Generally, a lot of MMORPGs have helmet visibility options, partially due to this trope and partially to make the choice of the avatar's hair matter.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has equippable armor pieces, and you can toggle the visibility of any piece of equipment at any time, helmets included.
Actually a plot point in The Banner Saga, where the insane spearman Tryggvi warns Rook that men who wear helmets can't be trusted. Sure enough, Ekkill leads your party into an ambush, Onef leads a mutiny, and Dagr in the sequel takes part in a second mutiny and kills some of your men if you spare him. All three men are wearing helmets, and they're the only party members in the Skogr caravan to do so.
Not a single major character in David Mason's squad in Call of Duty: Black Ops II wears a helmet, including David himself — the only member of the squad who does, Crosby, completely disappears from the plot after his first mission and only reappears much later in the story to get non-fatally shot. The only time Harper is ever seen wearing one is during the wingsuit sequence in "Celerium" and the jetpack one in "Judgment Day", and even then, he actually takes it off after landing.
In Chainsaw Warrior, while the titular cyborg Super-Soldier has an option to get a helmet (which has the very useful benefit of making him immune to venom from zombie attacks) the only time he's shown wearing a helmet was in a flashback where an old South America mission goes wrong and a tank shreds him with a burst from its heavy machine gun. The sequel game even dispenses with the helmet option entirely.
A weird, villainous version in Champions Online. In Champions, your equipment never affects your appearance, so you can go naked if you want. However, bad guy organization VIPER have units called Air Cavalry... and Air Cavalry Ace. The Air Cavs have the standard VIPER full-concealment helmet, but the Aces only wear goggles. Then, eventually, VIPER subverts it with Viper-X, apparently the leader of the Air Cavalry, who does not appear to wear a helmet (and then it slides into place when he enters combat).
Inverted in Chrono Cross, in which party member Zoah wears a helmet... And pretty much nothing else.
Most units in the Command & Conquer series wear full armor with helmets, but Commando units usually don't. In Tanya's case, she barely wears anything protective at all.
Taking its cue from Warhammer 40,000, most Imperial squad leaders and heroes in Dawn of War fight bareheaded. The only exceptions are Ogryn BONEheads who wear a horned helmet and some Battle Sister squad leaders. Squad leaders and heroes of other factions vary a good deal: The Chaos Lord is bareheaded (though Eliphas gets a helmet), the Eldar Farseer, Tau commander and Shas'ui (unlike the tabletop) have helmets. A line from the helmetless Force Commander of Dawn of War 2 "My faith is my shield!...", combined with his somewhat-unlikely chiseled and handsome visage has led to the popular Memetic Mutation "My face is my shield!"
The remake of Demon's Souls included an option to make helmets invisible, lest players who took their time in the dramatically-improved character creation tool end up having to cover every recognizably-unique part of their avatar for the sake of defense.
In Dragon Age: Origins if you equip a helmet on any character, it shows whether you like it or not, but is magically removed during all dialogue scenes. The sequel goes further and restricts your party members to their unique ungradable armor sets (ME2-style), none of which features anything remotely face-concealing. Hawke may still wear a helmet but it is magically removed during dialogue, like in the first game. In Dragon Age II you can check the "Hide Helmet" box in the interface settings, found in the options. Why, of course they would be removed during dialogs! It's rude to talk to somebody with your helmet on.
Played with inThe Elder Scrolls Online: The character usually keeps their helmet on at all times, but the player can set helmets to invisible and invoke this trope. The only time the game forces you to go helmetless is when a crafting station is used. Which makes perfect sense, as delicate craftsmanship would be a lot harder with a face covering helmet on.
Hope Girl, the protagonist of Fairune, never wears a helmet.
Fallout 3: In this installment, armor was changed so that helmets and body armor take up separate equipment slots. There's one armor in the game that doesn't work that way, and it's the Chinese Stealth Armor from the Operation Anchorage DLC.
In Final Fantasy IV, Cecil wears a helmet that covers most of his face when he's a Dark Knight, but opts for a headband when he becomes a Paladin. And in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Kain purges himself of his dark side for good and gets a new Holy Dragoon job class. As a part of his new costume, his full helmet is replaced with a sort of tiara that shows his good looks. Golbez no longer wears a helmet either, instead becoming a rare male example of Stripperific.
