History HarsherInHindsight / VideoGames

* In ''CommandAndConquer: Red Alert 2'', the first Soviet mission sends you to destroy the Pentagon. The third posts you taking over the WTC area. Yes, you can destroy the towers with your tanks. To make matters worse, game rewards you from this. By revealing two cash boxes.
** The original [=RA2=] packaging had artwork of the Soviet attack on New York, Twin Towers prominently displayed. Needless to say, said packaging was pulled off the shelves after 9/11.
*** And in its sequel, Red Alert 3, the main tank of the Empire of the Rising Sun, which is Japan, is called the Tsunami tank.

** The fact that one of the main plots portrays a government orchestrating terrorists acts to get pretense for freedoms-curbing legislations doesn't help either.
* Then there's the Statue of Libery being C4'ed by terrorists, which makes the absence of the WTC even more disturbing. On the other hand, Statue of Liberty has been decapitated by French freedom activists who have deliberately chosen such act to perform a symbolic action without any human casualties. [[spoiler:Although it is strongly implied that the main villains framed them for it, which makes it possibly ''more'' disturbing]].

* ''[[DesertStrike Urban Strike]]''. It's 2001, and you're in New York during a terrorist threat. ''Yep''. One of the tasks includes picking survivors out of the gaping hole in one of the WTC towers. Many players were surprised to find that Urban Strike was released before 9/11, since the games usually have a real-life basis.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', there is a forked tower (meaning it is one building on the bottom, but splits into two) that two party members must take each side.[[hottip:*:Half of it's magic, half physical. Any deviation will [[NintendoHard fucking kill you]].]] It turns out the bosses are [[LoadBearingBoss load-bearing]].

* Again with 9/11, ''CommandAndConquer: Red Alert 2'' features the World Trade Center burning on the cover (though that cover was later recalled), and a mission in the Soviet campaign allows you to destroy them yourself (they are better utilized as garrisons for your conscripts). As if that wasn't enough, there's a mission involving an attack on the Pentagon as well.
** Later patches would change the names of these buildings (and other famous monuments) to generic ones. And then fan mods reverted the names because as we all know, people don't like censorship.
** Stalin's death by poison in the original Red Alert's Soviet campaign end. The fact that he was actually poisoned in RealLife which caused his stroke was not known when the game was made.
* Warren Spector once joked that the lack of the two towers in the NYC skybox for ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' (released in 2000) was due to a terrorist attack. Guess what happened about a year later?
* ''DeusExHumanRevolution'': A side conversation will mention trying to get Bill Gates and Steve Jobs out of hiding. After October 2011, only Gates will need to be accounted for.

* Speaking of 9/11, the ElectronicArts game ''[[DesertStrike Urban Strike]]'' (released in 1994) was set in the year 2001, according to the intro. A cutscene in which Malone's laser fires and blows up part of the World Trade Center is shown right before the seventh campaign, which takes place in New York City. When you reach your destination in the mission to rescue the survivors, there is a huge smouldering hole in the side of one of the towers. If you fail the mission by incorrectly defusing the bombs that have been set in the towers, the whole thing comes crashing down. The fact that [[ConspiracyTheorist some people do believe that placed explosives brought down the Twin Towers]] makes this even more ironic. It originally came out a bit TooSoon after the 1993 car bomb attack.

* ''ModernWarfare 2'' was highly controversial at its release for including a level in which the player is part of a terrorist attack on the Moscow airport as an undercover agent. In January 2011, actual terrorists also decided that the airport would make an excellent target. However, they used explosives instead of machine guns (which had been used in a terrorist attack on an airport in India earlier).

** The very depiction of a PresidentEvil named Al-Asad is itself HarsherInHindsight when you consider the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War_%282011%E2%80%93present%29 ongoing Syrian uprising and civil war]] against a government led by a President named, guess who, Al-Asad. ([[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking It's spelled with two S's, though.]])

* Another in-story example from ''HaloReach'': Noble Six is notified to be a soldier with a hyper-lethal skill set and a lone wolf personality. Carter, Noble Team's leader and Noble Six's new commander, upon meeting Noble Six tells them that he is happy to have a soldier with Noble Six's skill set on the team but that those lone wolf tendencies should stay behind now that he/she is part of a team. Near the end of the game Noble Team is assigned to defend the Pillar of Autumn and [[spoiler:all of Noble Team dies in the process]] except for Noble Six (and Jun who escaped with Dr. Hasley according to WordOfGod) who stays behind on Reach to make sure the ''Pillar'' can escape Reach. Carter's statements become sadly ironic as [[spoiler:Noble Six is left alone as the only Spartan, or UNSC soldier period, on Reach]] and all he/she can do is watch as Reach is glassed by the Covenant. Forced to become a lone wolf once again [[spoiler:Noble Six's final actions are to fight against unrelenting waves of Covenant forces in a Last Stand that lasts for several hours until he/she is finally subdued and killed.]] Decades later the only reminder on Reach that any sort of conflict had ever occurred is the shattered remains of Noble Six's helmet, a lone wolf but a noble and courageous one indeed.
* An in story example for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations''. On the final mission Ezio goes into the library in Musayaf...there are absolutely no books or anything at all, save a ring of chairs, with only one occupant, [[spoiler: the skeleton of Altair.]] You then have an Altair Memory, of him dousing all of the torches in the hall to the library (mirroring Ezio relighting them as he goes into it) and then hiding the Apple of Eden behind a wall. The final mission statement? [[TearJerker Take a seat and rest for a bit.]]
** Comes again in AssassinsCreedBrotherhood, when you realize that he had lost another loved one in the city he lived in and watched helplessly as his father and brothers were executed. He had every reason to brutally execute Savonarola for the of [[spoiler: Cristina]]. It took a lot of self control to not give him the same fate he had given [[spoiler: Vieri and Uberto]]

* Anders of ''DragonAge2'' is a mentally unstable party member who ends up [[spoiler: blowing up the Chantry and killing many people]]. Uncomfortably, he shares a name with the perpetrator of the attack in Norway 2011, and a shares a disturbing physical resemblence too.

* On a related note, in ''CommandAndConquer: Red Alert 2'', the first Soviet mission sends you to destroy the Pentagon. The third posts you taking over the WTC area. Yes, you can destroy the towers with your tanks. To make matters worse, game rewards you from this. By revealing two cash boxes.

* Then there's the Statue of Libery being C4'ed by terrorists, which makes the absence of the WTC even more disturbing.
** On the other hand, Statue of Liberty has been decapitated by French freedom activists who have deliberately chosen such act to perform a symbolic action without any human casualties. [[spoiler:Although it is strongly implied that the main villains framed them for it, which makes it possibly ''more'' disturbing]].

** More specifically, the landfall of Arsenal Gear purportedly destroyed all of New York City's financial district. The prow made it so far inland as to toss the protagonist and his nemesis onto the roof of Federal Hall, which, as anyone who has been to Wall Street knows, is quite removed from the coastline. Early concept art shows the devastation, with pretty much the entire south end of Manhattan reduced to smoldering rubble. The final version cuts away to black as Arsenal Gear approaches the Brooklyn Bridge, then shows the mobile base already at rest at Federal Hall.
** In a more traditional example, the 2010 oil spill off the US coastline makes one wonder when British Petrol is gonna put up a Big Shell over the Gulf of Mexico...

* Speaking of 9/11, the ElectronicArts game ''[[DesertStrike Urban Strike]]'' (released in 1994) was set in the year 2001, according to the intro. A cutscene in which Malone's laser fires and blows up part of the World Trade Center is shown right before the seventh campaign, which takes place in New York City. When you reach your destination in the mission to rescue the survivors, there is a huge smouldering hole in the side of one of the towers. If you fail the mission by incorrectly defusing the bombs that have been set in the towers, the whole thing comes crashing down. The fact that [[ConspiracyTheorist some people do believe that placed explosives brought down the Twin Towers]] makes this even more ironic.
** Not to mention that it originally came out a bit TooSoon after the 1993 car bomb attack.

