In traditional storytelling, every character has a specific role in a plot that is statically assigned to them. In Video Games, however, it is possible to associate specific Narrative Beats with an abstract "role" rather than a certain character, and to let the player decide which one of the available player or non-player characters acts it out in their playthrough. This makes the plot appear incredibly variable and tailored to the player without actually having any Story Branching, since all story beats (character actions) remain essentially the same but different characters can have vastly different reactions to the role they've been given. Often, the selection of characters available for a role will be limited in some way (e.g. only magic-users, only blood relatives, etc.).
A telltale sign of this trope at work is when players or even the game itself start using generic, gender-neutral role descriptors (like "the Specialist", "the Volunteer", "the Love Interest", etc.) instead of character names to simplify walkthroughs. It commonly overlaps with Romance Sidequest (if the PC's love interest, regardless who it is, has a role in the overarching plot) and Mutually Exclusive Party Members (if one such member dies, the other may be called "the Whatever Survivor"). A sufficiently large cast is often required to use this trope effectively. If a particular character is unfairly promoted for a certain role by the game, it may be suffering from Story Branch Favoritism.
When a character who is supposed to play a specific role is replaced by a new character, it's a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, not this trope. If you can pick a character for the role of "the Player Character" at the start of the game, then it's a Schrödinger's Player Character (assuming the other possible PCs then don't appear in the game at all), who may also have a Canon Identifier. Has nothing to do with the Static Character trope.
Examples:
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Action-Adventure
- Astral Chain: The player chooses between a Brother–Sister Team as their player character. The one you don't choose is given the name Akira Howard and serves as a secondary character.
- Dead Rising 2: Three important NPCs are the Traitor who betrays the others, the Martyr who dies at the hands of the Traitor, and the Damsel who must be saved in Overtime Mode. In the vanilla game, these roles are filled by Sullivan, Rebecca and Stacey respectively, whilst in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, the positions are swapped to make Stacey the Traitor, Sullivan the Martyr, and Rebecca the Damsel.
- In Hyrule Warriors' Story Mode, certain character roles will be switched depending on who you decide to play the chapter as. Generally, Ruto appears if Zelda/Sheik or Darunia are chosen on missions where Zelda or Darunia have a story role; Agitha appears for Midna; Fi for Impa; etc. The Temple of the Sacred Sword highlights this, as each of the statues can be activated by two members of the cast, but each default member is playable after the mission is cleared with Link. Also, during a single mission, Proxi and Link take Zelda's place if she (or Sheik) are chosen, leading to the odd hilarity of a little fairy leading the Hyrulean forces. Also the final stage has Ruto fill in for Zelda, as previously mentioned, which creates the odd interaction of Princess Ruto granting Princess Zelda/Sheik the Light Arrows.
- Schrödinger's Player Character is lampshaded in Monster Racers. You choose between a girl lead or a guy lead at the start. The one you didn't pick appears and mentions they could have been you.
- Castle Master, developed in 1990, opened with you choosing between a prince in armor and a fair princess. Whoever you didn't pick would promptly get snagged by a dragon and carried off, necessitating a heroic rescue by the other.
Adventure
- King's Quest (2015): Queen Valanice. In Episode Three, Graham meets two princesses named Vee and Neese. The one he chooses to romance is revealed to be Valanice in the present.
- Super Adventure Rockman: At one point, Mega Man has to decide to go through a river or a mountain. Depending on what was chosen, he'll encounter Bubble Man or Heat Man while the other is defeated by Proto-Man.
- This was quite a popular trope with the defunct Telltale Games:
- In The Walking Dead: Season One, the choice between Travis and David in the second episode leads to one dying and the other accompanying Lee and co. back to the motel. It's short-lived, as it really just determines which of them becomes a zombie and attacks Lee a few hours later.
- In The Walking Dead: Season Two, a climactic fight between Kenny and Jane results in one of them dying, while the other can become Clementine's companion for the remainder of the finale and during flashbacks in the third season (though she can also choose to go it alone).
- In The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, Joan forces Javi to make a Sadistic Choice between Tripp and Ava. She executes whoever Javi tries to save in a show of power, leaving the other character as a companion for the remainder of the season. Whoever survived dies partway through the next episode anyway.
- The Walking Dead: The Final Season: Two of the season's major new characters are Louis and Violet, both of whom are potential love interests for player character Clementine. At the season's halfway point, during an intense battle with an enemy group, the player will be prompted to choose one character to save, while the other is captured. The one you choose to save will become the Tritagonist for the remainder of the season, while the other will be found alive but be gravely wounded, either at the hands of the Delta during their captivity (Louis) or during a brief Face–Heel Turn fight against Clementine's group (Violet). Ironically, the character who is captured is guaranteed to ultimately survive the season, albeit with a life-changing injury; while the one you save can determinantly end up being the final fatality of the entire franchise.
- Game of Thrones (Telltale):
- The penultimate episode ends with a straight-up choice between the two oldest Forrester brothers, Rodrik and Asher: one needs to sacrifice his life to allow the other to escape and continue the fight. Whichever makes it out will be the protagonist of the Ironrath sections of the final episode.
- You're asked to choose between Duncan and Royland to be House Forrester's new Sentinel and a major ally throughout the game. The one you don't choose will become the traitor who gives House Forrester up to their enemies. Ultimately, both the Sentinel and the traitor can be determinantly killed in different circumstances by the end of the season, regardless of which character plays which role.
- There's also a noteworthy Aversion in Game of Thrones just for good measure: you're given a choice between rescuing Malcolm or Beshka from a dragon at one point, with everything beforehand hinting that it's going to result in this trope. However in fact, both survive and continue on the story-lines they would have been on anyway — just one of them is a bit mad at Asher.
- Tales from the Borderlands: In the final episode, your strike team to raid the Vault of the Traveler is missing three additional fighters, so the game lets you recruit them from among the unlikely allies you may or may not have made across the previous four episodes (August, Felix, Zer0, Athena, Janey Springs, and Cassius; you can also hire Claptrap if Fiona can afford it). Each potential ally has a specific Event Flag that had to be raised earlier to secure their help, but once recruited, they all dutifully carry Fiona and Rhys through the Final Battle, regardless of who is chosen. Nevertheless, each potential ally offers unique commentary on the situation as it unfolds, as well as shows off their respective combat specialization when they are roped into piloting the Mecha!Gortys against the giant Traveler.
- Minecraft: Story Mode:
- In the first episode, Jesse has to choose whether to save Gabriel or Petra from the Wither Storm. They'll both play the same role whichever one you save; the one you save contracts Wither Sickness, leaves during Episode 2, comes back and helps you during Episode 3, then has to be left behind during Episode 4 because they're too sick to go on, while the one you don't save is freed at the end of Episode 3 but has amnesia, and accompanies you to the Far Lands.
