In Memoriam / Video Games

• AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative: Inspector Kagami's character file includes a dedication to his voice actor, Brad Venable, who passed away the year before the game's release.
• Early Harmonix Amplitude is dedicated to Jam Master Jay from Run–D.M.C., whose song "King of Rock" is a playable track in the game. Jay had been murdered in 2002, months before the game's release.
• The Avatar: The Last Airbender PC game features a dedication to Uncle Iroh's voice actor Mako. Much like the last nine episodes of the show's second season, the game had Mako perform his last lines as Uncle Iroh and was released after Mako passed away.
  Dedicated to the lasting memory of Mako. Wisdom shall always be found in your words...
• The Nintendo Switch ports of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City are dedicated to Batman's voice actor Kevin Conroy, who passed away from intestinal cancer in November 2022, a year before the port's release.
• The credits for Battlefield 1942, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003, and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger include dedications to a man named Tim Eifert, who passed away in July of 2002. His connection to EA Redwood Shores, DICE, Krome Studios, and Electronic Arts is unknown.
• Beyond: Two Souls is dedicated to the memory of Normand Corbeil, the composer of the game (as well as two other games by Quantic Dream) who died during its production.
• In Black Mesa, a texture on a soda can in-game bears the text "In memory of Chris Himes", placed there by asset artist Shawn Olson as a dedication to his late cousin. The credits also include dedications to all the developers that passed away during the game's long production cycle, including Victoria Teunissen, the voice actress for the tram announcer and pre-takeover Black Mesa Announcement System; Jesse Wingert, who contributed to the development of the original Black Mesa: Source website; and Sam Burt, a playtester for the game's multiplayer mode.
• The game Burnout Revenge is dedicated to Dr Rabin Ezra, who wrote the Renderware Game Engine used by the Burnout series.
• Child of Light is dedicated to Roland Rollus (1952–2013), who passed away a year before the game's release.
• Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is dedicated to Mel Winkler, the original voice actor of Aku-Aku from 1998's Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped to 2004's Crash Twinsanity. Mel passed away on June 11, 2020, a week before It’s About Time's teaser on June 18th.
• Cryptic Studios:
  • After video artist and Foundry author Mark "H2Orat" Valentine died of cancer in September 2013, Cryptic added a memorial to him to the Starfleet Academy map in Star Trek Online, and a group of veteran Foundry authors dedicated a collaborative mission series, Purity, to him.
  • On March 5, 2015, Cryptic Studios added a memorial to Leonard Nimoy (who had reprized his role as Spock as a narrator for the Federation gameplay) by replacing a water fountain sculpture on Vulcan with a statue of Spock with the phrase "Live Long and Prosper", added a statue of him on New Romulus with the phrase "The Needs of the Many outweigh The Needs of the Few", placing memorials on Earth Spacedock, Qo'nos and New Romulus bearing the names of various Star Trek creators with the in-game model bearing Nimoy's name, along with DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Majel Barrett and Gene Roddenberry. The memorial is updated whenever a member of the franchise's cast passes away.
• Cyberpunk 2077 features multiple memorials to real-world people at a columbarium located in the North Oak district of Night City, alongside in-universe characters.
  • One niche honors Ryan Webb, a fan of the original tabletop game who passed away prior to release. Fans of CP77 who have found his obituary online have left messages of condolences after discovering his grave in-game.
  • Another honors Nick Ford, who's memorial was added in response to an online petition by his brother.
  • Two conspicuously placed niches honor two people who had innumerable impact on the cyberpunk genre the game is named after, having worked on Blade Runner: Syd Mead, a famed artist whose work on the film helped define the genre visually, and Rutger Hauer through a memorial to his character Roy Batty, with his epitaph quoting the famous "Tears in rain" soliloquy.
• The first two DiRT games are dedicated to legendary driver Colin McRae, who was killed before the first game's release.
• Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is dedicated to Daniel Licht, the composer of the Dishonored series, who died of cancer a month before the game was released.
