History WhatMeasureIsAMook / VideoGames

** [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog The Sonic series]] is actually generally an aversion. Robotnik's MechaMooks (in most games) are actually Sonic's animal friends that have been brainwashed and put in a robot body, and by destroying their robotic shell the player is actually freeing them. The most straightforward explanation for Gamma's story is that he becomes self-aware and targets his friends for this reason.

** Later, you come across a shrine to the dead, with their names listed on a wall. Additionally, [[spoiler: one of your squadmates is crossed out, as he has been killed.]] The game simply leaves the wall in the room for you to notice it without ever calling it out, but if you look at the memorial, you can see the name and rank of every American soldier the protagonist killed up to that point. Ouch.

* In ''Young Souls,'' hero twins Jenn and Tristan are saddened the first time they kill a goblin general, despite never showing regret over the hundreds of goblin mooks and dozens of bosses they slaughtered on the way there.

** BigBad Pagan Min has three lieutenants. Only one must be killed, one can be killed or imprisoned, one can be killed or spared.

* In ''Young Souls,'' hero twins Jenn and Tristan are saddened the first time they kill a goblin general, despite never showing regret over the hundreds of goblin mooks and bosses they slaughtered on the way there.

** Problem is, however, the Gunners and the raiders will attack you on sight, no matter what you do. Most of the time, you are just acting in self-defense whenever you run into them. You aren't given any real reason to pity them because their entire role in the game is to attack you and loot your body for cool shit, or to raze your settlements to the ground for the lolz. If anything, the humanizing moments bring their cruelty into sharp relief by showing that they ''can'' value life, yet are utterly merciless toward the innocent settlers they prey upon.

** And in one particular example, there was [[spoiler:Teresa]]'s flashback mission in ''Syphon Filter 3'' of her time in the ATF dealing with a Survivalist compound, where [[spoiler:at first you work for the ATF, but soon switch over to the Survivalists when you realise the ATF's more devious intentions of a Waco-style cover up]].

** Though in balance to this, the ''Syphon Filter'' series had several missions where you were forced to avoid killing certain enemies, even assisting them in battles despite the fact that if they saw you, they would shoot you on sight. ''Syphon Filter 2'' especially loved doing this with escaping the airfield guarded by military police, the Moscow club and streets with Russian police, and avoiding as well as assisting the NYPD in the streets of New York.

*** This trope is inverted in the ending where all the bosses are killed, but no mooks, as among all the neutral endings save the one where everything enemy is spared, it's considered to be the best for the remaining inhabitants of the Underworld. Sans even comments on this. This is the "dog ending".

* Variation in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'': You get bonuses for killing [[EliteMooks the Aces]], who actually do have names, but the game treats them like miniature boss fights and they have no lines. Then Selvaria's DLC came out and let you play as the Empire. The player character's face is never seen. This comes with a bit of a gut punch when you realize that [[spoiler:you're playing as Oswald The Iron, one of the Aces that you probably gunned down with glee.]]

* ''Franchise/KirbyFightersDeluxe'' has a special pause screen description for the thundercloud Kracko, which gives a sympathetic view to an otherwise character-free RecurringBoss.

* In ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', if you come across a notorious SpacePirate and defeat his entire crew without destroying his spaceship, you may get an option of saving his life and getting him to join your crew, along with getting some of his loot. No word is ever given on saving his henchmen. Or all those other space pirates, rebels or {{obstructive bureaucrat}}s you might have killed without second thoughts.

** The vast majority of {{mook}}s in the first game are [[MechaMooks geth]] (who individually have the sapience of a dog, and are AlwaysChaoticEvil besides, so killing them is of course totally fine), brainwashed beings like the rachni or creepers (who you, of course, can't negotiate with), or generic SpacePirates and criminals who shoot you on sight. Other enemy factions, such as the ideologically motivated biotic terrorists or the PunchClockVillain mercenaries on Noveria, you can generally at least try to reason with, sometimes successfully. A single group of terrorists from ''Bringing Down the Sky'' DLC will try and negotiate with you, citing they came here for a slave raid, not to crash an asteroid into a planet. You can treat with them and let them leave, or cite the fact that they're [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slavers]] as reason enough to kill them.
** On a planet called Noveria, you can blast your way through over a dozen asari commandos only to have a tear-jerker scene with Matriarch Benezia. Where did Benezia get those commandos? Why don't you offer any of them terms of surrender or a chance to listen to reason, as you do Benezia? Because they're mooks! The commandos ''are'' BrainWashedAndCrazy, so negotiating with them wouldn't be possible anyway, but their deaths being casually ignored is still playing this straight.