- Justified in Episode 7, where you have to choose whether to save Petra or Lukas halfway through the episode. Whichever one you don't save will be under mind control by PAMA, while the one you do save will be pulling off a distraction alongside Ivor, well away from you.
- In Episode 8, you have to choose between saving Petra or Ivor during the Spleef game. Whichever one you save will help you in the next game, but end up being eliminated there.
- Dispatch, being a game made by Ex-Telltale Games staff, has a point where in Episode 3 Robert forced to choose one of two low-performing characters (Sonar or Coupe) to fire and choose a replacement for them (Waterboy or Phenomaman). Whomever you choose to fire will show up in Episode 7, having joined the Big Bad for a chance at revenge, while the hero that wasn't initially recruited is added to the team as an 11th-Hour Ranger during Shroud's attack on Los Angeles in Episode 8.
- The Rocky Horror Show game lets the player choose Brad or Janet and then rescue the other one who has been kidnapped by Dr Frank N. Further.
- The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan has two principal variations on the final chapter, depending on how many (and, to a lesser extent, which) characters are still alive by the time you reach that point. Since Anyone Can Die, who fills what role in the finale is extremely variable — not quite every character can fill any role, but it's a close thing.
Beat 'em Up
- In River City Girls 2, the cutscenes are obviously written with Misako and Kyoko in mind. But if you play as another character, that character takes over one of their roles and says the same lines Misako or Kyoko would be saying, which results in some cutscenes not making much sense. If either player is playing as Misako or Kyoko and the other player is playing as someone else, that character takes over the role of whichever of Misako or Kyoko isn’t being played as. If neither player is playing as them, Player 1’s character takes Misako’s role while Player 2’s character takes Kyoko’s role. In single-player, you can choose who the other character is from the settings menu, and the selected character is treated as the Player 2 character for cutscene purposes.
Fighting Game
- Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark Of The Millennium: In each ending, the final bosses Gouki (aka Akuma) and Rugal Bernstein have essentially the same role. It's especially true in the second true ending, where after one of them kills the other, they absorb the power of the fallen boss and transform into their One-Winged Angel boss mode.
- In the first SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. The opposite gender protagonist becomes a rival.
First-Person Shooters
- In the TurboGrafx-16 version of the Data East shooter Bloody Wolf. The character not chosen by the player at the start of the game will become a playable character when the initial protagonist is taken captive by the enemy. This helps make up for omitting the Co-Op Multiplayer of the arcade version.
- One piece of DLC for Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition replaces Grayson Hunt with Duke Nukem, without changing any other character's lines or actions. That this makes no sense at all is constantly lampshaded, with Duke's every other line questioning how and why he ended up in a completely different game.
- In Rage 2, the protagonist's gender is chosen by having you choose between a male and female soldier. The one who doesn't get chosen gets killed in the following cutscene.
- In Wolfenstein: The New Order and the sequel, you are given a Sadistic Choice between saving Wyatt or Fergus, which alters the "timeline". This means that the survivor serves as The Lancer to Blazcowicz and, in The New Order, is accompanied by a different NPC (Tekla in Fergus' timeline, "J" in Wyatt's) and some minor gameplay alterations (getting to some minor optional areas by learning to pick locks from Wyatt or rewire fuseboxes from Fergus).
Immersive Sim
- Dishonored 2, player character: Immediately after the opening cutscene, the player decides whether to play the rest of the game as Corvo Attano, the returning protagonist of Dishonored, or his daughter Emily Kaldwin, now Empress of the Isles. Whoever you didn't pick gets transmuted into stone by the Big Bad during her coup, while the other is locked up, only to escape and start looking for a way to save them.
Metroidvania
- At the beginning of Monster Sanctuary, you choose your Spectral Familiar. Canonically, the Wolf belongs to the player and the other three belong to your Friendly Rivals, but if you choose another one, the Wolf will go to one of them instead.
Party Game
- Mario Party 3: In Story Mode, each character has a predetermined stamp aligned with them, except for Luigi, who will fill in the hole in the cast if you choose one of the other characters. Mario's proper stamp is Courage, of course, but if you're playing as Mario, Luigi fills in his spot in the lineup instead. If you'd like, you can interpret this as Luigi qualifying for each stamp (Wit, Strength, Courage, Kindness, and Love) while the rest of the cast only qualifies for one each.
Platformer
- In Ghostbusters (1990), you'd choose one of three Ghostbusters (Winston wasn't present for some reason). Each had their own strengths and weaknesses (Egon could run fast but couldn't take many hits, Ray was slow but could take massive damage, and Peter was a balance between both). When you chose one of them, all three would appear at the firehouse, but only one would show up in the cut scenes at the end of each level. This would imply that the other two just hung out at the firehouse while the player chosen one did all the work. In the final level, however, you'd fight the other two as boss characters because they'd been possessed by ghosts.
- A Hat in Time, the Chapter 2 Boss and the Bomb Defuser. The main focus of the Chapter is a rivalry between movie directors The Conductor and DJ Grooves. Players can help one or the other win an award by completing their missions; the winner takes a Time Piece to try and change a previous loss (in The Conductor's case) or several previous losses (in DJ Grooves's case) in the past, while the loser shows up during the boss fight to save Hat Kid from an explosive attack. And despite how different the characters are both in appearance and in mannerisms, the boss fight is functionally the same regardless of who you fight.
- Mystic Warriors: All five playable characters can potentially be the one that gets kidnapped, kicking off the plot. In a 4-player game, it's whoever is not initially selected; otherwise the game randomly picks from anyone that isn't being played.
- In SOS. You get the choice of 4 playable characters, and once you pick one, Luke and/or Jeffrey become rescuable survivors.
Puzzle
- In Baba Is You, any object that "Is You" is player-controlled, and it doesn't necessarily have to be Baba. The second level uses "Wall Is You" to illustrate this property, and subsequent levels will expand on this. You will find yourself making other non-Baba things "You" as part of a level solution, assuming you don't already start in control of a non-Baba object.
Real-Time Strategy
- Dawn of War II, "The Traitor": One team member turns traitor over the course of the game, with the player's actions determining who it is, such as doing some sidequests or not, or equipping corrupted gear, with the role falling to a Mission Control NPC if all members are kept pure. Canonically, Avitus becomes the traitor.
- In the Kingdom Under Fire games, the character you choose inevitably interacts with one or all of the alternative characters in the battles (and storylines) that ensue.
RPG — Eastern
- The 7th Saga. There are 7 characters that you can choose from and the others become NPCs that can become your ally, your rival/enemy, or even a level boss!
- Biomotor Unitron starts with the player selecting their race out of five options, each of which has different starting elemental affinity. You then pick whether to play as a boy or a girl, and whichever gender you don't pick becomes the protagonist's engineer, who upgrades their Unitron and gives words of encouragement whenever they win a tournament at the arena.
- Chou-Mahou Tairiku Wozz: Once the initial party is gathered together at the start of the game, you choose one of its members to be your player character. The rest are still part of the party, but are now secondary characters in the storyline.
