History Main / NightVisionGoggles

* ''Film/GonjiamHauntedAsylum'': When Ah-Yeon, Sung-Hoon, and Je-Yoon find themselves in a dark room together, Je-Yoon asks for the camera. Once he has it, he turns on the night-vision function and uses it to see in the dark.

* ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'': Lupus finds a pair of Night Vision Goggles during his travel within Mizar's Palace. Upon getting them, he can stand onto a green pad that opens the gate to a very dark underground maze, at which point the effect of the goggles activates (making the game's screen turn green). From there, Lupus can explore the maze and defeat the Drones along the way until reaching the bright exit, no longer needing the goggles.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2099 SCP-2099 ("Brain in a Jar").]] One of SCP-2099's inventions is night vision goggles that work even when there's no light at all. Normal [=NVGs=] require at least a tiny amount of light to magnify.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1366488318083142800
%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.

* ''VideoGame/SevenDaysToDie'' features [=NVGs=] as loot, notably from fallen soldiers. They provide a little bit of protection and [[InfiniteFlashlight work indefinitely]], but they're not [[RagnarokProofing as durable as some other items]], so seeing through them makes the screen exceptionally blurry. They're decent for skulking around at night in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] servers when you don't want a beam to give you away, but otherwise the mining helmet is a far better pick for hands-free lighting.

* ''Webcomic/AdlersWatch'' features night vision goggles in the form of CoolShades. [[FishOutOfTemporalWater Anthony Adler]] is quite impressed with them.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'', in the episode "Thank You For Not Snitching", Mrs. Van Heusen can be seen wearing some while firing an AK-47.
* WesternAnimation/{{Archer}} sometimes uses night-vision goggles on missions and almost always ends up wishing he hadn't bothered because someone inevitably turns on the lights, which ''really'' hurts his eyes.
-->'''Lana Kane:''' Can you please focus?\\
'''Archer:''' Not really. I don't think these goggles were properly calibrated.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''Film/Ghostbusters1984'', Ray Stantz uses a pair to find Slimer in the hotel ballroom.
* In ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'', the night vision setting of the InUniverseCamera is used to find out what the hell is making those weird noises in the dark subway tunnels they're travelling along. Turns out to be the parasites that fell off [[{{Kaiju}} Clover]]. Hud, who's looking through the camera, yells for everyone to start running ''now''.
* ''Film/TheParanormalDiariesClophill'': The cameras that the crew use have a night-vision view. The first scene in the movie, in fact, is of one of them playing around with the feature.

* A variant is seen in the Franchise/{{Terminator}}s' RoboCam, which is tinted in either red or blue instead of full-color, but the robots see perfectly under any light condition.

* In ''Literature/DaystarAndShadow'', the sentries outside the New Christians' citadel wear helmets with infrared goggles at night, complicating Robin's break-in.

* Common in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', where most power armor has night vision built in, Guardsmen carry NVGs, Tyranids have enhanced vision and Daemons see peoples souls rather than by any light. None of this helps much in night fighting though...

* ''Sorcery & Super Science! PostApocalyptic Role-Playing!'' One item of pre-collapse equipment available to {{PC}}s is night vision goggles that generate infrared light and allow the user to see using it. The wearer has a 45 degree width of vision and can see a maximum of 150 yards in complete darkness.
* ''Tales of the Space Princess'' RPG. While wearing the Super Science device Night Goggles, a character can see in the dark anything within 20 yards. They function for 1 hour before needing to be recharged.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' has light enhancing and thermographic options available for goggles and sunglasses. And also cybereyes that can be given the same enhancements. Though most metahumans already have the natural ability to see into one of those spectrums.

* ''VideoGame/DangerGirl'' have Sydney attempting to find one as she navigates her way through a pitch-black vault in the British Museum.
* A pitch-dark room in Mysterio's stage of ''[[VideoGame/SpiderManReturnOfTheSinisterSix Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six]]'' requires some of these, found at the far left of an area right before it. Everything will be reddish, however, even the enemies.

