A kind of Continuity Reboot designed to consolidate existing stories and themes into a new Alternate Continuity. Most notable regarding a franchise several decades old with multiple concurrent works, as it serves as a chance to wipe the slate clean while introducing new ideas that may not have been well received in the previous continuity. It may or may not replace the previous continuity but is perceived as a newcomer friendly world/story, sometimes as a Jumping-On Point or Gateway Series.
Extremely common in Retooled Crossovers, as this allows for storylines the original couldn't have done without a massive Retcon. The Canon Welding and greater cohesiveness owing to the advantage of foreknowledge that it possesses over the regular serial continuity (which generally more or less introduced new elements and characters as it went along). With greater control over the established timeline and with inspiration from the parent work, writers are able to lean into known stories and add their own twist without the characters within the story able to comment about it feeling familiar. Mythology Gags also tend to be heightened, referencing things from the entire history of the franchise as something modern.
Common hallmarks of an ultimate universe include:
- Use of a Meta Origin, Adaptation Origin Connection, Adaptational Early Appearance or Adaptational Late Appearance because of trying to create a stronger, ongoing narrative and shuffling around the order of events.
- Important characters may be Killed Off for Real, because Status Quo Is God only at the original universe, whereas there's more room for creativity here.
- Costumes and locations get redesigns that would be considered "too drastic" for the main universe, such as Movie Superheroes Wear Black.
- Backstories are altered to have more depth or outline their progression to become closer to their original character, to make it feel like a fresh take rather than a simple copy.
- Creating an Adaptation Personality Change with Adaptational Heroism or Adaptational Villainy, to shift perceptions of who the character is supposed to be.
- Use of a Race Lift, Gender Flip, Age Lift, Adaptational Nationality, or Adaptation Species Change.
- New stories may be told using elements of past stories.
- A tonal shift, often of a Darker and Edgier variety and a bigger focus on realism.
- Characters may be more powerful or weaker than the original version, relative to how their abilities would fair in different circumstances.
- Creating an Alternate History of the main universe, a "What If?" ranging from modernizing their origins or how they would react to the latest political climate.
- A character is Spared by the Adaptation, possibly as a Meta Twist for people expecting it to go through. Though Death by Origin Story is often set in stone.
- Adding new characters (heroes, villains, supporters, etc.) to spice things up. If a character from an official adaptation proves to be popular, they'll end up becoming a Canon Immigrant.
- A general drive for individual coherency, taking advantage of the Shared Universe and planning the Crisis Crossover ahead of time. Whereas the original work may have run against a Continuity Snarl, the Ultimate Universe has the benefit of hindsight. Writers can cherry-pick the best ideas from the preceding work and streamline familiar story beats.
Named for the Marvel Comics "Ultimate Marvel" line, which sought to update and streamline decades of continuity with an Alternate Continuity sub-brand without canceling out the original storyline. Most superheroes under the "Ultimate" umbrella brand are given reboots of their own, but on a smaller scale — Spider-Man's 'radioactive spider' origin story was replaced with an updated 'genetically engineered spider' version.
Fan Fiction writers frequently do this in Alternate Universe Fics, essentially rebooting the mythos to incorporate their own ideas, Fanon, and other material.
Examples:
- R.O.D the TV: Mainly retooled the Read or Dream manga's basic story to fit into the storyline done in the Read or Die OVA.
- Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 is a deep reboot of the classic anime Original Video Animation series Bubblegum Crisis. However, so many changes were made, from character designs to backstory to the overall plot, complete with a pseudo-Gainax Ending, that most fans of the original series were rather unimpressed with the end product.
- This was essentially the hook of the Alternate Universe series of Mobile Suit Gundam. As a result, Mobile Suit Gundam has nine of these! (G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam X, ∀ Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam 00, Gundam Age, Iron-Blooded Orphans, and The Witch from Mercury).
- SEED is a more explicit example, as it bears a lot of similarities to the original series and is sometimes called "21st Century First Gundam" by Sunrise.*
- You can generally tell which series are examples by how big the focus is on their respective GUNPLA line. Seed and 00 have entire separate lines dedicated to them, making them stand out even more as reboot series.
- There was also For The Barrel, an obscure Light Novel-styled story featured in Newtype magazine with radically redesigned characters and mecha.
