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Times where somebody was revealed to be a Canon Character All Along in Video Games.


  • Assassin's Creed Origins: The ending reveals that Aya, Bayek's wife, renounces her old identity and becomes Amunet - one of the Assassins with a statue dedicated to them under the Villa Auditore, who was famous for killing Cleopatra with a poisonous snake.
  • Batman: Arkham Knight does this with its titular villain. Up until the game's release, Rocksteady insisted that the Arkham Knight was an original character who stood as Batman's antithesis. While the Arkham Knight as an identity was new, the person behind the mask, Jason Todd a.k.a. Red Hood, was an already established character. This set up a Meta Twist when the Arkham Knight became a Canon Immigrant in Detective Comics #1000. Many fans assumed this incarnation of the Knight was a preexisting character, due to how knowledgeable the Knight is about Batman. Then Detective Comics #1003 had an unmasking revealing that the Knight is actually Astrid Arkham, a woman, thus making the Arkham Knight a truly original character within the comic book canon.
  • Batman: The Telltale Series:
    • The main antagonist of the series, Lady Arkham, turned out to be a canonical character, though few people probably expected that said character was Vicki Vale.
    • Also played with regarding John Doe. Upon first seeing him in Episode 4, it's obvious he's going to become The Joker, and Season 2 is set up as John Doe's Start of Darkness. The twist is he only becomes The Joker, as we know him, in one of Season 2 Episode 4's Multiple Endings. In the other, he becomes a Vigilante Man inspired by Batman, fighting against The Agency.
  • Bendy and the Ink Machine: The tie-in novel, Dreams Come to Life, stars Daniel "Buddy" Lewek, a volunteer at Joey Drew Studios who appears to have been created solely for the book. Come the end of the book however, Buddy is transformed into a Boris clone, with the heavy implication that he's the Boris we ally with in Chapter Three.
  • The Caligula Effect 2 introduces Marie Amabuki, the Student Council President of Tatefushi Academy and playable character. Only late in the game it's revealed (and outright confirmed in her Character Episodes) that she's actually Marie Mizuguchi or rather, as how the player knew her in the previous game, the former Ostinato Musician Wicked.
  • In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), one of main protagonists, Sergeant Kyle Garrick, at first seemed to be a completely new character without any direct counterparts from the original Modern Warfare trilogy. That is, until the very end of the Campaign when Laswell reveals to Price his nickname: Gaz, a diminutive of his surname, making Garrick a rebooted version of the original Captain Price's second-in-command all the way back from Call of Duty 4.
  • Castlevania
    • In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, the player character Soma Cruz is eventually revealed to be the reincarnation of the series Big Bad Dracula himself.
    • In Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Sara Trantoul, on the verge of being turned into a vampire, makes use of alchemy to transplant her soul into Leon's whip, turning it into the Vampire Killer.
    • Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
      • Protagonist Gabriel Belmont initially appears to be an original character created for that series' universe, based primarily on Lament of Innocence's Leon Belmont, the founder of the clan. The ending of the game, however, reveals that he goes on to become that series' incarnation of Dracula, the sworn enemy of the Belmont clan in the main canon proper.
      • Gabriel's mentor and ally, Zobek, is later revealed to be one of the Lords of Shadow, and the Alternate Continuity's version of Death.
  • Cognitive Dissonance: Your companion Zarbol is revealed to be an insectoid alien in a protective craft near the end of the game. Then he goes back in time, becoming Buzz Buzz from EarthBound (1994).
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert: One of the background extras occasionally seen talking to Stalin is played by Joseph D. Kucan, a.k.a. Kane from Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn (although wearing a suit rather than his usual black shirt), which is likely to be excused by the player as the game having a small cast. Only at the very end, when he helps kill Stalin then kills Nadiam, do we realize he is, in fact, Kane himself.
  • Contra: Operation Galuga has a character by the name of Bradley, who is a Butt-Monkey Punch-Clock Villain working for Red Falcon but called it quits when he saw their true nature. In The Stinger, he is later shown mutating into a werewolf and is being spied upon by Sheena Etranzi and Browny, which makes him Brad Fang from Contra: Hard Corps.
  • Dark Souls III: The final boss, the Soul of Cinder, is described in the lore as an amalgamation of everyone who ever Linked the First Flame. Its fighting style in the first phase of the battle involves it wielding weapons and spells from player characters throughout the series... and then you drain its health, and it refills its life bar and starts using a very familiar moveset. While three piano notes sound. You know who else Linked the Fire? Gwyn.
