanity, and the fight will be over forever]]. Though Dagda in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' has an alternative where new universe would take its place afterwards.]]

* The creation and destruction of Dark and Light Gaia in ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}''. The two worlds exist in a cyclic existence where one world exists, the other is resurrected, the older one is destroyed, the new one lives on for an unknown period of time, the other one is resurrected again and the older one destroyed. Each world has its own TheChosenOne, who is responsible for resurrecting the other world and destroying their own (and will therefore die along with their own world), and the protagonist Ark is the Dark Gaia version.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}} 64: The Second Attack'', in one of the endings Bomberman has to face off against the "Angel of Light and Shadow," the being that is responsible for the creation and destruction of the universe in its lifecycle.

* ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun''. [[spoiler:The entire plot of the game is one of these, thanks to the "big bad" (if it can be considered that) warping you back to 100,000 BC at the end of the game. The clones of the player characters -- the originals of both having died in the Stone-Like's penultimate onslaught -- are the genesis of humanity.]]
* ''[[http://www.captainforever.com/captainforever.php Captain Forever]]'' opens up with you being a survivor of a sector-wide explosion, and every time you die [[spoiler: you cause ANOTHER sector-wide explosion, and the game starts all over again]]. The [[AllThereInTheManual readme]] confirms the eternal nature of this predicament.

* The ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' canon is similar, with BigBad Dracula destined to be reborn (at least) once every hundred years and defeated by some iteration of the Belmont clan and their allies. Worth noting is the fact that Dracula himself is canonically DeaderThanDead as of 1999, but the cycle seems to be going on even without him. That is explained in ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'' by Genya Arikado (none other than [[spoiler:Alucard, the Dark Lord's prodigal son]]), who states his belief that even if Soma ([[LateArrivalSpoiler Dracula's reincarnation]]) {{refus|AlOfTheCall}}es to become the next Dark Lord, if nature wills for a being to counterbalance God, then ''someone'' out there will eventually take up the mantle. This ideology is shared by Celia Fortner (the BigBad of ''Dawn'') and her {{cult}}, With Light. Additionally, ''Aria of Sorrow'' reveals that there's a de-facto main antagonist of the series known as Chaos, who is the source of all of Dracula's powers. In short, it's a mix of AsLongAsThereIsEvil and BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil. Genya however also believes that free will means that no specific person ''has'' to be the Dark Lord.
* The Fae in ''VideoGame/KingdomsOfAmalurReckoning'' do not truly die like mortals. They are fated to repeat their lives endlessly in the "Great Cycle". The appearance of the Tuatha Deohn, Winter Fae who have managed to break their own Cycle thanks to the power of their new god Tirnoch, is taken as a sign by other Fae that the Cycle is ending.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsW'', one of the driving forces of the plot is that the peoples of the universe preceding the last Big Crunch sent various machines and technologies ahead to the present universe to keep a record of their existence.
* In ''VideoGame/SoulSacrifice Delta'', Eternal Recurrence, or as it's known in the game, Eternal Recursion, is the central ideology in [[spoiler:the Order of Grim]] in which the world has died and remade time and time again through the use of a magical chalice and one man's sacrifice to the chalice. Only one man and some words have lived through the death and rebirth cycle of Eternal Recursion.[[spoiler: The nameless Sorcerer, who soon spreads the ideology of Eternal Recursion and the words "This is where your story beings."]] Ironically, [[spoiler: It is the nameless sorcerer years later who breaks the cycle.]]
* The ''VideoGame/{{Dominions}}'' series implies this -- the premise of the games is that the previous Pantokrator (supreme god) has disappeared, and various Pretenders are now scrambling to take the post. Where this trope starts cropping up is in fairly consistent references to ''a'' previous Pantokrator (as opposed to ''the'' previous Pantokrator), implying this isn't the first time this has happened -- and indeed if you win the victory description mentions that eventually you get seduced away from being a Pantokrator by exploring higher mysteries, disappearing beyond the reach of everyone and leaving a power vacuum to be filled thus triggering a new Ascension War.