- Deltarune: To defeat Lanino and Elnina in Chapter 3, you need to boost the ego of one of them to the point where the other breaks off their relationship. The one who broke off the relationship will be the one waiting with Rouxls at Lover's Peak in the second segment and the one who got the ego-boost will be the "ex".
- Digimon:
- Digimon World Dawn/Dusk: Depending whether you play Dawn or Dusk, the characters from Night Claw in Dusk have the same roles as the characters from Light Fang in Dawn. Similarly, Kou and Sayo are The Rival in the opposite games, however, your choice of which character you want to play doesn't change anything in regards to your rival character, meaning that if you were to choose Sayo in Dawn, Sayo will still appear as your rival in that game, it's just that your character is a Palette Swap of her. This trope also extends to the Starter Mon Coronamon and Lunamon. No matter which Starter Pack you choose, one of them will be always be in every Starter Pack depending on the game version.
- Digimon Story: Lost Evolution: You can choose to play as either Shuu or Kizuna, and the one you don't choose ends up being the opponent in the final match of the World Championship.
- Digimon Story: Time Stranger: You can choose between Dan Yūki or Kanan Yūki. The one you don't pick becomes your operator. This turns out to be a Justified Trope: As The Agent is a modified clone of Aegiomon from a failed timeline, and The Operator is just a voice in their head keeping them on track, and both take on the appearance of characters from Agent Alpha, it makes sense that it wouldn't matter which one is The Agent and which one is the Operator.
- Dragon Quest V: There are three possible wives for the hero, and while they have very contrasting personalities and dialogues, their role is the same: get married, bear children, get kidnapped and turned into a stone statue for a decade before being rescued by her children and husband. The kids also have their mother's hair color, but have the same lines in every case.
- In Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and The Blight Below and the sequel, you're given a choice between a male or a female as your main character, with the one who you didn't choose functioning as The Lancer.
- Fear & Hunger:
- Fear & Hunger: The protagonist is whichever one of the four playable characters you select at the beginning of a new game. Unless on Hard Mode, which forces you to go solo, the other three then become potentially recruitable party members.
- Fear & Hunger: Termina: Again, the protagonist of the story is selected by the player from a pool of eight characters. The leftover characters become NPCs who can either be fought or recruited.
- Final Fantasy VI, late-game party leader: After Terra's re-inclusion to the party, the players can arrange the fourteen-member party however they like, barring one or two places where a certain character is fixed for plot purposes. The character in the "party leader" slot is assigned the same lines regardless of who's placed there, which can result in some wildly out-of-character dialogue. Though sometimes, putting certain party member in results in unique dialogue, that while largely the same, is credited and more in character.
- Golden Sun (2001): The Colosso tournament (a multi-stage obstacle course ending in a duel) allows you to place your 3 party members (Isaac is the only one to fight) at various points in the course where they can cheer Isaac on (read: use their Psynergy to create shortcuts across the stage, like creating a bridge or stopping a conveyer belt). As each party member has unique Psynergy and others that are given by items, the courses can have more than 3 stages, and you can only neutralize a single obstacle per character deciding who does what is a surprisingly complex puzzle. The fact that this is, for all intents and purposes, cheating, is glossed over afterwards (but with a password save, the gladiators beaten by Isaac show up in Golden Sun: The Lost Age are of the opinion that he cheated and demand a rematch).
- Hexyz Force: Whichever character you don't choose still continues their story and occasionally meets up with the other character and their party. At the end of the game, both parties merge together to go through the final dungeon with another, new character.
- LISA: The Hopeful: On the main route, your dialogue options at the Sportsdome will end up influencing the roles of the three main characters. More specifically, who gets mortally injured by the Lovelies, who is taken by them (willingly or by force), and who ends up becoming the protagonist and eventual Sole Survivor.
- Live A Live:
- In the Imperial China chapter, the Shifu recruits three apprentices. Whomever he ends up training the most will end up being the heir after the dojo gets attacked by The Indomitable Fist and the two others are killed and become the Earthen Heart Master in the endgame.
- The final chapter has you choose from one of the seven protagonists to be the Main Hero, with the others being recruitable party members. Choosing Oersted however leads to a very different experience.
- Miitopia uses this as its core mechanic. Many, if not all, roles in the game can be played by the player's choice of their custom Mii characters. It even facilitates casting Miis of your house pets and plants, with the Cat and Flower jobs.
- In Octopath Traveler, there are eight main protagonists with their own stories, and the choice of which one is the "initial" protagonist doesn't affect much. However, these protagonists have access to "Path Actions", with half of them functioning near-identically to the other half; the "Noble" version requires higher levels or spending money, while the "Rogue" version has a chance of failing that leads to (temporary) penalties. For all of the game's sidequests, it doesn't matter whether it's the Noble or Rogue protagonist doing the deed; for example, Alfyn's "Inquire" and Cyrus' "Scrutinize" will provide the exact same information about a target.
- Octopath Traveler II: At the beginning of Ochette's chapter, she's asked to choose between two companions: Akalā the jackal and Mahina the owl. They both fulfill the same role as a companion for Ochette. The companion who is not chosen will flee into the woods... and become the boss of Ochette's final chapter.
- Persona 4: The Sun Social Link is unlocked when the protagonist chooses an artistic club to join at Yasogami High, with it being Ayane Matsunaga if the player chooses the music club or Yumi Ozawa if the player chooses the drama club. Downplayed in that Ayane and Yumi's Social Links cover different subjects, but they otherwise occupy the same Arcana and can be romanced if the player chooses to do so.
- The Pokémon games have the player choose between a male and female avatar at the start, with the unchosen avatar occasionally having some story role:
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (and their remakes) has Brendan/May take the role of Professor Birch's child and one of your rivals, though they ultimately stop pursuing battling to focus on research work by the time you get to Lilycove City. Also, depending on your game the main antagonists will either be Team Aqua or Team Magma.
- In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, the Delta Episode involves one of the antagonist's Admins going rogue to fulfill their original plans. Depending on your version, it'll either be Courtney (Omega Ruby) or Matt (Alpha Sapphire).
- In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, has Lucas/Dawn appear as Professor Rowan's assistant, who you'll occasionally run into over the course of your Sinnoh journey. They don't play any sort of rival role, with that being fulfilled solely by your friend Barry.
- In Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, Ethan/Lyra is a friend who is also the grandchild of the couple who run the region's Pokémon Daycare, and likewise is a non-rival encountered on occasion as you travel through Johto.
- In Pokémon Black and White, Hilbert/Hilda is a fellow trainer you meet in Nimbasa City's Battle Subway, who will act as your partner on the Multi-Train. Nate/Rosa in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 is the same, except you meet them out in the city first, where they join you in a battle against Emmet and Ingo.
- Pokémon X and Y have Calem/Serena as the unofficial leader of your new friend group. While all your friends are fought to varying degrees throughout the game, your unchosen character is your main rival and is faced the most throughout the game.
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus has Rei/Akari. One that you choose becomes the time-displaced protagonist, while the other becomes a native of the era and one of your teammates in the Team Galaxy organization.
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A has a twist on this formula, where the other avatar receives a Palette Swap to become a different character called Urbain/Taunie.
- This is done in nearly every entry with the Starter Mon. Whoever ends up as your main rival will always choose the partner Pokémon whose main type is either super-effective against (Generations I through VI) or weak against (Generation VII onward) your own. The third one remains in the hands of an NPC. The first three generations has it stuck in the lab with the professor, going unseen; Diamond and Pearl and Platinum have Rowan's assistant use the third starter in battles where you and them team up, Black and White and X and Y give the player a second rival who will use it themselves throughout the adventure; and Generation VII onwards have whoever gave you and your rival their starters use it as part of their team when challenged to a battle towards the end of the game.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (and their remakes) has Brendan/May take the role of Professor Birch's child and one of your rivals, though they ultimately stop pursuing battling to focus on research work by the time you get to Lilycove City. Also, depending on your game the main antagonists will either be Team Aqua or Team Magma.
- Threads of Fate (1999) allows you to play as either Rue or Mint. Whoever does not get chosen still shows up in the game and goes on similar missions. But also played straight to the effect that playing as Mint completely ruins Rue's goal by the ending.
- Turovero: The Celestial Tower: Your choices determine which one of the four party members, in the final chapter, is revealed to be the Dark One who trapped the others in the fantasy world and killed everyone else in a Murder-Suicide in the real world.
- World of Mana:
- In Trials of Mana, the characters you pick and the order you pick them in determine who gives what dialogue, and who appears in various scenes. The second character always joins you when you break the seal at Cascade Cavern (unless it's Charlotte, who, when picked second or third, always joins in the same location), and the third is the one who helps you break out of Jadd's prison (if Charlotte is your third character, someone you didn't pick will break you out instead). While the final dungeons depend on your first character choice, most of the game plays out the same up until then, so quite a lot dialogue can be given by any (or almost any) of the playable characters in major cutscenes. The characters you don't choose will show up as NPCs pursuing their own goals separate from your team. This also applies to the villains in that the character you choose as your first protagonist will determine which of the villains becomes The Heavy (The Crimson Wizard for Angela and Duran, Goremand for Kevin and Charlotte, and Belladonna for Hawkeye and Reisz) and what Final Boss you will fight.
- In Sword of Mana, where the characters take the same paths and face the same challenges regardless of which you choose.
- In Faery: Legends of Avalon where you get the choice of a male or a female, and you get the other one as your first companion when you set off on your quest, (you get Azielle for a companion if you play as a male and Aziel if you play as a female) either way they have a massive crush on you.
- Downplayed in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons: To have more than one ship in your fleet, you have to hire named sailors in ports and appoint them as additional ships' navigators. If you have surplus mates, you can additionally appoint three of them as First Mate, Book Keeper, and Chief Navigator. While mates appointed to these roles will participate in specific dialogues (e.g. the Book Keeper will chime in during market negotiations), their impact on the plot is negligible.
- In the Yo-kai Watch series, in the first two games, the player character you don't select shows up as a minor supporting character.
RPG — MMO
- On the character creation screen in Age of Conan, it is possible to see the two versions of your future character: male and female. When you finally finish customizing your character, do you know what will happen to your opposite sex character? The character you didn't edit will die in the shipwreck. Each of your character's archetypes has a unique backstory, but what happened to the other archetypes are never mentioned.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic:
- You have eight options for your class (four on each side) and even though you won't necessarily run into any of the characters you didn't pick, all the story-lines still happened. References are occasionally made linking them together. One of the Sith Warrior's companions, for example, briefly goes off to work with the Republic Trooper's Final Boss; The Jedi Consular's first companion asks the Bounty Hunter's first companion to help him find an enemy, The Trooper's walker getting blasted by Separatists; which is mentioned as having just happened when The Smuggler just arrived on the same planet at that moment, and so on.
- In the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, the character you choose ends up becoming the Outlander, with the other seven simply stated to have gone missing.
- "Havoc Squad Lieutenant": In the end of Act I of Republic Trooper's storyline, you get promoted to Captain and must, in turn, promote one of your two organic companions to squad lieutenant. Both Jorgan and Elara are happy if you pick them, but for different reasons: to Jorgan, this is the restoration of his old rank that he was unfairly stripped of; to Elara, this is the long-overdue recognition of her skills and dedication to the Republic's cause. Regardless of who it is, however, they dutifully serve as your second-in-command for the rest of the campaign.
RPG — Western
- In Age of Pirates 2: The City of Abandoned Ships. The other two playable characters appear in the game among the other independent captains roaming the seas; they may even be hired into the player's crew.
- Always Sometimes Monsters: You select your protagonist and their significant other out of the numerous attendants at a party, and most of the ones you didn't pick show up later in the game as NPCs.
- Anvil of Dawn: You select one of five potential protagonists. Over the course of the game, you can come across the four you didn't pick — most of the time having met a grim fate.
- Baldur's Gate: When you get to the Isle of Balduran, the historian of the village changes according to the protagonist's gender: Delainy for male Wards or Durlyle for females.
- The same gender swap is enforced in the sequel with the child of Garren Windspear: a young man for female characters, a young lady for male characters.
- Played for laughs with Biff the understudy, who replaces plot-critical characters in dialogues if you happened to kill them.
- Baldur's Gate III:
- There are 8 possible playable 'Avatars': Astarion, Gale, Karlach, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Wyll, "Tav" (the 'none of the above' option, completely customizable with no plot baggage), and The Dark Urge. The Avatar will be the character the player controls, the one who the Astral Prism sticks around, and the only one other than Karlach or Orpheus who can become a mind flayer in the finale, and picking one of the 'Origins' adds extra scenes from their perspective. The ones you don't pick are potential party members, aside from Tav (who never appears if not the origin) and The Dark Urge (who was Killed Offscreen if they weren't picked; you can find their corpse in Act 3).
- There are also multiple backup characters for if the player happens to kill or knock out someone with a role to play later; for example, if Alfira doesn't make it to the point where she'd join the party in a Dark Urge playthrough, another character named Quil Grootslang will appear in her place, having just been robbed of all her supplies and needing a place to stay, all so forewarned players can't get out of the Player Punch.
- In Act 3, Orin the Red will come and kidnap and impersonate one of your companions who aren't in the party among Lae'zel, Halsin, Gale or Minthara in that order. In the case none of them are available (either through being in the active party or not being recruited), Orin will instead impersonate Yenna, the Tagalong Kid who joins the party camp early in Act 3.
- Cyberpunk 2077: In the sidequest "Second Conflict", the player has to choose if they want to play alongside the drummer Denny or the bassist Henry for the Samurai reunion concert (the two had a rough breakup and can't stand the thought of being near each other again). Whoever you've picked will appear for the concert in the subsequent mission "A Like Supreme". The role of the missing member will always be filled by an NPC named Drausin. Except for the conversation you can have before the show, the concert goes the same way no matter who you've picked.
- In Divinity: Original Sin II, The pre-generated characters (called "Origin Characters") exist as party members that can be recruited if not selected as one the players' own personal character. If you don't play as them and don't recruit them into your final party before the first Point of No Return (there will always be at least two who get left behind), they are killed by Magister Dallis and Mister Vrederman, subsequently being raised as undead to call you out for not recruiting them and later challenge you at the Arena Of One.
- Dragon Age series:
- Dragon Age: Origins:
- "Rescue Duo": Towards the endgame, the Warden may be imprisoned in Fort Drakon, and two party members can be selected to try to rescue them. Different combinations have different degrees of success (e.g. Leliana and Zevran will have zero trouble bluffing their way past every guard post, while Sten and Oghren quickly make themselves a laughing stock), but all ultimately reach and free the Warden.
- "Landsmeet Champion": During the Landsmeet, Teyrn Loghain challenges the Warden to a duel, but you can instead name another champion from among your companions to fight him. Dog will be rejected outright, while any other choice will provoke a number of reactions from NPCs. Furthermore, while most companions will leave Loghain's fate up to you after defeating him, Alistair will always slay him out of hand because It's Personal.
- "King of Orzammar": The player will decide whether or not Bhelen or Harrowmont takes the throne. The chosen ruler will promise an army of dwarves to the Warden and will be mentioned in future games. The runner-up, on the other hand, will be killed.
- "Ruler of Ferelden": At the end of the landsmeet, the player will decide who will rule Ferelden: Alistair or Anora. While there are some minor variations to it (such as marrying the two to each other), only one of them will be treated as the ruler of the kingdom by the end. The chosen ruler will give a big speech before the final battle, offer the player a boon at their coronation, give a eulogy at the player's funeral and goes on to make cameos in future games.
- Dragon Age II:
- "Hawke Sibling": One of Hawke's younger twin siblings always dies in the prologue (Bethany if Hawke is a mage, Carver otherwise), while the other, often called "surviving sibling", goes on to play a specific role at several points of the plot - most importantly at the end of Act 1, where they contract the Darkspawn Taint if taken to the Deep Roads and can be made a Grey Warden if Anders is present in the party.
- "Love Interest": Hawke's lover has a minor role outside of the Romance Sidequest, such as when they come over after "All That Remains", or when a mage-Templar alliance kidnaps them if the surviving sibling also died before this point to the Taint, above.
- "Rescue Duo": Similar to DAO, in the Mark of the Assassin DLC, when Hawke and Tallis are captured, the other two party members try to break them out — and universally fail, but their interactions during the attempt paint a perfect picture of the convoluted relationships among your party members.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition:
- "Grey Warden Ally": Depending on the world state, either Alistair, Loghain, or Stroud from DA2 play a major static role in the "Here Lies The Abyss" plotline. At the end of said mission, one of them or Hawke becomes "the Fade Survivor", whose role is to play out in the future games.
- "The Dragon": Depending on whether you sided with the Mages or the Templars in Act I, either Samson or Calpurnia will be the villain's chief minion.
- "Mythal's Thrall": Towards the endgame, either the Inquisitor, or Morrigan drinks from the Well of Sorrows, allowing them to neutralize the Elder One's dragon in the Final Battle, but also making them a thrall to Mythal.
- Divine Victoria: At the end of the game, one of the Inquisition's female human members, Cassandra, Leliana, or Vivienne, is elected the new Divine. While the flavor narration and the off-screen policies each of them implements vary greatly, Divine Victoria's role in the Trespasser DLC is more or less the same, regardless of her secular identity.
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard:
- "The Distraction Team Leader": During the raid on Tearstone Island, Rook assigns either Davrin or Harding to lead the rest of the team and to provide a distraction. The same person ultimately sacrifices themselves to distract Ghilan'nain and to give Lucanis a chance to kill her once and for all. Notably, the Distraction Leader dies even if their Loyalty Mission has been completed (though their body is never recovered), making them the first mandatory permanent companion death in a BioWare game since Virmire in Mass Effect 1.
- "The Ward-Breaker": During the same mission, Rook chooses between Neve and Bellara to break the wards leading to Ghilan'nain. Whoever is chosen ends up being captured by Elgar'nan, Blighted, and put out of commission until the endgame. Upon her return, however, she is able to temporarily turn the Blight against Elgar'nan, contributing to his defeat, — and even to survive the whole ordeal if she had previously achieved the Hero of the Veilguard status.
- "The Gate Ward-Breaker": During the Grand Finale, Rook assigns one of the remaining companions to lead the Veil Jumpers in disabling the Venatori ward on the gates of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. This and all following examples are combined with Algorithmic Story Branching in the vein of Mass Effect 2, in that while the Veil Jumpers always disable the ward, sending them in with insufficient strength or picking the wrong companion with them results in their NPC leader Strife's death. For a detailed examination, see Analysis.Dragon Age The Veilguard.
- "The Mage Killer": At the same time, Rook also assigns a companion to lead the Antivan Crows and the Lords of Fortune to assassinate the Venatori war mage commanding the gate defenses. Again, the enemy commander is always killed, but may take Rook's companion with them due to insufficient ally strength or to the companion's own lack of skill.
- "The Giant Slayer": Lastly, Rook assigns yet another companion to lead the Grey Wardens and the Mourn Watch to take down the giant construct guarding the enemies' gates: the construct is always destroyed, but the companion may also perish if the attackers' net strength is insufficient.
- "The Divine's Manor Defender": Later on, just before the Final Battle, Rook also has to leave one of their remaining companions (except the rescued original Ward-Breaker, who flatly refuses) behind to Hold the Line at the Divine's Manor with the surviving allied forces. Their fate once again depends on their suitability for the task and on the total remaining allied strength.
- Dragon Age: Origins:
- In Dungeon Siege III, the character you choose is the one that shows up to the invitation to the meeting that turns out to be an ambush. The ones you didn't will show up later at various points in the game with an explanation as to why they didn't go and join you as companion characters.
- In The Elder Scrolls series' spin-off dungeon crawler game, Battlespire, the story is the same whether you choose to play as male Apprentice (Josian) or the female apprentice (Vatasha). The only difference is that you are now rescuing the one you did not choose to play as.
- Fallout:
- Fallout: New Vegas: Two events that Vulpes Inculta carries out for Caesar's Legion during the game are scripted: the Nipton lottery and him delivering the Mark of Caesar to you on the Strip. However, if you kill Vulpes on the Strip before visiting Nipton, you'll find a new Frumentarius named Gabban carrying out the lottery in Vulpes' name. Likewise, if you kill Vulpes in Nipton, a new Frumentarius named Alerio will deliver the Mark of Caesar to you when you leave the Tops. Both of these characters can also be killed alongside Vulpes as part of the "Against All Tyrants" challenge from Gun Runners' Arsenal (kill at least ten out of 19 named members of the Legion using NCR Ranger guns).
