History SacrificialLion / Videogames

* Happens ''repeatedly'' in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' (to Josef, Minwu, Richard and Cid), to the point where the GBA EnhancedRemake (and every other one after it) had a bonus game, ''Dawn Of Souls'', made up entirely of playable characters who had died (and cameos from other non-playable characters who had also died), and now they're fighting on in the next life. In fact, parts of ''FFII'' felt more like a KillEmAll in a similar vein to [[AnyoneCanDie death-saturated]] stories like ''TheSilmarillion''.

* Zeratul was killed in [[VideoGame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void]] while freeing Artanis from a link with his people called the Khala which the main villain corrupted and used to take over his body. [[spoiler:Zeratule was instrumental in laying out the path for the characters of this game as well as [[VideoGame/StarcraftIIWingsofLiberty StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty]] and [[VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm]]

* Johnny Gat in ''{{VideoGame/Saints Row The Third}}'', although [[InternetBackdraft the ire of the fans]] caused the developers to [[NotQuiteDead bring him back for the fourth installment...]] where ''[[RockFallsEveryoneDies almost all of Earth's population gets killed off all at once,]]'' including Oleg and Nyte Blade.

* Telltale's ''VideoGame/GameOfThrones'' somehow manages to do this with a central player character, namely Ethan Forrester, the newly appointed Lord of House Forrester. He is set up to be an important figure in the story, with the player having to make a number of important decisions as him to decide what kind of Lord he will eventually be. Then he is abruptly stabbed in the neck and killed by a bloodthirsty Ramsay Snow.

* Emma from ''TheLastRemnant'' dies in combat against the Conqueror when he single-handedly invades Athlum and steals their Remnant. The impact of her death is only slightly lessened by [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute the arrival of her]] [[SpinOffspring younger daughter Emmy]], who immediately replaces her.

* Most games in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series have one. In order, we have Paul Jackson in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', Ghost and Roach in ''Modern Warfare 2'', Dimitri Petrenko in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyBlackOps Black Ops]]'', Soap in ''Modern Warfare 3'', Alex Mason in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyBlackOps2 Black Ops 2]]'' ([[spoiler:although he is a possible subversion if you play your cards right]]), and Elias Walker in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyGhosts Ghosts]]''.

* In ''{{Persona 3}}'', Shinjiro Aragaki was killed off to show just how evil Strega is, and to propel the CharacterDevelopment of Ken Amada and Akihiko Sanada, both of whom reach a degree of personal resolution and receive upgraded Personas as a result. Given that he's a well-balanced character and that he has his own personal weapon type that you can continue buying until the end of game (quite unlike most temporary guest characters), it can come as a bit of a shock.

* Most games in the ''VideoGame/CallofDuty'' series have one. In order, we have Paul Jackson in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', Ghost and Roach in ''Modern Warfare 2'', Dimitri Petrenko in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyBlackOps Black Ops]]'', Soap in ''Modern Warfare 3'', Alex Mason in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyBlackOps2 Black Ops 2]]'' ([[spoiler:although he is a possible subversion if you play your cards right]]), and Elias Walker in ''[[VideoGame/CallofDutyGhosts Ghosts]]''.

* ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'':
** Sergeant Paul Jackson. Especially jarring because he is a viewpoint character.
** Ghost and Roach in the Sequel, who die just to prove how much of a bastard [[BigBad Shepherd]] is.

* Duncan from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is introduced as TheObiWan after you lose everyone else in your Origin, only to be killed off a bit later, before he can even start acting this role.

* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', the shockingly-appropriately-named Aslan Frings. A RecurringCharacter, he's a soldier of Malkuth and you have the option of going through a long MatchMakerQuest getting him and his Kimlascan counterpart, Jozette Cecille, together. After the war ends, they're engaged to be married, and their marriage is said to be a symbol of the newfound peace between the two countries. Whether you do the sidequest or not, though, he gets killed right after the timeskip, as your first indication that you haven't actually resolved the main plot yet.

* King from ''VideoGame/CaveStory''; Curly, if you don't save her.

* One GuestStarPartyMember in every [[TalesSeries Tales franchise]] installment with the sole exception of Phantasia.

* Rhyme Bito in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''. Given the information of the instruction booklet, it looked like she would spend the whole game as TheMessiah.

* In ''BlazeUnion'', we have Siskier in route A, Luciana in route B, and Jenon in route C. Each route also has a few sympathetic enemy characters who serve a similar purpose, at least as far as showing the situation's direness goes.

* ''Left4Dead'''s Bill was one of the playable survivors in the first game. In "The Passing", his corpse can be found slumped up against a generator, his cigarette still in his mouth and his M-16, which you can loot for yourself, in his hands.

* During the Virmire mission in the first ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' game, two of your party members become [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers mutually exclusive]]. There is no way around it, and they'll both insist that you should have saved the other one afterwards. You can also lose Wrex, but that one's avoidable.

* ''EternalDarkness'' is loaded with characters who could at least be considered this. At the very least Anthony is an undeniable SacrificialLion, and pretty good cases can also be made for Paul and Roberto - though oddly enough, all of these are among the ''[[ShootTheShaggyDog main characters]]''.

* ''FateStayNight'':
** [[strike:Saber]] All the Servants except Rider in the Heavens Feel route. It's a good thing they added about half a dozen characters to the main lineup for this one or we'd be down to Shirou and Tohsaka and no villain.

* ''{{Halo 3}}'':

* ''CallOfDuty 4'':

* Hawk in ''SoldierOfFortune''. You get to watch the BigBad execute him two thirds of the way through the game. Big PlayerPunch.

* The While Guthix Sleeps quest in ''RuneScape'' has the player recruit a number of NPC warriors to help them stop a powerful and evil mage from achieving godhood. The [=NPCs=] are all known to the player, from other quests and skill training. Some of them are ones that the player might contact at least once a day. Out of the eight [=NPCs=] that confront the enemy mage, only two survive; one of those only because he is a demon with super healing. It's a gut punch of popular NPC death in a game where such things had previously been confined to one-time [=NPCs=] inside their own quest chain.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'':
** The original AVALANCHE members, Biggs, Wedge, and Jesse, fill this role. They start off as your initial companions (although not as party members) and are given distinct personalities, but are then promptly killed following a botched attempt to save the Midgar slums.
** Aerith may be a far more definitive version, or possibly [[PlotlineDeath fall into another trope]].

* Happens ''repeatedly'' in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' (to Josef, Minwu, Richard and Cid), to the point where the GBA EnhancedRemake (and every other one after it) had a bonus game, ''Dawn Of Souls'', made up entirely of playable characters who had died (and cameos from other non-playable characters who had also died), and now they're fighting on in the next life. In fact, parts of ''FFII'' felt more like a KillEmAll in a similar vein to [[AnyoneCanDie death-saturated]] stories like ''TheSilmarillion''.
* Tellah in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''. Though his death was probably foreshadowed as an inevitability by the fact that Tellah's stats never go up (and sometimes decline) when he's LevelGrinding. He still manages to TakeALevelInBadass giving his last battle all he's got.
* Galuf in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV''. Though it wasn't as much a ''practical'' loss because, upon his death, all his abilities were instantly transferred to his granddaughter Krile, who continued his role in the party as if nothing had changed. Also, his death was remarkably similar to Tellah's in the previous example.