Video Games / Decomposite Character


 * Assassin's Creed III : Charles Lee and Haytham Kenway are, in many ways, a decomposite character of the real life Charles Lee. Haytham receives Real!Lee's strategic acumen and good relations with the Mohawks (including a Mohawk wife and son), and Game!Lee takes Real!Lee's hot temper and resentful nature.
 * Batman: Arkham City : Despite the Maroni family being mentioned in the Arkham City Stories, Sal Maroni's role as the one who made Harvey Dent Two-Face is taken by Carmine Falcone, as Two-Face himself in an audio tape explicitly identifies Falcone was the one who did it.
 * BlazBlue  divides the Japanese god Susano'o with the two users of the Susano'o Unit armor. Hakumen represents the original's gradual Heel–Face Turn and defeats the Orochi -like Black Beast, while Yuuki Terumi turns out to be the original Susano'o and is revealed to have his identity and goal based on his mythological hatred for his sister Amaterasu.
 * Bridge To Another World: Alice In Shadowland  is a Hidden Object Game based on the  Alice in Wonderland  books, but plays fast and loose with the canon a lot. For one thing, the Queen of Hearts is both composited and decomposited. Her evil and vain nature is put on the King of Hearts, and the look of the queen is given to Alice, whom the king marries, and she becomes the Queen of Hearts (complete with a dainty Cool Crown, short Pimped-Out Dress and ermine wrap). Then there's the matter of seeming to be two Alices...
 * Civilization  has a tendency to mash together separate entities to create a single civ, or draw from thousands of years of history when it comes to devising a civ's leader, unique units and special abilities, resulting in things like Mahatma Gandhi leading war elephants to defend Mughal castles. But recent entries have reversed the trend in some cases.
 * Civilization IV  introduced the notion of multiple leaders for a single civilization, representing more time periods and bringing different bonuses, so France could be led by Louis XIV for a monarchist flair, Napoleon for some warmongering, or Charles de Gaulle for a defensive stance.
 * Civilization II  represented the Nordic countries with a generic "Vikings" civilization, but  Civ V  split it into Denmark, which retained the Vikings' medieval berserker unit and focus on naval raids, and Sweden, which was equally adept at diplomacy and war with superior gunpowder infantry.  Civ VI  switched out Denmark for Norway for the "Viking" angle and gave Sweden even more of a focus on diplomacy and culture.
 * Athens and Sparta were both part of a "Greek" civilization under Alexander the Great until  Civ VI . In that game, Pericles of Athens and Gorgo of Sparta were alternate Greek leaders with very different playstyles and bonuses, while Alexander was eventually reintroduced in a fully Macedonian civilization.
 * A blanket Celtic civ has been around since  Civ II, which resulted in Boudica reigning from her capital of Edinburgh in  Civ V .  Civ VI  instead introduced an explicitly Scottish civilization under Robert the Bruce and represented ancient Celtia with a Gallic civilization led by Ambiorix.
 * Game mods can of course go even further - one of the most extensive breaks  Civ V 's Polynesia into separate civs for Hawaii (its leader, King Kamehameha), Tonga (its ability to cross oceans long before normal), Maori (its Maori Warrior unique unit), and Rapa Nui (its moai improvements).
 * Contra 4  turned the various character designs and Dub Name Changes of series protagonists Bill Rizer and Lance Bean into seven different playable characters:
 * "Bill" and "Lance" use their original names along with the designs based on their NES incarnations (shirtless with color-coded pants).
 * "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion" use their names from the American manual of the original  Contra  and used Bill's and Lance's colors (green and purple respectively) from the arcade version of  Super Contra . (Story-wise, they're also Retconned into being the protagonists of  Operation C .)
 * "Jimbo" and "Sully" use their names from the American manual of  Contra III: The Alien Wars  and designs from the same game.
 * Finally, "Probotector" is based on the robots (RC011 and RD008, although those names are never used in  Contra 4 ) that replaced the human characters in the Bowdlerised European games.
 * Some characters from  Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars  were decomposed into separate characters on  League of Legends . Sniper, for example, had his increasing range passive transferred to Tristana, his ultimate skill transferred to Caitlyn, and his basic skill transferred to Miss Fortune.
