History OneManArmy / VideoGames

** And ''Modern Warfare 3'' follows suit with the "Specialist" strike package, allowing a player to actually gain more perks as he makes kills - managing to get 8 within one life gives that player the advantages of ''nearly every perk and weapon proficiency in the game''. The challenge for earning the 8 kills in one life bonus is even called "OMA".

** In ''VideoGame/Starfox64'', the Star Fox team presents their "fee" (kill count) to the Cornerian army for their services. Depending on how high the number is, General Pepper has reactions ranging from "It was worth it," to "WHAT!?!"

** ''VideoGame/Persona1'': Reiji Kido (Chris in the ''Revelations'' localization) begins the game by storming SEBEC headquarters by himself. He spends the first part of the game fighting by himself the same enemies that give your four-or-five man band so much trouble, and you find him no worse for the wear. What happens to him depends on what choices you make; if you follow the GuideDangIt steps to recruit him, he's still in tip-top shape when he joins the party, but if you don't recruit him, you'll find him again a few dungeons later collapsed on the floor [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome because it got too much for him to handle]] (or he ran out of medicine).

** ''''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': Erdrick himself can do the same thing if the player chooses to without getting party memebrs from Patty's Party Planning Place. An enemy by [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin that very name]] is the strongest Skeleton Swordsman in the game, being found in [[spoiler: [[TheVeryDefinitlyFinalDungeon Zoma's Citadel, aka the future place of the Dragonlord]]]].

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestHeroesTheWorldTreesWoeAndTheBlightBelow'': Like most ''Warriors'' games, any playable character can become this. Downplayed this time, however. It's usually a party of four fighting and they need to make good use of Player Mooks to succeed. Any player in high tension mode is an invincible god of destruction. infinite HP, infinite MP, status effects don't work, and heightened attack. Too bad it's temporary.

** Its sister series ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsGundam'' is the same premise, [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!!!]] It even has a skill called "One Man Army" that powers you up tremendously against grunts.

** [[MoralDissonance Point of interest]]: Not only are the Vigoorian Army never established as "bad guys" in any way (meaning that you're basically killing your way through [[PunchClockVillain ordinary soldiers who are just following orders and trying to defend their homeland]] from ''you''), the first level sees you killing maybe a hundred ninjas from a rival clan. A ''friendly'' rival clan, whom you're visiting for some training. Ryu's excuse? "He had glaring holes in his defences. He would never have survived in the field, anyway."

* [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] in ''VideoGame/DonPachi''.

** Possibly first played straightest in the original ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI''. An entire nation's military force is overrun by enemy mooks, and one man, with no weapon or armor, no equipment of any kind, and no magic (well, at least he starts that way) steps up and singlehandedly slaughters thousands of monsters and the big bad himself.

-->'''SWAT member:''' ''[As Neo approaches and the team is standing in front of Tzu's door]'' A whole team for one guy ? Either this guy is really good, or they must be nuts to send all of us.

* In the single player campaign of ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' the player is only fourteen years old yet single-handedly beats the invading Octoling army, without any formal training at that.
* Your Character in the [[spoiler: Space Stage]] of ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' can be this, once the weapons on their spaceship are powerful enough. They can go to each and every planet of a species they're at war with, and bomb the cities of every one, eventually destroying/taking over the whole empire. And if they die? Not a problem. "Due to recent advances in cloning technology and consciousness transferring, your hom planet have got a new [name of spaceship] ready for you!" You can just go back and keep fighting!

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros.'' Endless Melee/Brawl. You get one life to take out as many enemies as possible. Getting every achievement means you're going to have to take down ''hundreds''.

* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'': The title character in every single one of his games, especially the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'' trilogy. At times he'll have a dozen or more huge, powerful enemies, some with multiple health bars, all attacking him at once, and a minute later they'll all be lying dead.

** In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake its remake]], Umbrella agent HUNK slaughters his way through the G-virus' toughtest zombies singlehandedly to reach extraction. It goes even further in the remake, where it's implied he's been actively fighting for days on his lonesome.

* By the end of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', Leon has singlehandedly killed hundreds of Ganados. When the BigBad confronts you at the end, it's no wonder he's alone: you've probably wiped out most, if not all, of his army.
** There's a note you can find about a third of the way through the first disk, which basically just reads "We gotta do something or he'll [[KillEmAll kill them all!]]"

