Video Games / Doomed By Canon

Characters and events that are Doomed by Canon in Video Games.

Ace Attorney: All of the flashback cases in some way or another have this by virtue of what characters are involved.
- In case 3-1, college-age Phoenix has a girlfriend. In the present-day, not only is Phoenix single, but said girlfriend is never even mentioned, so no matter who survives the case, their relationship won't. His girlfriend, Dahlia, is the murderer and was using Phoenix as an unwitting accomplice and Fall Guy, so it's no wonder Phoenix doesn't like talking about her.
- Trials and Tribulations case 4 has this several ways: We know from case 1 that this case traumatized Mia so badly she didn't take another case for a year (that case being case 1), we see Dahlia in both cases as a witness, and the first game states that Edgeworth (the prosecutor for the case) had never lost a court case until Phoenix got Maya aquitted. So no matter what Mia does, she can't get Terry Fawles declared Not Guilty, and Dahlia can't die or be arrested. Dahlia is almost exposed as the true culprit, but before Mia can close the case, she manipulates Terry into suicide, setting up Mia's hatred of her in case 3-1.
- Case 3 of Investigations 2 is a big offender. You know that no matter how hard Gregory tries, he can't get a Not Guilty verdict for Tenkai, because Manfred von Karma is the prosecutor and his record remained unbroken until 1-4. And that exposing von Karma's forgery isn't going to end well for him... Fortunately, you get to solve the case for real as Miles in the present.
- Apollo Justice is especially cruel about this. You, as the player, are forced to make Phoenix present evidence that you know will ruin his career.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag players could be forgiven for being unaware that everything they do in the game, even if they go for 100% Completion, will be undone in the end, since while some of that is a given due to him returning to England with riches enough for land, finery, and title as per the ending, Assassin's Creed : Forsaken already revealed — hence why his own Database entry in IV does — that Edward dies in 1735, his daughter is still estranged from him, and shows that his son Haytham goes on to become a Templar Grand Master... who in Assassin's Creed III will be killed by his son, Edward's grandson, Ratonhnhaké:ton aka Connor Kenway.
Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: a retroactive example from the substrate universe. With the release of the 4th edition of D&D it became canon that an event called "the Spellplague" happened in the Forgotten Realms (precisely in 1385 DR while the game starts in 1368 DR), causing magic to rift apart and almost every sorcerer and wizard to end up tragically insane if not painfully dying. This would mean that any spellcaster we meet in-game is very likely doomed to suffer from that in his/her future.
- The Spellplague outright contrasts and contradicts the character epilogues at the ending of Throne of Bhaal, entering the territory of retcon.
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear: certain recurring characters from the original game (specifically Khalid and Dynaheir were stated to be killed in between the transition to the sequel. Siege of Dragonspear is a midquel, so we can meet these people, but after the end of the campaign we know that they are going to die anyway no matter what.
- Your main character too is doomed to taste some bitterness in the end, since the intro from Baldur's Gate II revealed that he/she fled in dark circumstances after the inhabitants of the titular city started to suspect him as dangerous and before being kidnapped.
In Baten Kaitos Origins, if you've played more than ten minutes of Eternal Wings, you can probably guess Verus and Baelheit are going to be killed off, simply based on the fact that Geldoblame is in power in Eternal Wings, twenty years later. Sharp-eyed players will pick up on a few others.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! is an Interquel between Borderlands and Borderlands 2. As such, the fate of the game's villain Col. Tungsteena Zarpedon is obvious from the get-go. Most of the other characters introduced however presumably survive due to the fact that the game takes place on Pandora's moon rather than Pandora itself.
In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, there's the flashback mission with Captain Price where the objective is to assassinate the Big Bad Zakhaev. Naturally, you fail; you "only" take his arm off.
The DS remake of Chrono Trigger adds an extra ending where the party and Anti-Villain try to rescue Schala from the Devourer. The sequel, Chrono Cross, is also about a different party trying to rescue Schala from the Devourer, so obviously Crono and the party didn't succeed. But that's the only ending doomed to failure thanks to the use of parallel worlds in Chrono Cross all the endings can be considered canonical. For instance, the future from the ending where humans were replaced by dinosaur people is where and when the Terra Tower comes from.