  • Dawn of War II: Retribution: Set decades after the events of Chaos Rising, the heroes consist of Captain Diomedes, Cyrus, Martellus, and the Ancient, a Space Marine who has taken a Vow Of Silence as penance for his failures. After the Internal Reveal where Diomedes finally realizes that Chapter Master Kyras serves Chaos as Cyrus has been telling him for years, he has a breakdown, prompting the Ancient to reveal that he's Tarkus, getting Diomedes back into fighting form.
  • In Dead Rising 3, Annie, very late in the game, will be revealed to be an older Katey Greene. Likewise, Gary's boss will turn out to be her father Chuck, the protagonist of the previous game.
  • Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance throws a piece of information in the ending that suggest Christo is possibly Seraph Lamington in his younger years. The game is sort of a Stealth Prequel, and in his epilogue, he returned to Celestia and rose up in rank and became a Seraph, and played a key role in an incident involving the demon, angel, and human worlds. Some minor details that support this are that he's got the same hair color but not washed out, his ultimate character skill looks awfully similar to Lamington's special skill, and the fact that we never found out Christo's real name.
  • Doom:
    • In Doom (2016), Olivia Pierce is a human Mad Scientist who organized the invasion of Mars by the demons from Hell so that she would be given vast supernatural powers by their leader. Exposure to the energies of Hell has left her an Evil Cripple who can only move with help from a cybernetic exoskeleton. When the demons finally give her the powers she wanted, she and her cybernetics are gruesomely transformed into the Spider Mastermind, the original Big Bad and Final Boss of the first game.
    • In Doom Eternal, flashbacks and codex entries concerning the history of the Night Sentinels reveal that the Doom Slayer is actually the main character of the original Doom games. He's even depicted in his original helmet and outfit, with the subtitles outright referring to him as "Doomguy".
  • Dreamfall Chapters gives a lot of space to a "new" character, Saga, who is playable in interlude segments between chapters of the main story, featuring her at different stages of her life. As the story progresses, however, it becomes clearer that we've seen Saga before, and that she's the younger version of Lady Alvane, the old woman who, among other things, served as the narrator of the original The Longest Journey, and was also the first character the player meets in that game.
  • Fate/Grand Order:
    • Throughout the Cosmos of the Lostbelt saga, an individual claiming to be from Chaldea has been visiting the Lostbelts ahead of the protagonists and helping save the local residents. He finally appears in "Atlantis" to protect the protagonists and Mash from Kirschtaria Wodime and reveals his face to be Romani Archaman...but the heroes can quickly tell that he is not Dr. Roman. Kirschtaria suspects that the Chaldean's true identity is Goetia, the Big Bad of the previous part.
    • Cosmos of the Lostbelt introduces a woman named Koyanskaya, Goredolf's secretary who is actually working with the Foreign God for her own goals. The third chapter SIN reveals that her full name is Tamamo Vitch Koyanskaya, implying she is one of Tamamo-no-Mae's tails from Fate/EXTRA CCC. The "Tunguska Sanctuary" story then reveals that Koyanskaya isn't the real Tamamo Vitch. Rather she is the Anthropomorphic Personification of the animals killed in the Tunguska Event, who took Tamamo's likeness and aimed to become a Beast for misguided revenge against humans.
  • Fight Club: The player character is revealed by the end of the story mode as the man who detonated the bombs for Project Mayhem.
  • Final Fantasy doesn't have a singular continuity in most cases, but seemingly-Original Generation characters tend to reveal themselves as recurring ones instead.
    • Final Fantasy IV: the King of Baron and protagonist Cecil's Parental Substitute, gets killed even before the game started, but then becomes the Dark Knight Odin.
      • Final Fantasy IV: The After Years: the man in black that helps Rydia and Luca against Titan will turn out to be none other than Golbez himself.
      • Also, the mysterious man that has been travelling with Ceodore during most of the first half of the game will turn out to be the one and only Kain. In fact, the armor-cladded Kain that appeared at times is not the real one.
    • Final Fantasy IX: minor NPC "Alleyway Jack" is Gilgamesh. Since Gilgamesh is established to be a Dimensional Traveler, he's actually the exact same one as his past guest appearances, although in this case his appearance has drastically changed.