* The Ubersreik Five of ''[[VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide Vermintide]]'' and ''VideoGame/VermintideII'' (Kerillian, Bardin Goreksson, Markus Kruber, Sienna Fuegonasus, and Victor Saltzpyre) take this to ridiculous levels, especially considering all but one of them [[BadassNormal have no magic, superhuman physicals, or ultra-rare gear]] ([[EmpoweredBadassNormal until the second game's later DLC anyway]]). Given the horde-based game design, it's common for the team to kill over a thousand enemies in a single mission, and between the two games and their expansions there are several dozen such missions, putting the team's count into the ''tens of thousands.'' In the first game most of the enemies are Skaven Clanrats, who are only slightly inferior to professional human soldiers, and the average quality of the opposition is brought up by 10-15% of the enemy force consisting of elites and specials, who range from about on par with an elite human soldier (e.g. Stormvermin) to outright ridiculously dangerous (e.g.[[MoreDakka Ratling Gunners]] in an otherwise mostly 16th century setting). Not to mention the [[GiantMook Rat Ogres]]. The sequel ups the ante with northmen Marauders and beastmen Gors (each about on par with an average human soldier) being about as common as Clanrats and their respective factions each bringing in their own elites, specials, and monsters to complement the Skaven, including dark wizards, massive trolls, and hundreds of heavily armored seven-foot tall daemonic super soldiers. Yet the Five, if anything, go through them ''easier'' than they did the Skaven in the first game due to the new gear and upgrades they receive. Keep in mind that this is a setting where, under normal conditions, 20,000 troops is considered a respectable army for a mid-sized country;[[note]]For example, "Knights of the Grail" states that the Bretonnian dukedom of L'Anguille would struggle to raise 1,000 knights and 10,000 men-at-arms, "Empire at War" explicitly puts the Imperial Electoral Province of Hochland's army at around 18,000 at full muster, and "Empire Army: Warrior Priest" puts the full muster of the Imperial Electoral Province of Ostland as being in the low tens of thousands.[[/note]] these five individuals alone kill over twice that many in at most a few years!

* The Ubersreik Five of ''[[VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide Vermintide]]'' and ''VideoGame/VermintideII'' (Kerillian, Bardin Goreksson, Markus Kruber, Sienna Fuegonasus, and Victor Saltzpyre) take this to ridiculous levels, especially considering all but one of them [[BadassNormal have no magic, superhuman physicals, or ultra-rare gear]] ([[EmpoweredBadassNormal until the second game's later DLC anyway]]). Given the horde-based game design, it's common for the team to kill over a thousand enemies in a single mission, and between the two games and their expansions there are several dozen such missions, putting the team's count into the ''tens of thousands.'' In the first game most of the enemies are Skaven [[CannonFodder Clanrats]], who would need to outnumber professional human soldiers a few times over to win, but the average quality of the opposition is brought up by 10-15% of the enemy force consisting of elites and specials, who range from about on par with an elite human soldier (e.g. Stormvermin) to outright ridiculously dangerous (e.g.[[MoreDakka Ratling Gunners]] in an otherwise mostly 16th century setting). Not to mention the [[GiantMook Rat Ogres]]. The sequel ups the ante with northmen Marauders and beastmen Gors (each about on par with an average human soldier) being about as common as Clanrats and their respective factions each bringing in their own elites, specials, and monsters to complement the Skaven, including dark wizards, massive trolls, and hundreds of heavily armored seven-foot tall daemonic super soldiers. Yet the Five, if anything, go through them ''easier'' than they did the Skaven in the first game due to the new gear and upgrades they receive. Keep in mind that this is a setting where, under normal conditions, 20,000 troops is considered a respectable army for a mid-sized country;[[note]]For example, "Knights of the Grail" states that the Bretonnian dukedom of L'Anguille would struggle to raise 1,000 knights and 10,000 men-at-arms, "Empire at War" explicitly puts the Imperial Electoral Province of Hochland's army at around 18,000 at full muster, and "Empire Army: Warrior Priest" puts the full muster of the Imperial Electoral Province of Ostland as being in the low tens of thousands.[[/note]] these five individuals alone kill over twice that many in at most a few years!

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'': The Wight Knight -an undead horseman- defeated Stornway's entire military.