- Fallout 4:
- You, the Sole Survivor. The game starts off with a married couple preparing for an event later that night, and you can customize the two of them before selecting one (either army vet Nate or law student Nora). The one you don't choose becomes an NPC with a default name who gets murdered by Kellogg at the end of the prologue.
- The Brotherhood of Steel plan to rebuild Liberty Prime (the robot that was their greatest weapon in their fight against the Enclave) in order to take on the Institute. As part of the quest "From Within," Elder Maxson sends you into the Institute with orders to recruit Dr. Madison Li, as she was instrumental to repairing Prime's complex power systems. If however, you get banished from the Institute before you can convince Dr. Li to rejoin the Brotherhood, Maxson will chew you out and implement a backup plan of sending you to recruit Professor Scara from Diamond City's Science! Center. Scara then assists Proctor Ingram in repairing Liberty Prime, serving the same role that Dr. Li would.
- "The Nuclear Option" is the endgame quest wherein you destroy the Institute with the Railroad, the Brotherhood of Steel, or the Minutemen. No matter which faction you do this with, they all start the same way: you talk to the faction's leader (Desdemona, Elder Maxson, or Preston Garvey) in the relay room, and the faction leader gives you a fusion pulse charge to install on the Institute's nuclear reactor. The faction's main tech wizz (Tinker Tom, Proctor Ingram, or Sturges) remains behind in the relay room to work the controls while you fight your way through the Institute accompanied by the faction leader. The only real difference in each version of the quest is how you get into the Institute (you relay in Desdemona and a bunch of Railroad heavies with help from Z1-14 if working with the Railroad, the Brotherhood gets in by having Liberty Prime blast a hole through the Institute's roof, or you relay in the Minutemen after infiltrating the Institute using the sewers underneath Cambridge).
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, "Dxun Party Leader": During the Battle of Onderon, you must detach three party members to perform a diversion on Onderon's moon Dxun. Whoever is chosen as the leader of this strike team stars in a minor subplot where an ancient Sith temple tries to tempt them with The Dark Side, and you have to deal with its aftermath after the battle.
- Mass Effect series:
- "Virmire Survivor": In Mass Effect, two squad members, Ashley and Kaidan, are separated from the party on Virmire and by the end of the mission, Shepard has to make a Sadistic Choice to save one of them, leaving the other to die. The accepted term for the one who lives is "the Virmire Survivor", and they go on to play an important episodic role throughout the rest of the original trilogy — which is essentially the same, regardless of the survivor's identity.
- Mass Effect 2:
- The Action Prologue contains a minor example where the squad member who helps Shepard can be either Ashley, Kaidan or Liara. If Shepard had romanced one of the three in ME1, the Love Interest will take on the role; otherwise the game defaults to the Virmire Survivor. If the player didn't import a save, the game puts the Virmire Survivor of your opposite sex in the prologue.
- The entire Suicide Mission endgame is built around a combination of this trope and Algorithmic Story Branching, with Shepard having to repeatedly assign squadmates to specific roles (the Tech Specialist, the Fireteam Leader, the Biotic Specialist, the Escort, etc.) over its course. In a twist, while every available candidate gets their assigned job done, subpar assignments do lead to minor Story Branching at the end of their respective segments, possibly resulting in their or another squadmate's deaths (see here for detailed analysis).
- Mass Effect 3:
- Because of the second game's Anyone Can Die ending, there are roles in both the main storyline and side missions that are filled by one of your former squadmates if available and another character otherwise. Some of these fall under this trope, such as the Urdnot clan leader (Wrex or Wreav) and one of the Lawson sisters on Horizon (Miranda or Oriana), while others are a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, e.g. the salarian doctor preparing the genophage cure (Mordin Solus or Padok Wiks) or the geth ally (Legion or, er... Legion's backup copy). Some of these have great difference in plot outcomes and consequences, others, not so much.
- Provided Dr. Karin Chakwas survives the second game, you will have the choice of bringing her back on board the Normandy to be your medic, or you can turn her down in favor of Dr. Chloe Michel. There's some very minor differences in the rewards you receive for pursuing their personal sidequest, but the role is otherwise strictly up to personal preference.note
- In Mass Effect: Andromeda, the male and female playable characters are twin siblings. The one you don't choose starts off in a coma due to their cryopod being damaged and is later awakened to be a secondary NPC.
- Path of Exile 2 has a dark take on this trope: the seven playable classes are introduced lined up in the gallows. You choose which one gets to survive.
- Wildermyth has this as a core mechanic, since its campaigns consist of a number of short Graphic Novel-like vignettes whose main characters have to be plugged in from whichever playable characters are participating in the encounter. Often, the game selects from available heroes based on their traits (e.g. some vignettes only take mages, some romantic couples, etc.), and conversely, their dialogue can change based on their personality tags (e.g. two snarky characters turning a Casual Danger Dialogue into a Snark-to-Snark Combat).
Simulation
- Cart Life: Whichever character you choose, the other two will also be in the game running whatever stands you would be running if you had picked them.
- Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness: You choose to play as either male (Mark) or female (Chelsea), and the other one appears later in the game as one of your love interests.
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: On account of various avoidable deaths, there are a few events that can potentially have two different characters fill the same role:
- During a late-game Vertumnalia Festival, either of Sol's parents can make a vocal comment about Lum's leadership being the kind of thing they left Earth to get away from.
- If Sol finds a squeedger queen still young enough to be moved while exploring and manages to bring her to the colony so she will anchor in Geoponics instead, both Geranium and Cal can be the one to welcome her while calling her "Your majesty."
- If Eudicot dies, the character doesn't get replaced for another couple of months, so Seeq fills in for the job in the meantime and is the one to formally hand the position over to the permanent replacement. If Eudicot survives, there is no need for Seeq to fill in and the position is handed over in person.
- If either of the two first puberty options are chosen, Sol can ask one of their parents for help or have one of their parents figure out what's up if they handle the resulting mess on their own. Which parent this happens with depends on the option chosen, as it will be the parent who went through the same type of puberty.
- King of Dragon Pass: In the default narrative, the endgame of the long game focuses on the marriage between your clan chief, who has been uniting the Orlanthi of Dragon Pass, and the Feathered Horse Queen, who has been doing the same for the horse nomads of the Grazelands. If you trigger the endgame with a tribal queen, the Feathered Horse Queen is replaced by the Luminous Stallion King, who does exactly the same things but with different art.
- Rune Factory: Oceans: You can only play as Aden to start with, with Sonja losing her own body a very short time into the game and existing only as a disembodied voice coming from Aden's vicinity. Post-game, when Sonja's body is returned to her, you can choose to continue playing as either Aden or change to Sonja, with the one you didn't choose moving to the inn and becoming a marriage candidate.
