Across ages

Most common in games like Civilization and similar where you take a stone-age or earlier civilization and develop it up to modern age and beyond. The player's nature is barely ever explained, but usually appears to be some immortal ruler with no answers to why, how or what.

Other instances are rarer as they're likely have more involved story and require some fantastical or sci-fi method to preserve the protagonist for this span of time, such as in the WoD game Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption where the protagonist is a vampire and therefore practically immortal.

Limitations:
* NOT for cases where this happens through time travel.
* Passage of time alone is not enough.