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  • Blaster Master was one of several NES games to have a Worlds of Power novelization by Scholastic. The book added a girl named Eve, a Human Alien who was the original owner of the Sophia III. Eve became the mother of Jason's children in Blasting Again, and Blaster Master Zero reworked the original game's plot to include Eve.
  • Konami decided to link their popular Castlevania series to the famous Bram Stoker novel Dracula, so when they designed Castlevania: Bloodlines, instead of starring a Belmont, it featured a member of a related branch family who had emigrated to America — the Morrises. John Morris (the member in question) is the son of the novel's Quincey Morris.
  • Club Penguin: Dot the Design Gal first appeared in a DS game along with the concept of the EPF, which was then incorporated into the main game in the final PSA mission. The main villain of that game, the Ultimate Protobot, also appeared in the game later on.
  • Crash Bandicoot:
    • Fake Crash, Crash's weird look-alike, first appeared in Japanese commercials for Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (which Naughty Dog had minimal involvement in) before making several cameos in later games.
    • Penta Penguin, one of the secret characters in Crash Team Racing, first appeared as a character in the Crash Bandicoot manga series Dansu! De Jump! Na Daibouken. N. Sane Trilogy also names Penta as the penguin Dingodile picks on at the start of his boss fight in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (and who starts jumping on him when he’s defeated).
    • Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled features the character of Yaya Panda, who was originally created for one of many of Crash Bandicoot's mobile phone racing games, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D.
  • In Dead Space, the Divet Autopistol from the first game is revealed to have been left behind by the characters in its prequel sequel.
  • J.D. Morrison from Devil May Cry: The Animated Series makes his first official appearance in the canon of the games in Devil May Cry 5, albeit with a Race Lift. Patty Lowell, also from the anime series, has a brief cameo where she calls up Dante and invites him to her eighteenth birthday party.
  • In the North American localized version of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, Nun and cat themed digimon Sistermon Noir was edited to a sky blue, mouse themed equivalent called Sistermon Ciel, in an attempt to make her less blatantly nun-like. Bandai-Namco liked the idea of her enough to make her an official third sister to Noir and Blanc who wields a katana instead of Noir's guns.
  • Donkey Kong Country:
  • Dota 2: The playable hero Marci first made her debut in the animated spin-off DOTA: Dragon's Blood.
  • Many The Elder Scrolls devs and former devs, especially Michael Kirkbride, have written a number of "Obscure Texts" from an in-universe perspective which flesh out many of the details of the Elder Scrolls universe. The texts themselves are generally treated as, at the very least, Loose Canon by the fandom, and the Unreliable Canon nature of the series allows them to fit right in without being disruptive to what is shown in the games themselves. In Skyrim, a number of characters and elements first mentioned in the Obscure Texts were brought up in-game. To note:
  • The new mini-game added in Fairune Collection, Fairune Blast, brings in two main characters and some bosses from Kamiko, as well as recasting the game's main character Hope Girl as the missing third protagonist of Kamiko.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth grew seven wings when he became Safer Sephiroth, but never had wings in his human form. When he appeared as a Superboss in Kingdom Hearts, he was slightly redesigned and had one large, black wing growing out of the right side of his body. The one black wing would become a signature of Sephiroth's, he would have it sprout out of his back when showing his power in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Dissidia Final Fantasy, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's:
  • Mr. Game & Watch originally took various forms throughout the Game & Watch handhelds, hardly ever looking the same twice. Then Super Smash Bros. Melee, needing one form to represent the franchise, gave him one to fill all functions modeled after the civilians in Fire. This was later adopted into canon as his regular form in Game & Watch Gallery 4, released a year later.
  • Halo has done this more and more as its games and Expanded Universe have become more integrated:
    • Dr. Catherine Halsey, who made her first in-game appearance in 2010's Halo: Reach before going on to have a major role in the Reclaimer Saga, had already been playing a major role in the Expanded Universe since her debut in the 2001 novel Halo: The Fall of Reach.
