History Main / FeaturelessProtagonist

* ''VideoGame/MyChildLebensborn'': The PlayerCharacter, whose age gap with their adoptive child in unclear, is always referred to as the child's "parent". Just about anything else about their personality is determined by the player's parenting choices.

* ''VideoGame/MyChildLebensborn'': The PlayerCharacter, whose age gap with their adoptive child in unclear, is always referred to as the child's "parent".

* The "You" character from ''Podcast/TwilightHistories'' is written as vaugly as possible so that the listeners can envision themselves in the role.

* In ''VideoGame/NotForBroadcast'', the player takes the role of a broadcaster named Alex Winston, who controls the framing and the editing of the [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal National Nightly News]] broadcast. Alex's gender is never specified, since they are unisex and go by the "you" pronoun in interactive fiction style.

* Since you control a FirstPersonGhost and are responsible for all your own dialogue, ''VideoGame/{{Facade}}'' can involve nothing but this. Trip and Grace will automatically assign you a gender based on the name you pick from the list, but then, you can spend the get-together asserting that you're honestly and truly a woman named [[UnfortunateName Gonzalo]] and it could be perfectly in-character for that session.

[[folder:Third Person Shooter]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'', you are only ever called "Agent". The only certain thing is your gender, as there are no female Agent models.
[[/folder]]

* WordOfGod says this is the reason why the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' [[ASpaceMarineIsYou Marine]] never talks. He was meant to be the player character, and thus was never given an official name and never speaks. Played less straight than other examples -- you do know what he looks like, since his face is plastered over the status bar, and he is given some prior characterization as having ended up on Mars when he attacked a superior officer for ordering him to shoot civilians -- but nevertheless, he was meant to be the player. The 2016 ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' gets away from this a little by managing to give him a visible personality through body language alone, despite the fact that he never speaks nor shows his face even once, even if that personality can be summed up as "angry as fuck".

* WordOfGod says this is the reason why the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' [[ASpaceMarineIsYou Marine]] never talks. He was meant to be the player character, and thus was never given an official name and never speaks. Played less straight than other examples as you do know what he looks like, but nevertheless, he was meant to be the player. The 2016 ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' gets away from this a little by managing to give him a visible personality through body language alone, despite the fact that he never speaks nor shows his face even once, even if that personality can be summed up as "angry as fuck".

*** If you examine the photographs pinned up [[spoiler: right outside Ryan's office]], you can see Jack's face captured in a couple of them.

** SPARTAN-B312 AKA Noble Six, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', is perhaps the ultimate example of this trope in the series, since the player gets to determine everything about the character from the gender to the appearance of the armor. S/he only speaks a handful lines, and we never get to see even a micrometer of him/her that is not covered in armor.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' games have this in effect for most of the multiple player characters, who never speak and are never seen in third person. One notable exception is 'Soap' [=MacTavish=], who is the primary player character in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', but your squad's commander in the sequel, in which he has a full speaking part.
** ''Modern Warfare 3'' is weird with this. Frost, Burns and Harkov are completely featureless (you do see a brief glimpse of Frost's head at the start, but his face is completely covered), but Yuri's face is one of the first things you see in the cutscene before his first mission, and you can get another good look at him while remote-controlling a UGV as him in that mission. [[spoiler:And, for the final level, you get to control Captain Price instead, with Yuri as an NPC.]]
** In ''Ghosts'' you play as Logan Walker, who is not seen in-game, and when he is depicted in game-related artwork his face is concealed behind a mask. The same is mostly true with the other characters you play as (some of whom aren't even named), with the possible exception of the flashback level where you play as Elias (though even then, we still don't get to see the younger version who would have been present here).
* The original ''VideoGame/RedSteel'' has this with Scott Monroe. We know from his hands that he's white, but that's it-he [[HeroicMime never talks]], the game [[UnbrokenFirstPersonPerspective never leaves his perspective]], and there are no mirrors you can look in to see what he looks like.

* ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon FEAR]]''[='s=] lead protagonist, Point Man, is, aside from being specified to be male, basically a Featureless Protagonist. [[spoiler: This is actually practically canon, considering that he is later revealed to have no memory and be one of a number of clone soldiers birthed by [[BigBad Alma]].]] The third game finally revealed his appearance. Beckett from ''Project Origin'' is in mostly the same boat, only having a confirmed name and vaguely-defined appearance over the Point Man, though he does reappear in the back half of the third game, with a speaking role.

* ''VideoGame/SirYouAreBeingHunted'' also gives no character model to its protagonist. You can pick your gender, but the only effect this has in-game is whether the person being hunted (i.e. You) is called "Sir" or "Madam".

*** From ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' onward, Chief drifts away from being this, since unlike Creator/{{Bungie}}, Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries were specifically aiming to explore his personality. He speaks during gameplay as well as cutscenes, and ''4''[='s=] Legendary ending [[spoiler:even gives us a brief glimpse of the area around his eyes when he takes off his helmet]].

* The player character in the ''Videogame/DarkParables'' games is only ever identified as "Detective," and never seen. At most you see gloved hands and jacket-covered arms. The series has confirmed that she's a woman, though.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

** The protagonist of ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' and their remakes appears in the ''Franchise/SuperSmashBros'' series as a fighter known simply as "[[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Pokémon Trainer]]". While said protagonist appears in sequels and spinoffs as an NPC known as "Red" (male) or "Leaf" (female) and is usually given a more defined personality, their ''Smash'' depiction is based exclusively on their depiction in the Kanto games, where no traits are given besides their name, gender, hometown and age of 10-11 years old. Furthermore, unlike in other generations, the opposite-gendered Trainer does not appear as an NPC rival.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''

* The main character of the Tales of the World Radiant Mythology series, The Descender, can be completely customized and has no default name or looks. The manga adaptations avert this.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hacknet}}'' implies, like VideoGame/{{Uplink}}, that the player is the player character.

* In the ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' fanfic ''FanFic/HeroesOfTheDesk'', the "Player" character is this. The only known facts about them are: they play ''Heroes of the Storm'', they own a powerful gaming computer, and they probably [[WeAllLiveInAmerica live in America somewhere]]. The Player has lines (unlike the First-Person Shooter above), but both characters and narration go out of their way to avoid ascribing any definite characteristics to the Player. They don't even have a GenderBlenderName!

* ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' lets you pick whatever photo you want to use as your avatar, with a couple of pre-drawn women to choose from, and you can even use a photo of yourself, but the default icon for her is a woman with fair skin and long brown hair, whose eyes you can only see in the icon--they're brownish-gold, but in every one of the [=CGs=] with her present, [[BlindingBangs her eyes are hidden by her bangs.]]

* ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' lets you choose which photo you want to use as your avatar and you can even use a photo of yourself if you want, but your character is still always depicted as a generic-looking brown-haired woman with no eyes in [=CGs=] and no dialogue outside of the choices you make for her.

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'': You never get to see the appearance of the night guard, because the game is in first person. The only thing that's been revealed about them is their name [[spoiler: Mike Schmidt]] and their eye colour [[spoiler:on the game over screen; they're blue.]] In [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the second game]], you can only find out what their name is: [[spoiler:Jeremy Fitzgerald. There's also a third guard who goes by Fritz Smith, but we don't know a thing about him either.]] The player character in the third game has NoNameGiven, and even has AmbiguousGender since their terrified hyperventilation could be that of a man or a low-voiced woman. The appearance and personalities of these protagonists are left to the player's imagination. It's actually a bit of a shock that the player character in the fourth game has a (rough, 8-bit approximation of) an appearance.

* ''VideoGame/{{DownWell}}'' The protagonist has a featureless white body. The official game description does tell us that they are young.