* In ''VideoGame/FarCry1'', the nightvision goggles show living things in hypnotic false-color, while the background plants and earth are in blue-green starlight-scope vision -- a melding of two completely different technologies, which is nonetheless quite feasible given that ''Far Cry'' is clearly TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture and [[http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003732.html such systems]] [[ScienceMarchesOn are becoming available right now for military use]]. Though technically, they're [=CryTek=] goggles which show you [[WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture CryVision]] - the devs were quite conscious of the fact that they were not portraying night-vision accurately, [[ArtisticLicense and did not actually make any pretense of doing so]].
* The [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous Special Forces]] expansion pack of ''[[VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} Battlefield 2]]'' adds these to the player's inventory. Using them around bright lights or when a flash-bang is chucked at you is highly inadvisable though. The ''VideoGame/ProjectReality'' mod implements thermal imaging on the targeting systems of most armored vehicles and some aircraft.

* In a possibly accidental example, in ''VideoGame/ThiefDeadlyShadows'', the protagonist's mechanical eye sees in black and white (despite being in colour in the previous game), which incidentally makes seeing in the dark easier without making anything brighter.

* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' has a "hypervision" powerup that creates a visual image of the world based on a composite of light, heat, electromagnetic, and radar waves. The resulting image [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience tints the world blue, humans yellow, the pfhor red, and items green]].
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' featured a fairly realistic starlight scope on the sniper rifle. Notably, it ''wasn't'' part of Master Chief's HUD, and didn't show up anyplace else.
** Fanmade [[GameMod Custom Campaign]]''VideoGame/SPV3'' features [=VISR=] as an armour upgrade alongside Sprint and Health Regen.
** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' later introduced a helmet-equipped night vision, which interestingly was tinted purple instead of green for the Covenant. ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' also had the [=VISR=], which could function as a sort of night vision.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'':
** ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare'' averts this trope by getting both the starlight and infrared types of night vision right, the former as standard night vision goggles and the latter as the sole vision mode when you play as a gunner on a AC-130 gunship.
** The infra-red returns in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' in the form of the thermal scope, which is available for all the primary weapons. It's typically used for seeing through smoke screens and picking off snipers. Notably, the thermal scope is incorrectly portrayed as well. It often shows up on wintery maps, as human bodies appear to be the same temperature, a completely uniform white, until they are killed, at which point the body loses all heat and becomes black as the background - unless it [[GoodBadBugs glitches out]] and stays visible until it fades out, or unless it's a player in multiplayer using a perk to not show up on thermal scopes [[MST3KMantra just because]].
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' features an infrared scope for a rifle which makes most of the world dark purple and renders enemies in yellows and reds. The accuracy of the perceived colors are rather inconsistent; The enormous, boiling furnaces encountered not long after you get it are also dark purple, while breakable (inanimate) item containers are the same reds and yellows as living organisms. On the other hand, torches and lightbulbs are very bright red, and lightning flashes do turn the sky red for brief periods.
* ''VideoGame/Metro2033'' features a tunnel-vision inducing set of these, that darkens the edges of the screen when put on and only amplifies ambient light - to see further, Artyom has to turn on his headlamp. ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight'' gets rid of the edge darkening and gives it its own IR light source, making it better suited for stealth; this model is retrofitted into the [[UpdatedRerelease Redux]] version of ''2033''. In both cases, [[TenSecondFlashlight it's a real battery guzzler]].
* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'':
** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' has the Thermal Visor, which apparently works like an infrared camera using a false-color version of the black-white spectrum (purple is the default ambient color, frozen objects and Ice Beam shots appear black, hot objects show up red through white). It can also see through thin walls and platforms, and it actually responds to lava and hot rooms by overloading. The display will stay white until you turn it off for a while. The game also has the X-Ray Visor, a relatively realistic take on a backscatter X-ray camera, though the Power Suit apparently isn't being radiopaque. The X-Ray Visor returns in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption''.
** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'': The ironically named Dark Visor functions like an X-Ray Visor: On top of revealing items and creatures trapped in a transdimensional warp, it also makes darkly lit rooms easier to navigate.
* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' has night-vision goggles as an item that tinted everything green and wasn't useful for navigating in the dark, but it was great for detecting enemies, as it made them stick out like a sore thumb [[{{Metaphorgotten}} if it was painted phosphorescent green]]. There are also secret messages on the walls (usually hinting at a secret area) which become visible only when viewed through the goggles. Later games got the "starlight scope" functionality right.
* Elite power armour in ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R. 2]]'' feature a fairly realistic thermal imaging mode which, while not amazingly useful, is at least interesting to look at.
* ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'':
** ''VideoGame/GhostReconAdvancedWarfighter'' features ENVG like the several examples above, which include a separate thermal imaging mode (can't see through walls). As its name suggests, it's set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture.
** The original ''Ghost Recon'' series uses standard starlight vision. ''VideoGame/GhostReconFutureSoldier'' adds a ''Splinter Cell'-esque combo of night vision and thermal imaging, both goggle-based and as an optional scope attachment for some guns, as well as backscatter X-ray, also available as an optional scope for some guns or as goggles labeled as "magnetic" vision, which are some strange combination of a real backscatter X-ray and magic.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/HalfLifeOpposingForce''. When using night vision, the environment has a green hue and poor resolution, but none of the enemies glow or are rendered in unusual colors. That's because the so called "night vision" actually causes Shepard's model to emit light (much like how another player's flashlight will appear from your viewpoint in multiplayer) while a green filter is applied to your viewpoint.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Prominence}}'', [[BenevolentAI ANNIE]] unlocks this function in your HUD when you enter a pitch black room after activating her. It shows a simple green filter, and goes white with reduced resolution and an error message if you step into a lit area. [[spoiler: Justified since you're actually a robot left behind before the game started.]]
* Eating [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Cateye Cateye pills]] in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' ups the gamma and turns everything a pleasing shade of aqua[[note]]This is an effect reused from ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', in this case [[http://uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Night-Eye the night eye effect]][[/note]]. Oddly, even though you are walking around in what should be a blinding desert, you actually see ''better'' in the daytime if you take Cateye, since the game reduces all of the [[RealIsBrown bloom]], though at the cost of being unable to determine different colors. The Friend of the Night perk gives night vision without the blue tint. In the ''Dead Money'' {{DLC}}, you can make [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Ghost_Sight Ghost Sight]] from Cloud residue, which gives you the vision of [[GasMaskMooks Ghost People]] and has the same effect, except green. The hazmat darklight cowl from ''Old World Blues'' (from the same type of HazmatSuit worn by Ghost People) has an effect similar to Ghost Sight, and the Riot Gear helmets from ''Lonesome Road'' have "Sneak Sight" vision when crouched, which is grayscale outdoors and sepia tone indoors. One of the Varmint Rifle's [[GunAccessories add-on parts]] is a starlight sniper scope.
* Handled believably in ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'', since it tries to be a realistic military simulation. The characters can use real military night vision devices, a.k.a. "noctovizors", which render one's vision in grainy green hue and via a somewhat claustrophobic lens-like shape. The goggles are of course useful for missions set at night time, but even this gets subverted in an interesting fashion: If the visual field gets flooded with light or the night background is illuminated by stars, the goggles become ''actually less effective'' than the viewer's own eyes.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has a potion version of night vision goggles. When the potion is consumed, it makes everything you see fully lit as if the sun was shining on it and you don't go blind from bright light sources like torches or lava. However, just because you can see better doesn't mean the dark doesn't exist, and monsters can still spawn. ''Minecraft'' also has persistent fog, so the night vision makes it more pronounced.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/GhostSquad'': The Night-vision and "thermal vision" goggles are different. This fails to explain the fact that all parts of a being are red, including their clothes, while ''everything'' else is the same shade of blue.

* ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'': Lupus finds a pair of Night Vision Goggles during his travel within Mizar's Palace. Upon getting them, he can stand onto a green pad that opens the gate to a very dark underground maze, at which point the effect of the goggles activates (making the game's screen turn green). From there, Lupus can explore the maze and defeat the Drones along the way until reaching the bright exit, no longer needing the goggles.
* ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' has night-vision goggles in some levels which are somewhat realistic, eg. if the lights come on or you walk out into sunlight you'll be blinded until they're taken off. Human targets still appear a bright, glowing green though, making them much easier to spot. There is also one place in the game where you fight enemies who wear night vision goggles. They turn off the lights to try and get the drop on you, but if you turn them back on, their goggles overload like yours would, stunning them for a few seconds.
* All games in ''[[VideoGame/{{Stalker}} S.T.A.L.K.E.R.]]'' feature these, in two versions: the blurry, green-tinted "image intensifier" ones, found in cheaper suits and helmets, and a more expensive version that turns everything blue without losses in resolution (they're all green in ''Call of Pripyat'', the only difference is the resolution). Graphical enhancement mods more often than not change the better kind of goggles to show an infrared-style black-and-white image.
* The ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' games typically features image intensifier night vision mode, though some games offer more types or have some sort of spin to it. ''[=MechWarrior=] 2'' had Imaging Enhancement, which rendered the world in color-coded wireframe, ostensibly part of the Clan pilot's BrainComputerInterface. ''Online'' has thermal vision and regular night vision. In ''Living Legends'', EMP damage from battlemech reactors GoingCritical critical or Particle Projector Cannon blasts will temporarily fry the night vision, forcing pilots to rely on spotlights.
* A major gameplay mechanic in ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}'' is managing the battery life of your camcorder so you can use its night vision setting to see in the game's many pitch-black areas.
* ''VideoGame/SevenDaysToDie'' features [=NVGs=] as loot, notably from fallen soldiers. They provide a little bit of protection and [[InfiniteFlashlight work indefinitely]], but they're not [[RagnarokProofing as durable as some other items]], so seeing through them makes the screen exceptionally blurry. They're decent for skulking around at night in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] servers when you don't want a beam to give you away, but otherwise the mining helmet is a far better pick for hands-free lighting.
%%Can someone please verify if the goggles get less fuzzy with higher quality levels? I've seen that proposition come up once or twice.

* ''[[VideoGame/Ashes2063 Ashes Afterglow]]'' has night-vision goggles as an inventory item. When activated, they turn the player's view fullbright and in a uniform shade of green, with slight distortion at the edges. They last 120 seconds and cannot be recharged -- the only way to refill it is by finding or buying another set -- but they're your only way to see in the dark from afar or while holding a two-handed weapon, as Scav's rechargeable solar lantern has limited range and can only be wielded alongside the crowbar, one of the handguns or the machine pistol.
* ''VideoGame/{{Blood}} II: The Chosen'' adds these as part of its TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture setting. Like ''Duke Nukem 3D'' they're piss-poor at actual navigation, putting everything into dull and dark green tones, but they're perfect at lighting up hard-to-see enemies by painting them a very ''bright'' shade of green. Their battery also gives out after less than a minute of uptime, so if you actually need to navigate a dark area you're better off using the flashlight or [[MuzzleFlashlight shooting off the flare gun]].

* ''Series/MidsomerMrders'': In "The Christmas Haunting", the killer lures the person they intend to be their final victim into a set of caves, and then turns off the lights and dons a set night-vision so they can pick them off in the darkness. Nelso arrives and, realising what is happening, switches the lights back on, blinding the killer.

** The first two games feature both types of goggles, reasonably accurately. There's a red, static-washed view of the environment with bright red for hot objects when using the IR scope, and a brightened, greenish-grey view for the "night vision" starlight scope. Alas, they switch to a "Predator-vision" IR scope for the "Special Edition" of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', and didn't go back until ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', where they updated to the newer NVG models, with the greyish green scheme. Though it's called "NVG", it actually seems to work by detecting heat, rather than amplifying light, since it works just fine out in the sun.

** ''Advanced Warfighter'' features ENVG like the several examples above, which include a separate thermal imaging mode (can't see through walls). As its name suggests, it's set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture.
** The original ''Ghost Recon'' series uses standard starlight vision. ''Future Soldier'' adds a ''Splinter Cell'-esque combo of night vision and thermal imaging, both goggle-based and as an optional scope attachment for some guns, as well as backscatter X-ray, also available as an optional scope for some guns or as goggles labeled as "magnetic" vision, which are some strange combination of a real backscatter X-ray and magic.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' featured an infrared scope for a rifle which made most of the world dark purple and rendered enemies in yellows and reds. The accuracy of the perceived colors were rather inconsistent; The enormous, boiling furnaces encountered not long after you get it are also dark purple, while breakable (inanimate) item containers were the same reds and yellows as living organisms. On the other hand, torches and lightbulbs are very bright red, and lightning flashes do turn the sky red for brief periods.

* ''[[VideoGame/Ashes2063 Ashes Afterglow]]'' has night-vision goggles as an inventory item. When activated, they turn the player's view fullbright and in a uniform shade of green, with slight distortion at the edges. They last 120 seconds and cannot be recharged – the only way to refill it is by finding or buying another set – but they're your only way to see in the dark from afar or while holding a two-handed weapon, as Scav's rechargeable solar lantern has limited range and can only be wielded alongside the crowbar, one of the handguns or the machine pistol.