 * The Cun-Cun & Santi characters are heavily based on the Banjo-Kazooie ones. Cun-Cun and Tigre are a decomposite Banjo, Cun-Cun has Banjo´s personality and quirks, and even the same laugh, and Tigre has his Claw Swipe attack. Santi and Lotto, on the other hand, are seemingly a mix of Kazooie, Santi having her brash attitude and ability to scale steep hills, and Lotto has her ability to fly and his horn to emulate her beak.
 * Final Fantasy VII :
 * Cloud was originally designed with slicked black hair, but this look was later given to Zack.
 * Early production documents show a character named Aerith but with a design much more similar to Tifa, who had elements of both eventual characters (she would have been both an ecoterrorist who runs a bar, and an Ancient well-versed in magic). These two aspects of the character were eventually split - perhaps explaining the unusual personality inversion between both characters (Tifa being a sexy-looking physical fighter and bartender but gentle and sensitive, Aerith being a delicate magic healer and florist whose personality is kooky and forceful).
 * God of War  had Erinys, an expy of the mythological Furies introduced in  God of War: Ghost of Sparta, she later became this trope in retrospective when the actual Furies appeared in  God of War: Ascension  which was released way after  Ghost of Sparta.
 * In Classical Mythology, Zagreus was typically identified as Dionysus in his first life as the son of Zeus and Persephone.  Hades, however, goes with Aeschylus's Alternative Character Interpretation of Zagreus as the son of Hades (and thus cousin to Dionysus) instead. The more traditional setup is alluded to when Dionysus suggests Zagreus should prank the House of Hades's court musician, Orpheus, and convince him that they're the same person, not quite realizing Orpheus would turn it into the central lore of one of the Greece's most famous Mystery Cults.
 * Likewise,  The King of Fighters '99  features Kyo-1 and Kyo-2, two clones of Kyo Kusanagi, the series' former protagonist. Kyo-1 uses Kyo's moveset from  KOF '94 - '95, while Kyo-2 uses his moveset from  '96 - '97 . Likewise, Kusanagi from  KOF 2002  and  2003  wears Kyo's original costume and uses a variation of his  '95  fighting style, essentially allowing both the classic and modern versions of Kyo to appear in the same game.
 * Killing Floor 2  split off two new classes from two of its existing ones: Sharpshooter, formerly focused both on rifles and handguns, was split into focusing on just rifles while handguns went to the new Gunslinger, and Medic's submachine guns with healing darts were replaced by a new set of futuristic medic guns, with the conventional submachine guns going to the new SWAT perk.
 * The Legend of Zelda :
 * Hyrule Historia  stated  The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 's Link was the same as in the  The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games, but they were referred to as separate characters in the non-canon  Hyrule Encyclopedia.
 * The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask  takes place in a parallel universe to the one Hyrule exists in, and as such has many alternate counterparts to characters from  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . Some of these counterparts are actually the result of single characters from  Ocarina of Time  being split into multiple characters; Romani and Cremia are respectively based on the young and adult forms of Malon, and the three Gorman Brothers look just like Ingo.
 * In the first four games, there is an enemy race of monstrous Fish People called the Zoras.  Ocarina of Time  introduces non-villainous and more humanoid Zoras who are stated to be close allies of the Royal Family of Hyrule and who gladly help Link on his quest, implying a Heel–Race Turn.  Oracle of Ages, however, portrays the former Zoras (called "River Zora") and the latter Zoras (called "Sea Zora") as two separate races.
 * Similarly to the  Smash Bros.  and  Mario Bros.  examples,  Hyrule Warriors  has multiple versions of key characters on its playable roster: The base game includes both Zelda and Sheik, though story mode never includes both at once since as far as the story goes they're the same person. DLC adds more variants: Young Link and Toon Link for regular Link, Tetra and Toon Zelda for Zelda, and Twili Midna for Midna. This extends to Ganondorf to a certain degree as well, since Ganon is a boss character.
 * In  The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Rito are portrayed as the radically altered descendants of the Zora, and they even use the same three-crescent emblem on their clothes and other objects. In  The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , however, the Rito and Zora are portrayed side by side as separate species, with the Rito adopting a new emblem resembling a stylized bird.
 * In  The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, a sequel to/reimagining of  The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past :
 * Zelda is split into Zelda (princess of Hyrule, keeper of the Triforce of Wisdom and Bow of Light) and Seres (one of the Sages, captured by the villain at Sanctuary).
 * In  A Link to the Past, Link finds a maiden in prison who turns out to be the dungeon boss (Blind) in disguise. In  A Link Between World 's equivalent dungeon, Thief Girl and Stalblind are wholly different characters.
 * In  A Link to the Past  it's not exactly clear how separate Agahnim and Ganon are (Ganon's spirit is seen leaving Agahnim's body after his death, and Ganon refers to Agahnim as his "alter-ego").  A Link Between Worlds ' Yuga is clearly entirely separate from Ganon; even when the two merge, Yuga's the one in charge.
 * Subverted in  The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword : Impa seems to be split into Zelda's Sheikah protector and the keeper of the Sealed Temple who advises Link on his quest, but the ending reveals they're the same person, separated by The Slow Path.
 * There are two separate versions of Wolverine featured in  Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes . The standard Wolverine utilizes his fighting style from the previous  Marvel vs. Capcom  game, while the Bone Claw Wolverine uses his style from  X-Men vs. Street Fighter.
 * Mega Man Star Force, being the sequel series to  Mega Man Battle Network , takes the roles and character traits of the first protagonist's circle of friends and reuses them in various combinations. Battle Network had Yai, the brainy rich girl with a complex about her diminutive stature, which Star Force takes and splits into Zack, the brainy kid with a height complex, and rich girl Luna. Battle Network's musically-inclined love interest Mayl, is split into musically-inclined love interest Sonia and other love interest Luna (making her both an example of Decomposite Character  and  Composite Character). Luna and Sonia both also borrow a plot element from Yai, whose vast family fortune was frequently used to write the cast both in and out of various problems, as Luna's parents are just as obscenely rich as Yai's and Sonia is a wildly popular pop star.
 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater  did this with the cut  Metal Gear Solid 2  boss Oldboy, a hundred-year-old soldier who was supposedly Big Boss' mentor in the past. The characters of The Boss (Big Boss' mentor) and The End (a hundred-year-old sniper) were created from aspects of his character. This is in interesting contrast to what happened to the other cut boss, Chinaman, who instead had his powers and a boss arena meant for him given to Vamp.
 * Early prototypes of  Ori and the Blind Forest  had Sein as the main character, and were titled accordingly. Later on, they were split into Ori, the Player Character, and Sein, the Exposition Fairy.
 * In  Overwatch, Hanzo and Genji were originally a single ninja character, but the character was considered so cluttered and unfocused both in design and mechanics that he was split into two different characters, with Hanzo focusing on archery and Genji being a shuriken-throwing swordsman.
 * One of the heroes in early development was an omnic named Wildebeest, who fought with a shield and a flail. Wildebeest was eventually split into Reinhardt and Orisa before the game's release, with his flail going to Brigitte.
 * Two characters from  Persona 5  are derived from Mitsuru Kirijo from  Persona 3 : Makoto Niijima inherited Mitsuru's primary position as the Student Council President of her school, her intelligence, her serious personality, and her position as a secondary analyst for the Phantom Thieves (as Mitsuru was SEES' navigator before Fuuka joined them, whereas Makoto handles analyzing enemy weaknesses, even after Futaba becomes the Mission Control). Haru Okumura, meanwhile, inherited Mitsuru's immense wealth (albeit on a more realistic scale: she's the daughter of the president of a fast food company, whereas Mitsuru's father owned a Mega-Corp), her Arcana (The Empress), and parts of her backstory, namely that she's locked in an Arranged Marriage for her company's sake. Both of them are also third-years like Mitsuru, and like Mitsuru, Makoto is a bit out of touch with her peers due to spending much of her time studying.
 * Pokémon :
 * Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!  has playable characters and a rival separate from Red/Leaf and Blue from  Pokémon Red and Blue  and  Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen.  The  Let's Go  protagonists take Red's place in challenging Gyms and fighting Team Rocket (particularly Jessie and James from the anime, who appeared in  Pokémon Yellow ), while the rival takes Blue's place. Meanwhile, Red, Blue,  and  Leaf can all apparently be battled in  Let's Go,  thus making it a case of this trope in action.
