History Main / ExpansionPackWorld

** A worse example is ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]''. At least three major species (Denobulans, Xindi, and Sulaban) are introduced in the expansion pack ''prequel''. Since they were never mentioned before, it means at least three species have vanished entirely from the galaxy.

* In the second season of ''MagicKnightRayearth'', it's revealed that the magic separating Cephiro from other countries is now gone. These "countries" are more similar to other planets; and it requires a ship and enormous magic/technology to traverse the gulf in between.

* In a reversal, ''UltimaI'' had 4 continents, but became one continent with ''UltimaIII''. Much {{retcon}}ning was done to explain this in the later games, with at least one continent still unaccounted for.

* The first ''{{Warcraft}}'' game was set on a single continent, home to the kingdom of Azeroth and featured humans and orcs as the only intelligent races. Its sequels added three additional continents (and expanded the original greatly), four other inhabited planets, and no less than two dozen additional races; additionally, the name "Azeroth" somehow came to apply to the entire planet rather than the human kingdom, which was [[RetCon retroactively]] renamed "Stormwind".
** To be more specific: In the first game, we had the one Kingdom, Azeroth. The second game expanded the word "Azeroth" to the entire original continent, which included a region called Khaz Modan, and revealed there was also another continent named Lordaeron to the north of Azeroth, as well as another world named Draenor where the orcs came from. Then in ''Warcraft 3'' the "lost" continent of Kalimdor was found, along with an even more northerly continent of Northrend. ''WorldOfWarcraft'' added little or no actual geography but renamed the original continents the "Eastern Kingdoms", consisting of [[PlanetEngland Azeroth]] (where the kingdom formerly known as Azeroth lies), Lordaeron and Khaz Modan. For the most part the franchise has avoided making places up entirely. The ''Burning Crusade'' expansion to WoW returned to the already established Draenor, although they were revealed to be a bit more intact than most had though. Admittedly, it also added a bit onto one of the existing continents for the Blood Elves to live in, and revealed the presence of a previously invisible (and previously quite unimportant) island where the Draenei crashed. ''Wrath of the Lich King'' allowed players access to Northrend. Which, while it hadn't previously been on the maps, was known to exist already and had in fact sent a number of flying ziggurats to invade the other kingdoms. The ''Cataclysm'' expansion allows players access to the oceans, previously empty and inaccessible in the game, and to elemental planes, likewise in lore but not developed or accessible. ''WorldOfWarcraft'' ascribes to the rule that if you can't go there yourself, it's not on the map, since that would make your map a bit confusing. But most of the locations are theoretically out there already.
*** And now a new continent that had previously been hidden is being discovered in the newest expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Again justified in that it and it's people had been part of the background since Warcraft 3, and because it moves around.

** Also, a few regions aren't sure to fit within the country of Gens I-IV - it helps that they're based on [[PokemonColosseum Arizona]], [[PokemonBlackAndWhite New York]], and [[PokemonXAndY France]] in contrast to the Japan inspiration of the others.
** In Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, A good few new ares were created, which ahd supposedly been there the whole time. Also, one place had a rockslide all over it since the last game.

* ''FireEmblem'', a new world and conflicts are established every one or two games.

* ''{{Ys}}'' series, Adol always go on a new adventure in a new continent.

** The specific example in the intro may not be one, though: the prophecy is not "four humans", but "[[ExactWords two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve]]"

** Then there are the Ferengi, who are introduced in ''Next Gen'' as a relatively newly-encountered and dangerous species, but by ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' are depicted as [[RetCon having been a major economic power in the quadrant for decades]].

* Adding new planets and species to a space setting is normal. The problem comes when, for example, you introduce a species/planet and say it was already relevant. For example, the Cardassians in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. When they were introduced, the Federation was just supposed to have ended a war with them. A war that would have spanned the early seasons of the show.
*** Well space is rather big, and the Federation is probably much bigger then the Cardassian Empire, so Star Fleet could have simply not have put all its resources into the conflict -- mostly because by the time other ships could get across Federation space, the war would probably be either going horribly for the Federation, so their reserves would end up fighting much closer to the center of Federation space and get there faster, while if they set out right away they might get there right in time to see the end of the war. Also, because the Cardassians were apparently fighting the Klingons as well it is doubtful the war was going to last long enough to justify the costs of moving every ship in the fleet to go to war. Think of Iraq invading Kuwait, Iraq made it deep into Kuwait and caused a lot of problems, but then when the UN finally goes into action Iraq isn't much of a threat anymore. The UN didn't need to call for every member of every nation's military, just more than enough to get the job done.

*** Actually the last two not appearing in the other series could be explained by the alternations to the time line caused by the temporal war, which in Star Trek altering the time line causes a a new universe to form instead of actually changing your own past. Since the Xindi only attacked Earth because of the tampering by time travelers and the Sulaban only have their tech as payment from the future it is quite plausible contact between the Federation and those two races simply hadn't occurred in the first timeline. This would also explain many differences in ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' from Star Trek canon.
*** Granted that the Denobulans are never indicated to be ''that'' important (their main role is that one of them ends up becoming Enterprise's chief medical officer), and Star Trek has a long, long history of having previously not seen species show up in the background, generally serving in Starfleet.

* A literal expansion pack world occurred in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'': the expansion pack ''Shivering Isles'' takes place in the domain of the god of madness, which is almost completely disconnected from the original world. The link is a portal on an island that magically appears in the middle of lake. The game even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the island's sudden appearance.

* The ''SuperMarioBros'' games, as well as all the RPG spinoffs, at least when it doesn't just [[ChaosArchitecture seem to rebuild the entire Mushroom Kingdom from scratch]], like to suddenly reveal all new countries just across the border from the main area, such as the lands of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'', Sarasara Land from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'', Mario's own (unexplained in subsequent games) kingdom in ''Super Mario Land 2'', Beanbean Kingdom from ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' and Rogueport and the surrounding areas (plus the offscreen adventures of Luigi in the Waffle Kingdom and nearby lands) from ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor''.

*** Well space is rather big, and the Federation is probably much bigger then the Cardassian Empire so Star Fleet could have simply not have put all it's resources into the conflict, mostly because by the time other ships could get across Federation space the war would probably be either going horribly for the Federation so their reserves would end up fighting much closer to the center of Federation space and get there faster while if they set out right away they might get there right in time to see the end of the war. Also, because the Cardassians were apparently fighting the Klingons as wall it is doubtful the war was going to last long enough to justify the costs of moving every ship in the fleet to go to war. Think of Iraq invading Kuwait, Iraq made it deep into Kuwait and caused a lot of problems, but then when the UN finally goes into action Iraq isn't much of a threat anymore. The UN didn't need to call for every member of every nation's military, just more then enough to get the job done.

* TheMatrixReloaded. The first Matrix film had a much smaller budget, with a relatively simple story. The second and third films had much larger budgets, with the Animatrix as reference material. As a result, there has been some debate as to whether or not the latter two films should be considered "true" sequels.

** Kara-Tur is at least somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]]; as in real life, Asia was largely unknown to Europeans for a long time.
*** However, they had to ride horses or carts, or walk, whereas D&D has magic (flight, teleport), giant flying creatures (some of which have been specifically labelled as potential mounts) and a massive tunnel system running under the surface of the entire world (walking in and wandering around for a bit is a pretty standard adventure, and you could come out somewhere wierd). It's not the same thing.
** Also, at least slightly plausible, was introducing ''Maztica'', which was basically the Americas before Columbus, and located on an entirely separate continent.

* The ''[[StargateVerse [=Stargate SG-1=]]]'' series introduces a vast BackStory (and several thousand planets) not hinted at in the film. The creators of the film had their own backstory in mind, which was elaborated on in spin-off novels, but the series ignored it.