* ''VideoGame/EnergyBreaker'' plays out a similar situation. [[spoiler: [[BigGood Selphia]] and [[GodOfEvil Oriales]] are in a constant cycle of destroying the world and creating a new one in its place, and the heroes' eventual mission is to break the cycle]].
* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls:''
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' introduces this idea: ever since the first game (no matter which ending was chosen) the world has gone through successive Ages of Fire and Ages of Dark, each one ending in an outbreak of the Undead Curse, at which point an Undead eventually succeeds in triggering the beginning of the next cycle. Several characters in the second game are noted to have been aware of this and were trying to find a way to break this cycle. The game leaves it an open question as to whether or not that's even possible.
** The premise of ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' is that the destruction wrought by the cycles has all but doomed the world. The world is literally running on embers, the Dark is out of control, and even the boundaries of life and death have broken down. It's suggested that the world may not be able to survive another cycle, [[spoiler:and if you do Link the Fire to continue the cycles, it barely burns at all, a marked contrast to the powerful explosion of fire that happened in the first game, showing that even the linking of the flame that has kept the cycle going is beginning to fail]]. The game also gives you the chance to [[spoiler:break the cycle once and for all, by intentionally snuffing out the First Flame]].
* [[DefiedTrope Defied]] in the ending of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII''. The world is about to be destroyed in a catastrophic event the main characters are trying to prevent. [[spoiler:At the end it's revealed that stopping the event will unleash a potentially great evil on the world, and Desmond will die as a result, and he's told the better alternative is to let it happen and become the leader of a new world of survivors who will eventually be revered as a god and whose teachings will be subverted and used in the name of evil, causing many conflicts until the world gets hit with another catastrophic event, just as it has before and implied to have happened many, many times before. He chooses not to hit the reset button, letting the world continue on.]]
* According to Queen Nai, Ragnarok is something akin to this in ''VideoGame/{{Brawlhalla}}''.
* The final boss of ''VideoGame/{{Ikaruga}}'' mentions this, and argues there's no way to stop it. He seems to be uncertain if your awareness is even of such level that you can understand everything that's going on.
* As revealed by the very final boss of the game, the world of ''VideoGame/DragonsDogma'' is like this. [[spoiler: A dragon marks Arisen, one of whom eventually kills the dragon. They then go on to face the Seneschal, the divine motivator of the world, and either lose and become the next dragon or win and replace the Seneschal until they themselves are killed. This has occurred across countless worlds for all eternity.]]
* The ''VideoGame/SoulSeries'', known to most outsides as ''Soul Calibur'' since that's what every single sequel is named, proudly wears the tagline "Transcending history and the world, a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold..." And they mean it. Every single game (with the technical exception of the first) features the twin swords [[LivingWeapon Soul Edge and Soul Calibur]] finding new hosts to beat the crap out of each other with. The canon ending is always Soul Edge getting sealed away until the next time it can break free and challenge Soul Calibur.
* If you manage to purify all the crystals in ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'', what awaits you is [[spoiler:an entire parallel world in which you have to do the entire thing over again]]. This has happened millions of times before, and you can do this process [[spoiler:five]] times [[spoiler:at which point TheDragon has succeeded in her plan to summon her boss into the celestial realm]]. Even with the rematches against the optional bosses being different from their first encounters, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools this repetition has not sat well with many players]]. [[spoiler:Thankfully, the sequel downplays this by only having you press the ResetButton once]].
* It's implied in ''VideoGame/{{Bastion}}'' that [[spoiler: each time you choose the Restoration ending (turning back time to before the Calamity) the Calamity just happens again (reinforced by Rucks in the NewGamePlus having several moments of deja vu) until you choose the Evacuation ending (leaving the past be and going off to find a new place to settle down) to break the cycle.]]
* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'', the BigBad has been orchestrating it like so: [[spoiler: life grows from the Bionis, that life advances in technology enough to leave the Bionis, Zanza wakes up and summons the Telethia to wipe out all life on the Bionis, which eventually emerges again, and so on and so forth. Everything during the events of the game has been leading up to the conclusion of one of these cycles, but Shulk and his party are willing to put a stop to it.]]
* ''VideoGame/BillyVsSnakeman'': Originally, the idea behind NewGamePlus was that your anime got a new season. However, [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration it was eventually made into an in-universe ability]] called "looping", which your ninja is unique in being able to do. Cici eventually recruits you to attempt to break into a different world, because if something goes wrong and you die, you'll just loop again. [[spoiler:It works on the second try; on the first try, you fail, but someone else succeeds - that someone else is ''you'' from the second loop]]. [[WhamEpisode The Jungle]] reveals that you've looped ''hundreds of times'' before the game began, due to the interference of [[spoiler:Timmy, a.k.a. Mr. T]]. It's also established in Billycon that the [=MikaMika=] Douga can sense the Loop, but can't affect it, and it's driving them insane.
* The dominant religion in ''VideoGame/HeavensVault'' is "the Loop", a belief in the cyclicity of all things. Loopers believe that everything that happens has already happened before countless times, which gives rise to an extremely blasé attitude towards historians and archaelogists like Aliya. Some of the more reasonable Loopers realize that, assuming their beliefs are correct, digging up the distant past offers a direct look at the future, but whether any of this makes sense or has some truth to it is ultimately left ambiguous. It also serves as a [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration convenient justification]] for NewGamePlus.