No main character from SOLDIER wears their helmet in Final Fantasy VII or Crisis Core. Partly justified in that 1st Class SOLDIERs can wear whatever they want, but Zack doesn't do it even when he's 2nd Class.
In Final Fantasy XIV, the trope is up to the player's choice; although equipping helmets and other headgear is a necessity to make the most out of your gear, actually having them be enclosed or even visible on your head is strictly optional. There are commands both for making your headgear invisible and for moving its face-concealing parts out of the way, and the glamour system can make any piece of armour look like any other piece of armour that can be used by the same job, like a simple beret, a bandanna, or a feather in your hair.
The "Meteor Survivor" in the CGI trailers zig-zags this. He starts off with no helmet in the 1.0 opening; the End of an Era cinematic has him in full Warrior plate complete with helmet, but gets it knocked off of his head by the enemy. He remains helmless in his Warrior plate for the Heavensward cinematic, but when he switches to Dragoon armour, he puts on the helmet of that set. The Stormblood cinematic depicts him as a Monk in Ala Mhigo and a Samurai in the Far East, wearing neither job's headgear. Shadowbringers depicts him as a Dark Knight, and though he lacks the helmet in the cinematic, he is wearing it fully in the expansion's logo. Endwalker depicts him as a Paladin, again without the job's circlet. Finally, Dawntrail depicts him as a Viper, whose job-specific outfit is In the Hood; although he does wear a hooded cloak to start with, he takes it off in the fight scene to reveal the job gear, and doesn't wear that set's hood.
Cutscenes beginning from Heavensward start to enforce this, as even if you have your headgear visible, it will be toggled off for certain cutscenes. A particular standout is in the Grand Melee about halfway through Heavensward's post-release story, where your current outfit is temporarily glamoured into a set of Ishgardian armor — minus any sort of helmet, even if you toggle it visible — while, in an inversion, Raubahn wears a helmet with a face-concealing visor for the first time in his fight against you.
Armored knights/generals in Fire Emblem games generally wear helmets that obscure their faces while in combat, especially in the GBA games, where characters of a class shared the same battle sprites — but will be helmetless in dialogue. In, say, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, your generals won't bother. Admittedly, in Gatrie's case, his armor hides the lower half of his face anyway.
None of Radiant Dawn's Marshalls (third-tier armored knights) wear helmets. While Gatrie and Brom never use headgear in RD, Tauroneo and new addition Meg do start out helmeted. That's right — they promote out of helmets.
In the Gears of War series, none of the protagonists wear helmets. In fact, wearing one marks you as a Red Shirt doomed to die horribly.
In the first game, Anthony Carmine dies in the first act after barely getting two lines of dialogue. What's more, he gets sniped in the head, which his helmet provided him no protection from despite that presumably being the entire purpose of wearing it in the first place. Later in the first act, a Gear literally named "Redshirt Gyules" in the credits has less than a minute of screentime before getting mauled to death by a Berserker offscreen.
Gears of War 2 has Benjamin Carmine, younger brother of Anthony from the first game. While traversing the underground caves, the protagonists complain about all the dust making it hard to breathe. Ben cheerily suggests that they should really be wearing helmets like him, since they have built-in dust filters. Dom snarkily shoots back that, if he did, he wouldn't be able to see snipers as well, to which Marcus gives him a Dude, Not Funny!. Ben survives quite a bit longer than Anthony, but this is made up for with a much more painful and prolonged death of being digested alive by a giant monster's stomach acid.
Played with and ultimately subverted in Gears of War 3 with Clayton Carmine. This older Carmine brother is extremely ripped (but still has the exact same high-pitched voice as the previous two), implied to be a result of wanting to make extra sure that the same thing that happened to his brothers wouldn't happen to him. There is a Running Gag throughout the game where he repeatedly has brushes with death only to survive, the first of which being a sniper shot to the head... which just harmlessly dings off his helmet like it's supposed to, to which he remarks that it's a good thing he was wearing one. Thanks to an audience poll that decided whether he lived or died, he ultimately ends up surviving the game. Clay also has memorialized his brothers with a tattoo on his arm... of their helmets. For the Carmines, their helmets are their real faces, and each of them even has a distinct helmet design.