* In-universe example of this trope is basically the basic premise of ''AlanWake'', as the eponymous writer gets caught up in scenarios eerily reminiscent of the books he wrote.

** One of the most gut-wrenching is [[spoiler:this quote from Diego Armando/Godot when he is describing Maggey Byrde's supposed guilt: "Using the dark, aromatic depths of coffee to conceal the poison...classy lady!"]] It really hits home when you find out [[spoiler: [[DarkAndTroubledPast Armando]] himself was poisoned by the [[CompleteMonster murderous bitch Dahila Hathorne]] and fell into a five-year coma, during which time Mia Fey, the love of his life, was murdered. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy]] really had in rough...]]

* An in-story example occurs in ''{{Hatoful Boyfriend}}''. At one point during Nageki's route, Hiyoko tells him (in a non-malicious way) that he's like a [[spoiler:friendly ghost]] that hangs around the library. [[spoiler:Then later on it's revealed that [[DeadAllAlong Nageki really]] ''[[DeadAllAlong is]]'' [[DeadAllAlong a ghost]] (having [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] five years ago), and is literally ''unable'' to leave the library]].

* An in-game (and fully intended) example in ''DiabloIII'': During Act 3, Leah's journal mentions how the spirits she's trying to keep trapped within the black soulstone are starting to wear on her, but comforts herself by remembering that once [[spoiler:Asmodan is dead and captured, and]] the black soulstone is destroyed, she'll be herself again. At the end of the act, before the soulstone can be destroyed, [[spoiler:Diablo's spirit is freed from the stone and placed into Leah's body, turning her into the Prime Evil and the end boss of the game, whom the player must then destroy to save the day.]]

** Way back in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGear1987'', released in the ''late Eighties'', Snake must reach Metal Gear by crossing an electric floor. All the other electric floors in the game have had panels which can be shot with missiles in order to prevent Snake getting zapped; this one had no such thing. In order to reach Metal Gear, Snake has to eat Rations to regain his draining health meter while he blinks in eight-bit damage. If you have played ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', this simple gameplay puzzle will likely bring you to tears, for its similarity to the [[TearJerker gutwrenchingly horrible]] [[spoiler: [[TearJerker microwave tunnel scene]]]]. Only there, Snake can't restore his health with rations.

* ''RainbowSix'' Black Thorn originally had the eighth mission set in a airport terminal. After 9/11 it was changed to a bus depot, but the developers actually sent the level designs to modders who wanted to restore the original level.

* In the first level of the forgotten NES game ''Tetrastar: The Fighter'', aliens destroy the World Trade Center and other New York landmarks.

* An in-story example occurs in ''{{Hatoful Boyfriend}}''. At one point during Nageki's route, Hiyoko tells him (in a non-malicious way) that he's like a [[spoiler:friendly ghost]] that hangs around the library. [[spoiler:Then later on it's revealed that [[DeadAllAlong Nageki really]] ''[[DeadAllAlong is]]'' [[DeadAllAlong a ghost]] (having [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] five years ago), and is literally ''unable'' to leave the library]].

* [[MegaManLegends Legends Never]] [[ExecutiveMeddling Die]].

* Another case that involved the death of LiamNeeson's wife: the character he voiced for the game ''{{Fallout 3}}'' loses his wife in the intro sequence.

* In MassEffect, Ashley writes an e-mail to her sister warning her not to fraternize, as she doesn't want to have romantic feelings come into play when deciding which of her subordinates lives or who dies. On Virmire, [[spoiler:where you [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers must choose between saving Kaidan and Ashley]], both of whom can be romanced, it's possible to sacrifice Ashley to save a romanced Kaidan or save a romanced Ashley at the cost of Kaidan's life, making Ashley a potential victim or reluctant beneficiary of this kind of thought]].

