- Rucks in Bastion doesn't lie, but his recounting of the game's backstory comes off as selective and self-justifying, including some whitewashing of aspects of Caelondia's history and culture.
- Despite BattleblockTheater's "eccentric" narrator, it surprisingly tends to avert this. What he tells you seems to be what's legitimately going on in the game.
- Battle Field 1: The implication of the final narration of the "Friends in High Places" campaign are that the entire sequence of Blackburn and Wilson fighting through the German airship raid was just heroic embellishment that Blackburn created after the fact, and that what may have happened was that he killed Wilson, deserted, and escaped his court martial in the ensuing chaos of the attack.
- Battle for Wesnoth: To hide The Reveal near the end of the campaign, the opening narration for Heir to the Throne lies about one detail, claiming that Delfador manages to save Prince Konrad from Asheviere, when, as he admits once it no longer matters, he failed and the Konrad whom he raised is a different man.
- In The Stanley Parable's follow-up, The Beginner's Guide, Davey may function as an unreliable narrator. One example of this is when he cites the lampposts at the end of many of Coda's games as evidence that all the games are connected. In the last game, Coda writes to Davey "Would you stop changing my games? Stop adding lampposts to them?"
- Also, when you enter the Housekeeper minigame, Davey tells you that the house and the door represent the two doors puzzle. However, the only thing behind the second door is the aforementioned lamppost. He later mentions that originally the minigame wouldn't end, that you would originally do chores forever, one of his "changes". If that is true, it seems likely that the second door wouldn't exist at all, lacking any purpose, and the two doors metaphor, like the lampposts, is one that he interpreted from the content he added to Coda's game.
- The whole game is probably one long example of this. From the beginning it's insinuated that Davey is narrating the game as himself, but the further the game progresses the more likely it seems that this isn't true and that he's instead playing a fictional version of himself. It also seems fairly unlikely that Davey would release a collection of Coda's work against his wishes and charge money for it since this would constitute egregious copyright infringement and could end up being a very costly venture if Coda decided to sue.
- In BioShock Infinite, Booker himself is one, due to the Tear at the beginning scrambling his memories. He remembers the Arc Words "Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt" perfectly well, but has forgotten some very important context; namely that he already did bring 'them' (the Luteces) the girl, by selling his daughter Anna to erase his gambling debts. No one told him to protect Elizabeth; he's just doing it out of subconscious regret over his failures as a parent.
- Black. The intensity of the game is a reflection of Keller's recollection of combat under intense psychological pressure — both in the battlefield and in the interrogation room. So the winding levels, seeming endlessly respawning enemies that take a lot of damage to kill, ambushes, useless/missing squadmates that randomly drop in and out with no mention of where they went, labyrinthine level design, etc. are just how Keller recalls each mission, not how it actually was. This also explains the disjointed, almost non-existent story, as that doesn't matter to Keller as much as the accomplishing the mission does.
- Borderlands 3’s third DLC, Bounty of Blood, has its own unreliable narrator. This narrator describes both the player’s actions and the story beats. One side quest plays with this trope by having the player character directly thank the narrator for his advice, and at the end of the main story the narrator reveals that he is known as “The Liar” and that the recipients of his story just have to trust him. The unreliability of his story is hammered home by the fact that only the Vault Hunter, Rose, and the Ruiner were present for the final battle. Rose‘s body was allegedly never found, and the Ruiner was destroyed, meaning that the narrator is likely retelling a second-hand story told to him by either the Vault Hunter or the possibly-alive Rose, or is making the whole thing up.
- In Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, the story takes the form of Silas Greaves recounting his past adventures to several bar patrons, embellishing heavily due to getting progressively drunker as well as just all-around bullshitting. This explains why he's somehow fought alongside or against almost every renowned gunslinger in the west and also leads to scenes where Silas will tell a story, only to stop halfway and rewind to clarify. At the end, it turns out that at least some of his embellishments are his way of testing the bartender Ben, AKA Roscoe "Bob" Bryant, the man he's been hunting his entire life to see how he'd react.
- The near-entirety of Cry of Fear centers around and takes place within Simon's book as a personification of himself, making you wonder what inspired the events inside or otherwise aside from the obvious causes, like his insanity and being able to walk in it. Whatever caused them is (likely intentionally) left open to interpretation by those who play.
- Cyberpunk 2077: The game's portrayal of the assault on Arasaka Tower in 2023 is very different from the one in the TTRPG sourcebooks, most notably Morgan Blackhand is completely absent and Johnny Silverhand (who in the TTRPG was a capable but unremarkable fighter) is shown to be a One-Man Army. A lot of this comes from the fact that the game's version comes from Johnny Silverhand's memories, and between his history of drug abuse, raging narcissism, PTSD, blood loss, rather limited view of what actually happened, radiation poisoning from the nuke, and the fact that he was killed shortly after the raid and then spent half a century as a Soulkiller engram in an Arasaka blacksite... calling Johnny's memories "unreliable" is probably overly generous at that point. Alt Cunningham even lampshades this, stating that Johnny's memories are subjective and "bear no resemblance to the truth". Then again, Alt is not exactly reliable either, being an AI running a Soulkiller engram of the original, with a very obvious reason to hate Johnny's guts. Series creator Mike Pondsmith would later confirm that Johnny's accounts are indeed far less accurate than what really happened, including how he saw himself as a personal nemesis of Adam Smasher when canonically he was a minor nuisance at best.
- The intro to Dandy Ace is narrated by the antagonist, describing himself as a successful and universally beloved performer (as we see him getting booed off the stage amid Produce Pelting) and Ace as a pathetic loser who somehow usurped his popularity via trickery (as we see the handsome and dashing Ace, complete with Bishie Sparkle, taking the stage to massive applause.) On top of this, the antagonist describes himself as Ace's fearsome rival, but within the first few seconds of gameplay we learn that he was actually an Unknown Rival.
- In Deadly Premonition, the main character, York, has an Imaginary Friend named Zach who is, for the most part, a stand-in for the player's influence over him. In the third act, however, it turns out the York was the imaginary one (sort of), created to help Zach forget numerous traumatic facts about his past, such as how his parents really died, what attacked him, and even what he truly looks like.
- Dear Esther's narrator talks about events that aren't actually happening to the player. It turns out that most of what he says is either a blatant lie or a metaphor for what really happened. It doesn't help that he's slowly slipping into a delirium due to some kind of infection.
- Doom Eternal: The Lore texts that can be found throughout much of The Ancient Gods are apparently written by Samur Maykr, who is not really a reliable source. The entire origin story of Davoth, aka the Lord of Hell, is changed to make him essentially a perfect Satanic Archetype: a sort of archangel created by the Father who rebelled against Him, and was locked away in Hell for his wicked deeds. Davoth is in fact the original Father, whose position was usurped by the Maykrs, who banished him and made one of their own into the new Father. He seeks vengeance on all of creation for this betrayal.
- Dragon Age II's Framing Device is that your party member Varric (who admits to Hawke that he's a compulsive liar) is being interrogated about Hawke's story after the fact by Cassandra, and he is not above twisting the facts to make a better story or purely to mess with her. In fact, the game allows you to play through his exaggerations: for example, in the prologue, Hawke and his/her sibling are fighting a group of darkspawn, and are able to one-shot Hurlocks left and right, even curb-stomp an Ogre, before he's called out on it and the player replays that section at level one. The second time, the gang is raiding a mansion, and Varric bursts in through the front door and is able to mow down all the guards Scarface-style with his Automatic Crossbow.
- In addition, in Varric's prologue, Bethany seems to have gotten some upgrades...
- Varric's interactions with Bartrand are the ones most likely to be misrepresented; Cassandra at one point calls him out on not telling the whole truth in a certain scene, and even the ones where she doesn't say anything, Varric is suspiciously noble and generous to his completely rude and unlikeable (and later, completely bugnuts) brother, making it likely that he was exaggerating his and Bartrand's relationship because of his own conflicting feelings about his brother.
- "Bianca", his Automatic Crossbow, initially appears to be an example of this, since its ability to reload makes it unlike any other crossbow that exists within the setting. It's later clarified that it really does exist and was built by a friend of Varric's who was trying to corner the market on these kind of weapons, but "Bianca" was the only one that he could get to work. In the third game he gives one of several explanations of it's origin at random, and the prototype explanation is revealed to be just another lie. The truth is finally revealed as the real creator could easily make more but thinks Dwarven culture would tear itself apart if they were mass produced, so he agreed to cover that detail up.
- In the Legacy DLC, he openly admits to making up the conversation between Hawke and Leandra's spirit (unless the quest was completed before her Plotline Death). In this case, it was just because he wanted to imagine that his best friend got some closure, even though he knows they didn't.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition, rather amusingly, has the opportunity to call out the writers by having the characters ask Varric (who's written down the events of the second game as The Tale of the Champion) about some of the game's more controversial elements, like Orsino's sudden Face–Heel Turn and where all the random encounters came from, much to Varric's annoyance. Events also prove that he did in fact get away with lying to Cassandra about one story element-Hawke's whereabouts. He knew exactly where they were, he just felt Hawke had been through enough already and lied to throw Cassandra off the trail.
- Drakengard is known for having a rather odd case of the unreliable narrator trope, in which the basic plot attempts to paint Caim and his "acquaintances" as heroes destined to save the world, and the original ending is by far the closest one the game has to a happy ending. However, further endings end up painting a progressively darker picture about what's really happening. And since its sequels have taken different endings as canon, the truth about what's really going on remains ambiguous.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- Many of the series' in-game books must be treated as unreliable for a variety of reasons. Even historical in-universe statements and texts need to be treated this way for a variety of, often justified, reasons (just like in real life). To note:
- The writer in question is drawing from incomplete sources. There are some 5000+ years of history in Nirn that have passed before the main series even takes place. Before that, there was the Dawn Era, very much a Time of Myths before linear time even applied. Historical details have been lost, along with entire cultures and races, in that time. In many cases, something you find or do in-game turns up new and contradictory information than what is recorded in the "official" histories.
- The writer in question is drawing from biased sources and widespread propaganda, telling only one side of a story and/or omitting certain details while anything to the contrary is heavily censored. Historical accounts Written by the Winners and containing Historical Hero Upgrades provide plentiful examples.
- The writer is deliberately lying, telling half-truths, and/or is telling Metaphorical Truths. The Dunmeri Physical God Vivec positively embodies this, but there are plenty of other examples as well.
- Another complicating factor is the prevalence of Time Crash events (during which Reality Is Out to Lunch) in the setting, as well as numerous groups and individuals with Reality Warper abilities. means that it is entirely possible that a piece of narration is only reliable at the moment.
- For the series, although Unreliable Narrator, Unreliable Expositor, and Unreliable Canon are in full effect for what you are told and can read, the experiences of the Player Characters can be assumed to be as reliable as they can be when told through the medium of the game. Your character may be misled by illusions or lies, but you (the player) can be sure those illusions or lies were there. In the event of a Time Crash, you can also be sure that your character did what he or she seemed to do, just known that it also occurred alongside mutually contradictory things (such as in the Merging the Branches of the Multiple Endings of Daggerfall).
- Once exception occurs in Oblivion's Thieves' Guild questline. Late in the storyline, you are told by a reliable character that, due to the curse of the Gray Cowl, the player character misremembers a number of events in the storyline. For example, Corvus Umbranox outright told you who he was, several times, but the curse of the Gray Cowl meant that you forgot it as soon as a little time had passed.
- Many of the series' in-game books must be treated as unreliable for a variety of reasons. Even historical in-universe statements and texts need to be treated this way for a variety of, often justified, reasons (just like in real life). To note:
- Errand combines this with Interface Screw to show that the main character phantasizes seeing e.g. a hungry dragon when it's really a complacent dog.
- The Final Fantasy series has several examples:
- The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII has given no less than five different retellings of the Nibelheim Incident, each one slightly different than the last. Cloud, in particular, seemed to have several retellings on it. The base game eventually dives into his subconscious to figure out what really happened. Cloud's narration of the events is completely accurate, in terms of events that took place. The only unreliable aspect is that Cloud told the story as though he was in Zack's place. The rest of the retellings in other games in the compilation also get the major events correct, but elaborate on points that weren't there before.
- In Final Fantasy X, much of the game is told as a flashback by Tidus as he reflects on the journey before entering Zanarkand. While not necessarily deceptive, Tidus also does not reveal a number of key points. This parallels his process of discovery; the player isn't told anything explicitly until the point in the story where the narrator himself first learned them.
- The Wandering Minstrel is this in Final Fantasy XIV. He retells Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate trials and raids with significantly more embellishments than their original, Normal mode encounters (and thus harder). These boss fights are also non-canon.
- Discussed in Fredbear and Friends. Several times over the course of the game, Thomas wonders if something in the abandoned pizzeria hasn't caused him to go mad and hallucinate, and the disappearing and reappearing front door only serves to confuse him further.
- Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist: The old guy who starts narrating the game does this even in death scenarios. "You're talking to a ghost, wooooooooooooo!"
- In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, you can find a set of books called the Sun Saga detailing the plot of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. However, the Sun Saga utterly butchers the retelling of the story. According to these books, Isaac was The Hero, Felix and Alex were the Big Bad Duumvirate with Felix later becoming a Sixth Ranger, the Proxian warriors were Giant Space Fleas from Nowhere and Greater Scope Villains, and Piers was Adapted Out. In reality, Isaac was the Decoy Protagonist who later became The Lancer, Felix was The Hero, Alex was an Enigmatic Minion, the Proxians were The Heavies, and Piers existed.
