Times where The Elites Jump Ship — or attempt to, anyway — in Video Games.
- BioShock: Rapture was built as a capitalist's paradise for those who didn't want their hard work taken from them by the government (i.e. every robber baron who made bank during The Great Depression and didn't want to lose their wealth from the new administration's taxes), as well as an undersea Vault meant to live through what they thought would be World War III and the nuclear apocalypse. Unfortunately for them, they still needed a low-class workforce to exploit, and then their founder cut off all travel prematurely. Without the ability to refresh workforces and an increasing dependency on poorly made, mentally-damaging resources instead of the formerly healthy trade routes, it only took a few years before everyone went insane and destroyed the city in a civil war. Naturally, this equates to a huge chunk of America's 1%ers jumping ship, only to drown while the rest of the country did better without them.
- In BioShock Infinite, the surviving Founders pulled this trope in one of the Alternate Universes that Booker and Elizabeth travel to. In that universe, the Vox Populi revolutionaries succeed in overthrowing the rule of the white racist elite Founders who run Columbia. The Founder elites who don't end up killed and scalped are shown fleeing Columbia in airships and leaving everyone else in Columbia to their fate.
- The Bunker: Late in the game, John can find a report from the Prime Minister's bunker in Wiltshire, which details how much of the domestic staff was unable to make it in time and got killed outside. There was also a group of fifty civilians who unsuccessfully attempted to break in before the blast.
- Changed: After a massive pandemic broke out, the ultra-rich and leaders of various governments locked themselves away in a secret bunker in hopes of weathering the Pale Virus. When the infected and dying masses realized this, massive riots broke out, which prompted the human test subjects inside the tower complex to revolt as well. In the chaos, the latex beasts escaped the lab where they were confined and began consuming everyone they came across.
- Discussed by radio host "Maximum Mike" on one of his radio segments in Cyberpunk 2077. In his segment, he relates a story about an associate of his who was busted for insurance fraud, after he removed all the valuable equipment from his failing restaurant before setting it alight, which clued in the police that the fire was intentionally set. He then compares this to the Mega-Corps hoarding the planet's valuable works of art and history on a lunar repository, and asks his listeners to consider the possibility that the world's elite may be aware of a reason why they'd need to get all the valuables off the planet, and muses that the next rocket taking off from the spaceport towards the moon... might be the last one.
- Governor Vandis pulls this trope in Dawn of War II. He ruled as Governor of the Hive World and sub-sector capital, Meridian, and served as the primary obstacle to the Blood Ravens for gaining access to Angel's Forge. After initially brushing off a possible Tyranid invasion, he decided to flee the sub-sector once it becomes apparent that the Tyranids are there in force and leaves his planet and the whole sector to die.
- Deponia is set on the remains of a planet where all the wealthy have moved to the space station Elysium. The remaining planet is a literal dump, like a scrap heap. Naturally, a main goal of the protagonist is getting aboard and enjoying the sweet life. Turns out that they want to blow up the planet and use it as a boost to get moving into space. But only because they are certain that nobody is still living on the planet. Them making doubly sure is what kickstarts the plot.
- In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the resident Conspiracy Theorist radio host Lazarus keeps warning his listeners that the Mega Corps' massive build-up in low-Earth orbit in recent years is a sign of the financial elites preparing their move to outer space, as the Earth becomes less and less hospitable to human life — and, of course, the common people are not invited for the ride.
- In Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive, the protagonists find out most of the elite and wealthy fled to a base on the moon after it was accidentally cracked in half during a mining operation, which in turn utterly screwed with Earth's gravity and turned it into a wasteland. Once there, they went into machines to transfer their minds into the bodies of another universe where the operation never happened. The goal is to ultimately survive the dangers of the hostile environment through the days, get to the last unused rocket ship and get there before the remains of the moon eventually collide with the planet on the final day.
- Fallout:
- The wealthy American elites hid themselves in bunkers known as Vaults on the onset of the global nuclear war. Ironically, many of those elites were used along with other citizens for Darwinist social experiments by Vault-Tec (and indirectly, the Enclave) without them even knowing. Meanwhile, the Enclave spent the apocalypse hiding in a shelter converted from an old oil rig and were promptly blown up by the protagonist of the second game when they tried to 'retake' America.
- As he learnt about an imminent global nuclear war, Mr. House of Fallout: New Vegas turned himself into a cyborg, ensured no nukes would fall on Las Vegas, and then hid himself in a bunker, ready to come back after the cataclysm.
- Fallout 4:
- The Commonwealth Institute of Technology (branded as just the Institute) just turned their campus' basement into a customized Vault and scienced the hell out of all their problems. Unfortunately, centuries of turning away the 'mentally inferior' left them unable to handle long-term problems with anything but 'release the science experiments', and were eventually bombed for their arrogance and/or forced under new management.
- John-Caleb Bradberton used his wealth to buy immortality, and his corporate office was certified against nuclear Armageddon. Unfortunately, it meant turning him into a severed head on a closed-circuit computer, and he spent 210 years stuck staring at a wall. Then he's either given a mercy kill or forced into a permanent relationship with his craziest fangirl ever.
