History Main / FeaturelessProtagonist

* The ''VideoGame/YuGiOhTagForce'' series has the player character as a Hat-wearing Slifer Red Student (in the first three), and a rather lean-built red-clad guy (In the fourth installment). HilarityEnsues to find that in the fourth installment the developers have [[LampshadeHanging left inside jokes about him]] as you play the games:

* The Interactive Fiction game ''Everybody Loves a Parade'' appears to use this. [[spoiler: However, it's a trick. Towards the end of the game, you learn that your character is decidedly female, and using this to your advantage is necessary to actually complete the game.]]

* In ''[[VideoGame/SeventhDragon 7th Dragon]]'' each class has four portraits, two for each gender. One portrait in each class would be a Rushe, a race of elvish or cat-people depending on the gender. There are no default names for each portrait except for special names that would give one extra skill point to the class. In ''2020'', there are only two portraits for each class and the Rushe are gone.

* The ''Franchise/YuGiOh Tag Force'' series has the player character as a Hat-wearing Slifer Red Student (in the first three), and a rather lean-built red-clad guy (In the fourth installment). HilarityEnsues to find that in the fourth installment the developers have [[LampshadeHanging left inside jokes about him]] as you play the games:

* ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'': The "monkey girl" assumed that Maria was not only purely an insert character, but also a perfect lady despite her humble upbringing. It wasn't until she lives the game as an outsider that she begins to notice [[DisappearedDad more]] unsettling [[IJustWantToBeNormal details]] about Maria's background.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'': All of the main ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed'' games are actually simulations being experienced by someone from the present day, who needs to find something important in the memories. Due to [[spoiler: the main protagonist's death by HeroicSacrifice in the previous game]], the "main character" of ''Black Flag'' is about as nameless and featureless a protagonist can get. He or she is a HeroicMime with no lines, the present day segments of the game are all shown in first person, and there are no mirrors so the player can't even see their character's reflection.

This tends to cause problems when the work gets adapted to other media. One solution is to give the character in question as [[TheGenericGuy generic]] and [[TheGenericGirl bland a personality as possible]]. The other is [[CipherScything to remove them completely]].

* Isaac Clarke is portrayed this way in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace''. His face is always concealed by his helmet and he never speaks. This was dropped in the second and third games, which gave him a voice and had several shots of him with his helmet retracted.

[[folder:Gamebooks]]

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[[folder:Light Novels]]
* ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'': The "monkey girl" assumed that Maria was not only purely an insert character, but also a perfect lady despite her humble upbringing. It wasn't until she lives the game as an outsider that she begins to notice [[DisappearedDad more]] unsettling [[IJustWantToBeNormal details]] about Maria's background.
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* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' does this in two ways. One being that all of your guild members have absolutely no background, name, gender, or anything. It's up to you to give them a class, a face (which also defines their gender), and a name.
** The other occurrence would be the guild leader. Being impersonated by the player, he even only gets vaguely mentioned in the beginning as one of many daring explorers who are willing to challenge the labyrinth. And the games seem to assume that it's a "he".
** Strangely, the guild officer in ''Etrian Odyssey 2'' invites you to register yourself as a member (i.e. name a character after yourself), but the system isn't designed to recognize which character is "you." If you take her up on her suggestion, the narrator will refer to you and your avatar as separate people for the rest of the game.

* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' puts you in the role of an [[NonEntityGeneral "adviser"]] to the Orange Star Army, who is spoken to directly but never shown onscreen. Absolutely nothing is known about your character except that they are new to the job. In practice, your "advising" consists of telling the various generals what to do (they never go against your advice) and they in turn deliver these orders to their troops. This makes your character seem a bit redundant, which is probably why the adviser was removed completely in Advance Wars 2, which puts you in control of the generals directly (which is basically what you were doing in the first game).

*** And yet in the love confessions and the plot-important [=CGs=] describing [[spoiler: their in-story position as the SoulJar of Grima (''Awakening'') and the ChildOfTwoWorlds (''Fates'')]], the Avatar's face is ''never'' clearly shown.

--> '''Ruka/Luna:''' [Hat Guy], ''you can't put on a shirt with your hat on!''

