Ret-Gone/Video Games

Examples of Ret-Gone in Video Games include:

Chrono Cross

This is also the fate of Serge if your party is wiped out.
Your party also encounters the "Dead Sea": an area containing the Ret-Gone items from the bleak future of Chrono Trigger that was prevented due to the original destruction of Lavos.
In Chrono Cross‍'‍s ending, Serge does this to Lavos, which permanently destroys the Time Devourer and frees Schala once and for all.
Chrono Trigger even gives us the victim's thoughts after she comes back: "Crono! It was awful...I can't recall it all...I was somewhere cold, dark...and lonely. Is that what it's like to...die?"

Kingdom Hearts

Subverted in 358/2 Days. In the game's climax, Xion is absorbed by Roxas. As she was created from the memories of main character Sora, there was nothing left for anyone to remember her with after she was gone. The Ret-Gone appears to be played straight, but in the cell phone game Coded, it is revealed through a conversation between Data Sora and Data Roxas that the real Roxas still feels the pain of losing Xion, even if he doesn't remember her. Interestingly, this pain is also felt by Data Sora, who states that even if he doesn't know the source of his turmoil, he's still resolved to do his best to fix it. Of course, it is also possible that the database entry where Xion learned about her past is still intact.
And of course a straight example of the trope occurs with Sora during the year between Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II: while Sora is sleeping and Namine is reconstructing his memories, everyone who knew him forgets that he existed until he awakens again.
A minor variation on the trope occurs when all the photos owned by the residents of Twilight Town are stolen. Everyone remembers the photos, but the theft is so complete that even the word "photo" is stolen, and is blanked out of the characters' dialogues when they try to say it. And then later, on the final day, Roxas finds that not only has time stopped again, but all those same photos no longer have him in them.
- The Roxas situation has an even odder example of how the trope works, as the real Twilight Town serves as a 'world without Roxas' look at the Twilight Town inside the simulation - even though we know that the TT Roxas was in wasn't real, it feels to the players like Roxas has been Ret-Gone'd. It gets even more Mind Screwy when it appears as though data!TT has affected the real world - the Usual Spot gang coming to see Sora off for almost no reason - and Sora experiences Roxas' pain at being Ret-Gone'd, without actually knowing why, seeming to play this trope straight, though in a non-standard way.

Other works

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. The game replays events from the past and you can eliminate any or all of the characters, and it'll effectively change the Resident Evil timeline and depict it.
This is a fairly standard tactic in Achron, due to the time travel game mechanics. Not only do you have to defend your base in the present, you have to defend it in the past lest another player decides to retroactively attack you and retcon your army away.
S(h)innosuke's bad ending in Giga Wing has his name "mysteriously vanish from existence, never to be recorded in history."
The defeat of Chaos (aka Garland) in Final Fantasy I brings about the end of the Stable Time Loop; as a result, nobody remembers him or his defeat at the hands of the Light Warriors.
- Nobody remembers the Light Warriors, either, nor any of their exploits. Including the Light Warriors themselves.
Keine Kamishirasawa from Touhou Project has the ability to eat history, temporarily concealing people, places or events from people's memories and senses. The effect depends largely on people's familiarity with the affected subject: the more familiar the subject is to them, the less the ability affects them. In her hakutaku form, she gains perfect knowledge of Gensoukyou's entire history and can rewrite it for real, creating events out of thin air or completely erasing them. For some reason, the Hidea clan's records are unaffected by her powers.
In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness, this is what will happen to all the Pokémon from the future once the world is saved. This includes both Grovyle and the main character, though in the latter's case, Dialga comes to the rescue. This is also, presumably, why Dusknoir and Primal Dialga try to stop the heroes from changing the past.
- In the Updated Rerelease Explorers of the Sky, the same charity extended to the main character is granted to everyone in the future. Including a Heel Face Turned Dusknoir.
In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 the Soviets travel backwards in time to remove Albert Einstein from history, since it was his Chronosphere technology responsible for the Allies' victory in Red Alert 2. When they return to the present, the war was never lost, Einstein never existed, and there is no nuclear technology. Only the three Soviets who traveled back are aware of the change. The events of Red Alert 2 were completely erased. Of course Hitler, having previously been retgonned by Einstein, stayed retgonned.
- The Allies in Red Alert 2 developed the Chrono Legionnaire which could erase units from the timestream completely over a few seconds while they're left utterly helpless and untouchable. Weaponized Retgone anyone?
In Silent Hill 2, over the course of the game, Mary's letter turns blank, then disappears from the envelope, and finally the envelope disappears as well; it was a creation of his mind. Or was it?
Used for a non-evil or horrible effect in Siren 2: As a side effect of defeating the Big Bad, Ryuko Tagawa never existed, therefore Abe Soji is no longer wanted for her murder. (He was innocent anyway.) The picture of Abe and Ryuko now shows only Abe, and the newspaper clipping of the murder has changed and now reports Ikuko's mother killing her father.
One possible way to die in Space Quest V is via time paradox.