Gears of War 4 brings the trope back into full swing. The Prologue has you play through three historic battles in the role of a faceless Gear in a helmet. First, you fight the UIR to secure the Hammer of Dawn schematics during the Pendulum Wars, only to die to mortar fire just before you make it to the evac chopper. Second, you fight the Locust on Emergence Day in front of the House of Sovreigns (the exact same place Anthony will get sniped 14 years later). You have the use of the Hammer of Dawn, wich allows you to mow them down by the dozens... at least until the satellite moves out of range, leaving you totally screwed. Finally, you fight the Locust at Anvil Gate at the same time the final act of Gears of War 3 happens elsewhere... as a medic, who isn't supposed to be fighting at all, but the COG are just that desperate. You get blown up mere seconds before the protagonists trigger the World-Healing Wave that wipes out all the Locust. Act 1 then has Gary Carmine, presumably the son of either Clay or the still-unseen fourth Carmine brother. He has zero lines and is only addressed once before a DeeBee drop pod falls on him. Also, since he is an Outsider and not COG, he doesn't wear a helmet, but still covers his entire head with a combination of an ushanka with the flaps down, a pair of goggles, and a bandana over his mouth, so the effect is the same. He was later released as a multiplayer character, which actually gave him some lines. One of which being, when he is put into a downed state, to say that this sort of thing runs in his family.
Gears 5 has Lizzie Carmine, daughter of the fourth Carmine brother and the first female Carmine we've seen. She has a likable personality and is shown to be a total badass in her own right, but not even she is safe from the Carmine family curse. At the end of Act 1, a haywire Hammer of Dawn begins firing randomly, getting closer and closer to her transport vehicle with each blast. Her vehicle is stuck and she can't get the door open because a previous impact left a huge dent in it. JD tries desperately to rescue her as she pleads for help, but he is ultimately unsuccessful and is left with severe burns on his arm from the vehicle's explosion. The game also features the return of Clay, still alive and kicking after the 25-year Time Skip between 3 and 4, and he survives this game too. He's even apparently built up a reputation as "The Unkillable Carmine", according to the trailer announcing his arrival to multiplayer.
Referenced in the first panel of thisVG Cats comic.
Played with in God of War as Kratos is badass enough that he barely wears any armor at all let alone a helmet, however early concept art from the game had him dressed in full Hoplite suits. The developers actually started removing the armor, helmet included, because he looked too heroic.
This continues in 2018 and Ragnarok, which has multiple suits of armor you can find and equip along your journey. Since they have a third-person camera, this is likely to avoid covering up Kratos' distinctive pale skin and red stripe.
In Greedfall, one of your party members, Siora, cannot be equipped with head armor, likely due to the tree roots growing out of her head.
In Guild Wars, helmet visibility is optional. Likewise, one of the starting options for warriors in Guild Wars 2 is "no helmet at all." A symbol of the warrior's lack of fear of death.
Half-Life: Gordon Freeman is never depicted with his helmet on in official art, despite his HEV suit coming with one and every other HEV wearer wearing one. Arguments have been made over why nobody shoots him in the head and why he can breathe on Xen, the consensus being that he does have a helmet. He just doesn't wear it all the time.
Inverted in the Halo series. The helmet of the Master Chief is one of the iconic images of the series and looks pretty awesome; no wonder we never see his head without it!
In Halo 3: ODST the faceless Rookie always wears his helmet, but the rest of his unit will take theirs off or de-tint the visors whenever they're not in combat. You also have an option to play as one of the other squad members in Firefight without a helmet, and you'll take the same amount of headshot damage either way.
A similar situation happens in Halo: Reach; the members of NOBLE Team always wear their helmets during combat situations, but only Noble Six and Emile will keep them on when the shooting stops.
Played straight in Halo Wars with Sergeant Forge, who is the only UNSC ground pounder in the game to never wear a helmet.
In Halo 4, this is played almost completely straight by Sarah Palmer.
The various UNSC Army and Marine sergeants all seem to prefer wearing caps as opposed to the helmets worn by their subordinates.
Played for Laughs in Halo Wars 2 multiplayer; the given reason for Sergeant Johnson's super-advanced Powered Armor not having a helmet is "Well, would YOU hide behind an armored faceplate if you had Sergeant Johnson's rugged good looks?"
