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Sandbox / Continuity Reboot

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/continuity-reboot_batman_5007.png
What camp killed, grit and depth revived.

"Hey, have you folks heard about this Hellboy character? It's okay if you haven't — there's a big #1 on the cover of this comic I just read, so I assume he's pretty new."
— Chris Sims on Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.

The writers of a particular work are about to start working on a continuation story, but they have an irreparable issue with the prior continuity.

Maybe Continuity Snarl has made writing an interesting plot increasingly difficult and tedious. Maybe the last episodes of the series made disliked decisions that changed the status quo and subsequent episodes would suffer from the changes made. Maybe the previous series ended and the writers want to start a new series that uses the same characters or takes the series in a different direction or style but don't want to override the ending of the old series. Maybe Continuity Lock-Out is preventing new fans from being attracted to the series. Or a well liked character was killed off and the writers want to use him or her again without making their death look cheap or if the character is a villain, without suffering Villain Decay.

The solution? Initiate a Continuity Reboot.

A Continuity Reboot is the partial or complete elimination of continuity from any and all previous works in a series. You could say it's the creation of an Alternate Universe that shares virtually little to no canon with the preceding works in a franchise. It's not a Reset Button or Snap Back: while those revert the continuity to a previous state, a Continuity Reboot starts over, providing the authors with a new clean slate to work on. In one form, as far as later works are concerned everything before it is in Canon Discontinuity (to which it sometimes overlaps).

Frequently, a Continuity Reboot will include one (or more) Tone Shifts, usually to whatever is considered the best money-maker for the target demographic, Darker and Edgier or Lighter and Softer.

A Continuity Reboot itself may be poorly received if handled poorly as it effectively negates any and all character development by a character to start anew and in extreme cases the rebooted character is effectively a completely different character under the same name. If the previous series has already ended and the Reboot is a revival of the franchise then it is more likely to be accepted by audience members.

Sister trope to Alternate Continuity, the difference is that a Continuity Reboot becomes the new main continuity rather than running alongside the previous universe. For example, Batman comics run alongside any Batman cartoon or movie that is currently airing and each are their own universe; this is an Alternate Continuity. The DC New 52 comics are a new continuity that replaces previous DC comics; this is a Continuity Reboot.note 

A close relative of the regular Retcon and Cosmic Retcon and Retool. Overlaps with Fix Fic if the reboot's intent is to repair perceived problems with the original version.

Often called a "re-imagining" by squeamish writers not wanting to admit that they are throwing out previous continuity (though not always, see Alternate Continuity for exceptions), though this causes confusion as "re-imagining" is also used in the same context as "remake": ground-up retellings with no connection to past continuity (Planet of the Apes (2001), for example, which is credited with popularizing the term "re-imagining" in this context). For when the reboot is is caused by a specific, identifiable character, that character is a Continuity Rebooter. When it just happens to one person it is Ret-Gone.

It should be mentioned though, that reboots don't necessarily replace the originals, and they would may be created to entertain people by category, such as adults, teenagers, to children, while another reason a reboot could be made is that the original is bad, and should be remade to better quality, or just simply made as a different version to be made alongside the original.

Examples:

    Anime & Manga 
  • Rozen Maiden was originally Cut Short in the middle of the story with none of the major mysteries solved. A new version of the manga is being produced but all signs point to a Continuity Reboot, perhaps to erase the stink of the conflict between the publishers and producers that caused the original manga's death. It turns out it's a literal Alternate Universe. So while it started fresh it circled back around. That's gotta be Played With somehow.
  • Casshern Sins is a Darker and Edgier reboot of Neo Human Casshern, featuring a radically different and more cynical interpretation of the eponymous protagonist.
  • Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run is set in a new universe separate from the first six parts, though it has some characters, locations and concepts named after those from the original. However, while Part 6 ends with Big Bad Pucci activating his final Stand, Made in Heaven, to reset the universe, it would appear the Steel Ball Run universe isn't created by his actions; he's killed before his universe takes effect, prompting his reset to be undone (with new incarnations of those who died prior to the reset and Pucci himself having never existed).
  • Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040
  • Dirty Pair Flash
  • The 1994 Science Ninja Team Gatchaman OVA and the 2013 Gatchaman Crowds series.
  • Gall Force: The Revolution
  • Both Tenchi Universe and Tenchi in Tokyo for the Tenchi Muyo! OVA, and afterwards there was a return to the original Tenchi Muyo OVA continuity.
  • Every time Negima! Magister Negi Magi gets a new adaptation, it tends to be in a new continuity. Only the original manga and a few later-released OVAs seem to share continuities.
  • Shin Mazinger
  • It would certainly seem that every new season of Digimon was a complete reboot, featuring similar concepts and recurring Digimon, but having a whole different cast of humans with a totally new world to explore. These were clearly cases of alternate universes; the Young Hunters and the WonderSwan games made this fact more obvious, but since they have yet to be released outside of Japan, the confusion about the casts is forgivable.
  • There are three versions of Skull Man, each with completely different storylines and nothing shared in between aside from a few source materials. Even Skull Man himself is not the same either.
  • Ginkai no Speed Star is a short story set in the Wangan Midnight universe, according to the author, but the manga discards all the canon Wangan Midnight story materials and introduced a whole new set of characters for a whole new setting.
  • Pokémon: I Choose You! is an odd case — while the main series is still going, this is a Continuity Reboot for its movies, forgoing the Non-Serial Movie that usually ran side by side with the anime in favor of a brand new universe.

    Comic Books 
  • The DC Universe has had a couple of these justified by Cosmic Retcon; most famous is the Crisis on Infinite Earths which was a full-on history-redefining reboot but kept the characters the same; Infinite Crisis, which was more of a tweaking than a full reboot; and the New 52 reboot that changed things even more than the Crisis.
    • The Silver Age was originally started by DC rebooting most of its lines of comics starting with The Flash in 1956, but later extending to Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, Wonder Woman and the Justice Society of America, whose reboot included a slight name change to the Justice League of America. Most of these reboots also included Retools as well to make the series more sci-fi oriented. The original continuity that was displaced by these reboots was later shown to take place in an alternate universe, Earth-Two, which would later regularly crossover with the reboot universe, which was dubbed Earth-One.
    • Technically, in the New 52 universe, Barry Allen and Booster Gold survive the old universe, but only remember their new lives (Barry does apparently remember his time in the Flashpoint universe, but not his old life in the original). And the Green Lantern and Batman continuity has been reproduced in this universe, but otherwise it's a complete reboot, although some of the major stories of the past (such as a version of Blackest Night) still took place.
    • Ultimately, the New 52 proved to be a failure and it was retconned with DC Rebirth that the New 52 universe was actually the original universe, but was altered by Dr. Manhattan about the time Flashpoint came to its conclusion.
  • Wonder Woman was retooled very heavily several times between 1965 and 1985. They finally gave up and restarted at #1, throwing out all previous continuity. Fans who only knew her from her job as the token woman in Justice League/Superfriends didn't understand why suddenly she was ten years younger and could hover, but really, the new Wondie as published was less revisionist than planned. It had gotten that bad.
    • Promised to be averted in the post-Flashpoint relaunch. Writer Brian Azzarello says he doesn't intend to retcon anything or give Diana a new origin, but that he does not plan on revisiting or referencing past storylines, deliberately making it unclear as to just how much of Wonder Woman's history is still canon. While the series is of high quality, the promise of no new origin turned out to be a case of Lying Creator.
    • Wonder Woman was also rebooted corresponding to the start of the Silver Age in 1956 with Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #98. Unlike a lot of DC's other Silver Age reboots which completely revamped the characters, Wonder Woman's reboot kept the character mostly the same with a few slight changes, but reset her story to have her leaving Paradise Island for the first time. Among other changes, Wonder Woman was given the ability to glide on air currents and Hippolyta was changed into a blonde.
  • This is actually a plot point in the Grant Morrison run on Animal Man. Because of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Buddy, the titular hero, literally has to reboot his life to avoid a paradox. It's like this: Buddy Baker, the Animal Man, was a Silver Age hero, and thus lived on Earth-Two. After the Crisis, all of the Earths were folded into one, so while Buddy still existed, he was a completely different person but still drew from his Silver Age origin (the accident which gave the original Buddy powers sterilized him, while Modern Age Buddy sired two children after he got his powers, not to mention Modern Buddy suddenly became years younger than the original). In order to prevent the paradox, Buddy had to use a Reality Warper machine to rewrite his personal history so it made sense. Got all that?
  • The Punisher. Garth Ennis basically rebooted the story TWICE. Once starting with The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank storyline and AGAIN with The Punisher MAX series. While the former basically paints over the previous continuity and ignores it (mentioning some of it only in "broad strokes" like the "Angel-Punisher" arc), the latter is a complete reboot set in its own, new "grittier" reality with no superhero characters (although some characters from other Marvel comics, like Microchip, are roped in - albeit with a more "realistic" spin).
  • The protagonist of Strontium Dog died in a Heroic Sacrifice in a 1990 story, and was then killed again, quite horribly, at the end of the Darkest Star arc. The series was revived in 1999; this revival established that the prior stories were 'folklore', and the new series was 'what really happened'. This lasted for all of one Story Arc before returning to the original continuity with a series of prequel stories.
  • Rogue Trooper was rebooted in 1989 with a new character, new war, and new planet, but the same basic plot (though with a variant story and different facets emphasized). Later on, the two versions were brought together.
  • The Legion of Super-Heroes did this twice. The first time was set up by Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! and the second more vaguely by Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis then did it a third time, restoring a version of the Legion mostly like the original. It was later revealed that all three Legions were canon. At the same time. The first Legion is canon to the main DCU. The Zero Hour one is from a universe that was destroyed during Crisis on Infinite Earths which "replaced" the first one because of the Time Trapper's interference. The Threeboot universe is a Legion from an existing Alternate Universe, Earth-Prime, which the Time Trapper tried to replace after the Zero Hour Legion got thrown into the Bleed (or Limbo or whatever).
  • Zipi y Zape: The series continued briefly after Escobar's death, now in the hands of cartoonists Juan Carlos Ramis and Joaquín Cera, who put the characters forward to the 21st century.
  • Sonic The Hedgehog received one as a result of Ken Penders winning a lawsuit for ownership of all characters and concepts he created and Archie not wanting to pay him royalties to use them. In essence, the reboot made all of the video games canon while making all past issues of the comic canon only in broad strokes. While it has been decently received by the fans, some are understandably upset at the way every ongoing plot prior to the reboot was scrapped unceremoniously to make way for it. When Archie lost the rights to Sonic and it was transferred to IDW Publishing, the resulting new comic effectively dumped both continuities for its own fresh start.
  • The Multiversity for Earths 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 26, 32, 33, 40, 43, and 50, none of which are their original incarnations - whether that's because of a retool, renumbering from the original Pre-Crisis multiverse, or replacing a different universe with the same number.
