History Main / RestrictedExpandedUniverse

* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': Due to concerns about ContinuityLockout, the TV portion has so far not been able to have any effect on the movies. While shows like ''Series/AgentCarter'', ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'', ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' and ''Series/{{Luke Cage|2016}}'' are sufficiently distanced from the movies for it to not matter, ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' is bound by the rule that the Avengers cannot know that Coulson is still alive. This has led to a few cases where Coulson has to remind people who know the Avengers not to tell them about him, and in turn, the movies have not acknowledged Coulson's survival even when he could or should logically appear -- specifically, ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' has [[spoiler:Comicbook/NickFury show up with a Helicarrier he had kept hidden]], and the following ''Agents'' episode established that Coulson was involved in setting it up, but the movie doesn't mention Coulson's involvement at all. This was later changed with the series made for Creator/DisneyPlus, due to the fact that those series have direct involvement from the President of Creator/MarvelStudios himself, Creator/KevinFeige, unlike the previous series. Phase 4 also starts to gradually incorporate ''Daredevil'' into its main canon, as Matt Murdock ends up making a cameo in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'' as the titular hero's lawyer as well as a guest appearance in ''Series/SheHulkAttorneyAtLaw'' in a brand-new superhero costume, and the show's BigBad Wilson Fisk later serves as the antagonist for ''Series/{{Hawkeye|2021}}''

Generally, [[ExpandedUniverse licensed alternative media]] can't kill characters, develop relationships, alter the world, or make any sort of changes that have a chance of messing up the continuity of the original version. Primarily, because while the original creators might not care for continuity in the source material, they do have an artistic version that they'd rather have maintained in any adaptation. Or that they fear new people will unwittingly spoil {{Plot Point}}s they had planned, especially if the original is still being published or aired.

* ''Fanfic/TheBasaltCityChronicles'': The fanfic is not only an example of this trope regarding its source material, ''Webcomic/GeneCatlow'' seeing that the author goes to the universe's creators for permission for virtually everything he adds, but is also that Verse's [[AllThereInTheManual Manual]].

* Creator/AliceRandall writes ''Literature/TheWindDoneGone'' in African-American vernacular English as an explicit refutation of the limitations imposed by Margaret Mitchell's estate on those wishing to write sequels to ''Literature/GoneWithTheWind''.

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': In the video game ExpandedUniverse, nothing your character does can really affect the plot, so you end up doing various side things to advance your own story, while the show's plot happens offscreen.

* ''VideoGame/TheMatrixOnline'': The fame features in its first chapter as [[spoiler:Morpheus]] eventually commits terrorist acts against the Machines, demanding that they return Neo's body. That character goes so far as to create "code bombs" to reveal the Matrix code even to people still jacked in and not ready for such a revelation. Then he is KilledOffForReal by a program known as the Assassin.

* ''VideoGame/WingCommander'': Novels that are built around canon characters from the game, particularly Jason "Bear" Bondarevski (first introduced in the ''Wing Commander 2'' ExpansionPack ''Special Ops 1''), are heavily restricted in terms of not altering the main continuity. For instace, the Landreich, a vague analogy of the early United States ({{IN SPACE}}), is created specifically so Creator/WilliamRForstchen has someplace to play that won't break anything in the "core" universe of the games.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': ZigZagged with the ComicBookAdaptation. Initially, the comic's writers tried to keep it in line with the show's mythos. As the show's writers were constantly tuning the details of their own worldbuilding, it was hard to play catch up and the comics' creators couldn't really do their own thing. Eventually, they just called it an AlternateContinuity and started playing with the world themselves, with the arc kickstarting this change ending in [[BigBad The Lich]] getting killed off in particular. As a result, the comic plots are not considered canon to the show's timeline.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'': A case of CanonDisContinuity and ExpandedUniverse restrictions occurs in Creator/GregWeisman's comic. Continuing the beloved series after the end of Season 2, it refutes everything that happened in the Disney-produced ''Goliath Chronicles'' spin-off, (sans the first episode and one additional scene) essentially restricting the expanded canon to that comic alone.
[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/WorldOfWinx'': The fourth season of the original ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'' series has them restore magic on Earth, causing them to be widely recognized as fairies on that planet. In this SpinOff, however, they are cover agents chasing down a magical kidnapper. Nobody knows they are magical but Earth is still a place with (hidden) magic --it either got restored another way or it never lost it in the first place. For all those reasons, ''World of Winx'' is set up and marketed as a brand new continuity.

