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{{trope}}
{{Video Game Examples Need Sorting}}
* [[Sid Meier]]. Reading his manuals for the original ''[[Railroad Tycoon]]'' and ''[[Sid Meiers Pirates (Video Game)|Pirates!]]'', for example, was downright educational. The original ''Pirates!'' even forced the player to figure out where they were by using a sextant to identify only their latitude and land masses to get their bearing. See ''[[Alpha Centauri]]'' below for more evidence of Meier's diligence.▼
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
▲* [[Sid Meier]]. Reading his manuals for the original ''[[Railroad Tycoon]]'' and ''[[Sid
* ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: Covenant'' has the Gallery of the Dead, which could also be called "Learn Cyrillic! With Princess Anastasia".
** Which just seems odd compared to the game's approach to history, which has all of the accuracy of ''A Knight's Tale''.
*** [[Artistic License]], yo.
* ''[[Sid
** Not to mention the huge amounts of [[All There in the Manual|data collected to make the general idea of the planet and its lifeforms plausible]].
** The fascinating part is that very little of the actual science has been outright disproven yet.
* The designers of ''
** The sequel goes even farther: every noteworthy person in Ezio's life and every important or noteworthy location in the various cities has a small database entry that you can view when near that person/place. They're not needed for completing the game, nor are they required for any reason at all, but they're interesting to read and sometimes contain funny/snarky commentary.
** The flying machine is also based on Leonardo's designs.
*** Likewise, the sequel had extensive attention paid to depicting late-fifteenth-century Florence, and Venice (San Gimignano and Forli being far less prominent), with several players and their friends/families commenting on how they'd visited those very locations in real life only to find them accurately (for the time) replicated in the game.
**** Leonardo's War Machines in Brotherhood were based on his [http://www.cracked.com/article_18407_9-inventions-that-prove-leonardo-da-vinci-was-supervillain_p2.html actual designs]. As were the flying machine and parachutes.
** Cappadocia, as we see it rendered in ''[[Assassin's Creed
* Similarly, ''[[
* ''[[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire
** ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue
*** If you read the credits, you will notice that they actually consult real organizations for the blind for all their Braille plaques.
** The series also generally averts [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying]], [[Rule of Cool|design details aside]], as given information is accurate and the series draws upon a somewhat wider range of species than most media (an anomalocaris-like biped, a eurypterid, crinoids, ''Archelon'', etc.).
* The makers of ''[[Quest for Glory]] 4'' have a lot of knowledge regarding Tarot cards, so you get several lengthy (though fairly impressive) fortune telling sequences giving the proper card combinations for the hero's past, present, and future, most of the important characters in the game, and the possible endings.
* ''[[
** Less annoyingly, the military tends to get a realistic presentation in the games, though it goes back and forth. Solid/Naked Snake's [[Rule of Cool|CQC]] is completely ridiculous, but it's pleasing to watch the normal soldiers move and act as whole squads, with the squad leader even giving them hand signals. In ''[[
*** Actually, the CQC featured in the games was developed by the series' military advisor, Motosada Mori, a former mercenary and SWAT instructor. He explains in an [http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/mgs3/english/system_cqc.html interview] that it is best used in built-up areas during situations where there are multiple enemies close to you. He goes on to explain that it is a high level professional tactic that requires extensive experience with knives and firearms and will not necessarily work to your advantage in a fight. He also stated that it is best suited for use by Special Forces personnel. In other words, while it is a very useful technique, it doesn't make you [[Nigh Invulnerability|nigh invincible]] in hand-to-hand combat as portrayed in the games.
** The ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' credits include a team of people under "Research/Justification". Which means they hire people ''specifically'' to put this trope in.
*** ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' also delves so deeply into meme theory that some institutions use it to ''teach'' meme theory. And your mom said video games would never teach you anything.
** Sometimes, it gets to the point where a character's only purpose is to demonstrate the amount of research that went into making the game. Nastasha from ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' was pretty much there to spout off technical info on nuclear weapons and the equipment you picked up, as well as ranting about nuclear proliferation. Sigint got this role in the third game as well. Both characters have worked for intelligence agencies and are on hand as experts, and {{spoiler|Sigint went on to become the head of DARPA}}, so it makes sense that their role is pretty much to spout random facts.
** While a lot of the information about genes in ''MGS'' is [[Did Not Do the Research|inaccurate]], it's justified by the fact that Liquid does most of the ranting (according to [[Word of God]], he doesn't have a very firm grasp on the subject matter), and the ultimate point of Naomi's personal story is that she's putting too much faith in genetics because it's her only hope of finding out who she is and where she came from. The stuff that they ''didn't'' get wrong is astoundingly well-researched.
** Apparently writer/director [[Hideo Kojima]] is excessively fond of this trope, as his prior work ''[[
* The head admin of the MMO ''[[Lusternia]]'' is a writer, and he is ''very'' good at researching the aspects of real-world mythology that were incorporated into the game. For example, the skillset known as "Highmagic" is an extended love-letter to Kabbalah, with each individual skill accurately corresponding to an aspect of the Sephirot (Hod, Keter, Yesod, etc).
* It may not be particularly useful information you're learning, but the fictional language of the ''[[Myst]]'' games isn't a cypher or random gibberish- it's [[Con Lang|an actual consistent, working language with its own syntax, suffixes, prefixes, etc]]. It's apparently somewhat similar in structure to Hebrew.
** The sequel, ''Riven'', requires you to figure out the D'ni numeral system (which uses a base 25 counting system) as part of solving a puzzle.
*** Even more impressive, the D'ni numbering system is actually a multiple-base number system, which utilizes a base-5 system to construct its numerals, and a base 25 system to allow for the concatenation of numerals to create numbers over 25.
* ''[[
** Additionally, the personas you can obtain in the same game are all real mythological figures, drawn from everything from Vodou gods, to Judeo-Christian figures, to creatures and characters of Greek and Roman legends. The in-game compendium offers short descriptions of where each persona comes from.
*** The artwork by Atlus' master designer and prolific series artist Kazuma Kaneko makes it even more delightful, giving ''every'' single monster its own spin while retaining a deep and clear understanding of ''who'' they are supposed to be. Even when ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games choose to derive its characters from popular culture, such as the [[Ghost Rider|Hell Biker]], or [[Alice in Wonderland|Alice]], they're treated with care and attention to detail.
*** This has the added effect of people learning sometimes [[Dropped a Bridget On Him|shocking]] truths about popular deities that appear in other games. Like, say, [[Final Fantasy|Shiva]].
** Both ''[[
*** And this does include {{spoiler|Death in ''Persona 3'', which can look like it's being misrepresented as a "oh god end of the world thing" at first. Especially if you're attentive to what's ''really'' going on, you'll realize the motif is being used exactly right [[Wham! Episode|and it'll probably blow your mind]].}}
*** The accuracy is also prevalent in how the different meanings are portrayed differently in both 3 and 4, but still being accurate. Even further, ''Persona 3 Portable'''s female route (that some would dismiss as fanservice) still sticks to the representations of the arcana in the new social links. Notably, it gives a new and deeper meaning for the Fortune ({{spoiler|Ryoji Mochizuki}}), Moon ({{spoiler|Shinjiro Aragaki}}) and Strength (Koromaru) Arcana.
** The Persona series also shows a sound grasp of Jungian psychiatric theory. "Persona" and "Shadow" are obvious, but Philemon being named after a character from Jung's ''Red Book'' (and serving much the same purpose!) makes it clear that the developers paid attention.
* And the main ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' series uses a fair bit of actual Gnostic mythology. As much as the setting's [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] allows them to.
** They tend to show their work on most of the other mythology as well. In addition to the demon/persona designs mentioned above, they sometimes work it into the plot; for instance, one sidequest in ''[[Strange Journey]]'' involves [
* The original visual novel of [[Phantom of Inferno]] went into ''obsessive'' detail on the guns the characters used. ''Obsessive.'' It's borderline disturbing. It was toned down in the US DVD-play release of the game (which removed the option of letting you choose which gun you wanted to use) and was (thankfully) skipped in the anime.
* ''SimAnt'' has two lengthy, chapters on ants in the User's Manual, plus famous quotes about ants and an appendix full of scientific terms. To top it off, they included [[Hurricane of Puns|an unreasonable number of ant puns]]. It's freaking f''ant''astic.
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*** This was also for [[Copy Protection]] purposes: the game would ask you to enter a certain word on a certain line on a certain page to keep playing.
** In certain countries such as Japan, the game '[[Gran Turismo]] 4' came with a booklet a couple hundred pages long, that was filled with expertise from professional drivers describing basic racing strategies, and car dynamics and so on.
**** Speaking of '[[Gran Turismo]]'', the creator of the game was a former professional driver himself, who just won 1st place in his class of [https://web.archive.org/web/20150128171024/http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/26/gran-turismo-creator-kazunori-yamauchi-wins-class-victory-in-rea/ sports cars].
* ''[[Astro Boy]]: Omega Factor'' for the GBA sets itself up as prime [[Adaptation Distillation]] through this trope, including as many characters from the original works as narratively possible, along with an extended character biography section, which includes information about their first appearances, and sensical justifications for any changes that have been made for appearance in the game.
* The 90's Windows game ''[[Odell Down Under]]'' has surprisingly detailed information on a number of aquatic species found in the Great Barrier Reef. Every time you start a game or a new round in a game there's an info screen which gives you details about the fish you're playing as. The whole point of the game, in fact, is to keep your fish alive by having it eat what it actually eats, avoid predators, and get cleaned by cleaner fish. The sharks didn't always need cleaner fish however, thanks to the remoras that live on sharks and eat their parasites. There was even an in-game fish encyclopedia on the title screen that gave detail on other lifeforms you couldn't play as like plankton and algae.
* ''Jigsaw'', a time-travel [[Interactive Fiction]] game, includes extensive footnotes regarding the history (and [[Artistic License]]) involved. Several of the puzzles require or strongly encourage detailed knowledge of the Enigma machine, the works of Marcel Proust, and how to fly a B-29 bomber.
* ''[[
* The ''[[Call of Duty]]'' series tends to focus on real historical military operations. Even the entirely fictional ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' inserted some historical realism by using real buildings and structures featured in a level set in Pripyat, in the Chernobyl evacuation zone, and factoring them into the gameplay. After {{spoiler|sniping Imran Zakhaev from the top floor of the Pripyat hotel which had been infiltrated in the previous level}}, the player and his spotter must move through the abandoned city's cultural center and streets, at the end going from the public swimming pool to the Pripyat Ferris wheel {{spoiler|where they'll have to hold out until the helicopter's arrival}}.
* On the subject of Pripyat, the ''[[STALKER]]: Shadow of Chernobyl'' team definitely did the research (including several trips to the exclusion zone). Overlay the map of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant from the game and the real one from Google Earth, for instance. Also, Pripyat is * almost* dead on. Other locations (Agroprom, for instance) are uncanny. Seeing photographs of the building that Agroprom is based on is chilling. Even the faded mural on a side wall is the same as in game
* ''[[
* The ''[[
** More importantly, nearly all of the [[Techno Babble]] in ''[[
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' has, between chapters, historical accounts of Chopin's life, with real life photographs of scenery in the background.
* Silicon Knights redid a level in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' because they found out that ''stained glass'' didn't exist in the time period it took place in.
* ''[[
** This was also the game that began its manual with three pages on the precise effects, graded by the scale of the bomb, of a nuclear detonation. Biology wasn't the only thing ''[[
** When Bethesda Studios took over the production of ''[[
*** [https://web.archive.org/web/20090513054001/http://www.rand.org/images/washington_metromap.gif This] is a map of the real Washington, D.C. subway system. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Map This] is a map of the Fallout 3 version. The game wasn't meant to be ''perfect'' in its representation of D.C. (the real National Mall is much, much larger than the in-game version, for example, and there's a practical explanation for that), but Bethesda nailed little details beautifully, right down to the architectural styles of random buildings. Please pay a visit to D.C. and then go back to play the game. [[Scenery Porn]].
*** Actually, Bethesda was founded in Bethesda MD, but has since moved to Rockville MD. The attention to detail isn't just in the map, take a look at the western horizon in the game. Those gently rolling mountains don't just look like the Appalachian and Blue Ridge...
** [[
*** He formed the Legion by uniting several tribes and forming them into a militaristic government and state.
*** He compares his conquests in Arizona to the historical Caesar's conquest of Gaul, and his return to conquer the NCR to the crossing of the Rubicon.
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*** They use the denarius silver coin as their currency, as well as the golden aureus, which is worth 25 denarii in-game, just as it was in ancient Rome.
*** They practice historical punishments such as crucifixion and decimation.
*** One of the DLC adds a "Curio and Relic" achievement, referencing an uncommon firearms "dealer" license used by collectors and museums. Very few outside firearms collectors and gun store owners are aware of any details of the licensing scheme, much less in California.
* The makers of ''[[
* Developers of ''[[Command
* The original ''[[Age of Empires
** Similarly, its successor ''[[
* ''[[World in Conflict]]'' does a frankly superb job of depicting downtown Seattle circa 1989. This would be expected if Massive Entertainment was one of the multiple developers based in the area, but they're ''Swedish''. They even play with it by having the invading Soviets {{spoiler|blow up the Kingdome, which was demolished in reality a few years before the game's release.}}
* In ''[[The Conduit]]'', there was a crapload of research to find all of the [http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=947068&topic=50205836 conspiracy theories] that were used to tie the story together.
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** If you look at the game files, it actually accounts for the specific heat of rocks and metals. (Some of which are actually wrong as of the current version, but will be fixed with the next release.) Talk about science!
** Temperature has been implemented. Toady is now working on developing a magic system and making your livestock require food, and has indicated a longer-term goal of fixing the economy mechanics to account for things like supply/demand and inflation.
* The person who made Hymmnos for ''[[Ar
* By the end of the Wii survival horror game ''[[Cursed Mountain]]'', you'll probably know all about the Tibetan afterlife.
* The shipwreck-diving game ''Sea Rogue'' has a manual which lists hundreds of shipwrecks ranging from Viking boats from circa 1000 AD to the Titanic. The developers themselves include a disclaimer that this is not, and cannot be, all completely accurate information, but it is very impressive.
* The [[Sega Superstars
* ''[[Brothers in Arms]]'' series, the games show off an incredible amount of historical documents in their extras section, on-site photo of rural France areas (and comparision between their own in-game buildings and their real life counterparts). The military advisor for Gearbox Software is a retired veteran general.
* [[Europa Universalis]] (the third one at least) is both played straight and subverted. Go to Europe, and you find an amazingly accurate map of 1400s Europe, complete with a plethora of [[Holy Roman Empire]] one-province minor nations. Go to Asia, and you find a Japan that is not only consistently unified from 1399 to 1821, but lumped into an "East Asian" (whatever that means) culture group with China and Korea. You can tell why it's called ''Europa'' Universalis.
** Even in Europe, though, there are errors - Hungary is included in the "West Slavic" culture group, and a few things are changed for balance reasons.
** There are many [[Game Mod|game mods]] that help fix most of the [[Did Not Do the Research]], most notably ''Magna Mundi'' (which is ''made of'' [[Shown Their Work]]).
* ''[[Spider-Man: Web of Shadows]]'' showed a bit too much work. At one point, [[Wolverine]] suspects Spider-Man is an imposter. During the following boss fight, he stops periodically to ask trivia questions. Said trivia questions are very obscure references to continuity...which can lead to problems since your answers will effect the [[Karma Meter]].
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfvQLFVtlJY Obligatory film link here]. And when Spidey says "That's not in my online wiki entry." he isn't even lying. As per typing this, his parent's names<ref>Richard and Mary</ref> are not in the Spider-Man article.
* ''[[
* ''[[Epic Mickey]]'' is built on this. The secondary protagonist hasn't had a film appearance in 70 years (neither has one of the villains, Dr. XXX), your allies the Gremlins haven't even been in a finished Disney film, and even things as insignificant as the barrels are based on Disney history.
* ''[[Lego Adaptation Game
* ''[[Touhou]]'': The amount of mythology that ZUN is familiar with isn't generally apparent in the main games, where the emphasis is more on creating something fun. But in the [[All There in the Manual|side materials]] it can get a bit nuts, with plots based on obscure Shinto rituals (and now Bhuddism, too).
** And the fandom takes this [[Up to Eleven]], with doujinshi plots often hinging on or driven by more obscure pieces of the lore about the youkai characters.
