History PyrrhicVictory / VideoGames

* ''Franchise/Killzone'': The trilogy ends with Helghan ''nuked'' [[KarmicDeath as their nukes are prematurely detonated to prevent them from being launched on the entire galaxy by Strauss]] - but since they were ''fueling the galactic economy'', humanity goes into a recession and Helghan gets massive concessions to convince them to keep mining Unobtainium on their post-apocalypse homeworld. Meanwhile, Helghan gets ''everything'' they wanted (Vekta, respect and profit from the galactic government, a more competent military), but most of their population is dead, and most of the survivors are slaves in all but name.

** In the last GDI mission of ''Tiberium Wars'', choosing to drop the Liquid Tiberium Bomb not only wipes out all of the Nod forces, but all of your own forces and [[DisasterDominoes sets off a chain reaction]] that kills ''[[NiceJobBreakingItHero twenty-five million civilians]]''.

* In the "Ultimate Revenge of the Sith" alternate ending of ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIIIRevengeOfTheSith'' Vader kills Obi-Wan on Mustafar, and Palpatine declares that there is none left to oppose them (meaning Yoda possibly died). However, after Palpatine hands Vader his new weapon, a red lightsaber, [[TheStarscream Vader]] [[DroppedABridgeOnHim stabs Palpatine]] and declares himself the new emperor. And because Obi-Wan is dead, presumably [[ForWantOfANail Padmé would not be able to be taken to Polis Massa, and Luke and Leia would never have been born]]. And thus, the Jedi are completely dead and Anakin [[DownerEnding has obtained ultimate power at the cost of everyone who ever cared for him]], losing [[WellIntentionedExtremist the reason he went down this path in the first place]].

** If you chose to play as [[spoiler:Oersted during the Dominion of hate chapter]], then you'll get the awesome chance of [[spoiler: doing a reverse BossRush and using the big bads of the previous episodes to defeat the heroes.]] But once you accomplish that [[spoiler: Oersted is left alone in a now desserted Lucrece and, as the credits roll, he visits the empty areas where his tale took place and ends with him looking wistfully in the balcony where Princess Alethea declared her love for him. The story ends with the words "Alone and victorious, thus ends his story"]].
** If you achieve the neutral ending by [[spoiler:finishing off Oersted after the Purity of Odio fight, then you succeeded in defeating the Lord of Dark, but the main character is left wondering if they really did the right thing before leaving the Archon's Roost. Furthermore, now the heroes have no way to return to their own times and are stuck in the empty Kingdom of Lucrece; [[WildChild Pogo]] won't return to his tribe and won't get to meet his child, the Earthen Heart Master won't return to teach and thus the legacy of their [[OldMaster Shifu]] will be lost, [[{{Ninja}} Oboromaru]] won't return to work with Ryoma to achieve peace and won't be able to stop his assasination attempt, [[TheGunslinger the Sundown Kid]] won't be able to return to his life just as he decided to start helping people in need, [[ToBeTheBest Masaru Takahara]] won't be able to defend the title of World's Strongest he just got, [[PsychicPowers Akira]] won't return to the oprhanage, leaving his sister without her last relative and with nobody to look after Masu's taiyaki stand and [[RobotCompanion Cube]] won't get to visit Earth in his time and won't see his creator and Darthe again]].

* GrandTheftAuto: