Vestigial Empire / Video Games

• The Principality of Belka from the Ace Combat series controlled a sizable chunk of the planet until its economy collapsed and it started hemorrhaging territories until it was a quarter its original size. The plot of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War centres around its attempt to reclaim the states it permitted to secede, particularly the protagonist nation of Ustio. Speculations are abound that AC's Belka was the inspiration for the Nanoha's one, too.
• The Azracs of Age of Wonders have by the sequel's expansion been reduced to a nomadic people controlling naught but a barren desert. Worse yet, by the beginning of the campaign that introduces them they're being shaken by a civil war.
  • By the beginning of the sequel, humanity could be counted as this as well as they have been weakened by dragons they once hunted and brought under the control of the wizard Yaka (Who had previously ruled the Azracs) and his Tigran followers. All this changes by the expansion, when they're once again a dominant power.
• AI War: Fleet Command: The Fallen Spire, formerly the Spire. Unusually for the trope, they were in the apex of their power until very, very recently. Unfortunately, however, a FTL system-shattering warp speed ambush on the heartland by something like the AI, with everything it has at its disposal, can bring you from "prime" to "dying and shattered" in a matter of weeks. At least you can give them the chance to pull themselves together with the Transceiver, not that it'll be easy.
• Certainly possible in a game of Civilization, and in the fifth game Persia is particularly prone to this. Persia's unique ability in Civ V is based around the "Golden Age" mechanic, in which a sufficiently happy population leads to a brief period of increased empire-wide income and production. In Persia's case it also gets a boost to military units' strength and speed, allowing it to quickly conquer new territory, but unless the player has timed things carefully, they run the risk of being left with a military incapable of defending the empire's new borders once the Golden Age ends. The "From Achaemenid to Safavid" achievement requires the player to earn five such Golden Ages in one game and refers to the Real Life Persians' somewhat mixed history with this trope.
• Conqueror's Blade features the kingdom of Empyros, a once powerful kingdom that has since been conquered and absorbed into the more recent and successful Anadolou Empire. Other seasons' lore implies that the fall of Empyros happened within living history, since the current Norse king Harald the Slaughterer was once an Empyrean guardsman and there are still Empyrean officers fighting in the Gladiator Games in Anadolou.
• The Crimson Skies universe has the United States of America break up in the 30's. One of it's successor states, Columbia, contains the remnants of the old United States' Federal Government.
• Crusader Kings II, thanks to covering 400 years of medieval history (going up to almost 700 years with Expansion Packs), feature several examples of this during its historical start dates. Charlemagne's empire is a fraction of bickering Karling states in the 867 start, the once-mighty Umayyads and Abbasids are rump states from 1066 onwards, and Byzantium gradually loses territory as time goes by and has definitively entered terminal decline by the time of the Hundred Years' War. Many of these empires still have an imperial title and de jure claims on massive amounts of land they used to own, but lack the manpower and political position to reclaim them... unless the right player takes command, of course.
• Crying Suns: The Empire used to rule the galaxy. Then the OMNIs which managed every aspect of the Empire's technology and infrastructure spontaneously shut down, all at once. With interstellar travel and communication rendered impossible, the Empire fell apart practically overnight, and while it still controls its heartlands, most of its former territory is now ruled by bandits and warlords.
• Dragon Age:
  • The Tevinter Imperium. The player may not visit it in the games yet, but it's a big part of the world's lore and history, and its ruins litter the game. Their decline was brought about by a Trauma Conga Line of disasters, starting with a bid for godhood by the High Magisters Gone Horribly Wrong, as their attempt to breach the Golden City within the Fade (read:City of Heaven in the spirit world) and usurp The Maker (read:God) resulted in them being infected with an eldritch pathogen instead. This pathogen created the Darkspawn, a horde of indoctrinated mutants that spent every waking moment digging up the Maker's original servants so they could infest them and wreak havoc on the entire planet. The first Age of Blight lasted two centuries and completely fucked Tevinter up. In their weakened state, a massive crusader-barbarian horde lead by Saint Andraste (basically, Jesus' mother-in-law in Joan of Arc cosplay) invaded Tevinter and endorsed a massive rebellion that permanently ended legal slavery, ruining Tevinter's main source of income and permanently wresting control of most of their outer territories. Some centuries later, the Qunari showed up, settling in the northern islands, and started kicking everyone's collective asses across Thedas, including the Imperium's, until the combined forces of Thedas halted the Qunari invasions. The Imperium, rather than making an uneasy peace with the Qunari like the rest of Thedas, has been fighting a bloody and expensive war to halt the Qunari's expansionist ambitions into their territory ever since. In Dragon Age II, though, Fenris claims that Tevinter's power is slowly returning. Since Tevinter is an Evil Empire that relies on the worst of Blood Magic, this is a very bad thing.
  • The Orlesian Empire is also heading this way, with its capital having already devolved into a Decadent Court and its land being a fraction of the high point in the original Empire held by Emperor Kordillius Drakon. With the outbreak of two overlapping civil wars on its territory (as of Asunder), it remains to be seen whether Orlais will fare better than Tevinter did in Andraste's times.
  • The Dwarven kingdoms used to extend under the whole of Thedas, but were whittled down by the Darkspawn until only Orzammar is left as a power in the world. Even Orzammar is failing, however, as a combination of unceasing Darkspawn attacks, the nobles' refusal to abandon their crippling traditions and brutal caste system while the surface world grew the fuck up, and the fact that many of the best and brightest dwarves are now leaving Orzammar to make (generally successful) lives on the surface means that Orzammar will either have to adapt or collapse completely in the near future. If you put Evil Prince Bhelen on the throne, he uses his dictatorial powers to empower the commonborn, but only time will tell if his authoritarian style of rule will eventually turn him into another Napoleon. If you selected Harrowmont the Good King, he doubles down on tradition and racial castes, and Orzammar is definitely screwed.
  • Inquisition gives us The Reveal that while common knowledge holds that the Tevinter Imperium destroyed the ancient Elven empires, the elves had already seriously weakened themselves before that, meaning Tevinter simply dealt the death blow to an example of this trope instead of winning a glorious and bloody victory over the greatest power in the world. In particular, the creation of the Fade was the nuke that destroyed all elven magitek, but the alternative was a nuclear war that would have destroyed all life.