    • Several other major EU elements introduced in The Fall of Reach have made their way into the games, including: Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs), who first appear in-game in Halo 2 and would eventually star in their own game; The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), which got a one-line reference in Halo 3 before playing a more important role in the plots of the later games; Covenant Engineers, who first show up in-game in Halo Wars, but got a starring role (and redesign) in ODST; and Linda-058, Kelly-087, and Fred-104, who are all playable in Halo 5: Guardians.
    • The SPARTAN-III program was introduced in the novel Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, which was published about a year before the release of Halo 3. In Reach, all but one member of Noble Team, including the player character, are SPARTAN-IIIs.
    • The Big Bad of Halo 4's Spartan Ops co-op campaign, Jul 'Mdama, first appeared as one of the main characters in the novels Halo: Glasslands and Halo: The Thursday War.
    • With the exception of Edward Bucknote , the other members of Fireteam Osiris (introduced in Halo 5: Guardians) come from the expanded universe; Jameson Locke debuted in Halo: Nightfall, Holly Tanaka debuted in Halo: Escalation, and Olympia Vale debuted in Halo: Hunters in the Dark.
  • The Ikemen Sengoku otome mobile game started out with eleven romanceable guys, but the game's stage and anime adaptations added an extra guy in the form of chaos-stirring pirate Motonari Mouri and the PS Vita port added two other romanceable guys in the form of Shingen's distant relative Yoshimoto Imagawa and Nobunaga's page Ranmaru Mori. After a while, the original game added these three guys to its roster too, revising the prologue and Sasuke's route to introduce them.
  • In 2024, it was confirmed that League of Legends would be adding Ambessa Medarda from the Arcane animated series as a playable Champion, marking the first time a character from the show has made the jump to the game.
  • The anime adaptation of Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story added an original character named Kuroe, a former teammate of Iroha's who ended up in the Wings of the Magius. Kuroe was eventually added to the game, although her history with Iroha was omitted.
  • Street Fighter:
  • The King of Fighters:
    • The Fatal Fury OVAs featured a new love interest for Terry named Lily McGuire. Lily would later appear in the background of the Mexico stage in The King of Fighters '94.
    • Kusanagi originated in the non-canonical KOF 2002 as a way for the developers to include a more classic take on Kyo, complete with his original schoolboy uniform (which he had stopped wearing after KOF '97). Kusanagi was subsequently introduced into the series' mainline canon in KOF 2003, with it being explained that he was a magic doppelgänger of Kyo that had been created by Chizuru.
    • Takuma Sakazaki's black-clad Serious Mr. Karate form from SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos was later added to The King of Fighters XIII as a DLC character.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Super Mario Bros. 2, originally a Dolled-Up Installment based on the game Doki Doki Panic, contributed to the series in many ways: several monsters from the game have gone on to be included in later Mario games. These include Shy Guys, Bob-ombs, Pokeys, Snifits, Ninjis, Phanto and Birdo, as well as a race of mice creatures similar to the boss Mouser. Peach's hovering ability also comes from this game, as well as her ability to pull out vegetables in Super Smash Bros..
    • The Koopa Bros. of Paper Mario fame originally appeared in the Japan-exclusive manga Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania.
    • Super Mario Bros. 3: The Koopalings were originally unnamed in Japan, but the English localization gave them names. These would eventually become their official Japanese names in Super Mario World.
    • It is often believed that Luigi being a Lovable Coward is inspired by his portrayal in the DiC cartoons.
    • The 1994 Super Mario-kun manga featured the first appearance of the Ice Flowers, which made their first game appearance in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, and later made their way to the mainline series starting with Super Mario Galaxy.
  • There are quite a few examples from the Mass Effect series:
    • Technically, even Captain Anderson and Saren are examples of this; they're the main characters of Mass Effect: Revelation, the prequel novel released before Mass Effect.