City of Heroes: In a Multimedia example, The Web of Arachnos tells the story of Marcus Cole and Stefan Richter; best friends who grew up in the same household and later became soldiers of fortune. Marcus's brother Ezra and Stefan's sister Monica also make appearances. Anyone who has actually played the game (or looked at the cover of the book) knows that Marcus Cole becomes Statesman and Stefan Richter becomes Lord Recluse after achieving their goal of reaching the Well of the Furies. Monica goes on to marry Marcus, but Ezra was never mentioned before the novel's release.
- MMO time creates some wacky examples in City of Heroes. Any arc where the goal is to prevent the Second Rikti Invasion is doomed to fail, because that storyline has to begin when you reach level 35. Praetor Duncan's plan to kill Diabolique fails because Diabolique's One-Winged Angel form from her Incarnate Trial was used in the promotional material for the issue that arc appeared in. Most importantly, no matter what you do in Praetoria Tyrant will still blow up it's capital out of spite.
In Corpse Party: Book of Shadows (a sequel of sorts to Blood Covered), we are introduced to Kai Shimada and Naho Saenoki's friend Sayaka Ooue. Shimada is part of the same group of friends at Byakudan High School, where he has a one-sided rivalry with Yuuya Kizami, and Sayaka is mentioned in Naho's Notes. You find their bodies in Chapters 2 and 5 of Blood Covered, respectively.
The Dead Space Wii prequel Dead Space: Extraction. Anyone who has seen just the first ten minutes of the original should know what to expect...So yeah...
- Along with Dead Space: Downfall, and the two comics series (made to hype both games), the results are pretty much a forgone conclusion.
- Anyone who's played Dead Space will already figure out that in Dead Space: Martyr Altman is going to end up dead by the end, since his death is a major part of Unitology's history. The only surprise comes in the form of the circumstances surrounding his fate.
The prequel to Dragon Age: Origins, The Stolen Throne, is absolutely loaded with this. Like the anti-heroic badass Loghain Mac Tir? He's the villain of the main game. Boy, Maric really came into his own as King! His rule is pretty darn short. Look at adorable little Prince Cailan in the epilogue! Aww! He dies young at the beginning of the game, and is hinted to be a mediocre king at best. Dragon Age taking place in a Crapsack World, this isn't entirely unexpected.
- Played in-universe in Dragon Age II, however. The game is a story-within-a-story concerning Hawke's rise to power, and his/her role in events that have torn the Chantry apart and flung Thedas (the setting) into war. Played with in that the storyteller and listener know the ultimate outcome, but the player has a lot less information.
- Also, The Calling prequel. The few people who will definitely survive will be King Maric, Duncan (he dies pretty early in the first game), Fiona, Utha and the Architect.
Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle has a story event called "Low-Class Warrior: Raditz's Pride", in which Raditz, motivated by Bardock's spirit, trains to become stronger just to be seen as someone worthwhile in Vegeta's and Nappa's eyes. He succeeds, but unfortunately for him, this event takes place before the Saiyan Saga...
Followed in an odd yet internally consistent way in Dynasty Warriors. The main feature of the games is the 'story mode' which tells the tale of whichever of the characters you happen to select. While Koei takes some liberties with the history, iterations such as 5 and 7 in particular are surprisingly true to the source material, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This means that some games with prequel missions which feature certain characters already tell you how they're going to end due to the presence of later stages. For instance, in the Expansion Pack for 5, a mission is introduced with the imperial guardian He Jin as an important NPC, against a rebel cadre of eunuchs. No matter how you do in this prequel stage, though, He Jin must die either in the course of gameplay or shortly after, as both Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shao are shown ascending to power in the early stages of 5, after He Jin's death at the hands of the eunuchs' conspiracy (as the actual facts of history tell).
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron: Lucifel. Pretty obvious who he'll become someday. Then again, Enoch averted the Great Flood, so who knows?
Endless Legend, the prequel Science Fantasy spinoff to Endless Space, eight separate empires are fighting to get off of the dying world Auriga before it is plunged into an eternal winter. Come Endless Space, the only faction that makes it off the planet wholesale are the Vaulters, a human empire that remembered their origins in space. However, there are a few survivors from other races, including a Broken Lord hero that appeared in Endless Space before Endless Legend was even announced.