* ''VideoGame/{{Blood}} II: The Chosen'' adds these as part of its TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture setting. Like ''Duke Nukem 3D'' they're piss-poor at actual navigation, putting everything into dull and dark green tones, but they're perfect at lighting up hard-to-see enemies by painting them a very ''bright'' shade of green. Their battery also gives out after less than a minute of uptime, so if you actually need to navigate a dark area you're better off using the flashlight or shooting off the flare gun.

* In a Season 2 Episode of ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' a "hunter" uses night vision goggles to kill immortals in a completely dark room.

* ''[[VideoGame/Ashes2063 Ashes Afterglow]]'' has the Night-vision Goggles as an inventory item. When activated, they turn the player's view fullbright and in a uniform shade of green, with slight distortion at the edges. They last 120 seconds and cannot be recharged – the only way to refill it is by finding or buying another set – but they're your only way to see in the dark from afar or while holding a two-handed weapon, as Scav's rechargeable solar lantern has limited range and can only be wielded alongside the crowbar, one of the handguns or the machine pistol.

** The series gets the starlight-scope 'night vision' mode bang on, but rolls out the false colour images for the 'infra-red' mode. The latter is also strangely inconsistent: it can see through thin walls but windows, objects and sufficient quantities of ''air'' are (realistically) opaque. Also, it combines both systems in a single visor, but this can be excused as [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality an acceptable break]] for the sake of RuleOfFun: developer commentary indicates that they knew the starlight and infrared scope being put in the same device was not possible by current technological standards, but decided to do it (even having to convince Creator/TomClancy to let them do it) to avoid having Fisher switching goggles all the time. [[LifeImitatesArt They were invented about 2 years after the game's release]].
** In addition, later games in the series introduce electromagnetic and movement detection scopes.
** ''Double Agent'' gave players who complete all side objectives an enhanced night vision that can see in color. The technology didn't exist at the time ([[LifeImitatesArt they were invented about five and a half months after the game was released]]).
** It's worth noting that each game takes place around two years after the date in which they're released.

** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' averts this trope by getting both the starlight and infrared types of night vision right. The former as standard night vision goggles and the latter as the sole vision mode when you play as a gunner on a AC-130 gunship.
** The infra-red returns in Modern Warfare 2 in the form of the thermal scope, which is available for all the primary weapons. It's typically used for seeing through smoke screens and picking off snipers. Notably, the thermal scope is incorrectly portrayed as well. It often shows up on wintery maps, as human bodies appear to be the same temperature, a completely uniform white, until they are killed, at which point the body loses all heat and becomes black as the background - unless it [[GoodBadBugs glitches out]] and stays visible until it fades out, or unless it's a player in multiplayer using a perk to not show up on thermal scopes [[MST3KMantra just because]].

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' has night-vision goggles as an item that tinted everything green and wasn't useful for navigating in the dark, but it was great for detecting enemies, as it made them stick out like a sore thumb, uh, [[{{Metaphorgotten}} painted phosphorescent green]]. There are also secret messages on the walls (usually hinting at a secret area) which become visible only when viewed through the goggles. Later games got the "starlight scope" functionality right.

** The original ''Ghost Recon'' series uses standard starlight vision. ''Future Soldier'' adds a ''Splinter Cell'-esque combo of night vision and thermal imaging, both goggle-based and as an optional scope attachment for some guns, as well as backscatter X-ray optics for different guns. And then there's magnetic vision, which can only be described as working by way of magic.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/HalfLife1: Opposing Force''. When using night vision, the environment has a green hue and poor resolution, but none of the enemies glow or are rendered in unusual colors. That's because the so called "night vision" actually causes Shepard's model to emit light (much like how another player's flashlight will appear from your viewpoint in multiplayer) while a green filter is applied to your viewpoint.

