Continuity Porn / Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III: Larian not only made obvious references to the original Bioware titles, but threw in even a few small nods to the interquel Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear released by Beamdog in 2016. For example, you can find Khalid's gift inside Jaheira's house.
• Devil May Cry 5 has a lot of references to the previous installments of the main Devil May Cry continuity, to the point where a separate page is needed to even list most of the game's Continuity Nods.
• A major complaint about Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is that a lot of the story falls between this and Continuity Lockout; containing references and themes from even the games on the MSX; bringing back minor dangling plot threads and references as MacGuffins, Applied Phlebotinum, and Chekhovs Guns; and fitting in fanservice cameos from almost every character who wasn't confirmed dead - as well as a couple of fanservice cameos from characters who were. Even a lot of the camera angles and character motions were lifted from previous games as blink-and-you'll-miss-it symbolism for the kind of hardcore fans who'd memorised every single cutscene. Of course, to some extent this was the whole point of the game, as it was designed to wrap the whole series up, further prequels (and one sequel) notwithstanding.
• Mortal Kombat had at least four examples of this: the Konquest mode of Deception (which was quickly thrown into Canon Discontinuity despite a halfway-decent attempt to explain Where Are They Now for each of the forgotten characters), Armageddon, Annihilation (which tried to cram as many character references as possible, to the detriment of the plot), and Conquest (with a C, which gave several mortal characters Identical Grandfathers just so fans of the show can see them despite being 500 years before they were technically supposed to appear). And one has to wonder why people say plot doesn't matter in an MK game...
• Though any newcomer can jump into The Legend of Zelda at any point without having to know what the general plot is for the series (excluding the few direct sequels such as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks that specifically reference and build on the events of their preceding games), they won't experience the deep appreciation a longtime fan will have over all the subtle references to previous games.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures was supposed to be one of these, with more explicit references to games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past than other games. Shigeru Miyamoto nixed the idea late in development because it would have distracted from the gameplay. Portions of deleted text on the game disc also indicate that elements like the Master Sword and the Ancient Hylian language would have also made cameos. Still, the game does have a lot of plot elements that a casual player wouldn't understand, like explaining how Ganon got his trident.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword revels in this, which is probably in large part because it's meant to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary. If you're playing this as your first Zelda game, you're missing out on an average of 20 references an hour. Everything from bosses, enemies, characters, area names to the tiniest background details is a reference to another game in the series, and it even references a certain urban legend about the series, as this is the first 3D game to have you actually collecting all three pieces of the Triforce.
  • Hyrule Warriors revels in this as well, although thankfully very little beyond the general outline of what happened in previous Zelda games is needed to understand what's going on. In particular, pretty much every single weapon used in the game is a reference to something Link, Zelda, and/or Ganon used in one of the previous entries (although in many cases, someone else will be using them in this game).
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic Chronicles makes references to various games and cartoons, including: Chili Dogs, Swat-bots from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), the use of the name "Robotnik", something that hadn't been mentioned since Sonic Adventure 2, old level names re-used, recycled sound effects and (poorly emulated) re-used music from old games, old badniks in the backgrounds, an old Mega Drive in a background, a reference to Amy's tarot card reading, a plot point in Sonic the Hedgehog CD's instruction manual that was long since forgotten, a nod to Sonic X (Tails' workshop contains a potted plant, arguably with Cosmo's seed inside it), an explanation of the gizoids and Emerl, an evil albino echidna (just like the two separate evil albino echidnas from the Archie and Fleetway comics) and an ending which mirrors the opening plot of Sonic the Comic.
  • Sonic Generations is also continuity porn. It features levels from almost every major title in the series, with many references to — and elements such as level gimmicks from — levels within that didn't make it, musical nods and remixes, and tiny little details that only the most dedicated fans would notice. It also features both the modern and classic Sonic designs.
  • Sonic Frontiers, similarly, has its Cyberspace levels take their appearances from past games, and several of them take their layouts from other past games (one, for example, is Sky Rail wearing the skin of Green Hill Zone). As Sonic explores the Starfall Islands, he occasionally comments on how certain areas remind him of places he's visited during past games - one of these lines even references Tangle, a character from the IDW comics. Dr. Eggman's unlockable audio logs contain even more continuity porn — at one point he references the Knuckles tribe, the Black Arms, and the Babylonians all in the space of about five seconds.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening has many weapons and bonus characters from past games. Most of the Regalia (Super Power weapons) return with revamped appearances, And the characters from past titles appear in DLC, with an entire class dedicated to Marth. Interestingly several of the references were to games that were never released in America that fans get just goes to show how dedicated the FE community is. Though most of the plot references are Continuity Snarls, even the Fire Emblem itself has an entirely different purpose with no explanation, while Marth is replaced by a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, the First Exalt in the in-game plot.