    • Jacob Taylor and Miranda Lawson first appeared as the protagonists of Mass Effect: Galaxy before becoming party members in Mass Effect 2. In Jacob's case, he's probably one of the few video game characters to go from being a Player Character in one game to just a party member in a later one. Miranda herself had another appearance in Mass Effect: Redemption before Mass Effect 2 came out.
    • The Illusive Man first appeared in the novel Mass Effect: Ascension, a year and a half before his main series debut in Mass Effect 2.
    • Feron, Liara's drell companion in the comic Mass Effect: Redemption, returns as a character in Mass Effect 2's "Lair of the Shadow Broker" Downloadable Content. In fact, the whole mission revolves around rescuing him from the Shadow Broker. The fact that Liara becomes the Shadow Broker at the end is kind of an unintentional consequence of the whole thing.
    • Kai Leng, Recurring Boss in Mass Effect 3, first appeared in the novels Mass Effect: Retribution and Mass Effect: Deception.
    • Dr. Eva Coré from Mass Effect 3 seems like an example of this at first. Eva Coré is one of Jack Harper's (a.k.a. the Illusive Man) companions in the comic book Mass Effect Evolution, which takes place 20 years before the series proper. However, Eva dies at the end of the comic. For anyone who's read Evolution, the fact that one of the scientists on the Mars research facility has her name will be the first clue that something is very wrong with this woman. She turns out to be a Fem Bot mole created by the Illusive Man to sabotage the facility.
    • Kahlee Sanders was a main character in all four Mass Effect novels (Revelation, Ascension, Retribution, and Deception) before becoming a minor NPC in Mass Effect 3.
  • Mortal Kombat:
  • Silent Hill:
    • Silent Hill: Homecoming does this with the art style, architecture, and specific locations from the non-canonical Silent Hill movie.
    • Similarly, the transformation effect in the film Silent Hill was used for subsequent games in the series.
    • Howard Blackwood, a character from the comic Silent Hill: Past Life appears in Silent Hill: Downpour.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Amy Rose and Charmy Bee are both canon immigrants. Both first appeared in a comic series in Shogaku Yonensei, published in Japan in 1992. While elements such as Nikki transforming into Sonic and being bullied by a lizard called Anton were left firmly in the comic, Eimy (Nikki's girlfriend in the comics, ironically) was picked up and debuted officially in Sonic the Hedgehog CD (also ironic in the fact that she was labeled Princess Sally in the American manual anyway), while Charmy (one of Nikki's friends) was used as one of the characters in Knuckles' Chaotix (even more irony in the fact that Sonic didn't have any appearance in that game aside from appearing in the good ending credits, thus didn't interact with him). Their backgrounds were, naturally, radically altered as a result.
    • In the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and Sonic Underground television series, there were robot characters called SWATbots. These robots were added into the RPG, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, as a reference.
    • Likewise in Sonic Chronicles, Procurator Shade and the Nocturnus Tribe Echidnas share everything except their names with Julie-Su and the Dark Legion from the American Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) continuity - making them canon immigrants under false passports. The similarities are so blatant that their creator, Ken Penders, sued for copyright infringement (as he owns the rights to all characters he created for Archie). While the case was dropped, it also means that Sega are unlikely to acknowledge the characters again.
    • Several of the robots that Eggman made in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and/or the early Archie comics also appear in his own puzzle spin-off, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.
    • The Sonic Boom animated series, along with the accompanying games, introduced Sticks the Badger, who ended up playable in Sonic Runners and the Rio 2016 edition of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. In Sonic Frontiers, her name gets dropped, cementing her as an existing character within the main games' universe.
    • The IDW comics introduced Tangle the Lemur and Whisper the Wolf, who quickly became Breakout Characters and were added as playable characters in the mobile spinoffs Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, making them the first Western comic book characters to make a playable appearance in a game. Tangle also gets name-dropped in Sonic Frontiers, confirming her existence in the main games' universe; only time will tell if the same applies to Whisper. Surge The Tenrec (also from The IDW comics ) was also added to (most) of the above mentioned game.
