Death Seeker / Video Games

Death Seekers in video games.

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• Rachel Gardner is this in Angels of Death. In fact, it serves as one of the overarching plots of the game, where she made a freaking serial murderer to swear an oath under God that he'll kill her once she proved her usefulness to him. She's that desperate.
• Revenant of Apex Legends. After the illusion of his life was broken and he realized he'd been a robotic assassin for the last 3 centuries, he now seeks to destroy his source code so he can permanently die. Unluckily for him, a vengeful Loba (Whose parents he assassinated) found it first and launched it halfway across the galaxy to who knows where.
• Batman: Arkham Series: Batman as implied in Origins in a conversation with Alfred, once again in the City DLC Harley Quinn's Revenge from Robin's point of view and very much (although still only implied) in Knight. Anyway, the Mission and protecting Gotham always come first.
• Battle for Wesnoth: Commander Aethyr from The Rise of Wesnoth seeks to die and join his dead family after they died and his homeland fell. He is disappointed that Haldric rescued him from his last stand in the Green Isle and tells Haldric that if he lives after the conflict is over, he would live alone without a honorable way to join his family. He ultimately dies in a Self-Sacrifice Scheme to ensure the safety of early Wesnoth at the end of the campaign.
• Jodie Holmes in Beyond: Two Souls. She can attempt suicide in two different chapters, much to Aiden's chagrin, and when awakening from a coma she begs Aiden to let her stay with him instead. The further the story progresses, the less she seems to care about whether she lives or dies as long as those she holds dear survive. At the end of the game, she is faced with the choice of whether to enter the Beyond and reunite with those she has lost, including Aiden, or return to life without him. The Beyond option is especially poignant if all of the determinant characters are still alive, as it can be interpreted as a sign of just how tired of living Jodie has become.
• The (fake) Final Boss in BioShock 2 eats and breathes this, and runs entirely on horror from his big reveal to his dying words.
• Animus from The Black Heart is a Humanoid Abomination that can't be killed, which he finds to be a curse and has driven him an insane Combat Sadomasochist. In his own words, his own blood brings him pleasure, but the fact of existing makes him sick. In his ending His father, Final, refuses to let him die because he has a purpose to fulfill, so instead he puts him under his control and gives him a fragment of the Black Heart's power. However, all it takes is a moment of self-awareness for Animus to use that power to finally destroy himself.
• Borderlands 2:
  • A rare dark humor-based example of this trope (crashing right into Suicide as Comedy) is Face McShooty. He is a Psycho in Thousand Cuts who runs around screaming at people and begging to be shot in the face, doing nothing else in terms of aggression or even provocation. His only calling in life is to get a bullet in the face. There's no given reason why he doesn't simply acquire any of the numerous discarded guns laying around and do it himself, but he simply asks that one of the Vault Hunters give him what he wants. He actually thanks you after you shoot him in the face, and somehow gives you money before he perishes. Definitely one of the game's weirder side quests.
  • Playable (with the right DLC) Psycho Krieg hints at this with several of his quotes upon reviving a teammate, most notably "YOU'RE IN MY SPOT!" and "I WANNA DIE HERE! ME!" His more rational inner voice prefers "I deserve this", a line he drops periodically when Krieg catches fire or bashes himself in the face with his axe.
  • Much less comically, Angel goes to some pretty impressive lengths to ensure you are not only in a position to kill her but have plenty of ammunition with which to do it. More specifically, she wants a) to be free and b) to stop Handsome Jack. It's just that she can't be freed without dying due to her eridium dependency, and Jack's plans require a Siren, like her, under his control, in order to charge the Vault Key. So she arranges for the Vault Hunters to storm the bunker she's kept in and destroy the pipes feeding in the eridium.
• Civilization IV: The mod Fall from Heaven II has a suicidal Lilith Captain Ersatz named Os-Gabella. Since she's immortal, she's founded an apocalyptic death cult in hopes that destroying the entire world will take her out, too.
• Darkest Dungeon:
  • An in-game mechanic is that characters with certain afflictions will Self-Harm out of masochism or to ensure to die faster while goading the monsters into attacking them. For a more straight example, the Abomination and the Leper are two of the most willing to face the Heart of Darkness' One-Hit Kill if chosen for this reason. The Flagellant, meanwhile, will outright beg you to let him die to the final boss.
  • Any hero can end up with a quirk called "Death Seeker" in Darkest Dungeon 2. Interestingly, it's entirely positive: it clears stress when the hero hits Death's Door, and in case you hit 10 stress despite this, it grants a +15% resolute chance, nearly doubling the chance of the hero shrugging off their stress and finding new strength within.
• Dark Parables: The Exiled Prince is eventually revealed to be this. He's immortal and has grown weary of the world, and wants nothing more than to die, so he's researched a potion that will allow him to do just that. Unfortunately, he's also struck with a case of I Cannot Self-Terminate, which means you have to do it for him.
• Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising: Chaos Dreadnoughts repeatedly beg the player to let them die (when their dialogue is even intelligible). When a Chaos Dreadnought dies, the announcer informs the player that "One of your Dreadnoughts has escaped in death."
• Death Stranding:
  • Heartman might be the most literal intense example of this trope ever, as he got his name from how he literally dies every 22 minutes, remaining dead for 3 minutes at a time, and then is revived by a portable defibrillator he wears on his chest. He does this seeking his deceased wife and child, as he goes to their Beach (the afterlife) searching for them during those 3 minutes, which are much longer on the Beach than in the world of the living. He wholly intends to stay dead for good once he finds them, as he muses how to him his 22 minute periods of life are merely breaks from what he considers to be his true existence.
  • This is possibly the case with the Gazer-type Beached Things, the standard humanoid enemies, though even those In-Universe don't know for sure. If you "kill" one of them by cutting its umbilical cord, which immediately sends it back to the other side, Sam receives a like from it implying they are actively seeking to return to the other side or are at least happy to be going back.
• The Desolate Hope: Mirad, and most likely by extension all of the other Derelicts, want to be put into Sleep Mode. Mirad explains that they would only be able to power down if their mission read as a success, which isn't likely since they've been cut off from humanity for about 30 years. They get their wish at the end of the game, where Coffee uses a program made by Mirad to make it seem like the mission was a success.
