History Main / InterfaceSpoiler

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac: Rebirth'' features The Lost. The Lost was initially supposed to be a secret character, so his unlock method in the base game is extremely difficult and requires much trial and error. He was obviously intended by Creator/EdmundMcMillen to remain secret for months, if not years. Needless to say, Edmundwas not pleased when dataminers discovered and unearthed The Lost within weeks of the game's release, despite the fanbase being almost as fast to discover the secret in its entirely through brute force. How did both dataminers and legitimate players know that there is at all a character who is hard to unlock and whose existence is kept secret ingame? Unlocking him gets you a Steam achievement, which is not hidden in any way. Later DLC for the game avoided this, either by patching in secret characters and their achievements after the fact, by revealing all the secret characters at launch, or by [[spoiler:hiding the alternate "Tainted" versions of characters on a separate menu that doesn't appear until you unlock them]].

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac Rebirth'' features The Lost. The Lost is supposed to be a secret character, and has an extremely difficult, trial-and-error unlock method in the base game. He was obviously intended by Creator/EdmundMcMillen to remain secret for months, if not years. Needless to say, he was no tpleased when dataminers discovered and unearthed The Lost within weeks of the game's release, despite the fanbase being almost as fast to discover the secret in its entirely through brute force. How did both dataminers and legitimate players know that there is at all a character who is hard to unlock and whose existence is kept secret ingame? Unlocking him gets you a Steam achievement, which is not hidden in any way. Later DLC for the game avoided this, either by patching in secret characters and their achievements after a certain date, by revealing all the secret characters at launch, or by [[spoiler:hiding the alternate "Tainted" versions of characters on a separate menu that doesn't appear until you unlock them]].

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': ''Rebirth'' features a secret character. Said character has an extremely difficult, trial-and-error way to unlock him, and was obviously intended by Creator/EdmundMcMillen to remain secret for months, if not years. Needless to say, he was mightly pissed off at the dataminers who discovered and unearthed it within weeks of the game's release, despite the fanbase being almost as fast to discover the secret in its entirely through brute force. How did both dataminers and legitimate players know that there is at all a character who is hard to unlock and whose existence is kept secret ingame? Unlocking him gets you a Steam achievement, which is not hidden in any way.

** The status bar on the bottom of the screen looks like it's divided symmetrically, yet Bella's status only takes up half of it.

* In ''[[VideoGame/TRAGTacticalRescueAssaultGroupMissionOfMercy T.R.A.G.]]'', you start out with only two playable characters, [[ActionGenreHeroGuy Alex]] and [[ActionGirl Michelle]]. However, in the menu, you can easily press L or R enough times to get a sneak peek at the silhouettes and names of the two additional playable characters, [[AmericaSavesTheDay Burns]] and [[GenkiGirl Rachel]], long before you actually encounter them in the game.

* Choose-Your-Own-Adventures videos on [=YouTube=], or videos with heavy use of the Annotations, fall for this if they use repeated clips for their bad endings, as viewers can look at the url of the video in question and turns the video into a game of Guess Who.

* The later ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' games have your health in the form of little green dots around a circle. Starting with ''Jak 3'', once the existence of {{Heart Container}}s is established you can calculate how many more you're likely to get based on how much of the circle it covers. Similarly, even if you were just handed a Jak 3 disc without a case and had missed the entire second game, you could easily guess that you eventually access Light Eco powers when you see that only half the Yin Yang symbol in your HUD fills up with purple when you collect the dark stuff.

* The anime adaptation of ''Literature/LogHorizon'' invokes this by doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact that Rondel is actually a [[NonPlayerCharacter Person of the Land]], even though the visual nature of the adaptation means a few glaring indicators of that(such as the fact that his ID window uses the green NPC background rather than the blue one Players use) are now out in the open.

* In ''VisualNovel/ChoicesStoriesYouPlay'', descriptions for the next two chapters are often released ahead of time, so you know when is TheClimax or the ending two weeks before the chapter's actual release.

* ''VideoGame/SoulCalibur IV'' was released for the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} and UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, and, like SCII, each platform had its own GuestFighter, this time from the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe: Darth Vader for [=PS3=] and Yoda for the Xbox (and [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed Starkiller]] for both). Many people figured that they would release the other system's character as DLC, but Namco didn't confirm nor deny. The suspense (if there was any) was ruined when the game had a single suspiciously empty square on the character select screen once everything was unlocked.

*** Another comes when Baigan joins the party. That brings the party total to six, which is more than can even physically fit in the menu screen, so it's no surprise when he turns out to be lying. This is even more obvious in later versions of the game: in the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance version, every playable character has their CharacterPortrait appear onscreen when they speak. The fact that Baigan lacks a portrait is a dead giveaway that he's not playable. In the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS remake, Baigan uses a palette-swapped generic soldier model, in contrast to the rather distinct-looking (though still a palette swap, but not as obvious) helmetless sprite he had in prior versions of the game, which gives away that he's not a very important character, and certainly not playable.

* Games that have an AchievementSystem on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} can choose to have certain achievements hidden until you unlock them. Though this leads to another problem if you've reached what seems to be the ending to the game, then you see that a good 90% of the hidden achievements are still locked. Although these could just be secrets and {{Easter Egg}}s. While you can spoil yourself by seeing the hidden achievements through the global stats page, they won't tell you how to unlock them.

* The UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 disables its internal recording features when a game enters a point designated as a "blocked scene", with a popup to explain this. If said popup appears at the start of a seemingly innocuous cutscene, you can be sure a WhamEpisode is coming.

** In ''[[VideoGame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid Legacy of the Void]]'', you can view the mission acievements on the launch screen. As a result, for example, on a mission where you send Artanis alone into a temple, you can see an achievement for [[spoiler:killing a certain number of units with banelings]]. Combined with the trailers, it is easy to guess that you are going to [[spoiler:fight alongside Kerrigan]]. The army assembly panel also shows ''three'' buttons for every unit you have available when you unlock it, thus spoiling that you'll have more variants for your units than just Aiur or Nerazim (even if ''what'' those other options are, [[spoiler:or even that there's ''two'' additional Protoss factions that'll help Artanis, with every tier lacking an option from one of the four factions]], is obscured).

*** The game has has deliberately cryptic and vague trophy descriptions to avoid spoiling the plot. [[spoiler:Defeat Grundy]]? "Stop the unstoppable - '''Wrecking Ball'''". [[spoiler:Defeat Ra's al Ghul]]? "We are legion - '''Sandstorm'''". ''[[spoiler:Defeat the FinalBoss]]?'' "All the world is a stage - '''Exit Stage Right'''". However, astute players and fans of the comics might have picked up on the last achievement being a reference to [[spoiler:Clayface, considering his past life as an actor.]]

* DeathTropes as listed on a character page is sort of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. One one hand, spoiling the name of the trope (which is actually forbidden) will give the reader nothing to go on, so curiosity may entice them to highlight it anyway. On the other hand, leaving the name of a trope like KilledOffForReal or DeadAllAlong ends up covering up approximately nothing.

* Most ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' achievements don't bother with obscuring spoiler objectives. One exception is the achievement for the Trial of the Crusader raid, which hides the name of the final boss, only showing it as "Complete the Trial of the Crusader". The final boss is [[spoiler:Anub'arak, after the Lich King breaks the floor of the Coliseum and makes you fall into the Nerubian tunnels below it]]. Later, even this was spoiled by the raid-lock system, which names the bosses that have and have not been defeated this week. By then, though, raid leaders generally insisted on either giving all first-timers a {{Walkthrough}} or having them watch one on Website/YouTube, making a LateArrivalSpoiler inevitable anyway.

* On Website/AO3, every fic shows the tags the author has added, which usually include characters. This can spoil the appearance of some characters, or who is in a relationship with who, or even characters' {{Secret Identit|y}}ies from the source material, if the reader hasn't caught up yet.

* If a work seems cheerful and bright, but has a DarthWiki/DarthWiki or NightmareFuel tab, chances are you are looking at a DisguisedHorrorStory.

* If a work seems cheerful and bright, but has a DarthWiki/DarthWiki or NightmareFuel tab, chances are [[DisguisedHorrorStory there will be much more to the work than meets the eye]]. The same could apply to the existence of TearJerker tabs, to a lesser extent.