* Eating [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Cateye Cateye pills]] in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' ups the gamma and turns everything a pleasing shade of aqua[[note]]This is an effect reused from ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' in this case [[http://uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Night-Eye the night eye effect]][[/note]]. Oddly, even though you are walking around in what should be a blinding desert, you actually see ''better'' in the daytime if you take Cateye, since the game reduces all of the [[RealIsBrown bloom]], though at the cost of being unable to determine different colors. The Friend of the Night perk gives night vision without the blue tint. In the ''Dead Money'' {{DLC}}, you can make [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Ghost_Sight Ghost Sight]] from Cloud residue, which gives you the vision of [[GasMaskMooks Ghost People]] and has the same effect, except green. The hazmat darklight cowl from ''Old World Blues'' (from the same type of HazmatSuit worn by Ghost People) has an effect similar to Ghost Sight, and the Riot Gear helmets from ''Lonesome Road'' have "Sneak Sight" vision when crouched, which is grayscale outdoors and sepia tone indoors. One of the Varmint Rifle's [[GunAccessories add-on parts]] is a starlight sniper scope.
* Handled believably in ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'', since it tries to be a realistic military simulation. The characters can use real military night vision devices, a.k.a. "noctovizors", which render one's vision in grainy green hue and via a somewhat claustrophobic lens-like shape. The goggles are of course useful for missions set at night time, but even this gets subverted in an interesting fashion : If the visual field gets flooded with light or the night background is illuminated by stars, the goggles become ''actually less effective'' than the viewer's own eyes.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has a potion version of night vision goggles. When the potion is consumed, it makes everything you see fully lit as if the sun was shining on it and you don't go blind from bright light sources like torches or lava. However, just because you can see better doesn't mean the dark doesn't exist and monsters can still spawn. Minecraft also has persistent fog, so the night vision makes it more pronounced.

* ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' has night-vision goggles in some levels which are somewhat realistic, eg. if the lights come on or you walk out into sunlight you'll be blinded until they're taken off. Human targets still appear a bright, glowing green though, making them much easier to spot. There is also one place in the game where you fight enemies who wear night vision goggles. If you turn on the lights, they won't be able to shoot you for a few seconds while they take them off.

* ''VideoGame/SevenDaysToDie'' features NVG's as loot, notably from fallen soldiers. They provide a little bit of protection and [[InfiniteFlashlight work indefinitely]], but they're not [[RagnarokProofing as durable as some other items]], so seeing through them makes the screen exceptionally blurry. They're decent for skulking around at night in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] servers when you don't want a beam to give you away, but otherwise the mining helmet is a far better pick for hands-free lighting.

* James Bond gets a pair of these in ''VideoGame/TheWorldIsNotEnough'' for a few levels, notably the Kazakhstan power plant infiltration where he isn't allowed to kill anyone - so he simply switches off the lights and sneak past some confused guards in the dark.

* A related bit of a ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' episode began with Little Suzie saying, "...but do you really need those night-vision goggles?" Johnny: "Oh yes, and they work exceptionally well in the day time." (he turns on the goggles) "AAAARRGGHH!! I'm blind!"

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' in the episode "Thank You For Not Snitching" Mrs. Van Heusen can be seen wearing some while firing an AK-47.
* WesternAnimation/{{Archer}} sometimes uses night-vision goggles on missions and almost always ends up wishing he hadn't bothered because someone inevitably turns on the lights which ''really'' hurts his eyes.

* Actually this trope isn't entirely a form of not doing the research, as modern armies often use infra red vision to spot enemies emitting large amounts of heat (for example, the exhaust of an engine). However, such a heat-seeking sensor is typically linked up to a heavy weapons system designed to take out targets capable of giving off that much heat, so unless your goggles happened to be linked up to a missile launcher or a cannon, this trope still does not reflect reality. Such a heat sensor often also requires being constantly cooled to prevent it interfering with itself, which would make it a tad heavy to put on goggles with today's technology.

* Franchise/{{Batman}} and his [[ComicBook/{{Robin}} sons]], [[ComicBook/Batgirl2000 daughter]], and extended Batfamily have these built into their masks, great for sneaking around in pitch darkness. Bruce uses this to great effect in the finale of the ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'' saga when he blinds [[ComicBook/{{Azrael}} Jean-Paul Valley]] with early morning sunlight to get him to remove his cowl and finally cause him to snap out of his psychotic break.
* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': Jaeger's goggles have night vision in addition to a HeadsUpDisplay. Tim also brings the Batfamily night vision lenses to ComicBook/{{Huntress}} and [[ComicBook/Batgirl2009 Spoiler]], before the Batfamily really gets built beyond Bruce, Dick and Tim.

** At the climax he uses them to hunt Clarice Starling in a pitch black house, sneaking up behind her and preparing to kill her with a bullet to the back of the head. Luckily [[{{Foreshadowing}} she has had training in dealing with exactly this kind of situation...]]