Infinity Blade completely inverts this trope: every character is never seen without their helmet, even the enemies that wear no armor at all. The later games show the main characters without helmets here and there, but this is only for a short while before they re-equip their armor around the clock.
Used in Killzone 2. While the main cast of heroes never wear combat helmets, virtually everybody else does. In fact, combat helmets act as an actual gameplay mechanic, with few weapons being capable of penetrating an enemys helmet on impact. The helmet is however knocked off the enemy mook, ensuring the next headshot to be fatal. Finally, the trope itself is lampshaded in the games cinematic intro, with a news topic briefly scrolling during the big bads speech. The topic reads: "Combat helmets, are they really necessary?"
In Kingdom Hearts, Zack wears a helmet meant to resemble a Greek helmet and the SOLDIER helmet for all of 10 seconds, plus however long it takes you to beat the first battle with him. Once it's knocked off, he never wears it again.
Meanwhile, the main characters in Birth By Sleep all wear armor into combat, only for them to lose the helmets for one reason or another (Terra remove his, Aqua's is knocked off by an attack, and Ventus' is smashed against a cliff).
A lot of human characters (and Poppy) in League of Legends wear full armor, but no helmet. Garen and Darius are completely bareheaded, while Leona and Diana wear headdresses that don't seem to provide much protection. Some champions have an excuse in that they can protect themselves with magic (like Lux's shield ability) or have personal reasons for going armorless (Draven, who's a gladiator). Of course, there are also plenty of characters who do wear helmets, like Jarvan IV, Kayle, Master Yi, Pantheon, and Quinn. Nautilus is a special case in that he's fused to his armor, and Kai'sa does have a helmet — but it's off by default and is only toggled on during her dash or if the player wants it on.
In The Legend of Zelda game Hyrule Warriors even before getting the hero garb, Link doesn't wear the helmet of the Hylian soldier uniform. The same applies to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (though the player can choose to wear the helmet after the first battle).
Love of Magic: Neither the modern-style armor provided by the British Military nor the elegant plate armor worn by characters from Camelot have helmets. When asked about it, Katie says, "Helmets are for pussies."
In Luminous Arc games, as with a lot of SRPGs, the player spends a considerable amount of money on helmets, hoods, hats and other headgear which NEVER makes a difference to the character designs in-game.
In Mass Effect, all characters except Tali have a helmet on/off option with no disadvantage for not wearing a helmet. Only when the atmosphere isn't breathable do all characters wear their helmets. This might be justified by the fact that the character rely more on shields than physical armor to protect them from high-tech weaponry. In Mass Effect 2, however, wearing a helmet does give you stat advantages... you alone, and the bonus for wearing most helmets isn't really all that impressive, with both of your starting helmets providing a whopping 5% more health. Your allies don't even get the option anymore. In the third installment, you have the option of helmet visibility for cutcenes for Shepard and squadmates separately. The Mars level is still kind of weird, as we see Shepard's team taking their helmets on and off whenever is convenient. It's unclear where exactly they go, or why — when set to "off in conversations" — everyone's helmets will disintegrate the moment you stop to chat, then rematerialise as soon as the conversation ends.
It's also zigzagged throughout Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer. All human characters wear helmets, some turians and krogans do and some don't, none of the asari or drell wear helmets, all quarians wear helmets and the geth are completely helmetless. Because they're robots.
Many players deliberately invoke this trope, as wearing the helmet obscures the character's face during the cutscenes when they wear them (hence the option to remove them in ME3 in case the player wants the stat boosts a helmet provides). Conversely, some helmets in the second and third games make the character look disturbing, as they cover up the upper part of the face and have no eye pieces (there are displays on the inside of the helmet so Shepard can see).
Heroes in Massive Chalice won't wear helmets to show off the unique features of the characters which is determined by their lineage (which you control).
Inverted in Mega Man for the most part as an iconic part of Mega Man's wardrobe is his helmet.
The original Mega Man has his helmet off during the title screen and intro sequence of Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 4 retrospectively, and he also takes off his helmet during the ending sequences of both games. In Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, there's a shop item that can be bought that removes Mega Man's helmet, but in turn causes him to take double damage, and it wears off after a death.
Mega Man Volnutt is the only Mega Man incarnation who doesn't wear a helmet by default. While he can wear one in both Legends games, his artwork and crossover appearances (such as in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom or the Super Smash Bros. series) often depict him without one.