** ''Franchise/MassEffect'' as a franchise uses some dehumanization of its major antagonists to justify the trope at times. In the first game, the geth aren't people or even real artificial intelligences (not until ''Mass Effect 3''). In the second game, the Collectors are similarly dehumanized with Mordin even saying they don't have souls, though the ([[EqualOpportunityEvil multi-species]]) mercenary/pirate groups you spend most of the game fighting aren't. And in ''Mass Effect 3'', we get a trifecta of this: the geth are still just virtual intelligence until they can no longer be fought, Cerberus agents are thoroughly dehumanized due to being brainwashed SlaveMooks, and the Reapers' minions are [[ArtificialZombie artificial cyborg-zombies]] controlled by {{Eldritch|Abomination}} [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Alien Locusts]]. The only enemy {{mooks}} who even have free will are the [=CAT6=] mercenaries in the ''Citadel'' DLC; in that case, their slaughter at the hands of your team is PlayedForLaughs.

** "Phoenix Fire" once again puts you in Drake's corporate building, this time fighting your way out. The men in suits with guns are still fair game. There are also women in the building who are simple employees, and killing them makes you fail the mission. (Frustratingly, if an enemy {{Mook}} kills one of them, the game acts like you did and you still fail).

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'' reminds one of this near the end. [[spoiler:The BigBad is then revealed to be a rogue general who has orchestrated the events of the game as one giant BatmanGambit, and now the two main characters shoot up his private guard in a mission to take him out for sheer revenge. While the game implies that these mooks are an elite paramilitary unit handpicked by the general and not really US soldiers at this point, there's no question that most if not all signed up believing they would be doing the right thing and probably aren't even aware of their boss's behind the scenes actions. On the other hand, Shepherd's troops saw him shoot Roach and Ghost, then threw their bodies into a ditch then doused them with gasoline.]] Although the Player is encouraged as [[spoiler:Mactavish]] to treat them such a way when [[spoiler:Shepherd bombs a base with many soldiers STILL INSIDE.]] And a variation of this occurs within the [[spoiler:Airport]] scene, as most people treat the [[spoiler:civilians]] as faceless, even though being encouraged to feel for them (and all the other people they have to kill). Some are [[spoiler:dragging the bodies of their [=FRIENDS=] less than 20m in front of you.]]

** The vast majority of {{mook}}s in the first game are [[MechaMooks geth]] (who individually have the sapience of a dog, and are AlwaysChaoticEvil besides, so killing them is of course totally fine), brainwashed beings like the rachni or creepers (who you, of course, can't negotiate with), or generic SpacePirates and criminals who shoot you on sight. Other enemy factions, such as the ideologically motivated biotic terrorists or the PunchClockVillain mercenaries on Noveria, you can generally at least try to reason with, sometimes successfully.
** On a planet called Noveria, you can blast your way through over a dozen asari commandos only to have a tear-jerker scene with Matriarch Benezia. Where did Benezia get those commandos? Why don't you offer any of them terms of surrender or a chance to listen to reason, as you do Benezia? Because they're mooks! The commandos ''are'' BrainWashedAndCrazy, so negotiating with them wouldn't be possible anyway, but they're deaths being casually ignored is still playing this straight.
** Helena Blake, the biotic extremists, the Dantius sister feud, Wrex's family armor, the entire Bringing Down the Sky DLC, and quite a few more side quests all feature remote bases where you can kill tons of nameless antagonists without so much as an explanation before getting to the end and either making a Bioware-style moral choice regarding the villain or else advancing your relationships with your crew.

** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' you encounter a situation on The Citadel where you shoot up a bar full of mooks to get to a local crime boss. After clearing the first encounter, you go to the next one, where you have a choice of talking it through with the guards. You can explain that you just killed a roomful of people to get there and they should leave if they don't want to die too, instead of killing them.

** On a planet called Noveria, you can blast your way through over a dozen asari commandos only to have a tear-jerker scene with Matriarch Benezia. Where did Benezia get those commandos? Why don't you offer any of them terms of surrender or a chance to listen to reason, as you do Benezia? Because they're mooks!

* ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'', being an FPS, has tons of mooks to mow down. No moral problems on shooting the folks intending to ventilate the President or your personal friends. But many levels take place in regular old buildings, where it is fairly obvious that the guards were just hired hands. You CAN knock them out and disarm them with your fists, but with the exception of a single named villain (who has a key card you need that stops working if she dies) and one objective that requires you KO someone (so they can be interrogated), not expected or required.

* ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock2}}'' two Houdini Splicers dance together in Dionysus Park. While they both immediately attack you on sight, killing one results in the other breaking combat and running over to their dead lover and collapsing to their knees in grief, {{You Monster}}

* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}} Fighters Deluxe'' has a special pause screen description for the thundercloud Kracko, which gives a sympathetic view to an otherwise character-free RecurringBoss.
--> ''“YOU...! Did you think I'd forget? The time [[VideoGame/KirbysAdventure you smashed into me with your Hi-Jump]]! That time [[VideoGame/KirbySuperStar I was betrayed by Helpers]]! Or when [[VideoGame/KirbySqueakSquad I was replaced by that mechanical cloud]]! I-I... Sniff... there's something in my eye...”''