- Naoki Urasawa, creator of Monster, did this for Astro Boy with Pluto, which is specifically a slower-paced and more maturely-toned adaptation of the iconic "The Strongest Robot in the World" story arc. One reviewer explicitly compares it to Ultimate Marvel (see page quote). The 2003 animated series also arguably qualifies, as it took many of the unrelated storylines from the largely continuity-free classic manga and wove them together into a cohesive story-arc.
- The Tenchi Muyo! OVAs have two: Tenchi Universe, which has all the main characters and more or less a basic outlining of their backgrounds, plus another character and the same Big Bad, and Tenchi in Tokyo, with pretty much the main characters in the latter.
- Go Nagai's Devilman series possibly qualifies - there's a comic series, 1970s anime TV series, and three linked OVAs released between 1987 and 2000; each one of them retells the same events but in an updated, refined, condensed way. And, of course, there's Devilman Lady, which is something of a combined ultimate edition, Stealth Sequel and full-on reboot...
- And now we have Masaaki Yuasa creating yet another Devilman retelling, with the Netflix anime series DEVILMAN crybaby released in 2018. Which has condensed and drastically updated the characters and setting to The New '10s.
- Mazinkaiser and Shin Mazinger could be seen as this to the original Mazinger Z.
- Negima! Neo, which is based on the anime based on the manga.
- This is Hideaki Anno's stated intention with Rebuild of Evangelion. However, there is evidence to suggest it may also be a Stealth Sequel to the original series as well.
- Ghost in the Shell: Almost every adaptation is this, usually taking a darker and more realistic approach to the manga and its themes.
- In particular, Ghost in the Shell: Arise has all the hallmarks of an Ultimate Universe, complete with a Younger and Hipper re-imagining of the familiar cast, personality changes for some characters, and origin stories that have been updated or in some cases greatly tweaked. Essentially it's "Ultimate Ghost in the Shell" in all but name.
- With the announcement of a second film set in the same universe instead of the regular canon one, Pokémon: I Choose You! can be considered one to the regular Pokemon anime continuity, featuring an Ash starting out his journey once again, but with elements introduced in later parts of the series.
- The 2003 adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, in the sense that it distills parts of the manga while giving it a much darker tone, handles it a bit more realistically (the fight scenes are often short and brutal instead of epic spectacles, while the villains are a bit more fleshed out and their origins more grounded, so to speak) and deconstructs certain aspects of the original. It also exists as an Alternate Continuity, and adds a new spin to the overall plot.
- After JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean ended, Part 7 and beyond take place in a new continuity, but with a number of familiar (albeit sometimes renamed) characters and concepts, with other similar plot beats, many of which were tweaked to keep the narrative fresh, and mixing in elements from previous Parts (such as Part 8 revisiting the Morioh setting of Part 4, but with the Rock Humans, antagonists that are analogous to Part 2's Pillar Men, along with the protagonist named Josuke being significantly different).
- Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine and the OVAs that came after it are all set in the same universe, depicting the gang's early days with a much Darker and Edgier approach than the normal Lupin fare.
- The 2011 Ultraman manga and its subsequent anime adaptation in 2019 is this for the Showa era of the Ultra Series. Interestingly, the Continuity Reboot that comes with Ultimate Universes only applies to everything after the original Ultraman series, at which point it diverges into a modernized Darker and Edgier distillation where various familiar faces like Ultraseven and Ultraman Ace appear but are only recognizable by their Powered Armor resembling their original counterparts.
- As mentioned above, Marvel Comics' Ultimate Marvel is the Trope Namer, as it's the Ultimate Universe version of the normal Marvel Universe.
- The primary changes made to the series is the Setting Update, with the superhero-mutant era being identified as The 2000s. The mutant phenomenon is originally the linchpin for the series, with Magneto being the Greater-Scope Villain for the series (as opposed to Doctor Doom), the X-Men being the first super-team and The Ultimates (the Avengers' new name) being formed as a response to both Magneto and avoiding dependency on the X-Men. SHIELD is the primary Government Agency of Fiction and the overall arc for the entire franchise is Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke with many plots and schemes tied back to the idea of recreating the Super Serum that worked perfectly in Captain America but in the hands of Norman Osborn leads to accidents (Peter Parker being bitten by one of his experimental spiders, which leads to Osborn making himself the Green Goblin and so on) and in the case of the Fantastic Four, leads to experiments in the Negative Zone.