• The Halo series has gotten pretty insane about this in the later games, as more and more elements from the Expanded Universe are brought in. Even disregarding that, each game seems to assume that you've played the previous releases; this is particularly apparent in with regards to Halo 3, since it was originally intended to be part of the same game as Halo 2.
  • Halo 3: ODST is somewhat better about this than the other games, despite being technically an expansion pack; it contains an opening scroll that explains the backstory a bit, and has a fairly self-contained plot. You'll still need to play the other games to understand who Sergeant Johnson is, what an "Elite" is and why everyone is shocked to find them being killed by Brutes, as well as the meaning of The Stinger if the player beats the game on Legendary.
  • Halo also has the dubious honor of being a series where someone who only has partial knowledge about the expanded universe will often be more confused than someone who has no knowledge about it. For example, most of Halo: Reach's apparent contradictions with earlier EU material are perfectly explainable...but only if one has read Dr. Halsey's journal, the 2010 and 2011 reprints of Halo: The Fall of Reach (which contain several retcons and bonus sections intended to smooth over the original 2001 version's contradictions with later canon), Halo Waypoint's Data Drops, and this message from LCDR Kurt Ambrose to SCPO Franklin Mendez.
  • Not even Halo: Combat Evolved is immune to this; in the remake, much of what is revealed in the terminals will only be comprehensible to the people who have read the Forerunner novel trilogy.
  • This comes to a head with Halo 4; several players had trouble understanding a large number of major plot points because they did not read the Halo 3 terminals, the Kilo-Five Trilogy, or The Forerunner Saga. 4's terminals do help clarify some issues for people not familiar with the EU, but even those tend to be missed by a lot of players.
• Star Trek Online is filled with continuity nods of various degrees, from meeting Tom Paris' and Belanna Torres' kid, to referencing Spock's disappearance prior to the 2009 Trek movie.
• While Dead Space: Extraction is a pretty solid game on its own right, it's also sheer continuity porn for those who have played Dead Space. Makes sense, since the game goes through Dead Space backwards right before Dead Space happens.
• Final Fantasy
  • The whole point of Final Fantasy VII titles such as Advent Children, Last Order, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core and Before Crisis.
    • Final Fantasy VII Remake liberally references characters and scenes from both the original game and the aformentioned Compilation, to the point where some key story points won't make sense or have the same impact if you're unfamiliar with either.
  • Final Fantasy XIV is a melting pot of elements, characters, locations, and lore from previous Final Fantasy titles contextualized around the lore of XIV. One prominent example of this is the Ivalice raid series from Stormblood, which draws upon locations and lore from the Ivalice Alliance franchise — in particular, Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII — to tell a story that brings everything from the grand city of Rabanastre to the tragic tale of Ramza Beoulve into the world of Hydaelyn. Another is the Sorrow of Werlyt questline from Shadowbringers, which contextualizes the Weapon bosses from Final Fantasy VII as prototype battle mechs.
• Ace Attorney Investigations doesn't even try to disguise the fact that it assumes you've played at least the entire Phoenix Arc. Besides starring several major supporting characters from said games, cameos and background gags abound throughout every case, most of which will not make any sense whatsoever if you haven't already beaten most of the series. The sequel takes this even further, ascending some cameos from the first game (such as Lotta Hart) and bringing back even more characters from the Phoenix Arc, including a criminal (Frank Sahwit).
  • Ace Attorney is oddly attached to its first game more than the others in more than a few ways. While it is good at referencing every game in the set, especially when it comes to major characters (spot the future reference to Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney in AAI Case 3!), the first game is the one they tend to turn to if they need a random minor character, callback piece of background music, or gag.
• EndWar lives and breathes this trope, as numerous organizations and characters are present in the game and narrative without being given any proper explanation. You are expected to know who Third Echelon, Team Rainbow, the H.A.W.X.. aircraft and The Ghosts are. Better yet, this is the (then-canonical) continuation for the JSF's leader, Captain Scott Mitchell, who was last seen near death in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2.
• In Command & Conquer: Kane's Wrath, one of the campaign missions has the player character leading an attack on an enemy base in South Africa. Early in the mission, one of the player's soldiers remarks that the battlefield "feels familiar...almost as if [he'd] fought here before...". The final mission of the Nod Campaign in the first Command and Conquer game took place in South Africa...and was set fifty years before the events of Kane's Wrath.
• One of the main draws of The Simpsons Hit & Run is the sheer amount of continuity porn there is in the game world. The game references cars that have been in the show, the characters wear clothes and costumes that the show has shown off, locations the show uses. Really, pretty much anything that was in the show circa 2002 is likely referenced in this game in some form. There's even a page specifically listing the references!
• During the intro to Epic Mickey, after Mickey practically ruined Wasteland for everyone in it, we're reintroduced to Mickey's overall history throughout the years, from Steamboat Willie, to Fantasia, to Mickey's Christmas Carol.
  • The entire game is a Continuity Porno; featuring the long, lost, forgotten character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, that only the biggest of animation fanatics would have known about before hand, characters that were one-offs or used sparingly (IE The Lonesome Ghosts), levels based on Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and a Pluto cartoon, old rides, nevermind the fact that the world is based on Disneyland, and creator Warren Spector claims almost everything in the game is from Disney's history.
• The Harvest Moon franchise is filled with it, which seem rather bizarre since the timeline is ridiculously confusing.
• The cutscenes of Transformers: Call Of The Future (placed in The Transformers cartoon continuity) mention events of the TV series anytime they can.
  • This glorious tradition is followed by Transformers: War for Cybertron - while it is, in theory, rebooting continuity, in practice, the designers were clearly homaging the G1 material of their childhoods heavily.
• Fallout: New Vegas is full of continuity porn. Most overtly it references Fallout and Fallout 2, particularly 2. Old characters, settlements, events, and groups are mentioned. Old characters show up on NCR bank notes and old symbols appear on flags or walls. The game even delves into the backstory of pre-war factions like RobCo electronics is explored. However, the bulk of continuity porn is actually references to cut content. Most of the setup, factions and history are cribbed from a never-finished version of Fallout 3 which shares several designers with New Vegas. Cut enemies from Fallout 2 have appeared in promotional clips for downloadable content.
  • Additionally, it can be difficult to deduce that New Vegas is even post-apocalyptic for the first several hours. Unlike the sealed Vault of Fallout 3 followed by its "Scenic Overlook', most of the Mojave either never was inhabited or has been rebuilt.
  • Only if you don't count in all the abandoned locations or ramshackle building made out of scrap... It's still post apocalyptic, only over 200 (that's two hundred) years after the apocalipse. One would expect humanity to finally get around to the whole "rebuilding civilisation" buisnesess so long after. In that aspect, it's fairly similar to Fallout 2.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution revels in this. To note, the game begins with references to two of the villains from the first game and a leitmotif that references the original UNATCO theme, and ends with a secret conversation that namedrops the eventual head of the Illuminati and a virus that may become the plague from the first game. Left and right, you'll find important names being dropped, foreshadowing of future events discussed, and concepts that the original game had in their infancy.
• In the demo for Space Quest 6, several mementos from previous games can be found in Roger's quarters.
• In the Sam & Max: Freelance Police video games by Telltale, each successive mission earns the duo at least a few souveniers of their past adventure in their office. At first this is mostly limited to bits and pieces of their former foes they lock in a closet, but during the second season of episodes, extra souveniers start showing up in the office itself (like a whack-a-rat minigame) and the whole place is enormously, ridiculously cluttered soon. Recurring character Sybil Pandemik has her own version of this: she keeps changing jobs and her office never fully gets rid of old memorabilia.
• The Super Smash Bros. series, especially Brawl are this for the entire Nintendo company in the form of a fighting game.
• Mass Effect 3 is this. One of the many advertised attractions of the game is attention paid to the literal thousands of flags which mark your various decisions in the first two games, not to mention the dozens upon dozens of Shout Outs, Mythology Gags and Ascended Memes. The Conrad Verner sidequest is probably the penultimate example, as it tracks a half-dozen completely unrelated and non-mandatory sidequests from the first game and scrambles them all together.
• Tales of Graces as the sort-of-10th anniversary game, verges on this in comparison to the rest of the series. While the Tales Series always has lots of in-jokes, Graces takes this to hilarious extremes. Some enemies rip their names right from other games. The ultimate weapons in Graces f are all ripped from game titles as well, designed to evoke the games in question, and contain references in their descriptions. There are the standard Cameo Bosses and cameo costumes, etcetera. There are subtler references too: Sophie asks Hubert if he wears glasses because his eyes are "dangerous," which is exactly why Jade Curtiss wears glasses, and Malik's "right into next week!" battle quote is lifted from Tales of Vesperia. Where it gets ridiculous is in things like the absurd statue of Kratos in Barona and the Magic Carta minigame, which lets you collect cards of characters from previous games. Not only are the more popular characters - like Jade, or Zelos - expensive or difficult to find, but it's much easier to win the Magic Carta game if you're familiar with the previous titles. Relatively ambiguous quotes like "Intend to? I already have" stick out much more if you know their context. And the reward for beating this game? Cameo costumes!
• Rockman 4 Minus ∞ goes overboard in the sheer amount of references to other Mega Man games, including borrowing stage gimmicks and bosses (in addition to referencing other games frequently as well).
• Saints Row IV is this to the entire Saints Row franchise. Not only does it bring back characters that are long since dead, it even brings separate versions of the same character. Helped by the fact that most of the game takes place in what is essentially the Matrix. It even has a cameo by the default player character of the first game. You can kill him.