Bea is dead. In an alternate future she would've borne your son. In the future past of Space Quest 4, your son would've saved your life. But she didn't so he couldn't - therefore you aren't.

One of the many ways to die in The Journeyman Project is to be "uncreated" by the reality distortion wave, which happens if you go to the wrong place in the Global Transporter, or wait too long at the TSA.
Pretty much the entire plot of Time Hollow.
This is a choice in the final ending of NieR where the titular main character can sacrifice himself to save Kaine. The downside? He completely erases himself and all memories of himself from existence. Kinda a downer ending considering Kaine was willing to sacrifice herself and Nier's daughter (who's cure/rescue was the driving focus of the game) is now fatherless, but at least she doesn't know it... of course the game takes this choice one step further by forcing the deletion of all your save games. Hope you backed them up to a flash drive! At least the game gives you ample warning...
The King of Fighters 2003 - XIII: Ash Crimson planned to do this to himself all along.
- Not as much a matter of planning, he mostly did this as a last-ditch desperate attempt to stop Saiki, head of Those From the Past and his Time Traveling ancestor, from going back in time and retry to steal the Sacred Treasures that kept Orochi's seal in place after hijacking Ash's body. It was his last shred of freewill that kept Saiki stuck in the present and thus, prevented Ash himself from even being born, erasing both from the KOF continuity.
Happens with the Guardians/Celestrians of Dragon Quest IX after Celestia ascends them all for accomplishing the purpose they were created for. All the Guardian statues in the world lose their inscriptions, and everyone (except the ghosts) treat their presence as a minor mystery.
The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy has this on a rather grand scale: The climax of the first game has the Prince reseal the Sands, which sends him back before they were released in the first place and lets him defeat the Vizer who started the whole affair. The canon ending for the second game has the Prince prevent the Sands from being made in the first place, meaning that last Ret-Gone is undone, the Vizer is alive, and he takes over Farah's country before marching on Persia as part of his plan to re-create the Sands in the first place...
At first, Suikoden Tierkreis appears to be about things coming into existence rather than vanishing from it—but when they appear, the things that were previously there stop being there. This becomes rather important when the entire country of Janam is replaced by an uninhabited desert.
In Alan Wake, Thomas Zane did this to himself using the magic of Cauldron Lake, which brings the creations of artists to life. He was previously a very famous author, but when he unintentionally gave the Dark Presence an avatar in the form of his lover Barbara Jagger by resurrecting her with his writing without explaining how (allowing it to take over her body), he then wrote himself and everything he'd ever done out of existence, to keep the Presence contained.
With enough mods and hacks, you can do this in The Sims 2. However, if you do it the wrong way, it backfires horribly and ruins your game.
This almost happens to Mario/Luigi, Peach, Bowser, and the Lumas at the end of Super Mario Galaxy, thanks to the universe being destroyed (and recreated) by Bowser's black hole.
A cruel variation happens in Maple Story. When the Six Heroes fight the Black Mage, one of them (later called Shade) makes a Heroic Sacrifice to seal the villain away. But he doesn't die; all memories of him are instead purged from Maple World, along with all documented evidence of his existence. To drive the point home, the player is shown photographs of the team in happier times - at a birthday party, graduation ceremony, and other fun events - with Shade's image vanishing from all of them. Even worse, while its possible for memories of him and his actions to be reestablished in the present and thus friendships started, if he travels from one world to another, all residents of the world he left will forget those memories again. And worst of all, the one person not affected by this - who can remember him perfectly - is the Black Mage himself, who taunts him many times about it in his nightmares.