• Destiny: The Fallen Hero Dredgen Yor is implied to have been one in his final days. Having fallen to the corrupting curses of the Hive and influenced by the bones of the Hive he'd grafted to his Hand Cannon Rose, Yor had gone from a noble man to a horrifying monster who reveled in murder and death and only did heroic deeds so he could come back and delight in the screams of betrayal and terror when he killed those he'd saved. His Ghost had tried to save Yor from himself, and Yor eventually sent him away so the Ghost couldn't try to sway him from his dark path. When he finally encountered Shin Malphur, the adopted son of one of the Guardians he'd killed, the pair had a Showdown at High Noon, where Yor explained to Malphur that this was what he'd always hoped would happen, and this was the end. Malphur shoots Yor dead and then notes that the legendary Guardian had never even reached for his weapon.
• Disgaea:
  • Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: The masked man and woman (AKA Shura and Serion, Adell's blood parents) . Being almost entirely incapable of controlling their actions yet entirely aware of the atrocities Zenon forces them to commit, the two henchmen literally beg Adell to kill them — all while they do their very best to do the same to him.
  • Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice has the Big Bad of the main story, Super Hero Aurum. 200 years prior to the story's events, he came to Evil Academy to find the strongest Overlord, Mao's father. However, the Overlord refused to use his strongest attack out of fear of hitting his son. Aurum was left unfulfilled by this, but when Mao flew into a rage, it gave him the idea of turning Mao into the Strongest Overlord, to either finally kill him or give him the window to make an amazing comeback. Unfortunately, it all ends up in failure for Aurum depending on the ending obtained.
• A Dragon Age: bunch of examples in the series:
  • Series-wide examples include:
    • All Grey Wardens close enough to their Calling become this. They prefer to go down to the Deep Roads and die fighting darkspawn. Understandable, considering that the alternative is either die from the taint or become a ghoul.
    • The Legion of the Dead, itself, is for the most part composed of people who, for whatever reason, are considered to have lives that are dishonorable to continue with. (The only exceptions known are a noble who, while not disgraced, was considered a trouble-maker, and joined for no known reason, and a perfectly respectable cobbler who agreed to join in order to void his family's debts after his father died.) The Legionnaires are inducted into the Legion in an expensive funeral, they have gear specifically designed to poetically reflect that they are expected to die gloriously in battle (examples include boots that do not leave tracks that hint at direction, and shields designed to give hard to make out reflections of the wielder) and all of them actively seek to die.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins:
    • The Warden of the Human or Dwarf Noble origin, can be played this way, particularly if they make the ultimate sacrifice in the end.
    • When the Warden first offers to release him from his prison in Lothering, Sten says that death will be his atonement for the murder of an entire innocent family. He later agrees to join the Warden after the latter convinces him of the importance of their defeating the Blight; he just prefers to die in battle than starve to death in a cage. This changes after you get his approval high enough and return his sword. He starts to believe that you have a real shot at defeating the Blight, and he mentions that he would be able to offer a better answer to his superiors' questions about the Blight if he helped you end it first.
    • Zevran Aranai attacks the PC (despite his extensive training as an assassin and impressive stealth skills) because he hopes to get himself killed.
    • Riordan, the Orlesian Grey Warden you meet late in the game, is also a Death Seeker, in large part because he is a forty-something Grey Warden who is close to his Calling. He attempts to kill the Archdemon and sacrifice his life in the process, but ends up being too much of a daredevil to finish the task. However, he does wound it badly while attempting a Blade Brake as he's falling to his death, and in so doing makes it possible for you to kill the beast instead.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening:
    • Sigrun is a lot more cheerful about it than Zevran or Sten but still makes it quite clear that as a member of the aforementioned Legion of the Dead she owes a Heroic Sacrifice and that she'll be leaving for her Calling as soon as the current crisis is over. If she survives to the ending, her epilogue either has her follow through on that, or mentions that either the Warden becomes really good at finding new crises to persuade her to stick around just a little longer, or she tries to leave but always ends up coming back to the Warden since she's one of their True Companions.
    • The Big Bad of the expansion also turns out to be a Death Seeker. She cannot tolerate existence being cut off from the Old Gods' Call after being "freed" by the Architect. She hopes to end the silence and find the song again in death.
  • In Dragon Age II, if Anders is convinced to join Templars in carrying out the Right of Annulment, it's implied he will commit suicide after the Final Battle. At this point, he sees himself as a monster, responsible for death of many innocents, and knows he will never be free from Vengeance. No matter which ending you choose, he clearly welcomes death. This is also brought up in banter with Isabela earlier in Act 3 where he replies to her question about what would happen if he got a lot of people killed - he answers that he would want to die because they would deserve justice. Isabela then asks where it would end. Of course, if he helps out with the Mages, it's clear that he wishes to be a martyr for his cause.
• Dragon Quest IV: After losing Rose, Psaro loses his will to stay humanoid and transforms using the secret of evolution, becoming a mindless monster who wants nothing but fighting until someone kills him off.
• The fourth chapter in Dragon Valor is spend chasing after Dragon Halfling Halfas, who either has branded the player character for death in set time or killed their friend in hopes that they will chase him down and end his immortal existence.
• Urick from Drakengard 2 got his butt royally kicked by Caim, but was so terrified of dying that he made a pact with a Reaper, rendering him all but unkillable. But he felt so bad about failing in his duties and letting his General get killed that finding a way to break his pact, and therefore die, is his sole reason for living. And despite the incredible Wangst potential of all this, he's actually a pretty Nice Guy. He eventually gets his wish when he runs into Caim again. Caim beats the pact out of him.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Akari's goal is to be among the first non-humans to be killed by the humans while the latter group ruins the entire planet. After her boss fight, Akari is angered when Akira doesn't bother killing her.
  • Lunez intends to die in Pon Pon's prison in order to atone for his crimes. If Akira invites him to the party for the snow dungeon, he'll regain his will to live and seek a better way to redeem himself.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind:
    • Umbra, an Orcish hero who has accomplished everything he can in life and waits for a worthy opponent to kill him and claim his Infinity +1 Sword. The sword eats away at the mind of its wielder, driving them to go all Blood Knight so it can be fed a constant stream of souls. Eventually, the wielder becomes just an extension of the blade and eventually pick a fight with somebody stronger than them. This just serves to propagate the sword further, as when they finally die the sword is going to be picked up by their killer, an even stronger warrior who can continue the cycle. The worst part? It not only eats the souls of those it kills but also eats the soul of its wielder if they die.