  • Nasuverse:
    • Originally, Word of God stated that it was extremely improbable for two people with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception; hence Shiki Ryogi and Shiki Tohno had to exist in a separate Alternate Continuity. However, Shiki Ryogi was eventually announced as being in Melty Blood. In this case though, the immigration is quite literal.
    • The Studio DEEN anime adaptation of Fate/stay night showed Archer strengthening his twin swords "Kanshou" and "Bakuya" into larger, stronger versions, termed "Overedge". This is not an ability he ever displayed or was suggested to possess in the Visual Novel, but Nasu thought it was cool and the "Overedge" ability was made into a standard part of Archer's repertoire in all future incarnations of the franchise.
  • Resident Evil:
  • The Super Robot Wars series is loaded with these, ranging from the Mazinkaiser in Super Robot Wars F Final to the Great Zeorymer in Super Robot Wars Judgment and the Final Dancougar in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 (the latter two having only existed on concept/paper prior to the games). Then there's whole stitch about Elzam von Branstein and Ratsel Feinschmeker: Elzam was introduced in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation, but he appears in Alpha 2 as Ratsel, then subsequently back as Ratsel in the sequel Original Generation 2, where he gets his Ace Custom Aussenseiter, which then reappears in the last Alpha game. Elzam was loosely mentioned first in the obscure Super Robot Spirits and in the back-story of Alpha. It isn't until Original Generation that he appeared in full.
  • While the appearances of Monolith Soft's Namco × Capcom Original Generation in Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier came off as a simple guest starring, their reappearance in the sequel Endless Frontier EXCEED may very well serve as the continuation of their story, suggesting that Monolith is willing to transfer their characters into the Super Robot Wars series in order to keep using them. Confirmed with Project × Zone and Super Robot Wars OG: The Moon Dwellers, with Haken having his own Picture Drama briefly recounting the events of Project X Zone (Which had their Original Generation characters in important roles) and connecting those events to the Original Generation universe.
  • Pokémon:
    • A few characters from the anime cameoed in the Yellow version, notably Team Rocket's Jessie and James (who show up to fight you a few times). Jessie and James later reappear in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!. In Pokémon Masters, Jessie and James appear again, this time directly based on their anime counterparts, complete with talking Meowth and motto. You even fight them at one point and, of course, they get blasted off once you win.
    • In the game’s canon Red’s first and treasured Pokémon is one of Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle, with the numerous official artwork from Japan at the time of the first generation pairing him with Bulbasaur and more recent adaptations pairing him with Charmander. When the Pokémon franchise started becoming a giant and Pikachu became the face of it, however, the game’s universe also gave its own version of the Pikachu and Trainer bond that became famous in the anime with Ash and his Pikachu starting with Pokémon Yellow, since then Red also has a special bond with a Pikachu of his own, namely treated as the second Pokémon he got after Bulbasaur.
    • Green was initially nothing more than an unnamed female character on the cover of an official Strategy Guide of the original games, Pokémon Red and Blue. According to artist Ken Sugimori, there were never any plans to include a female player character in the games, but he wanted to depict three Trainers battling each other on the cover of the guidebook, so he created a female character to go along with Red and Blue, The Protagonist and The Rival of the games respectively note. Then, the official manga adaptation, Pokémon Adventures, gave this female character a name and made her into a main character, becoming one of the Kanto Dex Holders and being given even more backstory than Red and Blue. Years later, when Pokemon Red and Blue received remakes, a female player character option was introduced named Leaf, whose design was at least partially inspired by the unnamed female character from the Red and Blue strategy guidebook artwork. Finally, in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, Green made her first official appearance in the Pokemon games as an NPC and post-game Superboss, sharing some similarities with her manga counterpart, with both of them having a mischievous personality, having a Blastoise as their starter, and attempting to capture a Legendary/Mythical Pokemon.
    • Some of the main series games' downloadable content has included renditions of anime specific Pokémon such as Ash's Pikachu and Team Rocket's Meowth, usually with the moves, items and stats refined according to their depiction. In Sun and Moon, they actually included Ash's Greninja this way, down to the moveset note and exclusive Super Mode.
    • Ash made his first ever appearance in a canon game by appearing in Pokémon Masters in a tie in to the Masters 8 arc of the anime.
    • Ecruteak and Cianwood City's music from Pokémon GSC was originally the Blue Field theme from Pokémon Pinball. note Said field had its own canon immigrant in the form of its "Catch 'Em" theme, which was based on the 1st Japanese opening theme of the anime, "Aim to Be a Pokémon Master".
    • The font used in the American logo was later used in the Japanese theme park PokePark, and eventually would be used for the Japanese box art for PokéPark Wii and its sequel.
    • The Pokémon TCG introduced many new elements:
      • Some newly-introduced moves would become fully fledged game moves in new generations, such as Flail and Rain Dance.
      • Abilities first appeared in the card game as "Pokémon Powers" and later "Poké-Powers/Bodies" before becoming a mechanic in Ruby/Sapphire. Strangely, it took eight years for the card game to also start using the term.
      • Artwork for some items such as the original Potion would be canonized in FireRed/LeafGreen.
    • According to this article, Lugia, the iconic mascot of Pokémon Silver, was conceived by the anime's original head writer Takeshi Shudō specifically for the second movie. Shudō said he was surprised to see it in the games. Of course, as revealed in another article, Shudo did not actually design nor name Lugia and only came up with the initial concept of Pokemon X, which became Lugia.
    • Todd Snap, the main character for Pokémon Snap originally made his debut in the anime, with his first episode airing in Japan in July of 1998 while his game appearance was in March of 1999, also in Japan.
  • Most of Pac-Man's supporting cast — Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Jr., Baby Pac-Man, and Professor Pac-Man — were all originally from unauthorized Midway sequels to the arcade game.
  • The Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures villain, The Ghost Witch of Netor is often considered a female version of Mezmeron from the Hanna-Barbera Pac-Man cartoon.
  • Kirby:
    • Originally Meta Knight's two sidekicks were Axe Knight and Mace Knight, but in the anime Meta Knight is assisted by Sword and Blade Knight. Likely because of this, in Kirby Super Star Ultra, Meta Knight has Sword and Blade as helpers when playable. It helps that Blade Knight is already a helper.
    • The design of King Dedede's castle from the anime series was used in Kirby: Squeak Squad, Kirby's Epic Yarn, and Kirby Mass Attack.
    • The Battleship Halberd's design from the anime appeared in Squeak Squad, however Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out and the Halberd's design from that game was used instead in Super Star Ultra and has been the default design since.
    • The Water ability from the anime has also appeared in Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Kirby Star Allies.
    • A good amount of anime characters make their first game appearances in Kirby Mass Attack's subgames, including (but not limited to) Escargoon, the sword-wielding Waddle Doo, Customer Service, Max Flexer, and Chef Shiitake. Additionally, the Demon Beast Octacon appears as one of Adeleine's paintings in Kirby Star Allies.
    • The spear-carrying Waddle Dees from the anime made an appearance in Kirby: Canvas Curse and Kirby Super Star Ultra, and newer installments have turned the Bandana Waddle Dee from Kirby Super Star into a Composite Character by having him wield a spear.
    • In some later games, Meta Knight wraps his cape around himself when he's not using it, a nod to the anime.
    • Morpho Knight first appeared in Kirby Star Allies as the final boss of the non-canon Guest Star mode. In Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Morpho Knight returns as the final boss of the post-game story— an appearance that doubles as his canon debut.
    • Long-time recurring boss Galacta Knight was only relegated to appearing in the non-canon Meta Knightmare sub-games, and sometimes even What If? side modes such as Kirby: Planet Robobot's Meta Knightmare Returns. After nearly 15 years, the Magolor Epilogue post-game in Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe outright reveals that everything in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe and Super Kirby Clash is canon, which also officially declares that Galacta Knight himself is finally canon to the series.