    • Final Fantasy XIV actually manages to do this with Gilgamesh within its own continuity. Gilgamesh is met as himself early on in the Hildibrand sidequests after ARR. Come Stormblood's leg of the sidequests, it's revealed that Yojimbo, who is otherwise the boss of the Kugane Castle dungeon, is Gilgamesh in disguise.
      • Likewise, the Warrior of Light is strongly hinted to be some otherwordly being, especially when Emet-Selch keeps hinting that he knows them from before and that they have forgotten their life back in the ancient days. The ending of patch 5.0 confirms that the Warrior of Light is a reincarnation of Azem, meaning Azem has always been there from the very first moment the players created their new character in the character creation menu. Emet-Selch himself, once he assumes his true form at the end of Shadowbringers, turns out to be the local iteration of the summon Hades.
    • Final Fantasy X: The slightly-Creepy Child and Spirit Advisor who had been accompanying Tidus since even before his journey began, is actually the human form of Bahamut.
    • Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin: Jack's full name is "Jack Garland", and he is the man who ultimately becomes the dark knight "Garland", and in turn, the Big Bad Chaos in the first Final Fantasy. His friends and allies also become the Four Fiends of Chaos: Ash is Lich, Jed is Kraken, Neon is Marilith, and Sophia is Tiamat.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Nagi from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is heavily implied to be the reincarnation of the Divine Dragon Naga, who was only mentioned before then.
    • In Fire Emblem Fates:
      • Laslow, Selena and Odin are initially presented as Captain Ersatzes of Inigo, Severa and Owain from Fire Emblem: Awakening. Their Support Conversations and side-story confirms that they are actually said characters, who were sent to Nohr by a still lucid Anankos to protect his child.
      • An item example. The Omega Yato, which is the final stadium of the Yato, is actually the game's version of the Fire Emblem.
    • In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, some messages left by Forneus in Thabes Labyrinth has him often referring to a small being simply referred as the Creation, which grows rapidly and will start to take over his mind, prompting him to try to slay it. Reach the end of the dungeon and you find out the Creation is actually Grima, the main antagonist of Awakening.
    • Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE:
      • The Mirage that possesses Gojuin at the beginning of the game is not revealed until the player reach Illusory Dolhr, where said Mirage turns out to be Garrick, the first boss in Awakening.
      • It's not said who is Yasuhiro's Mirage when he's first seen transforming. Once recruited, it's revealed that it's the game's counterpart of Navarre from the Archanea games.
    • Book III of Fire Emblem Heroes introduces two generals from Hel called Líf and Thrasir. Later in the story, it turns out the two are actually an alternate version of Alfonse and a future version of Veronica respectively.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's
    • Five Nights at Freddy's 3 revolves around the character "Springtrap" which is revealed to be possessed by William Afton, who killed the children that possessed the main antagonists and likely helped design them, although we do know he definitively designed the animatronics featured in Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location. Although, his involvement with engineering wasn't clear yet.
      • In Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, all of the four remaining animatronics are what's left of them after the fire at Fazbear's Fright. And three of them are very clearly old ones returning for one more go round with the nightguard, with Molten Freddy being the remains of Ennard, with Funtime Freddy now being in control, Scraptrap being what's left of Springtrap and Scrap Baby being what became of Circus Baby after getting kicked out of Ennard. The final one, however, is Lefty, who is seemingly a brand new character. At the end of the game, they are revealed to actually be the Puppet, who was sealed in the new Lefty suit.
      • Michael Afton, the protagonist of Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, manages to top his father in this contest. In fact, he's actually Mike Schmidt, the protagonist of the first Five Nights at Freddy's, who went under a fake alias.
  • God of War:
  • I-No was introduced in Guilty Gear XX as one of the game's most mysterious characters, with no given background. -STRIVE- reveals one last bombshell to the mystery: she was Axl's girlfriend, Megumi, from one of the countless timelines she's been part of; the same Megumi Axl spent the entire series looking for.
  • In Living Story Season 4 of Guild Wars 2, players got a not-so-pleasant callback to the first Guild Wars when it turned out that the "Awakened Champion" they were supposed to find was Koss, who'd been killed and revived by Palawa Joko in the centuries since the first game. A much happier callback came during the End of Dragons expansion when it was revealed that Navan, new character and handmaiden to Empress Ihn, is in fact an illusion-disguised Kuunavang.