*** The backstory of [[BigBad Chaos]] is that he was supposed to be Onracians' answer to another country's OneManArmy, Omega. Then he was driven insane by power and devastated the world, or something. By the time the game starts, it takes several [[ArmyOfOne Armies of One]] from other worlds to take him down.
*** Special mention among said Armies of One goes to the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI Warrior of Light]]. Meta-wise, he becomes an Army of One by being a CompositeCharacter and due to the... interplay between ''Dissidia'' and ''Final Fantasy I'' it is implied that now FFI is cleared by a single character. In story, he faces more non-{{Mooks}} than any other character, alone, in the ending to 012 fights ''an entire army'' on his own until he can no longer stand, and in the AlternateUniverse of Scenario 000 is stated to be the last one who fell to [[TrueFinalBoss Feral Chaos]].

** ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'' and its sequel ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'' have the BlackKnight. Tibarn mentions that he wiped out an entire unit of super-powerful bird-people on his own. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in his case, however, as his armor makes him invulnerable to anything but weapons blessed by the Goddess -- and at this point, only TWO weapons in the ENTIRE WORLD have the appropriate blessing, and [[OhCrap he's using one of them]] (Ike [[InfinityPlusOneSword possesses the other for most of the game]], [[TooDumbToLive but doesn't use it until the final confrontation)]]. [[ForegoneConclusion Since the Bird Tribe lacked the appropriate blessing required to hurt him...]] Of course, even without his blessed armor, the Black Knight has by far the highest combined stats of any character in the game, with max Hit Points, Strength, Skill, and Speed, and nearly the highest possible speed and resistance. ''Radiant Dawn'' also reveals that he's [[spoiler:the greatest tactical mind in Begnion, and a major military commander in ''two'' countries]].

* ''VideoGame/FireWarrior'' (of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' fame) played this trope to terrifying limits. Not only does La'Kais kill several battalions of the Imperial Guard, large numbers of Space Marines and several Dreadnaughts, a good deal of Chaos Marines and several Daemons including a God by himself - he does it all within the timespan of twenty four hours. This is even more amazing when one considers that La'Kais is a Tau Fire Warrior, making him the Tau equivalent of basic infantry, a common foot soldier. Furthermore, not just any day--La'Kais' ''first day'' of live combat action. [[BeginnersLuck (Hmmm...)]] It's worth noting that canonically, he was driven insane by his experiences and was never fit for duty again.
** At least, up until around the Eye of Terror world campaign, at which point they brought him back (for the Tabletop Game) as O'Kais (Shas'o being the equivalent of "general", while shas'la is roughly "private". Yeah, Tau nomenclature includes lots of compounds, and an individual's rank and caste), and used him as the justification for introducing man-portable railguns as a sniper-rifle analogue. They still note that he was a basket case, but he gets roped back in for a completely undefined 'emergency'.
** The Novel offers a few justifications: one, ([[spoiler:Khorne was helping]]); also most of his kills were from blowing up a ship's engine (flushing hundreds out into space). He's still pretty messed up.

** Actually invoked in ''Unsung War'' in Operation Katina, which stars the protagonist, Mobius 1, from the previous game. The operation narrator ''states outright'' that Mobius 1 has a higher kill ratio than an '''entire squadron'''. The narrator continues that [[TheRemnant a sizable force of Erusean veterans]] has risen up to start another war, [[OneRiotOneRanger and that Mobius 1's job is to take them out...]] ''[[OneRiotOneRanger by himself]]''.

--->''"Head Operations has recognized you as'' '''''an indispensable component in this war."'''''
** ''VideoGame/AceCombat3Electrosphere'' seems to play it straight, until the OmegaEnding ([[BadExportForYou only in the Japanese version]]) reveals that [[spoiler:Nemo was an AI and the entire conflict was just a simulation to create a pilot that could beat Abyssal Dision. This was true in almost all cases, though the outcome of the war itself never really changes]]. Japanese fans of the series were not happy about this, which is likely why later games play it straight. Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad.