In Mega Man ZX, Giro Megamerged with Model Z is the only Mega Man who doesn't wear a helmet (open-faced or otherwise) in the entire series, instead getting a black visor. Especially noticeably since Vent/Aile as Model ZX get the helmet. It's implied to be a Continuity Nod to how Zero's wrecked helmet was the only thing found of him in the ending of Mega Man Zero 4.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Raiden and the Winds of Destruction all wear some sort of Collapsible Helmet or visor (save for Mistral), but save for Raiden they're almost never seen actually employing them. During normal levels Raiden's visor only ever closes whenever he's using its AR functions to scan for enemies, something that can't be done during normal attacks (in other words, he reopens his visor whenever he fights said enemies). Raiden and the Winds of Destruction do engage their helmets/visors whenever they fight each other, but only right at the end of the cutscene just before they fight. Raiden does consistently wear his visor when he fights the Final Boss, but only so that said boss can shatter the visor early on and expose Raiden's face for the rest of the game.
Played with occasionally in the Metroid series. Usually Samus subverts this trope by wearing a helmet that fully conceals her face, but in some games her visor is fully transparent. In Other M she can polarize and depolarize the opacity of her visor at will (she depolarizes the visor when speaking to people to appear less intimidating, but otherwise has it opaque during combat). The Federation Marines in Other M try to find a medium by having helmets that mechanically open to completely reveal their faces (unfortunately the opened helmets look a bit top-heavy, giving them a tendency towards Dark Helmet Syndrome).
In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the helmet can apparently be teleported on and off at Samus's whim, but the only times she does it is when an overdose of Phazon causes her to vomit, and parts of the ending. Otherwise she never takes off the helmet during a mission, even on planets with earthlike atmosphere. Nor does anyone else, except for Admiral Dane.
Zigzagged in the Modern Warfare series, though you obviously can't tell if the player character is wearing a helmet:
The SAS only wear helmets if they are also wearing gas masks. They do like hats though, most wear beanies, Gaz wears a baseball cap, and Captain Price is never seen without some type of hat. Soap may have been concerned that a helmet might mess up his Mohawk.
None of the significant characters in Task Force 141 wear helmets, though the minor characters often do.
The US forces (Marine Force Recon, Rangers, and Delta) however are consistently shown wearing helmets. Griggs, curiously, is shown wearing a helmet when working with other Marines, but keeps it hanging from his side once he joins forces with the SAS. He's killed when he gets shot in the face (possibly eye), so a helmet wouldn't have helped anyway.
MORDHAU: Somewhat invoked by players who have a character to cosplay, thanks to the extensive character building possibilities letting you build some very good resemblances of other, preexisting characters. Naturally, other players see them as free kills, because getting your skull tenderized/impaled/sliced off is basically an inevitability without a helmet — almost all two-handed weapons can kill a bareheaded player in a single stab or slash to the noggin.
Played with in the Neverwinter Nights series. Being based on 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, helmets usually don't add anything to Armor Class, but to an extent Armor Is Useless at higher levels anyway. The real reason to wear a helmet is for its enchantments: most basic helmets (particularly in the sequel) will add +1 to Concentration, which is useful to spellcasters.
The Overwatch animated short, Honor and Glory reveals that Reinhardt was guilty of this in his younger days as a crusader because he loved the feeling of the wind in his hair. Unfortunately for him, it was this same way of thinking that led to an omnic blindinghis left eye with a Laser Blade. Even in his older years he was guilty of this, as his Lt. Wilhelm skin (His canonical appearance during the Null Sector incident set a mere 7 years before the games present time) is still lacking a helmet.
The protagonist of the Pokémon games never wears a helmet or any sort of padding while biking, even in Hoenn where you are able to perform dangerous tricks. Partly because they don't want to remove their hat.
Subverted in Pokémon Sun and Moon when you ride Pokémon. The Riders Gear contains a helmet. This contrasts with the previous games' allowing you to ride Rhyhorn, Mamoswine, and Gogoat without any equipment.
In Psychonauts, in the ending sequence, Raz finally ditches his aviator helmet and goggles upon transitioning to an official Psychonaut uniform.