EXTRAPOWER: Second game in the series EXTRAPOWER: Star Resistance focuses on Dark Force's invasion of the Shakun star and the efforts of Sharkungo, Forcestar and others to push back and stop the invasion. Unfortunately it takes place a day before the first game, EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce, which opens with the conquest of Shakun and the defeat of the Star Lore Superstars as Dark Force and his two right hands Mensouma and Undata gloat over them, prompting Sharkungo to flee to the Earth and warn the humans that their planet is next. At least you've put up a good fight!
Averted in Fear Effect 2. This game is a prequel to the original and introduces Rain, Hana's love interest. She's in danger a lot and you'd think she'd be killed since she isn't in the original game. She's not killed and apparently was just off-screen then.
Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core has the difficult task of working Zack, Aerith and Sephiroth into an interesting plot despite the player knowing how it has to end. It does pretty well. The developers commented that writing the story was similar to writing an adaptation of a historical event, because these doomed side characters did not have the sort of storylines that you would normally tell a game story with, but could not be contradicted.
  - Likewise, Before Crisis introduces a large team of unnamed Turks as the player characters. All but Shuriken Female aren't seen in other media and the end of the game has all Turks except the big 4 (Reno, Rude, Elena and Tseng) go into hiding. The one member who does appear in other media? Cissnei who appears in Crisis Core, which is in the MIDDLE of Before Crisis.
- Considering the above examples, by now it seems that Square Enix has learnt the "don't-make-handheld-prequels-if-they-don't-end-well" lesson with Dissidia Duodecim 012 Final Fantasy, where, while narrating the second-to-last war cycle prior to the first Dissidia and therefore being somewhat of a Foregone Conclusion, after completing that war cycle there's another - namely, the 13th seen in the first Dissidia, as a redone version, promptly subverting the Downer Ending.
Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, as the prequel to Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, has multiple characters that are either depicted this way or implied to turn out that way given that only a handful of the Blazing Blade playable cast even shows up in the previous title. Since Binding Blade was never officially released outside of Japan, however, many players don't actually realize this and the deaths have less impact.
- Canas the Shaman is clearly intended to be the father of Hugh and son of Niime, given that he looks like both of them. Regardless of supports, Canas' epilogue notes that he and his wife die in a blizzard between games, hence why Hugh is being raised by his grandmother by the time of Binding Blade.
- Hector, despite being easily the most powerful unit in Blazing Blade, is killed within the first chapters of Binding Blade as a much older man. One of the support chats in Blazing Blade notes that he had a premonition of his death, though he misreads the circumstances. He also eventually wields a weapon that comes with a curse that its wielder will die in battle, a clear reference to his death in Binding Blade. Additionally, as Lilina's mother is dead by the time of Binding Blade, any of the women Hector gets an A support with and marries in the epilogue are also doomed to die between games.
- Similarly to Hector, Roy's mother is dead by the time of Binding Blade, which dooms all of his father Eliwood's potential brides to the same fate.
- The Black Fang do not appear in Binding Blade, which is a pretty clear clue that they will not survive the events of their game.
- Nino, the mother of Binding Blade mages Raigh and Lugh, appears in Blazing Blade. The player recruits them in an orphanage in Binding Blade. All of her endings have her disappearing to protect her family from bounty hunters who are after the remnants of the Black Fang. Jafar, one of her marriage options, is also likely to end up the same.
- Erk turns into this if he gets A support with Nino, though his other two marriage options would canonically allow him to live happily ever after (even if he'd never admit such a thing if he marries Serra).
- Lucius is mentioned to have opened an orphanage in Araphen in his ending. Lugh, Raigh, and Chad, who were raised in an orphanage in Araphen, inform the player that the priest who raised them was killed by invading Bernese soldiers.
- It's not stated what happened to Rebecca, but her son Wolt never mentions her, so this may have caught up to her as well.
- If Lyndis married Eliwood or Hector in her ending, she gets this by default. One of her endings also puts her as the mother of Sue in Binding Blade, though neither of Sue's parents actually appears in that game, so she may still be doomed.
- Karla is the mother of Fir in Binding Blade, who explicitly became a sword fighter in honor of her dead mother.
- Athos and Brammimond, the final two Legendary Heroes. The Legendary Heroes are all deceased by Binding Blade. Athos kicks the bucket on camera and his death also implies Brammimond died as well.
- It is assumed Hawkeye died between games as his daughter is doing his job in Binding Blade. it's never stated, however.
Players won't realize that this happens in Five Nights at Freddy's 2 until near the end when they find out it's a prequel to Five Nights at Freddy's. The old robots were being decommissioned because they were old, not because of their murderous rampage in the original game. The new robots were the ones who malfunctioned and thus destroyed, while the old robots (who were haunted) were rebuilt so the restaurant could reopen.
- Also, on Night 6, Phone Guy says that when the place reopens, he'll take the night shift himself. Anyone who's played the first game knows it didn't work out as planned...
Starkiller, in The Force Unleashed. A powerful Sith apprentice just running around pell-mell, slaughtering stormtroopers and rebel soldiers alike, before A New Hope? There was never any doubt that he was going to kick it.
The God of War series has two spin offs on PSP: Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. The former is a prequel to the original game and the latter is set between the first and the second. The plots of both games are predictable due to this trope. I wonder if Kratos will succeed in saving his brother..
Vic Vance, the protagonist of prequel game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, is unceremoniously gunned down in the introduction of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, set two years later. He is one of only two playable protagonists (the other being Johnny) to canonically die during the series, unless you count Endings A or B in Grand Theft Auto V.
The Halo series: Halo: Combat Evolved begins on a ship which fled the complete annihilation of the planet Reach and the destruction of almost the entire remaining human fleet, which almost seals the inevitable defeat of the human race in the nearly 30-year-long war against the Covenant. Throughout the series, the Fall of Reach is treated as one of the darkest moments of human history. The later prequel Halo: Reach takes place on said planet, so it's a foregone conclusion that almost none of the characters will survive. And throughout the entire game, most players would have been aware that any attempt at defending the planet and each minor victory would be completely irrelevant in the end. The only character introduced in Reach who survives is Mauve Shirt Jun.
Hard Corps: Uprising has the main hero, Bahamut. He's the Big Bad in Contra: Hard Corps, who you have to kill in three of the five endings. The producers, however, have stated that he could be someone else entirely, only sharing the same name.
Hiveswap is a prequel to Homestuck, partially taking place an unknown amount of time earlier on the alien planet Alternia. Trizza's plans to usurp the Condesce and Dammek and Xefros' rebellion against the The Empire and its Fantastic Caste System are thus both doomed to failure, as Alternia is ruled by Condy and heavily divided by caste when the setting is introduced in the comic.
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak: we know from the original Homeworld that the titular desertic planet is going to be destroyed in a firestorm caused by a massive orbital bombardment by the Taiidan Empire aimed at genociding the Kushan.
I Miss the Sunrise actually inverts this in a few cases — Marie, Rami, and Mahk are all alive and well in The Reconstruction, so they can't die (though something does have to happen to Mahk to make the crew believe he died). Played straight with Tezkhra, however.
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, which stars the Big Bad group Organization XIII. About half of their members die offscreen about a couple hours in due to events seen in another game occurring at the same time, while the other half dies by the end of the next chronological game, both of which preceded 358/2 Days in release order.
- You never heard of Xion during Roxas' flashbacks in Kingdom Hearts II, despite her important role. So that helps guessing she was Ret-Gone.
  - Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep has the same thing. Ven, Terra and Aqua aren't around in previous games so obviously it won't turn out well. It actually doesn't end that badly, but Terra's body is stolen and turned into Xehanort while his soul is forced to inhabit his empty armor, Ven's heart is sealed into Sora's while his body is left to recover in a secret room within Castle Oblivion, and Aqua is thrown into the Realm of Darkness, to wander there alone without her friends for at least a decade. However the secret ending reveals there's still hope that they may one day see each other again.
- Most likely almost everyone in Daybreak town in Kingdom Hearts χ as the events of the game happened before the First Keyblade War which wrecked the universe.
  - Did you know that Xehanort had classmates when he was still leaning to wield the keyblade? Given only Eraqus is around when Birth By Sleep happens, it's hardly a surprise that all the others die in Kingdom Hearts Dark Road.
Left 4 Dead:
- The Sacrifice DLC. Since Bill was already dead in The Passing, you know that he will always be the one to die by canonicity, even if the player sacrifices a different survivor in The Sacrifice.
- Similarly, in the tie-in comic (which chronicled the events from Blood Harvest till the end of The Sacrifice) didn't even bother trying to hide it, by opening in media res to show Bill's final moments, before starting the story proper.
The Legend of Zelda:
- While the franchise had been going on for twenty-five years by that point, we've never known of Fi's existence outside of the chronologically first game, Skyward Sword, despite her being the spirit of the series' iconic weapon, the Master Sword. You can probably fill in the blanks for yourself. Which is why it's a bit of a shock when she briefly reappears in Breath of the Wild.
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity takes place 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when the Champions and the King of Hyrule were still alive and just before Hyrule was essentially destroyed by Calamity Ganon. It's a given that none of these characters survive the story, since they were all killed when Calamity Ganon took over. Subverted when intervention from time-travelers creates an Alternate Timeline where Everybody Lives.
As Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is a prequel set 3 years before Life Is Strange, most of the things are pretty much fixed in all of the Multiple Endings. Anything you can actually influence with your choices are necessarily about characters not appearing in the original game. More specifically:
- Rachel will die. The game itself ends on a high note, but her ultimate fate is shown in The Stinger.
- You can make choices where Chloe apparently tries to reconcile with her stepfather David. Given their relationship in the original game, it won't happen no matter how hard you might try.
Zigzagged by Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, which is a prequel to Lufia & The Fortress of Doom. There's a Disc-One Final Dungeon that Maxim makes it through unscathed... but the first scene of Lufia I, in which we see some legendary and ancient hero named "Maxim" making a Heroic Sacrifice, turns out to also be the closing scene of Lufia II.
- The Disc-One Final Dungeon is arguably an example as well. Maxim is going to live because he has not married Selan yet and had a child (the Hero of Lufia and the Fortress of Doom is Maxim's descendant). Though this can be defied in a New Game+ of the remake Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals.
Considering the state Max Payne is in in the trailers for the third game, the alternate ending in which Mona lives is not canonical.
Mega Man X has a 10-Minute Retirement at the beginning of X7, getting tired of the more unscrupulous methods of the Maverick Hunters and trying to find a better solution to peace... and the Mega Man Zero series, set a hundred years later, shows that the war never even ended; in fact, the situation had gotten even worse!
- Well, not exactly. The war they were fighting ended. Then a new war that nearly wiped out all life began. Then, when that was done, another war began, this time because of scapegoating due to an energy crisis. At least after the Zero series, the wars actually stop. For a while. With Legends being in the main canon, you can only wonder what the hell went wrong even later when you learn certain details about the world...
- There's also the Day of Sigma OVA that's part of Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X. Justified since it's a prequel.
- Considering Axl is never even referenced in the Zero series, there's a Biometal based on him in Mega Man ZX Advent (even if it's not actually him) and Lumine implants him with... something, leaving him comatose at the end of Mega Man X8, it's safe to say he's a dead Reploid walking.
In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, a prequel to the entire Metal Gear series, having Snake or Ocelot killed will result in a Time Paradox since they were important characters in the previous games. Likewise, killing off EVA will result in a game over too, since her presence is needed for the game to progress. On the other hand, the game forces the player to kill off The Boss after defeating her, since her death is necessary for Big Boss' descent into villainy. If the player doesn't pull the trigger when prompted after a while, Snake will do it automatically anyway.
- Also, Naked Snake is none other than Big Boss himself, who in the other games appeared as an old man with an eyepatch. So his eye had to go, and he indeed loses it saving EVA.
- In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, we're introduced to Huey (Otacon's father) and Kaz (aka Master Miller), both minor but rather pivotal background characters in Solid Snake's timeline. Both of them are doomed to die in the chronological later games; Huey kills himself and attempts to take his step-daughter with him sometime when Otacon was still a teenager (as we find out in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty)^note, while Miller is murdered and has his identity stolen by Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.
- In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Khamsin is introduced in the "Bladewolf" DLC as a member of the Winds of Destruction. Considering that said DLC is a prequel to the main game and Khamsin never shows up in Raiden's campaign, he's fated to die by the claws of Bladewolf.
In Metroid: Other M, a prequel to Metroid Fusion, Adam has to die (as he becomes Samus' computer guide) and two bosses, Ridley and Nightmare, will at least leave corpses which will be brought to the BSL and copied by the X Parasites.