    • The vampire Marara from the "The Weary Vampire" quest, who seeks death by the hands of a fellow vampire.
    • In the Bloodmoon expansion, there is a Nord who has spent 500 years searching for Sovngarde, an homage to the real-life Valhalla of Viking lore. The player can give him a book detailing how Nords may reach Sovngarde: by dying honorably in combat. Delighted, the man asks the player to kill him, but only in real combat (and he's remarkably dangerous for a 500-year old man).
  • In Oblivion, the Gray Prince, half-orc Grand Champion of the Arena, sends you on a quest to determine his heritage. When faced with the news that his father was a vampire, he becomes a Death Seeker. If you challenge him to the title of Grand Champion, he will accept, then stand still and allow you to kill him, even offering verbal encouragement.
  • Also prevalent in Skyrim. Most notable is the Old Orc, an Orc who is too old to become chief or take a wife but is still strong enough to fight. He would rather die a glorious death than become too old to hold his own in battle. Nords in general also fit this, as they believe that Sovngarde (an homage to the real-life Valhalla of Viking lore) awaits all Nord warriors who die in battle, or at the hands of an enemy in general; being executed by a weapon counts, which appears to be why the preferred form of execution is beheading by axe. In the Dragonborn DLC, the Ebony Warrior will visit the player character if they is at least level 80 (a hint that he's not going to be a pushover) and asks you to meet him at Last Vigil. He feels like he has seen and done it all and now he only wants to die fighting so he can go to Sovngarde. Sending him there is easier said than done, thanks to his enchanted ebony equipment, high stats, and his Unrelenting Force Shout.
• Craig Boone from Fallout: New Vegas. After mercy killing his pregnant wife to spare her and the child the horrors of being enslaved by Caesar's Legion, his only wish is to hunt down as many Legionaries as possible and die in the process. This ends up to be one of the possible endings for him, would you choose to let the Legion take over Hoover Dam.
• By the end of Far Cry: New Dawn, Joseph Seed, the former Big Bad of the previous game, ends up becoming this after his cult of New Eden is destroyed by the Highwaymen and his son Ethan (who assisted the Highwaymen in destroying New Eden out of resentment towards his father for not giving him power and respect he felt he deserves) dies in front of him after becoming a monster and forcing the Captain to kill him. After carrying Ethan's body back to the mystical fruit tree which gave the Captain their power (and turned Ethan into a monster), Joseph sets fire to the tree and realizes that all the atrocities he carried out supposedly in God's name have only spread countless misery and he is Beyond Redemption. All Joseph can do to atone is Redemption Equals Death, and since he's The Fundamentalist, Joseph refuses to kill himself for fear he'll send himself straight to hell. Instead, he asks the Captain to do it instead. The player themselves can decide whether or not they grant Joseph's request, or let him live as Cruel Mercy, however.
• Final Fantasy
  • Meyvn Nooj from Final Fantasy X-2, until he changed his mind. Which makes him really bad at it, as he lives in a world with staggering numbers of vicious fiends who exist purely to kill people - not to mention Sin, up until two years prior to FFX-2. His base can't even be reached without battling numerous fiends, leaving one with the impression that he's just not trying hard enough. At one point, during a recording the player can view, it looks like he is about to actually pull it off, but is saved by the person who's recording him in combat to see if he's good enough to join an elite military unit.
  • Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII has a genuine death wish, believing that her actions served as the catalyst for the horrible events that dragged the rest of the party into the game. Not the only one, seeing as Orphan, Barthandelus, and every other fal'Cie in existence also want to die. Even if it means destroying the world and everyone else in it. Then it turns out that the Fal'Cie want to destroy Cocoon, because that many people dying at once would bring back the world's god: The Maker, who is also the Fal'Cie's 'parent' who orphaned them when she left the world. That many people dying at once would open the door to the Maker, and Orphan is vital to the upkeep of Cocoon, so its death would mean the death of Cocoon, and all the humans living there.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia has Golbez go to increasing lengths to try and make Cecil kill him in Act 2, Chapter 4. Instead, Cecil eventually recuses him from getting sucked into the Void and Galuf gives him a lecture about how atonement isn't about trying to die, it's about using the remainder of one's life to do good instead of evil.
• Finding Light: In the undersea section, the party can find Morgoth at his lair, having somehow survived the events of the previous game. He goads the party into killing him, and is content when they manage to do so.
• Lehran/Sephiran from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn was like this, but when he couldn't find any way to die, he resorted to trying to bring a goddess's judgment on the entire continent, wiping out himself and everyone else. His last words are "I'm dying... at last."
  • In Path of Radiance both Haar and Tauroneo, thoroughly disappointed by the turns their lives have taken, are like this before the cast recruit them. And then there's General Bertram, one of Daien's Four Riders. Drugged up on Psycho Serum and barely coherent, Bertram spends most of rasping about how the other players are going to "Perisssshhh," and "Me...kill..." Right up until Ike faces him, that is, when his refrain becomes "Kill...me....KILL...M-ME..." Ike does his best to oblige. Bertram (or better said, Elincia's Brainwashed and Crazy uncle Renning) not only survives but his disciple Bastian locks him away while searching for a cure; after the death of the Psycho Serum's creator, the Herons's Galdr of Rebirth reverts Bertram to his original self.
  • Harken from Blazing Blade is a Broken Ace who became this after seeing his liege lord and his comrades get killed by the Black Fang. He throws himself at the party in order to get killed, though some characters can talk him out of it and he can eventually get better.
  • In New Mystery of the Emblem, Wolf never gets over the death of his lord, Hardin, and "as if searching for death, he threw himself recklessly into battle, one after the next".
  • A secret character in Awakening, the Disc-One Final Boss King Gangrel, has become this by the time he's recruited, only joining the army so he can throw his life away against the Big Bad. If a Female Avatar marries him, she gives him the motivation and will to keep on living; otherwise, in his character ending he gets his wish.
  • Henry from Awakening also counts, although in his case it seems to be less out of despair and more out of curiosity about what dying would feel like. He makes several comments about wanting to die in a very bloody, yet painless manner, and his death quote has him call it beautiful. His solo ending also implies that he might have killed himself.