    • Earth-4 was created and destroyed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and, coming pre-Watchmen, didn't have any influence from it.
    • Earth-5's Pre-Crisis analog, Earth-S, was destroyed in the Crisis.
    • Earth-6's Pre-Crisis analog was a world where America lost the Revolutionary War and a royal family of superheroes protected the Earth. Its sole survivor was Lady Quark.
    • Earth-8's Pre-Crisis analog was a world home to the heroes who debuted after the first Crisis. After 52, it was designed as a parody of the Ultimate Marvel line of comics and a revision to the Champions of Angor and Extremists. The world still seems to be Marvel-based, but with a team called the Retaliators instead of the Justifiers, for example. The Extremists still exist though.
    • Earth-10's Pre-Crisis analog, Earth-X, was a world where the Nazis won and the Freedom Fighters were La Résistance, but had no Justice League. It was destroyed in the Crisis. When it was restored in 52, it featured a Nazi version of the Justice League, which hadn't been done before. Conflicting portrayals in Countdown to Final Crisis had a standard generic Nazi League and an America covered in concentration camps. In Countdown: Arena, a Nazi version of the Ray was chosen as a contestant by Monarch, and it was mentioned the current Fuhrer was a woman. Morrison disregarded most of this and reestablished his own version of Earth-10 in Final Crisis.
    • Earth-16 was classified as the universe home to the Young Justice (2010) cartoon, although Morrison has stated he's working on a way that incorporates the TV show with his interpretation of this particular Earth. As of yet, the only incorporation is a one panel reference to the TV show being only a video game on the new Earth-16.
    • Earth-17 before the Crisis was a world where all superheroes were created by the government, until Overman (that Earth's version of Superman) contracted an STD, went insane, and destroyed everything. As part of the 52 Earths, Earth-17 was recreated as a world home to the Atomic Knights.
    • Earth-18's status as a western world is taken to the extreme. Originally it was introduced in Countdown: Arena as home to the Justice Riders Elseworlds. While that is still partially true, the reason this Earth is western-based is because the Time Trapper meddled in its growth, freezing society in a frontier state but allowing it to develop future technology, such as an internet system based off the telegraph.
    • Earth-19 was just home to the Gotham By Gaslight series, but is now a world home to other Victorian versions of different heroes, including the Amazonia Wonder Woman, who used to be a native of Earth-34 in Countdown: Arena.
    • Earth-26 was designated Earth-C Pre-Crisis.
    • Earth-32 was established in Countdown: Arena as the universe home to Batman: In Darkest Knight. That seems to still be true, only now this world is home to numerous other amalgamated characters, such as Wonderhawk (Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl), Aquaflash (Aquaman and Flash), Super-Martian (Superman and Martian Manhunter) and Black Arrow (Black Canary and Green Arrow).
    • The post-Infinite Crisis Earth-33 was originally a magic-based world home to the League of Shamans, but since that was seen in Countdown to Final Crisis, naturally it's been ignored just as everything else from that series was. Earth-33 is now the superhero-less "real world", formerly called Earth-Prime.
    • Earth-40, once a pulp Spy Fiction world home to "The Justice Files", has been retooled as an Evil Counterpart to Earth-20, which appears to have taken up its mantle.
    • Earth-43, a universe home to the Batman Vampire trilogy, was originally called Earth-1191 in the first Multiverse before the Crisis.
    • Earth-50 was originally the universe in which the WildStorm Universe was set. With the universe now merged with the DCU in Flashpoint/New 52, it's now the home of the Justice Lords from Justice League. Almost fitting, considering Word of God said the Justice Lords were based on The Authority.
    • Earth-C-Minus, the home of the Justa Lotta Animals, is shown to still exist as of Captain Carrot and the Final Ark, though its official designation in regards to the rest of the multiverse is still unknown. The Justa Lotta Animals show up in The Multiversity #2 fighting Earth-26's Zoo Crew. Whether they're native to Earth-26 or their own Earth is unknown.
  • Unlike the DC Universe, the Marvel Universe avoided universe-wide continuity reboots for more than half a century, utilizing smaller fixes to maintain Comic-Book Time and downplay events they don't want to talk about. Even with Secret Wars (2015) just happening to obliterate the Marvel Multiverse, the All-New, All-Different Marvel that follows it is still not a reboot. Of its characters. It's whole new universe out there, though.
  • The original Archie Comics continuity ended in 2015 at issue 666. In its place is the Archie Comics (2015) continuity, which uses a different art style and is more "modern" than the traditional series.
  • Jem and the Holograms (IDW) is a reimagining of Jem set in the 2010s instead of the late 1980s.
  • While Dark Horse Comics' Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics continued the story where the TV show left off, Boom! Studios' series instead reboots and reimagines Buffy's high school for the late 2010s.
  • Lady Death went through several reboots over the course of her publication as she changed publishers: starting out as a supporting character in the Evil Ernie comic books before becoming a Chaos! comic flagship character until the company went bankrupt. She gained a whole new backstory after her rights were were sold to CrossGen though the company also went under in two years, with the rights being sold to Avatar, who re-imagined the character again. In 2015, her creator Brian Pulido regained her rights and instead of making a third reboot, has decided to pick it up from the original continuity.
  • Decontructed in one Astro City story: a man has recurring dreams about a woman he’s never met before and who apparently never even existed. He’s driven to near insanity by the visions. Then the Hanged Man arrrives and explains what’s happening; the woman is the man’s wife... or rather, she was his wife, before a Crisis on Infinite Earths-style Crisis Crossover that led to the universe being rebooted. One of the changes in the timeline is that this seemingly random woman has been erased from existence. Her husband doesn’t have a Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory and has been having subconscious memories of what the universe was like before. Mercifully, Hanged Man manages to give the poor guy some peace of mind by explaining this, but it’s no less horrifying.