  • Injustice 2: Being able to play as Brainiac in Arcade Mode and have him fight himself at the end of it seems like the standard fighting game MST3K Mantra at play... only for the final cutscene to reveal that the playable Brainiac is actually Querl Dox AKA Brainiac 5, Brainiac's heroic descendent and member of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Terra is one of the protagonists of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and there is no mention of him in any of the previous games (although his armor, possessed by his Lingering Will, does show up in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix). However, Kingdom Hearts III reveals that after his body was taken by Xehanort, he was turned into the Guardian, the Heartless that fought by Ansem in the first game.
    • Birth by Sleep also reveals that the Land of Departure, the protagonists' homeworld, eventually becomes Castle Oblivion from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.
    • The two teens seen at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts III are revealed at the end of the game to be Eraqus and Xehanort when they were younger.
    • Luxu, from Kingdom Hearts χ, never shows his face in the game. Once again, III reveals that all this time, Luxu was actually Xigbar.
    • Also from Kingdom Hearts χ, when Ephemer and Skuld meet the third new Union Leader, we at first don't see them, even as Ephemer and Skuld talk to them. Then Ephemer introduces himself, and we finally see who it is, accompanied by a line that will sound very familiar to anyone who's played Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: "I'm Ventus. Call me Ven."
    • Kingdom Hearts χ also has a "Canon Version of a Character All Along" variation. At one point, you go to the world of Sleeping Beauty, where you play through a retelling of the movie's plot, complete with Maleficent as the villain. Since this game takes place in the distant past, and Maleficent here acts exactly as she does in the movie, players would naturally assume she's just a part of the retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story. Until, after you complete the world, where it's revealed that she was the Kingdom Hearts version of Maleficent all along, the same one that antagonised Sora in the other games, who came back in time to try to alter the past.
    • The finale of Dark Road reveals that Bragi, a classmate of Xehanort, is actually another of Luxu's vessels.
    • Also in Dark Road, it turns out Xehanort's caretaker is actually the Player Character from χ, having reincarnated at the end of Union χ.
    • More like Canon Character's Familiar All Along, but in Kingdom Hearts III, Sora is aided on occasion by a Chirithy, the same type of Dream Eater that aids young Keyblade wielders in Kingdom Hearts χ. It's hinted at throughout the game, but the ending finally reveals that he was Ventus's Chirithy.
  • Kings Quest (2015) has a few examples of this, being a reimagining of the original series.
    • Manny is introduced as one of the Knight Hopefuls who befriends the young Graham, but ends up becoming Chapter 1's main villain. Chapter 2 introduces a human who was Switched at Birth by goblins and raised by them, who initially is only called "Goblin Man", and The Stinger of the episode has him teaming up with Manny. Chapter 3 reveals Manny to be a goblin himself, which you'd think would mean this trope wouldn't apply, until The Stinger, which has him drinking a potion to turn himself into an elderly human, implying he is Manannan, the main villain of King's Quest III. Meanwhile the Goblin Man's real name is Mordon, and he and Manny regard each other as brothers due to being Switched at Birth, making him Mordak, the villain of King's Quest V. Chapter 4 confirms both of these.
    • Chapter 3 retells the story of Graham meeting his future bride, except instead of one princess, there's two, Vee and Neese. Whichever one he ends up romancing turns out to be Valanice, Graham's wife from the original games. The one he doesn't marry ends up becoming Queen Icebella.
  • The King of Fighters XV introduces as one of its new characters Krohnen, who has a similar appearance and moveset to K9999, a blatant Captain Ersatz of Tetsuo Shima that last appeared in The King of Fighters 2002 and got kicked out of its Updated Re-release. His team ending confirms that they are one and the same, with Krohnen taking on his current identity to avoid the wrath of his former employers.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Ganon was established as the Big Bad of The Legend of Zelda and the Greater-Scope Villain of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The mysterious wizard Agahnim is presented as a new villain for Link to fight in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but then it turns out that "Agahnim" is just an avatar that Ganon can speak and act through while inside the Dark World; Link's been fighting the King of Evil since the game started. Averted in ViZ's comics and the manga where Agahnim and Ganon are two separate characters.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, new character Sheik is revealed to be Princess Zelda's disguise after she was forced into hiding by Ganondorf as a child.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Tetra is revealed to be Princess Zelda's latest incarnation. The reason her name isn't Zelda is that Hyrule was flooded years ago putting an end to the royal family Tetra is descended from, which had a tradition of naming daughters "Zelda". Basically, her name would be Zelda and she would be a princess if she had a kingdom to rule over. Unlike the other games, she prefers staying as Tetra, reverting to that form in the ending and spending the entirety of Phantom Hourglass and the non-canon Hyrule Warriors as Tetra.