* A major subplot in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' involves the three heroes and [[GuestStarPartyMember Leila]] searching for several {{Plot Coupon}}s. Just as you're about to seize the reward at the end, you meet Ricard Highwind, who did all of the stuff your party did ''all by himself''.
* Terra of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' is introduced in the opening segment as a one-woman army who "Fried 50 of [the Empire's] {{Magitek}}-armored soldiers in three minutes".
* Thunder God Cid Orlandeau in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics''. His class, Holy Swordsman is essentially three classes' worth of attacks rolled into one (three very good classes, at that), he can easily exploit enemy weaknesses regardless of situation and has the stats to back it up. If you put even the slightest effort into leveling him up, he can solo most maps.
* Pretty much any SOLDIER 1st Class from the world of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' counts. For example, in ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'', one of Zack's first missions is essentially summed up as "Storm the enemy base alone. [[StormingTheCastle Have fun]]." By the end of the game, it literally takes the strength of the entire Shinra standing army to take Zack down. And in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'', [[spoiler:even that isn't enough to take him down. After Cloud and co. are through monkeying with the timeline by accident, a new timeline is presumably created where Zack ''[[KillEmAll kills.]] [[SparedByTheAdaptation Them.]] [[PunctuatedForEmphasis All.]]'']]
* The Adventurer, the PlayerCharacter from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''. They eventually become a powerful fighter capable of not only fighting many dragons, gods and eldritch abominations by themselves, they even [[spoiler: become a God]] in order to prevent the Cloud of Darkness from destroying the world. While the worst threats in-game are often fought with party members or with Trust Magic (allowing a player to effectively solo a fight while only relying on 5 summoned [=NPCs=] instead of other players), a level-capped player could fight most monsters and bosses up to those featured in the last few expansions completely by themselves.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'':
** Lightning. It's even {{Lampshaded}} ingame: her exclusive skill is aptly named "Army of One". Taken to extreme levels when you consider that she wiped out several battalions of Cocoon's finest soldiers, the Cavalry, without any visible effort immediately after effortlessly dealing with an entire security fleet. Hell, even as a mere human she managed to wipe out an entire train of soldiers, becoming a [[TouchedByVorlons l'Cie]] was [[TookALevelInBadass just another level in badass to her]]. And in ''Final Fantasy XIII-2'' she is not only stated to have transcended beyond the level of a l'Cie, she also commands an army of Eidolons and feral beasts, regularly defies the laws of physics, shatters entire buildings with single spells, slams enemies through entire buildings, is immune to time manipulation, and channels her magic to use as bullets... The trope is taken to its ultimate point in ''Lightning Returns'' in which she becomes the single most powerful protagonist that Square Enix have ever produced, capping off the game by killing/sealing [[spoiler: the god of light, Bhunivelze]].
** Snow also counts, considering he curbstomps an entire army battalion midway into the first game. And in the third game he even manages to go toe-to-toe with Lightning.
* The Warrior of Light, the PlayerCharacter from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''. Starting out as a lowly adventurer in one of the main city-states, they soon prove that they can turn the tide of battles, then wars, and not even gods can stand against them. Canonically, the Warrior of Light does most of the fighting in the dungeons/raids of the game ''alone'', or with very small numbers of fellow adventurers or helpers. There's an achievement for killing 100,000 enemies, which rewards players with the aptly-named "Butcher's Crown".
* The backstory of [[BigBad Chaos]] in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' is that he was supposed to be Onracians' answer to another country's OneManArmy, Omega. Then he was driven insane by power and devastated the world, or something. By the time the game starts, it takes several [[ArmyOfOne Armies of One]] from other worlds to take him down.
** Special mention among said Armies of One goes to the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI Warrior of Light]]. Meta-wise, he becomes an Army of One by being a CompositeCharacter and due to the... interplay between ''Dissidia'' and ''Final Fantasy I'' it is implied that now FFI is cleared by a single character. In story, he faces more non-{{Mooks}} than any other character, alone, in the ending to 012 fights ''an entire army'' on his own until he can no longer stand, and in the AlternateUniverse of Scenario 000 is stated to be the last one who fell to [[TrueFinalBoss Feral Chaos]].

* The main character in ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'' kills nearly a thousand genetically modified enemy supersoldiers in less than 24 hours. This feat is made much more impressive by the fact that all of these soldiers are being psychically controlled by one man, so that if one sees you, all the rest know where you are too. Additionally, some of the soldiers wear so much armor that it takes nearly 8 shot gun rounds to the head to kill them; other soldiers are in extremely durable mech-suits. Even the basic infantry can take take three 12-inch steel spikes through the head without flinching. The only thing that hero really has going for him is that he has super-reflexes, or from the player's point of view, the ability to [[BulletTime slow down time]], due to [[spoiler:the fact that is his mother, Alma, has psychic/super-natural powers]]...
** The first game also nicely averts the "No one finds this unusual" aspect of this trope with a post-credits phone dialog revealing that the incident [[spoiler:was being monitored as an impromptu field test for two experiments: The army of supersoldiers and the player character. Guess which party passed with flying colors?]]