Compare NoOriginStoriesAllowed, when the original creators ban licensed authors from writing about a character's backstory, and StatusQuoIsGod, when the continuity of a fictional work tends to reset itself back after each installment. Compare and contrast FanWorkBan, it's the fans who are forbidden by the creators to toy with the story. SuperTrope of DoomedByCanon, when certain characters have their fates sealed in all the adaptations because that's how they ended up in the canon. Related to ExecutiveMeddling, when the higher-ups interfere with creative work in either an original work or an adaptation.

Compare NoOriginStoriesAllowed, when the original creators ban licensed authors from writing about a character's backstory, and StatusQuoIsGod, when the continuity of a fictional work tends to reset itself back after each installment. Compare and contrast FanWorkBan, it's the fans who are forbidden by the creators to toy with the story. SuperTrope of DoomedByCanon, when certain characters have their fates sealed in all the adaptations because that's how they ended up in the canon.

* Creator/AliceRandall writes ''The Wind Done Gone'' as an explicit refutation of the limitations imposed by Margaret Mitchell's estate on those wishing to write sequels to ''Literature/GoneWithTheWind''.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'': The licensed novels are apparently under similar restrictions to the ''Star Trek'' novels mentioned above, and also serve as a demonstration of why such rules might not always be a good idea, as they frequently contradict each other (for instance, ''Blood Oath'' and ''Clark's Law'' both mention G'Kar's wife, but she has a different name in each.)

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Creator/AliceRandall writes ''The Wind Done Gone'' as an explicit refutation of the limitations imposed by Margaret Mitchell's estate on those wishing to write sequels to ''Literature/GoneWithTheWind''.
[[/folder]]

Generally, [[ExpandedUniverse licensed alternative media]] can't kill characters, develop relationships, alter the world, or make any sort of changes that have a chance of messing up the continuity of the original version. Primarily, because while the original creators might not care for continuity in the source material, they do have an artistic version that they'd rather have maintained in any adaptation. Or that they fear new people will unwittingly spoil {{Plot Point}}s they had planned. Particularly if the original is still being published or aired.

This trope only applies if the spin-off is meant to follow the same continuity as the original series (though not necessarily vice versa). It doesn't apply to adaptations that are [[TwiceToldTale retelling]] the story and may feel free to change things as needed.

Compare NoOriginStoriesAllowed, when the original creators ban licensed authors from writing about a character's backstory, and StatusQuoIsGod, when the continuity of a fictional work tends to reset itself back after each installment. Compare and contrast FanWorkBan, when the creators don't want the fans to toy with their stories. SuperTrope of DoomedByCanon, when certain characters have their fates sealed in all the adaptations because that's how they ended up in the canon.

This trope only applies if the spin-off is meant to follow the same continuity as the original series (though not necessarily vice versa). It doesn't apply to adaptations that are [[TwiceToldTale retelling]] the story and may feel free to change things as needed. As a result, alternate media are much more faithful to the canon.

See also StatusQuoIsGod, DoomedByCanon, and NoOriginStoriesAllowed. Compare FanWorkBan.

This trope only applies if the spin-off is meant to follow the same continuity as the original series (though not necessarily vice versa). It doesn't apply to adaptations that are [[TaleTwiceTold retelling]] the story and may feel free to change things as needed. As a result, alternate media are much more faithful to the canon.

Generally, [[ExpandedUniverse licensed alternative media]] can't kill characters, develop relationships, alter the world, or make any sort of changes that have a chance of messing up the continuity of the original version. Primarily, because while the original creators might not care for continuity in the source material, they do have an artistic version that they'd rather be maintained in any adaptation. Or that they fear new people will unwittingly spoil {{Plot Point}}s they had planned.

The expanded universe therefore can end up running in place and be inferior to the original because of the lack of change. Sometimes new characters to which change ''can'' happen are introduced to make up for the problem. May be avoided if the original series is over.

A variation of this happens in anime with {{Filler}}, which the {{Shounen}} commercial juggernauts are infamous for. The non-filler episodes are adapted from the source material, usually a manga, and are part of an overarching plot; the filler episodes are made for the animation, and must leave everything as it was before at the end of the filler.

