History Main / SchrodingersPlayerCharacter

* ''VideoGame/MinecraftStoryMode'': There are 6 (or 12, in Season 2) different Jesses to choose from, including various gender and race options. Only the variant you select ever gets any appearance in the story.

** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': The [[PlayerCharacter Sole Survivor]] is whichever of a married man and woman you wish to play as; the other is your spouse [[spoiler:who dies in the opening]]. The appearances of both are player-generated.

* In ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'', Kirby is always depicted with Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, and King Dedede at his side in the story scenes, even when he's traveling alone, accompanied by [[ColorCodedMultiplayer Yellow, Green, and Blue Kirbies]], or teamed with a mixture of the palette-swapped Kirbies and the former three characters during actual gameplay.

* The Polish UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} BeatEmUp ''VideoGame/FrankoTheCrazyRevenge'' manages to be quite bizarre about this. That game is supposed to be about the titular Franko tearing drug gangs a new one to avenge his fallen buddy Alex. Except that not only does the game's title screen feature both two guys kicking ass together, ''the supposedly dead Alex is one of the playable characters''. This could arguably be a hold-over from idea of the game having a 2-player mode before getting scrapped by the programmer who "had enough constantly rewriting the code".

* However, ''Time Crisis 3''[='s=] alternate Rescue Mission mode, where you play as Alicia Winston (an NPC in the normal storyline), plays the trope straight in at least one instance: While most of the levels that she shares with the normal storyline's protagonists has her [[HeroOfAnotherStory handle other threats than the ones they deal with]], her part in the first boss battle inexplicably changes several important details:

* Played with in ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'' - You can run into (and recruit) the other playable characters, but their stats don't carry over when you play as them. Justified in that WordOfGod states that all seven quests are occurring simultaneously, meaning that each storyline crosses over with the others.

* Variation: in the original ''VideoGame/Persona1'', there are five possible party members - Brown, Ayase, Yukino, Elly, and, [[GuideDangIt if you jump through the right hoops,]] Reiji. You get to recruit one of them (possibly two if you take the Snow Queen path, if you replace Ayase with Nanjo, the latter of which is a prerequisite for the SEBEC story). The rest? Well, who knows what happens to them? It's worth noting that ''VideoGame/Persona2'' clarifies that everyone did everything together, more or less.
** With the UpdatedRerelease of ''VideoGame/Persona3'', ''Persona 3 Portable'', if you choose the male protagonist, the female never appears, and vice-versa. This makes some sense, as it was originally written with the male PC in mind. ''VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth'' included both the Male and Female Protagonists from P3, but reveals that the Female Protagonist is from an alternate reality. The [[Theatre/Persona3TheWeirdMasquerade stage play]] does a variant where their versions of the protagonists are brother and sister, but one sibling's absence in the showing that features the other is explained by them dying in the same accident that orphaned the protagonist.

** Regardless of which of the potential protagonists you opt to play as, your chosen character always lives in the same apartment complex, and is acquainted with their neighbor [[PluckyGirl Kana]].

* Averted in ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonIslandOfHappiness''. You choose to play as either male (Mark) or female (Chelsea), and the other one appears later in the game as one of your love interests.
** Also averted in an earlier game, ''Harvest Moon GB 3'', where the plot revolves around you and the opposite character. The female (Sara) always owns the farm, and the male (Pete) always is a helper.
** A few examples exist in the ''VideoGame/RuneFactory'' series:

*** Averted with an interesting twist in ''VideoGame/RuneFactoryOceans''. You can only play as Aden to start with, with Sonja losing her own body a very short time into the game and existing only as a disembodied voice coming from Aden's vicinity. [[spoiler:Post-game, when Sonja's body is returned to her, you can choose to continue playing as either Aden or change to Sonja, with the one you didn't choose moving to the inn and becoming a marriage candidate.]]

* Averted in ''VideoGame/CartLife''. Whichever character you choose, the other two will also be in the game running whatever stands you would be running if you had picked them.