Naturally as a time travel story, this sort of thing was bound to happen in Steins;Gate. In the True End route, Suzuha, her mission complete, ends up with a timeline where Daru theoretically never has her, therefore Ret-Gone-ing her out of existence. And there's only a vague inference that anyone will ever remember she existed aside from Kyouma. Naturally, her fans like to state her ending as the best end.
The sequel to I.M. Meen called "Chill Manor" has the villain take over history. If you get a game over; the player character is erased from history. Forever. And she villain even cackles as she erases you.
In Tales of Destiny 2, the party's goal is to erase the goddess Fortuna and her priestess Elraine from time itself. Reala and Judas, who exist because of Fortuna, are fully aware that doing this will cause the same thing to happen to them ( Judas, in fact, wants it to happen for most of the game). Reala's bond with Kyle later saves her from unexisting, while Judas's ultimate fate is left ambiguous.
In Infinite Space, this is the fate of anyone who wanders into The Flux (more formally, phenomenon fluctuation sectors), though it is unclear how people figured this out. It's used for a Nonstandard Game Over. Also the Overseers' retaliation for Kira hacking their computer, though Yuri manages to reverse it in the ending.
In Corpse Party, this is what happens to anyone who dies while trapped in Heavenly Host Elementry. This includes four of the nine main characters, and presumably all the side characters who died. The five survivors are the only ones who remember that they ever existed once they return to the real world.
In Tales of Maj'Eyal, "Cease to Exist", one of the Chronomancy spells, allows you to do this to a monster. You have to push it outside of time and kill it there first, but if you manage that, everything that you used outside of time gets restored to you.
If Kinnikuman Super Phoenix beats an opponent with his True Muscle Revenger in Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight, the page containing the opponent's history is burnt away. This causes the foe to be erased while the Five Evil Gods and Kinnikuman Super Pheonix look on in laughter.
In Mortal Kombat 11, all the Kombatants are in danger of this, due to having to work with their younger selves; eventually, it does happen to Kano.
- Also, in the better endings, it happens to everyone except Liu Kang and Raiden, (with Kitana restored as well in the best ending) although one assumes their plans to rebuild the world will include restoring their friends and allies.
- In the Aftermath DLC, this is Shang Tsung's ultimate fate is the player sides with Liu Kang in the final battle.
- Jacqui does this to herself on purpose during her Arcade Ladder ending. In order to spare her father the misery he goes through after being killed and having his soul enslaved as a reverent, once she gains control of the Hourglass, she decides to alter the events of Mortal Kombat 9, so that the Earthrealm warriors manage to defeat Sindel. She realizes that if this happens, her parents will never meet and, as a result, she will never be born, but she does it anyway. Her final words before she is erased from existence are, "You know what? I'm good with that. I'm not just protecting Dad. I'm protecting everyone he'll risk his life to save. In my shoes, it's what he would do. It's what a Briggs does. I know you'll never hear this, but goodbye Dad. I love you."
In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion of World of Warcraft, the Infinite Dragonflight try to do this to the player by setting an ambush at the Bronze Dragonshrine; fortunately, Chromie anticipates it and warns you, letting you meet your past counterpart there. (The shrine is an Eldritch Location where multiple timelines can intersect.) Even so, it's a close call, as Chromie later claims she felt your character "flicker in and out of the time stream there for a moment during the fight".
- Chromie herself is the target in the far-more-complex "Deaths of Chromie" scenario. Chromie has pretty much memorized how and when she will die (being a Time Lord and all) and realizes she's a target when her views of it change drastically. Fortunately, given her ability to Time Travel the player has an unlimited number of chances to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, and can learn and expand on each failed attempt.
In the LaserDisc game Time Gal, this happens to the heroine if the player chooses to have her shoot one of the cavemen; more than likely this is why - on a successful run - she does her best to use her Ray Gun sparingly.

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