- Six Ages:
- Ride Like the Wind: The game's plot leads up the rise of Beren the Rider, a major figure in Orlanthi legend who marries the priestess Redalda and eventually becomes the first king of the Berenethtelli tribe, joining together clans from the feuding Rider and Ram cultures. Two figures are present in the game who can fulfill this role — Beren the Tall, a hero of your clan, and Beren the Swift, his best friend, and a hero of an allied clan. Either of these can take the necessary role and fulfill the game's victory coditions, although neither is truly guaranteed to succeed...
- Lights Going Out: By default, Nontraya the Taker leads the undead forces of Chaos and is scripted to kill Chalana Arroy, goddess of healing, and Humakt, god of death. It's possible to perform a complex ritual that will weaken and hinder him, preventing him from doing these things, but his place will be taken by his rival god Vivamort — although the latter will not kill Chalana Arroy.
Stealth-based
- Tenchu:
- In Tenchu, where the other ninja is presumably running other missions, and you have to rescue them at one point.
- In Tenchu 2, where the missions mesh together perfectly and you have to play through the game twice to get the whole story.
- In Tenchu 3, Rikamaru will show up during Ayame's story. She does not make an appearance in his.
Survival Horror
- Alien: Isolation:
- In the survivor mode, you can choose different characters to play the proposed challenges from the canonical one, all of which will start with different tools available to complete the same goals. They might acquire others sometimes, but not always.
- The DLC "Crew Expendable" allows you to choose a different member of the Nostromo to play the mission aside Ellen Ripley. They all play the same, with only a few dialogues changing.
- In Clock Tower 2, the character being the fake Scissorman changes on whichever is the selected story route.
- In Pathologic, whoever you didn't pick would go off on their own story.
- Resident Evil 1: The Hero of the story is either Chris or Jill; whoever you didn't pick you find in a cell near the end of the game. A different member of S.T.A.R.S. fills the role of support for each of their campaigns; Barry for Jill's story and Rebecca for Chris'. Barry goes M.I.A. in Chris' story while Rebecca doesn't appear at all in Jill's, making that sort of a case of Schrödinger's Side Character.
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (2023): Leatherface's first victim that he kills to signal a game starting is whichever one of the five characters who was not picked by the four players assigned as victims.
Tabletop Games
- Betrayal at House on the Hill, various roles: At the start of a given session, the players pick a scenario and are given random predefined characters to role-play. Half-way through the game, a variety of scenario-specific roles (usually including at least one traitor) are semi-randomly assigned to some characters, putting an additional role-play layer on top of that.
- Combat Heroes: The protagonists of the pairs are functionally identical, and their roles swap in their backstories.
Turn-Based Strategy
- Battle for Wesnoth: In the campaign Heir to the Throne, the player can choose to give the sceptre of fire to either Konrad or Li'sar, but it doesn't make any difference to the story in the end. Gameplay-wise, it is often considered that Li'sar is the best choice because she doesn't have ranged attacks otherwise and because she will be often in the frontline rather than recruiting in the base camp.
- In Dark Wizard, the player picks which hero to play, but the ones he didn't choose will appear during the course of the story as one-off NPCs with a single line of dialogue.
- This trope is played straight in the International Era of Super Robot Wars as whoever isn't chosen usually becomes The Rival.
- Super Robot Wars V: Soji Murakumo is an experienced pilot while Chitose Kisaragi is an Ensign Newbie in the military. Whoever isn't chosen becomes an enemy later on, and becomes an optional recruit at the climax of the game.
- Super Robot Wars X: Iori Iolite and Amari Aquamarine are both from the same organization before the protagonist defects. Whoever isn't the chosen protagonist becomes an enemy and later on becomes the third sub-pilot of Xelgard.
- Super Robot Wars T: Saizo Tokito and Sagiri Sakurai are co-workers in the same company and consider each other to be rivals. The chosen protagonist pilots the Tyranado that gets upgraded into the Tyranado Rex, while the other character will pilot the Gespenst. Unlike in V and X, the chosen protagonist doesn't fight off against the other protagonist. T also features guest appearances by the characters of V and X, and allows selecting who was the protagonist of each, with some adjustments to dialogue based on who the protagonist of each game is.
- Super Robot Wars 30 allows players to choose between Edge or Az Sainklaus, two Not Blood Siblings who separated from each other at the start of the story. Whoever isn't the protagonist ends up being an optional recruit later in the game.
- Super Robot Wars Y allows selecting between Cross or Forte Tsukinowa, two actual blood siblings who are both members of the ninja organization Haze. Some plot points are adjusted between them due to their different stations, as Cross is the leader of Haze and thus both has more authority and greater talent than Forte: for instance, the two will only fight if Forte is the protagonist. Like in 30, the other protagonist can be recruited later in the game, and like in T, the protagonists of the VXT trilogy return, with the option to select which one is the leader of each team.
Turn-Based Tactics
- Fire Emblem features many cases of this:
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War originated the marriage system that appears in Awakening and Fates. The mother characters are fixed and their children look and act the same regardless of who the father is; only the gameplay skills are different. If the mother remains unmarried, a pair of substitutes appear instead — they have the same dialogue as the 'canonical' children, but different stats. However, the substitutes also have conversations and events unique to them (many of them about not being as good, status-wise, as the 'canon' children).
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, endgame protagonist: The twin protagonists Ephraim and Eirika follow different questlines, but reunite in the final chapters. The one whose plot branch was followed continues spearheading the plot through the same endgame sequence of events, but with different dialogue and personal scenes.
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has a lot of variance in story scenes based on which characters are alive. In general, the dialogue of each scene will be mostly the same, but some characters will take over other characters' lines if the original speakers died. For example, in the epilogue, Zelgius appears as the representative of Crimea's alliance with Begnion if Tanith suffered a Career-Ending Injury.
- This even extends to certain support conversations. E.g. in Astrid and Makalov's supports, someone always stops Makalov for selling her pendant at a pawn shop, it's his sister Marcia if she's alive and Ike if she died.
- Fire Emblem: Awakening has two separate cases:
- Various husbands: Intermarrying the characters opens up an extra map where the player can meet a child whose identity is determined by the female half but who is also said to be the child of the male half of the pairing (in effect, for every marriageable female character, there is a static role "Her Husband" that can be assigned to any marriageable male). The child can support with their father, but the main point of the support conversations is always the same (e.g. Nah wondering why her father married her mother, Inigo explaining his Dumbass Teenage Son act, Cynthia and Severa trying to become Daddys Girls in their own ways, etc.), with only the father's speech patterns and rarely personality impacting the way it is presented. Plus the Avatar's exclusive child, Morgan, can have talks with hisnote /hernote older sibling that, like children and fathers, mostly have the same subject matter regardless of who the sibling actually is.