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
** He sure did read up on the [[Key Of Solomon]]. The magic circles used in the series do show the meaning they're suppose to represent.
* THQ are huge wrestling fans and they put in a staggering amount of work to get the storylines and angles as accurate as possible. ''No Mercy'' faithfully recreated the McMahon\Helmsley era, Smackdown! had accurate depictions of everything from the draft to Booker T and Golddust, and Smackdown vs Raw? Well, the Legends Tour begins with [[Foreign Wrestling Heel]] Mohammed Hassan being detained at the airport, then goes on to make digs at the [[Montreal Screwjob]], a recreation of the legendary Hell in a Cell with Mankind and [[The Undertaker]], [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] playing to the crowd, the list goes on.
* In ''[[
** Although it ''can'' be a bit of [[Captain Obvious|Well Duh]] statement, as if they were 1/2 the light-years closer to the Milky Way, they would be burnt up by the Halo Array.
*** Despite what the games would have you belive at first glance, the entire universe is well thought out, such as with the workings of all weapons, in the novels.
* ''[[
** The Gigantic was an actual sister ship to the Titanic, along with William Thomas Stead and Morgan Robertson.
** {{spoiler|Sheldrake was, and is a real person, and is the creator of the pseudoscientific theory of Morphogenetic Fields.}}
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** {{spoiler|Ice-9 is, of course nonexistant, but was created in the 1963 Kurt Vonnegut novel, Cat's Cradle.}}
** {{spoiler|Not to mention the mystery of crystalised glycerine.}}
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Golden Sun
** The ''[[Golden Sun]]'' series in general is ''very'' good at geography and history. Many of the [[Wacky Wayside Tribe|Wacky Wayside Tribes]] and villages are [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] versions of real historical places and cultures, with reasonably-authentic architecture and, if you looked at the stoves/ovens, [[Food Porn|local cuisine]].
* For ''[[
* The team behind the ''[[Red Baron (
* At times, ''[[
* There's a [[
* ''Shogun 2: [[Total War]]'' uses a woodblock printing art style all over the place. Creative Assembly had their artists study traditional techniques for over a year to get it right.
* The two ''[[Buffy]]'' games on [[
** Two of the ''[[Kim Possible]]'' games for the [[Game Boy Advance]]; ''Drakken's Demise'' and especially ''Team Possible,'' play almost as lost episodes of the series. It starts with the same type of zany plot the show is famous for (a plot to steal Kim's photo album to lead her into a trap set by Monkey Fist, then the album taken by the Senors to a night club in space) and it goes uphill from there.
* Westwood's ''[[Dune II|Dune]]'' ''[[Emperor: Battle for Dune|Games]]'' depart heavily from the Duniverse with regards to storyline, factions and characterisation. That said, the dialogue in particular is so chock full of tiny references and nods to the books that one gets the feeling that with all the liberties taken, the makers still knew the books by heart.
** They also managed to replicate [[David Lynch]]'s style to a tee during cutscenes.
* [[Cyber Connect 2]] and ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'', most definitely: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131115115732/http://art-eater.com/2012/01/a-buddhists-guide-to-asuras-wrath/ This page] describes the extensive amounts of Buddhist symbolism in the game, and inspirations for its visuals. Just for example, the way the Demigods are injured is made to resemble the damage done to old Buddhist gilt lacquer statues.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20140108091438/http://art-eater.com/2012/02/a-buddhists-guide-to-asuras-wrath-part-2-weapons-the-bishops-staff-and-hungry-ghosts/ The Second] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20131115095901/http://art-eater.com/2012/03/a-buddhists-guide-to-asuras-wrath-part-3-weapons-the-vajra/ The third] parts get even more specific.
* The aftermath of using white phosphorus “''Spec-Ops: The Line''” is actually as [[Nightmare Fuel| graphic]] as you would image. If anyone has been to a war or area where such weapon was used and played the game, [[My God, What Have I Done?| it’s clear how awful]] it can be {{spoiler| like the mass killing of innocent victims, that looked burned beyond before.}} One of the soldiers tries to protest the decision on using white phosphorus, and another gets into an augment over it. To sum it up, just do a search on white phosphorus and play the game to see how bad the substance can be.
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