History Main / WhatIf

* The premise of ''FanFic/TotalDramaIslandByGilbertAndSullivan'' is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin just what the title implies]], to wit: "What if GilbertAndSullivan [[TheMusical had written]] ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaIsland''?"

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' has DLC that pits iconic Fire Emblem characters against each other, with the characters of Awakening getting in the fun. Each DLC pack that features this concept has three variations of it. One where the Awakening cast allies themselves with one faction. Another which pits them with another faction. And a third that has both factions working together against them.

* ''VisualNovel/InYourArmsTonight'' offers "Another Story" routes as {{Expansion Pack}}s for each available character, showing how the protagonist's relationship with the selected character would play out if her decision whether or not to divorce her husband at the start of the main route were reversed.

** ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' and its sequels very seriously ask, what if a town of West Virginia coal miner hillbillies got magically transported back to 1632 in Southern Germany in the middle of the ThirtyYearsWar.

* Little-known FirstPersonShooter ''IronStorm'' is set in a 1964 where World War I never ended and is entering its 50th year. In a subsequent re-release (only for the UK market, as far as I know), it was retitled World War Zero.
* More recent FirstPersonShooter ''VideoGame/TurningPointFallOfLiberty'' features a world where Winston Churchill died in 1931, and the lack of his leadership was the cause of Germans winning WWII... And invading the USA in 1953, when the game starts.

* The ''{{Dragonball}}'' [[VideoGame/DragonballZBudokai Budokai]] games have currently always a set of What If stories in Story mode which are usually unlocked when you win a battle that the original storyline has you losing. These range from the serious (Vegeta beats the Z-Warriors when he first shows up on Earth, achieving Super Saiyan in the process) to the silly (Cell accidentally absorbs Krillin and turns into a severely weak, miniature version of himself).
** The story mode of Dragonball: Supersonic Warriors gives each playable character an "IF" story, in addition to having a story mode for the canonical events. For example, for Piccolo, Planet Namek is ''not'' destroyed and Goku and Piccolo defeat Cell using the same [[HeroicSacrifice method]] they used to beat Raditz, and Piccolo revives and merges with Demon King Piccolo to defeat Buu. Also [[TheKrillin Krillin]] takes down Cell. Even Goku's IF story is different from canon.

* ''TheForceUnleashed's'' DownloadableContent are this, as in "What if Vader died and was replaced by Galen?" (using the non-canon Dark Side ending as a starting point, obviously).
** Or, from the trailer, "What if TheDarkSide [[DownerEnding Won]]?".

* ''DeadRising2'' "Off The Record" explores what would happen if Frank West was the hero of the game instead of Chuck Greene. Frank became very popular, having ran his popularity in the ground before showing up in Terror Is Reality, wrestling zombies, before the game takes off. [[spoiler: Also, Chuck Greene is a psychopath (a non-psychopathic version is Frank's co-op partner), and Stacy is this game's main villain.]]
* ''{{Brink}}'' has a handful of ''What-If'' missions, which follow on from certain story levels if the canonical outcome didn't happen. For example, Security have a ''What-If'' mission in which they have to defend a prison to prevent Chen from escaping. The corresponding ''What-If'' level follows on from the mission if Security ''failed'' to prevent Chen from escaping.
* ''SilentStorm'' starts as a straightforward WorldWarTwo game, until the "What If" portion comes into play. What if a powerful secret organization bent on world domination was playing both sides against each other and supplying them with equivalent advanced weaponry in order to cause sufficient damage for the organization to take over after the war? While this would be interesting in itself, the game then had to bring in {{Energy Weapon}}s and PoweredArmor. ''Hammer & Sickle'' takes place in the same 'verse but during the ColdWar era with both THO and the Sentinels playing their shadow games. If the player (a Soviet spy) fails, WorldWarThree is unavoidable.

* ''{{Freakazoid}}'' did a time travel story where the hero ends up preventing World War II. He suddenly realizes the possible consequences of his actions ("What hatch Freak wrought?!") and returns to the present... to find the only two changes are that Rush Limbaugh is now a kind-hearted charity worker and Sharon Stone is a Shakespearean actress. He decides he's made the world a better place.

* RealTimeStrategy game ''WarFrontTurningPoint'' has Hitler assassinated in the early days of WWII and, under his successor, Britain occupied by the Nazi. After the Allies defeat them, the Russian take the chance to invade Western Europe, leading to the merging of the Allies' troops with reinforcements from the recently dismantled Nazi army. All this, with some science-fiction weaponry thrown in.