• Divekick features a tribute in the end credits to the memory to both the real life inspiration for the character Kenny, as well as Ryan Davis of Giant Bomb, though the latter is referred to as "Bryan Davis (San Francisco Resident)" in reference to the site's 2012 Game of the Year video.
• Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers was dedicated to the memory of Disney Ducks Comic Universe contributor Carl Barks, who passed away the year the game was developed.
• In Doom Eternal, in the library of the Fortress of Doom, id Software included an Easter Egg where there is a book titled "How to Comb Your Mustache" by Cliffton M. Fischbach, which serves as an homage to the late father of Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier, as Mark has said that his father was the one who introduced him to the original Doom and made him a fan of the franchise.
• In Dungeons & Dragons Online there is a graveyard that contains a "memorial to a fallen hero", Gary Gygax. In true D&D fashion, a yearly event causes undead to spawn near here.
• The second Earthworm Jim game has a dedication to Mike Pilotti (the staff's ink-and-paint artist, who died in an avalanche) at the end of the credits.
• Eternal Darkness is dedicated to Silicon Knights head Denis Dyack's father Ben, who passed away during its production.
• The Forest Quartet ends with an "In memory of Emma Ninel".
• For Honor: The "Number One" signature for Berserkers is an Actor Allusion to the late Stefán Karl Stefánsson, who provided Icelandic voice clips for male Berserkers and was best known for playing LazyTown's Robbie Rotten. The description of the signature reads thus:
  In Memoriam - To our Number One villain.
• The March 2023 Festival Playlist of Forza Horizon 5 paid tribute to the legendary driver Ken Block, who died two months prior, and featured challenges involving cars from Hoonigan, a brand co-founded by Block.
• The credits to Gamer 2 explicitly thank MrDrake, the deceased author of the original short story "Gamer" the game is based off of.
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered is dedicated to Harold Ramis, who passed away five years after the release of the original version. The game was his final appearance as Dr. Egon Spengler and his last story, which he co-wrote with Dan Aykroyd.
• Garry's Mod: One of the many start-up images is a lone chair adorned by a white cowboy hat and guitar, a tribute dedicated to Colin Wyckoff, best known as kitty0706 who had died to leukemia in 2015.
• Guild Wars 2: One of the tombstones in the Ebonhawke cemetery honors Sally "Wynthyst" Trandem, a long-time contributor to both the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 wikis.
• Half-Life: Alyx features a dedication "For Jake" in the credits, referring to to Jacob Nicholson, an animator who worked on Half-Life 2 who passed away in 2016.
• Halo 4 is dedicated to Cade Ainsworth, a Halo fan who died of cancer on July 12, 2012.
• Injustice 2 is dedicated to the memory of Miguel Parra, a Netherrealm Studios game engineer who died during the development of the game. He previously worked on the first Injustice game, as well as Mortal Kombat (2011) and Mortal Kombat X.
• Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days was dedicated in the memory of Wayne Allwine, Mickey Mouse's previous voice actor, who died in May 2009, before the game's release. It was the last game of the series where Allwine voiced the mouse.
• At the start of the credits roll in Left 4 Dead, the 'film' will be dedicated to any players who died during the finale.
• The official releases of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure both pay tribute to Geofront lead editor Scott Tijerina, who passed away in October 2022—the former through an updated chest message, and the latter in an end card.
• Satoru Iwata also gets a memorial in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the form of Satori Mountain, which is named after him. To make the connection clearer, a quest that takes place on the mountain is given by an NPC who greatly resembles him. A strange creature found on Satori Mountain called the Lord of the Mountain is indicated by flavour text to be a reincarnation of Iwata himself.
• LEGO DC Super-Villains is dedicated to Poppy Elsie Keeling, a baby daughter to one of the cutscene developers who died from a very rare condition called a cloacal deformity.
• The final Mass Effect 3 DLC pack Citadel is dedicated to Robin Sachs, who voiced Zaeed Massani throughout the series. Citadel was the last role he ever recorded. Additionally, a special ME3 multiplayer event, "Operation Tribute", was held on the weekend immediately following Sachs' death, "in honor of fallen comrades". During the event, players were encouraged to kill enemies with Avenger rifles and Inferno Grenades — the Avenger being the model of Zaeed's beloved Jessie and Inferno Grenade being his loyalty power in Mass Effect 2.