- Both Heroes Reborn and Spider-Man: Chapter One were failed attempts to do this by Marvel before they tried the Trope Namer and some ideas were even reused (like the idea of S.H.I.E.L.D. forming the universe's version of the Avengers rather than the team forming independently and Falcon having served in the military from Heroes Reborn, and the origins of Spidey and his foes having connections to each other from Chapter One). A possible factor in their failure is their attempt to replace the then-current continuity.
- Marvel's "Grand Design" comics are based on giving well-known creators the chance to do a same-medium Adaptation Distillation on their favourite characters and turn over fifty years of tangled canon into a coherent narrative. The first was Ed Piskor's X-Men: Grand Design, followed by Tom Scioli's Fantastic Four: Grand Design and Jim Rugg's Hulk: Grand Design.
- Supreme Power is a mature Ultimate Universe version of Marvel's Justice League Captain Ersatzes, the Squadron Supreme. They even had a crossover with the actual Ultimate Universe once.
- Warren Ellis' short-lived series newuniversal is The New Universe's Ultimate version.
- The DC Comics All-Star line, which had the All-Star Superman and All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder miniseries (with future projects based on Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and possibly the Flash), was a form of this. The series aren't supposed to take place in any particular continuity (although All-Star Batman and Robin does supposedly take place in the same continuity as Frank Miller's other Batman stories), and are supposed to be a concentration of what makes those characters special. As well, Justice is basically All-Star Superfriends, even if it couldn't legally be called that.
- The Earth One series of trade-paperbacks, consisting of Batman: Earth One, Superman: Earth One, Teen Titans: Earth One and Wonder Woman: Earth One with Aquaman: Earth One and The Flash: Earth One announced, follow the Ultimate Marvel formula more closely than the All-Star line, intending to be a modern reboot in a new continuity rather than another mini-series written outside of continuity. The characters are all younger, more violent and asocial than the regular continuity.
- The New 52 relaunch also has some of this, but confusingly not always. Some series are just continuations of old series with renumbered issues while others are complete reboots or retellings. Can be quite confusing to tell which is which at times. Ironic, as the whole point of the New 52 was to make things less confusing for new readers.
- Earth 2 is this for the Justice Society of America and the Earth-2 setting in general, with some readers calling it DC's answer to Marvel's The Ultimates.
- The Wild Storm is this for the WildStorm Universe. It's worth nothing that the WSU was semi-rebooted once before, but never in a scale such as this.
- Devil's Due Publishing attempted a more realistic take on the G.I. Joe franchise with G.I. Joe: Reloaded.
- IDW Publishing's Transformers Generation 1 material, but this can be said of damn near all modern Transformers material.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW) has taken it upon itself to become this, introducing characters and concepts from different incarnations of the property and blending them together.
- Paperinik New Adventures, which ran from 1996 to 2001, got this treatment in the form of the less-acclaimed PK, that ended in 2005.
- The Multiversity:
- The aim of Thunderworld is to be this in regards to Shazam!.
- Earth-7's Essential Comics universe was this to the Major Comics characters of Earth-8. Both are in turn expies of the Trope Namer.
- Switch (2015) is this for Witchblade and several other Top Cow properties. The series is set in an alternate universe where the Witchblade is wielded by a teenage girl named Mary, and has a Lighter and Softer (and decidedly less Stripperific) style.
- After the release of Dredd, Rebellion started publishing comics in that same continuity in Judge Dredd Megazine, making it an Ultimate Universe to Judge Dredd.
- Rogue Trooper's 1989 reboot was intended to be this, with a reimagining of the main GI and his connection to his comrades and equipment... until Friday met Rogue, retconning the new stories into the original continuity.
- Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race is one for the Mega Man cartoon and the games; it combines them while adding original characters and plot developments.
- Mega Man Reawakened takes elements from every version of Mega Man to create an original universe.
- Mega Man Recut is one for the cartoon and the games, with every Robot Master set to appear and a heavily layered plot.
- Mega Man: Reunified Universe
is yet another tv-series-like Mega Man AU fanfic that blends most of the games and adaptations together, along with some elements from Mighty No. 9.
- Child of the Storm is an odd, crossover based variant of this - it distils various Marvel and DC continuities into a mix featuring Harry Potter and The Dresden Files and Marvel Cinematic Universe (the latter is essentially taking the films as a basis and incorporating comics based material) and putting a whole bunch of personal top spin to create an entirely original merged universe.
- Voltalia's Gemstone Saga is supposed to be this for Steven Universe, combining elements of the original universe with new characters, new settings, and most importantly new plots.