* ''{{Freakazoid}}'' did a time travel story where the hero ends up ''preventing World War II.'' He suddenly realizes the possible consequences of his actions ("What hatch Freak wrought?!") and returns to the present... to discover that the only two changes are that Rush Limbaugh is now a kind-hearted charity worker and Sharon Stone is a Shakespearean actress. So he concludes he's made the world a better place.

* ''InglouriousBasterds'', "What if the plots to kill AdolfHitler [[spoiler:actually succeeded]]?"
** Although the film doesn't actually explore possible historical consequences. The answer to "what if" is: [[spoiler:then Hitler would get killed, and the movie would end soon after]].

** What If Fry Never Fell In The Freezer-Doodle And Came To The Future-Jiggy?[[hottip:*:What if Fry never came to the future?]] [[spoiler:Reality falls apart.]]

* ''DeathofaPresident'', another mockumentary about if George W. Bush had been assassinated.

* Terminator 3 Redemption has a major deviation from the film that involved the Terminator getting stuck on a prototype time machine and gets sent back to the future where John and Kathryn are dead, the machines take over the world, and it's no one else but one reprogrammed machine who will [[TheDeterminator stop at nothing to go back in time and complete its mission!]] Also, the thermal scan gets damaged at the start of the game and becomes incredibly useful via upgrades (such as increased damage).

* The ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episodes "Phineas And Ferb Get Busted" and "Phineas And Ferb's Quantam Boogaloo" are about what would happen if Candace succeeded in busting her brothers. [[spoiler:The results weren't pretty.]]

* ''World War'' by HarryTurtledove asks "What if WorldWarTwo was interrupted by an AlienInvasion?" His other main series, Timeline-191, is based on the more conventional question, "What if the south won the American Civil War?" while his earlier novel ''Guns of the South'' poses, [[spoiler: "What if a racist group from South Africa in the near future travelled back in time to supply the Confederacy with AK-47s?"]]

* ''Party of Five'''s 100th episode entitled "What If" had Bailey in a coma where he imagined an alternate reality where his parents had never been killed in the car crash.

* More recent FirstPersonShooter ''Turning Point: Fall of Liberty'' features a world where Winston Churchill died in 1931, and the lack of his leadership was the cause of Germans winning WWII... And invading the USA in 1953, when the game starts.

* The ''{{Dragonball}}'' Budokai games have currently always a set of What If stories in Story mode which are usually unlocked when you win a battle that the original storyline has you losing. These range from the serious (Vegeta beats the Z-Warriors when he first shows up on Earth, achieving Super Saiyan in the process) to the silly (Cell accidentally absorbs Krillin and turns into a severely weak, miniature version of himself).

* ''FanFic/TurnaboutStorm'': What if no BigDamnHero had come to turn the tides of the case [[DarkestHour when all seemed lost]]? A contest held by the author encouraged fans [[RecursiveFanfiction to answer this themselves]] by creating their own DownerEnding, the winner becoming the "official" alternate outcome.

* The ''[[BigFinishDoctorWho Doctor Who: Unbound]]'' audio dramas sometimes take the {{Elseworld}} approach and sometimes the AlternateUniverse approach. Or, seemingly both, or neither. All except one dealt with non-{{Canon}} Doctors. They ranged from "what if the Doctor and Susan had never left Gallifrey?" (''Auld Mortality'') to "what if the Doctor had not been UNIT's scientific advisor?" (''Sympathy for the Devil'') to "what if the Doctor had escaped the justice of the Time Lords at the end of ''The War Games''?" (''Exile'', with a [[MythologyGag cameo by]] the Creator/NicholasBriggs Doctor), "what if the Valeyard had won at the end of ''The Trial of a Time Lord''?" (''"...He Jests at Tears"''), to "what if the Doctor believed that the ends justified the means? (''Full Fathom Five'') to ''Deadline'', set in a reality where TheBBC decided to make a 1960s television series called ''DoctorWho''... but it failed and never got even as far as the PilotEpisode stage! (Apart from that it has [[MagicalRealism Magical Realist]] elements, too.)

* The ''FanFic/PonyPOVSeries'' addresses multiple what if scenarios whenever someone looks into [[GateOfTruth the Truth]] and glimpses TheMultiverse. These vary from relatively minor changes ("What if Celestia turned Nightmare instead of Luna?") to more major changes ("What if Applejack was a different Element of Harmony?"). Many [[RecursiveFanfiction recursive fanfics]] have been written based on these scenarios.
** There's also the canonical [[BadFuture Dark World Series]], which addresses what would have happened if [[TheBadGuyWins Discord had won]] [[spoiler: and if Twilight became a Nightmare as a result]]]].

* WrestleCrap's Rewriting The Book section is all about What Ifs, exploring historic events in ProfessionalWrestling and looking at what would have happened had things went differently, such as "What If The MontrealScrewjob Never Happened?"