 * Pokémon Masters  splits the player roles between the protagonists. For example, Hilda fought the champion but Hilbert took down Team Plasma. Lyra mentions fighting Red, but she owns a Marill like the NPC Lyra and Ethan isn't related to the Daycare Couple like his NPC version is.
 * Resident Evil :
 * In the original 1996 version of  Resident Evil, S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team's helicopter pilot Edward Dewey was simply a name listed in the game's manual. He was never depicted in any form (manual art or in-game), although it is implied that the disembodied hand that Joseph Frost finds in the live-action opening belonged to him. Fast-foward to the 2002 remake and Bravo Team's pilot is now a different character named Kevin Dooley, while the actual Edward Dewey is an active member of Bravo Team who gets killed off earlier in the prequel  Resident Evil 0 . The reason for this change was likely due to a photograph in  Resident Evil 2 , which depicted all the S.T.A.R.S. members from the first game, plus two extra members who were never shown before. Naturally one of them was likely Edward Dewey, leaving the other one unaccounted.
 * Resident Evil 1.5  had many of its elements decomposited and integrated into  Resident Evil 2.
 * John, a character who was meant to appear in the police department's cell block, was split off into Ben Bertolucci, who kept his role as a civilian in one of the cells, and Robert Kendo, who was given his appearance.
 * Ada was originally a Hot Scientist (initially named “Linda”) who was actually a spy working for Umbrella. In the final game Ada is still a spy but her female scientist role is taken by Annette, who actually turned into a monster in the original version.
 * Speaking of  Resident Evil, two early versions of  Resident Evil 4  became their own games. The first is  Devil May Cry  whose Hack and Slash gameplay was considered too radically different from the usual Survival Horror tone thus was turned into its own franchise, with the only connecting elements being Dante, whose jokey cool guy personality is akin to RE4's Leon and the creepy castle. The second was  Haunting Ground  which borrowed many elements (and even textures) from RE4 while managing to be uniquely creepy, although Hewy the Canine Companion makes a cameo in RE4 as a different but no less helpful dog.
 * In  Shrek SuperSlam, both of Princess Fiona's forms (human and ogre) were split into two different characters, each with their own playstyles: Human Fiona takes her ninja-like fighting ability to become a lightning-fast Gradual Grinder while Ogre Fiona focuses on her raw ogre strength and singing ability to be more of a Jack-of-All-Stats. Furthermore, both characters have different default outfits, with human Fiona wearing her iconic green dress from the first movie and ogre Fiona wearing a Valkyrie outfit.
 * Six Ages, the successor to  King of Dragon Pass , features an entirely new Fantasy Pantheon—albeit one where most of the new gods have clear counterparts among the old ones. The exception is Vinga, KODP's goddess of explorers and female warriors. Her role is split between two new gods: Osara shares Vinga's association with Action Girl|s and has a similar relationship with her father Elmal to the one Vinga has with Orlanth, while Zarlen shares Vinga's rune (Motion), provides her Pathfinder blessing, and is the new patron of explorers. Both of them share her often-mentioned red hair.
 * In recent years, this has happened to the title character of Sonic the Hedgehog. Starting with  Sonic Generations  there was an implied split between the Sega Genesis Classic era, the Dreamcast-2006 Dreamcast era and the post-2006 Modern era with Classic Sonic returning as "Sonic as he was at ten years old." as a result of time travel. In the years since, Classic Sonic has become his own brand of sorts, getting equal footing and presense with Modern Sonic and his own merchendise. By the time  Sonic Mania  and  Sonic Forces  arrived, Sega had quietly ret-conned Classic Sonic into being his own stand-alone character from his own stand-alone dimension, splitting him entirely from Modern Sonic and in turn allowing both to get even more attention and presence. However, to the frustration of Dreamcast era fans, this also resulted in the entirety of the Dreamcast era becoming Out of Focus outside of the occasional memes and jabs.
 * Soul Series :
 * In the Asian (non-Japanese) versions of  Soul Edge, the samurai Mitsurugi was replaced by Korean swordsman Hwang due to a law in South Korea which bans media depicting samurais. In the Version 2 revision of the arcade game and subsequent PlayStation port (titled  Soul Blade  in the west), Hwang and Mitsurugi were made into separate characters. The character of Arthur in the original  Soulcalibur , an English swordsman who substituted Mitsurugi in certain versions of the arcade game, was also made into a separate character in  Soulcalibur III.