Middle-earth: Shadow of War is about main characters Talion and Celebrimbor trying to conquer Mordor and overthrow Evil Overlord Sauron. Since the game is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings and Sauron is the creator of the most famous Soul Jar in fiction, the chances of Talion and Celebrimbor succeeding are terrible. In short, Celebrimbor loses his battle with the Dark Lord and fuses with Sauron to become the Great Eye that hovers above his tower in Mordor, while Talion is corrupted by a Ring of Power taken from the Nazgul, becoming one himself until Sauron's eventual defeat in the original story sets them both free.
Mighty No. 9's RAY and her DLC appearance in Mighty Gunvolt Burst, which involves her trying to find her creator Professor White and the answers behind her perpetual xel deterioration in the former, which unfortunately did not go well as she nearly broke down for good thanks to her faulty xel core programming at the end of her DLC campaign, but was resuscitated by Beck after Professor White found her, ashamed of his past failed creation, and was taken for examination to the lab at Sanda Technologies only for RAY to eventually lost control of herself and thrashed her way out of the escort vehicle, roaming rampantly as the Vermilion Destroyer. Her Mighty Gunvolt Burst appearance sees RAY trying to make one last-ditch effort to stay sane as she was being taken to Sanda Technologies and find the missing pieces of her past through cyberspace, but it was already too late for her by the end her campaign.
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom is actually an interquel set after the events of the first game, but before II. This fact is vaguely implied in the instruction manual, but not outright stated, which helps hide the fact that Irene Lew, who is supposedly killed in the intro, isn't really dead at all since she returns in II. One big giveaway that III is set before II is the fact that Ryu still has the Dragon Sword, which he loses at the end of II.
Nosgoth is a multiplayer arena battle game in the Legacy of Kain series. One of the playable classes is the flying Sentinel. Those familiar with the Legacy of Kain series will note the bitterness of playing this class as, as per games set later in the series' timeline, the entire clan making up the Sentinel class has been slaughtered and indeed is never even seen in the rest of the series at all.
Say, you know those two from Ogre Battle? Holy knight Lans and Warren? They make it to episode seven, along with Canopus, except They don't wind up making it out - Warren sacrifices himself to save everyone from being sucked into a Chaos gate, whereas Lans was driven insane by torture. The remake implies otherwise though.
Ōkami: When Amaterasu and Issun wind up in Kamiki Village 100 years ago, they find themselves having to re-enact the very battle with Orochi as told in legend. Issun, remembering how this one ended with "Shiranui" dying, is very nervous about it. They defeat Orochi without incident but Shiranui appears in time to save Nagi from a falling boulder — and Shiranui, as we find out later, is already dying from a mortal wound inflicted elsewhere.
Ōkamiden: Like its predecessor, the game features Time Travel. The instant you go back in time, you realize that you're in mid-air over an ocean. Luckily, a ship called the Goryeo comes and its friendly crew take you on board. You explore the ship, and find that it's the sunken ship from the first game. The one loaded with evil and bad stuff.
Perfect Dark Zero's plot involves the death of Dr. Carroll, who uploaded his mind before death and appears as a floating laptop computer in the first game.
Persona 3: FES contains a sidequest that lets you save Chidori, but "The Answer," a canonical epilogue added to the FES version, mentions the character's Plotline Death.
- There's also a massive amount of argument over whether this applies to Shinjiro.
- In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, this is actually a source of angst for Margaret; being from two years in the Persona 3 cast's future, she knows that the protagonist of Persona 3 will be dead/comatose in 6 months, and most likely also knows that Shinjiro only has two weeks left.
In Phantasy Star Portable (which takes place between the first Phantasy Star Universe game and Ambition of the Illuminus, Vivienne is introduced as a new type of CAST who ends up performing a heroic sacrifice. She doesn't make any future appearances within the time line, thus making her fate somewhat of a Foregone Conclusion. ...That is until the last chapter of Episode 3, where she remembers the player character (after, as a side story indicated, her memory of you would be erased) when she possesses Lou's body. But even then it's implied that she'll forget the player character afterward.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus does this in a particular way. Considering that the events of the game happens centuries before the ones of the main games, you know from start that every character will die and that some of their descendants will become criminals. Except for Ingo, who is revealed to have been sent back to the past at some point prior to the events of the game. His fate however after the events of the game and if he ever made it back to the present is unknown.