- Grapple Dog: The book at the very beginning of the game is very misleading, if Nul is to be believed. The motivation for opposing the Inventor was out of a strive to do what was right rather than jealousy, and the Cosmic Gadgets weren't used to seal Nul, but open a portal to his world.
- Heavy Rain depicts four different player characters investigating a serial killer, and switches between their perspectives across different chapters of the game as it unfolds. It turns out that one of the characters you've been playing actually is the killer, and has been collecting evidence of his past crimes in order to cover it up, rather than to investigate.
- In Hitman: Blood Money, the game takes place in flashbacks being told in an interview by former FBI director "Jack" Alexander Leland Cayne, whose account contains multiple inconsistencies with what actually happens in the game. It turns out that Cayne founded "The Franchise" and was behind The Agency's destruction and part of a plot to assassinate the President so that he couldn't forward his pro-cloning policy, allowing for Alpha Zerox continued monopoly on cloning. At the end of the game, Diana revives 47 in the funeral house and 47 kills everyone on the premises, including Cayne and the reporter performing the interview.
- It's employed in other ways during the series as well. Several missions in the original Hitman: Codename 47 were remade for the third game, Hitman: Contracts, but in the latter instances the level architecture is different, some events play out differently from the originals, and all of them take place at night in dismal weather. The disparity is explained by the Framing Device of 47 having been shot and going through a near-death experience in which he recalls past missions; it's never made explicit whether the original version of the missions is unreliable, or the remade versions.
- Common in Interactive Fiction, where it can be used for comedy, as in Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984) ("Okay, I was just joking, you really can't go west."), or for suspense, as in Andrew Plotkin's Spider and Web, (where the entire first half of the game is a spy's "confession" under interrogation, and he's trying to mislead his interrogator).
- Never Gives Up Her Dead: The train murder mystery segment involves you slowly learning that the supposedly glamorous and impressive lifestyles of the suspects on board aren't what they seem. Usually, the stories were obfuscated to hide embarrassing details, cover up motives, or respect the deceased. For example, Maeve starts off her story by claiming she's a millionaire author who had an entire room rented out for her book signing. When this doesn't line up with other facts, she says she lives in a luxury apartment and had a front-row table with a few dozen fans. This still isn't the truth, and she finally confesses to living in a crappy house and only getting one person attending her signing. (But since everything was just a game put on by the participants, it's debatable how much of this is true at all.)
- In Photopia, the narrator of the fantasy segments turns out to be a babysitter who is telling the story to a little girl with her as the protagonist.
- More than one puzzle in the aforementioned Hitchhiker game relies on the player working out that some of the room descriptions are lies. The game eventually gives in and admits the truth if you look at it hard enough.
- Make It Good relies heavily on this. The player plays as a hardboiled detective, send to investigate a murder scene, but various little clues eventually reveal the PC was directly involved in the murder, and the goal changes from identifying the murderer to subtly meddling with the evidence and getting the blame off yourself.
- The Interactive Fiction game Fail-safe's main gimmick is that you are giving the regular Interactive Fiction commands via a communication device to someone on a falling-apart spaceship. At the end of the game, he asks for the code to a laser in order to help prevent the ship from crashing. It turns out, however, that he was lying to you about him being a survivor of the attack and that he is really an enemy alien who boarded, and you handing him the laser codes has enabled him to attack and help his fleet. On the player's second playthrough (or the first if he or she catches on to the twist beforehand), you can instead give him the code to target the enemy ships and thus ruin his plan.
- Played for Drama in Chapter 5 of Kings Quest (2015). The previous chapters of the game are King Graham telling stories to his granddaughter Gwendolyn, but with his chapter, King Graham is dying, and his mind is fading fast. The gameplay reflects this. Whole areas change depending on what he thinks was built there. Some areas are just incomplete hunks of level in an empty void. It took his granddaughter reminding him to remember that one of his first friends in Daventry is a Bridge Troll, not a talking bridge.
- In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, given that she gives you a lot of exposition, from background of the Mandalorian Wars to the whys of the Jedi Civil War to the reason the Exile was... exiled by the Jedi Council, Kreia fits this description.
- Making Kreia possibly unique as a party member in RPG history — she is always lying about something.
- Both In-Universe and out of universe, Last Scenario lies to you. The opening text describes an absolute Cliché Storm of an RPG setting, but then the truth is revealed throughout the course of the game. This actually makes sense — you learn it as the characters do, since the lie in the opening text is the lore as the characters know it In-Universe.