This trope only applies if the spin-off is meant to follow the same continuity as the original series (though not necessarily vice versa). It doesn't apply to adaptations that are retelling the story, and may feel free to change things as needed. A result of this is that other media originating from a film or television show (which are by far spin-offs and expansions) are much more faithful than films or television taking from another source (which are usually adaptations of the same story).

Popular series often get adapted into other media than the original—novels or comic books, for instance, made of movies or TV shows. But there's no way Luke Skywalker's going to get killed off in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' comic; [[note]]while he dies early on in the ''Star Wars: Infinities'' version of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', that's an AlternateUniverse; he's eventually shown in ghost form in the ''Star Wars: Legacy'' comic set over a century later, plus these are both Alternate Universes to the latest movie timeline.[[/note]] generally, licensed alternative media can't kill characters, develop relationships, alter the world, or make any sort of changes that have a chance of messing up the continuity for the original version.

These alternate media therefore can end up running in place and be inferior to the original because of the lack of change. Sometimes new characters to which change ''can'' happen are introduced to make up for the problem.

May be avoided if the original series is over. The newer ''ComicBook/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' comics not only can change the status quo, but are written by the [[Creator/JossWhedon series creator]]. A similar thing is likely to happen to the ''Star Wars'' continuity, since it has new blank timeframes to fill--indeed, the old Expanded Universe is now an AlternateContinuity known as ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', but its elements are available to authors to re-canonize.

* ''ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977'': The series isn't allowed to have the heroes meet Darth Vader in case it upstaged anything from later movies.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': The "Journey to Namek", "Return of Garlic Jr." and "Otherworld Tournament" arcs are not in the manga and therefore reset the situation at the end.

* This happened to ''Series/{{Lost}},'' in particular becoming a problem with the ExpandedUniverse video game -- nothing your character does can really affect the plot, so you end up doing various side things to advance your own story, while the show's plot happens offscreen.
* Due to concerns of ContinuityLockout, the TV portion of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse has so far not been able to have any effect on the movies. While shows like ''Series/AgentCarter'', ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'', ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' and ''Series/{{Luke Cage|2016}}'' are sufficiently distanced from the movies for it to not matter, ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' is bound by the rule that the Avengers cannot know that Coulson is still alive. This has led to a few cases where Coulson has to remind people who know the Avengers not to tell them about him, and in turn the movies have not acknowledged Coulson's survival even when he could or should logically appear - specifically, ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' has [[spoiler:Comicbook/NickFury show up with a Helicarrier he had kept hidden]], and the following ''Agents'' episode established that Coulson was involved in setting it up, but the movie doesn't mention Coulson's involvement at all. This was later changed with the series made for Creator/DisneyPlus, due to the fact that those series have direct involvement from the President of Creator/MarvelStudios himself, Creator/KevinFeige, unlike the previous series. Phase 4 also starts to gradually incorporate ''Daredevil'' into its main canon, as Matt Murdock ends up making a cameo in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'' as the titular hero's lawyer as well as a guest apperance in ''Series/SheHulkAttorneyAtLaw'' in a brand-new superhero costume, and the show's BigBad Wilson Fisk later serves as the antagonist for ''Series/{{Hawkeye|2021}}''

* ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': The video games have long faced restrictions from two opposite directions because the licenses to adapt original literary works and Creator/PeterJackson's [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings movies]] were sold to separate studios. On one side were the games unable to use any of the designs, lines or actors from the movies even when they were very well-known and liked (''The Fellowship of the Ring'', ''VideoGame/TheHobbit2003'', ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsWarOfTheRing'', ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline''). On the other side were the games unable to include anything at all that was not explicitly referenced on-screen in the movies, severely limiting available plotlines (''The Two Towers'', ''The Return of the King'', ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'', ''VideoGame/TheBattleForMiddleEarth''). And of course, nobody at all has the rights to ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' and ''Literature/UnfinishedTalesOfNumenorAndMiddleEarth'', placing events and characters exclusive to those books permanently off-limits.