- "Chrom's Wife": Chrom is the one character who gender-inverts this. He is the only character who MUST marry in-story, and he can marry one of 5 different characters (or 6, as Chrom marries a nameless village girl if neither of the five girls qualify or they're already married). Regardless of who they are, "Chrom's Wife" fills the same story role in two scenes: appearing with his baby after Chapter 11, and meeting Chrom's Kid from the Future in Chapter 13. Every one of these apart from the generic village girl also has a child of their own in addition to Chrom's fixed child. This child fills the role of "Lucina's Sibling": having a set of support conversations that like Morgan's case, are pre-fixed and with the same subject matter.
- Fire Emblem Fates features a similar system as the one noted on the Awakening example above, with the difference being that the father is the constant parent and the supports with the mother are the "generic" ones. Azura is the exception, with mechanics similar to that of Chrom in the above example. Also, the servant who joins the group first is dependent on the Player Character's gender; Felicia accompanies male Avatars first, and Jakob for female Avatars.
- Fire Emblem: The Hag in White (ROM hack): Zaccheus and Simeon, in addition to being Mutually Exclusive Party Members, are both Upper-Class Twits who get no support levels with anybody, not even their own retainers (except for a one-sided one with Teresa). The most significant differences between the two of them are their age and their class, with Zaccheus being an older Holy Mage and Simeon being a younger Dark Mage. They even have nearly identical ending cards, in which they return to Glamorgan to plot revenge against Kyra for humiliating them, only to suffer an Undignified Death.
- Mewgenics: One of the House Bosses involves a Mêlée à Trois between Zaratana and Pyrophina. Whichever kaiju survives will give you a key item that unlocks the fourth chapter of Act 2. Pyrophina's key item needs to be taken to the Moon and Zaratana's key item needs to be taken to the Core. Regardless of which character you side with, completing the quest unlocks the Rift for both paths of Act 2.
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown, "Volunteer": To trigger the endgame, the player must send one of their organization's psychic soldiers into the Gollop Chamber to contact the Etherial Hivemind. This soldier becomes known as "the Volunteer" for the rest of the game, leads the assault on the final alien base, and must survive said assault because in the final cutscene, they perform a Heroic Sacrifice to save the Earth and humanity.
Visual Novels
- Ambition: A Minuet in Power: By the time Yvette realizes that Marcelle' plan to humiliate her included making the carriage she took to the party leave without her, only three guest carriages have yet to leave Marcelle's estate. The occupants of the three carriages are romance options Ludovico, Alex and Honorade, who can all be encountered later in the story and have diverging personalities. Whoever Yvette rides home with will later contact her with information that will help her take her revenge on Marcelle.
- In Most Wanted: Theresa Holland and Logan Mills will appear in the game, with the character of the opposite sex being the love interest. The character the player chooses will be murdered in the prologue, leaving the other traumatized by witnessing the scene.
- In Paramedium, Nina and Lance appear in both games, but players choose which of them is the protagonist and which is the sidekick.
- In Spirit Hunter: Death Mark and Spirit Hunter: NG, the player can pick from one of two companion characters to accompany him in various parts of the investigation. While some segments are locked to a character, others are not, and so you can get different dialogue or even different Bad Ends despite the role of companion character being functionally the same.
- Your Turn to Die: Chapter 2-1 Survivor and Chapter 2-2 Survivor. In Chapter 2, at two points you must perform a Sadistic Choice between the lives of two participants: Reko Yabusame and Alice Yabusame in the former and Kanna Kizuchi and Sou Hiyori in the latter. Whoever lives or dies alters several key scenes, but the main plot remains constant in Chapter 3.
- Virtue's Last Reward: Invoked and exploited as part of the meta narrative. Specifically the person in K's suit.
Wide Open Sandbox
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey:
- An unconventional example. The game has two protagonists to choose from: Alexios and Kassandra, Spartan-born brother and sister. Whoever the player chooses to play as will always be the Eagle Bearer; a Mercenary who spent their childhood on the island of Kephellonia under the employ of Markos, and long-lost eldest child of Spartan princess Myrrine. Whoever isn't chosen, however, will appear as Arc Villain of the main campaign, Deimos, a warrior working for the Cult of Kosmos and Myrrine's other long-lost child, long presumed dead since infancy. Although they follow virtually identical scripts and scenes, Kassandra and Alexios are separate characters with slight deviations in their depictions depending on who is in which role—usually due to differences in the voice direction or animations. As the Eagle Bearer, Alexios tends to be more expressive and boisterous, while Kassandra tends to be more cool and snarky—as Deimos, this translates to Alexios being more aggressive and hot-headed while Kassandra remains coldly sarcastic and measured. Canonically, Kassandra is the Eagle-Bearer.
- The Legacy of the First Blade DLC has Natakas and Neema, Darius' son/daughter and the new Love Interest. Who shows up depends on the player character's chosen character (Natakas if Kassandra and Neema if Alexios), with the other having been killed many years prior to the events of the DLC. Unlike that of Kassandra and Alexios, Natakas and Neema are essentially just gender-inverted versions of each other and are basically identical as characters since their only purpose is to have a child with the player character.
- Saints Row:
- Downplayed throughout the series from Saints Row 2 onward, where choosing a particular voice for the Player Character changes not only the accent and tone of their lines, but also the content of said lines (in cutscenes and in gameplay). Because of their different reactions, each voice feels like a slightly different main character without changing the overall plot (since what they say doesn't affect other characters' dialogue or actions).
- Saints Row IV plays this trope up, but still not as straight as some other examples, in that its endgame subtly imitates Mass Effect 2: the final mission occurs in three phases (delivering the Key, opening the portals, storming the alien ship) and you must choose one of three pairs of homies (Pierce and Shaundi, Matt and Asha, or King and Gat) to go with you on each one, leaving whoever was with you before to Hold the Line. While all of them basically do the same things, their reactions and dialogue are unique to each pair-mission combo, and in the second phase, the AI allies you summon depend on who is with you at the time.
- In Genshin Impact, you choose your gender by selecting between a twin brother and sister. The one you don't choose is captured and your goal throughout the on-going story is to rescue them, complicated by the fact that they seem to have joined the Big Bad Ensemble during the centuries-long Time Skip your chosen character slept through, and reject their sibling's initial attempt to reconnect with them at the end of the first chapter.
- In Grand Theft Auto IV, at the end of the game Niko is forced into a choice: Make a Deal with his nemesis Dimitri Rascalov on behalf of mob boss Jimmy Pegorino or turn down the deal to get Revenge on Dimitri. His decision determines who gets killed in the mission (Pegorino in "Deal" and Dimitri in "Revenge"), which one of Niko's loved one dies (Roman in "Deal", Kate in "Revenge") and who becomes the Final Boss (Dimitri in Deal and Pegorino in Revenge).
- In Rise of the Rōnin, early on you'll have to choose between two "Blade Twins" as your protagonist. The other will end up being captured by the antagonists and later resurface as the Big Bad. Before then however, you're free to visually customize both of them (though they have to be different genders).