- In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), is revealed that some of Raiden's past memories are questionable. The Colonel, who is an instructional narrator, also turns out to be a deceptive narrator.
- Venom Snake from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has elaborate, vivid hallucinations and delusions during the game, most notably when he thinks Paz is alive. He also has memory issues and "remembers" the events of the prologue Ground Zeroes differently throughout the course of the game. His unreliability as a POV character is enough to spark a fair amount of Epileptic Trees about the game's twist ending. Namely that he isn't actually the Medic from Ground Zeroes as the ending tells you he is, but rather that he's either a split personality of the "real" Big Boss, or the masked man from the helicopter in Ground Zeroes who was missing from most of the flashbacks of the scene througout The Phantom Pain.
- Minecraft: Story Mode: The one narrating the prologue was lying about the "Legend of the Order of the Stone" never fading into myth and becoming a lie.
- Also used this way in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Guybrush spends most of the game narrating his story to Elaine, and if you fail to escape from the torture chamber in time and are killed then she points out that this is impossible since you are talking to her.
- Haldos follows this trope closely in both Nexus War games, although despite plenty of Kick the Dog behavior on his part and the fact that he openly admits to learning what he knows directly from the Big Bad, there's nothing to actually disprove his claims.
- The Park features young mother Lorraine Maillard heading into Atlantic Island Park after closing time to retrieve her son Callum, who supposedly ran back inside to retrieve a lost teddy bear. Throughout the game, Lorraine narrates various details of her life: that the park is Callum's favorite place in the world, that the park actually opened on the day Callum was born, and that Lorraine had a "fairy-tale" relationship with Callum's father, Don, among other things. In fact, the one bit of photographic evidence that Callum ever visited the park before today, he's clearly terrified and trying to drag Lorraine away from the gates; according to The Secret World, the park was permanently shut down barely two years after it was opened for the first time, meaning that the obviously 5-year-old Callum is actually exploring an abandoned amusement park — and as the endgame reveals, has actually been kidnapped by the Bogeyman; finally, a apology note from Don reveals that he was suffering from emotional problems and he didn't want to see Lorraine until well after work, when he was sure he was back in his "right mind." In fact, the finale reveals that Lorraine is under the influence of both the Bogeyman and Atlantic Island Park's emotion-siphoning power, making just about anything she says highly suspect.
- Lampshaded in Penny Arcade Adventures where the narrator right at the start sets doubt in the player's mind as to his identity and motivation. "Please, do not dwell on my... mysterious identity. You're dwelling on it, aren't you?"
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow: Most of the game is Jack recounting his adventures while he and Will are about to be hanged. Being Jack Sparrow, he exaggerates things quite a bit, which is sometimes lampshaded by having other characters point out factual inaccuracies in his stories. This allows the game to include giant spiders, frozen vikings, and a very different version of the events of the first movie. The last level reveals that Jack has been deliberately invoking this to stall the hanging for the rescue to come.
- The Portal franchise has two of them. In the first game, GLaDOS talks to you while you navigate your way through the facility, and in the second game, it's mostly Wheatley telling you where to go. Both are pretty unreliable, as GLaDOS is a pathological liar and Wheatley is an idiot.
- An In-Universe example in Prey (2017), given The Stinger. That is, Alex explains that the scenario was a "reconstruction" that was "based on Morgan's memories," meaning that the events were tweaked to fit the desired scenario. Moreover, the actions of the employees seem too sympathetic to be true. Almost all of them knew nothing about the Typhon experiments, and almost all of those who did know rejected the testing outright. Some employees committed suicide over this knowledge, while others plotted against the Yus. Furthermore, the portrayals of the Yus seem too unsympathetic to be true. Both of them are eager to experiment on the Typhon, and the employees reveal their incompetency, and Alex went so far as to forcibly remove neuromods from employees to keep them from knowing about the Typhon experiments. Alex and the Operators made Morgan and him scapegoats.
- Interestingly, this only happens Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time if the Player Character dies. Since the Prince is the one telling his story, yet somehow fails to remember HE DIDN'T DIE until he actually says that he did.note
- As Yahtzee put it
: "And then I wall-jumped at the wrong time and fell down a chasm and died. Oh, sorry, I'm thinking of something else. What really happened was... I wall-jumped at the wrong time... and fell down... no, wait, hang on. In actuality I wall-jumped at the right time, then accidentally pressed circle instead of X and fell to my death — I'm not boring you, am I?"