* 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. ''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". [[spoiler:''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' shows his face and has him speaking in flashbacks, confirming that he is in fact the same marine from the classic ''Doom'' games.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** In the original trilogy, the Master Chief John-117 never shows his face, speaks only a handful of lines during cutscenes, and is referred to almost solely by his rank. The one time he takes off his helmet, the camera angle shifts to obscure his face just as he removes it; even when using cheats to keep his head in frame, all we get to see is [[spoiler:another helmet!]] He has a bit more personality than usual examples of this trope, though.
*** His character is heavily expanded on in the expanded universe (particularly the various adaptations of ''Literature/HaloTheFallOfReach''), which also reveal that he is a white man with brown hair, though the only clear visual depictions of his face we ever get are of him as a child.
*** From ''VideoGame/Halo4'' 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]].
** Interestingly used as a point of contrast between the protagonists in VideoGame/Halo5Guardians. We see the faces of Fireteam Osiris, but all four members of Blue Team (the one commanded by Master Chief) are never seen outside their armor.
** The Rookie in ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'' never removes his helmet or says anything. The only clue about his appearance is his fingers, which are white. His initials are apparently "J.D.", but that seems to be more of a reference to the generic placeholder name "John Doe". He gets a little more characterization in the ''Literature/HaloEvolutions'' short story ''Dirt'' and the novella ''Literature/HaloNewBlood'', but not much.
** 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 - like the Chief, s/he takes off her helmet only once int he game, at the end, with the camera positioned so that we never get a good view of his/her face through [[spoiler:the several Elites bearing down on him/her]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'', the protagonist is drawn in a few art pieces, but his appearance is very inconsistent. You can only see what he looks like in-game in co-op, and he's wearing what looks like a flight helmet, which only reveals his jaw.
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife'':
** The games themselves tell you Gordon Freeman's age and education, but on top of being a HeroicMime, they make no mention of his appearance. The game files of ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' [[FirstPersonGhost don't contain a character model or skin for Freeman at all]]: since there are no reflective surfaces or (legitimately accessible) third person perspective, the player never gets to actually see anything but his arms. In the early (or just pirated) version of the game it was possible to look at your PC head, which revealed a mannequin face not actually covered in textures. The only official depiction of Freeman's facial appearance is on the game's ''box art'' [[spoiler:until ''VideoGame/HalfLifeAlyx'' finally shows Gordon in-game, though even then he's in near-darkness (albeit fully modeled)]].
** In ''Half-Life: Opposing Force'' the player controls the HECU marine Adrian Shepard. We're told at the beginning of the game his age and gender, but we never get a good look at his face due to the first-person perspective, and official artwork related to the game always depicts him wearing a gas mask that prevents us from seeing what he actually looks like.

* 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.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Receiver}}'', the protagonist does not even have a character model. Your weapon simply floats in the air in front of you.
* ''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".
* The only thing known about the protagonist of ''VideoGame/SpaceGun''is that they're in the Special Forces.
* This has a tendency to come up with varying degrees in VideoGame/RainbowSixSiege due to abundance of playable characters who wear bulky armor and masks that can make it hard to tell what they look like. Some of them we only really know their appearance because of cosmetics (usually a legendary skin), and some still don't have a canonical face. Some notable examples:
** All four of the SAS operators wear gas masks that conceal their face. Thatcher is the only one whose appearance has been completely revealed [[note]]due to his elite skin and his appearance in "The Hammer and the Scalpel"[[/note]]. Enough of Sledge's head is visible to see that he is bald, but his specific facial features are still obscured. There was nothing to indicate Smoke's appearance until his first elite skin was released (and even then it only indicates that he has dark hair). We have yet to see ''any'' indication of what Mute looks like, and the only real clues to his personality are in his profile.
** The most extreme case is probably Nøkk. We know she is female, but her appearance is entirely concealed beneath both a mask and a veil. Her in-game profile lists her real name as "classified" and only provides a vague outline of her backstory and personal life.
* Although we get a pretty good idea of his backstory and personality, VideoGame/{{Chernobylite}} avoids showing the face of protagonist Igor Khymynuk. The first person perspective keeps it hidden for most of the game. [[TheFaceless While most of the characters wear gas masks throughout the game that obscure their faces]] we do get portraits showing their faces... except for Igor. His portrait keeps most of his face obscured by a mask and hood.
* The protagonist from ''VideoGame/{{Timeshift}}'' is this, thanks to the game having an UnbrokenFirstPersonPerspective until the very end, where we see the time traveler (who is a HeroicMime) shoot [[BigBad Krone]], return to the present, and almost remove their helmet before [[TheUnreveal the suit transports them to who knows where to avoid creating a temporal paradox]]. It's not even explicitly clear which gender the PlayerCharacter is; while the cover art and third person images of the Beta Suit seem to indicate the player is male, and they are shown to have a sexual relationship with Dr. Foster, the idea that the player may be a ButchLesbian has been floated more than once online, made worse by the fact nobody uses gendered pronouns to describe the player character.

* All one ever sees of the detective in the ''Mystery Trackers'' series is gloved hands.

* [[ZigzaggedTrope Zigzagged]] in ''VideoGame/UnfortunateSpacemen''. All the astronauts where [[ColorCodedMultiplayer colour-coded]] spacesuits, which is how they identify each other. The suits, meanwhile, have helmets that obscure their faces from view. The alien, meanwhile, can disguise itself as one of the astronauts. Its real form has spiked tendrils and a mouth as big as an atronaut's head.