[[caption-width-right:350:He's [[KillTheGod killed gods]]. 'Gods' as in ''more than one''. What makes you think armies will slow him down?]]

* ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'': A double subversion like with ''Uncharted'' above. You're a OneHitPointWonder like every last mook, which makes your ability to scythe through them by the dozen all the more impressive. An Achievement requires you to kill 1,989 enemies, and even a conservative count that takes your many, many deaths into account still leaves you with a few hundred bodies.

** Taken to its logical conclusion in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' where Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight bring a literal army, with guns, tanks, mines, and drones to defeat Batman...and they ''still'' lose.

* ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'': Double subverted with Nathan Drake. He's [[ActionSurvivor of average build and panics when he gets into shootouts,]] but he still massacres trained, better-armed, better-supplied soldiers by the dozen in each game.

---->''Ever as his warherd lay dead around him, Taurox raged on across the battlefield, killing everything he could find.'''

** In ''VideoGame/ShogunTotalWar'' you can build kensai units. Whereas other units represent groups of soldiers, this unit is a powerful single swordsman. So powerful that if you place him at a choke point (so he can't be flanked or surrounded), he can take out whole units on his own.
** ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer''[='s=] hero system gives us a number of single-unit generals that can wipe out hordes of lesser foes on their own. The most notable is probably Kholek Sun-Eater, who can (with some clever use of magical items and his unique skill) gain up to 90% damage reduction. Added to his already massive armour and HP, Kholek can solo entire armies as long as you keep his morale up.
** Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/TotalWarThreeKingdoms'' depending on the game setting. In ''Romance'', generals are single entities that can handle hundreds of men on their own and single-handedly turn the tide of battle in an instant (not unlike [[Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms the source material]]). In ''Records'', they're highly skilled and come with a powerful bodyguard unit, but still only human.
* Double subverted with Nathan Drake in the ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' series. He's [[ActionSurvivor of average build and panics when he gets into shootouts,]] but he still massacres trained, better-armed, better-supplied soldiers by the dozen in each game.
* Ashley Riot from ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'' doesn't need reinforcements... he ''is'' the reinforcements.
** Almost hits the trope by name: "Gods... is he even human? He fights with the strength of a brigade..."
** This is what the Riskbreakers like Ashley were trained to be. There's never more than one of them sent on any mission, because ''one is always enough''.

** It also drastically escalates between games. In the first game, the Security Officer is definitely a tough nut to crack, but is mostly limited to surgical strikes. In the second game, his arrival is considered a turning point in the war against the Pfhor on Lh'owon, and he basically does most of the heavy work on his own. The third game, however, makes both of the prior games look like an opening act in comparison. Seriously, ''Infinity'' can basically be called ''[[ImplacableMan Security Officer]] VS [[MookHorrorShow Everyone Else.]]''

* The Adventurer, the PlayerCharacter from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''. They eventually become a powerful fighter capable of not only fighting many dragons, gods and eldritch abominations by themselves, they even [[spoiler: become a God]] in order to prevent the Cloud of Darkness from destroying the world. While the worst threats in-game are often fought with party members or with Trust Magic (allowing a player to effectively solo a fight while only relying on 5 summoned NPCs instead of other players), a level-capped player could fight most monsters and bosses up to those featured in the last few expansions completely by themselves.

* Given the [[ArtificialStupidity average wingman [=NPCs=]]], this is often how ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' missions get finished.

** ''VideoGame/Persona1'': Reiji Kido (Chris in the ''Revelations'' localization) begins the game by storming SEBEC headquarters by himself. He spends the first part of the game fighting by himself the same enemies that give your four-or-five man band so much trouble, and you find him no worse for the wear. What happens to him depends on what choices you make; if you follow the GuideDangIt steps to recruit him, he's still in tip-top shape when he joins the party, but if you don't recruit him, you'll find him again a few dungeons later collapsed on the floor [[RealityEnsues because it got too much for him to handle]] (or he ran out of medicine).

* Literally in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'': the level 12 quest has the player tasked with starting a war, and then finishing it. Each side has exactly 1000 soldiers, and they'll never go anywhere if you don't personally slay them. In fact, you are perfectly free to wipe out one army, and then turn around and wipe out the ''other'' army as well, all by your lonesome.