• Dragon Quest:
  • The Empire in Parthenia in Dragon Quest IV is one of the more dramatic examples of this trope. Once a great nation, it is now only a single tiny village that contains a tent instead of a castle. The Emperor and his subjects are now happily making a living by growing medicinal herbs.
  • Dragon Quest VII has the Raguraz Empire, whose ambitions of conquest you hear about quite some time before you ever reach its lands. Thanks to the semi=Time Travel your heroes keep doing, by the time you actually arrive in Raguraz, all that remains is a broken shell of a castle and its king, as they were wiped out by their formerly conquered neighbors.
  • The Gittish Empire in Dragon Quest IX embodies this trope in a particularly creepy way. Centuries before the game starts, it seems like they at least dominated over one of the world's continents, before getting obliterated in a cataclysmic war. In the time of the game, an insane angel has brought back the Gittish Empire's king and army as undead monsters who have little if any awareness that they ever died. Now they just rule over a desolate and partially poisonous wasteland and a fortress full of slaves. You'd almost feel sorry for them if they weren't all such vicious bastards.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • In each main series game, the plot is either kicked off by or revolves around the actions of the leaders of the Third Tamriellic Empire (most notably Emperor Uriel Septim VII) to protect the continent of Tamriel from various threats (both internal and external, supernatural and mundane) while holding the declining empire together in this state.
    • Arena sees Uriel VII's Imperial Battlemage, Jagar Tharn, imprison the Emperor in Oblivion while usurping his throne. Naturally, the plot of the game involves defeating Tharn (who is later revealed to be working for Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedric Prince of Destruction) and restoring Uriel VII to his throne.
    • In Daggerfall, the Iliac Bay region is de facto independent of the Empire and divided into squabbling minor kingdoms, and the hero is a "friend" of the Emperor sent to recover a Forgotten Superweapon Humongous Mecha that was used to forge the empire, though you can choose to instead side with one of many factions, all with their own intentions. Later games reveal that a Time Crash-style Divine Intervention made all the game's endings happen at once, though none to the same extent as they would have individually, bringing peace and some stability to the region.
    • In Morrowind, the Emperor sends the Player Character, a prisoner from the Imperial City, to the eponymous province, so that he may join the emperor's Blades and fulfill a prophecy of the local Dunmer (Dark Elves). Doing so gives the emperor a very (religiously and politically) powerful tool (you, the Nerevarine), as well as removing forces more hostile to the Empire (Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal).
    • In Oblivion, Uriel's scheming finally reaches its end when Cyrodiil, the very heart of the Empire, is attacked by the Daedric forces of Mehrunes Dagon and Uriel himself is assassinated. Fortunately, he has a Hidden Backup Prince, but he quickly gives his life to stop Dagon. The leader of the Elder Council, High Chancellor Ocato, is appointed Potentate, but has his hands full keeping the Empire together.
    • In the aftermath of what comes to be known as "the Oblivion Crisis," Ocato manages to keep the Empire together for a time. However, he is assassinated by the Thalmor, a religious extremist sect of the Altmer (High Elves) who quickly reform the Aldmeri Dominion of old, the ancient rival to the Empires of Cyrodiil. Ocato's assassination plunges the capital province of Cyrodiil into nearly a decade of civil war, which ends when the Colovian warlord Titus Mede seizes power and is crowned Emperor. Argonia/Black Marsh (home of the Argonians) secedes from the Empire under the leadership of the xenophobic An-Xileel party, followed shortly by the Khajiit of Elsweyr. Morrowind is then devastated when the Ministry of Truth, a rogue moon frozen in place in the distant past by one of their Physical Gods, resumes its descent with its original momentum. This causes Red Mountain, a volcano in the heart of Morrowind, to erupt, destroying most of Vvardenfell and rendering much of Morrowind uninhabitable under a cloud of choking ash. Seeing the weakening of Morrowind, several of the Argonian tribes in Black Marsh, spurred on by agent provocateurs in cahoots with the Thalmor, decide to join each other in raising a great army and invade Morrowind, pillaging the province as revenge for the Dunmers' centuries-long tradition of leading massive slaving raids into the Black Marsh. After everything is said and done, the Dunmer, against all odds, manage to band together and eventually stop, then mostly repel the Argonian invasion (though the southern part of Morrowind remains under Argonian control), and restore order to Morrowind. But in the aftermath, many of the Dunmer feel betrayed and abandoned by the Empire, which was too busy with its own internal strife to lend them any real aid, and the already present resentment against the Empire boils over, and unable to take their anger out on the Empire itself, they instead target House Hlaalu, the Empire's biggest supporters amongst the Dunmer's great noble houses, which ends up getting stripped of their power and most of their holdings, and Morrowind effectively becomes an Imperial province in-name-only. The Aldmeri Dominion forcefully annexes Valenwood (home of the Bosmer (Wood Elves) and then claims credit for restoring Tamriel's moons (sacred to the Khajiit) to the sky after they mysteriously disappear, bringing them Elsweyr as a client state. After seventy years, the Aldmeri Dominion invades the remains of the Empire in the Great War that ends in a bloody stalemate, in which the Empire is forced to cede the province of Hammerfell to the Thalmor and allow Thalmor agents to persecute worshipers of Talos, the deified Emperor Tiber Septim. The Redguards manage to drive the Thalmor out of Hammerfell, but remain independent afterward. And during all this chaos, the Breton-majority portion of Skyrim called the Reach briefly rebels from the rest of the province, but is quashed.