- As Yahtzee put it
- Psychonauts: In the tutorial level, Coach Oleander introduces Raz to a Memory Vault that features him (with longer legs) kicking ass in every branch of the military and helping out sick children. If one revisits the level, snooping with the right items leads to a Memory Vault that recounts the true events of that memory: Oleander got rejected from every branch of the military (including the catering corps) for being under the height requirement.
- Captain Qwark in the Ratchet & Clank series has a high tendency of telling bogus stories about his heroics that were either actually done by someone else or never actually happened, in order to cover up his cowardice (always unsuccessfully). This is actually a major point in the Secret Agent Clank spinoff, where there are entire gameplay sections based on Qwark's ridiculous narrations. Amusingly, one of Qwark's apparent fabrications are "robotic pirate ghosts"... until Tools of Destruction revealed the existence of robot Space Pirates and Quest for Booty featured undead Ghost Robot Space Pirates, thus making his story seem much more plausible.
- Qwark's narration is the basis behind Ratchet & Clank (2016), whose premise is Qwark recounting the movie after those events have long since happened. Predictably, there are several moments where he's called out for obvious fabrications, such as the Brain-eating Zombie T. rex. He is however surprisingly honest when it comes to his own shortcomings, which aids his Character Development.
- The Resident Evil Chronicles games depict the events of previous games through records and word-of-mouth. This results in some things that happened either glossed over or misinterpreted.
- Jennifer from Rule of Rose is the King of this trope. Everything that happens in the game, when taken literally, is simply a metaphor for things that did happen. And when you think about the game's story like that, it makes even less sense.
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: The Pirate Queen's Quest DLC has Big Bad Risky Boots explaining what "really happened" and why she failed. She insists that the ending, where she nearly conquers the world only to have her doomsday device explode, was because her minions Failed a Spot Check. In any case, Risky insists that none of her downfall was her fault.
- Shovel Knight: The main campaign, Shovel of Hope, and the first DLC, Plague of Shadows, take place concurrently. Word of God is that the differences between the two are because Plague Knight really isn't a reliable narrator and distorts his experience to make Shovel Knight look bad. For example, during the Plague Knight boss fight in the main campaign, Shovel Knight wins fair and square. In the DLC, you get to experience the same fight as Plague Knight, and in this case Plague Knight wins, but Shovel Knight plays dead and then backstabs him, and also possesses relics he couldn't have at that point of the story.
- The Silent Hill series has two unreliable narrators: James in the second and Alex in the fifth.
- Shadow from Sonic the Hedgehog has two contradicting memories of Maria's death. In Sonic Adventure 2 Maria was shot after putting Shadow in an escape pod, while in Shadow the Hedgehog she was shot and killed while running with him in a corridor.
- It gets even worse for the Ultimate Lifeform. His own game suffers from a chronic case of this trope because the Chaos Emeralds always tell him a different story depending on which ending you've unlocked. He could be anything from a flesh-and-blood organism to an android, and whatever he "learns" from the Emeralds is defined by whatever he's just been told about himself. Thus Shadow, and by proxy the player, actually learn nothing about his past.
- SpaceQuest runs on this trope quite nicely. He has little to no confidence in Roger Wilco during most of his adventures. Oh, and two games have actual voices for the characters, and who else would be picked to be the narrator than the famous Gary Owens?
- In Spec Ops: The Line, some cutscenes Fade to White instead of Fading to Black. Those are the scenes in which the protagonist, Cpt. Martin Walker, is in some way deceiving himself, via hallucinations, delusions or other doubtful perception — and since he's the Player Character, that means he's lying to the player, too. This leads up to a pretty massive reveal at the end of the game.
- The Narrator from The Stanley Parable isn't just unreliable, in some endings (such as the Countdown and Video Games Endings) he's downright hostile. In the "Confusion" ending he's just as baffled about what's happening to the game as Stanley is.
- Flavor Text for technologies, governments, the Galactic Community resolutions, and practically anything else from Stellaris is usually written from the perspective of a biased In-Universe source. Interestingly, the bias tends to be towards the in-game Ethics, any Flavor Text for gameplay elements associated with Spiritualism tends to have heavy Religion is Magic flavors, anything associated with Materialism tends to be written with a clinically detached tone, Authoritarian is represented in various flavors of Control Freak, Egalitarian material is written in a Wide-Eyed Idealist fashion, going straight into Chummy Commies territory with their most impractical aspects, Militarist material is written from the perspective of someone who clearly believes War Is Glorious and Might Makes Right, Pacifist material treats military as a necessary evil at best and Sociopathic Soldier writ large at worst, and focuses on economy and environmentalism, Xenophile material is written from the perspective of The Xenophile, bordering on Foreign Culture Fetish at times, while Xenophobe material can often veer in Absolute Xenophobe territory. Despite the wild variation in tone, the Flavor Text mostly matches the in-game effects of what the various gameplay elements provide.