- The Marvel DC Project is this for both Marvel and DC Comics.
- The Elements of Friendship serves as this for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, using several What Could Have Been plot points and Development Gags to expand the season-openers into full novels.
- Spectrum, a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fanfiction that serves as a Recursive Fanfiction to The Conversion Bureau and a Continuity Reboot to The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum, weaves in the show's canon, the comics, and its own original lore into one cohesive continuity, while remaining mostly true to canon in a Broad Strokes manner. The "Sunny Equestria" timeline also highlights this, with the backstory being based off what the show presented and the original story's concepts.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines is a timeline with elements of various Pokemon series with new characters and plot elements, though many of the characters from the original material do retain their more moral aspects from their original portrayals.
- Given it's a franchise with a lot of incarnations, all of which introduce their own spin on the core mythos, it's only natural that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a lot of these. Standouts include:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is one for the entire TMNT franchise, combining things from the various comic books and cartoons while adding original characters and plot elements.
- TMNT: The Mutants of Ninjutsu
is a reimagining of TMNT that combines characters and plot elements from the comic books, cartoons, live-action works (including
that one), and the original toyline, all set in a new universe with its own original characters and plot points.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: From the Hidden City
takes characters and plot elements from the comics, all four cartoons, and the live-action works (yes, even that one) and mixes them all into an original story. Notably, unlike the above two, there are almost no original characters—just about the whole cast is comprised of characters who have appeared in TMNT before.
- Earth-27 takes elements from various DC-related media properties, such as characters, settings, and plot points, and merges them into one universe with its own twists.
- Tokimeki PokéLive! and TwinBee takes elements and characters from various Pokémon, Love Live!, Tokimeki Memorial and Twinbee media and has them all in an alternate version of the Earth from the Bushiroad and KLab Love Live! mobile duology while also having characters and elements exclusive to itself.
- A Saga of Parallel Worlds is this to both The Angry Video Game Nerd and Player Two Start, where the Sony-Nintendo deal results in a new chain of events that include Sega continuing to support the Sega CD until the Saturn launches, The Nerd being Happily Married and Final Fantasy VI having a vocalized opera on a cartridge SNES game.
- The Star Trek films headed by J. J. Abrams and his team are established as taking place in an entirely new timeline from the rest of the franchise, created inadvertently by Nero and old-Spock. As such, viewers can sit back and watch some familiar dynamics (the Kirk-Spock-McCoy friendship); some new ones (such as the Spock/Uhura relationship); and entirely new fates for Captain Pike, Carol Marcus, and Khan, etc.—without taking offense at any violations of canon. Fans have taken to calling this "The JJ-verse" or "AOS" (Alternate Original Series). Paramount has since confirmed that the name of the alternate continuity is "Kelvin Universe", a reference to the titular spaceship in the opening scene of the 2009 film.
- The franchise Planet of the Apes was rebooted two times. The first 1968 film was loosely based on the novel Planet of the Apes, and then the sequels built a film franchise, unrelated to it. There was a remake of the film franchise in 2001, but it was poorly received and then aborted, without any sequels (except for the comics). There was a new reboot in 2011, that provided three films so far.
- The Dark Knight Trilogy is this for the Batman mythos, distilling many aspects of the original comics, while taking a more realistic approach and, in some cases drastically changing some characters to fit the medium and story. All three films borrow elements from iconic Batman stories, making the trilogy something of a Pragmatic Adaptation. Like a lot of ultimate universes, the films essentially ask the question "what would this character be like in the real world?"
- When Disney took over Star Wars, Lucasfilm declared the mostly canon Expanded Universe was now part of the Legends continuity and would be ignored by future movies. The new continuity still uses and/or references old material such as planets, organizations, events and sometimes characters such as Grand Admiral Thrawn from the original Legends books but in a different way or context.
- The book sequels to 2001: A Space Odyssey are all set in the universe established in the film version (the mission terminates at Saturn in the novel, at Jupiter in the film), but each one is set in a somewhat divergent universe that does not necessarily take all events of the previous novel(s) into account. Thus 2061 diverges from and ignores the epilogue of 2010, and 3001 glosses over several major implications described in the three previous novels. Clarke stated in the introductions to all three sequels that this was deliberate.
- The book series, comprising Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme, A Cure for Cancer and The English Assassin establish Jerry Cornelius as a globe-trotting, time-hopping, jet-setting secret agent. He is surrounded by immortal characters for whom death lasts precisely until they are needed in a sequel. This is the incarnation used by other writers associated with Moorcock's contribution to the New Wave. Then The Condition of Muzak reveals Jerry to be a down-at-heel would-be pop star with an imagination that makes Walter Mitty look like the average Vulcan. The only real death he encounters is that of his mother, which event ends the series.
- The Boys is this to the comic book it's based on, which is ironic since it is already a Deconstruction of the Superhero genre. Regardless, the show distills many parts of the original story, and takes a much more different route than the comic to be a new take instead of a literal adaptation. It also goes for a more grounded and brooding tone, instead of being cartoonishly edgy like the comic, though there's still a good amount of Black Comedy. Some characters have also had their race, sex and personality changed. The show also features political satire of The New '10s, so instead of mocking and calling out the comic book industry, the show is more of a Parody and critique of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, showing just how elitist, corporate and cynical Disney's Avengers and Zack Snyder's Justice League would be if they operated in the real world.
- Several campaigns by RPGA managed to receive the Ultimate treatment following their original publisher's demise. To wit, "Living City" became "Living Planar," "Living Greyhawk" evolved into "Blackmoor," and "Living Death" turned into "Fellowship of the White Star."
- White Wolf's Chronicles of Darkness is an Ultimate Spiritual Successor of the Old World of Darkness, created to tighten focus, tweak rules mechanics, standardize rules between different gamelines, and replace a metaplot continuity that in just a little over a decade had become as convoluted and incomprehensible as any comic book universe with a more ambiguous, optional, and largely more internally consistent one.
- Another White Wolf product, Exalted, is given this treatment in the third edition, with the map redrawn and multiple new types of Exalt appearing.
- The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons can be considered this to 3.5 edition due to its streamlined, MMO-inspired gameplay, drastic overhaul of many established D&D conventions, and incorporating races, deities, and ideas from different editions and campaign settings.
- Fifth Edition even moreso. After the poor reception of 4E, Fifth Edition is an attempt to Win Back the Crowd by effectively making a stripped-down Third Edition, which makes it feel very familiar to anyone who played 1st or 2nd Edition AD&D; it ends up serving as something of the new-generation Basic D&D, to Pathfinder's status as this generation's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
- The "Paragons of Freedom" setting in the Mutants & Masterminds book Worlds of Freedom places the Freedom City characters in the Paragons setting. Between the more "realistic supers" tone of Paragons compared to Freedom's four-colour approach, and the fact superheroes are a fairly recent phenomenon, it feels a lot like an "Ultimised" version of the Freedom City setting.
- After the OblivAeon event in Sentinels of the Multiverse, the game and the fictional comics focus on two major timelines - the Miststorm, or Tactics timeline, and the RPG, or main timeline. The Miststorm-verse is treated as an Ultimate Universe: it's darker and edgier, characters have different names and redesigns and beloved characters die for real. As a nod to the Marvel Ultimate Universe, the Miststorm timeline is eventually destroyed.
- Action Taimanin: Action is set in an entirely new timeline from the other entries of the franchise. As a new continuity, it further combines elements of all prior entries of the series, like Yamamoto from ZERO, Asagi being Gosha Academy's headmistress from the third game, the Fuuma clan and story from Battle Arena/RPGX, and Oboro and NOMAD working be as depicted in the second game, just for a few examples.
- Super Robot Wars: Original Generation is effectively the video game equivalent of Ultimate Marvel: streamline the original plots from their licensed Super Robot Wars installments into one cohesive setting, featuring only their in-house created characters - a particularly interesting example, as Super Robot Wars is already a Massive Multiplayer Crossover Adaptation Distillation of many diverse Humongous Mecha properties. Things really hit a stride post-Continuity Reboot, as subsequent Original Generation Sequels began adding in obscure Banpresto-developed titles like The Great Battle series and Hero Senki: Project Olympus as tie-ins to overall Continuity. These days, it's expected an Original Generation installment will incorporate something from Banpresto's library into its narrative, especially when current developer B.B. Studio is treating Original Generation as this trope.
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow features a number of familiar elements and character names, but significantly reworked to find a way to fit them into the same era, with the plot of the first entry being something of a retake on Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, namely as an origin story for Dracula and the second on Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow duology, namely on the idea of events that take place in a more contemporary era, albeit under a more clear Alternate History. It also trades the Metroidvania exploration for a more "God of War" style beat em' up and the "vampire hunter/horror" theme for "Judeo-Christian and Paganism" to make it more relevant.