* As in other things, ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' gets into the act with this, too, in the form of novels built around canon characters from the game, particularly in the form of Jason "Bear" Bondarevski (first introduced in the ''Wing Commander 2'' ExpansionPack ''Special Ops 1'') in activities taking place in the Landreich. The Landreich, a vague analogy of the early United States ({{IN SPACE}}), was pretty much created specifically for Creator/WilliamRForstchen to have some place to play that won't break anything in the "core" universe of the games.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s iconic franchise has been reported to have an IP-overseeing committee that dictates certain guidelines that outside studios working in {{Spin Off}}s of the series are obligated to follow in order to keep it consistent with the mainline platformers. In particular, the introduction of original characters is very restrictive nowadays--a turnaround from entries around TheNoughties and before, when such a practice was more prominent.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The post-cancellation [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse novels and audios]] make changes and reveal great swathes of history. Much of which has to be ignored after the TV series gets a revival over a decade later. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean it's a {{retcon}}, what with the setting having considerable TemporalMutability. On some occasions, WordOfGod has confirmed that "everything is canon", we're just seeing different possible timelines. For example, one of the post-revival episodes is an explicit retelling of the novel ''Human Nature'', written by Creator/PaulCornell. Likewise in the case of the ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comic strips as well as the [[ComicBook/DoctorWhoIDW IDW]] and [[ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitan Titan]] comics have been through it in the revival.

[[folder:Aversions/Subversions]]
* Averted in the ''Franchise/GIJoe'' comics, which could kill people and make changes, as long as the relevant action figure or other toy was no longer in production.
* Likewise averted in the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' comics, which are almost universally all alternate continuities.
* An odd example regarding ''Series/DoctorWho'': beginning on July 5, 1969 (two weeks after "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E7TheWarGames The War Games]]" aired), ''TV Comic'' began a series of stories where the Second Doctor was exiled to Earth; during this period, the Doctor lived in the Carlton Grange Hotel and became a newspaper-headlining celebrity. "The Night Walkers" (November 8-22, 1969) has the Doctor investigating a story about scarecrows that walk at night... which turns out to be a trap by the Time Lords so they could enforce the second half of his sentence. The scarecrows begin the regeneration process and set the TARDIS controls to dematerialise, leading seamlessly into "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace Spearhead from Space]]" six weeks later.
* Alice Randall wrote ''The Wind Done Gone'' as an explicit refutation of the limitations imposed by Margaret Mitchell's estate on those wishing to write sequels to ''Literature/GoneWithTheWind''.
* A case of CanonDisContinuity and ExpandedUniverse restrictions occurs in Creator/GregWeisman's ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' comic. Continuing the beloved series after the end of Season 2, it refutes everything that happened in the Disney-produced ''Goliath Chronicles'' spin-off, (sans the first episode and one additional scene) essentially restricting the expanded canon to that comic alone.

** ''Star Trek'' novels have gone back and forth between Restricted and non-Restricted a couple of times. The novels of the '70s and early '80s tended to give authors a lot of freedom to interpret ''Star Trek'' in their own idiosyncratic ways, though the books rarely referenced or built on one another. By the later '80s, Pocket Books' Trek authors began referencing popular novels like Creator/DianeDuane's Romulan/Literature/{{Rihannsu}} books and Creator/JohnMFord's Klingon epic ''Literature/TheFinalReflection'', and authors who did multiple novels increasingly carried continuity arcs forward within them, so an overall book continuity gradually began to emerge. But once ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was on the air, Paramount began restricting the books and comics, forbidding them from referencing anything but the live-action canon, which killed continuity between books. Those rules began to relax in the late '90s, and by now, with all the shows off the air, the books have built up an elaborate, interconnected continuity. However, the new J. J. Abrams movie continuity operates under rules so restricted that only prequels to the movie have been allowed to be published so far.

** Writers of the old [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Expanded Universe]], besides following the regular continuity, had to abide by a certain set of rules established by Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}. Among those revealed to the fans are:
*** The protagonist ThreeAmigos (Luke, Han, and Leia) cannot be killed.
*** Members of certain alien species cannot become Jedi. Even though several Wookiee Jedi characters already exist, no new ones should be introduced. The ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' series does so but makes mention of Wookiee Jedi rarity.
*** Yoda's species and homeworld cannot be revealed.
*** Before the prequels, writers were told by Lucas to avoid writing in that era. This was solved by creating the Old Republic stories set long before the prequels.

* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', mainly due to [[ScrewedByTheLawyers a confluence of legal issues]]. The game is set in the prime universe post-dating the Hobus supernova from ''Film/StarTrek2009'', but due to the fact that the license comes from CBS rather than Paramount, they can only use story details, not visuals. CBS also has veto power over Cryptic's ideas, and they're also restricted in their use of TV-canon characters because, while the ''character'' belongs to CBS and is thus usable, the ''likeness'' belongs to the actors so Cryptic has to negotiate with them separately or use an OffModel (the latter of which they've mostly stopped doing). They also have to negotiate separately to use elements from other works in the ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse'' (although they do often get permission).
* Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' franchise has been reported to have an IP-overseeing committee that dictates certain guidelines that outside studios working in {{Spin Off}}s of the series are obligated to follow in order to keep it consistent with the mainline platformers. In particular, the introduction of original characters is very restrictive nowadays--a turnaround from entries around the 00's and before, where such a practice was more prominent.

* ''Vector Prime'', the first novel of the ''Franchise/StarWars: The Literature/NewJediOrder'' series, was especially notable for having killed off [[spoiler:Chewbacca]]. According to the author, the higher-ups had wanted to kill off a major {{canon}} character in order to set up an AnyoneCanDie atmosphere; the call eventually came down that [[spoiler:Chewie]] was to be the SacrificialLamb based on [[spoiler:his sidekick status and lack of dialogue]]. The original plan was to kill off [[spoiler:Luke]], which Lucasfilm understandably objected to.

[[folder:Other]]
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse novels and audios after the cancellation of the original series]] made changes and revealed great swathes of history, much of which had to be ignored[[note]] which does not necessarily mean retconned; in a world with as much TemporalMutability as the Whoniverse, it is assumed — and, on occasions, confirmed by WordOfGod — that "everything is canon", we're just seeing different possible timelines[[/note]] when the TV series started up again over a decade later. One of the post-revival episodes was an explicit retelling of the novel ''Human Nature'', written by the same guy (Creator/PaulCornell). The ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' comic strip has been through a similar situation in all eras of the series, and the [[ComicBook/DoctorWhoIDW IDW]] and [[ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitan Titan]] comics have been through it in the revival.
* Fanfic/TheBasaltCityChronicles, which is not only an example of this trope for ''Webcomic/GeneCatlow'' (The author goes to the universe's creators for permission for virtually everything he adds), but is also that Verse's [[AllThereInTheManual Manual]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' manga had a big problem with this, since it was a case of AnimeFirst and there were long stretches of time with no new Tenchi anime being published.
* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': The "Journey to Namek", "Return of Garlic Jr." and "Otherworld Tournament" arcs were not in the manga and had to reset the situation at the end.
* The ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' multiverse suffers this in spades. Since the events of the anime are set in stone (and have been that way for up to thirty years), manga and video game expansions almost always deal with an entirely new cast of characters, set off to the side of the anime's events and never directly interfering (though, on some rare occasions, having a degree of crossover).

** A slight exception is the popular ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' spinoff ''[[Manga/MobileSuitGundamSeedAstray Gundam SEED Astray]]'', which was intended from the beginning to tie into the anime, occasionally patching up plot holes, and just barely missed being included in the anime itself.

* The ''Franchise/StarTrek'' comics did this. At one point, even [[CanonForeigner new characters]] couldn't be used because of fears that they would become {{Canon Immigrant}}s that required royalties.
* The ''ComicBook/SonicX'' comics weren't allowed to incorporate characters from the games that weren't featured in [[Anime/SonicX the show]], nor were they allowed to make any real changes to the status quo.
* ''ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977'' weren't allowed to have the heroes meet Darth Vader incase it upstaged anything from later movies.