  • The GBA port of Breath of Fire I gives names to three nameless Guest Star Party Members, with two of them (Sieg and Rai) taken straight from an early manga adaptation of the game, Princess of The Wings.
  • Unintentional, but Lamp Oil, which first appears as an item in both Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon becomes a real item in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
  • Quite a few things that have originated in Super Smash Bros. have found their way into its originating franchises:
    • Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch makes an appearance in the F-Zero: GP Legend anime.
    • The Green Missile and the Egg Roll are both utilized by Luigi and Yoshi in later Mario sports games. Peach using her hips as an offense in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is another example. The Whirling Fortress was also never used by Bowser before Melee, whereas he does similar moves rather often now.
    • Metroid Prime was the first Metroid game to include homing missiles, a year after Samus used them in Melee.
    • The Fountain of Dreams stage, based on the eponymous Fountain of Dreams from Kirby's Adventure, sported a colorful redesign and orchestral reprise of the "Gourmet Race" track original to Melee, both of which were later incorporated into the Fountain of Dreams in Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land a year later.
    • Kirby actually fought Master Hand and Crazy Hand in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror. Inhaling them gave him a reduced version of his Melee moveset.
    • Dedede's Jet Hammer may have been the inspiration for his tricked-out mallet in "Revenge of the King" in Kirby Super Star Ultra. Also, the Halberd model from Brawl was reused for the Meta Knight's Revenge cutscenes in the same game.
    • Meta Knight's Final Smash, Galaxia Darkness, reappears as one of his special abilities in the "Meta Knightmare Returns" mode in Kirby: Planet Robobot.
    • Kid Icarus: Uprising features the re-imagined versions of Pit and Palutena that debuted in Brawl. It also utilizes one of Pit's alternate colors to create a new character in Dark Pit, who eventually became his own seperate character in Smash Bros. 3DS/Wii U.
    • In Pokémon Sun and Moon, Mewtwo's signature move Psystrike is changed from a technicolor blast of psychic particles into a large sphere of dark energy hurled at its opponents, which is in line with its depiction in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS.
    • Ike's Great Aether and Corrin's Torrential Roar, their Final Smashes, would appear in Fire Emblem Engage as the ultimate attacks of their Emblems.
  • The American Commercial for the first Golden Sun game infamously had absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, save for featuring fantastic elements. It involves an opera house's pit orchestra fighting off a horde of gargoyles, and then taking down a dragon that took the form of a chandelier. Very cool, but clearly more about the hardware than the game, and only barely even that. And then Golden Sun: Dark Dawn came around, and introduced a new summon named Crystallux. According to the legend, he was a dragon that so loved the music in the Belinsk opera house that he turned himself into a chandelier, so that he could live in the opera house and hear the music whenever he wished. Yes. It's the exact same dragon. He even tries to help you fight off some particularly nasty monsters when the opera house gets attacked. Thankfully, he doesn't get killed like he does in the commercial. Rather, the woman who was the heroine in the commercial is ironically the one who bites it.
  • Pitfall! II: The Lost Caverns features Pitfall Harry's niece Rhonda, and their cowardly pet mountain lion Quickclaw, who were both originally created for animated segments from Saturday Supercade.
  • Although it took until the end of the trilogy, Gears of War 3 brings in a large selection of characters from the Expanded Universe, such Jace Stratton, Samantha Bryne and Bernadette Mataki into the playable campaign. All of them previously existed in the comics and novelizations. In a variation, Michael Barrack, who first appeared and was Killed Off for Real in the novels, will be available as future Downloadable Content. Surprisingly, Alex Brand from the graphic novels has no planned appearance, much to some fans' disappointment.