[[folder:Stealth-Based Game]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}}'':
** Averted in ''Tenchu'', where the other ninja is presumably running other missions, and you have to rescue them at one point.
** Wholly averted in ''Tenchu 2'', where the missions mesh together perfectly and you have to play through the game twice to get the whole story.
** In ''Tenchu 3'', Rikamaru will show up during Ayame's story. She does not make an appearance in his.
[[/folder]]

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Pathologic}}''. Whoever you didn't pick would go off on their own story.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/DarkWizard''. The player picks which hero to play, but the ones he didn't choose will appear during the course of the story as one-off [=NPCs=] with a single line of dialogue.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/RenegadeReinterpretations'' has a chapter on averting it.
[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfMana'':
** Averted in ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'': Not only do the characters you don't choose have their own storylines going in the background; one of them can even ''break you out of jail'' near the beginning of the game depending on the composition of your party.
** Averted to the maximal effect in ''VideoGame/SwordOfMana'', where the characters take the same paths and face the same challenges regardless of which you choose.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/FaeryLegendsOfAvalon'' where you get the choice of a male or a female, and you get the other one as your first companion when you set off on your quest, (you get Azielle for a companion if you play as a male and Aziel if you play as a female) either way they have a massive crush on you.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege III'', where the characters that you didn't pick show up later in the story with some reason of why they couldn't show up at the gathering in the beginning and can be companion characters later on.

* Averted in spectacular and still-unique-16-years-later fashion in ''Chou-Mahou Tairiku Wozz''. Once the initial party is gathered together at the start of the game, you choose one of its members to be your player character. The rest are still part of the party, but are now secondary characters in the storyline.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/HexyzForce''. Whichever character you don't choose still continues their story and occasionally meets up with the other character and their party. [[spoiler:At the end of the game, both parties merge together to go through the final dungeon with another, new character.]]
* Averted and deconstructed in ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'', The pre-generated characters (called "Origin Characters") exist as party members that can be recruited if not selected as one the players' own personal character. If you don't play as them ''and'' don't recruit them into your final party before the first PointOfNoReturn (there will always be [[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit at least two who get left behind]]), [[spoiler:they are killed by Magister Dallis and Mister Vrederman, subsequently being raised as undead to [[WhatTheHellPlayer call you out for not recruiting them]] and later challenge you at the Arena Of One.]]
* Averted in the ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' series. In the first two games, the player character you don't select shows up as a minor supporting character. Averted even harder in the third game by having two playable protagonists you can switch between, and even further in the fourth game with five.

* Averted in many two-player arcade gun games such as ''The VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead'' series (from ''III'' onwards), the ''VideoGame/VirtuaCop'' series, and the ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis'' series (from ''2'' onwards). The cutscenes and during-gameplay dialogue play out with both player characters existing. Though this does pose the new problem of [[FridgeLogic the unused character, who does nothing while his or her partner does all the work.]] Except in ''Time Crisis''... sort of. The other player character is shown attacking alongside you, but [[ATeamFiring misses every shot]]. Watching the COM's side at the arcades shows that the enemies that the other player cannot possibly hit just retreat for no reason after the other player clears his side.

* Averted in the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 version of the Creator/DataEast shooter ''VideoGame/BloodyWolf''. The character not chosen by the player at the start of the game will become a playable character when the initial protagonist is taken captive by the enemy. This helps make up for omitting the CoOpMultiplayer of the arcade version.

* ''VideoGame/SpiderManAndVenomMaximumCarnage'': Averted, as the player is offered a few times to play as Spider-Man or Venom, which determines the next stage, but the player must control both, Spider-Man and Venom, for the final stage.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/TheBouncer''. The three initial characters stick together and before each mission the player given the choice to select which one to control. This even leads to unique solo stages and even the chance to fight and unlock several {{secret character}}s.

* Averted in the first ''VideoGame/SNKVsCapcom: Card Fighters Clash''. The opposite gender protagonist becomes a rival.

* The Flash game ''VideoGame/DeathVegas'' averts this to the point where it borders on inversion. The game's story mode has a plot in which for any character you select, all of that character's fights with - and ''victories'' over - the other characters are canon in the story. For every character. At once. Note that this means every character you select also gets ''beaten up'' by many of the others - just not while you're playing him or her.

* Averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' games. Canonically, the Warrior was the one to defeat Diablo (and in the third game he even gets a name and a background as Leoric's oldest son); but both the rogue as well as the mage got corrupted during their respective quests and return as The Summoner and Blood Raven in the second game. The sequels' characters however went through their games as a party.
* Averted in the ''VideoGame/KingdomUnderFire'' games. The character you choose inevitably interacts with one or all of the alternative characters in the battles (and storylines) that ensue.

* On the character creation screen in ''Videogame/AgeOfConan'', it is possible to see the two versions of your future character: male and female. When you finally finish customizing your character, do you know what will happen to your opposite sex character? The character you didn't edit will die in the shipwreck. Each of your character's archetypes has a unique backstory, but what happened to the other archetypes are never mentioned.