- Is Super Mario Galaxy 2 a retconned take on Super Mario Galaxy (based on what happened at the end of the first game) or a storybook?
- The Framing Device of Tales from the Borderlands has two unreliable narrators each telling their side of the same story. They both frequently embellish details to make themselves look better and them disagreeing on what happened leading to bickering amongst themselves is a minor Running Gag.
- In Tales of Legendia, whenever the player sees Stella during a flashback from Senel's perspective, she seems to be a Purity Sue. However, Stella appears a lot less than idealized whenever the flashbacks are from Shirley's perspective. There's a reason for the discrepancy: Senel was madly in love with Stella, and also deeply guilt-ridden due to the role he played in her death. Shirley, meanwhile, was in love with Senel, and jealous of her sister because Senel was so infatuated with her.
- In the Tales Series games the first few hours are usually a Cliché Storm, before providing a Wham Episode. The most well-known example is Tales of Symphonia, where nearly every single bit of exposition you're given within the first few hours is a bald-faced lie. The purpose of the Journey of Regeneration? Colette's angel heritage and the Desians' sudden assassination attempts on her? The entire opening text crawl (with the sole exception of the first two sentences) and Raine's lesson on the history of the world? Even little things like Kratos' status as a mercenary, Genis and Raine being elves and Noishe just being a big dog? All lies.
- This trope is an excellent summary of Touhou Project. Each of the various routes in the games (depicting different characters or even the same character experiencing similar, slightly altered events) are all canon simultaneously. The universe compendiums are written by a reporter who hasn't even heard of journalistic integrity, a racist historian relying almost entirely on conjecture and second-hand reports with a massive dislike of the local youkai populace and who readily accepts bribes to smear and stroke egos, and a hyperactive thief obsessed with explosions. Even ZUN himself is prone to blatant contradictions, messing with the fans, really messing with the fans and outright lying. Inevitably, the Fanon is truly massive.
- Every character in Twisted Metal: Black narrates their tale during the three cutscenes (opening, mid-game flashback, and ending). However, at least two of them find that the truth is far from what they thought... and neither get a happy ending.
- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End has Nate Drake surprised by the return of his long-lost brother Sam. Sam talks of how he was in prison in South America, broke his way out but now owes a ruthless crime boss named Alcazar. The fifth level is all a flashback as Sam talks of how he broke out with Alcazar and then basically bargained with his life to find a treasure the Drake family had been searching for for decades. Nate joins Sam as they clash with Rafe, a more ruthless treasure hunter. Held at gunpoint, Nate tells Rafe that they're willing to help him in exchange for a cut for Sam to get out from under Alcazar. At which point, Rafe asks "what the hell are you talking about? I got Sam out." It turns out Alcazar was killed in a shootout months before. The entire "prison break" never happened as Rafe just bribed the warden to let Sam walk right out. Nate is rocked to realize his brother was working with Rafe only to double-cross him and lied to get Nate to help him with the treasure hunt. Creating an entire level for an event that never really happened really takes the trope to the extreme.
- Averted in Uncle Albert's Adventures. The narrator's mother thinks that Uncle Albert's stories about him travelling all around the world may not be true, but everything in the games indicates that Uncle Albert's stories are real.
- UnMetal uses a framing story where Jesse Fox is interrogated by the military after they shot down the Russian helicopter he was traveling in. Jesse recounts the events leading up to his acquiring the helicopter, but his story is more than a little hard to believe.
- Valkyria Chronicles: While the main plot makes sense, the story's Black-and-White Morality with only some short, very specific points admitting that the Empire soldiers are people too can be put down to the framing device: a story recorded by a jingoistic embedded Tagalong Reporter openly angling to get awards for her war reports. Presentation aside, most of the story is accurate enough, and the one major thing she gets wrong was through no fault of her own: she credits the Gallian Militia with overcoming the Empire war machine with wit, intelligence, and determination. The truth, as revealed in Valkyria Chronicles 4, is that Federation ranger squads on a top-secret mission crippled Imperial supply lines toward the end of the war (and this wasn't even their goal, a Gallian Eagle Squadron just figured out what the base was for and attacked the target of opportunity), putting the squeeze on Maximillian and giving Gallia a chance to build momentum.