    Fan Works 

    Film 

    Literature 
  • When writing the novel of The Worthing Saga, Orson Scott Card didn't have access to his original short stories, and while he did his best to recreate their plots from memory, upon finding the stories again he decided the novel had become too different to fit with them again. Later editions, however, include the best stories in the back of the book as an Alternate Continuity.
  • James Bond got one in 2011 when Jeffery Deaver was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new CTBond book. The title of that book? Carte Blanche.
  • A series of Tarzan novels by Andy Briggs features a setting update and Tarzan at age 18 serves as a reboot.
  • Isabel Allende wrote an origin story Zorro novel, as well as a short story for a Moonstone Books anthology called Tales of Zorro. Jan Adkins wrote a short novel called The Iron Brand in continuity with this novel by Allende. However, due to the sloppy continuity of Johnston McCulley's original Zorro novels and short stories, whether this counts as a reboot stands as unclear. (In the late 1990's, a series of novels with Zorro came out from Tor.)
  • Martin Caidin wrote an origin novel for Buck Rogers called Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future. (Buck Rogers debuted in the novel Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan. John Eric Holmes wrote a sequel to Armageddon 2419 A.D. called Mordred.)
  • In William Shatner's Quest for Tomorrow books, the main character Jim Endicott begins to develop certain powers and, by the third novel, has the power to literally alter the course of The Multiverse. Which he does, by altering his own fate, resulting in him never getting those powers in the prime universe. The following two books are about a different Jim Endicott (who even changes his last name to hide from enemies). While it seems as if certain events may repeat themselves, the fact that Shatner stopped writing the series makes it unlikely we'll ever find out.
  • Andrew Jonathan Fine wrote a new continuity in 2014 called Alouette for the circa 1928 now-come-into public-domain novel The Skylark of Space from E. E. "Doc" Smith's Skylark Series.
  • Following the purchase of LucasArts by Disney, all Star Wars books (and any other media besides Star Wars: The Clone Wars) written prior to the introduction of the sequel trilogy have been de-canonized and placed under the "Legends" label. After the inevitable fandom outcry, the Disney marketers hastily changed "de-canonized" to "Alternate Continuity", though the overall effect is the same. They have also opened the door to bringing back pieces of that canon should they be included in new Expanded Universe works, which has already started happening.