* Writers for the old ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] (now ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''), besides following the regular continuity, had to abide to a certain set of rules established by Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}. Among those revealed to the fans are:
** The Big Trio (Luke, Han, and Leia) cannot be killed.
** Members of certain alien species cannot become Jedi. Even though several Wookiee Jedi characters already exist, no new ones should be introduced. The ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' series does, but makes mention about Wookiee Jedi rarity.
** Yoda's species and homeworld cannot be revealed.
** Before the prequels, writers were told by Lucas to avoid writing in that era. This was solved by creating the Old Republic stories set long before the prequels.
* With Creator/{{Disney}}'s takeover of Lucasfilm, all new Expanded Universe stories are [[http://www.starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page overseen by a committee]] to ensure full continuity with the established canon is maintained. However, there are still oversights mostly caused due to the films being made with little to no input from the Expanded Universe's creatives (most notably, all the worldbuilding tie-in material for the sequel trilogy was ignored in the films due to being written by people outside their production).
* Also a problem in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novels, although the ''Literature/StarTrekNewFrontier'' and ''I.K.S. Gorkon'' series dodge it by having new crews based off of one-shot characters, and the ''Titan'' series does by being set after the events of ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''.
** It seems that Paramount has given the writers more freedom in changing status quo in post-Nemesis stories, as [[spoiler:Admiral Janeway from ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascends To A Higher Plane Of Existence]]]] in ''Before Dishonor''.
*** And the [[spoiler:complete annihilation/liberation of the Borg]] in the Destiny trilogy, a thing that was only possible because new canonical material coming out was deemed unlikely at the time.
** Trek novels have gone back and forth between Restricted and non-Restricted a couple of times. The novels of the '70s and early '80s tended to give authors a lot of freedom to interpret ''Star Trek'' in their own idiosyncratic ways, though the books rarely referenced or built on one another. By the later '80s, Pocket Books' Trek authors began referencing popular novels like Creator/DianeDuane's Romulan/Literature/{{Rihannsu}} books and Creator/JohnMFord's Klingon epic ''Literature/TheFinalReflection'', and authors who did multiple novels increasingly carried continuity arcs forward within them, so an overall book continuity gradually began to emerge. But once ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' was on the air, Paramount began restricting the books and comics, forbidding them from referencing anything but the live-action canon, which killed continuity between books. Those rules began to relax in the late '90s, and by now, with all the shows off the air, the books have built up an elaborate, interconnected continuity. However, the new J. J. Abrams movie continuity operates under rules so restricted that only prequels to the movie have been allowed to be published so far.
* The ''Franchise/MassEffect'' books have suffered greatly from this. Since a lot of choices are left to the player, the books have been forced to remain neutral on big issues such as [[spoiler:the fate of the original council, the Destiny Ascension, who survived on Virmire, what happened to the rachni and humanity's representative]] as well as smaller ones right down to [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard's]] gender. The only exception is the BadEnding of [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 2]], which is directly [[CanonDiscontinuity contradicted]] in first issue of the ''Homeworlds'' comic series.
* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' licensed novels were apparently under similar restrictions to the ''Star Trek'' novels mentioned above, and also serve as a demonstration of why such rules might not always be a good idea, as they frequently contradict each other (for instance, ''Blood Oath'' and ''Clark's Law'' both mention G'Kar's wife, but she has a different name in each.)

* Video games based on Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium have long faced similar restriction from two opposite directions, because the licenses to adapt original literature works and Creator/PeterJackson's [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings movies]] were sold to separate studios. On one side were the games unable to use any of the designs, lines or actors from the movies even when they were very well-known and liked (''The Fellowship of the Ring'', ''VideoGame/TheHobbit2003'', ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsWarOfTheRing'', ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline''). On the other side were the games unable to include anything at all that was not explicitly referenced on-screen in the movies, severely limiting available plotlines (''The Two Towers'', ''The Return of the King'', ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'', ''VideoGame/TheBattleForMiddleEarth''). And of course, nobody at all has the rights to ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' and ''Literature/UnfinishedTalesOfNumenorAndMiddleEarth'', placing events and characters exclusive to those books permanently off-limits.

** Meanwhile, ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' is still going strong after seven years and five expansion packs, but its license is limited to ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' and its Appendices only. Rumours are, even ''Literature/TheHobbit'' material canot be used if it wasn't also mentioned in LOTR as well. This, among other things, prevented the developers from making a proper tie-in to ''Film/TheHobbitAnUnexpectedJourney'' - players had to revisit Bilbo's path in the "present" days of the War of the Ring instead.