  • Several characters introduced in StarCraft II came from novels, including Crown Prince Valerian Mengsk (the Dark Templar trilogy), Tychus Findlay (Heaven's Devils), Matt Horner (Queen of Blades), November Annabella "Nova" Terra (StarCraft: Ghost: Nova).
  • Almost every Original Generation hero created for Heroes of the Storm ends up back in their home game.
    • Warcraft: Lunara and Brightwing both appeared in the Dreamgrove in Legion, with Brightwing acting as a follower for Restoration Druids and Lunara just being a cameo. Lunara would also end up as an alternate Druid hero in Hearthstone. Murky is an odd example, since he's based on an old companion pet, but is still explicitly a different character. The other Murky ended up as the center for a quest chain in Highmountain, albeit with a completely different backstory. Also, some abilities made their way from this game into WoW, notably Zul'jin's version of Regeneration becoming a Zandalari Troll racial.
    • StarCraft: A number of Co-op Missions feature original characters, including Sgt. Hammer and Lt. Morales. Probius appears in an Easter Egg if you're playing as Fenix, although as a Purifier probe instead of a normal one. The most direct is Tychus, who takes most of his physical appearance from Heroes and brings along Blaze as his special firebat.
  • The North American box art for Mega Man is notorious for its depiction of a middle-aged man in a blue and yellow rubber suit that looks nothing like but is nonetheless supposed to represent Mega Man. Oh, and he wields a pistol rather than having an arm cannon. Subsequent box art depictions would look more similar to Mega Man's actual appearance (the arm cannon, for example, being only introduced in the Mega Man 3 box art), until finally the North American/PAL and Japanese appearances of the character would be the same. Jump to more than twenty years later: the weird version of Mega Man who appeared on the North American box art for the first game was announced as a playable character ("Bad Box Art Mega Man") in the cancelled Mega Man Universe. Later, Mega Man would appear as a playable character in Street Fighter X Tekken, but as a twenty years older (and notably pudgier) version of the middle aged man from the North American box art.
  • Monster Hunter Frontier: While officially part of the Monster Hunter series, it had always played to the beat of its own drum, meaning that all of its elements (including its monsters) were only canonically guaranteed for itself and not the mainline games in the series. However, its first two monsters (Hypnocatrice and Lavasioth) made it into the main series by appearing in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, alongside its first original hunting area (the Great Forest); it helps that the two monsters had been planned to debut earlier in the main series, but couldn't due to unknown reasons. Then came Monster Hunter: Rise, whose DLC expansion (Sunbreak) introduced Espinas as well as its Flaming subspecies to the main series.
  • Pathfinder: Kingmaker's Player Party consisted of two characters from the Pathfinder tabletop game (Amiri and Jubilost Narthropple), and eleven original characters. The Kingmaker Adventure Path Companion Guide, an optional add-on for the Pathfinder Second Edition remake of the tabletop campaign the video game adapted, recreates all thirteen party members and many of the events involving them in tabletop format.
  • Persona:
    • Persona 4:
    • Persona 3: Theodore appears as the Velvet Room attendent in the female route of Portable instead of his sister Elizabeth. The female route is non-canon, but Theodore himself is canonical, having appeared and received references in other installments.
  • Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive has this for the ninja characters. First, of course, was Ryu Hayabusa showing up in Dead or Alive. The Ninja Gaiden revival games would feature DoA's Ayane and Kasumi a few times. In Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, NG 's Momiji and Rachel are playable fighters.
  • Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, which is inspired by both H.G Wells' novel and the Rock Opera of the same name, became a canon immigrant when said rock opera was re-imagined for a live stage show. The background film for the music features the game's model of the Martian Flying Machine, and also a "prologue" set on Mars taken from one of the game's intro movies (the audio from the intro movie is used unedited in the original, but is re-dubbed with new dialogue in the "New Generation" Updated Re-release).