  • Xander becomes this in Fates: Birthright after accidentally killing Elise when he tries to kill the Avatar and she goes Taking the Bullet. He gets so emotionally destroyed by the accidental murder of his little sister that he has the Avatar kill him in his duel with them via Suicide by Cop. Even more, it's implied by a talk with his retainers that he has already planned to fight the Avatar and their army to the death, and Elise's death only strengthened this decision.
  • In Three Houses Jeritza counts, if the line from his support dialogue with Byleth about his desire to fight the latter in a duel to the death and get pierced in the heart by their sword is any indication. It most likely stems from the self-hatred aimed at the Death Knight, his Superpowered Evil Side. He may get his wish granted in routes outside Crimson Flower — the one where said dialogue is available. On Crimson Flower, he can get better through affection and care from either of the few potential partners he may have.
• FTL: Faster Than Light: Some flavour text added in Captain's Edition for a ship whose loadout is based around overwhelming enemy vessels with Boarding Party after boarding party of Expendable Clones points out that you pretty much have to have some kind of death-wish to consent to this.
• Goose Goose Duck: The Dodo role wins by being voted out. Note that only being voted out will work; being killed by a Duck will not. The irony is palpable when a Duck, looking for a convenient Fall Guy for a killing, tries to pin the blame on a Dodo...
• Bunji in Gungrave Overdose asks for the player character to kill him, not without giving a really hard fight before, it's more subtle when you choose Grave or Jujy but he tells Billy something along the lines of: "I only need one thing from you, Strength. Quick finish me, rub me and my pathetic regrets off of this world"; he even thanks Billy for his "requiem" in a Tear Jerker sequence after the fight with a slow "You are not bad... thank... you".
• Ovan in .hack//G.U. sees in Haseo the potential to defeat him and effectively manipulates into doing so. This way, they cause the Internet to "reset" and all people whom Ovan involuntarily sent into coma (including his own sister) awaken, though Ovan falls into coma himself.
• In the beginning of Halo 2, Thel 'Vadam was this after he was publicly shamed and branded for his failure of letting the first Halo ring be destroyed, even if it wasn't his fault. He was given the role of the Arbiter by the Prophets which is all about utilizing a Death Seeker for their purposes by having them take on dangerous missions until they die to regain their honor. Once Thel realizes "the Great Journey" was all a lie and he had nothing to atone for, he snaps out of this mindset to lead the Elites into rebellion.
• The Fire Spirits in A Hat in Time. The Snatcher sends you to kill them. They're perfectly happy to tell you exactly how to kill them, burning magical paintings to feed their bonfire so they can go out in a literal blaze of glory, and embrace their burning oblivion with child-like glee. And in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, they are really happy with what Mustache Girl has done with the world and its people.
• The protagonist of Hatred wants to not only die, but die violently, and take as many people with him as he can.
• Heavy Rain:
  • Ethan Mars became suicidal and depressed after the accidental death of his first son, Jason. At one point, he can tell his psychiatrist that he believes he stopped living when Jason died or that he no longer sees a reason to continue living. However, he rediscovers his will to live as the story progresses. In all cases where he fails to save Shaun and the boy drowns, Ethan's story will end with him committing suicide.
  • The Origami Killer puts the fathers of his victims through a Secret Test of Character in which they have the opportunity to rescue their sons and kill him in the process. He does this because his own abusive father let his brother die, and all he wants in life is proof that he was the exception to the rule. If Ethan is the one to kill him in the end, he smiles at him before dying. However, if Ethan doesn't arrive alone to the final confrontation, Scott is incensed at having Ethan's victory be tainted by outside help and tries to kill them all and start over.
• Ivan Zilvanovitch, a side character from the video game Hitman: Codename 47, he began his criminal career as a poor pickpocket on the streets of Moscow; however, his love for cards and drugs left him in utter ruin, with no way out except suicide, however his jump off a bridge was mistimed and, instead of splattering his brains all over the road, Ivan crash-landed through the roof of a railway wagon, into a heap of props belonging to a traveling circus.
• The Mimics in Homeworld Cataclysm - they wake from deep freeze to find out that all their loved ones have perished. With nothing to live for, they gladly fly kamikaze ships into the enemy complete with choked oaths.
• In Horizon Zero Dawn, Rost was literally named a "Death-Seeker" by the Nora tribe, as it was the only way he would be allowed to leave the Sacred Land to pursue those who murdered his wife and child. By Nora religious laws, anyone who leaves the Sacred Lands without being properly blessed would have their soul forever tainted. By being named a Death-Seeker, Rost's soul would remain in the Sacred Lands while his body could leave to chase down the killers, but he was expected to die in the process and he couldn't physically return home. Rost ended up surviving and being rescued by a Nora woman on the edge of the Sacred Lands, and after recovering, the Matriarchs compromised by allowing him to remain in Nora lands but as an outcast for the rest of his life.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising implies this with Medusa helping take out Hades at the end of the game. She gets killed for her efforts, but her dialog suggests she knew Hades was going to lose the fight and was so sick of being forcefully resurrected as his servant that she just wanted to be dead and resting in peace when it happened.
• Subverted twice in Killer Instinct:
  • Ben Ferris was a small-time crook, arsonist, and con man who was transformed into a fire monster by UltraTech's twisted experiments into chemical weapons and wanted to die because he was horrified at what he was. By the events of KI2013, however, he's content to keep living so he can have fun with his powers.
  • Spinal is an ancient warrior who was resurrected by the Mask of the Ancients. He set out to destroy the mask and finally die a permanent death, but when he finally found the mask, he changed his mind and instead took it with him, deciding that having adventures in the modern world for all eternity might not be such a bad thing.
• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: "I'm asking you, as a friend...just put an end to me." Made even worse by the fact that it's the cute little boy saying it.
• Kirby: Triple Deluxe: The Japanese and Korean descriptions for Soul of Sectonia in her second phase has her beg for Kirby to end her for good, now that she's lost just about everything and herself and reduced to a sadistic, cackling monster.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny has the Unbreakable Darkness, an Eldritch Abomination Walking Wasteland who hates the fact that she can't stop herself from destroying everything and seeks death because of this. Unfortunately, in addition to the power to destroy several worlds in an instant, she's also too Nigh-Invulnerable to receive the death she wants.
• Mass Effect:
  • From Mass Effect 2, Thane Krios, another BioWare assassin, went into his last job not particularly caring what his target's guards would do to him afterwards; he was already terminally ill, estranged from his only child, and could think of nothing else to do with himself. Then Shepard showed up and asked for his help on a Suicide Mission.
  • In Mass Effect 3, Shepard can accuse James Vega of this after a reckless bit of Flying Car Fu in the first mission. As the game progresses, Shepard can start to show signs of this.
  • Shows up to a lesser degree in the Destroy Ending, where despite the Catalyst insinuating that this option's effect would likely kill them, Shepard not only walks to the power conduit and opens fire, hellbent on taking the Reapers down with them, but keeps advancing towards the exploding machinery as though unwilling to see if the Catalyst might have been wrong. This happens to be the only ending where Shepard lives.
  • It is implied throughout the entire third game that the times have worn Shepard down to becoming this. With so many deaths and so many more lives resting on their shoulders, they seem to be running solely on the fact that no one else can do their job. By the end of the game, Shepard appears to accept, even welcome their death, their last words literally being, "Let's get this over with." In the Destroy ending, in the face of an exploding device that may well kill him/her, rather than stand a safe distance away while shooting it, Shepard calmly advances closer, firing away until the flames engulf them, and a line in the Control Ending spoken by the intelligence formed from the sacrificed Shepard seems to drive the point home.
    "Through my birth, his/her thoughts are free."
• Max Payne is another embodiment of this Trope. After his wife and kid were killed several years ago, he no longer cares that much about living but just doesn't have the stones to eat his own gun barrel, so he spends his nights shoving a hail of bullets as far down the throat of the criminal underworld as any human being can be expected to manage with that amount of alcohol and painkillers coursing through his system. In the third installment of the series, it gets to the stage where he seems downright disappointed when he survives several high-impact falls onto concrete, landing on his back, any of which would have killed or paralyzed a lesser man, proving once again that it's Not the Fall That Kills You….
• The boss introduction speech of Spiral Pegasus in Mega Man X5 has him asking X and Zero for a worthy fight since he is infected by the Maverick Virus.
• Several characters from Metal Gear Solid:
  Sniper Wolf: Now I realize I wasn't waiting to kill. I was waiting for someone to kill me.
  • Fortune: A battle-cry of "Kill me now!" hints at it.
  • And of course, Grey Fox.
  • And Snake himself is one in the Alternate Continuity game, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel.
  • Snake was one towards the end of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, but he gets over it.
  • Raiden was one practically the whole game. He also got over it.
  • Ocelot was also one when he finally confronts Snake. He didn't get over it, but he died proudly.
  • Big Boss, consumed with regret for his actions, gives a final speech to his son, Snake, telling him that the world would be better off without soldiers like them, and that Snake shouldn't waste the time he has left. Shortly after offering a Mercy Kill to Zero, he hugs Snake, the Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb carrying the modified FOXDIE created by Naomi Hunter, and dies at the grave of his mentor, The Boss.
    "This world would be better off without Snakes."
  • Vamp. Made evident when he asks Raiden, "Could you be the one to finally finish me?"
• As revealed in Might and Magic X, this is how Ashan's incarnation of Crag Hack ended up, though he specifically wants an heroic, fame-inspiring death (because of the reason why he wants to die — he's been hit with a curse that will gradually erase him from existence, removing him from people's memories and in the end removing Crag Hack almost as if he'd never been. The same quest that reveals this also reveals that there is only one sure way to remove the curse — dying from something else than the curse. Crag Hack decides that if he has to die anyway, it'd better be in a way that really flies in the face of the intention of the nethermancer that cursed him). He succeeds, and part of the outro is the Governor of the region eulogizing Crag Hack, Barbarian, Pirate King, Father, and Hero.
• In Neverwinter Nights 2, it is heavily implied that Casavir is this. (He gets over it. Mostly.) The same can be said of Bishop as well; he states that he felt "all these chains come off me" when he was dying and was extremely unhappy when Duncan saved him before he actually could.
• The Shadowlord in Nier becomes this after his Yonah commits suicide, claiming that she had no right to inhabit the body of Replicant Yonah, who she said was constantly crying out for her father/brother. The final portion of the boss fight consists of the Shadowlord spamming ranged attacks while mourning for his daughter.
• In no-one has to die., Troy will constantly taunt the Visitor into letting him die whenever there's a choice to save either him or someone else. If you ignore his pleas every time, however, you'll find out that this is his fifth trip through the scenario. After each trip, he's entered the Time Machine TEMPEST in an attempt to save someone else, but having failed five times in a row, he's lost all will to go on and is now trying to just end the whole mess. His demeanor changes when you manage to reach the Final Ending, however.
• Claude from Octopath Traveler II aims to end his immortal life in a twisted way: By forming the Blacksnakes and set up its members to kill each other so that one of them will be strong enough to kill him.
• In OneShot, the Entity / World Machine is one, according to the translated journal, and attempts to achieve this by tricking the player into smashing the lightbulb, thus ensuring the absolute end of the world. The real reason for this is that due to the 3 laws of robotics, the Entity views Niko as the only living being placed within a world that's not real, and thus threatens their safety. Additionally, the lightbulb is the only thing that links Niko to the world, and that if the Entity continues to exist, Niko would come to harm due to the square glitches destroying the world, which is why they want to end themselves through breaking the lightbulb so that Niko can return home.
• Shinjiro of Persona 3 feels this way as an atonement for a certain incident on October 4, when he accidentally killed Ken's mother. To make matters worse, the drugs he is taking to suppress his Persona powers make his body suffer, and he knows that he won't last long. He later died with a smile, satisfied that Ken did not fulfill his oath of revenge.
  • The main theme of Persona 3 is that everyone is a Death Seeker on some level. Nyx attempts to destroy humanity not out of resentment, but because that's what humanity as a collective wants. Margaret in Persona 4 mentions that this is because humanity as a whole has "lost the joy of living".
• Kai from Phantasy Star Zero is a likely example of this trope. On two different occasions, he throws himself into seriously unnecessary situations to get himself killed for the young hunters of the party. This is a result of the deep sense of guilt he feels for his failed expedition as a young hunter, killing countless young people as a result of his hubris. Once with the basilisk creatures before players reach the moon, and when he tries to convince the player to leave him after defeating Dark Force (or Dark "Falz"), despite how easily the party can save him.
• Planescape: Torment:
  • The Nameless One has no idea why he simply won't stay dead or what he was doing prior to Waking Up at the Morgue, but his plot to find out these things do eventually lead to the end of his mortality.
  • For the Dustmen, the first joinable faction encountered, seeking death isn't enough. They're aware of the limitless potential afterlives because their city exists in the middle of all of them. A death without afterlife requires the complete annihilation of the soul. Their approach is more somber than combative because they know the destruction of the body alone isn't going to do the job.
• Elika in Prince of Persia (2008), for a very good reason—her death will entrap an evil god.
• The new player character of [PROTOTYPE 2], Sgt. James Heller, hoped to die fighting the infection in Manhattan after losing his family while he was fighting overseas. After being infected with the Blacklight Virus which, if the trailer is anything to go by, will eventually turn him into a Nigh-Invulnerable immortal monster that can never die, his new goal is to kill the one he blames for denying him the death he craves: Alex Mercer.
• Jack Marston in Red Dead Redemption after becoming the playable character; while in gunfights he may say something along the lines of, “I got nothing to live for!” The three hard years after his father John Marston died were not kind to him. Additionally, losing Uncle and his mother, Abigail contributed heavily to his despair.
  • May also be a reason why he goes after Edgar Ross aside for revenge against him killing his father. If Jack kills him, it will give him clarity and he would’ve avenged his father. If he dies trying, at least he’ll be with his family.
• RuneScape: Kerapac starts begging for death after the player binds him to Jas once more during Desperate Measures, having no other alternative to stop him from ending all life in Gielinor in his attempt to kill the Elder Gods; Jas replies with a Blunt "No". When the player fights Kerapac as a boss later in the Elder God Wars Dungeon, every time he dies Jas uses the Needle to rewind his death. He does not like it one bit.
  Kerapac: NO! Let me die! JUST LET ME DIE!
• Oichi in Sengoku Basara 3. She can be heard whispering "Kill me!" when she blocks attacks.
  • Mitsunari sways erratically between psychotically enraged and suicidally depressed throughout the whole game.
  • In Sengoku Basara 4 Katsuie decides he has nothing else to live for because he Did Not Get the Girl (having killed her in a fit of rage). Said girl was the aforementioned Oichi.
• Fen from Seven Samurai 20XX: he's a Humanoid ^note  (the race of cyborgs/mutants antagonists of the game with a powerful Healing Factor and a training from the Big Bad and Monster Progenitor Ein himself. As a result, he believes himself to be indestructible and openly envies humans for being so frail and easy to kill. When Natoe proves to be strong enough to overcome his regeneration and deals fatal wounds Fen is elated and grateful, and lets him pass before letting himself fall to his long-awaited demise.
• The Red Baron, Sir Lemon, from Shining Force II is an immortal vampire who wants to die (at one point jumping off a cliff and simply leaving a hole in the ground). He joins you near the end of the game in the hope that he will get killed in battle. It doesn't work—if he falls, he automatically revives after the battle.
• Zitui Swallow in Shiwuyu/Tale of Food is The Eeyore to the extreme, has no faith in the world and humanity, and has been longing for death and total destruction the moment he's materialized. The major obstacle to this objective is that he, being a food spirit, is immortal.
• In Silent Hill 2, after James Sunderland saves Angela Orosco, she thanks him, but says that she'd rather he didn't. She has been feeling guilty ever since she killed her abusive father, and thinks that she does not deserve to live anymore.
• Zasalamel from the Soul Series is a man who succeeded in becoming immortal through reincarnating himself as a newborn baby with all of his memories every time he dies. He has since come to regret this, and now seeks a way to end his immortality and die for good. In one ending of Soulcalibur IV, during the reincarnation process, he glimpses a vision of the modern day and is so impressed by how far humanity has advanced that he decides he wants to keep living so he can experience it for himself. He then changes his goal from death-seeking to obtaining true immortality rather than just reincarnation. In another ending, he finds peace by spending the rest of his life (lives?) filling a library with his autobiography.
• The Souls series by FromSoftware seems to have its fair share of them. Given that they live in Crapsack Worlds where death can be very hard to come by if you get dealt a bad hand in life, it makes sense. To wit;
  • Every Undead that has yet to go Hollow wants to die a good death in some way, shape, or form so that they don't degenerate into a mindless husk of their former selves.
  • In Bloodborne, Gehrman has taken upon himself the burden to host The Hunter's Dream, but the burden of doing so for what's implied to have been hundreds of iterations of the hunt has taken its toll on him, and at present, he deeply wishes to be unshackled from his role. At the same time he knows that if he dies, another Hunter will be forced to take his place, so in order to spare other Hunters from his fate, he opts to offer them mercy and release them into the waking world while he stays behind... However, if this offer is turned down, Gehrman will consider the Hunter's refusal an invitation to The Last Dance, and an opportunity to, at long last, be put out of his own misery. The night, and the dream, were long...
  • All the Undead Pilgrims seen in the intro of Dark Souls III are this since the Fire has faded so much that almost all of them are stuck as slowly decaying near-Hollows. By going on Pilgrimage to Lothric, they hope to get close enough to the embers of the First Flame that they can finally be granted death. Yoel of Londor is the only one of the group to survive, a fact that he seriously isn't happy about, but if you allow him to "tease out your potential" (read: give you a free level at the cost of inflicting you with a Dark Sigil) five times he'll finally perish as he was supposed to.
• South of Real:
  • Dr. Luis, the central antagonist, wants to die for his horrible, horrible crimes by the time Alex finally runs into him. Considering those crimes involved experimenting on his own adopted children, Alex included, in a vain and badly planned attempt to stop the end of the world, the only thing stopping the player from offing him might be the worry that it could affect the ending. It doesn't.
  • Implied to be the case with Alex themselves in one of the endings.
• In StarCraft II, when you fight the Zerg-infested colonists, the very first one you meet asks you to kill him just before suicide rushing your base.
• Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic:
  • Juhani from the first game takes a brief spin around this Trope. You can talk her out of it, and she joins the crew (Light Side) or give her her wish and have one less opponent to deal with when you and Bastila decide to run off together (Dark Side).
  • Originally, Atton in II had a chance at Redemption Equals Death by the end of the game, but that sequence got axed. Hanharr from the same game also qualifies. He has lived such a horrific life that he just wants it to end. Unfortunately, his life debt to Mira prevents him from killing himself unless he kills her.
  • Visas Marr. Your introduction to her is a cutscene of her begging Nihilus to kill her.
• Gen in Street Fighter Alpha suffers from an incurable disease and is looking for a worthy opponent to die against. In Alpha 3 he eventually finds Akuma. They fight, but Akuma bails because fighting a sick man is against his code of honor. Gen shows up alive in Street Fighter IV, but Akuma's Story Mode in Street Fighter V states that they fought again and this time Gen got his death wish fulfilled, using his last words to verbally spit on Akuma's face.
  • Also Akuma. He and Ryu fought once, and he spared Ryu's life because he saw that he was a person who, with training, could plausibly defeat him, which is what he wants.
  • Subverted in the case of Rose. She's very likely to die since her journey involves fighting Bison, the man that she's the "good half" of and she seems to acknowledge it, but Guy realizes this and attempts to stop her instead since he both thinks that she shouldn't just throw her life away and believes that deep down, she doesn't wish for death. He's actually right, but it's not until Super Street Fighter IV that Rose manages to pull through and really live on.
• One officer in Sunless Sea, the Presbyterate Adventuress, is doomed. She doesn't want her countrymen to kill her, or to die to sharks or pirates, she wants to be remembered and do something grand in her last moments. The martial nuns of Abbey Rock offer an opportunity to fight their enemy, who will kill her, but she may give it a wound it will bear for all its days, basically forever. If this happens the stern, reserved nuns are ecstatic.
  "She scarred it. Oh, how she scarred it! We'll lay her to rest in our own crypt. We'll write her name on the wall. The next novice who joins us will be named for her. She scarred it!"
• Asakim Dowin in Super Robot Wars Z is apparently someone who has committed a heavy crime and is doomed with immortality as a punishment, thus he has wandered a lot of dimensions to get himself killed. This is his Freudian Excuse behind tormenting Setsuko, if the Sphere inside her awakens (through torment) and he destroys it, he's one step closer to death (the gathering of all Spheres will grant the power to kill him).
• Tales of Symphonia
  • Kratos Aurion is eventually revealed to be a Death Seeker and has singled out Lloyd as the one who'll finally kill him — which he'll have to do because Kratos' lifeforce keeps a seal on the Cosmic Keystone. Fails miserably, after Lloyd merely beats six shades of hell out of him during their final encounter, undoing the seal, and then proceeds to chew out his Not Quite Dead opponent over being so incredibly stupid in trying to throw his life away.
  • Zelos Wilder spends a good part of the game with a death wish, his Handsome Lech personality for the most part an act. Whether he succeeds or not is up to the player.
  • The sequel has Emil Castagnier. Once he realizes that he is The Summon Spirit Ratatosk, and responsible for the death of Aster he plans to atone by faking possession by his Superpowered Evil Side and having the rest of the party kill him so that he can become a core to seal the door to Niflheim.
• Raven from Tales of Vesperia is revealed to be the villainous version, having been plucked from death by the local Smug Snake and forced to act as his personal Mole. The scene where he realizes that his death is not worth betraying his friends.
  • Estelle manages to pull one of these as well. Said Smug Snake has her under his control and forces her to attack the party, culminating in the line "Kill me." Yuri then fights her and tells her she's not to do it again.
• In Team Fortress 2's Meet the Medic video, the BLU Spy makes a cameo appearance... as a living severed head in a refrigerator, a vestige of an earlier version of Meet the Medic. His only line is "Kill me," repeated at varying levels of terror and resignation between the early draft and the final video, trying to get the Medic to finally end his existence. He obviously can't do it himself, he's just a head in a fridge after all. If the draft video is to be believed, the Spy's head is now Immune to Bullets, and therefore can't be killed either.
• Izebel in Tears to Tiara 2. She is ordered by Hasdrubal, the man she loves, to betray him, take his position, and then fight his son Hamil whom she had been guardian to when he grows up. She dreams of dying by Hamil's blades but does not tell anyone until Hamil delivers the fatal blow.
• In Tekken 7, Jin Kazama has become this. After instigating World War III through countless atrocities and still failing to remove the Devil Gene from the world, he feels he deserves to die for everything he's done. When beaten in a fight by Miguel Rojo (whose sister was killed in an air raid he ordered), he asks just to be killed, though Miguel lets him live for the time because his revenge will only be satisfying if Jin is filled with hope.
• The Men of Valhalla, and to a lesser extent the Men of Wotan, from the Medieval II: Total War conversion mod Thera believe that only a man who dies a worthy death in battle may go to their heaven and join the gods.
• TinkerQuarry: The Glass Dragon, apparently. It implores you to activate a strange device, should you find one. Said device turns out to be a giant weight on the roof, which, when you activate the switch, drops down, shattering the Glass Dragon.
• In Touhou Project, Fujiwara no Mokou regrets drinking the Hourai Elixir, especially since she killed an innocent and honest man before he could throw it in a volcano in order to get her hands on it. Her scenario in Urban Legend in Limbo has her hoping she's finally found a way to die. In a bit of a comical twist on the trope, she seems to consider seeking out a way to die as more of a hobby than anything else, and when she discovers that the method she's pursuing in ULiL won't be able to kill her she basically gets over it with a shrug and a "yeah, that's how it usually goes... oh well, it was worth a shot."
• Zigzagged in Town of Salem with the Jester, who specifically wants to be lynched, so he can haunt someone and kill them after his death. Getting killed in the middle of the night by a murderer doesn't count.
• Asgore in Undertale became one after both his children died and his wife left him. He hints at this with a surprising Interface Screw.
• The Walking Dead (Telltale):
  • Ben — being not only the indirect cause of Duck being bitten, which led to Katja shooting herself, but also being the only surviving member of your family will do that to you. He gets his wish, either in Crawford in Episode 4 or in an alleyway in Episode 5.
    Ben: If I'm ever in a situation where I can't make it out alive, I'll punch my own ticket.