Played straight in Resident Evil 6. In Chris's campaign, he and another playable character Piers are the only ones in his squad who don't wear helmets. Though, given whattheyusuallyfight and Chris's experience and general Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! altitude, this may be the case of Armor Is Useless. Lampshaded by Jake, who makes a caustic comment about jarheads who look all the same to him.
Inverted in Section 8. Your character is almost never seen without his helmet, which also applies to some allies, while villains are usually seen helmetless.
Dropping in from orbit without a helmet may be hazardous to your health.
Non-armor example in Shin Megami Tensei IV. Blasted Tokyo's air is poisonous in the long term, so residents protect themselves with cloaks, gas masks, and goggles. The only ones with visible faces are also the only ones with names; Kiyoharu goes bareheaded and Akira wears his goggles on his head, exposing his face.
Shovel Knightaverts this trope; the titular hero wears a blue horned helmet that completely covers his face. It's played straight by his partner Shield Knight, however.
Done oddly in The Sims Medieval: men wear helmets, women don't. The default armor for women is otherwise sensible (it's not a Chainmail Bikini and may even cover her more than her regular outfit) but there is no helmet, unlike the default men's armor. However, some other armors include helmets whether they're worn by men or women.
Starcraft II makes a point of giving all the power-armored characters helmets with reflective (and presumably armored) visors. They tend to raise them fairly often in cutscenes, even when sometimes a little extra protection seems like it would be quite worthwhile. At least there's a second, transparent visor behind the outer one that keeps the suit sealed.
The marine helmets don't tend to protect them against enemy attack though. The one time a visor is shown lowered in battle, that marine almost immediately gets impaled through the visor.
Ground vehicle pilots tend to not have any sort of helmets at all, odd when compared to their original Starcraft equivalents sometimes epic headgear. The new siege tank driver looks like he's driving a tank in an officer's dress uniform, sans topper. Special mention must go to the Viking pilot, who opens and closes his faceplate when the unit changes form, and the Banshee pilot, who lowers a display eyeshield and blacks out the cockpit glass when she cloaks.
The Protoss also invert this trope pretty hard. The base infantry Zealot goes bareheaded, but the unit portraits for some of the heroic and pilot characters feature some really epic headgear. Of course, protoss don't have much in the way of a face, so concealing it isn't that big an issue.
Subverted in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Like recent Bioware games, you can mark any headgear you wear to show or not (though not if you haven't subscribed or bought the unlock for that feature). This is quite welcome, as some early headgear can look quite dorky.note In addition to looking "dorky," some of the headgear could cause clipping issues with Miraluka masks or Twi'lek head-tails If you don't hide your headgear, your character doesn't even remove it in conversation except with your companions, which always take place in rest zones (i.e. a safe place), and your voice is mechanically or electronically filtered. And because it's Star Wars, many players leave the headgear on — especially Troopers, Bounty Hunters, and Sith — as they are quite proud of the masks and helmets they bought, hunted down, or fought for completing the character's look.
This trope is common throughout the Suikoden series, as its main characters rarely wear helmets, even when riding at the head of helmet-clad troops.
Telepath Tactics is a big offender, at least in the campaign. Ebon Raban is the only named character whose Character Portrait features a full helmet; everyone else has their entire head visible. This also extends to character classes who normally wear hoods, such as with Gavrielle; Tremolo and Nalia don't wear the assassins' usual face-mask either.
Total War: Warhammer: Generally subverted, but some characters are without helmets in and out of battle.
Wulfrik the Wanderer wears thick plate armor, but forgoes wearing a helmet as a sign of his arrogance in believing himself (and not without merit) to be the worlds greatest warrior.
Played straight with Legendary Hero, Theodore Bruckner, when he is fighting on foot, but subverted when he is mounted and he goes to battle wearing an ornate winged helmet.
In Uncharted's multiplayer, only villains wore helmets. Taken to eleven in Uncharted 3's multiplayer, where you can buy ten different helmets for your custom villain — and the only one a hero can get is the ISA helmet, which you need real money to buy.
In Undertale, Undyne chases you through Waterfall in full armor, which does include a helmet...until the boss fight, where she takes it off for no apparent reason other than Rule of Cool.
Lesser Dog and Greater Dog in Snowdin both wear armor, but not helmets, perhaps because they just want you to pet them that badly. However, the Royal Guard members in Hotland are never seen without their helmets. Even in Deltarune, where there is no Royal Guard, they still wear helmets with their normal clothing for no apparent reason.