- Zig-Zagged with Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal; the games take place in a unique universe with elements from several prior works in the franchise (the general premise, certain monster designs), but tweaked to make the world more developed, and features quite a bit of new lore introduced to the franchise, but the protagonist is established to be the original Doomguy, who made his way to this new universe after the events of Doom 64.
- DmC: Devil May Cry streamlines many elements from the classic Devil May Cry series' convoluted story while adding original wrinkles, such as making Dante's mother a literal Angel, having Sparda tortured after betraying demonkind, and turning Dante's Rebellion into a shape-shifting weapon. It also has its own version of the fan favorite Vergil, who was killed in the original series' Anachronic Order via the first game. Overall, this continuity reuses some characters such as Sparda, Eva, Dante, Vergil, and Mundus, but redesigns their appearances and rewrites their personalities differently than their original counterparts. The story and dialogue are Darker and Edgier, while the setting also leans a lot on modern city Urban Fantasy than the previous games which leaned more on old Gothic-style architecture.
- Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is described by the developers as an "alternate timeline prequel" to the Double Dragon games. It takes many elements of the mainline games and other media in the franchise and its own unique takes and blend them together in a more grounded form.
- Kingdom Hearts is a Retooled Crossover of Disney and Final Fantasy, that sets both in the same continuity alongside characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Movies by Pixar, and The World Ends with You. When the worlds the player travels to are not a Compressed Adaptation of the movies they're based on, they and the Square Enix Characters usually have some thematic relevance with the story of the Original Generation Characters and the overall series. Tetsuya Nomura has also given drastic redesigns to some of the Disney and Final Fantasy Characters, putting them in clothes that are his preferred aesthetic.
- In a way, The King of Fighters is this by being a Retooled Crossover that puts many SNK Games into a single shared continuity, while also featuring many Original Generation characters. From Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting (with later games featuring characters from their Distant Sequels), to Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier. More recent titles have also added Kizuna Encounter, Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug into the mix. Some of the characters like Robert, Athena and Terry have also gotten redesigns as the series went on. And then there's King of Dinosaurs, who is actually Tizoc going under a new heel persona, kind of like The Maker but much more comedic.
- The Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam crossover confirms that the Paper Mario games are separate from the rest of Super Mario Bros. series, being contained inside a magic book kept in Peach's castle.
- The cancelled "Maverick Hunter" game by Armature Studio would have been this to the Mega Man X franchise, featuring a new realistic design for X, a supposedly darker storyline, and a Bruce-Willisesq human partner.
- Mega Man Battle Network is a Spin-Off/reimagining of the Mega Man franchise, set in an Alternate Universe that focuses on a grand development of the internet instead of robotics. It mostly features characters from the Classic series, who are all redesigned to fit with the Battle Network aesthetic. (although Glyde from the Legends series, as well as Zero, the Colonel and Iris from the X series also show up) The series would later recieve a Distant Sequel called Mega Man Star Force, which deals with aliens and Wi-Fi radio.
- The Mortal Kombat games by NetherRealm Studios are an odd example of this, much like the New 52 they start off a New Timeline by hitting the Reset Button in their First Game. After that, they condense the plot of The Arcade Trilogy in a cinematic Story Mode that involves characters introduced later into the series, With big changes to the events of the timeline being a result of Time Travel shenanigans. Mortal Kombat X adapts the plot of Mortal Kombat 4 and re-introduces some elements and characters from The 3D Era, while also killing of many others in the Prequel Comic or off-screen. It also introduces New Characters and Legacy Characters into the lore. Then Mortal Kombat 11 features another big cinematic Story Mode with Time Travel that has, controversially, changed the personality/backstory of certain characters more so than previous installments. Such as, for example, Sindel.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic Generations had Sonic team up with his past self, Classic Sonic. Sonic Forces and Sonic Mania retcon Classic Sonic and the 2D games to place in Another Dimension.
- The Sonic Boom video games, as well as its follow-up cartoon, tried to serve as this for the Sonic franchise to give SEGA room to experiment in a new continuity while still being close to the original.
- The world of Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM combines characters, story, and settings from the first three Yu-Gi-Oh anime.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction features both manga-exclusive and anime-exclusive characters, referencing events from both continuities as well as its prequel game.