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': At the Seventy-fourth Games, Katniss finds a pair pf night-vision goggles in her pack, but thinks they're sunglasses and tries to use them as such, only to find that they don't block the sun and make it harder to see. Rue, who is familiar with the goggles from having worn them while working in District 11's orchards after dark, later tells her their real purpose.

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': it takes time for Katniss to understand what it was.

* One arc in ''Manga/ShonanJunaiGumi'' involves Eikichi and Ryuji trying to get night vision goggles to [[ThePeepingTom spy on their hot new neighbor]]. The salesman knows exactly what they want them for, and even offers to throw in a "50 Best Voyeur Spots in Shonan" pamphlet if they buy a pair. Katsuyuki sees them coming out of the store and they make up a story about needing them to fight some gang that attacks in darkness. Cue [[HotBlooded Katsuyuki]] stealing them two pairs and picking a fight with that gang, in which the goggles get broken.

* ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'': Lupus finds a pair of Night Vision Googles during his travel within Mizar's Palace. Upon getting them, he can stand onto a green pad that opens the gate to a very dark underground maze, at which point the effect of the googles activates (making the game's screen turn green). From there, Lupus can explore the maze and defeat the Drones along the way until reaching the bright exit, no longer needing the googles.

* The [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous Special Forces]] expansion pack of ''[[VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} Battlefield 2]]'' adds these to the player's inventory. Using them around bright lights or when a flash-bang is chucked at you is highly inadvisable though.
** The ''VideoGame/ProjectReality'' mod implements thermal imaging on the targeting systems of most armored vehicles and some aircraft.
* The ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' games have useful but questionably realistic vision modes for the three types of PlayerCharacter. [[Franchise/{{Alien}} The xenomorph]] simply puts a halo around living creatures, perhaps to indicate scent and has an alternate mode which makes everything brighter, but also screws with colors and makes it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead; [[Franchise/{{Predator}} the predator]] has three modes, including a stereotypical-looking false color IR mode (which only responds to heat from entities, and not from machines or ''[[ConvectionSchmonvection LAVA]]''), an electrical mode which detects machines and xenomorphs, and a "predtech" mode, for detecting predators and their devices; the human marine gets possibly the most aggravating one, a nightvision system which realistically covers everything in green static and whites out when looking at bright light, but does not actually make anything ''brighter''.
** That last one is pretty common in computer games, among other things. Want to add nightvision to your product? Simply cut the red and blue color channels and, voila. Instant nightvision! Well, unless you forget to ''also'' up the gamma level[[note]]basically, amp up the output of the in-game light sources[[/note]] while in this mode, in which case it's pretty useless.
* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' immediately jumps to mind, as there was one item which reduced the size of the viewport, tinted it green without making it any brighter, and vanished after about 90 seconds.
** The upgraded nightvision 'implants' made people and robots glow brightly, and could be used to view people through walls (though the latter was not thermal imaging based).

* The first two ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' games featured both types of goggles, reasonably accurately. There was a red, static-washed view of the environment with bright red for hot objects when using the IR scope, and a brightened, greenish-grey view for the "night vision" starlight scope. Alas, they switched to a "Predator-vision" IR scope for the "Special Edition" of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', and have never gone back.
** That is until [=MGS4=], where they updated to the newer NVG models, with the greyish green scheme. Though it's called "NVG", it actually seems to work by detecting heat, rather than amplifying light, since it works just fine out in the sun.
*** In-Game TechnoBabble states that the Solid Eye's NVG setting is a mixture of several different enhanced vision devices, including light-amplification and infrared.
*** There are actual newer Night Vision devices which make use of thermal night vision similar to Snake's solid eye. So it could be that the solid eye's night vision mode is merely one of these. It produces the exact same effect that MGO's ENVG (Enhanced Night Vision Goggles) looks like, so this would make sense.
*** Unfortunately, [[WalkingTank Gekko]] are equipped with these in their main eye atop their heads that can easily see you even with the [[BraggingRightsReward stealth camouflage]] item equipped, the only thing that fools them a great deal is Old Snake's newest addition which is his [[StealthyCephalopod OctoCamo suit]] which perfectly mimics not only his nearest surroundings, but the temperature as well, fooling their otherwise nearly-flawless sight.

** ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' had a "hypervision" powerup that creates a visual image of the world based on a composite of light, heat, electromagnetic, and radar waves. The resulting image [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience tints the world blue, humans yellow, the pfhor red, and items green]].