In the Valkyria Chronicles games none of your soldiers wear helmets even while fighting in a civil war or against a whole empire, since they've got to show off their unique appearances and personalities. In contrast the villainous mooks and morally ambiguous red shirts wear helmets that either cover their faces or hide their eyes.
Played absolutely straight in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, as with all other 40K examples. Titus, Sidonus, Inquisitor Drogan, Lt. Mira, and Inquisitor Thrax all go without helmets. Leandros has one to start with, but it is damaged and promptly discarded during the scene in which you meet up with him. The Orks of course don't wear helmets, though almost all of the other various mook-of-the-minute types (the Imperial guardsmen, Chaos militia, etc.) all wear helmets.
WarhammerThe End Times: Vermintide: This trope is generally inverted; the heroic members of your party can wear helmets (or not, using this trope), while your less paragon members wear fashionable hats and hoods and extremely open bracers, or faceplates at best. Also, the Skaven generally refuse metal headgear, mainly because they need the flexibility to scan the battlefield and plan their assault for a few seconds before they charge in, but this leaves all enemies vulnerable to headshots. There's even a bow and a weapon skill designed for automatically hitting heads!
We Who Are About to Die: Definitely the case In-Universe. Helmets work, but they're also up there with shields in terms of cutting into your Fame earnings: They're Boring, but Practical and the crowds can't see a recognizable face, just another heavily-armored lug. And Fame is a vital currency, not to mention the only way for certain Aspirants to retire. The more protective and face-hiding your helmet is, the more you will need to make a show of things to compensate and make your name properly.
In World of Warcraft, a helmet is an integral and necessary part of any player's kit. Nonetheless, it's completely optional whether or not your helmet is visible on your character. However, it remains equipped either way. Of course, most of the important NPCs aren't wearing helmets either, although there are still some notable NPCs who always wear them (Maiev and Darion Mograine) or for an important battle (Tirion Fordring, Varok Saurfang and Muradin Bronzebeard in Icecrown Citadel).
Every soldier you recruit in XCOM: Enemy Unknown goes bare-headed on a battlefield full of plasma weaponry that can melt their faces off, poison they can inhale, and other such hazards that would warrant a fully-enclosed helmet or at least a gas mask. The game really goes the extra mile in regards to this trope, however, in that it was only in the DLC that helmets were added. They're purely aesthetic head decorations, however: the actual protective items are Informed Equipment.
The original X-COM: UFO Defense plays it both ways. Your troops initially go into battle wearing ordinary military fatigues and no helmets, but that is justified because existing helmets and body armour are dead weight versus the plasma weaponry the invaders are toting. The first set of armour you can hand out has some rather goofy-looking protective headgear that still leaves the wearer's face and eyes exposed, but is probably better than nothing; the more advanced sets developed later upgrade the headgear to a full-face helmet.
Inverted by Xenonauts, which uses the UFO Defense justification of "body armor doesn't help against these weapons and only slows down the wearer" for not giving your troops any armour. And yet, for some reason, the in-game art always shows your soldiers wearing a regular steel helmet.
Headgear in Xenoblade Chronicles X tends to fall into one of two categories: more like hair decorations than protection, or practical-looking helmets with opaque visors that can make cutscenes look weird — particularly for Rook, who communicates a great deal by facial expression and body language. Fortunately helmet visibility can be toggled off entirely, or visually overridden by putting something in the Fashion Armor slot. The funny thing about all this (for the human characters anyway) is they're all robots anyway, and reasonably durable ones at that, so most of them could get away with a lack of face protection in hostile environments.
Barely any named characters in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 wear helmets. The Kevesi trio never wears any helmets at all, while the Agnian trio actually wears them in their debut scene. However, after Mio's helmet shatters in combat, the rest of them lose theirs as well. The recruitable Heroes (pun not intended) also never wear any helmets, as do their named underlings. In contrast, the antagonistic Consuls are full-blown Tin Tyrants, complete with unique, distinctive helmets. In continuation of this trope, one more morally upstanding Consul ends up permanently taking off his helmet upon joining the party as a Hero.
is styled after the appearance of the Fighter/Warrior job class