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'', Spyro kills countless apes easily throughout the first two games, yet at the end of the second, he hesitates to kill their king, Gaul, who is the highest up the chain of evil he's encountered thus far, is planning to release [[BigBad the ultimate evil Malefor]], and is directly responsible for Cynder's corruption ''when she was inside her egg''. And you'd think Spyro would be ''less'' merciful after being affected by dark energy. Only once Spyro's clear Gaul will kill him otherwise does he finish him off.
* Averted in [[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha Fate's]] story mode in ''VideoGame/MagicalBattleArena''. When everyone else fought their [[MirrorMatch illusionary copies]] on the fifth stage, they felt uncomfortable about it because they were beating themselves up. Fate, on the other hand, felt really bad about it because they were still technically alive even though their lives were fake and temporary, [[spoiler:which struck a little [[ArtificialHuman too close to home for her]]]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'', there's no sympathy at all for the thousands of Pfhor you kill through the games (only one has been explicitly referred to, and that was as "that pile of chitin and fluids cooling on the floor behind you"). In the ''Marathon'' 3rd party scenario ''Rubicon'', however, the player comes across a certain terminal after killing a whole lot of Enforcers. (The kind of mook seen in the picture.)

* In the web flash game series ''VideoGame/{{Mardek}}'', Emela asks this very same thing. She questions the morality of killing henchmen, remarking on how they have lives, and possibly families of their own, that she and her crew are tearing apart. She even exclaims "A killer killer is still a killer" (if you kill a killer, you're a killer as well), confusing the main lead. Her fellow teammates tells her to put it out of her mind, since as soldiers, this is part of the job.

** ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' actually does an astonishingly good job of letting you choose whether this trope is in effect. Aside from a straight PacifistRun, from the very start the game offers a variety of non-lethal ways to take out mooks, and [[spoiler:up until you leave for the resistance]] your efforts to either cheerfully indulge in or stringently avoid wanton mook killing are noted by the game and commented on by other agents, for better or worse.

* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' parodies this mercilessly when you escort Claptrap to his ship and kill some mooks on the way --
--> '''Claptrap''': [[PlayerCharacter Minion]], what have you done? These were people...with lives and families -- I'm totally kidding. '''Screw''' those guys!

* Invoked on the ''[[YouBastard player's]]'' part in ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}''. Over the course of the game, you'll send wave after wave of Pikmin to their inevitable doom, and when they're gone you'll just pull up more without thinking about it. [[https://youtu.be/3syya-w9xgw One of the songs released to promote the game]], however, is a tearjerking, melancholy ballad from the Pikmin's point of view in which they're resigned to their fate.

** Olimar, the main character of the game, shows shades of remorse as well. In his closing day remarks, he mentions how he feels bad about the fate that ultimately follows when Pikmin are left at the end of the day outside of the pod (they'll get eaten), and expresses outright guilt when all of his Pikmin followers have been destroyed, lamenting on how his absolute carelessness got his followers killed.
*** Furthermore he has [[https://youtu.be/-T-QHAkDf-8 a song in response to Ai no Uta]] that shows that he does care about his little alien plants. It's just... [[CannotSpitItOut well...]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'''s turrets shouldn't invoke this, as they're just mass-produced robotic gun turrets. But their [[CuteMachines cute]] characterisation, saying things like "I don't hate you" when you knock them down made more sensitive players feel guilty, and that was before they start saying "I'm different."
** Also, in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' they are said to feel very real pain, according to Wheatley.
--->"All simulated, of course, but real enough to them, I suppose."

** ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs2'' has been criticized for invoking this trope by forcing the player to spare Abby at the end while forcing them to kill mooks, most controversially a dog.

** Problem is, however, the Gunners and the raiders will attack you on sight, no matter what you do. Most of the time, you are just acting in self-defense whenever you run into them. You aren't given any real reason to pity them because their entire role in the game is to attack you and loot your body for cool shit, or to raze your settlements to the ground for the lolz.

* In VideoGame/KatanaZero, one generic mook, [[ButThouMust whose death is inevitable]], turns out to be [[spoiler:the in-universe MemeticBadass "Strong Terry" you've heard so much about in EnemyChatter]]. Like virtually everyone in the game, [[RocketTagGameplay he goes down in one hit]], but the news mentions him by name, and later EnemyChatter includes those swearing that he will be avenged.

-->'''Flowey:''' [[spoiler:"So you were able to play by your own rules. You spared the life of a single person. [lists off each monster] Think about those names. Do you think those monsters had friends? Do you think they had families? Each one could have been someone else's Toriel. Selfish brat. Someone is dead because of you."]]