*** A downplayed example can be found in the stat spread of the [[EleventhHourRanger late-arrival character]] Renault ([[SpellMyNameWithAnS or 'Renaud' in the PAL region]]). For a level 16 [[ReligionIsMagic Bishop class]] unit, his Magic stat of 12 is practically worthless. However, his Speed and Skill stats are both abnormally high (just four points off of their respective caps), and seem as though they'd fit better on a more melee-oriented class (such as a Hero or a Swordmaster). It's revealed in [[RelationshipValues his support conversations with other units]] that he was once a mercenary, and had only [[HeelFaithTurn taken the cloth]] not that long ago.

* In ''VideoGame/StickyBusiness'' the Christmas sticker part section in the Upgrade store has an incomplete checklist, even if you bought all the available festive foil effects and sticker parts at the time. This is because the Christmas update has the Festive Calendar system in unlocking new ones, where you have to PlayEveryDay to collect them (although they can be bought with hearts anytime if you miss a day).

*** The new party member in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'', Kasumi, awakens to her Persona in early October, when your party is likely to be in the mid-40's level-wise. If you look at her stats during her awakening battle, you'll notice she doesn't learn her next skill until Level ''75'', giving away that she doesn't properly join until much, much later, starting at 75.

* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' spoils the existence of the Komato from level one as their weapons are an upgradable stat.

** ''Ragnarok'' also has a persistent little spoiler you'll probably only catch ''after'' TheReveal: [[spoiler: The name of the Norse god of war is Týr, with an accent over the 'y', and whenever Týr is the subject of discussion, the subtitles spell it correctly. But when said character actually ''speaks'', the dialogue is labeled as coming from 'Tyr', with no accent. As it turns out, Tyr is ''not'' Týr; it's Odin impersonating him. When the ''real'' Týr shows up in the postgame, his dialogue is attributed to 'Týr'.]]

* In ''[[VideoGame/BrutalLegend Brütal Legend]]'', entering the multiplayer menu plays a tutorial cutscene which spoils [[spoiler:Ophelia turning villainous.]] Less blatantly, there's the empty unit and solo slots.

*** The setting has ''many'' gods, but only six are actually talked about in various loading screens: Shar, Selûne, Mrykul, Bhaal, Bane, and Jergal. The first two are key figures in Shadowheart's questline from the start of the game to the very end, so they're not really a surprise, but the next three (collectively known as "The Dead Three") are [[spoiler:the ones behind the Absolute]] and the last one [[spoiler:[[GodWasMyCopilot turns out to have been Withers]]]].

** The French translation did a Translation Spoiler by mistake: when you first arrive in Nibelheim with Sephiroth, Cloud asks him about his family. During [[spoiler:Sephiroth's MindRape of Cloud in the Whirlwind Maze]], Sephiroth answers "Ma mère s'appelait Jenova" (my mother's name was Jenova). But in the flashback in Kalm, he says "Ma mère était Jenova" (My mother was Jenova). Cue many players scratching theirs heads when he started to go psycho about the whole Jenova thing.

** Another one from ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', though minor. When capturing a Pokémon, the ball will shake up to 3 times before stopping to indicate a successful capture as a means of building suspense. Except how many times a ball will shake is actually a rough indicator of your chances of capturing the Pokémon outright. For example, when going up against a legendary and your chances of capture are say less than 10%, once you see the ball connect, it's a capture, as every other time it'll simply "miss." This basically ruins any sort of suspense this was supposed to create.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' introduces the seemingly random (though rather strange) N, who challenges you to a Pokémon battle... and gets an animated sprite, an honour reserved for significant characters only. He also shares similar views to [[AnimalWrongsGroup Team Plasma]], wholeheartedly believing in their Pokémon liberation goals, and constantly guilt-trips the player character into not battling. Sure enough, that's the BigBad... until [[TheManBehindTheMan Ghetsis]] is introduced.
** Can be invoked through the miracle of Wonder Trade in ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', ''VideoGame/PokemonOmegaRubyAndAlphaSapphire'', and ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon''. It's possible (but ''very'' unlikely) to Wonder Trade one of your ComMons and receive a Pokémon that you normally cannot obtain until the post-game. Bonus points for if you happen to get [[spoiler:one of the Ultra Beasts]] in ''Sun and Moon'', or a Solgaleo/Lunala and you wonder why it's named "[[spoiler:Nebby]]."