* Averted by ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic''. You have eight options for your class (four on each side) and even though you won't necessarily run into any of the characters you didn't pick, all the story-lines still happened. References are occasionally made linking them together. One of the Sith Warrior's companions, for example, briefly goes off to work with the Republic Trooper's FinalBoss; The Jedi Consular's first companion asks the Bounty Hunter's first companion to help him find an enemy, The Trooper's walker getting blasted by Separatists; which is mentioned as having just happened when The Smuggler just arrived on the same planet at that moment, and so on.
** In the ''Knights of the Fallen Empire'' expansion, the character you choose ends up becoming the Outlander, with the other seven simply stated to have gone missing.

* Averted in the Genesis version of ''Ghostbusters'', you'd choose one of three Ghostbusters (Winston wasn't present for some reason). Each had their own strengths and weaknesses (Egon could run fast but couldn't take many hits, Ray was slow but could take massive damage, and Peter was a balance between both). When you chose one of them, all three would appear at the firehouse, but only one would show up in the cut scenes at the end of each level. This would imply that the other two just hung out at the firehouse while the player chosen one did all the work. In the final level, however, you'd fight the other two as boss characters because they'd been possessed by ghosts.

[[folder:Roguelike]]
* Averted in ''VideoGame/NetHack''. You in fact see many characters in the Astral Plane. However, they all have cheap plastic copies of the [[MacGuffin Amulet of Yendor]], whereas you have the real thing (hopefully).
[[/folder]]

* Averted in the ''VideoGame/ThreadsOfFate'' game which allows you to play as either Rue or Mint. Whoever does not get chosen still shows up in the game and goes on similar missions. But also played straight to the effect that [[spoiler: playing as Mint completely ruins Rue's goal by the ending.]]

* Averted in the ''VideoGame/The7thSaga''. There are 7 characters that you can choose from and the other becomes NPC that can become your ally, your rival/enemy, or even a level boss!

* Averted in ''Age of Pirates 2: The City of Abandoned Ships''. The other two playable characters appear in the game among the other independent captains roaming the seas; they may even be hired into the player's crew.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/SpiderManAndVenomMaximumCarnage''. The player is offered a few times to play as Spider-Man or Venom, which determines the next stage, but the player must control both, Spider-Man and Venom, for the final stage.

* Averted in ''ComicBook/SpiderMan and ComicBook/{{Venom}}: VideoGame/MaximumCarnage''. The player is offered a few times to play as Spider-Man or Venom, which determines the next stage, but the player must control both, Spider-Man and Venom, for the final stage.

[[folder:Beat Em Up]]

[[folder:First Person Shooter]]

[[folder:Hack And Slash]]

[[folder:Role Playing Game]]

** Averted in most post-Gen II games, when you can chose a PlayerCharacter of either sex. The opposite-gender player character becomes a NonPlayerCharacter, generally as an ally and/or TheRival to the player. Played straight in ''Crystal'', ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'', ''Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon'', ''Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee'' (outside of 2 player mode) and ''Sword and Shield'', though.

[[folder:Shoot Em Up]]

[[folder:Stealth Based Game]]

[[folder:Third Person Shooter]]

[[folder:Turn Based Strategy]]

* Averted in ''Franchise/SpiderMan and Venom: VideoGame/MaximumCarnage''. The player is offered a few times to play as Spider-Man or Venom, which determines the next stage, but the player must control both, Spider-Man and Venom, for the final stage.

** The first two games offered pre-generated characters with mini-biographies. Whoever you did not choose never appeared. In the original, this could be taken to mean that whoever you pick wins the raffle and has to leave the Vault in search of the water trip, while any characters you didn't pick remain in the Vault and thus are never seen.

* In the ''VisualNovel/MagicalDiary'' series, the games take place during the same time period, with the same [=NPCs=] and roughly similar event progression until the chosen protagonist's presence causes storylines to change. In the first game, the female protagonist is the roommate of Ellen and Virginia. In the second game (featuring a male protagonist) Ellen and Virginia do not have a third roommate, although one scene mentions their room looking like it was set up for a third person who never arrived. It's also clear that no such character as the male protagonist existed in the background of the first game, because his presence would have disrupted other events (especially involving William). WordOfGod has clarified that the two games take place in [[AlternateUniverse different universes]].