Portal:
- Portal: Prelude, an unofficial 3rd party mod, shows the moment GLaDOS goes berserk and kills everyone in the Enrichment Center. Mike and Abby may have survived, but even if they did, they hastily abandoned Aperture.
- During the Old Aperture segments of Portal 2 you can hear recordings of Cave Johnson throughout the different eras of Aperture Science, from its bright and golden beginning to eventually what happens to it in the present day. Since the only individuals still left in Aperture during the original Portal are Chell and GLaDOS, Cave's death preceding that game's events is a given.
In The Quest of Ki, the prequel to The Tower of Druaga, Ki climbs the tower to the 60th floor, finds the Blue Crystal Rod... and then Druaga appears and turns her to stone, which is why Gilgamesh had to rescue her in the original game.
RayCrisis, the prequel to RayForce. Despite your efforts, Con-Human succeeds in taking over the planet, according to the story of the first game. Makes the prequel a Shoot the Shaggy Dog story too.
Red Dead Redemption II is a mixed case. It's a prequel to the original game that follows the gang that John Marston was in, and introduces multiple new gang members who were never mentioned in the original game. Since the first game's plot requires you to hunt down John's old gang, most of these guys are gonna have to bite it before then, right? Well, it's a mixed bag. Some, like protagonist Arthur Morgan (who gets tuberculosis during the game) do die. Others leave the gang as Dutch becomes less and less stable and go straight, with the epilogue implying that they ended up living peaceful lives and never becoming targets, with the gang members from the original game being the ones who couldn't go straight after the gang dissolves.
The GameCube version of Resident Evil added the option to rescue Richard Aiken by healing his poisonous snake wound on time. However, since the sequels require the deaths of all the Bravo Team members (except for Rebecca) for the storyline to make sense, Richard will simply die at a later point of the game.
- A new facet of the plot in the Resident Evil 3 (Remake) involving Jill and Carlos trying to prevent the destruction of Raccoon City by giving the US goverment a cure for the T-Virus will obviously fail, as the destruction of Raccoon City is one of the pivotal events in the universe's timeline. Sure enough, Nicholai destroys the only sample of the cure For the Evulz.
The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian is a prequel to The Scorpion King and both Mathayus' mentor King Urhmet and his enemy Magus die at this point.
Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall is set in a 2053 Anarchist free state Berlin in a game whose source material ran forward to 2073 at that point. Anyone with knowledge of the Tabletop Game knew there was no way to save the F-state since it was canonically dissolved in 2055 by the German government.
Shovel Knight Specter of Torment is a prequel featuring Specter Knight as the protagonist, on a quest to regain his humanity. Sadly for him, he's still undead in the game modes taking place in the present.
Because The Sims 3 is a prequel to the two previous games, characters carried over from the older games (who are mostly children and teens in this version) more or less have their lives mapped out for them right up until they die of old age (or otherwise). Of course, since it's an open-ended simulation game, it's entirely up to the player whether they play this straight or avert it in game-play, though this doesn't affect the characters' official canonical fates.
In Sonic and the Black Knight, Merlina plans a Face–Heel Turn in order to prevent Camelot's fall, to keep it alive eternally. Sonic doesn't like the idea of an entire kingdom being trapped and frozen in time and knows Camelot must fall, thus he has to smack her around to get her back to normal and see the folly in her plan.
Star Wars: The Old Republic gives you an extended tour of the beautiful planet Alderaan, with its appealing Feudal Future vibe and gorgeous music. You help sort out a nasty succession crisis. Of course, anyone who's remotely familiar with the first movie will know what happens to it 3600 years later.
The Street Fighter Alpha series started out as a prequel to Street Fighter II. Because Guile's Roaring Rampage of Revenge in II depends on Charlie being killed off sometime before the World Warrior tournament, Charlie ends up being killed off in both of his endings in the first two games. In the original Alpha, he ends up being taken by surprise and stabbed in the back by Bison while contacting his base, while in Alpha 2 Charlie is shot in the back by his own backup. However, Alpha 3 deviates from this pattern by having Charlie not only survive his encounter with Bison, but he ends up being the one who destroys Bison and his base at the end. The console ports brought back the tradition of killing off Charlie with the addition of Guile to the playable roster by having Charlie die in a Heroic Sacrifice in Guile's ending instead.