* ''[[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 be one of two attempts at a psychic commander birthed by [[BigBad Alma]], with no memory and no name beyond the "Point Man" identifier.]] The third game finally revealed his appearance, but still [[HeroicMime never speaks]] or shows much emotion aside from [[TranquilFury rage]]. 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.

** His NiceHat from the first three series is hanging on the rack next to the door of his apartment.

* In most {{dating sim}}s, the male protagonist (being, effectively, the player's stand-in) when he is on screen is a vaguely dark-haired youth whose [[BlindingBangs bangs conveniently hides his face]] if he is ever seen from the front. Dating sims with female protagonists, and sound novel-type dating sims, tend to avoid this and ''do'' show the girl's face from the beginning.

* The protagonists of the {{Romance Game}}s produced by Creator/VoltageInc are depicted without eyes when they appear in [=CGs=] -- sometimes by the use of a BlindingBangs effect, but often their faces are simply blank where their eyes should be. The short introductory animation of ''VisualNovel/OfficeSecrets'' does show the protagonist with eyes, but in the in-game CG that the footage was based on, she's eyeless.

* ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' has a couple of pre-drawn women's photos you can pick from as your chatroom icon, or you can choose whatever picture you want off your phone, but the default icon for MC 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/SongOfMemories'' has this with the main character, Minato. Bizarrely, he ''does'' have a(n albeit very generic) personality, backstory, voice acting, and a number of things you wouldn't expect this to be. In spite of that, the game takes considerable effort to avoid showing him from the front when possible, and has his face ''completely blank'' when they have no choice but to show him from the front. Not covered by BlindingBangs - '''blank'''.

This tends to cause problems when the work gets adapted to other media. One solution is to give the character in question as [[GenericGuy generic and bland a personality as possible]]. The other is [[CipherScything to remove them completely]].

* Samus Aran from ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' started as a complete cipher in both person and motivation. (Robot? Guy in PoweredArmor? Who knew?) This caused some players to think "Metroid" was [[IAmNotShazam the character's name]]. Only at the end of [[VideoGame/Metroid1 the first game]] did [[SamusIsAGirl she get a gender]] and later [[HalfHumanHybrid a]] [[BioAugmentation species]], and her identity was only given any exploration in the later games.

* ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'': The "monkey girl" assumed that Maria was not only purely an insert character, but also a perfect lady despite her humble upbringing. It wasn't until she lives the game as an outsider that she begins to notice more [[DisappearedDad unsettling]] [[IJustWantToBeNormal details]] about Maria's background.

* 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. ''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". [[spoiler:''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' shows his face and has him speaking in flashbacks, conforming that he is in fact the same marine from the classic ''Doom'' games.]]

* In most {{dating sim}}s, the male protagonist (being, effectively, the player's stand-in) when he is on screen is a vaguely dark-haired youth whose bangs conveniently hides his face if he is ever seen from the front. Dating sims with female protagonists, and sound novel-type dating sims, tend to avoid this and ''do'' show the girl's face from the beginning.

** WordOfGod places the first four ''Myst'' games some two-hundred years in the past, which contradicts the idea that The Stranger is yourself. However, Both ''Uru'' and ''VideoGame/MystV'' are set in the present and therefore feature a different protagonist. In ''Uru'', the PlayerCharacter is explicitly the player (one interpretation of the title "Uru" is "You Are You"). 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).

** Another has you wake up in a sarcophagus [[AmnesiacHero with no memory]]; as such, you were some character of significance, and you have to learn about your past over the course of the story, culminating in a fight with the people that put you in the tomb.

* Samus Aran from ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' started as a complete cipher in both person and motivation. (Robot? Guy in PoweredArmor? Who knew?) This caused some players to think "Metroid" was [[IAmNotShazam the character's name]]. Only at the end of [[VideoGame/Metroid1 the first game]] did [[SamusIsAGirl she get a gender]] and later [[HalfHumanHybrid a]] [[BioAugmentation species]], and her identity was only given any exploration in the later games.

* All the characters from ''WebVideo/SAndDTier'' are [[ActingForTwo played by the same person]], with no makeup or costuming. The creator has gone on record saying that all the characters can have any appearence the viewer imagines them to have, including their ethnicity or what kind of clothes they wear. The main characters Alex and Morgan [[AmbiguousGender don't even have canon genders]].

* The ''Franchise/YuGiOh Tag Force'' series has the player character as ''[[FanNickname Hat Guy]]'': a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Hat-wearing]] Slifer Red Student (In the first three), and a rather lean-built red-clad guy (In the fourth installment). HilarityEnsues to find that in the fourth installment the developers have [[LampshadeHanging left inside jokes about him]] as you play the games: