History GodzillaThreshold / VideoGames

*** Templars, when faced with a dire situation when confronting a rebellious or imperiled Mage Circle, have the option of calling for a "Rite of Annulment," which basically means ''completely and utterly'' purging the offending Mage Circle in question. The Rite is only called in only the most dire of circumstances, usually when it is determined that a circle has been too compromised to save, and that purging it is the only way to prevent further casualties. At least...on paper, anyways. Due to the heavy moral and ethical ramifications that come with purging an entire Circle, especially if/when the PlayerCharacter manages to resolve Mage-related situations without resorting to the Rite, much is had about how ''necessary'' such Thresholds are, and how they may be used for oppressive purposes rather than protection, which ends up being a major part of the tensions between Mages and Templars for the following two games.
*** The Blight has played this role for over a millennium, to the point where the Chantry is willing to look the other way when the Grey Wardens recruits criminals and apostates or dabble in blood magic. One of the reasons that tensions between humans and elves got as bad as they did was because the elven kingdom did ''not'' treat the Second Blight as a Godzilla Threshold. Seeing the Dales sit back and do nothing while the Darkspawn ravaged Orlais undid much of the goodwill left over from Emperor Drakon's promise to respect elven sovereignty, eventually culminating in the Exalted March of the Dales.

*** During the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall, the situation gets so dire that when Knight-Commander Meredith discovers that Mage!Hawke has been operating as an illegal apostate under the Templars' very noses for the last four years... she does the smart thing and immediately declares [[EnemyMine a truce]] until the crisis is dealt with. At this point, she needs all the help she can get in retaking the city, even if it comes from an Apostate Mage.

* The "Emergency Measures" option in ''{{VideoGame/Hades}}'' is Zagreus opting in to have the guardians of each of the layers of the Underworld fighting as though the person making the escape attempt presents an existential threat to reality itself and ''must not escape''. The Furie sisters all fight together, the Bone Hydra is empowered further, Theseus and Asterius are significantly better equipped, and [[AntagonistTitle the big man himself]] stops holding ''[[IAmNotLeftHanded anything]]'' back, coming at his son with the same force and fury as he did when the Olympians were fighting to overthrow the Titans.

** The heroes of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' perform HeelFaceBrainwashing as their ''modus operandi''. They are fully aware of the ambiguous morality of their actions, but the problem is their targets are ''terrible'' people who are also in positions of high authority, leaving them otherwise untouchable.

* ''VideoGame/AIWarFleetCommand'': The AI starts considering you NotWorthKilling, and putting off your demise since there are explicit, but unspecified threats much closer to its level keeping it busy outside of the galaxy. Provoke it enough, it'll send some spare trash armies at you, still more than enough to make your life difficult. Keep at it, and you'll start facing actual local armies and a bit of the good stuff it keeps off-galaxy, usually fighting whatever problems it deems more important than you. After that come the local big guns, both AI-made and reverse-engineered. And if you're unwise or backed up enough to keep going, the AI decides this line has been crossed and brings in stuff like [=Hunter/Killers=], Avengers and even the Mothership. The latter is explicitly noted as something the AI would not bring even if it was in danger of losing the whole galaxy, but that circumstances forced its hand. And at the end of a certain campaign in the first game, in comes the very last resort, the Galactic Control Ship. The damn thing is made to tear an entire galaxy apart by itself, and just its reactor going critical in death wipes out whole star systems. [[spoiler:Thankfully, if you see it, it's likely you have some [[BenevolentPrecursors powerful benefactors]] helping you out]].
** ''AI War 2'' has the explicitly defined Extragalactic War units for similar purposes, except rather than being based on storyline they're brought in when you (extremely rare), a minor faction (the [[VestigialEmpire Fallen]] [[BenevolentPrecursors Spire]] are common offenders) or more likely [[EnemyMine both]] have run off with the advantage and become waaaay stronger than anticipated. This is also the stuff the AI usually saves for whatever threats are off the galaxy, and bringing them into it means things are starting to get similarly threatening. They come in five levels, 1 being an aresenal of pretty damned nasty ships and 5's Extragalactic War Flenser being close to a HopelessBossFight, even above the last-resort ships it threw at you in the first game; you better hope you can snipe the AI Overlord before you die.

* It's a relatively minor and easy to miss one, but in ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore 4: For Answer'', you can become one, [[spoiler:if you kill hundreds of millions of people by bringing down the cradle, Otsdarva will be one of the 5 NEXT teaming up to take you down as payback]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'': Using nukes will irradiate the terrain in the blast radius, drastically reducing the resource yield while making your units on those tiles move slower and fight noticeably poorer. Furthermore, they don't distinguish between enemy and friendly, but will severely hurt both alike. If you have a large enemy army on the way that you know your own conventional forces can't hold off, though, it may be worth taking the hit. In fact, even having one will make other countries wary of crossing you unless they have no other recourse.

* Pops up in the final GDI mission of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars''. Faced with a grueling assault on an enemy stronghold in hopes of ending an AlienInvasion, Director Boyle will urge you to use the Liquid Tiberium bomb to wipe out the foe with a single press of a button — even though doing so will set off a chain reaction in the world's largest Red Zone, killing millions if not billions of civilians, causing irreparable environmental damage, and annihilating your own army. However, as hard as the fight is, your forces are still capable of winning without using the bomb and thereby destroying southern Europe.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'', this happens all the time throughout the series. In the first game, the US Navy decides to nuke an energy dome that the Ceph have erected over the Lingshan Islands even after being warned it will just make them more powerful. Considering the Ceph just overran an entire Marine division while barely taking a lick of damage, it's fairly justified.
** In ''VideoGame/Crysis2'', the Pentagon does it again by bombing out the flood barriers of New York City and trying to drown the Ceph. It's pointed out that this is a really bad idea, considering the Ceph are aquatic creatures, but nobody else has any better ideas. Later on in the game, the Ceph are on the verge of deploying a virulent spore weapon into the atmosphere which will likely kill the entire human race, so the Department of Defense authorizes a tactical nuclear strike on the weapon site in Central Park. Even though it probably won't work and will kill thousands of civilians left in the city, it's their last best hope.

* ''VideoGame/Doom2016'': It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:retrieving the Doom Slayer in the first place]] was the threshold-crossing plan that the UAC had if Hell's incursions got too bad. While that would most definitely deal with the demons, it'd also wreck their whole Argent Energy operation, which is why they were tampering with Hell in the first place, and the demons would put up a ''lot'' of resistance if they tried it, leading to horrible casualties. Naturally, things get bad enough, and [[spoiler:the Slayer does indeed wreck their Argent Energy operation, enraged at the fact people are ''still'' trying to fuck around with Hell forces even in this day. Still, it got the demons dealt with]].
* ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' continues this given the state of Earth by the time Doomguy shows up. Needless to say, there isn't a human alive that isn't happy to see him arrive regardless of how terrifying he is.
** However, by the time of [[DownloadableContent The Ancient Gods, Part One]], [[spoiler:the Doom Slayer has ''his'' own threshold, seeking to summon the [[GreaterScopeVillain Dark Lord of Hell]] into physical form, so that he may be finally killed, [[KeystoneArmy and thus]], have every demon confined to Hell forevermore.]]
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'':
** Templars, when faced with a dire situation when confronting a rebellious or imperiled Mage Circle, have the option of calling for a "Rite of Annulment," which basically means ''completely and utterly'' purging the offending Mage Circle in question. The Rite is only called in only the most dire of circumstances, usually when it is determined that a circle has been too compromised to save, and that purging it is the only way to prevent further casualties. At least...on paper, anyways. Due to the heavy moral and ethical ramifications that come with purging an entire Circle, especially if/when the PlayerCharacter manages to resolve Mage-related situations without resorting to the Rite, much is had about how ''necessary'' such Thresholds are, and how they may be used for oppressive purposes rather than protection, which ends up being a major part of the tensions between Mages and Templars for the following two games.
** The Blight has played this role for over a millennium, to the point where the Chantry is willing to look the other way when the Grey Wardens recruits criminals and apostates or dabble in blood magic. One of the reasons that tensions between humans and elves got as bad as they did was because the elven kingdom did ''not'' treat the Second Blight as a Godzilla Threshold. Seeing the Dales sit back and do nothing while the Darkspawn ravaged Orlais undid much of the goodwill left over from Emperor Drakon's promise to respect elven sovereignty, eventually culminating in the Exalted March of the Dales.
** Some mages fighting for their freedom or life decide to use BloodMagic or make a deal with a demon. These situations usually end up badly — with the unfortunate mage getting possessed or driven insane with power. There are also shades of ThenLetMeBeEvil, since many mages believe that if templars are going to accuse them of BloodMagic anyway, they might as well go along with it and use the best weapon they have at their disposal.
** Some Exalted Marches [[note]]a.k.a. the ''Dragon Age'' version of Crusades[[/note]] have begun like this. While not strictly a Godzilla Threshold move, the Chantry has at times declared Marches in order to defend against a perceived direct threat to their faith, such as the first war with the Qunari, where the Qunari's technological superiority over the nations of Thedas meant that the land truly was at risk of being overrun. When the Exalted March was declared, every faithful and able Thedosian, even mages, who were often oppressed by the Southern Chantry, was mustered against the Qunari, and only through the use of that magic were they able to turn the tide.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'':
** During the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall, the situation gets so dire that when Knight-Commander Meredith discovers that Mage!Hawke has been operating as an illegal apostate under the Templars' very noses for the last four years... she does the smart thing and immediately declares [[EnemyMine a truce]] until the crisis is dealt with. At this point, she needs all the help she can get in retaking the city, even if it comes from an Apostate Mage.
** At the end of Act III, the threshold is crossed deliberately to instigate a LensmanArmsRace between factions. [[spoiler:A lone terrorist blows up a church, massacring hundreds. This also killed the only person who was keeping a fragile peace between two highly volatile factions. With the threat of TheUnfettered Meredith, who now had the justification she needed to enact a Right of Annulment (see above) against the Kirkwall Circle, Orsino had no choice but to match her with all the forbidden magic he could get his hands on. As one can predict, this sparks a major battle that quickly spreads into an all-out war across the continent...which is exactly what the terrorist wanted.]]
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' sees the BigBad deliberately exploit this [[spoiler:when he makes the Grey Wardens think that they are all hearing the Calling. Their belief that they are all going to die soon leads to them using BloodMagic and performing HumanSacrifice to summon a demon army to help them wipe out the last two Old Gods before they are all gone. That demon army would eventually become his army.]]
** There's a second, more subtle example in the game. The Qunari, who are the ScaryDogmaticAliens of the setting, are so concerned by the Breach and resulting Rifts that ''they'' approach ''you'' looking to form an alliance to combat the menace. According to Iron Bull, this is the first time in recorded history that the Qunari have ever voluntarily considered an alliance with anyone not of the Qun for any reason.
** Picking up from where the first game left off regarding the Right of Annulment and [[FateWorseThanDeath Rite of]] [[{{Lobotomy}} Tranquility]], the Mage/Templar War ends up starting over the concerns brought about by the Threshold for the aforementioned Rites of Annulment and Tranquility being gradually lowered over the centuries, to the point where it was being abused quite blatantly in many cases. Flavor text reveals that the threshold for the Right of Annulment was lowered much more quickly than anyone thought, but the Seekers covered it up. Dialogue with another Seeker reveals that the Rite of Tranquility was discovered ''by complete accident'' and it was only through the involvement of the Chantry that it became a Threshold, who saw it as a way to protect weak-minded mages from being possessed by demons. Both of these Rites started out as true Godzilla Thresholds, but as the centuries wore on, the restrictions against them gradually fell off one by one to the point that the "current" standards for their use are ''liberal'' compared to their original standards. Many mages took note of this, especially when corrupt Templars began using the mere mention of the Rites as ''threats'' to keep them in line, causing tensions to rise on both sides as the Mages responded by pushing back harder, with many turning to the forbidden [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Blood Magic]] to bolster their strength, which only edged the Templars closer to the Threshold; the Chantry, on their part, worked to keep peace between the two factions, but would not (or could not) take a side, meaning that their placation actions were merely delaying the inevitable war. [[TheExtremistWasRight The war triggered when Anders prevented the Chantry from repeating that in Kirkwall.]]

* The Enclave in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series sees the proliferation of mutants in the wasteland as their threshold. Unfortunately for everyone, to the Enclave, "mutant" doesn't just mean the super mutants and deformed ghouls, it includes any human who has been exposed to radiation for an extended period of time — in other words, ''everyone'' not a member of the Enclave or living in a Vault. Their solution is to use a modified strand of the FEV virus and release it into the air currents and later water supply to kill them all.

** The Blight has played this role for over a millenium, to the point where the Chantry is willing to look the other way when the Grey Wardens recruits criminals and apostates or dabble in blood magic.