- Batman: Arkham Origins. While other games in the Batman: Arkham Series try to focus on incorporating the best elements from across every Bat-adaptation, or showing how dangerous even the cheesiest Batman villain can be, Origins seems determined to modernize Gotham: Riddler becomes a hacker and cyberterrorist, Anarky resembles a modern "Guy Fawkes" street protestor, and a lot of focus is given to the corrupt prison and police system, both major talking points among the public when the game came out.
- Blaster Master Zero manages to incorporate nearly every part of the Blaster Master series into its canon. It is canonically a continuation of the Japanese Metafight universe, with the English canon added onto it. The series even sets up the events of Blasting Again for Jason and Eve's children.
- Ratchet & Clank (2016) (and the movie it's based on) retells the original story with a great amount of this trope in effect. Elements such as the Galactic Rangers, hints to Ratchet's origins, Qwark's rivalry with Nefarious and Ratchet's desire to be a hero are all injected into the story. In addition to that are a great amount of world-building such as a diverse array of races, the Megacorp and GrummelNet companies, President Phyronix, Unicop, the presence of other galaxies, and even an easter egg for what kick-starts the adventure after this one. By comparison the PS2 and PS3 titles took the course of a decade to introduce all of these.
- Zig-Zagged with Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: the game discarded several modern gameplay elements and re-emphasized old ones and introduced brand news aspects, such as a higher focus on the story and lore, making it a giant gumbo of the series' best elements.note What makes this trope a Zig-Zagged one is that at the time, with all the discarded elements and characters picked up over the years, there was fan confusion as to whether the game was a Continuity Reboot or a Retool. As such, the games that came after included many throwbacks and references to the pre-Tools titles, ranging from name-dropping beloved characters like Courtney Gears and Ace Hardlight all the way to including a museum that is loaded with Continuity Porn as if it were a Milestone Celebration.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) has this in spades:
- This time around, while the plot takes cues from the original Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2 (via a combination of Russian and Middle Eastern terrorists conducting terrorist attacks in their own countries, and against innocent civilians abroad), the action takes place in the current day rather than Next Sunday A.D., and Captain John Price is expressly Younger and Hipper (34-35 in this game, versus the 50 year-old incarnation in the original trilogy).
- Price still undertook an operation to assassinate Imran Zakhaev in Pripyat; in this timeline, it's all but confirmed that it was an outright success, whereas the first incarnation of that mission ended with Zakhaev losing his arm but otherwise surviving. Furthermore, Victor Zakhaev is said to be leading the Russian Ultranationalists that were referenced earlier in the game.
- In this universe, Price is more open with his emotions, swearing more, letting his frustrations show on the surface more often when a situation is going south (like during the defense of the Embassy in Urzikstan) and openly discusses Kyle's emotional concerns with him.
- Whereas Task Force 141 was set up in the interim between the first and second game (by Soap, largely in response to what happened with Zakhaev), this time around, Price is the one who sets it up, expressly to deal with Victor Zakhaev. Furthermore, Price recruits John MacTavish (aka "Soap"), Player Character Kyle Garrick (aka "Gaz") and Simon Riley (aka "Ghost"), along with a number of unspecified operatives.
- At the end of the game it's revealed that Khaled Al-Asad is now the commander of Al-Qatala and is leading an offensive against the Russia city of Verdansk.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II continues this in spades, with Task Force 141 working under General Shepherd and together with the PMC Shadow Company, much of the story revolving around the possibility of America being implicated in an attack they didn't take part in (by way of American missiles ending up in Al-Qatala's hands), and a mid-game betrayal of Task Force 141 by Shepherd and Shadow Company. And, once they're dealt with, the last-minute revelation that there's still one more bad guy out there: Makarov.
- Dumbing of Age is basically a reboot of Roomies!, minus the Mundane Fantastic that eventually took over the strip and plus the hundreds of characters created since then.
- Inverted Fate, while it is a Role Swap Au, it is also a reimagination of the original Undertale. Frisk has a freshed-out personality instead of being a silent protagonist, a backstory and more interactions with the cast, and Papyrus is a secondary protagonist and party member. The setting is more evolved due to the swaps affecting the story. The lore is also expanded through flashbacks, Dummied Out content being restored and Chara having a major role and impact.
- The Japanese Beetle went through this in 2003, retelling stories from its 1998 origin in more modern style. Word of God later admitted that this was exactly what he was going for.
- Tails Gets Trolled Polished was an attempt at this. With lazerbot adding shading to his crude drawings and correcting his infamous spelling mistakes. Events that in the original Webcomic lasted only two pages were stretched to four, characters introduced later into the story appear much earlier, and new characters and scenes were added, some of which try to add depth to minor characters. All of this with a much more dense tone akin to the latter chapters rather than the much more fast paced beginning of the original. The goal of this remaster was to make a definitive version of the Webcomic, with lazerbot himself even calling the original a draft. His fans weren't pleased, especially since the new project started after the original was left on a cliffhanger.
- Godzilla: The Series turns the continuity of Godzilla (1998) into this. While the movie is regarded by American and Japanese Kaiju fans as a Godzilla in name only, the Animated Series is a then-contemporary remake of The Godzilla Power Hour. Bringing back familiar elements such as his Atomic Breath and a Monster of the Week format. The show also has Expies of other Toho monsters, such as Quetzacoatl being the show's version of Rodan, The Nanotech Creature as Hedorah, and The Robo-Yeti as both King Kong and Mechani-Kong. Then there's also Cyber-Godzilla, a mechanized Kaiju that uses the remains of the previous Godzilla, a concept later used for the Millenium Mechagodzilla (Kiryu). Cyber-Godzilla was created by the Tachyons, which are the show's equivalent to the Simeons and Kilaaks. Much like Godzilla himself, the designs and backstory of these Expies are drastically different from their source, and The Robo-Yeti is Japanese instead of American, the inverse of this Godzilla, which is something that the show playfully points out. And finally, there's the thing that it has most in common with it's Trope Namer, these adaptations are a product of their time.
- Megaman Fully Charged was meant to be this to the main Classic MegaMan franchise. In this continuity, Megaman is a young robot boy named Aki Light that has the ability to transform into his Super Fightin' Robot hero identity MegaMan and lives alongside his creator; war-veteran Dr. Thomas Light, and his human daughter Suna Light (who has nothing to do with Roll), with them fighting a completely new antagonist named Sgt. Night, an anti-robot bigot that manipulates robots such as Fire Man, Air Man, Guts Man, Cut Man and Elec Man alongisde newcomers Hypno-Woman and Blast-Woman into becoming dangers to society, with Megaman's twin brother being a Composite Character of ProtoMan and Bass.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated takes place in a more contemporary setting called Crystal Cove with antiquated elements that has no ties to Coolsville, Mystery Inc's home in other continuities, there's a greater focus on a Myth Arc and the characterizations of the Gang, and a darker, but more self-aware approach. The series also features other Hanna-Barbera properties, such as Dyno Mutt Dog Wonder, Jonny Quest, and Moby Dick as part of the series' world to create a much bigger setting.
- Transformers
- Transformers: Animated was made to modernize and reintroduce the franchise to a new, younger generation. It featured mostly the same cast from G1, but smaller, while adding new characters and ideas of its own. It also had a few elements from the first Live-Action Movie and characters from Beast Wars. (According to The AllSpark Almanac, a character from Robots In Disguise exists in this universe too.) Unlike the episodic 80's cartoon it rebooted, Animated had a bigger focus on continuity, with multi-part episodes at the start and finale of each season. Some characterizarion and roles were updated and tweaked too, like Optimus being younger and still figuring things out as a leader.
- Transformers: Prime is part of the Transformers Aligned Universe, which exists entirely outside of the Transformers multiverse in the beginning, and it was deliberately designed to be a universe with the best parts of other continuities. The show itself also had a more serious and brooding tone than other Transformers Cartoons.
- Thunder Cats 2011 functions as a darker, more dramatic take on the original ThunderCats, showing the more realistic aspects of the war between the cats and the lizards, as well as the culture of the main characters.
- Voltron: Legendary Defender is this to Voltron and its other source material GoLion.
- DuckTales (2017) draws on the original show, the Disney Ducks Comic Universe that it was based on, and The Disney Afternoon.
- Carmen Sandiego is a Continuity Reboot that blends elements from prior games and TV shows of the Carmen Sandiego franchise: the general setting of the original 1980s games (V.I.L.E. is legitimately dangerous and the investigators are from Interpol instead of ACME), Chase Devineaux from the late-1990s Broderbund games, Jules Argent from the 2000s Learning Company games, and the Player, Zack & Ivy from the mid-90s cartoon (as well as Dr. Maelstrom and Sarah Bellum), while taking new directions of its own.