• The PlayStation 4 remake of MediEvil is dedicated to Paul Darrow, who did the voice of Zarok.
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's end credits included a statement that Peace Walker was made in the memory of Project Itoh, the author of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots's novelization, who had died of cancer before the game's release.
• Metroid Prime Trilogy added a dedication for Retro Studios senior engineer Mark-Haigh Hutchinson.
• Mojang added a crown to the pig mob featured in the launcher of Minecraft's Java edition in July 2022 to honor Technoblade, who had passed away from cancer days beforehand.
• Version 3.2 of NetHack is dedicated to Izchak Miller, a DevTeam founding member who, among other things, wrote much of the game's shopkeeper code. Also, every version starting with this one has included Izchak as the keeper of the only guaranteed shop in the game. To this day, it is considered extremely bad form to kill Izchak the Shopkeeper. Even in extinctionist games, where the goal is to kill every creature in the game 120 times.
• A dedication to Miyu Matsuki and Kazunari Tanaka, the respective Japanese voices of Chihaya Mifune and Junya Kaneshiro in the original version of Persona 5, appears in the ending credits of Persona 5 Royal (in which their roles were respectively recast with Haruka Terui and Takahiro Fujimoto). Curiously, the 2022 ports of Royal did not update the dedications to add Billy Kametz, the English dub voice of the Royal-exclusive Dr. Takuto Maruki, who passed away three months before their release.
• Both Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction are both dedicated to Dan Johnson, a developer well known for his cameos in many games starting with Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! Dan passed away from bone cancer in late 2006.
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has the collectible CraiggerBears, which are dedicated to longtime Insomniac employee Craig Goodman who passed away from brain cancer in 2019. Collecting all of them across a regular and Challenge Mode playthough will unlock you a set of Photo Mode stickers dedicated to Craig as well as other past Insomniac employees Dan Johnson, Steven Kirk, and Michael Kuehl, who are all also listed in the credits as "Eternal Insomniacs."
• The instruction manual to RBI Baseball '93 has a dedication to Steve Olin and Tim Crews who were killed in a boating accident while the game was in production.
• The Licenses section of the credits for River City Girls Zero's 2022 re-release ends with a message dedicated to the late Near◊, the original creator of Ares, the emulator the re-release uses.
• Saints Row:
  • Saints Row 2 is dedicated to Christopher "Topher" Allen, a multiplayer designer who died suddenly during development, and featured a graffiti-like banner honoring him in the credits. Every game in the series since then has retained a dedication to him.
  • Saints Row IV has "Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP)" as the credit for voice of Benjamin King before Terry Crews, who took over for him. He can also be heard along with the rest of the cast singing Biz Markie's "Just A Friend" during part of the credits, which eventually fades into him singing the song alone.
  • Saints Row (2022) is dedicated to Mike "IdolNinja" Watson and Joe Wells, two key members of Volition who passed away during development.
• The Game Boy Advance version of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Mayhem contains a dedication to the memory of Robert Lamoureux (no connection to the French actor of the same name).
• The staff credits for the Sega Genesis Mini II plug-and-play console includes a dedication to longtime Sega employee Rieko Kodama. Kodama was responsible as a graphic designer on the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) and Alex Kidd In Miracle World, and would later direct and produce titles such as Phantasy Star IV, Skies of Arcadia and the Sega Saturn adaptation of Magic Knight Rayearth. Her cause of death has never been publicly revealed. She passed away on May 2022, but Sega decided to wait until the mini-console's release on October five months later and make the announcement public the moment someone would point out the dedication in the credits on social media.
• Shady's Poopong: 20th Anniversary Edition is dedicated to Tasha Bourne, a Platonic Life Partner of the game's creator and a tester on the first game, who died in 2008.
• Shardlight is dedicated to "the loving memory of Mercedes Escobar".