* The player character's gender in the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' series is never made specific; Atrus only ever refers to you as "my friend." Thanks to the ''Myst'' games being a series however, the need for a persistent player character is met quite cleverly, by only providing "hints" here and there about the character as they become Atrus' family's friend. This more encourages players either to perceive themselves as part of the story or use their own imaginations, rather than leaving one to wonder who they're playing. The avoidance of even hinting at gender might almost be called impressive -- though a couple of points in the series do present players with the ability to create a customizable character.
** WordOfGod places the first four ''Myst'' games some two-hundred years in the past, which breaks the concept of "the player as him/herself" somewhat. Both ''Uru'' and ''VideoGame/MystV'' are set in the present (with certain key characters still alive because the D'ni live very long) and therefore feature a different protagonist. In ''Uru'' it's explicitly meant to be the player (one of the meanings of "Uru" is "You Are You"), but recent WordOfGod has declared that the protagonist of ''Myst V'' is Dr. Watson of the D'ni Restoration Council (an NPC in ''Uru'', and the [[DirectLineToTheAuthor in-universe counterpart]] of developer Richard A Watson).
** It only gets more convoluted from there: The Stranger (the player character) is never fully described, and so, ''in-universe'', the ''Myst'' games are simply Robin and Rand Miller's [[ShowWithinAShow interpretations of Atrus' journals.]] [[MindScrew Confused yet?]]

* So solidly a part of the Creator/{{Infocom}} house style that it's easier to list cases where the protagonist has a name, face, gender or past: games based on licenced properties, ''VideoGame/{{Infidel}}'' (where you are deliberately loathesome tomb robber), ''VideoGame/{{Moonmist}}'' (which offers you a fig leaf of choosing a title and gender, but makes epic amounts of no sense if you choose to be anything but a ''Literature/NancyDrew''-esque girl detective) and ''VideoGame/AMindForeverVoyaging'' (where you are a computer programmed to believe you're a man called Perry Sim.)

* ''VideoGame/EscapeLala'': Both games are done in first person, and almost no details of the protagonist are shown or revealed. One book in the library in the second game hints that the protagonist might be a member of the royal family, but the book is written in a {{Gamebook}} style, so it may have nothing to do with the protagonist at all. The second game subtly reveals one broad detail about the protagonist, though: Unlike [[spoiler:all the other humans in Lala, the protagonist is not dead. This is proven by the guard in the underworld refusing to let the protagonist go through the door for the dead only.]]

* ''VideoGame/EscapeLala'': Both games are done in first person, and almost no details of the protagonist are shown or revealed. One book in the library in the second game hints that the protagonist might be a member of the royal family, but the book is written in a ChooseYourOwnAdventure style, so it may have nothing to do with the protagonist at all. The second game subtly reveals one broad detail about the protagonist, though: Unlike [[spoiler:all the other humans in Lala, the protagonist is not dead. This is proven by the guard in the underworld refusing to let the protagonist go through the door for the dead only.]]

[[folder:Podcast]]
* The “You” character from ''Podcast/TwilightHistories'' is written as vaugly as possible so that the listeners can envision themselves in the role.

* In the solo ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons D&D]]'' adventure "Blade of Vengeance", the pre-generated character is an elf whose gender is deliberately never specified, even on the enclosed family tree that names (and gives genders for) all the relatives he/she is attempting to avenge. The interior artwork depicts the PC as androgynous.

* All of the games in the ''VideoGame/SuperSolvers'' series let you input your own name, plus the hero wears a unisex outfit and their gender is never disclosed. In ''Mission: T.H.I.N.K'', ''Treasure Galaxy!'' and the Windows updates of the preceding games, Morty avoids using pronouns when referring to the Super Solver.

*** When Jack was given a character model for ''Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea'' they also refrained from showing his face, instead emphasizing his sweater.

* In ''VideoGame/FindTheCure!'' the player character is a member of a search party who discovered a portal to another dimension, and that's as far as their description goes.