* The Asian-themed level "Tsunami" in ''CrashBandicootTheWrathOfCortex'' in which you evade a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin small tsunami]] and then explored around the flooded remains. Granted the game's levels were themed around natural disasters, though at this point in time, it's hard not to view it in a rather grim fashion.

* An in-game (and fully intended) example in ''DiabloIII'': During Act 3, Leah's journal mentions how the spirits she's trying to keep trapped within the black soulstone are starting to wear on her, but comforts herself by remembering that once [[spoiler:Asmodan is dead and captured, and]] the black soulstone is destroyed, she'll be herself again. At the end of the act, before the soulstone can be destroyed, [[spoiler:Diablo's spirit is freed from the stone and placed into Leah's body, turning her into the Prime Evil and the end boss of the game, whom the player must then destroy to save the day.]]

* In ''SimCity 2000'', if you build your airport too close to your big cities, your planes can and will crash into your skyscrapers, sparking fires and the collapse of said skyscrapers. Yeah.

** An earlier example would be the first ''ModernWarfare'', which was made in 2007, but took place in 2011. Now that the actual year 2011 has rolled around, the events of the Arab Spring, especially the stuff going on in Libya, make the depictions of civil unrest, a violent coup, and subsequent Western intervention across the course of Al-Asad's rise to power seem chillingly prophetic.

** In the ExpansionPack ''Awakening'', the banter between Anders and Justice [[spoiler:about demonic possession]] is horrifying and ironic when you consider what happens in ''DragonAgeII''.

* Another in-story example from ''HaloReach'': Noble Six is notified to be a soldier with a hyper-lethal skill set and a lone wolf personality. Carter, Noble Team's leader and Noble Six's new commander, upon meeting Noble Six tells them that he is happy to have a soldier with Noble Six's skill set on the team but that those lone wolf tendencies should stay behind now that he/she is part of a team. Near the end of the game Noble Team is assigned to defend the Pillar of Autumn and [[spoiler:all of Noble Team dies in the process]] except for Noble Six (and Jun who escaped with Dr. Hasley according to WordOfGod) who stays behind on Reach to make sure the ''Pillar'' can escape Reach. Carter's statements become sadly ironic as [[spoiler:Noble Six is left alone as the only Spartan, or UNSC soldier period, on Reach]] and all he/she can do is watch as Reach is glassed by the Covenant. Forced to become a lone wolf once again [[spoiler:Noble Six's final actions are to fight against unrelenting waves of Covenant forces in a Last Stand that lasts for several hours until he/she is finally subdued and killed.]] Decades later the only reminder on Reach that any sort of conflict had ever occurred is the shattered remains of Noble Six's helmet, a lone wolf but a noble and courageous one indeed.

* In MassEffect, Ashley writes an e-mail to her sister warning her not to fraternize, as she doesn't want to have romantic feelings come into play when deciding which of her subordinates lives or who dies. On Virmire, [[spoiler:where you [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers must choose between saving Kaidan and Ashley]], both of whom can be romanced, it's possible to sacrifice Ashley to save a romanced Kaidan or save a romanced Ashley at the cost of Kaidan's life, making Ashley a potential victim or reluctant beneficiary of this kind of thought]].

** And now [[spoiler:Anders blowing up the Chantry]] in ''DragonAgeII'' is rather uncomfortable in the wake of the 2011 Norway attacks, especially since one perpetrator happens [[spoiler:to share the same name with him]].

* Anders of ''DragonAge2'' is a mentally unstable party member who ends up [[spoiler: blowing up the Chantry and killing many people]]. Uncomfortably, he shares a name with the perpetrator of the attack in Norway 2011, and a shares a disturbing physical resemblence too.

* Anders of Dragon Age 2 is a mentally unstable party member who ends up [[spoiler: blowing up the Chantry and killing many people]]. Uncomfortably, he shares a name with the perpetrator of the attack in Norway 2011, and a shares a disturbing physical resemblence too.

* In ''GhostRecon'', released in 2002 and set in 2008, a war between NATO and an Ultranationalist Russia starts off with the Russians backing Georgian separatists in an invasion of Georgia. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_osetia_war Fast forward to 2008 and]]...