* The last game in the [[VideoGame/GalaxyAngel Galaxy Angel II trilogy]] has a title that basically translates into this. A faction called The Will actually try to reset the universe, only to be defeated by the Rune Angel Wing (with their leaders being finished off by the Hyper Weapon of Kazuya's chosen Angel).
* In VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri, every time the planetary fungus network grows large enough to reach the edge of becoming fully sentient, it causes an explosive fungal overgrowth that wreaks ecological havoc on the biosphere, killing off enough of the world's life that its progress towards sentience is set back by thousands of years. One way to win the game is by breaking the cycle, having your colonists use their preexisting sentience and technology to help guide it safely through this process.
* This is the final reveal at the end of ''VideoGame/{{killer7}}''. [[spoiler:No matter what happens, Harmon and Kun Lan will come back in one hundred years and play the game again. They switch roles every so often, taking turns at who's "good" and who's "evil", but there appears to be nothing that can break this cycle.]]

* In ''Webcomic/UnicornJelly'', both [[spoiler:a select few of the human race fleeing the destructive "Stormfall" to colonize a new world and guide it towards being able to construct more arks when the stormfall catches up to them]] and [[spoiler:the discovery of a weapon that creates such a "stormfall", which causes everything to turn into meteors through chain reaction, and crushes everything in the universe into a set of densely-packed orbs (which explains why only specific native species exist on every world plate) only for non-Jellese life to eventually return when the "hyperspace raindrops" phenomenon transports species from another cosmos once again]]--though the latter isn't apparent until the [[DistantFinale final arc]] of the strip.

* Universes in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' are eventually destroyed [[spoiler: due to Lord English, but universes are also created constantly due to Skaia. This process of Sburb has no known beginning or end, though the sessions shown in the comic are instrumental to certain conditions perpetuating it. It is implied all universes and reality itself is merely the shape of another, higher being / force known only as Paradox Space, implicitly responsible for the settings [[YouCantFightFate immutable fate]].]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Godslave}}'', the gods must die and be reborn every so often to ensure the End doesn't happen. Anpu used to be in charge of this, but after his pantheon rebelled, he was forced to stop and it's unsure now what the result was, is or will be.
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': After [[EldritchAbomination the Snarl]] destroyed the world, the gods made another world to imprison it. [[spoiler:And after ''that'' world was destroyed, the gods made another. And another. And another. [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1139.html And another]]...]]
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', there was an [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2018-01-29 ancient cycle]] of TheMagicGoesAway and TheMagicComesBack intended to maintain the status quo of the accessibility of magic with a {{Masquerade}}. [[spoiler:Tedd manages to break the cycle by [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2018-02-14 convincing]] the Will of Magic that due to technological advances, maintaining the Masquerade by changing the magic system won't work anymore since knowledge travels too fast now]].