* ''{{Majesty}}'' plays this so straight it's almost a LampshadeHanging with the aptly-named ''Northern Expansion'' ExpansionPack, which reveals a previously inaccessible northern half of the world map. Possibly a subversion, as it's visibly the same world map graphic save for the fact you can now scroll north of the mountain range in the middle of the continent; perhaps the new content was cut from the original game due to time constraints?

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' adds a parallel world of twilight, [[hottip:*:not to be confused with the Dark World from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'']], connected to Hyrule only by a mirror, [[hottip:*:[[SincerityMode also nothing like]] ''A Link to the Past'' either]] which has an otherworldly glow to it filled with [[spoiler:the shadowy descendants of dark wizards trapped by the Goddesses. They were the creators of the first set of PlotCoupons in the game, the Fused Shadows]]. This world starts to be merged with the world of light, aka Hyrule and its plane of existence [[spoiler:by Ganon for revenge]]. It's also the home of Midna and [[spoiler:Zant]]. Oh, and Hyrule has an icy peak in this game. Wait, what?

* Similarly, in the sequels to the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games, it's revealed that ''Red'' and ''Blue'' took place in the region of Kanto, which is just one region within a larger nation. ''Gold'' and ''Silver'' takes place in the region of Johto, just to the west. ''Ruby'' and ''Sapphire'' takes place on Hoenn, an island far to the south, and ''Diamond'' and ''Pearl'' on Sinnoh, far to the north - but they are all encapsulated within the same country, a [[FantasyCounterpartCulture thinly-veiled approximation of Japan]]. ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'', meanwhile, takes place in a different area (Orre), and its sequel, ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness'', adds a new section to the northwest of the region, while keeping most of the original game's locations.

** Tolkien was at lest prudent enough to revise ''The Hobbit'' to clean up major inconsistencies -- and the "innocence" of the Ring is explained in ''The Lord of the Rings'' as Bilbo not telling the whole story because of its evil effects.

** Force outdid every series yet, by revealing worlds besides Mid-Childa and Earth, which includes the TSAB-administrated core worlds (5 besides Mid-Childa so far) and non-administrated ones.

** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' takes place on the east coast, around DC in a region called ''The Capital Wastelands''.

*** New Vegas's DLC also do this. The first, ''Dead Money'' takes place at the Seirra Madre casino and the villa surrounding it. ''Honest Hearts'' is set in Zion National Park in Utah while ''Old World Blues'' takes place in a crater/old world research facility known as the Big MT. The final DLC, ''Lonesome Road'', takes place in an area known as the Divide, which was apparently the site of a old world missile base and the town that sprang up around it that was torn asunder by a cataclysmic event in the Courier's past.

* A number of {{Dragonlance}} novels pulled Expansion Pack Races. "Actually, there's also an entire underground kingdom of metal-working elves right beneath all the cities you know about!" Some of these would be integrated into the rest of the setting as it went forward, others would never be mentioned again outside of the book/series that particular author was working on. These races would tend to be "discovered" by the protagonist of the story that first featured them, helping to explain why we the reader haven't encountered them previously, but in at least one case (the FairFolk in the ''Defenders of Magic'' trilogy) very shortly after they're first discovered, other characters refer to them casually as if they've known about them all along.

*** However, they had to ride horses or carts, or walk, whereas D&D has magic (flight, teleport), giant flying creatures (some of which have been specifically labelled as potential mounts) and a massive tunnel system running under the surface of the entire world (walking in and wandering around for a bit is a pretty standard adventure, and you could come out somewhere wierd). it's not the same thing.
** Also at least slightly plausible was introducing ''Maztica'', which was basically the Americas before Columbus, and located on an entirely separate continent.

* {{Everquest}} loves this trope. The game originally had three continents. Antonica, the main continent. Faydwer, to the east, which had the elven, dwarven and gnome homelands. Odus, a tiny island where a human subrace hailed from. Then the first expansion introduced Kunark, a {{LostWorld}} full of ancient ruins and deadly lizards. The second expansion added Velious, a frozen northern waste with powerful dragons and giants and more dwarves. Most expansions have added a new continent, sets of planes of existence, or vast new stretches to existing continents.