- Viewtiful Joe features a narrator attempting to make Joe's actions look heroic. The truth is Joe is having a blast being a superhero, completely forgets about his captured girlfriend, and more or less arrives where she is accidentally.
- We Happy Few has three separate narrators (seven counting the DLC) whose stories often overlap, and you get to play through several scenes from different points of view, which often show that someone is lying or misremembering. To make it worse, all of the narrators have at some point taken Joy, which messes heavily with one's perception. Arthur and Nick have it worst, since their story starts with them still being addicted to Joy, with Arthur going off Joy in his prologue and Nick in the middle of his story. Arthur is the reason Percy was taken away by Germans (as he swapped his and Percy's IDs so the Germans would take Percy instead of him), but for most of the story, he believes that Percy really was the one supposed to go, and only remembers otherwise near the end. Ollie's "daughter" Margaret is actually his neighbor's daughter, who he got killed by reporting her- something he doesn't remember because of the Oblivion pill he took. Nick is so addled he barely remembers anything and hallucinates a rat talking like his manager Virgil.
- Most of the story of What Remains of Edith Finch is you reading a journal narrated by the title character, who in turn finds various chronicles from different members of her family. While Edith herself seems to be mostly reliable, she does have her own personal biases and she notes that it's likely that not all of the documents depict an accurate reality (i.e. Barbara's story is a comic book that Edith says is likely exaggerated, Molly might have been delirious when she wrote her diary entry, and so on).
- The World Ends with You has Hanekoma writing about the Fallen Angel throughout his secret reports — seriously, why would anyone teach Minamimoto the Dangerous Forbidden Technique?! Well, of course Mr. H was the Fallen Angel all along.
- World of Warcraft creators tend to cite unreliable historians — making it slightly easier to explain away various retcons — to the point "canon" is usually refered to as "lore".
- Humorously demonstrated in the Badlands zone post-cataclysm where the player meets a trio of characters who each tell a story of their encounter with Deathwing as he carved the gigantic gouge across the landscape. Each tale is filled with ridiculous exaggerations and Blatant Lies, the other characters constantly calling out the tall tales and even invading upon the third one' story, interrupting his "epic confrontation" to keep on perpetuating their own bragging. And it's absolutely hilarious.
- Done as a gameplay mechanic for Battle for Azeroth raid, Battle of Dazar'alor. For both Alliance and Horde players, they fight different bosses in different orders. For certain bosses, an NPC will describe the events that took place (Alliance players are "Horde" for the final 3 bosses, while Horde players are "Alliance" for the middle 3), adding their own spin on what happened. An example the Unreliable Narrator nature takes place just before the King Rastakhan fight:Genn Greymane (Alliance/true version): King Rastakhan of Zandalar... On behalf of the Alliance, and in the name of King Anduin Wrynn, I hereby request your surrender.
Genn Greymane (Horde/narrator version): King Rastakhan of Zandalar... I order you to submit! You will bow before your new master, King Anduin Wrynn, and you will deliver your daughter to us as a hostage!
King Rastakhan: You...an exile without a homeland...you dare invade dese sacred halls and demand dat I turn my kingdom over to you? De Zandalari built an empire dat would endure for over ten-thousand years...while your barbaric ancestors scuffled in de dirt. WE conquered this world. WE brought it glory. You...you are nothing. Merely de latest in a long line of savages seeking to undermine our greatness. No, I will not surrender. Because no matter what happens here today...Zandalar will stand long after your Alliance has crumbled to dust. But if you are so eager to meet Bwonsamdi...den step forward. De Loa of Death awaits! Zandalar forever!
Genn Greymane (Alliance/true version): So be it. Heroes... you know what must be done.
Genn Greymane (Horde/narrator version): So be it. Heroes of the Alliance... strike him down! No mercy for this savage!
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Brighid, like all Blades, gas the Reset Button pushed on her memories whenever her current Driver dies. However, as a Mor Ardain royal family heirloom, she's lucky enough to be able to keep a journal and read up on her own history when the next in line resonates with her. The problem is Brighid has an extremely proud personality, so while she initially takes her own writings as gospel, meeting other people with first-hand recollections of those days starts to shoot it full of holes (for instance, the journal says that she once managed to beat Mythra in a fight, Mythra scoffs that the journal leaves out Brighid ambushed her when she was already tired from training all day). This, combined with some discoveries about the nature of Blades in general, leads to Brighid suffering an identity crisis, wondering if the Brighid who wrote the journal can really be considered the same person adding to it today.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UnreliableNarrator/VideoGames
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