Suikoden series:
- In Suikoden II, if you had Georg Prime investigated, you would find out that he killed the queen of Falena, Queen Arshtat. Suikoden V, set a few years before II, explains the circumstances behind it: Georg had to kill the queen before she could roast the entirety of Falena with her absurdly powerful Sun Rune.
- Inversely, in Suikoden V, a pair of recruits are the chef family Retso and Shun Min. They were depicted as a normal and stable family. Yet, players of Suikoden II will know that their happy times will not last forever.^{Click for the story of how they won't end happy}
In the Second Super Robot Wars Z: Hakai-hen, there's nothing players can do to prevent the deaths of Euphemia li Britannia, Neil "Lockon Stratos" Dylandy or Kamina, in defiance of franchise tradition of usually letting the player prevent plotline deaths. However, this is a special case, as these characters' deaths are arguably so plot-critical to their home series, they have to happen. In fact, the sequel Second Super Robot Wars Z: Saisei-hen plays with this: Neil and Kamina remain dead, but Euphemia becomes Not Quite Dead, provided certain requirements are met. Ultimately subverted in the Third Super Robot Wars Z: Jigoku-hen, where events state Euphemia is Killed Off for Real.
You may not know this the first time you play through Tactics Ogre The Knight of Lodis, but you have two routes to take in the game. The canonical option is Path "A", wherein Alphonse kills his best friend and commander, Rictor, as well as his second in command Orson, and his love interest Eleanor sacrifices herself, making them examples of this trope, and the official ending is the Downer Ending / Bittersweet Ending
The Selvaria DLC of Valkyria Chronicles follows an Imperial Engineer by the name of Johann who by the end of the campaign is promoted into Oswald the Iron, one of the named Elite Mooks of the main storyline.
- Speaking of her, in Valkyria Chronicles III, one of the protagonists, Imca, desired revenge towards Selvaria (Being the top brass of the opposing forces that're of Valkyrian blood) for the destruction of her home. Except longtime players know of Selvaria's death in the first game happened, therefore there was no possible way for Imca to beat her and was beaten up like a ragdoll in her Duel to the Death.
The goal of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is to kill the Valkyrie Lenneth. This is a prequel to the original Valkyrie Profile, which starred Lenneth. The best you can do is not get anyone sent to hell who wasn't already from it. However, strictly speaking, it doesn't state anywhere in the opening that it's a prequel, so it's not a foregone conclusion when you start... although Fridge Logic states that it couldn't very well be a sequel, now could it?
- Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria is -also- set up as a prequel to the first game but averts this trope anyway. Due to time travelling shenanigans, it ends entirely differently.
The Walking Dead video game has you meet a young man named Shawn Greene and his father, Herschel, both of whom live on a farm. Anyone who watches the show and/or reads the comics obviously knows Shawn is toast, no matter what decision the player makes.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 frequently mentions the long-ago Aegis War, which is chronicled in the prequel Torna ~ The Golden Country. This game has the party establishing bonds and connections with people all across Torna, which is rather painful when the main game established that the entirety of Torna gets destroyed during the final battle of the Aegis War, with very few survivors. Additionally, a flashback in the main game showed that Lora was killed shortly after the Aegis War, which led to Jin's Face–Heel Turn, and indeed the epilogue for Torna cuts off just before the flashback would begin.
Yandere Simulator, a major background event is the murder of a student, who would haunt one of the school bathrooms as the Phantom Girl. It's also established that Ryoba did it because the girl was a rival. In 1980s Mode, which focus on Ryoba's Yandere adventures, the Phantom Girl, Sumire Saitozaki, is thus killed off as the tutorial. Along with that, no matter how Ryoba chooses to eliminate the rest of the rivals, she will be arrested and put on trial for Sumire's murder, will get away with it (unless someone's deliberately trying for the non-canon F Rank), and, having been thwarted in confessing her love to Jokichi, will simply kidnap him to make him hers.
In Ys Origin, the demons can't be defeated permanently. We know this because Adol did that in Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter, which takes place 700 years later.

Doomed By Canon / Video Games

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