    • All this to say, by Skyrim, the Third Empire of Tamriel is on the verge of collapse and down to two semi-functional provinces^note Cyrodiil, which according to Cicero's journal is still experiencing mass civil unrest, and High Rock, which always contributed the bare minimum and did little during the Great War, with a third, Skyrim itself, wracked by a civil war (quietly encouraged by the Thalmor, who hopes to further weaken the Empire by exploiting its internal divisions) between loyalists and secessionists led by Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, who objects to the terms of the treaty that ended the Great War. The player can help him wrest control of all Skyrim, side with the Imperial Legion and execute him, or broker a ceasefire so everyone can deal with the dragons who have suddenly returned and are running amok. Additionally, the player can join the Dark Brotherhood and kill the current emperor, Titus Mede II, or wipe out the organization, as well as rescue the Forsworn king from prison so he can continue his guerilla campaign to liberate the Reach, or kill him. On the other hand, the Dragonborn can win the civil war for the Imperials (which leaves open the possibility that they will fight for the Empire again when the second war with the Thalmor kicks off), destroy the Dark Brotherhood, thus saving Titus Mede II, and help to reform the Blades, which puts the Empire of Cyrodiil in the best shape it's been in for centuries.
  • Ironically, the various Cyrodiilic Empires were built on the remains of the ancient Ayleid Empire after it was overthrown in a slave rebellion. The province of Cyrodiil is loaded with ancient Ayleid ruins, and the Imperial Palace is the repurposed Ayleid White-Gold Tower.
  • At least as late as Daggerfall (there is no canonical evidence afterwards), the Altmer clan Direnni ruled over the Isle of Balfiera (a much smaller island than Solstheim, let alone Vvardenfell) in the Iliac Bay. At their height (during the First Era), they ruled over about a third of Tamriel's landmass as the Direnni Hegemony, but losses and overextension led to a gradual withdrawal and collapse. Given that this was over two millennia ago, the Dirennis don't really have any hang-ups about their former empire.
• In Emperor Of The Fading Suns, the empire of Vladimir Alecto, as a state, is dead. However, the Imperial bureaucracy that he established, and the precedent that he set, still exist, and the five Great Houses that actually govern parts of the galaxy are trying to claim the throne^note the tabletop RPG Emperor is an adaptation of takes place after a scion of one of the Houses actually manages to become Emperor and as a result is more an example of Resurgent Empire. Byzantium Secundus, the former capital, is maintained as a Truce Zone and mostly governed by the remnants of said bureaucracy.
• In Escape Velocity Nova, the Federation is merely a pale shadow of a portion of what the Colonial Council once controlled. There is, however, one reason why the Federation is not as clear an example of a Vestigial Empire as the above would imply: the Federation is not the direct descendant of the Council, there was a period of utter and complete collapse of interstellar civilization in between... plus the Federation's direct predecessor was the Earth Empire, which at its height was precisely as large as the present day Federation.
  • Back in Override, there are hints the Voinian Empire is in the early stages of this. The Empire is still a very powerful force, but despite a technological advantage and massive fleets, they were defeated by the United Earth in the Battle of Sol, and subsequently driven back to the pre-invasion frontier, with (unbeknownst to the UE until you make contact) a Voinian slave race, the Emalgha, managing to take advantage to overthrow the Voinian occupation and reclaim independence. When the game starts the Voinians find themselves unable to break the UE frontier or gather enough forces to reliably re-conquer the Emalgha without leaving the UE frontier dangerously undermanned — and tellingly the Voinians seem unable to alter their doctrines and design philosophies to better fight the UE^note the way the game is balanced, UE ships tend to win against Voinian ships because the human missile-heavy fast-moving inclinations are tailor-made to counter the Voinians' lumbering, heavily armoured warships. Things only get worse in the storylines (all are canon, but not all can be done on the same character) — the Voinian storyline leads to the destruction of a minor human colony, an Emalgha support colony and the assassination of a UE admiral. The UE storyline leads to the Emalgha and UE pushing deep enough into Voinian territory to link up, with the Voinians losing further worlds to a rebel alliance of slaves called the Hinwar and the UE/Emalgha/Hinwar forming an alliance aimed against the Voinians.
• In Europa Universalis, many empires are standing on their last legs by the 1444 start date. If you decide to play as them, it's up to you to reverse their historical fate and lead them to glory again.
  • The most well-known example is Byzantium, aka the Eastern Roman Empire. Reduced to just four provinces and a vassal, the integrality of their lands is looked at hungrily by the Ottoman Empire. Compared to them, you are outnumbered 1 to 5, and only a Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits will accept being your ally.
  • In the west, the Sultanate of Granada is in a completely symmetrical position, being a weak muslim nation menaced by christian empires. Being the last remanent of the Umayyad Caliphate, you will have to battle the mighty Castile, as well as Aragon and Portugal (and quite possibly all three at once).
  • The once-mighty Timurid Empire has way too many vassals to be stable. The only thing preventing it from imploding is Shah Rukh, its charismatic emperor... who's terminally ill. It is indispensable to placate your subjects as soon as possible to prevent your collapse after Shah Rukh dies.
  • Majapahit outright starts the game with a disaster called "The Fall of Majapahit" which immediately sends your country's stability into the gutter. Worse, your country is breaking apart as internal rebellions balkanize you. It will take a lot of efforts to reclaim your title as a trading empire.
• EVE Online:
  • The Amarr Empire has seen better days. After the catastrophic collapse of the wormhole back to Earth, they were the first civilization to re-emerge from the Dark Age, re-discover space flight and conquer most of their neighbors. But after their catastrophic campaign against the mysterious Jove Empire, the Minmatar successfully seceded from the Empire, corruption became widespread, the Ammatar Mandate was revealed to be throughly infiltrated by the La Résistance and the Minmatar returned with a vengeance. However, Empress Sarum has managed to stop the decline, so they're not down for the count yet.
  • Meanwhile, the Jove Empire has been utterly crippled by a Despair Event Horizon-causing genetic disease, preventing them from taking any overt role in galaxy-wide politics.
  • Player alliances, such as Band Of Brothers, that were at one point in control of vast tracts of the map, but due to internal issues, wars, etc, were eventually crushed to nothing.
• Fallout has several, as befitting a post-apocalyptic franchise:
  • A recurring villain throughout the series is the fascist Enclave, who consider themselves the sole and true heirs to the United States of America, despite only hanging on to Navarro and the Oil Rig in Fallout 2 (which they lost), Raven Rock in Fallout 3 (which they lost), Mid-West holdings like Chicago (which they've not lost, yet). Once feared for their Power Armor, air force, and other pre-War technology, by Fallout: New Vegas only a handful of aging Enclave survivors live in the Mojave region, most of whom who are on the run and hiding from the New California Republic after the events of Fallout 2.