• Insomniac Games' Spider-Man (PS4) was dedicated to Steve Ditko, designer and co-creator of the character, who passed away months before release. The Silver Lining DLC likewise was dedicated to Stan Lee.
• Star Fox Zero has a touching example that fits the game's tone, as halfway through the credits appear the words: "This game is dedicated to our wingman who fell in battle," as a tribute to the former Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata.
• A rather subtle one is found in Star Trek: Starfleet Command 2. Actor DeForest Kelley, famous for his role as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in Star Trek: The Original Series passed away just a few weeks before the game was released. In the game's main campaign, if you are playing as the Federation, and if you have earned enough command points, you can add a CLH (a hospital ship) to your fleet. There is little point in doing so; even though it is based on the Texas-class Light Cruiser, its only armament is six of the weakest phasers in the game. While the entire game is not dedicated to him, one of the hospital ships is named the USS DeForest Kelley, likely a last-minute addition to the game.
• The penultimate cutscene in the campaign mode of Starcraft II Wings Of Liberty has one in the form of the dogtag that Jim Raynor picks up at a fallen Dominion Marine on Char.
• The music test in Strife: Veteran Edition has one to Morey Goldstein, the game's composer, who passed away from a brain tumor in 2008.
• The 2022 Game Awards Trailer for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League ends with a dedication to Kevin Conroy, the iconic voice of Batman, as the game marks the final time he played the character after his passing in November 2022.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • Rick May, the man who voiced the Soldier, passed away in 2020 from complications caused by COVID-19. To pay respects, Valve updated the game by adding bronze statues of the Soldier performing his saluting taunt to most official maps^note including Hightower and Doublecross, popular maps for Soldier rocket jumping shenanigans, with the plaque on the pedestal reading: "Rick May 1940-2020: 'That was a hell of a campaign, son!'". When close to it, the statue will also occasionally play various Soldier voice lines.^note These were originally temporary additions, but a permanent statue was added to Granary, where Meet the Soldier takes place in. Along with this, a new track was added to the music that plays on the main menu of the game, entitled "Saluting the Fallen", a TF2 rendition of remembrance staple The Last Post.
  • After prominent Pyro main Sketchek seemingly died from a terminal illness, Valve added the text "Sketchek's Bequest" to the description of the Axtinguisher, his main weapon. This text was removed after Sketchek was discovered to have faked his illness and death.
• Unpacking was created in memory of Wren Brier's grandmother, Ilana Sharon.
• The credits of What Remains of Edith Finch begin with the dedication "for Shirley Dallas", along with a photograph of her^note the credits has photographs of many other cast members, too.
• In World of Warcraft, a few small dedications are scattered throughout the continents. Names include: Jesse Morale, Michael Koiter (Blizzard Entertainment employees), Anthony Ray Stark (a friend of an employee), and the discontinued Starcraft: Ghost game.
• World War II Online has an in-game memorial that not only lists any deceased player, but also pinpoints the center of a town and is updated periodically.
• WWE Video Games:
  • There is a tribute photo of Owen Hart shown at the end of the intro of WWF Attitude on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions.
  • WWE 2K15 receives two dedications: one for Connor "The Crusher" Michalek (an eight-year-old boy with brain cancer who got to meet his wrestling hero, Daniel Bryan and had passed away in April 2014), and WWE Hall of Famer Ultimate Warrior, who died three days after his induction.
• One of the sidequests in God of War Ragnarök is a dedication to Jake Snipes, a gameplay programmer at Sony Santa Monica who passed away in 2020. As shared by Sam Hendrick, he and Jake were in talks over how they'd love to leave a symbol of the two's love in the game, and after Jake passed away and Sam asked the director Eric Williams if it would be possible to include a memorial to Jake in the game, it was then that Eric suggested the inclusion of the sidequest.
• All games in The Jackbox Party Pack 8 are dedicated to Adam Charney, a Jackbox employee who died of ALS prior to the game's release.
• Peppa Pig: World Adventures has a dedication to Queen Elizabeth II, as a fictional version of her jumps in a muddy puddle with Peppa at the end of the game. The Queen had died a few months before the game's release.

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