** A minor but useful one: enemy weaknesses always follow the same order (Swords → Polearms → Daggers → Axes → Bows → Staffs → Fire → Ice → Lightning → Wind → Light → Dark). This makes it easier to guess at any remaining weaknesses you haven't uncovered yet. For example, if an enemy has a displayed weakness to Daggers and still has an empty box to the left of that, you know it has to be either Swords or Polearms.

*** The fact that [[spoiler:Mòrag will join the party]] is practically given away if the party decides to do a sidequest in Mor Ardain the second it becomes available. The sidequest in question leads to a murder investigation, but you are [[AbilityRequiredToProceed blocked from proceeding until you get the help of someone familiar with Mor Ardain]]. At that point, there's really only one candidate for this: [[spoiler:Mòrag]].

* In ''VideoGame/StickyBusiness'', the foil effect section and the Christmas sticker part section in the Upgrade store both have incomplete checklists, even if you bought all the available festive foil effects and sticker parts. This is because the Christmas update has the Festive Calendar system in unlocking new ones, where you have to PlayEveryDay to collect them (although they can be bought with hearts anytime if you miss a day).

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', the app icon usually features one of the protagonists of the most recent book. The fact that the icon during Book VII features Gullveig, the ''antagonist'', is actually a huge tell [[spoiler: that she and Seiðr, the protagonist, are the same person.]]

* The teaser reveal for Solgaleo and Lunala GX in the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' Trading Card Game blotted out several of the various stats for the Pokémon in question on their card. While fans initially thought this was to just add to the suspense of revealing these cards' capabilities, it turned out that this was to avoid an InterfaceSpoiler revealing that [[spoiler:Solgaleo and Lunala are both Stage 2 evolved Pokémon, although Legendary and Mythical Pokémon have previously never been part of an evolution line. In addition, the two legendaries being evolved forms of Cosmoem was a major spoiler for [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon that generation of video games]]]].

-->'''[=TheRealNinjaBoy=]:''' It's to [[spoiler:hide how long the episode actual is]], all done on purpose...If the episode [[spoiler:is a lot shorter than the previous ones]] then it'd show that [[spoiler:I died at some point so blank space to hide the fact that I died]]

Many "[[AchievementSystem]]" lists will give things away about the game to come; for example, the names of certain bosses, levels, etc. However, others may avert this by leaving any story-related achievements hidden until they're achieved or only giving them vague descriptions like "Defeat the FinalBoss," or even just replacing spoiler names/locations/etc. with "???".

Many "{{Achievement}System}}" lists will give things away about the game to come; for example, the names of certain bosses, levels, etc. However, others may avert this by leaving any story-related achievements hidden until they're achieved or only giving them vague descriptions like "Defeat the FinalBoss," or even just replacing spoiler names/locations/etc. with "???".

* In ''VideoGame/StickyBusiness'', the foil effect section and the Christmas sticker part section in the Upgrade store both have incomplete checklists, even if you bought all the available festive foil effects and sticker parts. This is because the Christmas update has an Advent Calendar system in unlocking new ones, where you have to PlayEveryDay to collect them (although they can be bought with hearts anytime if you miss a day).

Many "[[AchievementSystem Achievement]]" lists will give things away about the game to come; for example, the names of certain bosses, levels, etc. However, others may avert this by leaving any story-related achievements hidden until they're achieved or only giving them vague descriptions like "Defeat the FinalBoss," or even just replacing spoiler names/locations/etc. with "???".

* ''VideoGame/NoUmbrellasAllowed'': Not too long after getting your first two appraisal tools, a customer comes in to sell a copy of ''The Great Heist'', but HUE tells them to hold it off because you're "not ready" yet. This is because it has tags such as "Rare" and "Popular Among the Youth", which won't be encountered and properly appraised until you unlock the relevant pages in Darcy's manual.