    Live Action TV 
  • The 2003 released Battlestar Galactica is a "re-imagining" of the original series. Notably, only the pilot Miniseries, "The Hand of God", and the two-part "Pegasus/Resurrection Ship" episodes directly adapt events or characters from the original series. Unlike the Original Series, the Reimagined universe itself has no aliens and few planets—the drama is contained to the humans and their Cylon creations alone.
  • The 2007 remake of Bionic Woman is an example of a reboot which was not well-received. It didn't help that trouble behind the scenes nor that the producers had the rights to the title Bionic Woman, the name Jaime Sommers, the term bionics, and nothing else, meaning they had no choice but to reboot the continuity and try to put a show together without Steve Austin or Oscar Goldman, further hurt any chances at success the series may have had.
  • The popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted in 1997, rebooting continuity from the comparatively poorly received 1992 movie of the same name, but acknowledging Broad Strokes of the film events.
  • Kamen Rider:
  • V (2009) series is a reboot of the two miniseries and regular series from the 1980s.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the cable series that ran for ten seasons) is actually a reboot of a local Minnesota series that aired on KTMA TV-23. When the show's creators began making episodes for The Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) they decided to retroactively treat the KTMA series as a 40-hour long pilot for the cable series. The first national season of episodes for The Comedy Channel is, therefore, treated as the show's first official season. This allowed them to rethink various aspects of the show. Notably, J&TB ended up re-watching nine movies in the third season without mentioning that they'd actually seen them before, unofficially.
  • There was a 2009 miniseries version of The Prisoner that took the basic concept of the Village and a few character names (such as Two and Six), then took the whole thing in a totally different direction (including providing an explanation for the existence of the Village that would be impossible in the continuity of the original series).
  • The Tomorrow People - while both series were created by Roger Damon Price and had the same basic premise, the 90s remake of the 70s children's TV series shared no continuity.
  • Averted by Doctor Who, which was revived in 2005, and which bucked the trend by soon establishing that it was a full Revival of the 1963-89 series, not a reboot or reimagining. To this day, however, some media continue to refer to it as a reimagining, despite (at least in Broad Strokes terms) all of the earlier stories still being in continuity.
    • However Death Comes to Time seems to be intended as a reboot. Despite coming out after the Movie it appears to follow a different continuity, due to the 7th Doctor being Killed Off for Real.
  • The Netflix Daredevil series is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and ignores the events of the live-action movie and its spin-off.
  • Shadowhunters is the second attempt at an adaptation of The Mortal Instruments books, starting again with City of Bones — the first book in the series, ignoring the previous film adaptation — The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and featuring a different cast.
  • The Westworld series revived the moribund brand from scratch after the badly received sequels to the original film from 1973 killed off the brand for well over thirty years. When the new series premiered in 2016, the approach was to build and expand upon the wealth of ideas and concepts introduced in the (rather short) original film, with 10 episode seasons - each season having a major theme and story arc, forming one individual chapter in the overall series. Like other reimagined series before it, the series reboot of Westworld includes plenty of little nods to the original, and plays around with some of its concepts. Even some of the interesting, but badly executed ideas from the original sequels (Futureworld, Beyond Westworld) get reintroduced in the new series and used far more strongly and convincingly.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • WWE rebooted early in 1984, after the company officially went national and Hulk Hogan became its first worldwide media darling. Anything that happened in WWE prior to '84 is rendered in Broad Strokes.
  • A rare in-company example would be WCW, which was rebooted from scratch when Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo became the new creative team in April 2000. It ultimately didn't work, as WCW was gone within the year.
  • Prior to 2007, WSU stood for Wrestling Superstars Uncensored and it's most popular champion was a pimp known as The Human Tornado. Aside from Monsta Mack doing some commentary, pretty much all of that is ignored by Women Superstars Uncensored, as it came to be called, with Alicia and Mercedes Martinez being its icons.
  • "While The Name Ring Warriors Is Not New", all the title belts used in 2011 when they joined the National Wrestling Alliance were, though given it was over a decade since their run in the 1990s and being shown to an entirely different audience, it was understandable. A little less so when Ring Warriors started filming for WGN in 2018, with a whole new roster and none of its former belts, since they had officially only been gone two years(technically they hadn't had a regular schedule in three) but a lot can (and did) happen in two years.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The New World of Darkness was a reboot of the tangled continuity of the Old World of Darkness.
  • Dungeons & Dragons has gone through several editions, each changing the game engine; although in some cases they've excused sudden changes in physical and supernatural "laws" with variations of A Wizard Did It or recovery from an Apocalypse How, there have been instances in which they simply declared a Continuity Reboot with all past events subject to Broad Strokes.
  • Clue had been establishing a continuity/timeline for some time, before it received a reboot that changed the setting from the 1920s to the modern day.
  • The third edition of Exalted is wiping most of the past two editions (although the writers take pains to tell everyone it's taking more cues from the first than the second) and starting from the baseline. Even the map is being revised, and there are multiple new Exalt types.
  • Warhammer: Age of Sigmar is a reboot of Warhammer which is set after the The End Times campaign that resulted, fittingly enough, in the complete destruction of the entire universe at the hands of the Forces of Chaos. Well, not complete destruction, as it turns out....
  • 7th Sea second edition reboots the first edition: while the setting's still a fantasy version of 17th century Earth, countries and continents have been added, the politics and cultures of existing countries have been tweaked a bit, and aliens have been removed from the setting.

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE is rebooted with the 2015 toy line with a more simplified, less continuity-heavy mythology and a ReTooled building style.
  • My Little Pony has had four core reboots. All four gens take place in different continuities from the looks of it. G3 received a soft reboot near the end, which removed many ponies from production and revamped the existing ponies slightly.