* An in story example for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations''. On the final mission Ezio goes into the library in Musayaf...there are absolutely no books or anything at all, save a ring of chairs, with only one occupant, [[spoiler: the skeleton of Altair.]] You then have an Altair Memory, of him dousing all of the torches in the hall to the library (mirroring Ezio relighting them as he goes into it) and then hiding the Apple of Eden behind a wall. The final mission statement? [[TearJerker Take a seat and]] [[UnderStatement rest for a bit.]]

*** On a related note, the founders of the Patriots were implied in that game to be 12 people who control american politics, and Solidus, the supposed main villain, is trying to save America from the Patriots plans, which are implied to be destroying everything America stood for including liberty. Now, take into account Obama and the pro-government control movement's plan to have a supercommittee made up of a select few people out of 12 chosen states, as well as leaving a majority of the states being taxed without any representation, and even the states supposedly being represented being for the most part unrepresented, something that America, while it was still a colony, didn't like and in fact revolted against Great Britain for this reason among others, and the similarities are almost haunting.

* Another case involved the death of LiamNeeson's wife: the character he voiced for the game ''{{Fallout 3}}'' loses his wife in the intro sequence.

* The NeoGeo arcade game ''Sonic Wings 2'' (aka ''AeroFighters 2'') features New York as the backdrop for level 2. While the Statues of Liberty can be shot for a powerup, there is no physical damage, though this is not the case with BOTH twin towers. Not only that, but there's money inside each! Paid to destroy the twin towers. Golly.
* An in-game example comes from ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia''. Close to the beginning, there is a cutscene about Lloyd's [[OrphansPlotTrinket Exphere]] in with Genis says something about his mother protecting him through it. It feels way heavier the second time you play it since [[spoiler: you then know that the Desians imprisoned his mother's probably [[AndIMustScream still conscious]] soul in the stone, which gives it its power.]]

** Double for the comic which is Sonic and Bunnie in said zone. [[WordOfGod Ian Flynn]] has stated that he planned the storyline before the Oil Spill.

* In ''SimCity'' 2000, if you build your airport too close to your big cities, your planes can and will crash into your skyscrapers, sparking fires and the collapse of said skyscrapers. Yeah.

* The [[AceAttorney Ace Attorney]] series has quite a few.
** One of the most gut-wrenching is [[spoiler:this quote from Diego Armando/Godot when he is describing Maggey Byrde's supposed guilt: "Using the dark, aromatic depths of coffee to conceal the poison...classy lady!"]] It really hits home when you find out [[spoiler: [[DarkAndTroubledPast Armando]] himself was poisoned by the [[CompleteMonster murderous bitch Dahila Hathorne]] and got put into a five-year coma, during which time Mia Fey, the love of his life, was murdered. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy]] really had in rough...]]
* In HaloReach we get an in-story example. Noble Six is notified to be a soldier with a hyper-lethal skill set and a lone wolf personality. Carter, Noble Team's leader and Noble Six's new commander, upon meeting Noble Six tells them that he is happy to have a soldier with Noble Six's skill set on the team but that those lone wolf tendencies should stay behind now that he/she is part of a team. Near the end of the game Noble Team is assigned to defend the Pillar of Autumn and [[spoiler:all of Noble Team dies in the process]] except for Noble Six (and Jun who escaped with Dr. Hasley according to WordOfGod) who stays behind on Reach to make sure the ''Pillar'' can escape Reach. Carter's statements become sadly ironic as [[spoiler:Noble Six is left alone as the only Spartan, or UNSC soldier period, on Reach]] and all he/she can do is watch as Reach is glassed by the Covenant. Forced to become a lone wolf once again [[spoiler:Noble Six's final actions are to fight against unrelenting waves of Covenant forces in a Last Stand that lasts for several hours until he/she is finally subdued and killed.]] Decades later the only reminder on Reach that any sort of conflict had ever occurred is the shattered remains of Noble Six's helmet, a lone wolf but a noble and courageous one indeed.