- Frostpunk: While the British elites were planning on doing this in The Refugees, their plans got derailed when workers rose up, seizing the transport ship for themselves and leaving the aristocrats to rot. Said aristocrats eventually manage to make it to the city on foot, frostbitten, bitter, and still arrogantly expecting to reclaim their previous status simply because they were nobility before things all went to crap.
- Subverted in Gears of War 3. The COG government did have an escape plan of their own: Azura, a remote island that kept the elites and valuable personnel for after the war with the Locust, and later, the Lambent, was over. The subversion comes when Chairman Prescott, who spent quite some time himself, decided to leave the island so that Marcus can save his father and the planet itself, kicking the plot in motion. Even more so once Delta Squad reaches Azura, seeing that the Locust have already taken over the island and all of its residents have been killed.
- Toward the conclusion of Halo 2, there’s a civil war going on in the Covenant holy city of High Charity between the Brutes and the Elites (the species, not the kind the trope title is referring to), the Master Chief has launched a one-Spartan assault, and a Flood-infested ship has crash-landed in the center of the city. Where are the Covenant High Prophets during this time? The end cutscene of Chief’s penultimate mission shows the High Prophets and their Brute honor guard boarding ships on their way out of the city. Somewhat subverted in that the Flood attacks before they could board, resulting in the Prophet of Mercy’s death.
- In Hitman 2, the Ark Society is a group of elites preparing to jump ship. They gather money, resources, technology, cultural artifacts, etc. to survive a societal/environmental collapse they believe is going to happen. Their plans range from simple bunkers and strongholds to colonies on Titan, and even living in a simulation.
- Done by many of the world's elites in Horizon Zero Dawn who built themselves sanctuaries either underground or in orbit where they could live out the rest of their lives safe from the Faro Plague.
- Horizon Forbidden West the sequel Exaggerated this trope with the trillionaires that make up Far Zenith having fled the solar system to make their own Society of Immortals.
- After the Reapers finally invade in Mass Effect 3, you hear people discussing "Sanctuary", a secret location intended to stay off the radar of the Reapers, which — naturally enough — costs a lot to get into. A wealthy industrialist, Rupe Elkoss, can be heard remarking that it's likely just prefab shelters and nutrient paste. The truth is way, way worse than even he imagines.
- In The Outer Worlds, the Board's "plan" to deal with the current crisis of dwindling food supplies and the colonies' wearing out (both of which are largely due to the Board's own incompetence) is to kill or cryogenically freeze most of the lower class citizens and let the wealthy elites survive on the remaining resources.
- Overgrown: Genesis: Dr. Feinstein eagerly exploited this mentality for his own ends in order to secure the funding and sponsorship he needed to build Area 66, promising that any of the world's rich and elite who paid for the privilege would get to take shelter there. In reality, he secretly intended to use them as test subjects.Dr. Feinstein: The proposal is simple - pay the fee, and you get a safe haven when it all goes to shit. The plan has proven immensely successful thus far. Dignitaries, celebrities, and leading businessmen have started to sign on one after the other. Cash flow will now cease to be a problem. Of course, they do not know that their conditions will be... less than luxurious. Still, all we need is their money. And they won't see the true nature of their accommodations till it's too late to complain.
- This is the plan of Shido in Persona 5. Despite publicly talking about wanting to lead Japan into a new age of prosperity as its new Prime Minister, his actual views, as reflected in his Palace, is of the Diet Building as a huge luxury cruise ship where he and his sycophants live in splendor while the rest of the country drowns.
- In Ratchet & Clank (2002) those who can afford it evacuate a planet under attack by the Blarg, while those who can't have to wait for Captain Qwark (or an actual hero) to stop the invasion, as related by the Plumber when he's selling Ratchet and Clank an infobot for enough bolts to buy a ticket out.
- In Spec Ops: The Line, all of Dubai's upper class fled the city before the sandstorm hit, leaving behind the large population of migrant workers to fend for themselves.
- In System Shock, when SHODAN began turning the members of Citadel Station into cyborgs and mutants, a bunch of executives fled into one of its artificial garden groves, and had another employee jettison it into space. Unfortunately for the executives, SHODAN had disabled the grove's life support systems by then.
- Uru: Ages Beyond Myst: Kadish, one of the most influential citizens of D'ni, fled the underground city when a plague began wiping out its residents, holing up in a vault in one of his luxurious, privately-owned Ages. You can find his skeleton inside the vault, surrounded by the riches that'd done jack squat to save him.
- Played for Laughs in In Zombies, Run!, when Season 3 Mission 53
introduces the Henley Compound and explains its history.Sam Yao Judging by the Rofflenet rage when people found out about the Henley Compound, they are pretty damned sure. One of the few Comansys scientists not still with them, an expert in the micro-power systems used by most of the company's technology, living a life of luxury in a high-security super-rich survival colony on the banks of the Thames. The Rofflenet folks hit the roof!