* In the final season of ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'', it's revealed that Pops is an alien and a PhysicalGod, and every 14 billion years the universe is reset during a battle between him and his EvilTwin. [[spoiler: In the SeriesFinale, Pops manages to finally break the cycle by [[HeroicSacrifice killing himself]] [[TakingYouWithMe and his brother]].]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TwelveOunceMouse'', it’s increasingly strongly implied that [[EldritchLocation the city]] and characters are stuck in some kind of perpetually repeating series of events, [[spoiler:possibly as part of a LotusEaterMachine]]. Some characters appear to [[RippleEffectProofMemory retain their memories of all the loops]], while others like Fritz [[LaserGuidedAmnesia don’t]], hence the strange flashbacks and dreams he keeps having. [[spoiler:The ending is [[AmbiguousEnding ambiguous]]; either the heroes have broken the loop, or they’ve merely entered the next phase of it, or something else entirely.]]

** According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincaré_recurrence_theorem Poincaré recurrence theorem]], any finite system will eventually return to its original state. This includes the universe, if it is finite; however, this will take [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future 10^10^10^10^10^1.1 years]], so an exceedingly long time.

* The basic premise of ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' canon. Every so many generations a great evil (usually Ganondorf/Ganon) will consume Hyrule, and reincarnations of Link and Zelda will defeat it. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'' reveals that this is due to [[spoiler:the curse [[GodOfEvil Demise]] placed on Link and Zelda. An incarnation of his hatred -- Ganon -- will hound Link and Zelda's reincarnated selves until the end of time.]] In the ''Wind Waker'' timeline, [[spoiler:the cycle is broken when everything related to the cycle -- Ganondorf, the Master Sword, and even Hyrule itself -- is returned to the bottom of the ocean forever.]]

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story ''Literature/Nightfall1941'', a well-known cult claims that all civilization is destroyed every 2049 years when the Stars come out and cover the planet (which has six suns and therefore never experiences true darkness) in fire. At the beginning of the story, an archaeologist discovers this has indeed happened several times already. [[spoiler:Turns out, every 2049 years five of its suns are in one hemisphere, while there's only one remaining on the other. That sun is eclipsed for a long period, eventually covering the whole planet in darkness as it rotates. All the people go crazy and set fires, looking for a new source of light, burning down their whole civilization like clockwork.]]

* EternalRecurrence is a very common element of Music/SoundHorizon albums, starting with their very first (Chronicle).

** The climax of the trilogy states that [[spoiler:the actions of the Reapers are in response to ''another'' EternalRecurrence that they have observed throughout history: The inevitable RobotWar that results when civilizations [[AIIsACrapshoot create AI and it rebels against them]]. To prevent artifical intelligence from wiping out organic life the Catalyst created the Reapers to "preserve" organic races by converting into Reapers as soon as they had the capacity to create AI. It isn't clear if this other cycle is natural, or a result of the Reapers subtly guiding the development of each cycle by planting tech for them to find; the Catalyst claims the former, but the Reaper Sovereign boasted of the latter]]. During the climax, [[spoiler:the Catalyst acknowledges that Shepard actually reaching it is a sign that the Reaper Cycle is breaking down. An organic actually meeting the Catalyst in the heart of the Citadel is the one event that never occurred in any previous Cycle.]]

The term ''Eternal Recurrence'' was itself coined by Creator/FriedrichNietzsche, who (while never suggesting this theory was true) adopted it as a thought experiment to test one's willpower. For example, a truly virtuous, life-loving person would be able to endure reliving his ''entire'' life's experience (both triumphs and and mistakes) over and over, with ''neither bitterness nor regret''. A person capable of this degree of engagement with the world demonstrates mastery of ''amor fati'' and the 'self-affirming Yes'. It's also to prevent Nietzschean philosophical concepts, such as the {{Ubermensch}}, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubermensch#Relation_to_the_eternal_recurrence from becoming overly-idealistic]].