* ''VideoGame/TheMatrixOnline'' features in its first chapter [[spoiler:Morpheus]] eventually committing terrorist acts against the Machines, demanding that they return Neo's body, going so far as to create "code bombs" which reveal the Matrix code even to people still jacked in and not ready for such a revelation. The aversion comes when he is KilledOffForReal by a program known as the Assassin.
* The ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' series leave a large gap in between the original and the prequel game, leaving the Greg Rucka novels (and comics) to expand and improve the characters and conspiracies of the universe. it also changed the backstories of [[spoiler:Daniel Carrington and Cassandra Devries]] by placing them into a relationship.
* The ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' video games are rather [[ExcusePlot light on plot]], allowing the ExpandedUniverse to go hog-wild on it. The novels, comic books, films, etc. give characters new backstories and personality traits that were never hinted at in the games, fleshes out the origins of both the [[TheFederation UNSC]] and [[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Covenant]] fully, adds in new weapons and vehicles, introduces and kills off many many characters on its own, and generally is... [[AdaptationExpansion better]], at least as far as plot goes. When Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries took over development duties from Creator/{{Bungie}}, the ExpandedUniverse became much more integrated with the games from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' onward, especially regarding [[BigBad the Didact]]. In fact, the 343I-era expanded universe has even killed off characters introduced in the games.
* Zig-sagged with the ComicBookAdaptation of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''; initially, the comic's writers tried to keep it in line with the show's mythos, meaning they couldn't really do their own thing as the show's writers frequently [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants wrote by the seat of their pants]], making it hard to play catch up. Eventually, they just called it an AlternateContinuity and starting playing with the world themselves, with the arc kickstarting this change ending in [[BigBad The Lich]] getting killed off in particular. The show writers, however, considered the comic as non-canon to the show's timeline.

* The ''ComicBook/SonicX'' comics weren't allowed to introduce characters from the games that weren't introduced in [[Anime/SonicX the show]], nor were they allowed to make any real changes to the status quo.

* Due to concerns of ContinuityLockout, the TV portion of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse has so far not been able to have any effect on the movies. While shows like ''Series/AgentCarter'', ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'', ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' and ''Series/{{Luke Cage|2016}}'' are sufficiently distanced from the movies for it to not matter, ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' is bound by the rule that the Avengers cannot know that Coulson is still alive. This has led to a few cases where Coulson has to remind people who know the Avengers not to tell them about him, and in turn the movies have not acknowledged Coulson's survival even when he could or should logically appear - specifically, ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' has [[spoiler:Comicbook/NickFury show up with a Helicarrier he had kept hidden]], and the following ''Agents'' episode established that Coulson was involved in setting it up, but the movie doesn't mention Coulson's involvement at all. This was later changed with the series made for Creator/DisneyPlus, due to the fact that those series have direct involvement from the President of Creator/MarvelStudios himself, Creator/KevinFeige, unlike the previous series. Phase 4 also starts to gradually incorporate ''Daredevil'' into its main canon, as Matt Murdock ends up making a cameo in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'' as the titular hero's lawyer, and the show's BigBad Wilson Fisk later serves as the antagonist for ''Series/{{Hawkeye|2021}}''

* A case of CanonDisContinuity and ExpandedUniverse restrictions occurs in Creator/GregWeisman's new ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' comic. Continuing the beloved series after the end of Season 2, it refutes everything that happened in the Disney-produced ''Goliath Chronicles'' spin-off, (sans the first episode and one additional scene) essentially restricting the expanded canon to that comic alone.

* Due to concerns of ContinuityLockout, the TV portion of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse has so far not been able to have any effect on the movies. While shows like ''Series/AgentCarter'', ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'', ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' and ''Series/{{Luke Cage|2016}}'' are sufficiently distanced from the movies for it to not matter, ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' is bound by the rule that the Avengers cannot know that Coulson is still alive. This has led to a few cases where Coulson has to remind people who know the Avengers not to tell them about him, and in turn the movies have not acknowledged Coulson's survival even when he could or should logically appear - specifically, ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' has [[spoiler:Comicbook/NickFury show up with a Helicarrier he had kept hidden]], and the following ''Agents'' episode established that Coulson was involved in setting it up, but the movie doesn't mention Coulson's involvement at all. This was later changed with the series made for Creator/DisneyPlus, due to the fact that those series have direct involvement from the President of Creator/MarvelStudios himself, Creator/KevinFeige, unlike the previous series.

* ''Manga/DragonBall Z'': The "Journey To Namek", "Return of Garlic Jr." and "Otherworld Tournament" arcs were not in the manga and had to reset the situation at the end.