    • Link spends much of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap repairing the broken Picori Blade. The final result becomes the Four Sword, and gains its special ability to split Link into four copies of himself.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the new incarnation of Link is taught sword techniques by a mysterious ghost swordsman called the Hero's Shade. Word of God has confirmed that the Shade is the spirit of the Link from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Hero of Time.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword take place at the very beginning of the Zelda timeline, so we see a few early versions of established elements.
      • When Link tempers the Goddess Sword, which he carries throughout the game, in all three Sacred Flames, it becomes the Master Sword.
      • The Final Boss is the Demon King Demise, who Hylia fought against millennia ago. Link defeats him, but in his dying moments he places a curse on Link and Zelda that they'll be forever plagued by the incarnation of his hatred. This strongly implies that Demise is the original version of series antagonist Ganon.note 
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds implies that Irene's grandmother is a now elderly Maple from the Oracle games, given how her Lorulian counterpart is given the nickname "Mapes".
    • Throughout The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Ganondorf is helped by an Evil Twin of Princess Zelda. It isn't until later that it reforms itself as Phantom Ganon.
  • Marvel's Spider-Man 2: A series of side missions follow Peter and Yuri as they track down a deranged destruction-obsessed cult leader calling himself the Flame. Eventually, Yuri reveals the Flame's name (one of them at any rate) is Cletus Kasady, the host of the Carnage symbiote in the comics.
  • In Mega Man X: Nightshade, the true identity of the Big Bad Noctis is Bass.
  • Metroid: Other M features a chicken-legged rabbit creature called "Little Birdie" encountered on the Bottle Ship several times. Despite its cute appearance and small size, it has an aggressive parasitic nature and leaves Samus spooked for reasons she can barely articulate. It later molts into a larger hairy lizard form and attacks Samus until it is fought off. Following its blood trail, she finds that the creature has molted again, and that its adult form is none other than Ridley, her Arch-Enemy.
  • Metal Gear:
    • In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the new hero, Raiden, works with a guy known as Iroquois Pliskin. This is eventually revealed to be the code name of Solid Snake, the hero of the previous game. Not that he was fooling anyone though.
    • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (a prequel set some thirty years before the original game) stars Naked Snake, a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of the series' protagonist Solid Snake. At the end of the game, Naked Snake receives the title of Big Boss, the Big Bad of the original Metal Gear games and Solid Snake's clone-father. Subverted in that it was a Captain Obvious Reveal — the game was known to be Big Boss's Start of Darkness long before it was released.
    • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: The Patriots, the shady Bilderberg-esque group in control of the American government, is revealed to be your support team from Snake Eater.
    • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain inverts this trope and plays it straight; Venom Snake is not Big Boss, but a player-generated character who is then surgically altered to become the body double of Big Boss. At the same time, though, he technically is the canonical Big Boss, because he's the final boss from the original game. Eli, meanwhile, is a Liquid Snake lookalike that doesn't share Snake's DNA because Venom Snake didn't get gene therapy to go with his Big Boss plastic face. Possibly the biggest character reveals of the series, even outdoing the above.
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor: The elven wraith turns out to be Celebrimbor, a character who figured heavily into the Ring's history.
  • The sequel Middle-earth: Shadow of War reveals the protagonist Talion became one of the Nine Ringwraiths in service to Sauron in the Golden Ending.
  • Mortal Kombat 9:
    • At the start of the story, two men dressed similarly to Sub-Zero (only one in yellow and the other in red) are seen among the fighters. Later, it will turn out the two were Cyrax and Sektor before being turned into cyborgs.
    • During Stryker's chapter, the titular character is accompanied by another member of the SWAT who, towards the end of the chapter, will be burned by Kintaro. The next chapter will reveal the man was rescued by Kano and he was actually the veteran character Kabal.