  • Another recurring faction has been hit with this as well. In the original Fallout, the technology-hoarding Brotherhood of Steel used their Powered Armor and advanced weaponry to dominate the wasteland. But a hundred and twenty years later, by the time of Fallout: New Vegas, the world has rebuilt itself enough that even raiders have access to laser weapons, and the Brotherhood simply doesn't have the numbers to fight the NCR over things like old solar power plants. As a result, most of their chapters out west have either been wiped out or are holed up in hidden fortresses, stagnating and slowly dying out. The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel, on the other hand, is thriving thanks to its more open recruitment system (and lack of any major competition), and has not only become the feudal overlords of the Capital Wasteland, but is beginning to expand into the Commonwealth of old Massachusetts. In Fallout 4 the player can join them and help them secure control of the Commonwealth, or deal the Brotherhood a crushing blow from which they may not be able to recover.
  • Caesar's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas is an aggressive, militaristic Rising Empire with the manpower and the stones to take on the New California Republic. However, they are also running on momentum of conquest and expansion and vulnerable to quickly becoming this trope instead if they fail to seize control of the Mojave and its resources. You can set them up for this by assassinating Caesar and rallying other factions like the Boomers, the Brotherhood of Steel, and even the Enclave Remnants to aid the NCR, Mr. House's FEZ, or yourself in a key battle at Hoover Dam. You can defeat Caesar's most dangerous general, Lanius, at the end of the battle, but even if you instead talk him into retreating, it's hinted that Lanius won't be able to hold the Legion together for much longer.
  • By Fallout (2024) the NCR is reduced to this, it's capital destroyed and it's presence in it's former heartlands of California a distant memory beyond a rag tag group of holdouts. While Word of God states it lives on elsewhere, the original iteration seen in the early games and New Vegas has long since passed on.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The Dollet Dukedom in Final Fantasy VIII, analogous to the Real Life Post-WWI Imperialist states. Attacked towards the beginning of the game by its former territory, Galbadia, itself similar to the Real Life Third Reich.
  • San d'Oria from Final Fantasy XI was the game's original Vestigial Empire, wracked with internal strife but still fairly powerful. It now shares its former power among two other nations. Overshadowed by the Aht Urhgan empire, which fits this trope to a T. Political intrigue, encroaching hordes, you name it.
  • The Garlean Empire of Final Fantasy XIV starts out the story as a world superpower poised to take over the world with its nigh unstoppable Magitek-powered armies. The oposition of Eorzea and the Warrior of Light demonstrates that they aren't invicible, but otherwise they remain a powerful adversary. However, it all comes crashing down when Emperor Varis is killed by his son Zenos, who refuses to take the throne himself, throwing the Empire into a bloody civil war, made worse by the Ascian Fandaniel bankrolling both sides of the conflict to escalate it further. And then it goes From Bad to Worse when the Garleans' prayers for salvation allow Fandaniel to summon the Primal Anima from Varis's corpse, and uses it to temper the majority of Garlemald to support his plans to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. By the time that the Warrior of Light and their allies make it to Garlemald, what handful of people who escaped being tempered are freezing out in the cold, on the run from the local wildlife, rampaging warmachina, and the tempered, what remains of the capital have been either bombed out or salvaged to create an Evil Tower of Ominousness, and the heroes are there on a relief mission rather than to actually fight the Garleans.
  • The Lilty Empire from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles once almost conquered the world, but eventually ran out of materials and shrank down to its Capital City. It seems to lack the political complexities, though their princess did run off after being cooped up in the castle...
• Fire Emblem:
  • The Kingdom of Archanea in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon once controlled most of the continent, but when Medeus showed up a century ago and brought it to its knees, it suffered greatly from its original heights. Most of the nations involved in the game, including Grust, Altea, Aurelis, Macedon, and Gra, are former Archanean territories that ended up splitting off from Archanea in the war's aftermath, and the country itself, though still generally powerful on the world stage, failed to hold its ground when Medeus returned. It's a rare example of a Vestigial Empire that is not only mostly good-aligned, but still treated as a relative powerhouse, as it remains the largest nation and holds many symbols of office that command respect. It becomes a full-on Resurgent Empire in Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, with most of its old territories being reincorporated through conquest or capitulation by the end.
  • The Adrestian Empire from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is something of a downplayed example as it is still a militarily and economically powerful nation, but in the millennium or so of its existence it has gone from dominating all of Fódlan to being confined to the south after losing territory to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance. In the present day, the current Emperor Ionius IX is fatally ill and a powerless figurehead on his deathbed while a cadre of nobles led by the Prime Minister Duke Aegir have all the real power. The "vestigial" part goes right out the window should the player take the Crimson Flower route as Byleth helps the new Emperor Edelgard, the daughter of Ionius, reclaim all the Empire's lost territory in her quest to overthrow the Church of Seiros.
• In Gems of War, the Maraji Empire once spread across Krystara's southern coast and included the kingdoms called the Wild Plains, Leonis (now the Leonis Empire), and the Drifting Sands. A disastrous war against the Fey on Bright Forest resulted in the pissed-off Summer Queen sinking their entire fleet into the Underworld, and with so many of their troops lost, it became impossible for them to maintain control of their various holdings... and definitely made it impossible for them to hold off a subsequent invasion by demons. In modern Krystara, all that remains of the old empire is its capitol Al-Maraj, which has become the demon-infested Sin of Maraj.
• The empire of King Rhobar II in the Gothic series is going down the toilet in the first game, near collapse in the second game, and pretty much ceases to exist as a political entity in the third and the add-on, though most of the people and geography are intact.
• The human race in Guild Wars 2 has gone from ruling the entirety of the known world to barely holding onto one city and a small swathe of territory around it over the course of 250 years.
• Halo: After the onset of the Great Schism in Halo 2, the Covenant breaks apart into hundreds of warring factions. As an ex-Covenant mercenary notes in Halo: Escalation:
  Zef 'Trahl: What does it mean to be 'Covenant' today? A hundred warlords claim they rule the Covenant, but each of them leads only a small faction.
  • In particular, the term 'Covenant remnant' is used to describe the various militant groups carrying the banner of the old Covenant who continue to war against both the UNSC and its newfound ex-Covenant allies. Jul 'Mdama's organization, which is encountered in Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians, is the most prominent of these remnants.
  • We actually get a firsthand look at how the Covenant turned into this trope. We're shown that its government was an inbred Decadent Court, with command of the military split between various rival Ministries who spent as much time sabotaging each other as they did actually fighting their common enemies, and that the Covenant's dogmatic and hierarchical caste-based society resulted in a fairly stagnant culture and mutual distrust/distaste/hatred between their constituent species; decades before the Covenant's war with humanity began, the massive Unggoy Rebellion had sent them into their 23rd aptly named 'Age of Doubt'. All this led to boiling tensions between the two most militarily-important constituent species (the Elites and Brutes) and rising doubts about the validity of the Covenant's religion and leadership. This all came to a head when a UNSC Spartan assassinated the Prophet of Regret, a high-ranking member of the Covenant leadership whose death caused a massive uproar among the rest of the Court. In response to the perceived "failure" of the Elites to protect Regret,^*While conveniently downplaying the fact that the circumstances which led to Regret's assasination was more or less his own fault, as a result of several Disaster Dominoes of tactical blunders starting with quite literally stumbling across Humanity's homeworld Earth in an unprepared fleet too small to successfully suppress the planet, and culminating in the downright idiotic decision to corner himself on a newly-discovered Halo installation, wasting time trying to activate the installation instead of fleeing the aforementioned Spartan bearing down on him (and furthermore trying to fight said Spartan which had just smeared a good majority of his vanguard across the temple he had holed up in). the Prophet of Truth attempted to genocide the inconveniently honorable Elites and replace them with the more vicious and obedient Brutes, triggering the very Great Schism that shattered the Covenant once and for all. Additionally, the Covenant's religiously-induced Creative Sterility (they believed that any attempt to research or improve upon the technology of the Forerunners, whom they worshiped as gods, was an act of heresy worthy of the death sentence) allowed the UNSC to steadily narrow the technological gap during the war, putting the latter to be in a surprisingly good position to become a Rising Empire after the last vestiges of Covenant collapses, implied to be helped by the fact that Humanity were intended to be the ones to "inherit" the power and technology of the Forerunners anyways,^*And additional media all but confirms that the Covenant high command knew this, and their attempts to wipe out humanity rather than offer them membership into the Covenant was to cover up this little fact. which essentially gave them a technological jumpstart.
• Homeworld:
  • The Taiidan Empire imploded spectacularly thanks to the events of the final mission of the first game, and by the beginning of the Cataclysm expansion the new Taiidani Republic (officially recognised as the successor state) holds barely a quarter of its former territory. The rest have either broken off as independent polities or been absorbed into "bandit kingdoms" ruled by Former Regime Personnel turned warlord, strong enough to launch an occasional raid against Hiigara, but by no means major players on the galactic arena anymore. Many of these factions claim to be "Imperial Loyalists" and the true successors to the Imperium, but with no clear line of succession and several competing voices insisting that they should be the one in charge their ambitious schemes to topple the Republic and bring back the good old days tend to bog down before getting far. One of the larger and better-organised Imperialist factions gets desperate enough to try to harness the Beast to give them an edge; first they try to repurpose a sample of it as a bioweapon, but eventually they realise it's sapient and try to forge an alliance. This backfires rather spectacularly.
  • In Homeworld 2, the Taiidani remnant makes up a part of the Vaygr armada, poised to finally destroy Hiigara.
  • The Hiigarans themselves can, possibly, be considered one, given that the old Hiigaran Empire was highly expansionist and was responsible for pissing off the Taiidani in the first place.
  • Zig-zagged with the Bentusi. While they're a nomadic race, calling themselves the Unbound, they were once powerful enough to wipe out the Hiigaran fleet. This very act caused them to few disgust towards violence, so they willingly demilitarized, becoming just traders. Still, their tradeships are fairly well protected and can only be destroyed by a major attack. The events of Cataclysm have them flee the galaxy en masse in fear of the Beast. Some remain due to the intervention of the Somtaaw, but by the time of Homeworld 2, only a single ship remains in the entire galaxy thanks to the Vaygr, and it ends up being destroyed.
• In the first Imperium Galactica game, the Player Character is tasked with restoring the once-great Galactic Empire. In the game, you have to fight off several powerful alien races as well as many splinter human factions. Older Is Better is also invoked once you reach the rank of Admiral. You are given the last of the Leviathan-class flagships (you can't build more of them) built during the heyday of the Empire, which outclasses any other flagship.
  • If the sequel is believed to take place in the same continuity, then the Empire is long gone by that point, having been replaced by the Solarian Federation. One of the subplots is a mad Emperor who had himself put into cryosleep to wait for the time when he is needed again. The Shinari Republic is trying to find and revive him to plunge the galaxy into a War for Fun and Profit. Oh, and many of the minor races in the game are actually Lost Colonies of genetically-modified humans, which also fits the trope to an extent.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, the player eventually comes across Rakata Prime, which is all that remains of the once galaxy-spanning, trillions-enslaving Infinite Empire.
• In The Last of Us, the only city we see undisputably under the control of the rump United States government is Boston. Pittsburgh used to be controlled until a few years back, when the surviving locals rose up and took control of the city.
• League of Legends has several:
  • Shurima used to be the major empire presiding over Runeterra, with a span as large as the entire southern continent, and its glory days, it had access to the Sun Disc and the ability to ascend various champions into superpowered God-Warriors. It ended up collapsing in large part due to the destruction of its capitol after an Ascension Gone Horribly Wrong, wiping out its central leadership, blasting the landscape into barren desert, and sending the surviving populous and Ascended into chaotic infighting. Modern Shurima primarily consists of desert nomads trekking around the formerly-lush mainland, while a vast majority of cities by the northern coasts have been assimilated into the newer expansionist empire from the north, Noxus. In recent times, however, Azir — the last great emperor of Shruima — was resurrected and gained his Ascended status, using his godlike powers to restore the capitol and bring Shurima back to greatness, so there may be hope for it yet.
  • Ixtal is another grand empire with mastery over elemental magics, with various diasporas resulting in other major factions including Shurima, as well as the Buhru and the Helia. However, not only did Shurima quickly end up establishing itself as the superior global power (Ixtal would soon answer to them for access to the Sun Disc), Ixtal would also eventually end up going into hiding after tiring of dealing with the various apocalypses of their neighbors, from the destruction of Shurima to the Ruination that created the Shadow Isles. Ixtal would spend the intervening centuries hiding in its deadly jungles from the world, with its borders slowly encroached on by the ever-industrializing world around them, leaving it to effectively a single city-state known as Ixaocan. In recent times, the empress-in-wait Qiyana has revealed Ixaocan's existence to the world and has set forth plans to reassert an agenda for global takeover.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • According to the Hyrule Historia, in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link the Kingdom of Hyrule has become this. Princess Zelda's ancestor who she was named after was to share the Triforce with her brother, but he jealously tried to keep it to himself and with the help of the Court Mage (who was implied to be connected to Ganon) tried to force her to reveal the location of the Triforce of Courage but ended up putting a Forced Sleep curse on her. Without the full power of the Triforce, Hyrule's size and influence waned until it was ripe for the return of Ganon. Then Link shows up and not only kills Ganon but prevents his (fourth) resurrection and restores the full Triforce, bringing the kingdom Back from the Brink and awakening Zelda's ancestor to boot.
  • There are hints that Ikana from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask may be like this, especially considering that their current King is an undead skeleton.
  • The Gerudo region in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has hints that the Gerudo people were once more widespread in the area and had accomplished many architectural marvels. In the present they are limited to a small handful of camps outside of Gerudo Town, and their massive statues and buildings elsewhere are all but forgotten. Even so, the Gerudo are arguably in better shape than the rest of Hyrule post-Calamity, as Gerudo Town still has working aqueducts, city walls, and a professionally-trained royal guard, while Hyrule proper's central government was wiped out on day one (except for Zelda, who is currently busy keeping Ganon in check) and is currently reduced to a batch of villages and outposts.
    • Also done subtly with the Zora Domain. The traditional path to Zora's Domain is full of markers to guide visitors to the city but the main road became lost to monsters and Vah Ruta's punishing rain. The nearby Toto Lake is full of ruins and some Zora armor buried there. One of their previous diving spots is now inhabited by a dangerous Lynel stocked with shock arrows that are lethal to the Zora.
• The Holy Celestine Empire in Lusternia used to encompass the entire Basin of Life, until the outbreak of The Taint — which they were partially responsible for — changed the entire political landscape and created a rival in Magnagora. Celest is now only a single city, striving to wipe out Magnagora and the Taint.
• Mass Effect
  • According to the Encyclopedia Exposita, the Batarian Hegemony fits this trope perfectly. Balak even laments it in the Bring Down the Sky DLC, when he embarks on a passionate, long-winded rant to Commander Shepard. Balak blames Humanity and the Systems Alliance for the abysmal state of his people and uses his arguments as justification for slamming the asteroid X57 into a planet colonized by humans under Alliance control. This is a rather a-typical example in that the Hegemony was never all the impressive, but managed to lever its status as a Citadel member state into political power. As soon as they lost that status, the bubble collapsed.
    • It's even worse off in the third game. The Reapers began their invasion of the galaxy in Hegemony space, and the batarians got smashed so hard they didn't even know what hit them. They'd been secretly studying a derelict Reaper that had been captured decades earlier, all to gain a technological edge to fight the human Systems Alliance. In the process, all of their best scientists and most of the leadership were indoctrinated and opened the door wide open to the Reapers. If he was spared in the above DLC, by the time Shepard meets up with Balak again, he is actually the highest ranking batarian military official left. It should be mentioned that Balak is a captain.
  • The Reapers in Mass Effect 3 threatened to turn a lot of the galaxy's civilizations into one. Ironically, the Protheans' chosen successors, the asari, most closely fit the bill after the fall of their homeworld Thessia.
  • Also, if you get the worst ending to the Grand Finale, destroying the Reapers also requires nuking most of the galaxy. Every nation is reduced to a few lucky survivors and the worlds are now disconnected with the loss of the Mass Relays, yet littered with Lost Technology ready to cause a major power imbalance. The galaxy will become a feudal warzone before it ever comes close to the unified Federation it once was, if it could ever be unified again.
• The Empire of Naev was decaying even before the Incident that destroyed Earth and most of the core worlds of the Empire, and even if it ironically solved an immediate and major threat to the Empire the Empire is still on an overall downward course.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe:
  • By the game's start date of 1962, Nazi Germany has a failing economy that shows no signs of improvement, as it relies on a constantly rebellious slave caste. Militarily it is falling behind Imperial Japan and the United States, and with the utter disaster that was the Atlantropa project, the Italian Empire has abandoned it as an ally. And with the death of Adolf Hitler just around the corner, Civil War looms on the horizon.
  • The French State has been reduced dramatically, as Himmler's Burgundy has occupied the north of France (and shortly after the game start they occupy more). Algeria and Madagascar remain the only colony they still control, and only in name: Madagascar is functionally a RK and Algeria is functionally an Iberian/Italian joint occupation: Only Algiers follows Paris' will.
  • Free France has lost practically all of their territory to the French State, and a tiny strip of land on the Ivory Coast that gets used as target practice for German bombers, preventing any infrastructure from coming up. Only once the bombing stops (due to the German Civil War) can they begin to consider expanding outwards, and coming back home and overthrowing the Vichy regime is a monumental task, to put it lightly - developers have stated that Free France is the most Nintendo Hard nation to play in the game, not including the ones that are designed to be Unwinnable by Design.
• Pillars of Eternity has one or two known, depending on how you see it. The clearer example is the Aedyr Empire, which is still a powerful force but has contracted in the last two centuries, losing control of its transoceanic colonies in Dyrwood (where the first game takes place) and Readceras, and withdrawing from contesting commercial interests in the Deadfire (where the second game takes place). The other, more questionable example is Old Vailia, which not only has lost control of the old colonies of the Grand Empire of Vailia, but has also itself splintered into states that has engaged in a struggle for dominance for the last two centuries or so (several of which claim succession from the old Empire).
• Ravenmark: Mercenaries starts with the once-great Empire of Estellion barely holding its own against its former ally the Commonwealth of Esotre and the newly-arisen Varishah Federation. The territory making up the Federation are made up of provinces rebelling from the Empire. The Twin Cities, the cultural and economic core of Estellion, have seceded and resist any attempts to take them.
• Rimworld's "Royalty" expansion introduced a new faction known as the Fallen Empire. They're the remnants of a technologically advanced interstellar empire that fled from an undisclosed disaster which left their civilization on the verge of total collapse. They're organized in a feudal hierarchy nominally headed by a far-off Emperor, but due to the lack of Faster-Than-Light Travel much of true day-to-day power is held by the Stellarchs. Fortunately for the players, despite them having powerful enough weapons and technology to wipe your settlements off the face of the planet, they're a Hegemonic Empire that will freely let you join them and share their resources if you do them enough favors. Build up enough clout with them, and you can win the game by earning passage offworld to join their upper classes after impressing a Stellarch.
• The Vasari in Sins of a Solar Empire once ruled a massive empire, but it was destroyed by... something. The Vasari in the game are the refugees from a single colony.
• The Romulan Star Empire under Empress Sela and the Tal Shiar's Colonel Hakeev starts out as this in Star Trek Online, having mostly coalesced together after Hobus destroyed Romulus but with the leading factions on the brink of falling out, their methods leading to increasing dissent and outright rebellion, and more than a few colonies still independently neutral or even leaning towards joining the Federation. Then a coalition of dissident factions sets up a rival government, the Romulan Republic, which rapidly gains support from various Romulan colonies as well as both the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The ensuing events are not kind to the Empire, and by the last time they're heard of, the best they manage to gather as an escort for their empress is a refitted freighter and a single mid-size warship (the Tal Shiar, having officially gone rogue, have more warships, but what's left of them are also in conflict with pretty much everyone and got fair bits of its leadership killed twice over the course of the game).
• Stellaris:
  • Fallen Empires are the remnants of Precursors who drew back to small isolationist enclaves. They're still powerful though, in one early multiplayer game every other faction in the galaxy ganged up on a Fallen Empire and the Fallen still managed to win. Their chief weakness is that their industry is basically nil; their warships are way stronger than anything you can build, but you can replace your losses and they can't. In later updates, Fallen Empires can actually "reawaken" and start throwing their weight around and in the Leviathans DLC, actually fight each other (an event known as "War In Heaven").
  • "Modern" Empires can break apart if not managed properly. Mismanaging factions could lead to several break away states forming from your territory, and wars that uses the Liberation War Goal would essentially push the victor's government ethics onto the worlds named under this goal, essentially creating a new nation from parts (or successor state, if you could do this to enough of the empire) that was friendly to the victor and much more willing to become its vassal than the parent empire.
  • If a Great Khan rises up to unite the Marauders into an empire, as soon as the Khan dies (either in battle or just from old age), the Khanate may shatter into seven or eight breakaway territories, if none of the surviving warlords have what it takes to hold the empire together.
• In its heyday, the Holy Ryuvian Empire of Sunrider ruled the galaxy for thousands of years and wielded technologies so advanced that they were practically magic, to the point that its emperors were worshipped as gods by the masses. By the present day, much of this technology has been lost and its territory has shrunk to a single backwater planet in the Neutral Rim.
• In Tears to Tiara and its sequel Tears to Tiara 2, The Empire, modelled after Ancient Rome, has been in decline ever since it changed its name to The Holy Empire.
• Both the ARM and the CORE in Total Annihilation start their campaigns from their home worlds, having lost their galaxy-spanning empires over the last four thousand years of non-stop war. All that's left are the armies squabbling over the ruins of a galaxy. (According to the intro and manual, that is. The core at least is implied to still have digital copies of many of it's civilians.) Notably, the expansion packs make it clear that after the war finally ended, the ARM managed to build itself up into a wonderful period of reconstruction. The most important elements for their war efforts, the Commanders and Gates, are Lost Technology that they can't build anymore.
• From the Total War series:
  • In Total War: Shogun 2, the Ashikaga Shogun is the theoretical ruler of all Japan. In practice, the Ashikaga are a rump state holed up in Kyoto; the rest of Japan is warring states.
  • This is almost an enforced in Medieval II: Total War. The Byzantine Empire is a playable faction that starts off with a very well-developed capital and a powerful army list, but said capital is surrounded by the rising powers of Hungary, Venice, Novgorod, and the Turks, and its army cannot keep pace with the other factions' advances in the endgame. It's possible to avert The Fall of Constantinople, but doing so is usually a Race Against the Clock.
    • Historically-minded game mods like Stainless Steel take this even further. In a Late Start (1220 AD) campaign, the Byzantines' holdings are scattered across western Greece and Anatolia, while their capital and Greek heartland are held by Crusader forces. Then there's the 1450 AD scenario seen in I Am Skantarios, in which the Byzantines have nothing but Constantinople, a fortress at Corinth, and a horde of Turks knocking at the door.
  • There are quite a few examples in Empire: Total War. The Mughals, who are the last spiritual remnant of the Mongol dynasty and have dominated the entire Indian subcontinent for centuries, are in a really bad way by the game's start in 1700. Their armies are hilariously outdated and very small, and their leadership is less-than-awe inspiring to say the least. They exist pretty much to get subjected to a series of Curb Stomp Battles by the Marathas and/or the British. Portugal, which was The Dreaded back in Medieval II for its mighty armies bristling with cannons and matchlocks, is now a minor power with some small colonies but really not much clout, and Venice has been reduced to... well, Venice. The worst case, though, is the Knights of St. John, who now control the island of Malta and pretty much just take out the occasional Barbary warship.