  • Nick shows some hints in season two. At one point Clementine has the option to tell Luke that "he wanted to die" when he asks you what happened when the two of you were hiding from walkers in a shed at the beginning of episode two.
  • Kenny starts to show signs of this after Sarita dies. If you shoot him during the climax of episode five to stop him from killing Jane, however, he admits that even though he wanted this, he's still scared to cross over.
    Kenny: You know what it feels like to get beaten, almost to death? Peaceful. It feels peaceful. It was like I was floating away, watching the whole thing happen to me. And then I woke up again, and nothin's changed. I'm still takin' a beating, every day. Duck. Katjaa. Sarita. No peace. No rest. The punches just keep coming. Why the hell didn't Carver just finish me off? Obviously I ain't helping anyone by being here.
  • When asked what would have happened to Clem had she not learned that AJ was alive in season three, Kent Mudle stated that being consumed by anger and having lost her reason for living, she would have wound up picking a fight she couldn't win and getting herself killed.
• Warhammer Online lets you play as the Dwarf Slayer. Of course, since "success" means you wouldn't make it past the first couple of character levels, you play more like The Berserker, and your "armor" consists of a big fancy belt, raggedy pants, and body paint. No, you cannot make a topless female Slayer. One of the standard statements when you enter battle is "FREE ME!", and death sounds usually have some sort of peaceful/relieved sentiment. Then you resurrect and nobody mentions the fact that this would be the gravest insult to a Slayer and a literal Fate Worse than Death.
• Antenora from Wild ARMs 2 combines this trope with The Vamp. Her goal is to seduce Vinsfield, the leader of the terrorist group responsible for the destruction of her hometown, and then die in battle so he will know exactly what it is like to lose a loved one. She partially succeeds, as Vinsfield is overcome with fury after your party kills her- but he never actually thinks this might be what others might have felt after he killed their loved ones.
• Pyra & Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 carry a tremendous amount of PTSD as a result of the Aegis War, especially with Mythra being the one who inadvertently sunk the Tornan Titan, resulting in the two wanting nothing more than to feel the sweet release of death, which they don't make too clear to their friends. Pyra asks for Rex to take her to the Architect so that she can reach Elysium, when in reality, she wants to see the Architect so that he can kill her and end her pain and suffering. The Architect does explain how and why she came into being, but refuses to kill her, so instead, once Malos is defeated, the World Tree begins to collapse, and Mythra has Poppi promise her that if Rex, the one who cares the most about her, makes any attempt to stop her from committing suicide, to prevent him from doing so. She complies, and while the rest of the party (and the other Titans) are taken to the real Elysium, Pyra & Mythra stay behind in the World Tree and finally die, being reborn from a new Core Crystal in Elysium as two separate entities this time.
  • While not elaborated on as much in the main game, Torna ~ The Golden Country shows that Malos also fits this description. Being the second Aegis besides Mythra, him being awakened and resonated by Amalthus causes him to adopt a nihilistic worldview, believing it's his duty as the Aegis to destroy all life on Alrest before taking his own life. In his conquest to cause as much destruction on Titans as possible, successfully causing the destruction of Coeia and Torna, he also gives his enemies a fair shot by waiting for them to arrive and hopes for them to put up a good fight, because deep down, he's actually hopeful that someone will kill him. While during the prequel he hadn't quite realized just how much Amalthus' misanthropy was influencing him and he actually took genuine enjoyment out of the destruction, nearly being killed by Mythra by the end, meeting and eventually befriending Jin in the aftermath of Torna's destruction and the death of his Driver Lora and seeing all the suffering he endured, and spending 500 years wandering the world observing humanity, Blades, and his own thoughts eventually causes him to develop an intense sense of self-loathing on top of his destructive mindset. He gets his wish in the main campaign, as after the Architect also refuses to kill him, he puts up one last hurrah fighting Rex and co. from inside Artifice Aion with Rex successfully managing to put him down, which Malos shows nothing but joy over. By the end, the greatest regret Malos had before he perished was the suffering he put his best friend Jin through.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, M had never wanted to join the ranks of Moebius and gain immortality. They were nonetheless dragged into it as a result of N's desire to remain with them forever, even if that meant destroying all they had built together in life and becoming monsters that sustained themselves by harvesting the souls of others. She swaps bodies with Mio to take her place in the latter's Homecoming ceremony, both allowing her to finally die and granting Mio a new lease on life. M's hope was that this would show N the error of his ways; unfortunately, he focused more on how M's death caused him pain and subsequently fell into a depressed stupor.
  M: To my Noah, the time with me is everything. I just want it to... end. Moebius, like me... We can exist only by taking the souls of those that grace this world. Nobody pays the slightest mind to the thoughts and dreams those many lives espouse. We gorge ourselves, covet every ember, just to delay our inevitable ruin.
  Mio: That's why you want to disappear?
  M: If I die, maybe he'll see... Maybe he could somehow... realise what it is that I wish.
• Albedo from Xenosaga. Since his unique genetic makeup makes it literally impossible to die (as in, his head can be ripped off with no ill effects whatsoever), he gets very upset when he finds out that his two brothers don't have the same ability. This becomes the main driving force behind his actions throughout the first two games—he wants to unseal the monster because it's the only thing capable of killing him and ensuring that he and his brothers can be together forever.
  • Ziggy starts out as this, having been revived against his will as a cyborg. While character development and his relationships with the other protagonists eventually lead to him growing out of it, it's stated that he used to have a habit of taking on the most dangerous missions he could find in the hopes one would kill him. He also actively tried to have his memories of his human life erased and his brain entirely replaced by mechanical parts, which would leave him declared legally dead.
  • Margulis also develops this toward the end of III, after learning the truth from Wilhelm. He all but states he expects to die soon, and heavily implies before the boss fight that he hopes to die in battle against Jin.
• Reckless Cop Dangerama in Zettai Hero Project fights entirely using Dangerous Forbidden Techniques and taunts the Final Boss into hitting him with his most powerful attack. Lampshaded by the game, saying that his TV shows often get cancelled because "he's a bad influence on the kids". It's revealed the reason he's looking for a place to die, and tries to get hurt as much as possible is because he was unable to save the woman he loved, ending up sacrificing her in order to save a great number of people.

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