*** Fanmade [[GameMod Custom Campaign]]''VideoGame/SPV3'' features [=VISR=] as an armour upgrade alongside Sprint and Health Regen.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 4: VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' averts this trope by getting both the starlight and infrared types of night vision right. The former as standard night vision goggles and the latter as the sole vision mode when you play as a gunner on a AC-130 gunship.
** The infra-red returns in Modern Warfare 2 in the form of the thermal scope, which is available for all the primary weapons. It's typically used for seeing through smoke screens and picking off snipers.
*** Notably, the thermal scope is incorrectly portrayed as well. It often shows up on wintery maps, as human bodies appear to be the same temperature, a completely uniform white, until they are killed, at which point the body loses all heat and becomes black as the background - unless it [[GoodBadBugs glitches out]] and stays visible until it fades out, or unless it's a player in multiplayer using a perk to not show up on thermal scopes [[MST3KMantra just because]].

* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' has the Thermal Visor, which apparently works like an infrared camera using a false-color version of the black-white spectrum (purple is the default ambient color, frozen objects and Ice Beam shots appear black, hot objects show up red through white). It can also see through thin walls and platforms, and unlike the ''Alien Vs. Predator'' example above, it actually responds to lava and hot rooms by overloading. The display will stay white until you turn it off for a while. Likewise, the X-Ray Visor is a relatively realistic take on a backscatter X-ray camera. Shame about the Power Suit apparently not being radiopaque...
** The ironically named Dark Visor from ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' functions similarly; on top of revealing items and creatures trapped in a transdimensional warp, it also makes darkly lit rooms easier to navigate.

* ''VideoGame/GhostRecon: Advanced Warfighter'' features ENVG like the several examples above, which include a separate thermal imaging mode (can't see through walls). As its name suggests, it's set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture.
** The original ''Ghost Recon'' series used standard starlight vision. ''Future Soldier'' adds a ''Splinter Cell'-esque combo of night vision and thermal imaging, both goggle-based and as an optional scope attachment for some guns, as well as backscatter X-ray optics for different guns. And then there's magnetic vision, which can only be described as working by way of magic.

* ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' has night-vision goggles in some levels which are somewhat realistic, eg. if the lights come on or you walk out into sunlight you'll be blinded until they're taken off. Human targets still appear a bright, glowing green though, making them much easier to spot.
** There is also one place in the game where you fight enemies who wear night vision goggles. If you turn on the lights, they won't be able to shoot you for a few seconds while they take them off.

* In ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}'', Ray Stantz uses a pair to find Slimer in the hotel ballroom.

* Common in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', where most power armor has night vision built in, Guardsmen carry NVGs, Tyranids have enhanced vision and Daemons see peoples souls rather than by any light. None of this helps much in night fighting though...

* A pitch-dark room in Mysterio's stage of ''VideoGame/SpiderMan: Return of the Sinister Six'' requires some of these, found at the far left of an area right before it. Everything will be reddish, however, even the enemies.

* ''VideoGame/{{Metro 2033}}'' features a tunnel-vision inducing set of these, that darkens the edges of the screen when put on and only amplifies ambient light - to see further, Artyom has to turn on his headlamp. ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight'' gets rid of the edge darkening and gives it its own IR light source, making it better suited for stealth; this model is retrofitted into the [[UpdatedRerelease Redux]] version of ''2033''. In both cases, [[TenSecondFlashlight it's a real battery guzzler]].

* The ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' games typically features image intensifier night vision mode, though some games offer more types or have some sort of spin to it. ''[=MechWarrior=] 2'' had Imaging Enhancement, which rendered the world in color-coded wireframe, ostensibly part of the Clan pilot's BrainComputerInterface. ''Online'' has thermal vision and regular night vision. In ''Living Legends'', EMP damage from battlemech reactors GoingCritical critical or Particle Projector Cannon blasts will temporarily fry the night vision, forcing pilots to rely on spotlights.
* A major gameplay mechanic in ''Videogame/{{Outlast}}'' is managing the battery life of your camcorder so you can use its night vision setting to see in the game's many pitch-black areas.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has the Goggles of Night, which functions as this trope for creatures who lack darkvision (e.g. humans, dragonborn, and halflings). Equipping this magic item on a creature with darkvision increases the darkvision range by 60 feet.