  • In Total War: Attila, the Western and Eastern halves of the Roman Empire play with the trope. Territorially and militarily, these are still the two mightiest powers in the world, and the Roman Empire still stretches from Britain to Egypt. However, Western Rome is a completely ungovernable mess on the verge of collapse, without enough military power to protect its own borders from the invading barbarian hordes, with Britain and Gaul on the edge of rebellion, and for the cherry on top, they're slowly losing the basic technology required to build their aqueducts and baths. Eastern Rome is not that much better-off; their land is smaller and richer, and their system is slightly less corrupt, but they're still staring down barbarian raiders and the fury of the Huns without enough legions to maintain their borders, and on their eastern border is the Sassanid Empire.
  • Third Age: Total War: Gondor. All of its former land east of Anduin starts off as rebel territory or controlled by Mordor, including East Osgiliath. Eriador is even worse off; that motley patchwork quilt of Breeland settlers, woodsmen, hobbits and wandering rangers is the last remnant of the Dunedain kingdom of Arnor (you can reverse Arnor's fortunes however, in a big way at that).
  • In Total War: Warhammer The Empire starts out only in control of the capital city of Altdorf. The rest of Reikland is controlled by secessionists, who are supported by Boris Todbringer of Middenland. Even when that situation is dealt with, you are still only in control of one of the eight provinces you nominally rule and even if the other Elector Counts aren't openly in defiance of you, it takes a fair amount of political and military maneuvering to take control of the lands you nominally ruled from square one. And that's saying nothing about how the wilderness is infested with Beastmen and the entire province of Sylvania (which was part of the Empire and still is nominally part of Stirland) is under the control of the Vampires, and both races want nothing but to tear down the world of men.
    • Similarly, the Dwarfs are politically shattered (not as badly as the Empire; Dwarfs don't do rebellion, but they aren't too keen about following your orders either), and several dwarfholds are overrun by Greenskins.
    • Bretonnia likewise starts out with a single province. It's probably the easiest one to restore to glory, though; all the other Bretonnian provinces are fairly willing to confederate with you (and unlike other factions, you don't suffer civil unrest after confederating), they just insist that you research their heraldry first.
    • The Vampire Counts campaign has you rise from the grave and return to your seat in Sylvania only to find that the rest of country has been taken over by insolent pretenders who of course need to be reminded of who the true master of this cursed land is. And of course, from the Vampire Counts' perspective the whole Empire is rightfully theirs and needs to be reconquered.
  • Total War: Three Kingdoms opens just as the Han Dynasty has crossed the point of no return. Though nominally under the protection of the Emperor, said kid is a puppet of Dong Zhuo. Any number of generals and warlords help themselves to its scattered, underdeveloped, and poorly-guarded provinces, leaving the last bastion of national unity picked clean by the mid-game.
• The Dual Solar Empire from Urban Galaxy once had a monopoly over their most valuable resource, Carble, until the emperor's death. Then all of the corporations grabbed their rights over the resource, and a recession crippled the empire.
• The Warcraft universe is full of these.
  • In antiquity, the troll empires controlled most of the world until the night elves drove them back. The Sundering and conflicts with humans, high elves, and their own people eventually reduced them to borderline barbarism. Attempts by Zul'jin and the Zandalari have been made to convert them into The Remnant.
  • Speaking of the Zandalari, while they style themselves as an Empire their domain has shrunk significantly since antiquity. The Sundering restricted them to the small continent of Zandalar, two thirds of which are only nominally under their control. The Empire has maintained its position as a world power thanks to treasures accumulated over millennia, one of the most powerful fleets on Azeroth, and the protection of several loa. The Alliance steals much of the treasure and destroys half the fleet while many of the loa are now dead, leaving Zandalar greatly weakened.
  • The Aqir created an underground empire that nearly crushed the troll empires until they united. The mantids, qiraji, and nerubians are their scattered colonies, each of which forged its own empire.
  • The night elves dominated much of old Kalimdor until the War of the Ancients, and the subsequent Sundering.
  • Many of the human Seven Kingdoms. The Empire of Arathor played this trope straight, while the Kingdoms of Alterac and Lordaeron went a step or two further than this trope. The Kingdom of Azeroth (later renamed Stormwind) played it straight in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, only to invert it in the period between Tides of Darkness and Reign of Chaos, when it was rebuilt.
  • The nerubians who are not part of the Scourge are a recent and extreme version. Aside from a splinter faction in the Great Seas, Kilix the Unraveler and his small cadre of followers are the only known living Nerubians in the game. He speaks of rebuilding the old Nerubian empire while clearing Scourge from his people's fallen strongholds, but whether he has sufficient numbers to actually achieve that is unclear.
  • The Arakkoa are descendants of the Apexis civilization, which once controlled much of Draenor before the Ogres came to power. A civil war in the distant past ended with a Fantastic Nuke wiping out the majority of their population. The descendants of the survivors now live isolated on top of mountain peaks, relying heavily on creations of their ancestors.
  • The Ogre Gorain Empire ruled the majority of Draenor at one point, dominating the other races through their massive physical strength and brute force magic more than political savvy. Their holdings shrank over time, especially after the arrival of the Draenei, before the Horde shattered the empire for refusing to join.
    • Warlords of Draenor show the Gorian Empire in its twilight years from an alternate timeline. Once rulers of the world, they're now forced to ally with the Iron Horde to avoid destruction.
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus: Between Blazkowicz gutting their science division and Set Roth tampering with the concrete formula many of their structures are built of, there are clear signs that the world Nazi regime is (quite literally) starting to crumble. At one point B.J can overhear a conversation between two Nazi soldiers salvaging a destroyed battle robot, where one points out the inconsistency of their leaders going through the trouble of salvaging a destroyed robot when they should simply be able to build more with their boasted infinite resources and industrial might, leading to the soldier to darkly conclude that all is not well within the Reich. By the time Wolfenstein: Youngblood rolls around, the Third Reich has lost all of its territory outside of continental Europe.