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story ''Literature/Nightfall1941'', a well-known cult claims that all civilization is destroyed every 2049 years when the Stars come out and cover the planet (which never experiences true darkness) in fire. At the beginning of the story, an archaeologist discovers this has indeed happened several times already. [[spoiler:Turns out, every 2049 years five of its suns are in one hemisphere, while there's only one remaining on the other. That sun is eclipsed for a long period, eventually covering the whole planet in darkness as it rotates. All the people go crazy and set fires, looking for a new source of light, burning down their whole civilization like clockwork.]]

* In the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' supplement "Tall Tales of the Wee Folk" for [[FanNickname BECMI]], a centaur relates an account of how the current [=BECMI=] cosmology, in which the Spheres of Energy, Matter, Time and Thought oppose the Sphere of Entropy, is a temporary phenomenon: in the distant past, the four Spheres were a single Sphere of Life, and ''Entropy'' was divided into four. The unaging Faeries of the present are former Immortals from this era, who'd protected the Sphere of Life during the previous iteration, and will do so again when their full powers return as the Spheres shift once again, in a neverending trade-off between Life's dominion and Entropy's.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' has the ArcWords, "This has all happened before," and these words do come to pass when the secret of the [[MacGuffin Planospheric Disc]] is revealed to be that [[spoiler:it keeps the Ultimate Evil sealed away in an alternate dimension, and every so often a team of four detectives and their TeamPet seeks the pieces out, with the animal always being the first to be corrupted by the promise of power and riches beyond their wildest dreams. The cycle is broken in the end, however, when the group finally manages to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kill it]].]]

* Prior to the rise of Christianity, this was the dominant form of metaphysical belief regarding one of the aspects of history if not reality among many cultures - everything was a cycle with no real sense of "progress". Some recent historical theories have proposed a modified form of recurrence while others offer a synthesis of progress and repetition.

* There's a hypothesis that suggests that intelligent life gets to a point where it eventually destroys itself, and that is why we never met any aliens yet - they’re either no more, or in a situation similar to us, looking into the sky and pondering if they are alone or not. Every time any intelligent extraterrestrial life got to a certain point, it ended up destroying itself before it left it's planet. Some who subscribe to this idea hope that HumansAreSpecial, and that we broke past that ceiling, or will break past it.

* In ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}'', it is made clear that what happens to the town has already happened, and it will happen again.

--->'''Captain Kuznetsov''': Spacetime itself is rending itself apart and we're seeing echoes of every timeline in the past and future. Time is an ouroboros, devouring itself again and again, only to be reborn. I saw all of it. All of the times we tried to stop it in the past. All the times that I tried to stop it in the past. And the future. This happens again and again, until we get it right. Over and over again, we try and try to fix it. All times blend together until we reach singularity and all is lost. The tear opens more holes everywhere in reality, and the anomalies appear faster and faster, but containment is only delaying the inevitable. The inevitable cleansing of the slate. I saw all the timelines. [[DespairEventHorizon And we haven't stopped it in any of them. Bogoroditsa. We have seen into the abyss, and by God, it hates us.]]

* There's a hypothesis that suggests that intelligent life gets to a point where it eventually destroys itself, and that is why we never met any aliens yet. Every time any intelligent extraterrestrial life got to a certain point, it ended up destroying itself before it left it's planet. Some who subscribe to this idea hope that HumansAreSpecial, and that we broke past that ceiling, or will break past it.

* ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun''. [[spoiler:The entire plot of the game is one of these, thanks to the "big bad" (if it can be considered that) warping you back to 100,000 BC at the end of the game. The clones of the player characters - the originals of both having died in the Stone-Like's penultimate onslaught - are the genesis of humanity.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'', the BigBad has been orchestrating it like so: [[spoiler: life grows from the Bionis, that life advances in technology enough to leave the Bionis, Zanza wakes up and summons the Telethia to wipe out all life on the Bionis, which eventually emerges again, and so on and so forth. Everything during the events of the game has been leading up to the conclusion of one of these cycles, but Shulk and his party are willing to put a stop to it.]]