• Dark Souls 3 is intended to be the grand finale of the trilogy. How successful it is in that goal is dependent on whether the plethora of references and callbacks to Dark Souls are tasteful or detracting. Not helping matters is the sprinkling of references from director Hidetaka Miyazaki's other games —DemonsSouls and Bloodborne — that may outnumber the amount of callbacks made to Dark Souls 3's direct predecessor, Dark Souls 2.
• In the Doctor Who video game The Eternity Clock, various hats that can be found for the Eleventh Doctor to wear count as this, being an extensive list of everything the Doctor has ever worn on his head over the entire fifty-year run of the show at that point. The Eleventh Doctor even comments on his taste in fashion at the time — suggesting that the reason his First incarnation was "in such a bad mood" was because his hat was itchy, and remarking that when he wore the wine-red fedora favoured by the Fourth Doctor towards the end of his life he had a thing about wearing lots of red.
• The Elder Scrolls series plays heavily with this, in that each game in the series generally has in-game books referencing and explaining the events of the previous game, but not only has a plot independent of previous games, but can actually use the time-warping effects endemic to the setting ("Dragon Breaks") to contradict details revealed in past games (the most prominent example being the retconning of the central province of Cyrodil previously described as an Equatorial Rainforest in promotional materials, to a more traditional European-style fantasy setting.)
• The Warcraft Expanded Universe novel War Crimes, featuring the trial of Garrosh Hellscream, has the Bronze Dragonflight using a device to allow the court to see specific events as they happened. During the course of the book we are shown images of scenes from both the video game proper and previous books as far back as Lord of the Clans at least.
  • The Bronze Dragonflight serves as justification for this in World of Warcraft itself as well, particularly in the Caverns of Time. While there are some changes (someone is trying to mess with the Timeline, after all), the instances found there reference events across the entire EU.
• Banpresto played with this trope loosely in their older games, such as an Original Generation being The Cameo in a Super Robot Wars installment from an earlier Banpresto-developed title with no relation between the two. Once Continuity Reboot with the Super Robot Wars: Original Generation sub-series occurred, this trope really hit the dirt, especially with Continuity Lockout forcing players to know of events in current Continuity and any Spin-Off material, since the latter is comprised of Prequel and Interquel events to the main Original Generation games. Of particular note is at least three characters^note Gilliam Yeager, Euzeth Gozzo, Cobray Gordon in Banpresto-developed games are the same individual, meaning their earliest appearances have always been canon in the established Multiverse.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction, almost every character from the first three seasons shows up, particularly Pegasus's lackeys from season 1. The Big Five also show up, dressed as their Deck Masters from Season 3. The game even includes Hanasaki, a character from the manga who fell Out of Focus after a few chapters.
• Elite Dangerous is chock-full of references from the previous games, such as references to CMDR Jameson (the default player-name in the first game), the Thargoids (largely believed to be a legend, though there's some Foreshadowing that they might not be...), and the return of The Federation, the Duval Empire, and The Alliance of Independent Systems (which also has the entirety of Galaxy 1 from the first game in its borders).
• The Trails Series skirts the line between this and Continuity Lockout. While each arc seems self-contained at first, a truly ridiculous number of major and minor characters from past games can show up at any moment and events from other games may suddenly be critical to the plot. While this is somwhat justified because all games take place in the same world in a similar timeframe (sometimes even concurrently), the combination of each game running at least 40 hours, having a script in the hundreds of thousands of words, and the Crossbell Duology not getting an official translation until over a decade after their initial release can make keeping up with the complex plot, mountain of cameos and tons of references difficult (if very rewarding). Oh, and there are currently twelve games in the series with more on the way.
• Cyberpunk 2077 story trailer reveals that the game will contain flashbacks depicting the Arasaka Tower assault that constituted an important part of the original Cyberpunk pen and paper RPG campaign, and that several important NPCs, chiefly Johnny Silverhand, will return in a story-important capacity.
• Eskimo Bob Starring Alfonzo: The game has quite a few references to the show.
  • One of the characters you meet in the game is the walrus. It acts as a platform, and Alfonzo can move it by poking it with a stick.
• The 26-games-and-counting-long Mystery Case Files series seems to mostly run on this trope. Not only does it need its own Continuity Nod page because of the sheer number of them, it has no less than 4 games - Rewind, Moths to a Flame, The Harbinger and Crossfade - that are ENTIRELY dedicated to revisit as many of the series past entries as possible. It also has several games following on specific previous games like Fate's Carnival or Black Crown, and that is not mentioning the 10 games of Ravenhearst saga. At the time of this writing, there are only 6 games in the series whose plots are completely isolated from either from previous or the later games in the series.

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