 * What was effectively done with Siegfried and Nightmare, The Hero and the Big Bad of the series respectively. Originally, Siegfried became Nightmare after claiming Soul Edge and was Brainwashed and Crazy into being the host of the blade, and was treated as his evil alter ego. In  Soul Blade, Nightmare was foreshadowed with a bonus costume title "Siegfried!", in  Soulcalibur  they appeared as Moveset Clones with little variation, and in  Soulcalibur II  Nightmare has replaced Siegfried entirely. However, lore-wise Siegfried broke free of Soul Edge's grasp, and was freed of becoming Nightmare. Then, Nightmare was able to operate without a host due to Zasalamel using his sorcery to bond Soul Edge to Inferno's energy, making the two into completely separate characters. From that point on, they've been treated as different entities, and in fact  Soulcalibur V  retconned the lore by stating that "Nightmare" is a mantle given to those who wield Soul Edge.
 * Super Mario Bros. :
 * There is a tendency to do this in  Super Mario Bros.  Spin-off titles to increase the character roster. For example, baby versions of various Mario characters have appeared alongside their adult selves with no explanation. A few of Mario's and other character's powered-up forms have also evolved into their own separate characters. Some examples include Metal Mario, Dr. Mario, Tanooki Mario, Cat Mario, Pink Gold Peach, Cat Peach and Dry Bowser.
 * The woman in  Donkey Kong  was just referred to as "Lady". While in English works she has been named "Pauline" since the NES port, in Japan she wasn't named until  Donkey Kong '94 . Even though they're the exact same character with a redesign, a lot of 1990s and 2000s Japanese media treated them like two separate individuals. It wasn't until  Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U  that Japanese media began consistently listing them as the same character.
 * From  Super Smash Bros. :
 * Mario has multiple versions of himself appear in the games, which are treated as separate characters: Mario has Dr. Mario as an alternate character and Metal Mario as a boss in the first game.
 * In  Melee  and  Brawl, a few characters could switch between different forms: Zelda could transform into her alter-ego Sheik, Samus could lose her armor and become Zero Suit Samus, and the Pokémon Trainer could switch between Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. As of the fourth game, the devs made a concerted effort to drop these mechanics; and as a result Zelda, Sheik, Samus, and Zero Suit Samus are all separate characters and the Pokémon Trainer was replaced with just Charizard (though  Ultimate  re-composites Charizard by bringing back the Trainer).
 * Dark Pit started off as a "Fallen Angel"-themed Palette Swap of Pit in  Brawl . In  Kid Icarus: Uprising, Sakurai decided to make him into a character. As of  Smash 4 , he's now got his own slot on the roster (albeit as a Moveset Clone of Pit).
 * In the original  Tomb Raider  continuity, Lara's tech support was provided by a wise-cracking African-American hacker named Zip. In the movies, the same basic role was filled by a white British guy named Bryce, who was more of a Deadpan Snarker and more of a stereotypically awkward geek than the self-assured Zip. Come  Tomb Raider: Legend, Zip got a makeover, but also a second-in-command named Al*ister, another white British techie with less overt social confidence, who seems to have been created to incorporate Bryce's qualities into the games while retaining Zip as a separate character.
 * Warframe  has an unusual example in that it's both the original work and the adaptation (thanks to the developers constantly updating the game): the original boss of Mars was Sergeant Nef Anyo, a Corpus military figure responsible for overseeing the Solar Rail network. Update 16.4 split him into the Sergeant, who retained the old appearance and role as boss, and Nef Anyo, a con man posing as a preacher who instigated the False Profit event. It seems that Nef's new boss fight, which had been in the works for quite some time, wasn't ready when the event launched, so he was temporarily split in two; it's likely that the Sergeant will be quietly replaced once the new fight is ready. Oddly, the same did  not  happen for Tyl Regor, the Grineer scientist who had a very similar situation with the very next event in Update 16.5, possibly because his character and personality remained fairly similar.
 * In  Watch_Dogs  the stand-in for Google in-universe were Blume due to its operating system monopoly. Come  Watch_Dogs 2, both Nudle (search engine and maps) and Haum (smart home) were also stand-ins for Google.