  • In Mother 3, the Big Bad is unseen at first and not named beyond one initial. The game does hint at direct connections to the world of EarthBound (1994) as early as the third chapter, but it's not until later that it reveals that its antagonist is Porky Minch.
  • One of the many villains in Namco × Capcom is a Red Arremer Joker who serves as Astaroth's right hand man. It’s all but said that this Red Arremer is, in fact, Firebrand, having been promoted to Joker for all of his heroics to the Infernal Village.
  • In Sea of Thieves, the "A Pirate's Life" update, a crossover event which includes multiple characters from Pirates of the Caribbean, introduces a new character called the Castaway, who acts as the quest giver for the storyline, and who knows a fair bit more than a seemingly random stranger should know about Jack Sparrow's exploits. That is, until Chapter 4 reveals that she's actually the sea goddess Calypso, one of Jack's allies and Davey Jones's former love interest.
  • Shantae and the Seven Sirens introduces players to zombie half-genie, Fillin the Blank, who is revealed to be Shantae's friend Rottytops near the endgame.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei V, the deuteragonist of the game is a proto-fiend called Aogami, an artifically-created demon with the power to fuse with humans and turning them into a Nahobino. Late in the game, said proto-fiend turns out to be Susano-O, a series staple demon and god of seas and storms of Japan.
  • The true ending of Sin and Punishment: Star Successor reveals that the female protagonist, Kachi, is none other than Achi, the Big Bad of the first game.
  • In Silent Hill 3 the player character Heather is eventually revealed to be the reincarnation of Alessa/Cheryl that Harry Mason rescued at the end of the first game.
  • In SpellForce: Conquest of Eo, the main character is implied at the end to be a younger Piper, one of the more mysterious members of the Circle from the original game.
  • The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe does this with the Data Collector, the text that first appears on screen when asking to adjust the time and brightness sliders who plays a large role in the final ending as it's revealed to be a living entity. There are, however, several hints that they are/were Employee 432, the employee with numerous company complaints and suspicious Easter Eggs related to them.
  • In a subtle version, the villain Hessonite from the Steven Universe spinoff game Save the Light bears a noted resemblance to Nephrite's unnamed commander in her flashback in "Monster Reunion". Much later, Nephrite names her commander as Hessonite in "Legs from Here to Homeworld"; her gem placement and eventual Word of God confirm that it's not just a Hessonite, but that Hessonite.
  • While the Ancient Minister, the field leader of the Subspace Army in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary, appears to be an Original Generation character, when his clothes burn off, it's revealed that he's actually R.O.B.
  • Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, despite being a prequel to Tactics Ogre initially does not seem like it has any real connection to it. However, in the game's canonical ending, the protagonist of KoL, Alphonse Loehir, has his name changed by the Pope to Lans Tartare, who is the primary antagonist of Tactics Ogre (the remake translates his first name as "Lanselot").
  • One of the "new" characters in Tekken 4 is Violet, a wealthy tech entrepreneur and the creator of Combot. However, just before the final boss fight against Heihachi Mishima, Violet removes his Paper-Thin Disguise to reveal himself as Lee Chaolan, Heihachi's adopted son from the previous games.
  • In Total War: Warhammer II, each faction gets a pair of Canon Foreigner advisors to help guide them in their quest for control of the Great Vortex. For the Dark Elves, the pair is a sorceress named Felicion and her unnamed Khainite Assassin partner. At the beginning of the final act, though, it's revealed that the Assassin is actually Shadowblade, long established in the lore and the tabletop as the greatest Khainite Assassin to have ever lived.
  • The Switch version of Undertale introduces a new secret boss named Mad Mew Mew, a life-sized doll possessed by a ghost. What some players may not realize is that the doll is actually possessed by the same ghost who possessed the Mad Dummy.
  • In What Remains of Edith Finch, it's heavily implied that Milton Finch is the King from Giant Sparrow's first game, The Unfinished Swan. However, it could possibly be a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane, as Edith Finch runs on that trope.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles series:
  • Yoshi's New Island features Mr. Pipe, a seemingly alive Warp Pipe that aids Yoshi with various items should he not be doing well in levels. The ending eventually reveals Mr. Pipe to be Mario himself, who somehow managed to go back in time and met Yoshi and his baby version while in a Warp Pipe disguise. This comes also after the grown up version of Bowser also went back in time for reasons unknown.


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