    Video Games 
  • Mirror's Edge Catalyst is one for the original Mirror's Edge. The reason for the reboot might be of the Continuity Lock-Out variety since the original didn't sell that well and the creators wanted to sell more than the first game did but at the same time didn't want newcomers to the series to feel hesitant to buy the game due to never playing the first one. Or maybe they just wanted a fresh start, who knows. But alas, it was still plagued by the poor sales of it's "older sister" game. Maybe First Person Parkour is too niche?
  • Ever since Playfirst started to make games in the app industry, they rebooted the Diner Dash franchise twice; the first one, Diner Dash Rush, acted as a filler game. The second reboot, which didn't happen long after the first one, is where the full reboot happens.
  • Spyro the Dragon: The franchise was rebooted as The Legend of Spyro. Skylanders was then partly another Spyro reboot and partly a new franchise launch.
  • Guitar Hero Live drops the bass guitar and drums that were introduced in Guitar Hero: World Tour, as well as using Pre-Rendered Graphics for the on-disc songs.
  • After the bombing of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, the switch to Crystal Dynamics also brought in a complete shake-up of Lara's back story and general canon. However, various hints throughout the last few games and background material makes it obvious that most of the previous games did still happen in the new continuity.
  • Bomberman Act:Zero was intended to be a Darker and Edgier reboot of the Bomberman franchise. It failed so spectacularly, the series returned to normal immediately after and Act Zero became an Old Shame and Canon Discontinuity.
  • Supposedly Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was to be an event within the original Prince of Persia franchise obliquely, giving obscure continuity nods to those familiar with the earlier games. When Prince of Persia: Warrior Within came out, it changed much of the tone and storyline of the game to make the new games into a Continuity Reboot, and since The Sands of Time wasn't linking it to past games, it wasn't too jarring. The 2008 game is another continuity reboot entirely, with a completely different game style. The franchise then inverted this trope by ignoring the 2008 game and releasing a title set in the Sands of Time continuity, entitled The Forgotten Sands.
  • Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare disregarded the story of the original Alone in the Dark trilogy and changed the timeframe from the 1920's to the modern era. The franchise was rebooted again in 2008, although it is implied that Carnby there is the same one as the original trilogy, having been kept in stasis by Lucifer for 70 years.
  • Thanks to an Updated Re-release, Super Robot Wars Original Generations resets continuity with the inclusion of new characters and scenarios not seen in the original Game Boy Advance incarnations, and thanks to Banpresto rectifying a massive flanderization of a certain villainous character, OGs allowed Original Generation Gaiden to occur, wherein said character pulls a massive, well-deserved Heel–Face Turn to help the heroes during their times of woe.
  • Xenosaga is a reimagining of Xenogears, partly because its creator wanted to widen the scope of the story, and partly because he was working for Namco, and didn't have access to Squaresoft's copyrights.
  • Backyard Baseball 2007 is essentially a reboot of the series, even though the writers do not say so. Several characters have been removed and replaced with more annoying characters, and the ones left in have a new backstory (with a few exceptions).
  • Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a reboot of the Castlevania franchise, set outside of Koji Igarashi's official timeline.
  • One oft-cited possible reason for Armored Core's Capcom Sequel Stagnation is this: Every time they start with a new number, it is always a new continuity almost unconnected with previous games à la Final Fantasy. Example: the Earth-centric original Armored Core, which shifts to Mars-based Armored Core 2, which reboots back to Earth-based Armored Core 3 (the longest continuity with 5 games under this setting), and then the Present Day Present Time Armored Core 4.
  • Turok did one by Disney (seriously, though under their Touchstone brand) in 2008, adapting a more generic Space Marine theme. It wasn't a bad game, with great graphics and some fun gameplay elements, but sadly it only managed to attain So Okay, It's Average status as a whole. Due to the ho-hum response both critically and commercially, the planned sequel was scrapped.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV rebooted the canon established by the Grand Theft Auto III-series games. Though cities' names are the same, they look completely different and no characters from the previous games appear. It also has a Darker and Edgier storyline while still retaining the humor of the series.
  • In the sixth game of the Touhou Project series, the series shifted from the PC-98 to Windows 95. While some things from the PC-98 era were kept, the continuity began anew for the Windows era.
  • Mortal Kombat 9, the first Mortal Kombat game published by Warner Bros., mixes this trope with Alternate Continuity: picking up right where Mortal Kombat: Armageddon left off, Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Kahn and thus invokes the Timey-Wimey Ball by sending a telepathic message to his younger self, warning him of events to come. The game thus visits altered versions of the first three games as twisted by a Raiden with knowledge he wasn't supposed to have back then, attempting to prevent Armageddon from even happening.
  • When Ubisoft acquired the rights to the Might and Magic series following 3DO's bankruptcy, they decided to make an entirely new setting (Ashan) from scratch. Might & Magic X implies that Ashan might actually be in the original Verse, but it is still a different world with no story-connections to any of the old worlds.
  • Steel Battalion is set around 2080 (to begin with) and revolves around a conflict between the Pacific Rim Forces and the Hai Shi Dao, mostly involving advanced Vertical Tanks with extreme computerization. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor is set in 2082, features some United States soldiers landing on Manhattan in a very Omaha Beach-esque sequence to confront an unknown enemy, and the Vertical Tanks are all now squat-looking things without computers to ease their operation, for microprocessor production has ceased and thrown the world into a Diesel Punk setting. This trope is the only remotely plausible explanation for such drastic changes, besides In Name Only.
  • Epic Mickey made it fairly clear that any Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons that weren't made by Walt Disney no longer exist. Or at least we're going to pretend they don't.
  • Twisted Metal: Head On disregarded the two 989 Studios developed games and continued directly from TM2. Now the series is being completely rebooted on the PS3.
  • DmC: Devil May Cry is one to the Devil May Cry franchise. The new Dante has little to do with his white-haired counterpart; he uses a Whip Sword and has apparently angelic powers. The universe is quite different, too, and was later stated to be an alternate universe. Like Prince of Persia above, the series would later invert the trope by going back to the original continuity's setting with Devil May Cry 5.
  • Pokémon:
    • The franchise rebooted a lot of things in Gen III. It told that there actually were Dark- and Steel-types before Gen II and even more Pokémon than Gen II featured; essentially, it changed the nature of introducing new Pokémon from that of "new discoveries" to "Pokémon that have always existed but are only just being featured for the first time".
    • Another reboot in the transition to Gen III is the way Pokémon are coded. It underwent a complete overhaul that made Gen III incompatible with the previous games, essentially resetting many a fan's collection of Pokémon.
    • Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire implies it and Pokémon X and Y are reboots set in an Alternate Universe from the pre-3DS games. Pokémon Sun and Moon confirms this with the appearance of Anabel from Pokémon Emerald, who came to the new universe from the pre-Gen VI one. However, unlike most reboots, it's implied the old games still happened in mostly the same way, the only difference being that Mega Evolutions exist thanks to AZ firing his weapon in the distant past.
  • The Golden Ending of the original Hyperdimension Neptunia left no room for a continuation without a complete cast change, and there were a number of things in the game that really put off players anyway, such as the gameplay. Thus Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 was made as a revamp of the series with improved game mechanics and a whole new story.
  • It's said that Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) was meant to have been a reboot (or at least lead TO a reboot) of the Sonic games for the modern age. However, with how bad the game was thanks to being Christmas Rushed, the only thing the game did was Retcon itself out of continuity. Even this is also thrown out the window with Sonic Generations, which treats Sonic 2006 as canon as well as every other 3D Sonic game.
  • Champions Online took the 25+ years of continuity for the Champions universe and effectively pitched it in the bin. Oh sure, some of the names have been retained, and some of the background elements are the sort-of the same, if you tilt your head and squint. But none of the long term Champions players were fooled by the game's advertising, which was that the Champions Online universe was just the old Champions universe with a new coat of paint.
  • The 2014 Thief reboot, based off of the original Thief, one of the pioneers of the Stealth-Based Game. Interestingly, the new game seems to have a Continuity Nod to the ending of the original trilogy, with Garrett mentoring a young female thief.
  • The Ganbare Goemon series underwent a reboot in 2001. This "New Age" Goemon had a new futuristic setting and made major changes to the characters, including turning Ebisumaru into a Shy Blue-Haired Girl and replacing Yae by a Short Tank named Yui. The reboot lasted for two games but apparently didn't catch on; the Nintendo DS game seems to give it a Take That!.
  • Star Fox Zero is a reboot of the Star Fox series, being partially a remake of Star Fox 64. Star Fox 64 itself was a reboot of Star Fox.
  • Prey (2017) takes the basic premise of Prey (2006) of being hunted by alien monsters on a space ship, while having no direct relation to the previous story.
  • Taming Dreams is a reboot of MARDEK.
  • The Frogwares Sherlock Holmes adventure games have always existed in an ambiguous state as far as a series canon goes: the different games often included nods to one another, but they shared no significant continuity or chronology, included a frequently shifting voice cast for Holmes and Watson, and were often very different in tone and style from one another. However, the release in 2016 of the eighth game, Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, confirmed that at least the previous two games had taken place in the same universe, and that a conscious effort had been made to distinguish this Holmes as "new", with a new voice actor and much younger-looking character models for him and Watson. Whether this means the first five games in the series were also canonically connected is less clear, but the announcement of the deliberate reboot is the first official word on the subject at all from the developers.
  • The Sims 4 is the first main entry in the series not to have the stories of its pre-made characters take place in the same universe as the original game (to which The Sims 2 was a sequel and The Sims 3 was a prequel). Instead, a selection of the most popular characters from across the franchise have been drawn together in what's officially being called an Alternate Universe, regardless of their position in the timeline of the original canon. This was probably done to combat the increasing Continuity Snarl that the series had been experiencing, especially since the intended focus of the games is on the player's own creations rather than the canonical characters.
  • The Boktai series pulled this with its American release of Lunar Knights. Boktai 3 was never released in the United States, and those who got their hands on the translated patch had to suffer through a nonsensical story, an abrupt difficulty hike, the obnoxiously long motorcycle scenes, and Trinity. Lunar Knights gives only vague Continuity Nods at best to the previous games but otherwise stands as its own lone story.
  • The 2013 Killer Instinct game is not a continuation of the story from Killer Instinct 2. However the new story uses pieces of the original continuity to build its backstory (so for instance Jago and Orchid are still siblings in this timeline, which was a detail from Killer Instinct 2).
  • Subverted heavily in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony where it takes a new setting different from the previous games. It turns out they are just alternate universes within the game itself, tricking the audience into wondering if the clues presented are related to the previous games until the plot twist happens, clarifying that they're actually not.
  • Despite the name, Soulcalibur VI is a reboot of the Soul series. After the Soft Reboot that Soulcalibur V attempted by jumping ahead with a seventeen-year Time Skip and replacing many longtime favorites with younger and rather poorly-defined newcomers, the new designers decided to revisit the roots by going back to the setting of the original Soulcalibur and explore the story that was only referenced but never shown in the past. Additionally, the gameplay and overall design are also a composite of past games, while adding new mechanics of its own.
  • League of Legends underwent one starting around 2013-14. The initial Framing Device of the game and lore was an Excuse Plot involving the titular Combat by Champion-operating league, but Riot Games eventually saw this as a creative hinderance due to them being unable to escalate significant conflict or go really out-there in terms of champion design, as well as this dynamic gradually being ignored with later champions anyway. They hit the reset button in 2014, completely Retconning the League out of existence, slowly rewriting all existing champion lore to operate without it in a much more in-depth free-for-all Runeterra, with gameplay now being non-canon "champion vs. champion" fun.

    Web Animation 
  • Neurotically Yours went through a reboot in late 2011 in order for the creator Jonanthan Ian Mathers to merge his six other projects together so he has less to work on.
  • TOME is a continuity reboot of the original TV Tome Adventures, which was cancelled after its creator went to college.

    Webcomics 
  • The main comic of Ultima Java underwent a reboot after a change in the creative team, resulting in the creation of Ultima-Java: History. The original web comic was then rehosted as another universe, and retitled Universe 2. Since then, the Multiverse has been removed but the comic title remains as Universe 2 as a reference to DC comics Earth 2, where the Golden Age originally took place.
  • Melonpool - temporarily. After a lengthy hiatus the reboot was retconned out in favor of a more modest reset of the timeline.
  • Sore Thumbs: Though now it seems to have SHIFTED BACK to the original timeline. And yes, this means Sawyer no longer has a penis, and that Fairbanks is no longer fat. ...Amongst other things.
  • Another web comic example would be Furthia High, which has been rebooted at least once, while keeping most of the main characters (with some names changed), but with new plotlines and format (a page instead of a strip).
  • Dumbing of Age does this for the Walkyverse, not because of Snarl or Lockout but simply because Willis feels the "what if?" is worth exploring.
  • Fuzzy Things changed from being about adventurer kids in training to somewhat ordinary kids in a sci-fi/fantasy world. Most of the characters retained their previous personalities though, with the exception of Ixiah who changed completely (from a blue-furred psionic semi-Well-Intentioned Extremist the same age as the other kids to Fox's older brother who has his own Middle-school aged group).
  • Voodoo Walrus went through a reboot after only six updates that that completely removed half the cast.
  • Dresden Codak played with the concept, specifically DC's post-Flashpoint reboot, by giving a new set of revised characters here, then mocked when he had a DC-style reboot of his own characters.
  • Commander Kitty was an early webcomic that eventually went offline mid arc. In 2009, it was rebooted completely, with a more focused story arc and a brand new villain.
  • From 11/24/2012, Ctrl+Alt+Del went through this, along with the use of a Reset Button. Buckley said it was needed to help return the series back to its "video game jokes" roots.
  • Pirate Madeline, made by RandomMode on DeviantArt, has seen at least two reboots, though some speculate that there has been more. At one point, the comic didn't even get finished with the introduction chapter before it was rebooted once again. It is something that the fans has made fun of at times, but as of the newest incarnation, the author has promised that there will be no more reboots. Or at least untill he actually finishes this current continutity.
  • Autumn Bay has been rebooted from its original, arguably very confusing form.
  • Alice and the Nightmare has gotten a reboot after first few months, as, by the Word of God, the original plotline was "all over the place, and not in a good way".
  • Curse Quest: Curse Quest rebooted in 2015. The original story established that all the main characters already knew each other, but the reboot seems to move the timeline back as the group is currently missing two of the original main cast. The character of Mogarth has considerably changed personality.

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 

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