  • Four (possibly five) characters from the MySims series have made it into the main The Sims games: Vincent Skullfinder was an NPC ghost in The Sims 3, while Morcubus made a cameo as part of a camp fire scary story (hence the "possibly five"). Then The Sims 4 included Summer, Liberty and Travis in a playable household, too.
  • A.B.A's first appearance was in the Guilty Gear spinoff game Guilty Gear Isuka. It wasn't until XX Slash that she made an appearance in a main series game, and though she technically had a story in Isuka (revolving around finding a new body for her weapon/lover Paracelsus), Isuka itself had no story at all. It wasn't until XX Accent Core Plus that her storyline was actually explored.
  • Johnny "Five-Aces", the protagonist of the infamous Zybourne Clock project, managed to find his way into two other projects with Something Awful members on them. He appeared in Exit Fate as a playable character, and as part of an easter egg in Fallout: New Vegas. More recently, he's one of the unlockable pilots in Brigador, with non-standard mechanics that don't fully line up with the usual pattern.
  • Nisa, an Moe Anthropomorphism of Nippon Ichi Software, originally appeared as a DLC guest character in the Neptunia series back when NIS America had the publishing rights. When Idea Factory did a soft Continuity Reboot of Neptunia and opened its own international branch to publish the games themselves, she was excluded from the new continuity. Nisa however still makes occasional appearances in the later Disgaea games.
  • The first Sakura Wars OVA introduced Wakana Shinguji (Sakura's mother) and Tadayoshi Kanzaki (Sumire's grandfather). The two characters were later included in Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die.
  • Dormarth made her Video Game debut in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise via the Nintendo 3DS Remake of Soul Hackers. Yes, "Video Game debut", not actual debut. That was back in the Novel Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou tai Shibito Ekishi, where she was one of Raidou Kuzunoha the XIV's Demon Partners.
  • The first five Might and Magic games took place on various different planets and orbiting discs while the heroes thwarted the plans of the evil cyborg/sorceror/galactic conqueror Sheltem. After a short hiatus after M&M V, New World Computing came out with Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest and Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars, two Turn-Based Strategy spinoff games which took place on the world of Enroth, in the same universe but untouched mostly by previous M&M games. However, the Heroes games, especially II, became so popular that every Might and Magic game between VI and IX, as well as Heroes III and IV, focused on the (now former) inhabitants of Enroth.
  • Library of Ruina: The Servant of Wrath, the Hermit of the Azure Forest, the Road Home and Scaredy Cat made their debut in the webcomic spin-off Wonderlab.
  • The Kunio-kun series has an interesting case with Provie, who was created as one of the player characters for River City Ransom: Underground, a Western-developed sequel to River City Ransom (the localization of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari). She eventually made her first official mainline series appearance in River City Girls 2, a game that's also Western-developed but much more faithful to its source material's Japanese design.
  • Warcraft:
    • Dave "Fargo" Kosak made two Warcraft-based webcomics starring a Dwarf named Flintlocke, aptly titled Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth and Flintlocke Vs. The Horde. When Kosak was later hired as Lead Quest Designer for World of Warcraft, Flintlocke and several other characters from the comics were put in the game as minor NPCs.
    • A few characters original to Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft managed to sneak into World of Warcraft. Sir Finley Mrrgglton would be the first Hearthstone-original character to be added, and a few others like Morgl the Oracle and Skycap'n Kragg would also make appearances. Another thing to note is the Tortollans, a race of turtle humanoids, would make an appearance as a full-fledged race in Battle for Azeroth.
    • The Dragon Aspects themselves are Canon Immigrants. They were first developed by Richard Knaak in Day of the Dragon, and later formally adopted into the canon by Blizzard through the WarCraft III manual.
    • Queen Taria of Stormwind (King Varian's mother) was invented for the film, having never been named in the games; she still hasn't actually appeared in the games due to being dead, but World of Warcraft: Chronicle officially added her to the main canon.
  • In the Ys series, several characters and locations hinted at in manuals or introduced in the OVA made their way into the games proper with the release of Ys Eternal.

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